Hewett, who became First Warden in the succeeding Mastership of Thomas Spenser, 1539–40, faced altered career expectations as in August 1543 he was elected Master of the Company;[19] in the same year Tolous was chosen one of the Sheriffs.

[21] As the Master's chair approached, Hewett married Alice, daughter of Nicholas Leveson, Mercer and Merchant of the Staple of Calais (who died in 1539).

[24] Leveson's wife Dionysia (Bodley) had brought him numerous sons and daughters, of whom Alice was the third, unmarried at the time of her father's death.

[25] The wealth and reputation of the Leveson mercantile operation, linked to their Kentish estates around the River Medway, continued in Dionysia, her descendants and near kindred.

William and Alice Hewett had several children, of whom only one, Anne, born in 1543, reached maturity, despite having been dropped by accident into the River Thames from a house on (or near) London Bridge at an early age.

[26] The hero of this story (first published from family tradition by John Strype in 1720), who dived in and rescued her, was Hewett's apprentice Edward Osborne (c.1530–1592), whose service to him began in 1544 or 1545, becoming free in 1553.

Hynde, a busy alderman, was by then (with Richard Turke and William Blackwell) an efficient Trustee for the City in the matter of the chantry lands and estates,[31] and became Sheriff at Michaelmas 1550.

On 1 February Mary announced the rebellion in the Guildhall, and next day the aldermen together raised a muster of a thousand men, each in their own wards, for the defence of the City.

[48] Augustine Hynde died in August 1554 leaving the Clothworkers still without a prospective Mayor, but in 1555–56, at the height of the persecutions, John Machell transferred to Bassishaw and served as Sheriff (with Sir Thomas Leigh).

[50] After Foulkes was sworn to Vintry ward on 19 January, 1556/7, in February Hewett appealed earnestly to be discharged from 'his cloke and room',[51] but in June he was persuaded by a small committee appointed by the Court of Aldermen to alter his decision.

From his mansion in Philipot Lane and his premises at the Sign of Three Cranes in Candlewick Street (in St Martin Orgar) he associated various members of his family in business.

[57] Yorkshire remained important: he enjoyed the patronage and friendship of the Earls of Shrewsbury, who as Lords of Hallamshire at their principal seat of Sheffield Castle commanded his natural loyalty.

On 8 November he was sent a letter from the Privy Council requiring that he 'might cause speedy reformation of divers enormities in the same city', particularly with reference to laws controlling consumption, the wearing of extravagant clothing, the serving of meat in hostelries on fast-days, and the over-pricing of goods.

[65] The Mayor was soon called to preside at the Guildhall trials for High Treason upon the senior officers at the surrender of Calais in December 1557 – January 1558.

The Indictments against Thomas Lord Wentworth, Sir Ralph Chamberlain, Edward Grymston, John Harleston and Nicholas Alysaunder had been prepared in July 1558.

William Hewett presided at the trial of Edward Grymston, Comptrollor of Calais, between 28 November and 1 December 1559 (who was found Not Guilty and discharged), and then at the arraignment of Sir Ralph Chamberlain, Lieutenant of the Castle of Calais, and John Harleston, Lieutenant of the Castle of Ruysbank, between 19 and 22 December: they were found Guilty and sentenced to die at Tyburn.

Richard Foulkes, being nominated Sheriff in August 1560, was able to withdraw by payment of a fine of £200: the distinguished Clothworker Rowland Hayward, Master of the Company 1559–60, was advanced to the aldermanry in his place, later serving twice as Lord Mayor.

[72] Thomas Lodge was also occupied with the reforms, and brought workers from Germany to assist in the refining, many of whom suffered from arsenic poisoning as a result.

[78] This tale was handed down in the family of the Dukes of Leeds, their descendants, and in later centuries was commemorated by an engraving after Samuel Wale[79] and a mural at the Clothworkers' Hall, since destroyed.

A month later he stood deputy for the Earl of Shrewsbury as godfather at the christening of the son of Garter King of Arms Sir Gilbert Dethick.

[83] This received Charters by Letters Patent in January and April 1565, incorporating six Governors of whom William Hewett and Roger Martyn, aldermen, stand first in the list.

The Company appealed to the Privy Council in June 1565 seeking to establish a fixed proportion of finished cloth exports and to obtain rights of search to ensure such regulations were obeyed.

After a confrontation with the Merchant Adventurers a revised bill, reducing the proportion to one in ten, was introduced in December and was passed by both Houses, but with inadequate rights of search the Company gained little benefit from it.

Another important beneficiary was William Hewett, his godson, brother to his said nephew Henry, who received the parsonage of Dunton Bassett in Leicestershire and an estate at Mansfield in Sherwood, Nottinghamshire, as well as £5 annually towards his education at Gray's Inn.

[92] After the effects of the last Duke were sold it came into the hands of a Munich art dealer and was bought in 1966 by the Trustees of the Georg Schäfer Collection in Schweinfurt, as a possible work of Ludger Tom Ring the Younger.

[93] With the conclusion of the loan of the portrait to the Museum of London, the owner, Mr Derek Hewett of Singapore, donated it to the Worshipful Company of Clothworkers.