The shrieval year, 1552–1553
In 1552 William Cecil, on behalf of King Edward VI, negotiated a £40,000 loan from the Merchant Adventurers through Garrard. In August Garrard was nominated to be one of the Sheriffs of London for 1552–1553 by the Lord Mayor (Richard Dobbs), while his elected counterpart, the Master Clothworker John Crymes, and after him two others, declined their election by the Commons: by a fourth election, John Maynard (Mercer) was successfully chosen to be Garrard's fellow sheriff, whereupon both were sworn to office on 28 September 1552. On the next day George Barne was elected Lord Mayor. As Barne was also a Haberdasher, this was a year of special influence for the company.
The shrievalty term spanned the death of Edward VI, the brief reign of Lady Jane Grey and the succession of Queen Mary I. Garrard was one of the signatories to the Letters Patent for the Limitation of the Crown. His official role in these memorable events appears in the narratives:"The 10 of July at v of the clock in the afternone was proclamation made, with a trompetter, and 2 of the harouldes Kinges of Armes, and Mr Garret, the sheriffe, rydinge with them, of the death of our late soueraigne Edward VIth, and howe he had ordeyned by his letters patents, bearinge date the 21 of June last, the sayd Quene Jane to be heyre to the crowne of England and the heyres males of hir body lawfully begotten; which proclamation was made in 4 partes of the City of London, under the greate seale of England, bearinge date the 10 daye of July, in the Tower of London, and the first yeare of the raigne of Quene Jane, Quene of England, Fraunce and Ireland, Defender of the Fayth, and of the church of England and Ireland the supreme head". On the next day he supervised the setting of a man in the Cheapside pillory, with both his ears nailed to it, which were then cut off as a herald read out his offence of having uttered seditious words during the proclamation. But then on 19 July, the Council seeing which way the wind was blowing, they called the mayor and sheriffs to Westminster, and rode with them up to the Cross in Cheap, where the Garter King of Arms, in his rich coat of arms and with his trumpeter, proclaimed Mary to be Queen. After singing the Te Deum in St Paul's, "the Council departed and commaunded Mr Garret the sheriffe with the Kinge of Armes and the trumpetter to see the proclamation made immedyately in other accustomed places within the City." On 29 July he rode with Sir Martin Bowes and Sir Henry Hubberthorne to New Hall in Essex to deliver a benevolence from the city to Queen Mary, and on 31 July it was his duty to hold Sir John Yorke under house arrest and to seal up his house.
Garrard was among the original developers of the Moroccan trade. He was, with John Yorke, Thomas Wroth and others, one of the promoters and investors in the second voyage to the Barbary Coast, which made its expedition in a small fleet led by Thomas Wyndham in May to October 1552. In 1553 the Merchant Adventurers of London sent out a first voyage to Guinea and the Kingdom of Benin, and in that voyage Wyndham became irrational, and died.
At this time Garrard was among the original Fellowship of the Merchant Adventurers to New Lands (the incipient Russia Company), for whom a royal charter was prepared under Edward VI but never sealed. According to Henry Lane, writing 33 years later, Garrard helped to finance the first voyage of the Merchant Adventurers to New Lands, the expedition of April 1553 promoted by Sebastian Cabot and led by Sir Hugh Willoughby in search of a Northeast Passage to Cathay, which failed in its declared objective, but resulted in Richard Chancellor's first diplomatic contacts with Tsar Ivan IV in Moscow. The succession crisis of 1553 drove Thomas Wroth into exile in Europe and found John Yorke in the Tower of London, but Queen Mary soon grasped the importance of the company to her rule and issued her own charter in February 1554/55.
