Yardley London is famous as a purveyor of luxury fragrances and soaps. But did you know that the much-storied House of Yardley was born in England in the mid-seventeenth century, during the reign of King Charles 1? An entrepreneurial young man named Jonathan Yardley obtained a royal warrant for the provision of all the soap to City of London. The means by which this warrant was obtained are lost to history, however we might suppose it involved payment to the monarch of a sizeable, and no doubt welcome, sum.