A FORGOTTEN MONASTERY
The earliest maps of South London are those of the sixteenth century.
But it is perfectly easy from them and from the historical facts to draw
a map of all that country lying between Deptford and Battersea which we
have agreed to call South London. Thus, to put the map into words, there
were buildings all along both sides of the Causeway as far as St.
George's Church; in the middle of the Causeway stood St. Margaret's
Church, facing St. Margaret's Hill; on the right-hand side, just under
the Bridge, was St. Olave's Church. The Bridge was thus protected on the
north by St. Magnus, on the south by St. Olave--two Danish saints--and
in the middle by the patron saint of its chapel, St. Thomas à Becket.
There were houses along the Embankment on either side, but more on the
west of the Causeway than on the east. A few houses were built already
on the low-lying ground near the Causeway; for instance, on the south
and south-west of St. Mary Overies. On the east of St. Olave's a single
straight lane with no houses ran across country to Bermondsey Abbey; on
the west of the Causeway another lane led to Kennington Palace, from
which another lane led to the Causeway from Lambeth and Westminster to
the Dover Road. That was the whole extent of Southwark.
The place was essentially a suburb. There were no trades or industries
in it, except that of fishing; the fishermen had their cottages dotted
about all along the Embankment; a few watermen lived here, but that was
perhaps later: other working men there were none, save the cooks and
varlets of the great houses, and the 'service' of the inns. Because the
air was fresh and pure, blown up daily with the tides; and because the
place was easy of access, by river, to Westminster and the Court, many
great men, ecclesiastics and nobles, had their town houses here: the
Bishop of Winchester, the Bishop of Rochester, the Prior of Lewes, the
Abbot of Hyde, the Abbot of Battle, the Earls of Surrey, Sir John
Fastolfe, also the Brandons. Also, because it was easy of access by
bridge and river to the City, the merchants brought their goods and
warehoused them here in the inns at which they stayed, while they went
across the river and transacted their business. It was a suburb which,
in modern times, would be described as needing no poor rate. Later on
there grew up, as we shall see, a class of the unclassed--a population
of rogues and vagabonds, thieves, and sanctuary birds.
The government of the place as a whole was difficult, or rather
impossible. There were several 'Liberties;' the Liberty of Bermondsey;
that of the Bishop of Winchester; that of the King; that of the Mayor.
The last contained the part of the Borough lying between St. Saviour's
Dock on the west and Hay's Dock on the east, with a southern limit just
including St. Margaret's Church. This very small district was called the
Gildable Manor: it was conceded by the King to the City of London in the
thirteenth century in order to prevent the place from becoming the home
and refuge of criminals from the City. As the other liberties remained
outside the jurisdiction of the City, the alleviation gained was not
very great: criminals still dropped across the river, finding shelter on
the Lambeth Marsh or the marsh between Bermondsey and Rotherhithe. It
was from this unavoidable hospitality to persons escaping from justice
that Southwark received a character which has stuck to it till the
present day. In the centuries which include the twelfth to the
fifteenth, however, South London, so far as it was populated at all,
was the residence of great lords and the place of sojourn for merchants
from the country. As yet the reputation of Southwark was spotless and
its dignity enviable. London itself had no such collection of palaces
gathered together so closely. As for the land, that lay low, but was
protected by the Embankment from the river. Many rivulets flowed slowly
across the misty meadows; many ponds lay about the flats; there was an
abundant growth of trees everywhere, so that parts of the land were dark
at midday by reason of the trees growing so close together. The rivulets
were pretty little streams; willows grew over them; alders grew beside
them; they were coloured brown by the peaty soil; on their banks grew
wild flowers--the marsh mallow, the anemone, the hedgehog grass, the
frogbit, the crowfoot, and the bitter-wort; orchards flourished in the
fat and fertile soil. The people had almost forgotten the special need
of their Embankment. Yet when, in the year 1242, the Embankment at
Lambeth was broken down, the river rushed in and covered six square
miles of country, including all that part which is now called Battersea.
Remember, however, that as yet there was not a single house upon the
whole of Lambeth Marsh, nor upon the whole of Bermondsey Marsh. The
houses began near what is now the south end of Blackfriars Bridge; they
faced the river, having gardens behind them. On the other side of the
Bridge the houses extended farther, going on nearly opposite to Wapping.
The place was well provided with prisons; every Liberty had its own
prison. Thus there were the Clink of the Winchester Liberty, that of the
Bermondsey Liberty, the 'White Lion' of Surrey, the King's Bench, and
the Marshalsea, all in the narrow limits we have laid down. And there
were also, for the delectation of the righteous and the terror of
evil-doers, the visible instruments for correction. In every parish
there was the whipping post--one in St. Mary Overy's churchyard, put up
after the time of the monks; one at St. Thomas's Hospital; there was the
pillory for neck and hands, generally with somebody on it, but the
pillory was movable; there was the cage--one stood at the south end of
the Bridge--women had to stand in the cage; there were stocks for feet
wandering and trespassing; there were pounds for stray animals.
Markets were held in the churchyard of St. Margaret's; in the precinct
of Bermondsey Abbey; and along the street called 'Long Southwark'--now
High Street--from the Bridge to St. Margaret's Hill. But we must not
suppose that the markets of Southwark presented the same crowded
appearance, and were carried on with the same noise and bustle, as those
of Chepe and Newgate on the other side.
Everything, in those days, was quiet and dignified in Southwark. The
Princes of the Church arrived and departed, each with his retinue of
chaplains and secretaries, gentlemen and livery. Kings and ambassadors
rode up from Dover through Long Southwark and across the Bridge. The
mayor and aldermen in new cloaks of red murrey and gold chains sallied
forth to meet the King returning from abroad. Cavalcades of pilgrims for
Canterbury, Compostella, Seville, Rome, and Jerusalem rode out of
Southwark when the spring returned; and every day there arrived and
departed long lines of packhorses laden with the produce of the country
and with things imported for sale in London City. Pilgrims, merchants,
travellers, all put up at the Southwark inns. The place was nothing but
a collection of inns; the ecclesiastics stayed here for a few weeks and
then went away; the great lords came here when they had business at
Court and then went away again; the merchants came and went: by itself
the place had, as yet, no independent life or character of its own at
all.
There were two Monastic Houses. Both were stately; both are full of
history. Let us consider the House of Bermondsey, because it is less
generally known than the other of St. Mary Overy or Overies.
[Illustration: The Monastery of Bermondsey]
The Abbey of St. Saviour, Bermondsey, was the Westminster of South
London. Like Westminster, Bermondsey stood upon a low islet in the midst
of a marsh; at the distance of half a mile on the north ran the river;
half a mile on the west was the Causeway; half a mile on the south was
the Dover road. It is significant of the seclusion in which the House
lay that the only road which connected it with the world was that lane
called Bermondsey or Barnsie or Barnabie Lane, which ran from the Abbey
to St. Olave's and so to London Bridge. It was not, like Westminster, a
place of traffic and resort. It lay alone and secluded, separated from
the noise and racket of life. When the marsh had been gradually drained
and the Embankment continued through Rotherhithe to Deptford and beyond
the Greenwich levels, the Abbey lands round the islet became extremely
fertile and wooded and covered with sheep and cattle.
The House was founded in the year 1182 by one Ailwin Childe, a merchant
of the City, an Alderman also and one of the ruling families of London.
He was the son of an elder Ailwin, who was a member of that 'Knighten
Guild' which, with all its members and all its property--the land which
now forms the Ward of Portsoken--went over to the Priory of the Holy
Trinity. Religion of a practical and real kind was therefore hereditary
in the family. The elder Ailwin became a monk, the younger founded a
monastery; his son, the third of the family of whom we know anything,
became the first Mayor of London, and remained Mayor for twenty-four
years--the rest of his life.
[Illustration: BERMONDSEY ABBEY]
The whole of history from the ninth to the fifteenth century is full of
a pathetic longing after a religious Order, if that could be found, of
true and proved sanctity. One Order after the other arises; one after
the other challenges respect for reputed holiness of a new and hitherto
unknown kind: in fact, it commands the respect of the people who always
admire voluntary privation of what they value so much--food and drink;
it receives endowments, gifts, foundations of all kinds; it then departs
from the ancient rule, and quickly loses its hold upon the people. This
is the simple history of Benedictine, Franciscan, Cistercian, and all
the rest. However, at the close of the eleventh century the Cluniac was
in the highest repute for a rigid Rule, strictly kept: and for an
austerity strictly enforced. It was a Cluniac House which Ailwin Childe
set up in Bermondsey, and which Earl de Warren, who also founded the
Cluniac House of Lewes, enriched.
[Illustration: GATEWAY OF BERMONDSEY ABBEY]
This Priory, with thirty-seven other Houses, was an Alien owing
obedience to the Abbot of Cluny. A large part of its revenues,
therefore, was sent out of the country, and it received its Priors from
abroad. In the reign of Henry the Fifth the growing dissatisfaction on
account of the Alien Priories came to a head, and they were all
suppressed, or at least cut off from obedience to the Mother Convent.
The Priory of Bermondsey was therefore raised to the dignity of an
Abbey, with an English Abbot, and so continued until the Dissolution.
The Abbey was one of the many places of pilgrimage dotted about round
London--places accessible in a single day's journey. Thus there were the
three shrines of Willesden, Muswell Hill, and Gospel Oak, each
possessing an image of the Virgin to which miraculous powers were
attributed. At Blackheath there was another holy shrine; at Bermondsey
there was a Holy Rood which was daily visited in the summer by pious
pilgrims from London. The Rood had been fished up from the Thames, and
no one knew its history; but the merit of a pilgrimage to the Abbey and
of prayers said before the shrine was considered very precious. It was,
moreover, an easy pilgrimage. A boat taken below the Bridge would take
the pilgrim over to the opposite shore in a few minutes, where a cross
standing before a lane leading out of 'Short Southwark' showed him the
way. It was but half a mile to the Abbey of St. Saviour and the Holy
Rood.
'Go,' writes John Paston in 1465 to his mother, 'visit the Rood of
North door and St. Saviour in Bermondsey among while ye abide in London;
and let my sister Margery go with you to pray to them that she may have
a good husband or she come home again.'
One can hardly expect that the Abbot of Cluny should resign this
valuable possession without a remonstrance. He made, in fact, the
strongest possible remonstrance. In 1457 he sent over three monks with
orders to lay the case before the King, and to invite his attention
especially to the papers showing the clear and indisputable right of the
Mother Convent to the House of Bermondsey. These monks, in fact, did
present their case to the King, with the documents. But no one heeded
them; they could hardly get a hearing; no one replied to their
arguments. This neglect was perhaps the cause why one of them died while
in this country. The other two went home again, having accomplished
nothing. One of them on the eve of their departure wrote a piteous
letter to the Abbot of St. Albans:--
For the rest, be it known to you, my Lord, that after having spent
four months and a half on our journey, and following our Right with
the most serene Lord the King and his Privy Council, we have
obtained nothing: nay, we are sent back very disconsolate, deprived
of our Manors, our Pensions alienated, and, what is still worse, we
are denied the obedience of all our Monasteries which are 38 in
number: nor did our Legal Deeds, nor the Testimonies of your
Chronicles avail us anything, and at length, after all our pleading
and expenses, we return home moneyless, for in truth, after paying
for what we have eaten and drunk, we have but five crowns left, to
go back about 260 leagues. But what then? We will sell what we have:
we will go on: and God will provide. Nothing else occurs to write to
your Paternity: but that as we entered England with joy, so we
depart thence with sorrow: having buried one of our Companions--viz.
the Archdeacon, the youngest of our company. May he rest in Peace!
Amen.
There is not at the present moment a single stone of this stately House
visible, though there were many remains above ground one hundred years
ago. It is a pity, because there is the association of two Queens, not
to speak of many great Lords of state Functions, and of Parliaments,
connected with this House secluded in the Marsh.
The first of the two Queens is Katharine of Valois, widow of Henry the
Fifth. The story is the most romantic, perhaps, of all the stories
connected with our line of sovereigns and Queens and Royal Princes. It
is not a new story, and yet it is not so well known that any apology is
needed for telling it once more.
Henry died August 31, 1422. His widow, Katharine, began to live in the
seclusion fitted for her sorrow and her widowhood. Among her household,
the office of Clerk to the Wardrobe was filled by a young and handsome
Welshman named Owen Tudor, or Theodore. He was the son of a plain Welsh
gentleman of slender means, if any, who was in the service of the Bishop
of Chester. He distinguished himself at Agincourt in the following of
some nobleman unknown. It has been said, with singular ignorance of the
time, that he was a private soldier--that is, a man with a pike or a
bow, dressed in a leather jerkin which the men threw off when the battle
began. The opportunities for a common soldier to distinguish himself in
such an action were few, nor do we ever hear of a king raising a man
from the ranks, as Henry raised Owen Tudor, to the post of Esquire to
the Body. It is possible, but most improbable, that Owen Tudor was
regarded as a common soldier: since his father was a gentleman in the
service of the Bishop of Chester, he himself would go to war as a
gentleman in the service and wearing the livery of some noble lord.
In this way, however, his promotion began. When the King married, Owen
Tudor was attached to the household of the Queen. After the death of
Henry he accompanied the Queen and remained in her service as Clerk to
the Wardrobe. In this office he had to buy whatever was wanted by the
Queen--her silk, her velvet, her cloth of gold. He was therefore brought
into much closer and more direct relation with the Queen than other
officers of the household. He pleased her by his appearance, his
accomplishments, and his manners. Tradition says that he danced very
well. There is no reason to inquire by what attractions or
accomplishments he pleased. The fact remains that he did please the
Queen, and that so much that she consented to a secret marriage with
him. It was a dangerous step for this Welsh adventurer to take: it was a
step which would cover the Queen with dishonour should it become known.
That the widow of the great and glorious Henry, chief captain of the
age, should be able to forget her husband at all; should be capable of
union with any lower man; should ally her royal line with that of a man
who could only call himself gentleman after the fashion of Wales: would
certainly be considered to bring dishonour on the King, the royal
family, and the country at large.
The marriage was not found out for some years. The Queen must have been
most faithfully and loyally served, because children cannot be born
without observation. Owen Tudor must have conducted matters with a
discretion beyond all praise. No doubt the ordinary members of the
household knew nothing and suspected nothing, because several years
passed before any suspicion was awakened. Three sons and one daughter,
in all, were born. The eldest, Edmund of Hadham, was so called because
he was born there; the second, Jasper, was of Hatfield; the third, Owen,
of Westminster; the youngest, Margaret, died in infancy.
Suspicions were aroused about the time of the birth of Owen, which took
place apparently before it was expected and without all the precautions
necessary, in the King's House at Westminster. The infant was taken as
soon as born to the monastery of St. Peter's, secretly. It is not likely
that the Abbot received the child without full knowledge of his
parents. He did take the child, however; and here the little Owen
remained, growing up in a monastery, and taking vows in due time. Here
he lived and here he died, a Benedictine of Westminster.
It would seem as if Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, heard some whisper or
rumour concerning this birth, or was told something about the true
nature of the Queen's illness, for he issued a very singular
proclamation, warning the world, generally, against marrying Queen
dowagers, as if these ladies grew on every hedge. When, however, a year
or so afterwards, the fourth child, Margaret, was born, Humphrey learned
the whole truth: the degradation, as he thought it, of the Queen, who
had stooped to such an alliance, and the humble rank and the audacity of
the Welshman. He took steps promptly. He sent Katharine with some of her
ladies to Bermondsey Abbey, there to remain in honourable confinement:
he arrested Owen Tudor, a priest--probably the priest who had performed
the marriage--and his servant, and sent all three to Newgate.
All three succeeded in breaking prison, and escaped. At this point the
story gets mixed. The King himself, we are told, then a lad of fifteen,
sent to Owen commanding his attendance before the Council. Why did they
not arrest him again? Owen, however, refused to trust himself to the
Council--was not Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, one of them? He asked for
a safe-conduct. They promised him one by a verbal message. Where was he,
then, that all these messages should be sent backwards and forwards? I
think he must have been in Sanctuary. He refused a verbal message, and
demanded a written safe-conduct. This was granted him, and he returned
to London. But he mistrusted even the written promise; he would not face
the Council: he took refuge in the Sanctuary of Westminster, where they
were afraid to seize him. And here for a while he remained. It is said
that they tried to draw him out by sending old friends who invited him
to the taverns outside the Abbey Precinct. But Owen would not be so
drawn. He knew that Duke Humphrey would make an end of him if he could.
He therefore remained where he was. I think that he must have had some
secret understanding with the King; for one day, learning that Henry
himself was with the Council, he suddenly presented himself and pleaded
his own cause. The mild young king, tender on account of his mother,
would not allow the case to be pursued, but bade him go free.
He departed; he made all haste to get out of an unwholesome air: he made
for Wales. Here the hostility of Duke Humphrey pursued him still: he was
once more arrested, taken to Wallingford, and placed in the Castle there
a prisoner. From Wallingford he was transferred again to Newgate, he and
his priest and his servant. Once more they all three broke prison,
'foully' wounding a warder in the achievement of liberty, and got back
to Wales, choosing for their residence the mountainous parts into which
the English garrisons never penetrated.
When the King came of age Owen Tudor was allowed to return, and was
presented with a pension of £40 a year. It is remarkable, however, that
he received no promotion, or rank; that he was never knighted; and that
the title of Esquire was the only one by which he was known. It
certainly seems as if the claim of Owen Tudor to be called a gentleman
was not recognised by the King or the heralds. Perhaps Welsh gentility
was as little understood by these Normans as Irish royalty--yet, so far
as length of pedigree goes, both Welsh and Irish were very superior to
Normans.
The two sons, Edmund and Jasper, were placed under the charge of
Katharine de la Pole, Abbess of Barking, and sister of the Earl of
Suffolk. When the King came of age he remembered his half-brothers:
Edmund was made Earl of Richmond, Jasper Earl of Pembroke; both ranked
before all other English Earls. Edmund was afterwards married to
Margaret Beaufort, who as Countess of Richmond was the foundress of
Christ's and St. John's Colleges, Cambridge. Her son, as everybody
knows, was Henry VII.
As for Owen Tudor, that gallant adventurer, who began so well on the
field of battle, ended as well, fighting, as he should, for his step-son
and King, under the badge of the Red Rose. When the Civil Wars began he
joined the King's forces, though he was then nearer seventy than sixty.
He fought at Wakefield; he pursued the Yorkists to Mortimer's Cross,
where another fight took place. The Lancastrians were defeated. Owen was
taken prisoner, and was cruelly beheaded on the field. It was right and
just that he should so fight and should so die. He survived his Queen
twenty-four years.
The unfortunate Katharine, whose _mésalliance_ gave us the strongest
sovereigns we have ever had over us, did not long survive the disgrace
of discovery. As to public knowledge of the fact, one cannot learn how
widely it was extended. Probably it grew by degrees: chroniclers speak
of it without reserve, and when the sons grew up and were acknowledged
by the King there was no pretence at concealment. To be the son of a
French Princess and a Welsh gentleman was not, after all, a matter for
shame or concealment. Katharine carried down to the Abbey a disorder
which she calls of long standing and grievous. It killed her in less
than a year after her imprisonment among the orchards and meadows of the
Precinct. It is said that her remorse during her last days was very
deep; not for her second marriage, but for having allowed her
accouchement of the King to take place at Windsor, a place against which
she was warned by the astrologer. 'Henry of Windsor shall lose all that
Henry of Monmouth shall win.' Alas! had Henry of Windsor been Henry of
Monmouth himself, he would have lost all there was to lose. Could there
be a worse prospect, had Katharine understood the dangers, of
hereditary disease? On the one side the grandson of a leper and the son
of a consumptive; on the other side, the grandson of a madman and a
Messalina.
[Illustration: ST. OLAVE, SOUTHWARK]
Katharine dictated her will a few days before her death. She asks for
masses for her soul: for rewards for her servants: for her debts to be
paid. And she says not one word about her children by Owen Tudor. She
confesses by this silence that she is ashamed. She confesses by this
silence that, being a Queen, and of a Royal House, she ought not in her
widowhood to have been mated with any less than a King.
'I trustfully,' she says in the preamble, addressing her son the King,
'and am right sure, that among all creatures earthly ye best may and
will best tender and favour my will, in ordaining for my soul and body,
in seeing that my debts be paid and my servants guerdoned, and in tender
and favourable fulfilment of mine intent.' The words are full of queenly
dignity; but--where is the mention of her children? Perhaps, however,
she knew that the King would provide for them.
Another Queen died here: the Queen 'to whom all griefs were
known'--Elizabeth Woodville. It is not easy to feel much sympathy with
this unfortunate woman, yet there are few scenes of history more full of
pathos and of mournfulness than that in which her boy was torn from her
arms; and she knew--all knew--even the Archbishops, when they gave their
consent, knew--that the boy was to be done to death. When one talks of
Queens and their misfortunes, it may be remembered that few Queens have
suffered more than Elizabeth Woodville. In misfortune she sits apart
from other Queens, her only companions being Mary Queen of Scots and
Marie Antoinette. Her record is full of woe. But in that long war it
seems impossible to find one single character, man or woman--unless it
is King Henry--who is true and loyal. All--all--are perjured,
treacherous, cruel, self-seeking. All are as proud as Lucifer. Murder is
the friend and companion of the noblest lord; perjury walks on the other
side of him; treachery stalks behind him: all are his henchmen.
Elizabeth met perjury and treachery with intrigue and plot and
counter-plot: she was the daughter of her time. She was accused of being
privy to the plots of Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck: she was more
Yorkist than her husband; she hated the Red Rose long after the Red and
the White were united by her daughter and Henry the Seventh. That she
was suspected of these intrigues shows the character she bore. We must
make allowance: she was always in a false position; Edward ought not to
have married her; she was hated by her own party; she was compelled in
the interests of her children to be always on the defensive; and in her
conduct of defence she was the daughter of her age. These things,
however, deprive her, somewhat, of the pity which we ought to feel for
so many misfortunes.
[Illustration: 'LE LOKE']
She, too, had to retire to the seclusion of Bermondsey, where she could
sit and watch the ships go up and down, and so feel that the world, with
which she had no more concern, still continued. It has been suggested
that she retired voluntarily to the Abbey. Such a retreat was not in
the character of Elizabeth Woodville, so long as there was a daughter
or a kinsman left to fight for. Like Katharine of Valois, she made an
end not without dignity. Witness the following clause in her will:--
_Item._ Whereas I have no worldly goods with which to do the Queen's
Grace, my dearest daughter, a pleasure, neither to reward any of my
children, according to my heart and mind, I beseech God Almighty to
bless her Grace with all her noble Issue, and, with as good a heart
and mind as may be, I give her Grace aforesaid my blessing and all
the aforesaid my children.
In this chapter it has been my endeavour to restore an ecclesiastical
foundation which has somehow dropped out of history and become no more
than a name. If this were a history of South London it would be
necessary to devote an equal space to other houses; to the churches and
to the two ancient hospitals 'Le Loke' and St. Thomas's. It is
impossible, even in these narrow limits, to speak of the religious
foundations of South London without mention of the other great House,
more ancient than that of Bermondsey. Few Americans who visit London
leave it without paying a pilgrimage to the venerable and beautiful
church which glorifies Southwark. There were great marriages and great
functions held in the Church of St. Mary Overy: Gower, that excellent
poet whom the professors of literature praise and nobody reads, died and
lies buried in this church; it was the church of the playerfolk: here
lie buried Edmund Shakespeare, John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, and
Philip Henslow. Here lie buried, in that 'sure and certain hope' which
the Church allows even to them, the rufflers, 'roreres' and sinners of
Bank Side and Maiden Lane; the brawlers and the topers and the strikers
of the Bear Garden and the Bull Baiting. Here were tried notable
heretics: Hooper and Rogers, and many more, while Gardiner and Bonner
thundered and bullied. From this church the martyrs went forth to meet
the flames. The people of Southwark needed not to cross the river in
order to learn such lessons as the martyrdoms had to teach them. The
stake was set up in St. George's Fields, where they could read, mark,
learn, and inwardly digest the undesigned teaching of Bonner and his
friends.
It is the custom of historians to point to the martyrdom of Cranmer and
the Bishops as the chief cause of the overwhelming Protestant reaction.
So great was the horror, they say, of the people at the death of the
Archbishop, that the whole nation was roused--and so on. For myself I
like to think that, as the people would feel now, so, _mutatis
mutandis_, they felt then. Was there any such mighty horror felt in
London when Cranmer died in Oxford? Not so much horror, I believe, as
when from their own ranks, from their own houses, from their own
families, men and women and boys were taken out and led to execution.
Violent deaths--by beheading, by hanging, by the flames--were witnessed
every day. How many were hanged by Henry VIII.? The deaths of nobles did
not touch the people; they looked on unmoved while the most innocent and
most holy men in the country--the blameless Carthusians--suffered death
as traitors; they looked on at the death of Sir Thomas More; when
witches were burned they looked on. It was when they saw their own
brothers, sisters, cousins, dragged out and put to death without a
cause, that they began to doubt and to question. Nay, I think it was not
the manner of death that affected them, because burning was a thing so
common: it was the sentence itself passed on honest and godly folk, and
the behaviour of the people at their death. Tender women chained to the
stake suffered without a groan, only praying loudly till death came;
people remembered, they recalled with tears afterwards, how the martyr
and his wife and his children knelt on the ground for one last prayer
before the stake; they remembered how the sufferer stepped into his
place with a smiling face and welcomed the fiery lane that led him to
the place where he longed to be: was this, they asked, the courage
inspired of God, or of the devil? They remembered how another washed
his hands in the mounting and roaring flames; how the clouds parted at
the prayer of another, and the smiling sun of heaven shone upon him; and
it was even like unto the countenance of the Blessed Lord. The sight and
the remembrance of the sufferings of their own folk, not the execution
at a distance of an Archbishop and a few Bishops, moved the people and
remained with them, and enveloped the Church of Rome with a hatred from
which it has not wholly recovered even in these latter days.
The foundation of St. Thomas's Hospital belongs to both the great Houses
of Southwark.
It was the general Rule in all religious Houses that there should be a
provision for the poor, the sick, and those who were orphans. St. Mary
Overy had a hospital adjoining the priory which was an almshouse
certainly, and probably an orphanage as well. It was under the care of
the Archdeacon of Surrey. Attached to St. Saviour's was an almonry
intended for the same purpose. But the Abbey was entirely secluded: it
lay far from any highway; there were no houses, except farm buildings
for the monastery's labourers; there were no poor, no sick, and no
orphans. So that, when the great fire of 1213 destroyed Southwark and
crossed the river by the Bridge into London, the monks of St. Saviour's
bethought them that to make their almonry useful it would be well to
rebuild it half a mile to the west, on the Southwark Causeway. This was
done, and the Hospital of St. Mary was united with it, and the new
foundation which Bishop Peter de Rupibus most liberally endowed was
named after St. Thomas. At first it was not a hospital especially for
the sick, as St. Bartholomew's and St. Mary of Spittal. It was a
fraternity like St. Catherine's by the Tower, for brethren and sisters
under a master, with bedesmen and women, and a school, and an infirmary;
but not, as St. Bartholomew's was from the beginning altogether, only a
hospital for the sick.
[Illustration: REMAINS OF THE PALACE OF THE BISHOP OF WINCHESTER, FROM
THE SOUTH]
As for the religious life of the place, it was in most respects like
that of London. There were no houses for Friars, but the Friars came
across the river _en quête_, 'mumping,' on their begging rounds; and in
the taverns were put up boxes for the contributions of the faithful
(towards the end these contributions fell off sadly). There was plenty
of life and colour in the streets: serving men in bright liveries of the
great Houses--the Bishops of Winchester and Rochester, the Abbots of
Lewes, Hyde, and Battle--went about their errands; there were Gilds,
notably that of St. George, which had their processions and their days:
there were crosses and images of saints, at which the passer-by doffed
his hat--in the wall of Lambeth Palace was an image of St. Thomas à
Becket overlooking the river, to which every waterman and bargee paid
reverence.
Some of the punishments of the time were ordered by the Church. There
was whipping, but not the terrible murderous flogging of the eighteenth
century; there were hangings, but not for everything. Mostly to the
credit of the Church, punishment was designed not to crush a man, but to
shame him into repentance, and to give him a chance of retrieving his
character. A man might be set in the stocks, or put in pillory, and so
made to feel the heinousness of his offence. This punishment was like
that which is inflicted on a schoolboy: the thing done, the boy is taken
back to favour. The eighteenth century branded him, imprisoned him,
transported him, made a brute of him, and then hanged him. Did a woman
speak despitefully of authority? Presumptuous quean! Set her up in the
cage besides the stoulpes of London Bridge, that everyone should see her
there and should ask what she had done. After an hour or two take her
down; bid her go home and keep henceforth a quiet tongue in her head.
This leniency was only for offences moral and against the law. For
freedom of thought or doctrine there was Bishop Bonner's better way. And
it was a way inhuman, inflexible, unable to forgive.