Guildhall, in a clerical capacity, to look after the interests of
the church, which was not correct, his position there being the
representative of the temporalities of the Ward.
Prior Norman appears to have been entrusted with the superintendence of
the building of the priory, and, like others not trained in commercial
pursuits, to have been somewhat unthrifty in the expenditure of money,
for we find that when he had built up his refectory, kitchen, and
larder, his funds were exhausted, and he had not the wherewithal to
supply the necessary food for his hungry canons; but the matrons and
maidens of the city passing by, and seeing the tables laid out without
the necessary appliances, brought them loaves of bread every Sunday for
the week's consumption, until the rents began to come in and they were
able to provide for themselves.
After the destruction of the four churches it became necessary to
celebrate mass in two parts of the new church at the same time, which
caused a great deal of confusion and discord, until at length a
separate church was built for the St. Catherine's parishioners in the
priory churchyard, where mass was performed by one of the canons; but
the people were required to attend the conventual church at festivals
and fasts, and to have their children baptised there. This gave rise
to some ill-feeling and disputes, the people wishing to have all the
services and sacraments of religion celebrated in their own church; and
in 1414, when William Haradon was prior, the matter was referred to the
Bishop of London for arbitration, and he decreed that St. Catherine's
should have a baptismal font, and be allowed to ring their bells on
Easter day; that they should celebrate the feast of the dedication of
their own church within its walls, but should attend at the festival
of the dedication of the conventual church, and then and there "give
their pence, halfpence, and farthings in token of submission;" and that
the Sacrament in St. Catherine's Church should be administered by a
canon of the Priory, "but that the Priory should be at no other charges
for the chapel." All this the bishop, "out of his paternal affections,
yielded unto."
The church was denominated St. Catherine Cree, the word Cree being
an ancient method of spelling the name of Christ, as pronounced by
the French, and was added as being an adjunct of the conventual
or Christ Church. A bell tower was built 1504, Lord Mayor Sir John
Perceval having left money for that purpose. The present church was
built 1630, and escaped the fire of 1666. It was at its dedication that
Laud indulged in Popish ceremonials, which aroused the indignation
of the Puritans, and assisted in paving the way of the Archbishop to
the block. The churchyard of St. Catherine was a popular place for
the performance of moralities and miracle plays, which took place
on Sundays. There is an entry in the parish books—"Received of Hugh
Grymes, for licence given to certain players to play their interludes
in the churchyard from the feast of Easter An. D'ni. 1565, until the
feast of St. Michael the Archangel, next coming, every holyday, to the
use of the parish, 27s. 8d." Hans Holbein is supposed to have been
buried in the church.
The Priory had not been built twenty ears when it ran a great risk
of being destroyed by the fire of 1136, second only to the great
conflagration of 1666, which broke out near London stone, and destroyed
the City westward to Clement's Danes, and eastward to Aldgate, the
flames sweeping up to the walls of the Priory, northward to St. Paul's
Cathedral, which was partially, or, as Matthew Paris states, entirely,
consumed, and by London Bridge, which was of wood, and entirely burnt,
into Southwark.
Ralph the Prior, _circa_ 1145, with the consent of the Canons,
exchanged a plot of land near the river, in the outer-soken, and "all
the mills there in the shambles," with Maud, Stephen's queen, for land
in Hertfordshire, where she built and endowed the Hospital of St.
Katherine, which was repaired and enlarged by Queen Eleanor in 1273. It
was removed to Regent's Park in the present century to make way for St.
Katherine's Docks.
King Henry II. having debased the coin of the realm, Stephen, the
Prior, 1180, demanded £25 12s. 6d. from the city of Exeter, as the
then value of the £25 per annum granted out of the city revenues. The
citizens refused to pay the additional 12s. 6d., but were compelled by
a mandate from the King.
In the year 1215, when King John was at feud with his Barons, Matthew
Paris informs us that, after the siege of Northampton, the Barons
came, by way of Bedford and Ware, to London, entering the City by
Aldgate, and that "as they passed along, they spoiled the Fryars'
Houses and searched their coffers," on which occasion, doubtless, the
Brethren of Holy Trinity, lying so near the gate, would have black-mail
levied on them. At the same time they repaired the ruined gate and put
it in a state of defence, obtaining the materials from the houses of
the Jews.
Eustacius, the eighth Prior, 1264, appointed Theobald Fitz-James as
his deputy in the Aldermanship, he deeming it inconsistent with his
spiritual vocation to perform secular duties.
William Rising became Prior in 1377, when there is a record of his
taking the oaths as Alderman.
The year 1348-9 (23rd Edward III.) was long after remembered for
a great pestilence, which broke out in Northern Asia, spread over
Europe, and this year committed terrible ravages in London. The city
graveyards became choked with corpses, and suburban cemeteries were
extemporised for the wholesale reception of the dead. Nicholas, then
Prior, sold to John Grey, clerk of the Corporation, a plot of ground in
the outer-soken, near East Smithfield to be used as a place of burial,
with the condition annexed that it should be called the Churchyard of
the Holy Trinity, "which ground he (John Grey) caused, by the aid of
divers devout citizens, to be enclosed with a wall of stone." It was
consecrated by Ralph, Bishop of London, and a chapel built "for the
honour of God," and near by King Edward built a small monastery "of
our Lady of Grace," in gratitude for preservation from shipwreck in a
tempest at sea.
One Sunday morning, the 11th of May, 1471, when the brethren were at
Mass, they were alarmed by an attack on Aldgate. For some days arrows
had been shot into the City over the wall, and the houses of the
outside suburb had been burnt. The besiegers were Sir Thomas Nevil,
usually called the Bastard of Fauconbridge, and his followers. He
was a kinsman of the Great Earl of Warwick, who, after his defection
from the cause of Edward IV., had made him Admiral of the Lancastrian
fleet. Warwick had fallen a month ago at Barnet, and the Yorkist King
Edward in consequence became firmly established on the throne, when
Sir Thomas conceived the mad project of landing with his sailors,
marching to London, and re-establishing the Lancastrian family. The
Londoners shut their gates against him, but he broke down Aldgate on
this Sunday morning, and several of the insurgents rushed through
when the portcullis was let down, and those within were slain by the
citizens, headed by Basset, Alderman of the ward. The Lieutenant of the
Tower then came up with a body of troops, the portcullis was raised,
and the Bastard and his followers driven into Essex, "with sharp shot
and fierce fight," being pursued as far as Mile End.
The priory waxed rich, grew famous, and nourished during a period of
433 years, no doubt becoming luxurious, idle, and corrupt, like other
fraternities; until at length, in 1531, the end came. King Henry
VIII., wishing to reward Sir Thomas Audley, afterwards Lord Chancellor
and first Baron Audley of Walden, for his service as Speaker, in the
impeachment of Wolsey, cast his eye upon this Priory, sent for Nicholas
Hancock, the last Prior, whom he cajoled with complimentary praises,
commending his hospitality, and telling him that a man of his merit and
ability deserved higher preferment, and that if he would surrender the
Priory into his (the King's) hands, he should have something better.
After some hesitation the Prior gave up the house, the Canons were
sent to other houses of the same order, and the Priory, with all its
appurtenances, bestowed on Audley.
Sir Thomas Audley determined to build himself a mansion on the site,
and offered the church to any one who would take it down, but it was
so strongly built that no one would undertake the cost. He then pulled
it down himself, and allowed any one to have the materials who would
carry them away, giving the four large bells to Stepney Church, and
the five smaller to St. Stephen, Coleman Street. He then added new
buildings, where he dwelt until his death, 1544, when the property
passed, by the marriage of his daughter, to Thomas Howard, Duke of
Norfolk, who was beheaded 1572, and it was then called Duke's Place. It
descended to their son, Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk, who sold it to
the Corporation, was eventually taken down, and streets built on the
site. The only vestige remaining is a stone arch between 73, Leadenhall
Street and 39, Mitre Court.
The Priory possessed a messuage, dovecote, and garden of seven acres,
on the east side of Houndsditch, which were given to Sir T. Audley,
and which he bestowed on Magdalen College, Cambridge. In the street
leading thereto, one of the priors had built some cottages for
bedridden people, which Stow remembered as having seen in his boyhood,
the bedridden people, men and women, lying by the windows, that devout
persons might see them as they passed and bestow alms upon them: which
street, afterwards, according to Munday, was inhabited by "these men,
or rather monsters in the shape of men, who profess to live by lending,
and yet will lend nothing but upon pawns."
Stow, who lived in the parish of St. Andrew Undershaft, and was buried
in the parish church, speaks from personal recollection of the Prior
"keeping a bountiful house for rich and poor, as well within the houses
as to all comers at the gate," and, when a boy, of going to farmer
Goodman, in the outer-soken, where Goodman's Fields now are, for milk
at the rate of "three pints, hot from the kine, for a halfpenny."
The inhabitants of Duke's Place being left without a church, after
the demolition of the Priory Church, attended that of St. Catherine
Cree until the reign of James I., when Trinity Christ Church was
built for them out of the ruins of the Priory, and was consecrated in
1622. It escaped the Great Fire, and has since been called the Church
of St. James, Duke's Place. In Strype's time it claimed the right of
solemnizing marriages without licence or proclamation of banns.
Convent of the Sisters Minoresses of the Order of St Clare, Aldgate.
Wondrously different was Plantagenet London from that of the Victorian
era: different in every respect, notably in size, population, and
aspect. It was chiefly comprised within the walls, which commenced at
the Postern Gate of the Tower, and completed the circuit at the river
near the present Blackfriars Bridge. There were a few outlying groups
of houses and villages; a road along the river strand through the
little village of Charing to Westminster, and marshes on the north,
with causeways to the villages of Clerkenwell, Hoxton, and Islington.
It was, however, an eminently picturesque city, with its gabled and
timbered houses, its monastic edifices, and its church towers. It was
computed that then two-thirds of the entire space was occupied by
religious edifices and their grounds. Towards the end of the fourteenth
century there were within the walls, eight friaries, five priories,
four nunneries, five collegiate establishments, seventeen hospitals
with resident brotherhoods, nine other religious fraternities, and
more than one hundred parish churches. At that time the court end of
the town was the neighbourhood of the Tower. There royalty dwelt; and
clustering round were the mansions of nobles and the town houses of
bishops and abbots.
The locality immediately under notice was a road running from the Tower
postern, outside the City wall and ditch, to Aldgate, along what is now
called the Minories. Aldgate, or Ealdgate, so named from its antiquity,
was the eastern outlet from the City, the great Essex road running
eastward therefrom. Immediately within the gate stood the magnificent
priory of the Holy Trinity, founded by Matilda, Queen of Henry I., and
close by was the town house of the Barons Nevil, afterwards Earls of
Westmoreland, who gave an abbess to the convent of St. Clare. Outside
the gate there stretched an open expanse of country, with foliaged
trees, meadows, and silver streamlets, where, on holidays, the young
citizens gambolled, practised archery, and, in the more secluded
parts, whispered in the ears of the young citizenesses "the old, old
tale." Looking eastward, the low square-towered church of the village
of Stebenhede (Stepney) by the riverside morasses might be seen; and
nearer London, its chapel-of-ease, at the villa Beatæ Mariæ Matfelon,
on the Essex road, whilst more to the north might be discerned the
priory of St. Mary Spittal, founded a century previously. Here, outside
the gate, in the year of grace 1293, Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, and
Blanche, his countess, whilom Queen of Navarre, founded the convent
of Minoresses of the order of St. Clare, dedicated to the "Blessed
St. Mary," and amply endowed it with lands and messuages. St. Clare,
Clara, Claire, or Chiara, as the name is rendered in different tongues,
was born of a noble and wealthy family at Assisi, 1193, died 1253,
and was canonized 1256. She was exceedingly beautiful, and had many
offers of marriage, but when quite young, despite the opposition of
her parents, resolved to dedicate herself to God. St. Francis had just
then founded the Franciscan branch of the Mendicant Orders, and lived
with ten "Frati Minores," in a hut on the Porziunculo, near Assisi,
living austere lives, in absolute poverty, depending upon charity for
their daily food, and maintaining strict silence, excepting when it
was absolutely necessary to speak. To them Clare fled, and desired to
be admitted as a nun of the order. She was followed by her kinsfolk,
but clung with such tenacity to the altar, that they were compelled
to leave her. She then founded the Order of Poor Clares, or Sisters
Minoresses, with rules of the most rigid austerity, relating chiefly to
abstinence, poverty, and silence. Their bed was the bare earth, they
usually went barefooted, and were habited in grey robes, girdled with
a knotted rope, and a white coif on the head. Within fifty years after
her death, however, they were released from the vow of poverty, and the
others were modified, from which time they accumulated property, built
themselves comfortable houses, and indulged in social converse. The
first convent was erected outside the walls of Assisi, but afterwards
removed within, where a splendid church—the church of Santa Chiara
d'Assisi—was erected over her tomb. In pictures St. Clare is usually
represented either with the Pix, to denote piety, or the lily, the
emblem of purity. She was generally spoken of by the nuns as the "Madre
Serafico."
Edmund Plantagenet, surnamed Crouchback, was the second son of King
Henry III.; born 1245, died 1295. In his eighth year, 1253, he was
created Earl of Chester, and invested by the Pope with the title of
King of Sicily and Apulia, but neither was of much value, as the former
was soon afterwards transferred to his elder brother Edward, afterwards
King Edward I., and Conrad, the real King of Sicily, was still living.
He was afterwards created Earl of Leicester, 1264, and Earl of
Lancaster, 1267. He fought in the wars of Gascony, Wales, and Scotland,
and was two years in Palestine. He had grants of the forfeited castles
and manors of the rebel barons, Simon de Montfort, Ferrers, Earl of
Derby, and Nicholas de Segrave, and had licence, 21 Edward I., to
castellate his house, the Savoy, in the Strand. His death occurred in
France; he had invested Bordeaux, and not being able to reduce it,
grief brought on a disease which terminated fatally. His body was
brought to England and buried in Westminster Abbey, but not until,
in accordance with the instructions in his will, all his debts were
paid. He married, first, Aveline, daughter and heiress of William de
Fortibus, Lord of the Seigniory of Holderness, Co. York, who _d.s.p._
the following year. Secondly, he married Blanche, daughter of Robert,
Earl of Artois (third son of King Louis VIII., of France), and relict
of Henry, King of Navarre, by whom he had issue Thomas, second Earl,
who, after heading the rising of the barons against Gaveston, _temp._
Edward II., was taken prisoner at Boroughbridge, Co. York, beheaded at
Pontefract, and attainted 1321. Henry, his brother, was restored in
the earldoms, whose son Henry was created Duke of Lancaster, 1351, but
_d.s.p.m._, leaving issue Maude and Blanche, the latter of whom married
John of Gaunt, Earl of Richmond, afterwards Duke of Lancaster, by whom
she had issue Henry of Bolingbroke, afterwards King Henry IV.
Piously disposed, as we may charitably suppose them to have been, or
perchance for the welfare of their souls—as it was usual, in that age,
to make bargains with Heaven to build religious houses as the price
of exemption from the pains of purgatory—the Earl and Countess built
the nunnery in the precincts of the court, and filled it with nuns of
the order of St. Clare, brought over from some Continental convent by
Queen Blanche, "to serve God, the Blessed Virgin, and St. Francis,"
for which they had a licence from King Henry III. Stow informs us
that the frontage of the convent was fifteen perches twenty-seven feet
in length, with all needful interior appliances, and garden land;
doubtless a pleasant home for the Sisters, with its outlook over the
Essex fields and the river Thames, with its quaintly-fashioned vessels
passing up and down. It was well endowed by its founders, but had other
benefactors as well, and had messuages in the Vintry, Wood Street, Lad
Lane, Lombard Street, Christ Church Lane, Shirburgh Lane, etc. The
Sisterhood also held the Manor of Apuldercome, and had a grant from
William Walshe, 7 Edward IV., of a messuage, called Harteshorn, in the
parish of St. Mary Matfelon.
The original licence for the foundation is dated 21 Edward I. A charter
was granted to "the sisters Minoresses, without Aldgate," quitting them
of tallage of their land in the City, dated 9 Edward II.; and in the
fourteenth of the same reign, another to "the Abbey of the Minoresses
of St. Mary of the order of St. Clare, without the walls of the City,"
confirming the holding of certain lands and messuages "gotten of divers
well-affected persons." Other charters of confirmation were granted to
the Sisterhood, 2 Henry IV., and 1, 16, 25 Henry V.
The Sisters of St. Clare flourished here for a period of 246 years,
praying, fasting, and mortifying the flesh, with intervals possibly
of laughing, feasting, and enjoyment of their pleasant home; or it
may be, as we know is often the case, even with the Angelic sex, when
thrown together for days and years, the fasting and feasting and prayer
might be mixed up with ingredients of wrangling, envy, and jealousy,
until it all came to an end, when the ruthless Tudor king laid his
sacrilegious hands on the monastic establishments, and spared not even
the homes of the gentler sex, and the house of the Sisters Minoresses
was surrendered by Dame Elizabeth Salvage, 1539.
During these two-and-a-half centuries the Sisters witnessed many
important events in the annals of England; the deposition and murder
of kings Edward II. and Richard II., the usurpation of Henry VI. and
Richard III., the Wars of the Roses, the rise of Lollardism, the
Interdict of the Kingdom under John, the Reformation, the introduction
of the press, and the birth of English literature under Chaucer and
Gower. It may be that the prioress who rode to Canterbury with
Chaucer's pilgrims was the head of the Aldgate Minoresses.
"There was also a nun, a prioress,
That of her smiling was full simple and coy;
Her greatest oath was but by Saint Eloy;
And she was cleped Madame Eglantine.
Full well she sang the service divine,
Entuned in her nose full sweetley;
And French she spake full fair and fetisly,
After the school of Stratford-atte-Bow."
From their own windows they would see many a gay cavalcade of barons,
knights, and ladies issue from the portals of the Tower to follow
the sport of hawking in the fields, or play at some martial or other
game, and many a brilliant procession going forth to tournament in
Smithfield, or coronation in Westminster. They would behold the
coronation pageants and feasts in the Tower of Richard II., the
marriage of the rival Roses in the persons of Henry VII. and the
Princess Elizabeth, and that of Prince Arthur and Catherine of Arragon,
when a splendid tournament was held hard by. Their soft hearts would
also often be awakened to compassion at hearing of the bloody deeds
perpetrated in their neighbourhood, the murder of the young princes
by their uncle, Richard of Gloucester, and the decapitation of Lord
Cobham, Bishop Fisher, Sir Thomas More, Queen Anne Boleyn, and many
another noble and distinguished personage. From their lattices, too,
they would look upon the riding forth of the barons of the realm
through Aldgate to attend the Parliament of Edward I., 1299, held at
the mansion of Lord Mayor Wallis, at Stepney; the Wat Tyler mob rushing
along, "with shouts and cries as if all the devils of hell had come in
their company," to ransack the Tower, chop off the heads of the Lord
Chancellor and Treasurer, and rudely kiss the King's mother, the "Fair
Maid of Kent," and Princess of Wales, in 1381; and again in 1450, that
of the Jack Cade insurgents, when they took Lord Say and Sele from the
Tower and beheaded him in Cheapside.
After the dissolution, the Priory became the residence of John
Clerke, Bishop of Bath and Wells, 1523-41, Master of the Rolls, and
Diplomatist, who was poisoned in Germany, when sent on an Embassy to
the Duke of Cleves, to explain to him why Henry VIII. had divorced his
sister; after whom it was inhabited by some officials of the Tower, and
in 1552 was granted to Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, by King Edward
VI. Afterwards it became a storehouse for arms, and workshops for the
fabrication of implements of warfare, but does not seem to have been
of high repute, as Dryden says, "a comic writer who does not cause
laughter, or a serious dramatist who does not excite emotion, is no
more a good poet than is a Minories gunsmith a good workman."
The Abbey of St. Mary of Graces, or East Minster.
It was in the autumn of the year 1347, that a storm-shattered vessel
might be seen threading its way up the Thames. Its single broad sail
was rent in divers places, its single mast broken, and considerable
portions of its lofty poop and its high pointed stem reft away. It
had come from Calais, and in mid-channel had encountered a terrific
tempest, every soul on board deeming himself lost, and offering up
heartfelt prayers to the Virgin or his favourite saint for succour, or
for intercession in case of death. Nevertheless, like English mariners
in every after, and indeed former age, the crew depended not on prayers
alone, but battled manfully with the winds and the waves, and at length
with great difficulty succeeded in getting their vessel into the river,
and slowly ascended its reaches, with their rent sail fluttering in the
still boisterous wind.