VARIOUS CRESTS AND COATS OF ARMS.
‘Coats in heraldry,
Due but to one, and crowned with one crest.’
SHAKESPEARE: _Midsummer Night’s Dream_.
A VAST amount of property in London is owned by the City Companies,
and houses which belong to them are as a rule marked by their arms
or crest. These were formerly carved in stone, and a few fine old
specimens still remain, similar in style to the ordinary sculptured
house signs. Sometimes, no doubt, a citizen put up on his own house, as
a sign, the arms of the guild of which he was a member; and this seems
to have been the case with the stone bas-relief of Adam and Eve, which
was formerly imbedded in the front wall of No. 52, Newgate Street, a
house now rebuilt. Eve appeared handing the fatal apple to Adam, the
tree in the centre, round its stem the serpent twining; at the upper
corners were the initials L S, below the date 1669. It represented the
arms of the Fruiterers’ Company, but I have not been able to discover
that the house had ever belonged to them. At Milton next Sittingbourne,
on a public-house formerly the Fruiterers’ Arms, now misnamed the
Waterman’s Arms, is a similar carved sign, one of the few I have found
out of London. Beneath is inscribed ‘The Fruiterers.’ The design
appears on a seventeenth-century trade-token issued from Rosemary Lane.
The arms of the Fruiterers’ Company, as blazoned in Hatton’s ‘New View
of London’ (1708), are: azure, on a mount in base vert, the tree of
Paradise environed with the serpent between Adam and Eve, all proper.
Motto, ‘Deus dat incrementum.’ What Ruskin calls the ‘fig-tree angle’
of the Doge’s Palace, Venice, is adorned by a famous piece of sculpture
representing this subject.
The Elephant and Castle is the crest of the Cutlers’ Company. A stone
bas-relief representing it is to be seen on the east side of Bell
Savage Yard, Ludgate Hill, having been placed there nearly thirty years
ago, some time after the famous old inn was levelled with the ground.
It formerly stood over the gateway below the sign of the Bell. In 1568
John Craythorne gave the reversion of this inn, and after his death
the house called the Rose in Fleet Street, to the Cutlers’ Company
for ever, on condition that two exhibitions to the Universities, and
certain sums to poor prisoners, should be paid to them out of the
estate. A portrait of Mrs. Craythorne hangs in Cutlers’ Hall. In
mediæval times the elephant was commonly depicted with a castle on its
back. It was then the heraldic emblem of Rome, and appears as such on
the floor of the cathedral at Siena.
The Bell Savage Inn which came to be thus associated with the Elephant
and Castle, was one of the oldest and most famous hostelries in London.
As long ago as 31 Henry VI. it is described in a deed as Savage’s Inn,
otherwise the Bell on the Hoop, thus proving the origin of the sign,
which from the time of Stow to that of Addison had caused so many
ingenious but faulty surmises. Here plays were performed, and Bankes
showed his wonderful horse Marocco. Lambarde, in his ‘Perambulation of
Kent,’[52] tells us that ‘none who go to Paris Garden, the Bel Savage,
or Theatre, to behold bear-baiting, interludes, or fence-play, can
account of any pleasant spectacle, unless they first pay one penny at
the gate, another at the entry of the scaffold, and a third for a quiet
standing.’ It was ‘upon a stall’ over against the Bell Savage gate
that Sir Thomas Wyat ‘stayd and rested him awhile,’ when foiled in his
ill-advised rebellion; as related by Howe, the continuator of Stow’s
‘Annals.’ And Grinling Gibbons once occupied a house in the yard,
where, as Horace Walpole says, ‘he carved a pot of flowers which shook
surprisingly with the motion of the coaches that passed by.’ I have a
quaint little book in Hudibrastic rhyme, ‘The delights of the Bottle,
or the Compleat Vintner,’ attributed to Ned Ward. The third edition is
‘printed for Sam. Briscoe at the Bell-Savage on Ludgate-Hill, 1721.’
The Cutlers’, though not one of the twelve great City Companies,
is still of considerable importance, and as early as the 49th year
of Edward III. is said to have elected two of the Common Council;
its first charter dated from the time of Henry V. A good sculptured
specimen of the arms is to be seen on the front of a house in
Houndsditch, at the corner of Cutler Street. They were granted by
Thomas Holme. Clarencieux in 1476, and have been blazoned thus:
gules--three pair of swords, in saltier, argent, pommelled and hilted
or, viz., two pair in chief and one in base. The crest should have by
rights pennons displayed from the castle; it was granted by Robert
Cook, Clarencieux. Supporters; two elephants or; motto: ‘Pour parvenir
a bonne foy.’ The carving referred to above was put up in the year 1734
to mark property belonging to the Company, as may be gathered from
the tablet on the west front of the same house, which is inscribed
‘CUTTLERS’ STREET, 1734.’ The hall of the Cutlers’ Company, rebuilt
after the Great Fire in Cloak Lane, Cannon Street, was destroyed for
the Inner Circle Railway. A new hall has lately been erected in Warwick
Lane.
[Illustration]
Another heraldic charge of a City Company is the Leopard, a carving of
which was formerly let into the front of a house in Budge Row, No. 28.
It was rebuilt about twelve years ago, when the sign was placed in the
passage of the new structure. The owner has kindly allowed a sketch to
be taken, which is here reproduced. I believe that the property at one
time belonged to the Skinners’ Company, having been part of a bequest
of John Draper, in 1496. The Leopard, though not supported by a wreath,
therefore represents their crest. The word ‘budge,’ whence Budge Row
takes its name, formerly signified the dressed skin or fur of lamb, and
would seem to indicate that furriers carried on their business in this
quarter, near to the Hall of the Skinners’ Company, which was devoted
to the protection of their craft. In 1338, and again in 1358, the City
authorities ordered that women of inferior rank should not be arrayed
in budge or wool.
One of the commonest London sculptured signs is that of the Maiden’s
Head, which indicates property belonging to the Mercers’ Company. I
will mention one which is to be seen above the first-floor window
of No. 6, Ironmonger Lane, with the date 1668, as it is the only
specimen of any antiquity known to me which is dated, and being
somewhat more florid in treatment than usual, it is characteristic of
the time at which it was put up. The arms of the company, granted in
1568 and confirmed in 1634, are: gules, a demi-virgin, with her hair
dishevelled, crowned, issuing out of and within an orle of clouds,
all proper. One may presume from the date that they were chosen in
honour of Queen Elizabeth. Strype says: ‘When any of this company is
chosen mayor, or makes one of the triumph of the day, wherein he goes
to Westminster to be sworn, a most beautiful virgin is carried through
the streets in a chariot, with all the glory and majesty possible,
with her hair all dishevelled about her shoulders, to represent the
maidenhead which the company give for their arms, and this lady is
plentifully gratified for her pains, besides the gift of all the rich
attire she wears.’ The Maiden’s Head also appears on the arms of
the Pinners’ Company, with the motto, ‘Virginitas et unitas nostra
æternitas.’ It was assumed as a badge of the Parr family, previous to
the marriage of Catherine Parr with Henry VIII. They derived it from
the family of Ros of Kendal.
The Mercers’ Company is very ancient; it was incorporated in the year
1393 (17 Rich. II.);[53] but long before that the mercers had been
associated voluntarily for purposes of mutual aid and comfort. They
came to light first as a fraternity in the time of Henry II., for
Gilbert à Becket, father of St. Thomas of Canterbury, is said to have
been a mercer; and in 1192, Agnes de Helles, sister of St. Thomas, and
her husband Thomas Fitz-Theobald de Helles, in founding the hospital
of St. Thomas of Acon, which is distinctly stated to have been built
on the spot where the future archbishop was born, constituted the
fraternity of mercers patrons of the hospital. The present Mercers’
Hall, in Cheapside, is built on part of this site. It was only by
degrees that the merchant adventurers became detached from the
mercers. The last link between the two companies was severed as late
as the year 1666, when the Great Fire destroyed the office held by the
Merchant-Adventurers under Mercers’ Hall. The Haberdashers’ Company
was a branch of the Mercers’, which broke off from them in the time of
Henry VI. The word ‘mercer’ would seem to imply merchant only, being
derived, through the French ‘mercier,’ from the Latin word ‘mercator.’
It is probable that those who were called mercers dealt at first
in most commodities, except food and the precious metals. Herbert,
however, considers that in ancient times ‘mercer’ was the name for a
man who dealt in small wares; and that ‘merceries then comprehended
all things sold retail by the little balance, in contradistinction
to things sold by the beam, or in gross, and included not only toys,
together with haberdashery and various other articles connected with
dress, but also spices and drugs; in short, what at present constitutes
the stock of a general country shopkeeper.’ He goes on to say that
the silk trade, which in later ages formed the main feature of the
mercers’ business, is stated in the Act of 33 Henry VI., c. 5, to have
been carried on by ‘the silkwomen and throwsteres of London,’ who, in
petitioning for that Act, pray that the Lombards and other strangers
may be hindered from importing wrought silk into the realm, contrary
to custom, and to the ruin of the mystery and occupation of silk-making
and other virtuous female occupations.
The mercers were not the first incorporated company; in this the
goldsmiths, skinners, and merchant tailors may claim precedence; they,
however, have long ranked the first, as exemplified in the following
stanzas from a song addressed to Sir John Peakes, mercer (who was
elected Lord Mayor in 1686), after a dinner given in his honour:
‘Advance the Virgin, lead the van,
Of all that are in London free,
The Mercer is the foremost man
That founded a society.
_Cho._ Of all the trades that London grace,
We are the first in time and place.
‘When Nature in perfection was,
And virgin beauty in her prime,
The Mercer gave the nymph a gloss,
And made e’en beauty more sublime.
_Cho._ In this above our brethren blest,
The Virgin’s since our coat and crest.’
More or less analogous to the arms of the City companies are the
arms of the Inns of Court and Chancery. The interesting and highly
picturesque gatehouse of Lincoln’s Inn, facing Chancery Lane, has on
it the date 1518, and three shields. That in the centre represents
the royal arms of England; to the spectator’s right are the arms of
Sir Thomas Lovell, K.G., who was son of the executor of King Henry
VII., had been reader to the Society of Lincoln’s Inn, and gave most
of the money required for building the gatehouse.[54] To the left
are the arms of Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, namely, or, a lion
rampant purp., placed there by the builder; which reminds one of the
historic fact that Lincoln’s Inn stands on the site of the Earl’s
mansion and grounds, once possessed, in part at least, by the Black
or Preaching Friars. Here he had a fine garden--so productive that,
besides supplying his table, it yielded, says Mr. Hudson Turner,[55]
apples, pears, large nuts, and cherries, sufficient to produce by their
sale in one year (24 Edward I.) ‘the sum of £9 2s. 3d. in money of that
time, equal to about £135 of modern currency.’ The Earl of Lincoln died
without male issue in 1312, but bequeathed his name to the property,
which passed into legal hands. His arms are still retained by the
honourable society, though it has been said that Sir James Lea at one
time proposed another device.
The Winged Horse, or Pegasus, representing the arms of the Society of
the Inner Temple, ornaments the well-known gatehouse in Fleet Street,
which dates from 1607, and has in front the feathers of Henry, Prince
of Wales, eldest son of James I. A little west is the gatehouse to the
Middle Temple, built in 1684, from the designs of Sir Christopher Wren.
It has sculptured on it, the Lamb and Flag, or Agnus Dei:
‘As by the Templars’ haunts you go,
The Horse and Lamb display’d
In emblematic figures show
The merits of their trade;
‘That clients may infer from thence
How just is their profession,
The lamb sets forth their innocence,
The horse their expedition.’
The Winged Horse is supposed by some to be a corruption of the ancient
seal of two Knights Templars riding on one horse, indicative of their
original poverty; for here they had their headquarters in England ‘till
they decayed through pride.’ The two designs, however, resemble each
other to a very slight extent, and in point of fact have no connection.
It seems that in the fifth year of Queen Elizabeth’s reign the Society
of the Inner Temple adopted, as a heraldic charge, the Pegasus with
the motto ‘Volat ad æthera virtus,’ at the suggestion of Gerard Leigh,
one of its Benchers, a pedantic student of heraldry, the idea being
that the knowledge which might be gained at this seat of learning
would raise its possessor to the highest pinnacle of fame. Sir George
Buc,[56] master of the revels, appears to be responsible for the lamb
and flag. He tells us that in 1615, more than fifty years after the
adoption of the Pegasus by the twin society, the authorities of the
Middle Temple had neither arms nor seal, and to supply the want he
suggested either ‘two armed knights riding upon one horse, or a field
argent charged with a cross gules, and on the nombril thereof a Holy
Lamb;’ the first having been, as I have said, the ancient seal of the
Knights Templars, and the second what they appear to have assumed
later, when they became prosperous. This at least is Sir George Buc’s
statement, on the authority of an illuminated manuscript containing
the statutes of their order, which belonged to Lord William Howard of
Naworth. Mr. Barrington thought that the Holy Lamb, as a representation
of Christ, should be encircled by a nimbus. To confirm this view and
to prove that the Templars did use the device, he gives a quotation
from Blomefield’s MS. collections for Cambridgeshire, wherein the Holy
Lamb, with its nimbus and banner, appears on the seal of a deed dated
1273, by which Guido de Foresta, ‘magister militiæ Templi in Anglia
et fratres ejusdem militiæ,’ leased out certain lands in Pampesworth,
Cambridgeshire, the rent to be paid, ‘domino Templi,’ at Dunworth
of the same county. Round the seal is the following inscription, ‘✠
SIGILLVM TEMPLI.’ From the fact that Sir George Buc suggested to the
Society of the Middle Temple the two devices which had been used by the
Templars, it is evident that the Pegasus, already adopted by the Inner
Temple, was not considered in his time to have any connection with the
original seal of the Knights Templars.
The fourth of the great Inns of Court--Gray’s Inn--derived its name
from the noble family of the Greys of Wilton, having been originally
their dwelling, just as Lincoln’s Inn had been the dwelling of an
Earl of Lincoln, and several of the Inns of Chancery were originally
the homes of other well-known personages. The society seems first to
have used the arms of the Grey family; afterwards they adopted the
Griffin’s Head[57] as their device, and it still adorns the pillars
of the gateway from Field Court into those delightful gardens which
were first planted, it is thought, under the direction of no less a
man than Francis Bacon. Once they were the resort of fine ladies, but
fashion has long since deserted them. The trees, however, are still
fine, the aspect of the place ‘reverend and law-abiding.’ Here there
is, or was, a rookery, which has given pleasure to generations of
Londoners. Early last summer (1892) the Benchers, anxious to utilize
so eligible a site, erected a corrugated iron structure some 90 feet
long, at the south-west corner of the gardens. They have tried to make
it look beautiful by partly covering it with trellis-work, and by
having the wooden roof painted tile colour. The rooks, however, showed
their resentment by flying off in a body, and it remains a question
whether they will again make the gardens their permanent home; for now
I hear that this erection, which has the negative merit of being easily
removable, is to be replaced by a chapel ‘in the Elizabethan or late
Tudor style,’ the windows to be fitted--or misfitted--with glass from
the present chapel, which will be turned to secular use. A little more
than a century ago Gray’s Inn was quite on the outskirts of London,[58]
‘with an uninterrupted prospect of the neighbouring fields as far as
Highgate and Hampstead.’
Centuries before the Great Fire, carved shields of arms were doubtless
common in London on public buildings and the houses of great people, as
decorations, and as guides to the unlettered class, which then formed a
vast majority of the population. Sometimes--at any rate, in the earlier
days--these arms were not carved in stone, but painted and hung out, as
we learn from the evidence of the poet Chaucer[59] in the Scrope and
Grosvenor dispute, which also gives us an interesting glimpse of the
early history of one of our noble families. He says that, in walking
up Friday Street, he once saw a sign hung out with ‘arms painted and
put there by a knight of the County of Chester, called Sir Robert
Grosvenor’; and that was the first time he ever heard of Sir Robert
Grosvenor, or his ancestors, or anyone bearing the name of Grosvenor.
The first armorial shield to which I shall refer under this heading is
from a public building, and though comparatively modern it should be
specially interesting to all citizens of London. I allude to the Royal
Arms[60]--a well-executed piece of sculpture--which is used as the
sign of a public-house rebuilt quite recently, on the south side of
Newcomen Street, late King Street, Southwark. This was taken from the
gatehouse at the Southwark end of old London Bridge, which was pulled
down in 1760, in consequence of an Act of Parliament passed four years
previously, for the destruction of the buildings on London Bridge and
the widening of the roadway.
[Illustration]
King Street was then being made from High Street to Snow Fields,
through the former Axe and Bottle Yard, and these arms, having
been bought by Mr. Williams, a stonemason who was employed in the
construction of King Street, were placed by him more or less in their
present position. In a view of the bridgegate engraved for Noorthouck’s
‘History of London’ (p. 543), the arms appear with the inscription, G
II R, afterwards changed to G III, as we now see it.
There are still a few carved shields of arms in London, dating from
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which marked the property
of private individuals. Until quite recently the district known as
Cloth Fair and Bartholomew Close, in the immediate neighbourhood of
the Church of St. Bartholomew the Great, was distinguished by its air
of picturesque antiquity. Some quaint old houses still remain; on
one of them--No. 22, Cloth Fair--is to be seen a relic which carries
us back almost to the time of the dissolution of the monasteries.
This is the armorial shield of Richard Rich, who was made a peer in
1547; or more likely, perhaps, of one of his immediate descendants.
It is surmounted by a coronet, and has been blazoned thus: gules, a
chevron between three crosses botonnée or.[61] The founder of the
Rich family was a mercer in the City, and Sheriff in the year 1442;
it was his great-grandson Richard who, _temp._ Henry VIII., became
Solicitor-General, Speaker of the House of Commons, and who took so
scandalous a part in the trial and conviction of Sir Thomas More. In
1544 the site of St. Bartholomew’s Priory was granted by the King
to his favourite, there described as Sir Richard Rich, knight, in
consideration of the sum of £1,064 11s. 3d., as appears from the
original deed; and here he is said to have lived in the Prior’s mansion
as Lord Chancellor. The tolls of the fair[62] were also granted to
him. It was provided that the church within the Great Close was to be
a parish church for ever, and vacant ground adjoining it on the west
side, 87 feet in length by 60 feet in breadth, where the destroyed nave
had stood, was to be taken for a churchyard, the site of the fair being
no longer used as a burial-ground.
Sir Richard Rich was made a baron in 1547. Queen Mary revoked the
grant in his favour, and placed here a convent of Preaching Friars,
who under Father Person began to rebuild the nave of the church,
but they were turned out when Elizabeth came to the throne, and the
following year there was a fresh grant to the purchaser, by the title
of Richard Lord Rich, and his heirs, ‘in free socage.’ The monastery
with its precincts had been enclosed by a wall which contained,
besides the numerous monastic offices, a large garden and court,
fifty-one tenements, a mulberry garden (one of the first planted in
this country), and the famous churchyard wherein had been held, since
the time of Henry I., the great annual gathering for clothiers and
drapers. This began to fall off, as a cloth fair,[63] towards the end
of the sixteenth century, but continued to be more or less of a London
carnival, and in some sort lingered on as late as the year 1855. The
first Lord Rich died in 1560; during his lifetime little building seems
to have taken place, for in Ralph Aggas’s map, which is considered to
be of about this date, the space north of the church has no houses upon
it, and the priory wall abutting on Long Lane still exists. Very soon,
however, the land was turned to more profitable account, and we find
Stow[64] writing at the end of the century: ‘Now notwithstanding all
proclamations of the prince, and also the Act of Parliament, in place
of booths within this churchyard (only let out in the fair time, and
closed up all the year after), be many large houses built, and the
north wall towards Long Lane taken down, a number of tenements are
there erected for such as will give great rents.’ The houses in the
street now called Cloth Fair probably followed the old line of booths.
The first Lord Rich’s grandson Robert, who made such an ill-assorted
marriage with Lady Penelope Devereux, Sidney’s ‘Stella,’ was raised
to the dignity of Earl of Warwick in 1618. His second son Henry was
created Baron Kensington and Earl of Holland. The titles were merged
in the next generation, and became extinct in the year 1759, when
the tolls of the fair descended to the Edwardes family, cousins of
the Riches, in whose favour the Kensington title was revived. Lord
Kensington sold these tolls to the Corporation of London in 1839.
Before we quit this quaint neighbourhood let us peep into the venerable
Church of St. Bartholomew the Great. What an idea it gives one of the
splendour of the old priory church, of which it formed but a part,
little more than the choir remaining! Much ‘restoration’ is in progress
here, and it is difficult at a glance to distinguish between the
genuine Norman work and the ingenious nineteenth-century Norman which
has lately been added. Fortunately the fine perpendicular oriel on the
south side of the triforium has so far escaped intact. It was probably
inserted by Prior Bolton (who died in 1532), and has on it, carved in
stone, expressive of his name, a tun pierced by a bird-bolt, or arrow.
The rebus occurs again on the spandrel of a Tudor doorway which leads
into the modern vestry. This Prior seems to have taken pleasure in
building, and in seeing his name thus perpetuated.[65] He reconstructed
the manor-house of Canonbury, Islington, north of the parish church,
which had been given to the convent by Ralph de Berners, and as early
as the year 1253 is enumerated among his possessions. Here is also to
be found the Prior’s rebus, on a doorway inside No. 6, Canonbury Place,
which, with No. 7, is now used for a girls’ school. It also formerly
appeared cut in stone on two parts of the wall originally connected
with the old brick tower, which is so picturesque and so full of
interesting associations.
It is, however, generally thought that the tower, as we see it, was
built under the direction of Sir John Spencer, the wealthy merchant,
afterwards the purchaser of Crosby Hall, who bought this place from
Thomas Lord Wentworth in 1570. Eleven years afterwards Queen Elizabeth
visited him here, and towards the end of the century he made great
alterations in the building. Two of the rooms attached to Canonbury
Tower are finely panelled from floor to ceiling; the very handsome
carved chimney-piece in the upper room bears the arms of Sir John
Spencer. Canonbury House is now occupied by a Constitutional Club.
Parts of the building have been modernized of late years, but the
panelled rooms are still much in their original state. The pretty strip
of garden at the back contains fruit-trees which Goldsmith may have
seen, when he lodged here in the summer of 1767.
We must not forget that the original building occupied a considerable
part of Canonbury Place. We have evidence of this in Prior Bolton’s
rebus at No. 6; and traces of Sir John Spencer’s work are to be seen
in this and the adjoining houses, where there are no less than five
richly-stuccoed ceilings, two of them with the date 1599. Here also,
inside the entrance, are the arms[66] of Sir Walter Dennys, carved
in oak. They were formerly over a fireplace, and when moved to their
present position, many years ago, the following inscription was placed
underneath:
‘These were the arms of Sir Walter Dennys of Gloucestershire, who was
made a Knight by bathing at the creation of Arthur, Prince of Wales
in Nov. 1489, and died Sept. 1, 21 Henry VII., and was buried at the
church of Olviston in Gloucestershire. He married Margaret, daughter
of Sir Rich Weston, Knt., to which family Canonbury House formerly
belonged. The carving is therefore 280 years old.’
The latter part of the inscription is clearly erroneous, as the
manor-house was not in lay hands till after the dissolution. Mr.
Nelson thought that these arms were placed here by some descendant
of the Dennys or Weston family, who might afterwards have lived at
Canonbury--perhaps one of the Comptons, Joan, a daughter of Sir Walter,
having married into that family. The Comptons did not come into
possession till 1610, when William, the second lord, succeeded Sir
John Spencer, having married Elizabeth, his daughter and sole heiress.
I need hardly say that they were the direct ancestors of the present
Marquis of Northampton, who still owns the property.
A famous galleried inn, the Old Bell,[67] Holborn, now almost unique
of its kind, has, imbedded in the front, the sculptured arms of Fowler
of Islington, namely, azure, on a chevron argent, between three herons
or, as many crosses formée gules. They are surmounted by an esquire’s
helmet, with a crest, which seems to be an eagle’s head with a sprig of
some sort in its beak. The first man of this family who made any mark
was Thomas Fowler, lord of the manor of Bernersbury[68] or Barnsbury,
Islington, in 1548. From him descended Sir Thomas Fowler, knight,
Deputy Lieutenant of the county of Middlesex, and apparently one of the
jurors at the trial of Sir Walter Raleigh, at Winchester, in 1603. If
the tradition of Sir Walter’s residence at Islington is true, they must
have lived within a stone’s throw of each other at one time. Before
being knighted, Thomas Fowler had married Jane, daughter of Gregory
Charlet, citizen and tallow-chandler, who bore him two sons. His second
wife, to whom he was married at St. James’s Church, Clerkenwell, on
March 17, 1604, was Mary, widow of Sir John Spencer, of Althorp--not to
be confused with his neighbour the rich merchant of Crosby Place and
Canonbury, who lived on till 1609. His elder son, also Thomas, was made
a baronet, but the title died out with him in 1656.
The Fowlers dwelt in a house in Cross Street, Islington, a little
beyond the church, which still existed a generation ago. The ceiling
of a room on the first-floor was decorated with the arms and initials
of Queen Elizabeth, also the initials F T I. At the end of the garden,
which had been of considerable extent, there was a small brick
building,[69] intended, perhaps, for a summer-house or porter’s lodge.
It had on the west side, cut in stone, the Fowler arms, bearing an
esquire’s helmet, apparently similar in all respects to those I have
described, except that no mention is made of a crest. In another part
of the building were the arms of Sir Thomas Fowler the younger, with
his initials and the date 1655. They were distinguished by having an
escutcheon charged with a sinister hand, couped at the wrist--the arms
of Ulster and ensign of baronetcy. It is curious that the daughter
and heiress of this Sir Thomas Fowler married a Fisher, to whom
descended the manor of Barnsbury, and that the first Fowler who settled
in Islington had married a Herne or Heron. The arms of that family
appeared in a window of the old house in Cross Street.
When visiting the Guildhall Museum, not long since, I was reminded of
another Islington family, not distinguished, but still perhaps worthy
of mention. A stone tablet, said to be from an old house in Upper
Street, Islington, has on it the inscription: N R I RVFFORDS BVILDINGS
1688, and a similar inscription is still to be seen on No. 1a, Compton
Street, Clerkenwell. The fact is, there were two groups of houses thus
named, both of which were built by Captain Nicholas Rufford, who was
churchwarden at Islington in 1690, and died in 1711, aged seventy-one.
Nelson mentions inscriptions to him and several of his family in the
churchyard. In the Islington Rufford’s Buildings Dr. W. Berriman lived
for some years. He was a famous divine, and became Fellow of Eton
College. His death took place in 1749-50.
Some pages back, in my description of the sign of the Two Negroes’
Heads, I had occasion to allude to Clare Market. Before that
neighbourhood is quite transformed, I should like to say a few words
about it and its connection with the Holles family. An old coat of arms
and an old inscription will serve as pegs on which to hang my story. In
Seymour’s ‘Survey,’ 1754 (written by John Mottley), we are told that
Clement’s Inn[70]--the fancied scene of Shallow’s exploits--descended
to the Earls of Clare from their ancestor Sir William Holles, or
Hollis--as he spells it--Lord Mayor of London in 1539. The name of
John, Baron Holles of Houghton, appears as a parishioner of St. Clement
Danes in the rate-book for the year 1617. In 1624 he was created Earl
of Clare. There seems to have been no concealment about the fact that
his titles were bought: the first, obtained through the influence of
the Duke of Buckingham, had cost him no less a sum than £10,000; for
the second he is said to have paid an additional £5,000. It is curious
that this latter dignity had some years before been refused to Robert
Rich, afterwards created Earl of Warwick, who had set his heart on
it (and is said to have also paid money for his earldom), the Crown
lawyers having solemnly declared that it was a title peculiar to the
Royal Family, and not to be borne by a subject. The princely mansion
of John Holles,[71] second Earl, was at the end of Clare Court, or
Clare House Court, on the east side of Drury Lane, next to Blackmore
Street. In Hatton’s time (1708) it had been turned into tenements. This
second Earl founded Clare Market,[72] which stands, or stood, on what
was previously called Clement’s Inn Fields. License had already been
granted by Charles I. to Thomas York in 1640, and to the antiquary
Gervase Holles[73] in 1642, to make streets and to erect houses on this
property. One of the provisions in the Act[74] passed in 1657, ‘for the
Preventing of the Multiplicity of Buildings in and about the Suburbs
of London,’ expressly states that John, Earl of Clare, having erected
several new buildings and improved the property, ‘from henceforth for
ever hereafter, on every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, in every
week, there shall be a common open and free market, held in Clement’s
Inn Fields aforesaid, where the said buildings useful for a market
are erected, and in the places near unto adjoining, and to enjoy
all liberties, customs and emoluments incident usually and of right
belonging and appertaining to markets.’ It seems, from the ‘Harleian
Miscellany,’ that the City authorities at one time began a lawsuit
laying claim to this property, but they failed in their attempt. The
market was at first usually called the New Market.
The streets in this neighbourhood are several of them named after the
family of the former possessors: as Clare Street, where, on Saturdays,
there is still something like a market; Denzell Street, Holles Street,
Houghton Street, Vere Street, and Gilbert Street and Passage. On a
squalid house at the corner of this narrow opening, and facing the
space lately cleared in what was the market, I have observed with
interest a fine stone bas-relief of the Holles arms, surmounted by
an earl’s coronet, namely, ermine, two piles in point sable, and the
motto ‘Spes audaces adjuvat,’ the supporters being a lion and that
nondescript beast, a heraldic tiger, which is supposed to have a
dragon’s head. The date beneath is 1659, showing that they were put up
for John Holles, second Earl of Clare, no doubt on a building in the
market-place. Another curious relic is to be seen let into the wall of
a public-house called the Royal Yacht, at the corner of Denzell Street
and Stanhope Street. This is a stone tablet, the inscription on which
is here given, and which speaks for itself.
[Illustration: Denzell Street·1682 So called by Gilbert= Earle of Clare
in Memory of his Vncle Denzell Lord Holles who dyed February y^e:
17^{th}: 1679 Aged 81 years:3:months a great honour to his name and the
exact paterne of his Fathers great Meritt·John Earle of Clare Rebuilt
by H^Y COCKER 1796]
It was erected by Gilbert, third Earl, in memory of his father’s
second brother Denzil--‘a man of great courage and of as great pride,’
says Clarendon, who, during the early troubles between Charles I. and
his Parliament, took a leading part on the popular side. On March 2,
1629, when the Speaker was about to adjourn the House in obedience to
the King’s order, Denzil Holles helped to keep him in the chair by
force, for which conduct he, with five other members, was committed
to the Tower and fined 1,000 marks. After many vicissitudes Holles
welcomed the restoration of Charles II., was created a peer, and sent
as Ambassador to Paris, where his pugnacity and his ignorance of the
French language[75] were alike remarkable. Mr. Wheatley tells us that
in 1644 he had been living in Covent Garden, under the name of Colonel
Holles; in 1666, and after, he was in a house at the west corner of the
north piazza, which Sir Kenelm Digby had previously occupied.
The Holles family became extinct in the male line on the death of
John, fourth Earl of Clare, who had married Lady Margaret Cavendish,
a great heiress, and was created Duke of Newcastle. This nobleman,
one of the richest subjects in the kingdom, died in 1711, from the
effects of a fall while hunting at Welbeck, leaving an only daughter,
from whom is descended the present Duke of Portland. Some years before
his death, namely, in May, 1705, still clinging to the neighbourhood
with which his family had been so long connected, the last Holles in
the male line bought from the Marquis of Powis, for the large sum of
£7,000, the house at the north-west angle of Lincoln’s Inn Fields,
now numbered 66 and 67, which touches Great Queen Street, and is still
known as Powis or Newcastle House. The Duke left the greater part of
his possessions, including this house, to his nephew, Thomas Pelham,
the well-known political leader in the time of George II., who took the
name of Holles, and was also created Duke of Newcastle. Here he lived
and intrigued, and this was the scene of his levees, so graphically
described by Lord Chesterfield. If those silent walls could speak, they
might tell us many strange tales.
Newcastle House had been built in 1686 by Captain William Winde, or
Wynne, as Campbell calls him in the ‘Vitruvius Britannicus’--a pupil
of Gerbier, and perhaps also of Webb, who was in his turn a pupil of
Inigo Jones. The structure has unfortunately been much altered for the
worse since an engraving of it was made for Strype’s Stow (edition of
1754). It replaced an older house which had been burnt to the ground on
October 26, 1684, the family escaping with difficulty. William Herbert,
first Marquis and titular Duke of Powis, for whom the house was built,
suffered severely owing to his attachment to the cause of James II. He
accompanied the King into exile, his estates were, in part at any rate,
confiscated, and he died at St. Germains in 1696. In some way this
house escaped the general wreck; perhaps it was alienated for a few
years. Strype says that ‘it was sometime the seat of Sir John Somers,
late Lord Chancellor of England’; and Pennant adds, ‘It is said that
Government had it once in contemplation to have bought and settled it
officially on the great seal. At that time it was inhabited by the Lord
Keeper, Sir Nathan Wright.’ Whatever the circumstances may have been,
it came into the hands of the second Marquis, who before its sale to
the Duke of Newcastle had already built himself another house[76] in
Great Ormond Street, on the site of which is Powis Place.
The west side of Lincoln’s Inn Fields shows interesting specimens of
architecture. Lindsey House, though much altered, is an undoubted work
of Inigo Jones. It was built probably about the year 1640, for Robert
Bertie, first Earl of Lindsey, who died a hero’s death at the battle
of Edgehill. The fourth Earl having been created Duke of Ancaster, it
was for a time called Ancaster House. Hatton, in 1708, describes it
as ‘a handsome building of the Ionic order, and (in front a) strong
beautiful court-gate, consisting of six fine, spacious brick piers,
with curious ironwork between them, and on the piers are placed very
large and beautiful vases.’ The stone facade is now plastered and
painted, the entrance door widened, the house divided into two. Inside,
a graceful mantelpiece and an alcove evidently belong to the last
century. Mr. Alfred Marks, in a valuable note on the house, ascribes
these architectural features to Ware, who was a great admirer of Inigo
Jones, and in 1743 published some of his designs. The alcove is adorned
by a coat of arms belonging to the Shiffner family, a member of which,
as appears from the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, resided in Lincoln’s Inn
Fields in the year 1759.
South of Lindsey House, there are other buildings which were probably
designed by Inigo Jones. From the house which is over the archway
leading into Sardinia Street, one may trace the Rose and Fleur-de-lys
of Charles I. and his Queen on the pilasters. They are now mostly
plastered and painted, but it may be remarked that in the extreme
south-west corner of the Fields, behind other more modern structures,
stands a house the upper part of which is outside in its original
condition. It is of red brick, the bases, bands and capitals of the
pilasters and the architraves being of stone, and it has, like the
others, the rose and fleur-de-lys in relief. But the best-preserved
specimen, externally, of work of this character now existing in London
is the harmonious red-brick building on the south side of Great Queen
Street, hard by, which was either designed by Inigo Jones or by Webb
under his influence. Let those who wish to study its fine proportions
and pleasant details lose no time, for an ominous board has appeared in
front, and much I fear that its days are numbered. Can nothing be done
to save it? Mr. Wheatley says that Thomas Hudson, the portrait-painter
(Reynolds’s master), lived in this house, which is now divided and
numbered 55 and 56. It had almost certainly been occupied by Sir
Godfrey Kneller.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]