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INNS AND TAVERNS OF OLD LONDON
SETTING FORTH THE HISTORICAL AND LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS OF THOSE
ANCIENT HOSTELRIES, TOGETHER WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE MOST NOTABLE
COFFEE-HOUSES, CLUBS, AND PLEASURE GARDENS OF THE BRITISH METROPOLIS
BY
HENRY C. SHELLEY
Author of "Untrodden English Ways," etc.
1909
PREFACE
For all races of Teutonic origin the claim is made that they are
essentially home-loving people. Yet the Englishman of the sixteenth
and seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, especially of the latter,
is seen to have exercised considerable zeal in creating substitutes
for that home which, as a Teuton, he ought to have loved above all
else. This, at any rate, was emphatically the case with the
Londoner, as the following pages will testify. When he had perfected
his taverns and inns, perfected them, that is, according to the
light of the olden time, he set to work evolving a new species of
public resort in the coffee-house. That type of establishment
appears to have been responsible for the development of the club,
another substitute for the home. And then came the age of the
pleasure-garden. Both the latter survive, the one in a form of a
more rigid exclusiveness than the eighteenth century Londoner would
have deemed possible; the other in so changed a guise that
frequenters of the prototype would scarcely recognize the
relationship. But the coffee-house and the inn and tavern of old
London exist but as a picturesque memory which these pages attempt
to revive.
Naturally much delving among records of the past has gone to the
making of this book. To enumerate all the sources of information
which have been laid under contribution would be a tedious task and
need not be attempted, but it would be ungrateful to omit thankful
acknowledgment to Henry B. Wheatley's exhaustive edition of Peter
Cunningham's "Handbook of London," and to Warwick Wroth's admirable
volume on "The London Pleasure Gardens of the Eighteenth Century."
Many of the illustrations have been specially photographed from rare
engravings in the Print Boom of the British Museum.
H.C.S.
CONTENTS
PREFACE
I. INNS AND TAVERNS OF OLD LONDON.
I. FAMOUS SOUTHWARK INNS.
II. INNS AND TAVERNS EAST OF ST PAUL'S.
III. TAVERNS OF FLEET STREET AND THEREABOUTS.
IV. TAVERNS WEST OF TEMPLE BAR.
VI. INNS AND TAVERNS FURTHER AFIELD.
II. COFFEE-HOUSES OF OLD LONDON.
I. COFFEE-HOUSES ON 'CHANGE AND NEAR-BY.
II. ROUND ST PAUL'S.
III. THE STRAND AND COVENT GARDEN.
IV. FURTHER WEST.
III. THE CLUBS OF OLD LONDON.
LITERARY.
"SOCIAL AND GAMING".
IV. PLEASURE GARDENS OF OLD LONDON.
I. VAUXHALL.
II. RANELAGH.
III. OTHER FAVOURITE RESORTS.
INDEX
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
KING'S HEAD TAVERN, FLEET STREET
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
TABARD INN, SOUTHWARK IN 1810
BRIDGE-FOOT, SOUTHWARK, SHOWING THE BEAR INN IN 1616
COURTYARD OF BOAR'S HEAD INN, SOUTHWARK
GEORGE INN
WHITE HART INN, SOUTHWARK
OLIVER GOLDSMITH
COCK INN, LEADENHALL STREET
PAUL PINDAR TAVERN
ANCIENT VIEW OF CHEAPSIDE, SHOWING THE NAG'S HEAD INN
A FRENCH ORDINARY IN LONDON
YARD OF BELLE SAUVAGE INN
THE CHESHIRE CHEESE--ENTRANCE PROM FLEET STREET
THE CHESHIRE CHEESE--THE JOHNSON ROOM
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON
TABLET AND BUST FROM THE DEVIL TAVERN
BEN JONSON
FEATHERS TAVERN
ADAM AND EVE TAVERN
A TRIAL BEFORE THE PIE-POWDER COURT AT THE HAND AND SHEARS TAVERN
FALCON TAVERN, BANKSIDE
GARRAWAY'S COFFEE-HOUSE
MAD DOG IN A COFFEE-HOUSE
TOM'S COFFEE-HOUSE
LLOYD'S COFFEE-HOUSE
GRECIAN COFFEE-HOUSE
JOHN DRYDEN
JOSEPH ADDISON
SIR RICHARD STEELE
LION'S HEAD AT BUTTON'S COFFEE-HOUSE
BRITISH COFFEE-HOUSE
SLAUGHTER'S COFFEE-HOUSE
OLD PALACE YARD, WESTMINSTER
DON SALTERO'S COFFEE-HOUSE
ST JAMES'S STREET, SHOWING WHITE'S ON THE LEFT
AND BROOKS'S ON THE RIGHT
THE BRILLIANTS
"PROMISED HORRORS OF THE FRENCH INVASION"
GAMBLING SALOON AT BROOKS'S CLUB
TICKETS FOR VAUXHALL
ENTRANCE TO VAUXHALL
THE CITIZEN AT VAUXHALL
SCENE AT VAUXHALL
VENETIAN MASQUERADE AT RANELAGH, 1749
THE ASSAULT ON DR. JOHN HILL AT RANELAGH
MARYLEBONE GARDENS
WHITE CONDUIT HOUSE
BAGNIGGE WELLS
FINCH'S GROTTO, SOUTHWARK
I.
INNS AND TAVERNS OF OLD LONDON.
CHAPTER I.
FAMOUS SOUTHWARK INNS.
Unique among the quaint maps of old London is one which traces the
ground-plan of Southwark as it appeared early in the sixteenth
century. It is not the kind of map which would ensure examination
honours for its author were he competing among schoolboys of the
twentieth century, but it has a quality of archaic simplicity which
makes it a more precious possession than the best examples of modern
cartography. Drawn on the principle that a minimum of lines and a
maximum of description are the best aid to the imagination, this
plan of Southwark indicates the main routes of thoroughfare with a
few bold strokes, and then tills in the blanks with queer little
drawings of churches and inns, the former depicted in delightfully
distorted perspective and the latter by two or three half-circular
strokes. That there may be no confusion between church and inn, the
possibility of which is suggested by the fact that several of
the latter are adorned with spire-like embellishments, the
sixteenth-century cartographer told which were which in so many
words. It is by close attention to the letter-press, and by
observing the frequent appearance of names which have age-long
association with houses of entertainment, that the student of this
map awakens to the conviction that ancient Southwark rejoiced in a
more than generous provision of inns.
Such was the case from the earliest period of which there is any
record. The explanation is simple. The name of the borough supplies
the clue. Southwark is really the south-work of London, that is, the
southern defence or fortification of the city. The Thames is here a
moat of spacious breadth and formidable depth, yet the Romans did
not trust to that defence alone, but threw up further obstacles for
any enemy approaching the city from the south. It was from that
direction assault was most likely to come. From the western and
southern counties of England, and, above all, from the Continent,
this was the high road into the capital.
All this had a natural result in times of peace. As London Bridge
was the only causeway over the Thames, and as the High street of
Southwark was the southern continuation of that causeway, it
followed that diplomatic visitors from the Continent and the
countless traders who had business in the capital were obliged to
use this route coming and going. The logical result of this constant
traffic is seen in the countless inns of the district. In the great
majority of cases those visitors who had business in the city itself
during the day elected to make their headquarters for the night on
the southern shore of the Thames.
Although no definite evidence is available, it is reasonable to
conclude that the most ancient inns of Southwark were established at
least as early as the most ancient hostelries of the city itself. To
which, however, the prize of seniority is to be awarded can never be
known. Yet on one matter there can be no dispute. Pride of place
among the inns of Southwark belongs unquestionably to the Tabard.
Not that it is the most ancient, or has played the most conspicuous
part in the social or political life of the borough, but because the
hand of the poet has lifted it from the realm of the actual and
given it an enduring niche in the world of imagination.
No evidence is available to establish the actual date when the
Tabard was built; Stow speaks of it as among the "most ancient" of
the locality; but the nearest approach to definite dating assigns
the inn to the early fourteenth century. One antiquary indeed fixes
the earliest distinct record of the site of the inn in 1304, soon
after which the Abbot of Hyde, whose abbey was in the neighbourhood
of Winchester, here built himself a town mansion and probably at the
same time a hostelry for travellers. Three years later the Abbot
secured a license to erect a chapel close by the inn. It seems
likely, then, that the Tabard had its origin as an adjunct of the
town house of a Hampshire ecclesiastic.
But in the early history of the hostelry no fact stands out so
clearly as that it was chosen by Chaucer as the starting-point for
his immortal Canterbury pilgrims. More than two centuries had passed
since Thomas à Becket had fallen before the altar of St. Benedict in
the minster of Canterbury, pierced with many swords as his reward
for contesting the supremacy of the Church against Henry II.
"What a parcel of fools and dastards have I nourished in my house,"
cried the monarch when the struggle had reached an acute stage,
"that not one of them will avenge me of this one upstart clerk!"
Four knights took the king at his word, posted with all speed to
Canterbury, and charged the prelate to give way to the wishes of the
sovereign.
"In vain you threaten me," À Becket rejoined. "If all the swords in
England were brandishing over my head, your terrors could not move
me. Foot to foot you will find me fighting the battle of the Lord."
And then the swords of the knights flashed in the dim light of the
minster and another name was added to the Church's roll of martyrs.
The murder sent a thrill of horror through all Christendom; À Becket
was speedily canonized, and his tomb became the objective of
countless pilgrims from every corner of the Christian world.
In Chaucer's days, some two centuries later, the pilgrimage had
become a favourite occupation of the devout. Each awakening of the
year, when the rains of April had laid the dust of March and aroused
the buds of tree and herb from their winter slumber, the longing to
go on a pilgrimage seized all classes alike.
"And specially, from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The holy blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seke."
Precisionists of the type who are never satisfied unless they can
apply chronology in the realm of imagination will have it that
Chaucer's pilgrimage was a veritable event, and that it took place
in April, 1388. They go further still and identify Chaucer's host
with the actual Henry Bailley, who certainly was in possession of
the Tabard in years not remote from that date. The records show that
he twice represented the borough of Southwark in Parliament, and
another ancient document bears witness how he and his wife,
Christian by name, were called upon to contribute two shillings to
the subsidy of Richard II. These are the dry bones of history; for
the living picture of the man himself recourse must be had to
Chaucer's verse:
"A semely man our hoste was with-alle
For to han been a marshal in an halle;
A large man he was with eyen stepe,
A fairer burgeys is ther noon in Chepe;
Bold of his speche, and wys, and well y-taught,
And of manhood him lakkede right naught.
Eke thereto he was right a merry man."
No twentieth century pilgrim to the Tabard inn must expect to find
its environment at all in harmony with the picture enshrined in
Chaucer's verse. The passing years have wrought a woeful and
materializing change. The opening lines of the Prologue are
permeated with a sense of the month of April, a "breath of
uncontaminate springtide" as Lowell puts it, and in those far-off
years when the poet wrote, the beauties of the awakening year were
possible of enjoyment in Southwark. Then the buildings of the High
street were spaciously placed, with room for field and hedgerow;
to-day they are huddled as closely together as the hand of man can
set them, and the verdure of grass and tree is unknown. Nor is it
otherwise with the inn itself, for its modern representative has no
points of likeness to establish a kinship with the structure
visualized in Chaucer's lines. It is true the poet describes the inn
more by suggestion than set delineation, but such hints that it was
"a gentle hostelry," that its rooms and stables were alike spacious,
that the food was of the best and the wine of the strongest go
further with the imagination than concrete statements.
[Illustration: GEOFFREY CHAUCER.]
Giving faith for the moment to that theory which credits the
Canterbury Tales with being based on actual experience, and
recalling the quaint courtyard of the inn as it appeared on that
distant April day of 1388, it is a pleasant exercise of fancy to
imagine Chaucer leaning over the rail of one of the upper galleries
to watch the assembling of his nine-and-twenty "sondry folk." They
are, as J. R. Green has said, representatives of every class of
English society from the noble to the ploughman. "We see the
'verray-perfight gentil knight' in cassock and coat of mail, with
his curly-headed squire beside him, fresh as the May morning, and
behind them the brown-faced yeoman in his coat and hood of green
with a mighty bow in his hand. A group of ecclesiastics light up for
us the mediaeval church--the brawny hunt-loving monk, whose bridle
jingles as loud and clear as the chapel bell--the wanton friar,
first among the beggars and harpers of the courtly side--the poor
parson, threadbare, learned, and devout ('Christ's lore and his
apostles twelve he taught, and first he followed it himself')--the
summoner with his fiery face--the pardoner with his wallet 'full of
pardons, come from Rome all hot'--the lively prioress with her
courtly French lisp, her soft little red mouth, and _Amor vincit
omnia_ graven on her brooch. Learning is there in the portly
person of the doctor of physics, rich with the profits of the
pestilence--the busy sergeant-of-law, 'that ever seemed busier than
he was'--the hollow-cheeked clerk of Oxford with his love of books
and short sharp sentences that disguise a latent tenderness which
breaks out at last in the story of Griseldis. Around them crowd
types of English industry; the merchant; the franklin in whose house
'it snowed of meat and drink'; the sailor fresh from frays in the
Channel; the buxom wife of Bath; the broad-shouldered miller; the
haberdasher, carpenter, weaver, dyer, tapestry-maker, each in the
livery of his craft; and last the honest ploughman who would dyke
and delve for the poor without hire."
Smilingly as Chaucer may have gazed upon this goodly company, his
delight at their arrival paled before the radiant pleasure of mine
host, for a poet on the lookout for a subject can hardly have
welcomed the advent of the pilgrims with such an interested
anticipation of profit as the innkeeper whose rooms they were to
occupy and whose food and wines they were to consume. Henry Bailley
was equal to the auspicious occasion.
"Greet chere made our hoste us everichon,
And to the soper sette he us anon;
And served us with vitaille at the beste.
Strong was the wyn, and wel to drinke us leste."
But the host of the Tabard was more than an efficient caterer; he
was something of a diplomatist also. Taking advantage of that glow
of satisfaction which is the psychological effect of physical needs
generously satisfied, he appears to have had no difficulty in
getting the pilgrims to pay their "rekeninges," and having attained
that practical object he rewarded his customers with liberal
interest for their hard cash in the form of unstinted praise of
their collective merits, In all that year he had not seen so merry a
company gathered under his roof, etc., etc. But of greater moment
for future generations was his suggestion that, as there was no
comfort in riding to Canterbury dumb as a stone, the pilgrims should
beguile their journey by telling stories. The suggestion was loudly
acclaimed and the scheme unanimously pledged in further copious
draughts of wine. And then, to "reste wente echon," until the dawn
came again and smiled down upon that brave company whose
tale-telling pilgrimage has since been followed with so much delight
by countless thousands. By the time Stow made his famous survey of
London, some two centuries later, the Tabard was rejoicing to the
full in the glories cast around it by Chaucer's pen. Stow cites the
poet's commendation as its chief title to fame, and pauses to
explain that the name of the inn was "so called of the sign, which,
as we now term it, is of a jacket, or sleeveless coat, whole before,
open on both sides, with a square collar, winged at the shoulders; a
stately garment of old time, commonly worn of noblemen and others,
both at home and abroad in the war, but then (to wit in the wars)
their arms embroidered, or otherwise depict upon them, that every
man by his coat of arms might be known from others." All this
heraldic lore did not prevent the subsequent change--for a time--of
the name Tabard to the meaningless name of Talbot, a distortion,
however, which survives only in antiquarian history.
At the dissolution of the monasteries this inn, which up till then
had retained its connection with the church through belonging to
Hyde Abbey, was granted to two brothers named Master, and in 1542
its annual rent is fixed at nine pounds. An authority on social life
in England during the middle of Queen Elizabeth's reign ventures on
the following description of the arrangements of the inn at that
period. "On the ground-floor, looking on to the street, was a room
called 'the darke parlour,' a hall, and a general reception-room
called 'the parlour.' This was probably the dining-room of the
house, as it opened on to the kitchen on the same level. Below the
dark parlour was a cellar. On the first floor, above the parlour and
the hall, were three rooms--'the middle chamber,' 'the corner
chamber,' and 'Maister Hussye's chamber,' with garrets or 'cock
lofts' over them. Over the great parlour was another room. There
were also rooms called 'the Entry Chamber' and 'the Newe chamber,'
'the Flower de Luce' and 'Mr. Russell's chamber,' of which the
position is not specified."
[Illustration: TABARD INN, SOUTHWARK, IN 1810.]
When, in 1575, the old Tabard, the inn, that is, of George
Shepherd's water-colour drawing of 1810, was demolished, making way
for the present somewhat commonplace representative of the ancient
hostelry, many protests were made on the plea that it was sheer
vandalism to destroy a building so intimately associated with the
genius of Chaucer. But the protests were based upon lack of
knowledge. Chaucer's inn had disappeared long before. It is
sometimes stated that that building survived until the great
Southwark fire of 1676, but such assertions overlook the fact that
there is in existence a record dated 1634 which speaks of the Tabard
as having been built of brick six years previously upon the old
foundation. Here, then, is proof that the Tabard of the pilgrims was
wholly reconstructed in 1628, and even that building--faithful copy
as it may have been of the poet's inn--was burnt to the ground in
1676. From the old foundations, however, a new Tabard arose, built
on the old plan, so that the structure which was torn down in 1875
may have perpetuated the semblance of Chaucer's inn to modern times.
Compared with its association with the Canterbury pilgrims, the
subsequent history of the Tabard is somewhat prosaic. Here a record
tells how it became the objective of numerous carriers from Kent and
Sussex, there crops up a law report which enshrines the memory of a
burglary, and elsewhere in reminiscences or diary may be found a
tribute to the excellence of the inn's rooms and food and the
reasonableness of the charges. It should not be forgotten, however,
that violent hands have been laid on the famous inn for the lofty
purposes of melodrama. More than sixty years ago a play entitled
"Mary White, or the Murder at the Old Tabard" thrilled the
theatregoer with its tragic situations and the terrible perils of
the heroine. But the tribulations of Mary White have left no imprint
on English literature. Chaucer's pilgrims have, and so long as the
mere name of the Tabard survives, its recollection will bring in its
train a moving picture of that merry and motley company which set
out for the shrine of À Becket so many generations ago.
Poetic license bestows upon another notable Southwark inn, the Bear
at Bridge-foot, an antiquity far eclipsing that of the Tabard. In a
poem printed in 1691, descriptive of "The Last Search after Claret
in Southwark," the heroes of the verse are depicted as eventually
finding their way to
"The Bear, which we soon understood
Was the first house in Southwark built after the flood."
To describe the inn as "the first house in Southwark" might have
been accurate for those callers who approached it over London
Bridge, but in actual chronology the proud distinction of dating
from post-deluge days has really to give place to the much more
recent year of 1319. There is, preserved among the archives of the
city of London a tavern lease of that date which belongs without
doubt to the history of this hostelry, for it refers to the inn
which Thomas Drinkwater had "recently built at the head of London
Bridge." This Thomas Drinkwater was a taverner of London, and the
document in question sets forth how he had granted the lease of the
Bear to one James Beauflur, who agrees to purchase all his wines
from the inappropriately named Drinkwater, who, on his part, was to
furnish his tenant with such necessaries as silver mugs, wooden
hanaps, curtains, cloths and other articles.
A century and a half later the inn figures in the accounts of Sir
John Howard, that warlike "Jacke of Norfolk" who became the first
Duke of Norfolk in the Howard family and fatally attested his
loyalty to his king on Bosworth Field. From that time onward casual
references to the Bear are numerous. It was probably the best-known
inn of Southwark, for its enviable position at the foot of London
Bridge made it conspicuous to all entering or leaving the city. Its
attractions were enhanced by the fact that archery could be
practised in its grounds, and that within those same grounds was the
Thames-side landing stage from whence the tilt-boats started for
Greenwich and Gravesend. It was the opportunity for shooting at the
target which helped to lure Sir John Howard to the Bear, but as he
sampled the wine of the inn before testing his skill as a marksman,
he found himself the poorer by the twenty-pence with which he had
backed his own prowess. Under date 1633 there is an interesting
reference which sets forth that, although orders had been given to
have all the back-doors to taverns on the Thames closed up, owing to
the fact that wrong-doers found them convenient in evading the
officers of the law, an exception was made in the case of the Bear
owing to the fact that it was the starting-place for Greenwich.
[Illustration: BRIDGE-FOOT, SOUTHWARK. (_Showing the Bear Inn
in_ 1616.)]
Evidence in abundance might be cited to show that the inn was a
favourite meeting place with the wits and gallants of the court of
Charles I and the Restoration. "The maddest of all the land came to
bait the Bear," is one testimony; "I stuffed myself with food and
tipple till the hoops were ready to burst," is another. There is one
figure, however, of the thirties of the seventeenth century which
arrests the attention. This is Sir John Suckling, that gifted and
ill-fated poet and man of fashion of whom it was said that he "had
the peculiar happiness of making everything that he did become him."
His ready wit, his strikingly handsome face and person, his wealth
and generosity, his skill in all fashionable pastimes made him a
favourite with all. The preferences of the man, his delight in the
joys of the town as compared with the pleasures of secluded study in
the country, are clearly seen in those sprightly lines in which he
invited the learned John Hales, the "walking library," to leave Eton
and "come to town":
"There you shall find the wit and wine
Flowing alike, and both divine:
Dishes, with names not known in books,
And less among the college-cooks;
With sauce so pregnant, that you need
Not stay till hunger bids you feed.
The sweat of learned Jonson's brain,
And gentle Shakespeare's eas'er strain,
A hackney coach conveys you to,
In spite of all that rain can do:
And for your eighteenpence you sit
The lord and judge of all fresh wit."
Nor was it in verse alone that Suckling celebrated the praises of
wine. Among the scanty remains of his prose there is that lively
sally, written at the Bear, and entitled: "The Wine-drinkers to the
Water-drinkers." After mockingly commiserating with the teetotalers
over the sad plight into which their habits had brought them, the
address continues: "We have had divers meetings at the Bear at the
Bridge-foot, and now at length have resolved to despatch to you one
of our cabinet council, Colonel Young, with some slight forces of
canary, and some few of sherry, which no doubt will stand you in
good stead, if they do not mutiny and grow too headstrong for their
commander. Him Captain Puff of Barton shall follow with all
expedition, with two or three regiments of claret; Monsieur de
Granville, commonly called Lieutenant Strutt, shall lead up the rear
of Rhenish and white. These succours, thus timely sent, we are
confident will be sufficient to hold the enemy in play, and, till we
hear from you again, we shall not think of a fresh supply.... Given
under our hand at the Bear, this fourth of July."
Somewhere about the date when this drollery was penned there
happened at the Bear an incident which might have furnished the
water-drinkers with an effective retort on their satirist. The Earl
of Buccleugh, just returned from military service abroad, on his way
into London, halted at the Bear to quaff a glass of sack with a
friend. A few minutes later he put off in a boat for the further
shore of the Thames, but ere the craft had gone many yards from land
the earl exclaimed, "I am deadly sick, row back; Lord have mercy
upon me!" Those were his last words, for he died that night.
Another picturesque figure of the seventeenth century is among the
shades that haunt the memory of the Bear, Samuel Pepys, that
irrepressible gadabout who was more intimately acquainted with the
inns and taverns of London than any man of his time. That
Thames-side hostelry was evidently a favourite resort of the
diarist. On both occasions of his visits to Southwark Pair he made
the inn his base of operations as it were, especially in 1668 when
the puppet-show of Whittington seemed "pretty to see," though he
could not resist the reflection "how that idle thing do work upon
people that see it, and even myself too!"
Pepys had other excitements that day. He was so mightily taken with
Jacob Hall's dancing on the ropes that on meeting that worthy at a
tavern he presented him with a bottle of wine. Having done justice
to all the sights of the fair, he returned to the Bear, where his
Waterman awaited him with the gold and other things to the value of
forty pounds which the prudent diarist had left in his charge at the
inn "for fear of my pockets being cut."
Pepys himself incidentally explains why he had so friendly a regard
for the Bridge-foot tavern. "Going through bridge by water," he
writes, "my Waterman told me how the mistress of the Beare tavern,
at the bridge-foot, did lately fling herself into the Thames, and
drowned herself; which did trouble me the more, when they tell me it
was she that did live at the White Horse tavern in Lumbard Street,
which was a most beautiful woman, as most I have seen."
Yet another fair woman, Frances Stuart, one of the greatest beauties
of the court of Charles II, is linked with the history of the Beare.
Sad as was the havoc she wrought in the heart of the susceptible
Pepys, who is ever torn between admiration of her loveliness and
mock-reprobation of her equivocal position at court, Frances Stuart
created still deeper passions in men more highly placed than he.
Apart from her royal lover, there were two nobles, the Dukes of York
and Richmond who contended for her hand, with the result of victory
finally resting with the latter. But the match had to be a runaway
one. The king was in no mood to part with his favourite, and so the
lovers arranged a meeting at the Bear, where a coach was in waiting
to spirit them away into Kent. No wonder Charles was offended,
especially when the lady sent him back his presents.
Nearly a century and a half has passed since the Bear finally closed
its doors. All through the lively years of the Restoration it
maintained its reputation as a house of good cheer and a wholly
desirable rendezvous, and it figures not inconspicuously in the
social life of London down to 1761. By that time the ever-increasing
traffic over the Thames bridge had made the enlargement of that
structure a necessity, and the Bear was among the buildings which
had to be demolished.
Further south in the High street, and opposite the house in which
John Harvard, the founder of America's oldest university, was born,
stood the Boar's Head, an inn which was once the property of Sir
Fastolfe, and was by him bequeathed through a friend to Magdalen
College, Oxford. This must not be confused with the Boar's Head of
Shakespeare, which stood in Eastcheap on the other side of the
river, though it is a remarkable coincidence that it was in the
latter inn the dramatist laid the scene of Prince Hal's merrymaking
with the Sir John Falstaff we all know. The earliest reference to
the Southwark Boar's Head occurs in the Paston Letters under date
1459. This is an epistle from a servant of Fastolfe to John Paston,
asking him to remind his master that he had promised him he should
be made host of the Boar's Head, but whether he ever attained to
that desired position there is no evidence to show. The inn makes
but little figure in history; by 1720 it had dwindled to a-mere
courtyard, and in 1830 the last remnants were cleared away.
[Illustration: COURTYARD OF BOAR'S HEAD INN, SOUTHWARK.]
Inevitably, however, the fact that the Boar's Head was the property
of Sir John Fastolfe prompts the question, what relation had he to
the Sir John Falstaff of Shakespeare's plays? This has been a topic
of large discussion for many years. There are so many touches of
character and definite incidents which apply in common to the two
knights that the poet has been assumed to have had the historic
Fastolfe ever in view when drawing the portrait of his Falstaff. The
historian Fuller assumed this to have been the case, for he
complains that the "stage have been overbold" in dealing with
Fastolfe's memory. Sidney Lee, however, sums up the case thus:
"Shakespeare was possibly under the misapprehension, based on the
episode of cowardice reported in 'Henry VI,' that the military
exploits of the historical Sir John Fastolfe sufficiently resembled
those of his own riotous knight to justify the employment of a
corrupted version of his name. It is of course untrue that Fastolfe
was ever the intimate associate of Henry V when Prince of Wales, who
was not his junior by more than ten years, or that he was an
impecunious spendthrift and gray-haired debauchee. The historical
Fastolfe was in private life an expert man of business, who was
indulgent neither to himself nor his friends. He was nothing of a
jester, and was, in spite of all imputations to the contrary, a
capable and brave soldier."
Sad as has been the havoc wrought by time and the hand of man among
the hostelries of Southwark, a considerable portion of one still
survives in its actual seventeenth century guise. This is the George
Inn, which is slightly nearer London Bridge than the Tabard. To
catch a peep of its old-world aspect, with its quaint gallery and
other indubitable tokens of a distant past, gives the pilgrim a
pleasant shock. It is such a contrast to the ugly modern structures
which impose themselves on the public as "Ye Olde" this and "Ye
Olde" that. Here at any rate is a veritable survival. Nor does it
matter that the George has made little figure in history; there is a
whole world of satisfaction in the thought that it has changed but
little since it was built in 1672. Its name is older than its
structure. Stow included the George among the "many fair inns" he
saw in Southwark in 1598, a fact which deals a cruel blow to that
crude theory which declares inns were so named after the royal
Georges of Great Britain.
[Illustration: GEORGE INN.]
Among the numerous other inns which once lined the High Street of
Southwark there is but one which has claims upon the attention on
the score of historic and literary interest. This is the White Hart,
which was doubtless an old establishment at the date, 1406, of its
first mention in historical records. Forty-four years later, that is
in 1450, the inn gained its most notable association by being made
the head-quarters of Jack Cade at the time of his famous
insurrection. Modern research has shown that this rebellion was a
much more serious matter than the older historians were aware of,
but the most careful investigation into Cade's career has failed to
elicit any particulars of note prior to a year before the rising
took place. The year and place of his birth are unknown, but twelve
months before he appears in history he was obliged to flee the realm
and take refuge in France owing to his having murdered a woman who
was with child. He served for a time in the French army, then
returned under an assumed name and settled in Kent, which was the
centre of discontent against Henry VI. As the one hope of reform lay
in an appeal to arms, the discontent broke into open revolt. "The
rising spread from Kent over Surrey and Sussex. Everywhere it was
general and organized--a military levy of the yeomen of the three
shires." It was not of the people alone, for more than a hundred
esquires and gentlemen threw in their lot with the rebels; but how
it came about that Jack Cade attained the leadership is a profound
mystery. Leader, however, he was, and when he, with his twenty
thousand men, took possession of Southwark as the most desirable
base from which to threaten the city of London, he elected the White
Hart for his own quarters. This was on the first of July, 1450, and
for the next few of those midsummer days the inn was the scene of
many stirring and tragic events. Daily, Cade at the head of his
troops crossed the bridge into the city, and on one of those
excursions he caused the seizure and beheadal of the hated Lord Say.
Daily, too, there was constant coming and going at the White Hart of
Cade's emissaries. At length, however, the citizens of London, stung
into action by the robberies and other outrages of the rebels,
occupied the bridge in force. A stubborn struggle ensued, but Cade
and his men were finally beaten off. The amnesty which followed led
to a conference at which terms were arranged and a general pardon
granted. That for Cade, however, as it was made out in his assumed
name of Mortimer, was invalid, and on the discovery being made he
seized a large quantity of booty and fled. Not many days later he
was run to earth, wounded in being captured, and died as he was
being brought back to London. His naked body was identified by the
hostess of the White Hart, who was probably relieved to gaze upon so
certain an indication that she would be able to devote herself once
more to the entertainment of less troublesome guests.
For all the speedy ending of his ambitions, Cade is assured of
immortality so long as the pages of Shakespeare endure. The rebel is
a stirring figure in the Second Part of King Henry VI and as an
orator of the mob reaches his greatest flights of eloquence in that
speech which perpetuates the name of his headquarters at Southwark.
"Hath my sword therefore broke through London gates, that you should
leave me at the White Hart in Southwark?"
But English literature was not done with the old inn. Many changes
were to pass over its head during the nearly four centuries which
elapsed ere it was touched once more by the pen of genius, changes
wrought by the havoc of fire and the attritions of the hand of time.
When those years had fled a figure was to be seen in its courtyard
to become better known to and better beloved by countless thousands
than the rebel leader of the fifteenth century. "In the Borough,"
wrote the creator of that figure, "there still remain some half
dozen old inns, which have preserved their external features
unchanged, and which have escaped alike the rage for public
improvement and the encroachments of private speculation. Great,
rambling, queer old places they are, with galleries, and passages,
and staircases, wide enough and antiquated enough to furnish
materials for a hundred ghost stories.... It was in the yard of one
of these inns--of no less celebrated a one than the White Hart--that
a man was busily employed in brushing the dirt off a pair of boots,
early on the morning succeeding the events narrated in the last
chapter. He was habited in a coarse-striped waistcoat, with black
calico sleeves, and blue glass buttons; drab breeches and leggings.
A bright red handkerchief was wound in a very loose and unstudied
style round his neck, and an old white hat was carelessly thrown on
one side of his head. There were two rows of boots before him, one
cleaned and the other dirty, and at every addition he made to the
clean row, he paused from his work, and contemplated its results
with evident satisfaction."
[Illustration: WHITE HART INN, SOUTHWARK.]
Who does not recognize Sam Weller, making his first appearance in
"The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club"? And who has not
revelled in the lively scene in the White Hart when Mr. Pickwick and
his friends arrived in the nick of time to prevent the ancient but
still sentimental Rachael from becoming Mrs. Jingle? It is not
difficult to understand why that particular instalment of "Pickwick"
was the turning-point of the book's fortunes. Prior to the advent of
Sam in the courtyard of the White Hart the public had shown but a
moderate interest in the new venture of "Boz," but from that event
onward the sales of the succeeding parts were ever on the increase.
Sam and the White Hart, then, had much to do with the career of
Dickens, for if "Pickwick" had failed it is more than probable that
he would have abandoned literature as a profession.
When Dickens wrote, the White Hart was still in existence. It is so
no longer. Till late in the last century this hostelry was spared
the fate which had overtaken so many Southwark taverns, even though,
in place of the nobles it had sheltered, its customers had become
hop-merchants, farmers, and others of lower degree. In 1889, in the
month of July, four hundred and thirty-nine years after it had
received Jack Cade under its roof, the last timbers of the old inn
were levelled to the ground.