The monuments of the original church were well preserved, Stow says.

Those commemorated, however, were of comparatively little eminence;

amongst them were William Combes, donor of £40; James Mountford,

another benefactor to the church, who died 1544. Among the more

recent ones was one in memory of George Clint, parish clerk for

thirty years, who died in 1605.

=Monument Street= was only opened about ten years ago, and cost half a

million of money; this was spent partly in compensation to the

dispossessed leaseholders. It was designed to afford a wide and direct

route to the City for the fish brought from Billingsgate. A row of new

red brick buildings lines part of the way on the right; at the corner of

St. Mary-at-Hill is a post-office. Beyond these buildings is the ancient

graveyard of St. Botolph, Billingsgate, which church was burnt in the

Great Fire and not rebuilt. The graveyard is now used as a public

recreation ground, and is fronted by a neat wall with a parapet, and on

either side of the gate is a high brick pier with a lamp on the summit.

On the south side of Monument Street fragments of waste ground remain

still unbuilt on, and form receptacles for decayed fish and garbage.

For the Coal Exchange see p. 270.

THE WATERMEN

In the sixth year of the reign of Henry VIII. an Act was passed

regulating the traffic of watermen, ferrymen, and bargemen on the

Thames, and settling the fares to be charged by them. In 1555 a

court was held by the “Company,” and in 1648 a proclamation

compelled certain “dirtboats and bumboats” to submit to the

regulations of “the Company.” The Lightermens Company was united to

the Watermens in 1667. But the first charter of incorporation was

not granted until 7 and 8 George IV., 1827; and this was amended by

two acts of Victoria in 1859 and 1864.

After the Great Fire the Watermen’s Hall was erected on the

south-west corner of the Cold Harbour quay, where Strype’s map shows

it. It was a handsome brick building, and was in use by the Company

until 1780, when, their premises being required for an extension of

the brewery, they vacated them, afterwards removing to their present

hall in St. Mary-at-Hill. The old hall faced the Thames upon New

Key, and in front to the river there was a large flight of stone

stairs, open at all times to watermen and the public. They had been

in uninterrupted use for a long period since the Great Fire, and had

neither gate nor other obstruction. They became at length much

dilapidated, and were “altogether removed and the wharf closed up”

says Wilkinson, a few years prior to 1825. The hall, wharf, and

stairs are shown in an engraving published by S. and N. Buck in

1749.

Love Lane was formerly Rope Lane, afterwards Lucas Lane, and then

corruptly Love Lane.

It is a crooked winding thoroughfare paved by flags, and the houses are

mainly inhabited by fish salesmen who work at Billingsgate. Beyond the

church are large warehouses, and business houses in the usual style.

The back of a famous old house now used as a ward school is in Love

Lane, but its front faces on to a cobble-stone yard connected with

Botolph Lane by a covered entry. Within the house everything points to

its having been the residence of some one of wealth and taste. The hall

is paved with alternate slabs of black and white marble. The staircase

is wide and beautifully proportioned and decorated. The date 1670 is on

the ceiling; on the first floor four doors with rich wood carving on the

pediments and lintels attract attention. Ceilings and fireplaces alike

bespeak careful work. One of the latter is inlaid in different coloured

marbles with a white marble plaque of a sleeping child. But downstairs,

in a small room on the ground floor, is the chief feature of interest.

The walls and panels are literally covered with oil-paintings with the

artist’s name and the date “R. Robinson, 1696.” The subject seems to be

life in different parts of the globe. The ceiling is of oak heavily

carved, though, alas! whitewashed.

The house is now a ward school, and though in repair shows inevitable

signs of wear and tear. The hall pavement is stained and broken, the

carved woodwork thickly covered with paint and varnish, yet in spite of

all this is a place well worth seeing, probably the oldest

dwelling-house in the City.

=St. Andrew Hubbard=, sometimes called St. Andrew, Eastcheap,

formerly stood in Love Lane. It was burnt down in the Great Fire and

not rebuilt. The parish was then annexed to St. Mary-at-Hill. The

earliest date of an incumbent is 1366.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Earl of

Pembroke in 1323; John, Lord Talbot, cousin and heir of the above,

1427; Edward IV., who restored it, 1463, to the Earl of Shrewsbury,

who presented it in 1470; the Earl of Northumberland up to 1666,

when it was annexed to St. Mary-at-Hill, after which the alternate

patronage was shared with the Duke of Somerset.

Houseling people in 1548 were 282.

The charitable gifts recorded of this parish are very few; the

donors of them were: Margaret Dean, 3s. 4d. per annum; Mr. Jacobs,

£1 : 6 : 4; Mr. Green, £1. All were for the use of the poor.

The most notable rector was John Randall (1570-1622), Fellow of

Lincoln College, Oxford.

In =Little Eastcheap= was the weigh-house, built on the site of St.

Andrew Hubbard, and rebuilt after the Fire.

“Which said Weighhouse was before in Cornhill. In this House are weighed

merchandizes brought from beyond seas to the King’s Beam, to which doth

belong a Master, and under him four Master Porters, with labouring

Porters under them. They have Carts and Horses to fetch the goods from

the Merchants’ Warehouses to the Beam, and to carry them back. The house

belongeth to the Company of Grocers, in whose gifts the several

Porters’, etc., places are. But of late years little is done in this

office, as wanting a compulsive power to constrain the merchants to have

their goods weighed; they alleging it to be an unnecessary trouble and

charge” (Cunningham).

=Philpot Lane= was named after Sir John Philpot, mayor.

At the south-east end of =Rood Lane= is the Church of St. Margaret

Pattens, so called, according to Stow, because pattens were sold there.

Formerly the lane was called St. Margaret Pattens, but when about

1536-38 the church was rebuilt, a rood was set up in the churchyard and

oblations made to the rood were employed in building the church. But in

1538 the rood was discovered to be broken, together with the

“tabernacle” wherein it had been placed. There was then a colony or

settlement of basket-makers in the parish, among whose houses a fire

broke out in the same month, which destroyed twelve houses and took the

lives of nine persons.

ST. MARGARET PATTENS

This church was rebuilt, as Stow records, in the reign of Henry

VIII.; thoroughly repaired in 1614 and 1632, but destroyed by the

Great Fire. The present church was completed by Wren in 1687. The

parish of St. Gabriel’s, Fenchurch, was annexed to it after 1666.

The earliest date of an incumbent is 1305.

The derivation of the name is obscure; Stow’s conjecture has already

been given.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The family of the

Nevils in 1281; Robert Rickenden and Margaret his wife, who

confirmed it to Richard Whittington, who bestowed it on the Mayor

and Commonalty of London in 1411, with whom it continued up to 1666

when St. Gabriel’s was annexed, and it was therefore shared

alternately with the Crown.

Houseling people in 1548 were 223.

The church measures 66 feet in length, 52 feet in breadth, and 32

feet in height, and consists of a nave, chancel, and north aisle.

The steeple consists of a tower, terminated by a cornice and

balustrade, with four pinnacles at the corners, above which a spire

rises, culminating in a ball and vane. The spire, which is 200 feet,

is taller than any other of Wren’s similar ones, and the steeple

comes third in order of height of those of his churches. There is a

picture on the north side of the church which is said to be the work

of Carlo Maratti (1625-1713), a Roman painter. The church is famous

for its canopied pews, the only ones in the city; in one of these

the initials C. W., supposed to be those of Sir Christopher Wren,

and the date 1686, are inlaid.

A chantry was founded here by: Peter at Vyne, at the Altar of

Blessed Virgin Mary, to which John Skelton was admitted chaplain

1472-73.

The original church does not seem to have possessed any monuments of

note. Of the later ones, the most interesting are those of: Giles

Vandeput, erected by his son, Sir Peter Vandeput, who was sheriff in

1684, and donor of £100 to the parish; Sir Peter Delme, Lord Mayor

in 1723, whose monument is the work of Johan Michael Rysbrack, or

Rysbrach, of Antwerp; Dr. Thomas Birch, Secretary of the Royal

Society, and author, who was rector here for nearly nineteen years,

was buried in the chancel, 1766. The side altar of the north aisle

contains a Della Robbia plaque representing the Virgin and Child, in

memory of Thomas Wagstaffe, the ablest of the non-jurors, appointed

rector here in 1684 and deprived in 1690.

Sir Peter Vandeput was donor of £100 to the parish; —— Collyer of

£5; Thomas Salter of £20; Richard Camden of £20. The other

charitable gifts recorded amounted to £6 per annum.

John Milward (1556-1609), chaplain to James I., was rector here;

also Thomas Birch (1705-66), Secretary to the Royal Society; and

Peter Whalley (1722-91), head-master of Christ’s Hospital, and

author of various works.

ST. MARY-AT-HILL

We pass on to St. Mary-at-Hill; a church well known on account of

the energetic work of its rector, Rev. W. Carlile, founder of the

Church Army, who popularises church work among his poor parishioners

by lantern services and other devices. The date of the foundation of

the original church is not known, but there is evidence of its

existence in the middle of the fourteenth century. In 1616 it was

thoroughly repaired, but the body of it was destroyed by the Great

Fire and rebuilt by Wren, 1672-77. The stone tower remained standing

till 1780, when it was considered insecure and pulled down, when it

was replaced by the present one. In 1892 the church was closed for

two years, while 3000 bodies were removed from beneath the flooring

to Norwood Cemetery. The parish of St. Andrew Hubbard was not

rebuilt after the Fire, and was annexed to this. The earliest date

of an incumbent is 1337.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of Richard Hackney,

sheriff of London, who presented to it in 1337, and so on; it

remained in private persons up to 1640, when the parishioners

presented to it, up to 1666, when the parish of St. Andrew Hubbard

was annexed to it, the patronage now being alternate, Sir Henry Peek

having presented last in right of St. Andrew Hubbard in 1891.

Houseling people in 1548 were 400.

The church measures 96 feet in length and 60 feet in breadth, and is

crowned by a cupola which rises to the height of 38 feet. The cupola

is divided into panels and is supported by four Doric columns,

forming two side aisles. The ceiling to the east and west of this is

arched, as well as that of the side aisles between the columns, so

that the appearance of the roof is thus rendered cruciform. There is

a great quantity of carving in the church, but of a late date, being

the work of Mr. W. Gibbs Rogers, who executed it in 1848-49 when the

church was remodelled.

Chantries were founded here: By Rose Wrytell, at the Altar of St.

Edmund the King, before 1336. She left six marks for an endowment,

and Michael de Leek was licensed as chaplain, November 5, 1365. The

value was £8 : 2 : 6 in 1548, when Christopher Burley was priest at

the age of 43 years, “a good singer and well learned.” By John

Weston, whose endowment fetched £8 : 13 : 4 in 1548. By John Nasing,

at the Altar of St. Katherine. Harry Yorkflete the chaplain

exchanged it with John atte Welle, February 20, 1395-96; Thomas

Lewes was priest in 1548, “of the age of 42 years, a good singer and

player on the organ and prettily learned.” By William Cambridge,

whose endowment fetched £10 : 6 : 8 in 1548, when Matthew Berye was

priest, “of the age of 40 years, a good singer and indifferently

well learned.” By John Cawston, whose endowment yielded £20 : 17 : 8

in 1548, when Edmond Alston was priest, “of 36 years, a good singer

and handsomely learned.” By Richard Gosselinge, whose endowment

produced £9 in 1548, when John Sherpyn was priest, “of the age of 44

years, a teacher of children.” By John Bodman, whose endowment

fetched £14 : 6 : 8 in 1548.

The church formerly contained a considerable number of monuments,

but the persons commemorated are of comparatively little eminence.

Sir John Hampson, Knight and alderman, was buried here in 1607.

Within the communion rails of the present building the body of the

Rev. John Brand lies interred, who died in 1806; he was Fellow and

Secretary of the Society of Antiquaries, and rector here for some

years. Edward Young, the poet, was married here to Lady Elizabeth

Lee, in 1731.

£10 or £11 per annum were given to the poor by several benefactors,

to be expended on bread. Other gifts recorded by Stow are: £40, from

Sir William Leman, for the maintenance of a Divinity Lecture; from

Jane Revel; £4 : 10s. to be paid every tenth year, from Bernard

Hyde.

Andrew Snape, D.D., Master of Eton College, Vice-Chancellor of

Cambridge 1721-23, was rector here.

At the south-eastern corner of St. Mary-at-Hill stands the mighty

building of the Coal Exchange. The material used is Portland stone, and

the great tower and cupola which rises above the street still retains

its whiteness. The Exchange was opened in 1849. Monday is the principal

market day, but markets are also held on Wednesdays and Fridays. Under

the Exchange are the remains of an old Roman bath, which was discovered

when the foundations were being made. Strype says that above the stairs

at Billingsgate “the coalmen and woodmongers meet every morning about

eight or nine o’clock, this place being their Exchange, for the coal

trade which brings a great resort of people and occasions a great trade

to the inhabitants. And this place is now more frequented than in

ancient time, when Greenhithe was made use of for the same purpose, this

being more commodious. And therefore it was ordained to be the only port

for all such sorts of merchandise.”

[Illustration:

_Pictorial Agency._

THE COAL EXCHANGE

]

Up to 1846 Billingsgate Fish-market contained only sheds and squalid

buildings in which the fish trade was carried on. But in that year J. B.

Bunning, the City architect, was employed to build a regular market. In

1872 the great increase of the trade and the necessity for further

accommodation induced the Corporation to pull down this building and

rebuild on a larger scale. Old Darkhouse Lane and Billingsgate Stairs

were utilised to gain an increased site as the great bulk of the Custom

House prevented any expansion eastward.

Sir Horace Jones was the architect. The building is of an Italian design

and is of Portland stone with facings of yellow brick and polished grey

granite plinths and wall linings. A long arcade faces Thames Street, and

at each end there are pavilion buildings. Within, the basement has an

area of about 20,000 superficial feet. On the ground floor the area is

39,000 square feet. The roof is on the Louvre glass principle carried on

lattice girders of 60 feet span. There is a gallery with an area of 4000

feet; this is utilised for the sale of haddocks and dried fish.

=St. Botolph, Billingsgate=, stood against St. Botolph’s Lane, on

the south side of Thames Street. It was repaired in 1624, but burnt

down by the Great Fire and not rebuilt, its parish being annexed to

St. George, Botolph Lane. It stood against the Bridge Gate of the

first London Bridge, just as the other three churches of St. Botolph

stood at Aldgate, Aldersgate, and Bishopsgate. The earliest date of

an incumbent is 1343.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of the Dean and Chapter

of St. Paul’s, who received it from Orgarus about 1181.

Houseling people in 1548 were 300.

Chantries were founded here: By and for Thomas Snodyland, late

rector, who died 1349, in the chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary, of

which Nicholas de Wansyngdon was chaplain, and exchanged it April

11, 1163—the King granted a licence for it December 15, 1371; by

John Pickman, at the Altar of Our Lady, whose endowment fetched £10

in 1548, when Thomas Serle was priest, “of the age of 50 years, of

good consideration and learning touching ordinary things”; by Thomas

Aubrey, whose endowment fetched £8 : 6 : 8 in 1548, when Thomas

Baynton was priest, “of the age of 60 years, of good consideration

and learning”; by Roger Smallwood. Here was founded the Fraternity

of Our Lady and St. John the Baptist. The endowment fetched £14 in

1548, when William Lucay was priest, “of the age of 50 years, a man

of good conversation and small learning.”

The church originally contained many monuments, but most of them had

disappeared by 1633. John Rainwell, mayor, 1426, had been buried in

it; also Stephen Forster, mayor in 1454.

Some of the donors of charitable gifts to the parish were: Robert

Fellows, of £25; William Fellows, of £25; Thomas Barber, of £6 :

18 : 6, and others of small amounts.

The parishes of St. George, Botolph Lane, and St. Botolph,

Billingsgate, in conjunction with the other part of Billingsgate

ward, maintained forty boys by subscription.

Laurence Bothe, rector here, became Bishop of Durham, 1457; of York,

1476-80 (died): also William Sherlock (d. 1707), Dean of St. Paul’s.

=Billingsgate=, like Queenhithe, is an artificial port, constructed with

great ease by digging out the foreshore of mud and shingle, and

protecting the square harbour thus formed by piles of timber, on which

beams were laid to form a quay, and sheds were built up for the

protection of the merchandise.

The port was close to the north end of the first bridge, so that goods

landed here might be easily carried into the Roman fort, while the port

itself was protected by the fort. After the desertion of London by the

Romans, the occupation by the Saxons, and the revival of trade,

Billingsgate remained the principal port, though a large share of the

trade went to Queenhithe. The mouth of the Walbrook seems to have ceased

very early in the history of London to be a port. Billingsgate robbed

Queenhithe of its trade in spite of all injunctions of restraint.

[Illustration:

_Pictorial Agency, Photo._

BILLINGSGATE MARKET

]

The fish-market has long since overwhelmed every other kind of

merchandise. The language and manners, the rough customs, and the

drinking habits of the Billingsgate fish-wives are proverbial. They have

now, however, all vanished, and the market is as quiet and decorous as

any other. A curious custom is noted by Cunningham. The porters who

plied at Billingsgate used to invite the passengers to stop and salute a

certain post. If one complied, and paid down sixpence, they gave him a

name, and pretended to be his sponsors. If one refused, they laid hold

of him and bumped him against the post. The custom reminds one of the

same bumping practised in walking the bounds of the parish; it had

probably the same origin, in keeping alive the memory of something by

the infliction of pain. The custom remained when the cause and reason

had long been forgotten.

This end of Thames Street was called Petty Wales. Stow has an

interesting note on this subject:

“Towards the east end thereof, namely, over against Galley key, Wool

key, and the Custom House, there have been of old time some large

buildings of stone, the ruins thereof do yet remain, but the first

builders and owners of them are worn out of memory, wherefore the common

people affirm Julius Cæsar to be the builder thereof, as also of the

Tower itself. But thereof I have spoken already. Some are of another

opinion, and that a more likely, that this great stone building was

sometime the lodging appointed for princes of Wales, when they repaired

to this city, and that, therefore, the street in that part is called

Petty Wales, which name remaineth there most commonly until this day,

even as where the kings of Scotland were used to be lodged betwixt

Charing Cross and White Hall, it is likewise called Scotland, and where

the earls of Britons were lodged without Aldersgate, the street is

called Britain Street, etc.

“The said building might of old time pertain to the princes of Wales, as

is aforesaid, but is since turned to other use.”

The Custom House itself, with its magnificent frontage and fine quay, is

the fifth built upon the same spot. The first was built in 1385. The

second, third, and fourth were all destroyed by fire. No doubt the

Custom officers could tell fine tales of exciting adventure, of ruin or

fortune, of clever evasions and despicable tricks; but these things are

secret. The House itself, with the ships, the busy wharfingers, the

boatmen, and the general liveliness of the scene, are all that are

apparent. Yet it requires little imagination to see the enormous

importance of the business done in this solid building of Smirke’s. A

great source of our national income, a large part of the nation’s

wealth, comes from this house. Tons of goods—ranging from hemp, honey,

leeches, tobacco, to manufactured goods, marble, sugar, and spirits—are

daily surveyed by the Customs officers. Our total imports for 1901 were

worth nearly £522,000,000.

Beyond the Custom House is Wool Wharf, then several small quays, of

which one, Galley Quay, carries a history in its name. It was so called

because the Venetian and Genoese galleys here discharged their cargoes.

There is a tradition of some religious house having stood here also.

Hear what Stow says:

“In this Lane of old time dwelt divers strangers, born of Genoa and

those parts; these were commonly called galley men, as men that came up

in the galleys brought up wines and other merchandises, which they

landed in Thames Street, at a place called Galley key; they had a

certain coin of silver amongst themselves, which were halfpence of

Genoa, and were called Galley halfpence; these halfpence were forbidden

in the 13th of Henry IV., and again by parliament in the 4th of Henry V.

And it was enacted that if any person bring into this realm Galley

halfpence, suskins, or dodkins, he should be punished as a thief; and he

that taketh or payeth such money shall lose a hundred shillings, whereof

the king shall have the one half, and he that will sue the other half.

Notwithstanding, in my youth, I have seen them pass current, but with

some difficulty, for that the English halfpence were then, though not so

broad, somewhat thicker and stronger.”

THE BAKERS COMPANY

The Guild or Fraternity of Bakers would seem to have been in

existence as early as any other, seeing that the craft or mystery of

baking is the most ancient in existence. In the reign of Henry II.,

A.D. 1155, the Fraternity was charged in the Great Roll of the

Exchequer with one mark of gold for their Guild.

The Bakers Company, as the united Company of White and Brown bakers,

was first incorporated by charter of Henry VIII., dated July 22,

1509, to make, create, build, and establish a certain perpetual

fraternity or guild of one master and four keepers of the commonalty

of freemen of the mystery of bakers of the City of London and

suburbs thereof then dwelling, or thereafter to dwell, and of the

brothers and sisters freemen of the said mystery and others who

would choose to be of the same fraternity or guild within the City

aforesaid, and that the same master, four keepers, and commonalty

should for ever continue to be one corporate body, with power to

elect annually from among themselves one master and four keepers for

the superintending, ruling, and governing of the said mystery and

commonalty.

Previous to 1509 there were separate Companies of White Bakers and

Brown Bakers, and the White Bakers appear to have been incorporated

as early as 1307. From 1509 to 1622 the two Companies remained

united as the Bakers Company, but in 1622 the Brown Bakers,

conceiving themselves in some way ill-used or neglected, succeeded

in getting a separate charter of their own, and remained a separate

Company for thirty to forty years, when a peace was patched up, and

the two Companies were finally united in the Bakers Company.

Their hall in Harp Lane, formerly Hart Lane, is said by Stow to have

been the residence of one of the Chichele family, a grand-nephew of

the Archbishop and grandson of his brother the mayor or his brother

the sheriff. It was burned down in 1714 and rebuilt in 1719. The

genealogy below shows how this John Chichele was related to the

Archbishop of Canterbury and Founder of All Souls.

[Illustration:

_Photo. York & Son._

CUSTOM HOUSE

]

John Chichele

├── Henry, Archbishop.

├── Robert, Sheriff, 1402; Mayor, 1411.

└── William, Alderman and Sheriff, 1409.

├── John, Chamberlain.

│ └── Twenty-four children.

└── William, Archdeacon.

The livery consists of 111; the Corporate Income is about £1580; the

Trust Income is £320.

Roman remains have been found in =Tower Street=. Mention is made of the

street from the thirteenth century, if not earlier, but the street is

singularly lacking in historical associations. Here the Earl of

Rochester, escaping from his friends, took up lodgings and pretended for

some weeks, not without success, to be an Italian physician. Here was

the tavern frequented by Peter the Czar after getting through his day’s

work.

At the west end of Tower Street was a “fair house” once belonging to one

Griste, by whom Jack Cade was feasted. After the feast he requited his

host by robbing him.

There is also a house once owned by Sir John Champney, mayor in 1534. He

built a high tower of brick, proposing, in his pride, to look down upon

his neighbours. But he did not succeed, being punished by blindness. The

house was afterwards occupied by Sir Percival Hart, Knight Harbinger to

the Queen.

ST. DUNSTAN IN THE EAST

St. Dunstan in the East stands on St. Dunstan’s Hill, between Great

Tower Street and Upper Thames Street, and was anciently known as St.

Dunstan Juxta-Turrim. The date of its foundation is not known, but

an enlargement is recorded in 1382. It was partially destroyed in

the Great Fire and restored under Wren’s hands in 1698. This

building, with the exception of the steeple, was pulled down in

1810, and in 1817 the body of the present church was built of

Portland stone in the Perpendicular style by Laing and Tite. The

earliest date of an incumbent is 1312.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of the Prior and

Chapter of Christ Church, Canterbury, who granted it, April 24,

1365, to Simon Islip, Archbishop of Canterbury, and his successors,

in whom it continues.

Houseling people in 1548 were 900.

The present church is in the Perpendicular Gothic style, and

contains two side aisles divided from the central portion by slender

clustered columns and pointed arches, with a clerestory above. It

measures 115 feet in length, 65½ feet in breadth, and 40 feet in

height. The steeple is one of Wren’s most striking works. The tower,

measuring 21 square feet at the base, has four stories, surmounted

by four tall pinnacles; from behind these spring four arched ribs,

supporting a lantern and spire, terminating in a ball and vane. The

total height is 180 feet 4 inches. Though it is fragile in

appearance, it is very scientifically and strongly constructed. The

central east window has been closely copied from fragments which

were found during the excavations previous to rebuilding, and is the

work of Mr. John Buckler. Many of the windows contain the

coats-of-arms of benefactors, the work of Messrs. Baillie.

The only relics of the wood-carving by Grinling Gibbons which

adorned Wren’s church are the arms of Archbishop Tenison, primate

from 1695, now placed in the vestry-room; and the organ case for

Father Smith’s organ—this was sold to St. Alban’s Abbey, but is to

be brought back.

Several chantries were founded here: The Fraternity of Our Lady

founded by John Joye; by Joan Maken and Alice Lynne, at the Altar of

Jesus—their endowment fetched £20 : 11 : 8 in 1548, when Philip

Matthew was chaplain; for Richard de Eymne in 1285; by John Bosham

cl., and Alice, who was the wife of Nicholas Potyn, at the Altar of

Holy Trinity, for John and Alice, and for Nicholas Potyn (the King

granted his licence June 20, 1408; the endowment fetched £17 : 16 :

8 in 1548, when Robert Neale was priest); by Richard Coldbrok, whose

endowment fetched £13 : 3 : 4 in 1548, when Thomas Rock was priest;

by William Barret, at the Altar of Our Lady—his endowment yielded

£12 in 1548, when John Flude was chaplain.

Before the Great Fire, the church contained a monument to Sir John

Hawkins, the naval hero; and here Admiral Sir John Lawson, who was

mortally wounded in the sea-fight with the Dutch off Lowestoft in

1665, was buried. The present building contains a considerable

number of monuments, but few of those commemorated were persons of

eminence. There is a monument on the north wall to Sir John Moore,

President of Christ’s Hospital, and friend and partisan of Charles

II.; he died in 1702. The largest monument is one on the south side

of the chapel to Sir William Russell, who died in 1705. On the north

wall there is a tablet in memory of Richard Hale, in gratitude for

his granddaughter’s (Lady Williamson) gift of £4000 for the

rebuilding of the church. The most recent memorial is one affixed to

the north wall commemorating Colonel John Finnis, one of the heroes

of the Indian Mutiny 1857.

The names of a large number of benefactors are recorded by Stow,

among them, Sir Bartholomew James, William Sevenoaks, Sir William

Hariott, whose coat-of-arms is to be seen in the windows of the

north and south walls. William Bateman was a donor of £200, and

Gilbert Keate of £120.

Richard Smith (1503-63), Dean of Douai, was rector here 1554-57;

also John May (d. 1598), Bishop of Carlisle; Dr. John Jortin

(1698-1770), author of _The Life of Erasmus_; John Morton,

Archbishop of Canterbury; William Barlow (d. 1613), Bishop of

Rochester and Bishop of Lincoln.

=Mincing Lane= is so called from having been at one time the residence

or the property of certain Minchuns or Nuns, Stow says, belonging to St.

Helen’s. This house was only founded in 1212.

This street is not mentioned in Riley’s _Memorials_. In the _Calendar of

Wills_ it occurs in 1273, “houses in Menechinlane”; also in 1294; in

1304, “land and shops in Minchom Lane.” In 1362, “Mengeonlane”; and many

other dates up to 1620.

From end to end this street is lined with solid business houses chiefly

in dark imitation stone. A building which attracts attention about

half-way down on the east side is the Commercial Sale Rooms, occupying

Nos. 30 to 34. This is new, of light-coloured stone, and along the

frontage of the top floor run small granite columns in couples. Dunster

Court is surrounded by offices, etc. In it is Dunster House, occupied

chiefly by brokers and merchants. Next to it is the Clothworkers’ Hall.

THE CLOTHWORKERS COMPANY

The craft of Fullers, and the Fraternity of Sheermen, arose out of

an association of persons subsidiary to the ancient “Gild” of

Tellarii, or woollen weavers, together with the Burrellers and

Testers, who seem to have been absorbed into the great guilds or

companies of Drapers and Merchant Taylors, all being associations of

persons connected with the fabrication, finishing, or vending of

cloth. The earliest notice existing in the Company’s archives is in

1456, respecting the Sheermen.

It appears, by reference to patent roll of 19 Edward IV., membrane

28, “Pro Pannariis Civitatis London,” that the wardens of the

fellowship of Sheermen, albeit unincorporate, had the power of

search over their own craft, “according to the laudable custom of

the city,” but the master wardens and fellowship of the two crafts

and mysteries of Drapers and Taylors, were thereby assured that no

charter of incorporation should be given to the Sheermen, etc.

The Fullers were incorporated the next year, 28th April, 20 Edward

IV., “Pro Fraternitate in arte Fullorum.” They would appear to have

been resident in the neighbourhood of Whitechapel Church, that

parish having been called “Villa Beatæ Mariæ de Matfellon,” a

designation derived, as has been supposed, from the fact of the herb

called “Matfellon” (“Fullers’ Teasel”), used extensively by the

fullers inhabiting that quarter, growing in a field hard by where

their tenter grounds were situate; the patron saint of the Fullers,

as of the Clothworkers afterwards, being the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The Fullers’ Hall was in Billiter Square.

[Illustration:

_Drawn by Thos. H. Shepherd._

CLOTHWORKERS’ HALL

]

The Sheermen received their charter, “Incorporatio de lez Shermen,

Lond.,” 24th January, 23 Henry VII., 1507-8.

The guilds or companies of Fullers and Sheermen were united and

reincorporated under the name and style of “The Master Wardens and

Commonalty of Freemen of the Art or Mystery of Clothworkers of the

City of London,” 18th January, 19 Henry VIII.

A freeman or woman of the Company is entitled, if well accounted and

continuing of good name and fame, and having fallen into poverty or

necessity, to be refreshed weekly, monthly, or quarterly towards his

or her sustentation and living, out of the corporate funds of the

Company, as well as out of the trust funds specifically left for

that purpose by benefactors; also to be decently buried on their

decease at the costs of the Company. There are a limited number of

almshouses for freemen and women, founded by members of the Company,

and there are trust funds likewise left by former benefactors for

the relief and sustentation of decayed or worn-out members.

The livery is 180 in number; the Corporate Income is £42,000; the

Trust Income is £18,000. The hall is at 41 Mincing Lane. Stow merely

mentions the existence of the hall. The original hall was burned

down in the Fire, rebuilt, taken down in 1856, and rebuilt by Samuel

Angell, architect. Among the most distinguished members of this

Company were Samuel Pepys, President of the Royal Society, and

Master of the Company in 1677; and Lord Kelvin, who filled similar

positions.

This rich Company has long been remarkable even among the other

wealthy Companies of the City for the encouragement and advancement

of technical education. It has either wholly or in part endowed

technical and scientific schools at Bradford, Leeds, Huddersfield,

Keighley, Bristol, and other places. It has contributed to the City

and Guilds of London Technical Institute sums amounting to £118,350,

and in addition gives an annual subsidy of £3300.

=Mark Lane=, once Mart Lane, is mentioned in the thirteenth century; in

1276, Robert le Chaloner had a house in Mark Lane in the ward of William

de Hadestocke, _i.e._ Town Ward. And the _Calendar of Wills_ mentions

the lane a little later and has many references to it. In 1750 it

contained “divers large houses for merchants, though some of them are

old timber houses.” The street escaped the Fire.

Milton’s friend Cyriack Skinner lived here. Isaac Watts was assistant

preacher in a meeting-house in this street.

Mark Lane is of the same general character as Mincing Lane, but

possesses a point of distinction in the Corn Exchange. The new building

is on the east side, a little to the south of the old one. This is a

fine building, erected 1881 by Edward l’Anson. The high glass roof is

supported in the interior by rows of light stone columns. The old Corn

Exchange, rebuilt 1747 by J. Woods, has a heavy colonnade of fluted

Doric columns which attracts attention in the line of the street. In a

small court opposite the new building is a fine doorway, and passing

down the entry we find ourselves facing a splendid old red-brick City

mansion in good repair. Brick pilasters ending in ornate stuccoed

capitals run up to a frieze or cornice above the first floor. The

elaborate pediment over the doorway is supported by fluted columns and

encloses a design of cherubs and foliage.

On the east side of Mark Lane we have Nos. 69 and 70 of rather unusual

design, and the remainder of the street is one uniform sweep of

buildings in an unobtrusive and useful style.

On the west side near the north end was the church of Allhallows

Staining.

=Allhallows Staining= was so called from its having been built of

stone and not of timber. It was not burnt down in the Great Fire,

but fell down suddenly in 1669, and was rebuilt in 1694. The

building was taken down in 1870. The earliest date of an incumbent

is 1258.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The family of de

Waltham, 1285; the Abbey and Convent of St. Mary Graces; the Crown;

George Bingley and others; Lady Slaney, 1802, who bequeathed it to

the Grocers Company.

Houseling people in 1548 were 424.

The church contained a beautiful east window of pointed glass

presented by the Company of Grocers.

Chantries were founded here by: William de Grenestede, to which John

de Paxton, priest, was admitted November 27, 1362; William Palmer,

whose endowment fetched £3 : 6 : 8 in 1548.

This church contained monuments to: John Gostin, a benefactor to the

parish; Sir Richard Yate, Knight Ambassador for Henry VIII.; William

Frith, painter; and Ralf Hanson, a benefactor of the church.

Some of the donors of charitable gifts were: John Gostin, of 800

bushels of coal; Mary Baynham, of £5 : 4s.; Thomas Bulley, Esq., of

£15 for the minister and poor; William Winter, of £30 for the

education of six boys. Six boys were taught to read and write, and,

when qualified, put out as apprentices, with each of whom was given

£10, in accordance with the will of William Winter.

=Hart Street, Crutched Friars, Seething Lane.=—These streets may all be

taken together. The most remarkable historical association of the

streets is the Crutched Friars’ House, on the site of which was

afterwards erected the Navy Office. The square court of the office,

which had one entrance in Crutched Friars and another in Seething Lane,

was originally the cloister garth of the convent. The Navy Office has

been removed, but the square remains, and one may still see the lions

that were placed at the principal entrance. Pepys lived for nine years

in Seething Lane so as to be near his office. Sir Francis Walsingham

lived and died in this street, and here the Earl of Essex had his town

house.

[Illustration:

WHITTINGTON’S HOUSE, CRUTCHED FRIARS, 1796

]

The monastery of the Crutched or Crossed Friars was founded in 1298. The

symbol was a cross worn upon their habit; this cross was made of red

cloth. Henry VIII. granted their house to Sir Thomas Wyatt, who built a

new mansion on part of the site.

After the destruction of the house, the site of the church became a

“Carpenter’s yard, a tennis court, and the like.” The Friars’ Hall

became a glasshouse until 1575, when it was destroyed by fire. There

appear to be no remains at all of the monastic buildings. For account,

see _Mediæval London_, vol. ii. p. 342.

It was in Crutched Friars that the massive fragment of the three seated

goddesses, the _Dea Matres_, was found.

Here were the Milbourne Almshouses.

“Concerning this gift of Sir John Milbourn, it appears by Dolphin’s will

that he built thirteen Almshouses in his Life time on a Plot of Ground

in the Parish of St. Olave’s near the Tower Algate Ward, next adjoining

on the South part of the Choir, or Chancel of the Conventual Church of

the Priory of Crossed Friers of London, and the Convent of the said

Place, within the Precinct sometime of their House.”

Pepys’ connection with Seething Lane has already been mentioned.

In Hart Street lived Sir Richard Whittington; his house was round a

courtyard entered by a gateway not far from Mark Lane.

ST. OLAVE, HART STREET

This church is at the corner of Hart Street and Seething Lane. It

was formerly called St. Olave Juxta-Turrim. The date of its

foundation is unknown, but the present building was probably

constructed during the fifteenth century. Stow speaks of Richard and

Robert Cely as the “principal builders and benefactors,” but gives

no date. It was expensively repaired early in the reign of Charles

I. and again in 1863 and 1870, when several interesting relics were

transferred from Allhallows Staining, which was annexed. The

earliest date of an incumbent is 1314.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of the family of

Nevils, 1281, from whom it passed to John Luffwick, and others about

1398, and so passed to several private persons, up to 1557, when it

came to the Windsor family, from whom it passed to Sir Andrew

Riccard, Knt., who in 1672 bequeathed it to trustees for the parish,

of whom there are five.

Houseling people in 1548 were 1435.

The present church is built in the Perpendicular style, and contains

two side aisles separated from the central portion by clustered

columns and pointed arches with a clerestory above. It is one of the

smallest of the City churches being a square of only 54 feet.

There are many interesting monuments, the most ancient of which is a

brass in memory of Sir Richard Haddon, mercer, twice Lord Mayor

(1506 and 1512). On the east wall of the south aisle William Turner

is commemorated, Dean of Wells and physician to Protector Somerset;

he was the author of a botanical book, _Herbal_, the first of its

kind published in English. Against the north wall there is a

monument to Sir Andrew Riccard (d. 1672), one of the greatest

merchants of his age. The most interesting person connected with

this church is Samuel Pepys, the Diarist, Secretary to the Admiralty

in 1673, and President of the Royal Society 1684-85. He was buried

here in 1703, and a monument erected to him in 1884 and unveiled by

the late James Russell Lowell. His colleague, Admiral Sir John

Mennis, is also commemorated by a tablet at the south end of the

chancel; he was Comptroller of the Navy and part author of _Musarum

Deliciae_. In the parish register the baptism of Robert Devereux,

3rd Earl of Essex, is entered; he commanded the parliamentary forces

at the outbreak of the Civil War.

The most notable of the benefactors to this parish were: Sir John

Worstenholm, donor of £100; Andrew Windsores, of £6 : 13 : 4; Sir

James Dean, of £5 : 4s.

In Crutched Friars there were fifteen almshouses belonging to the

Drapers Company for as many decayed freemen of that Company and

their wives, to whom 5s. per month was allowed and one load of coals

per annum. In Gunpowder Alley there were ten almshouses (the gift of

Lord Banyan in 1631, but surrendered to the parish by 1732), which

allowed each of their poor in that place 1s. to 4s. per week and

two, three, or four bushels of coals at Christmas.

[Illustration:

_Pictorial Agency._

PEPYS’ CHURCH (ST. OLAVE, HART STREET)

]

Dr. Daniel Mills, to whom Samuel Pepys frequently refers in his

_Diary_, was rector here for thirty-two years.

=Seething Lane= betrays some characteristic features. A pair of similar

eighteenth-century houses with porches stand on each side of the

entrance to Catherine Court. Opposite them are old grimy warehouses.

Succeeding these are huge buildings known as Corn Exchange Chambers. No.

40 on the east is an old stuccoed house, and facing the church are more

towering warehouses. The churchyard is a quaint little spot, with many

tombstones inclining at every imaginary angle and a few twisted young

elm-trees. The gateway is curious, being surmounted by a peculiar

_chevaux de frise_ of spikes and ornamented by three stuccoed skulls.

Catherine Court is delightful in its completeness. Every house in the

two long sober coloured rows, which face one another across a narrow

flagged space, is of the same date. The date is given on an oval slab

set in the wall at the east end, “Catherine Court, Anno Dom. 1725.”

ALLHALLOWS BARKING

The church of Allhallows Barking stands at the east end of Tower

Street near Mark Lane Station. It was dedicated to the Blessed

Virgin Mary and all Saints, whence its name. The date of its

foundation is unknown, but it is to the convent of Barking that its

foundation is probably due, which might carry it back to the end of

the seventh century. It was endowed and enlarged by Richard I.,

Edward I., and Richard III. During the seventeenth century it was

repaired five times; it narrowly escaped the Great Fire of 1666.

There was extensive restoration during the last century. The

earliest date of an incumbent is 1269.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The kings of

England, while it was a rectory, 1269; the Abbess and Convent of

Barking from 1387, when it became a vicarage; the Crown, at the

suppression in 1540, who exchanged it with the Archbishop of

Canterbury, who presented in 1584, and in whose successors it

continues.

Houseling people in 1548 were 800.

The church consists of a nave and chancel together with north and

south aisles. It is 108 feet in length, 67 feet in breadth, and in

height 35 feet to the ceiling of the nave, but to that of the aisles

considerably less. The western portion is older than the chancel,

and probably the original building only occupied the site of the

present nave. The massive pillars at the west end are of Norman

character in contrast to the slender columns of the eastern arches,

probably not erected before the fifteenth century. The large east

window, in the Late Decorated style, seems to have been left

untouched during the numerous alterations of the seventeenth

century. The present tower, erected in 1659 after the original had

been destroyed by an explosion, is of plain brick, with a turret and

weather-vane, and rises above the west end of the nave. The original

tower rose from the west end of the south aisle. The total height of

it is 80 feet.

Chantries were founded here by: Adam de Blackeneye, citizen, for

himself and Cecilia his wife, A.D. 1295 (his will, dated 1310);

Thomas Crolys, and Thomas Pilke, before 1365; John Cade; Robert

Tate, mayor of London, who died in 1488; Richard I., augmented by

Edward I., who erected there an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary;

Edward IV. granted a licence to found a fraternity here (Pat. 9

Edward IV. p. 2. m. 2). This chapel was newly built by Richard III.,

who founded a college here consisting of a dean and six canons.

Owing to the proximity of the Tower, Allhallows was frequently used

for the temporary interment of the remains of those who perished on

the scaffold on Tower Hill. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, Bishop

Fisher, and Archbishop Laud, found here a temporary grave. Humphrey

Monmouth, sheriff in 1535, is one of the most notable persons buried

here. Allhallows contains the best collection of monumental brasses

to be found in any London church. Some of the most noteworthy are: A

Flemish brass, in memory of Andrew Evyngar; that of William Thynne,

one of the earliest editors of Chaucer’s works; William Armer, of

the Clothworkers Company; and the Tonge brass, the oldest in the

City. Under the east window of the south aisle is a monument by

Peter Scheemakers, the sculptor of several monuments in Westminster

Abbey; the name of the Quaker William Penn is associated with this

church, where he was baptized in 1644.

Some of the donors of charitable gifts were: Margaret Martin, £1 :

6 : 8 per annum for the poor; William Armer; Alice Polstead, £6 :

13 : 4 per annum; William Haines, £5 per annum. The parish received

a very large number of gifts.

A school was founded in this parish, 1692, by Alderman Hickson for

twenty boys. There was also a hospital for the insane, in the time

of Edward III.

The most notable vicar was Thomas Ravis (d. 1609), who became Bishop

of London.

=Jewry= was formerly called Poor Jewry Street. This street originally

consisted of mean tenements, and was greatly improved by the removal of

the wall which admitted air into the street and gave space for building.

Stow says that “in time of old” there were Jews living in this place,

whence its name. In his time there were only a few poor tenements. The

name “Poor Jewry” is found in the Records of 1438. As the Jews were

banished in 1290, we may therefore conclude that the name was certainly

older than that date.

=Trinity Square=, Tower Hill, is of an irregular shape, including an

oval garden. It is named after Trinity House, which stands on the north

side. In Ogilby’s map is a part of Great Tower Hill. Cooper’s Row was

then called Woodruff Lane; George Street was then George Yard, where was

the postern of the wall. North of George Street there is still a long

piece of the wall standing within certain warehouses. Here are also

other walls and fireplaces which are said to have belonged to a

workhouse. I cannot, however, discover that there was any workhouse on

this spot. This is apparently the same part of the wall that is figured

in Wilkinson’s _Londina Illustrata_.

=Trinity House.=—Maitland’s account of the house and the corporation is

as follows:

“In Water Lane is situated Trinity House which belongs to an ancient

Corporation of Mariners, founded in King Henry VIII.’s time, for the

Regulation of Seamen, and security and convenience of ships and mariners

on our coasts. In the said King’s reign lived Sir Thos. Spert, Knight,

Comptroller of the Navy to that King; who was the first founder and

master of the said society of Trinity House; and died Anno 1541, and was

buried in the chancel of Stepney church. To whose memory the said

Corporation, Anno 1622, set up a monument there for him eighty years and

one after the decease of the said Spert, their founder. And by an

inscription antienter than that set up by the said corporation, lost

long since in the church, but preserved by Norden; we learn, that this

gentleman had three wives, Dame Margery, Dame Anne, and Dame Mary, all

lying in the chancel there; and that his Coat of Arms was Two Launces in

Saltier, between four Hearts, on a Chief, a ship with the sails furled.

He was commander of the biggest ship then that the sea bore, namely,

_Henry Grace de Dieu_, built by King Henry VIII. near the beginning of

his reign.

“The house, where the corporation usually meets, belonged to them before

the great Fire, but how long I know not. They took a long lease and

rebuilt it. This house was burnt down about the year 1718 again, but is

now by the said Brotherhood built up fairly a second time.

“This corporation one of the considerablest in the Kingdom, is governed

by a master, four wardens, eight assistants, and the eldest brothers of

the Company, as they are called, one and thirty in all. The rest of

their Company are called Younger Brothers, without any fixed number: For

any seafaring men that will, are admitted into the Society under that

name: But they are not in the Government.

[Illustration:

TRINITY HOUSE, TOWER HILL

]

“Their service and use is, that they appoint all pilots: They set and

place the buoys and seamarks for the safe direction of ships in their

sailing. For which they have certain duties payable by Merchant-men.

They can licence poor seamen, antient and past going to sea, to exercise

the calling of a waterman upon the Thames, and take in fares, tho’ they

have not been bound to any one free of the Watermen’s Company. They do

maintain in pensions at this time two thousand poor seamen, or their

widows; every one of which have at least half-a-crown paid them every

first Monday in the month, and some more, besides accidental distressed

seamen.

“They have three fair Hospitals, built by themselves; two at Deptford,

and one at Mile End, near London. That at Mile End is a very handsome

structure with a fair chapel, and is peculiar for decayed

Sea-Commanders, masters of vessels, or such as have been pilots, and

their widows.

“And thus as they do a great deal of good, so they have large revenues

to do it with: Which arise partly, from sums of money given and

bequeathed unto them for charitable uses, partly from Houses and Lands

also given them, and particularly and chiefly from ballast. For they

only have, by Act of Parliament, the benefit of providing ballast for

ships in the Thames; and all ships that take in ballast pay them 12d. a

ton: For which it is brought to their ship’s side. They have also

certain light-houses, as at Scilly and Dungeness in the West. To which

Houses all ships pay one half-penny a tun.”

[Illustration:

_Drawn by Schnebbelie._

REMAINS OF LONDON WALL, TOWER HILL, 1818

]

The house that was burned down in 1718 was again rebuilt and pulled down

in 1787, when the Corporation removed to Tower Hill.

Lastly, in this group of streets, we arrive at =Tower Hill=. The

memories of this place are summed up by Stow and others.

“From and without the Tower ditch west and by north is the said Tower

Hill, sometime a large plot of ground, nowe greatly strengthened

[straitened] by means of incrochments (unlawfully made and suffered) for

gardens and houses.... Upon this Hil is alwayes readily prepared, at the

charges of the Citie, a large scaffold, and gallows of timber, for the

execution of such traitors or other transgressors as are delivered out

of the Tower, or otherwise to the sheriffes of London, by writ, there

were to be executed.... On the north side of this hill is the said Lord

Lumley’s house.”

The scaffold was removed about the middle of the 18th century.

Many were the disputes between the King and the City as to the setting

up of scaffold and gallows, which the King claimed to do, as Tower Hill

was in the Liberties of the City and not the City itself. Among notable

persons executed there are the names of:

Bishop Fisher, June 22, 1535; Sir Thomas More, July 6, 1535:

Going up the scaffold, which was so weak that it was ready to fall,

he said hurriedly to the Lieutenant, “I pray you, Master Lieutenant,

see me safe up, and for my coming down let me shift for

myself.”—Roper’s _Life_.

Cromwell, Earl of Essex, July 28, 1540; Margaret, Countess of

Shrewsbury, mother of Cardinal Pole, May 27, 1541; Earl of Surrey the

poet, January 21, 1547; Thomas, Lord Seymour of Sudeley, the Lord

Admiral, beheaded March 20, 1549, by order of his brother the Protector

Somerset; the Protector Somerset January 22, 1552; Sir Thomas Wyatt,

1554; John Dudley, Earl of Warwick and Northumberland, 1553; Lord

Guildford Dudley (husband of Lady Jane Grey), February 12, 1553-54; Sir

Gervase Elways or Helwys, Lieutenant of the Tower, hanged for his share

in the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury; Earl of Strafford, May 12, 1641;

Archbishop Laud, January 10, 1644-45; Sir Harry Vane, the younger, June

14, 1662 (“The trumpets were brought under the scaffold that he might

not be heard”); William Howard, Lord Viscount Stafford, December 29,

1680, beheaded on the perjured evidence of Titus Oates and others;

Algernon Sidney, December 7, 1683:

Algernon Sidney was beheaded this day; died very resolutely, and

like a true rebel, and republican.—Duke of York to Prince of Orange,

December 7, 1683.

Duke of Monmouth, July 15, 1685; Sir John Fenwick, January 28, 1697;

Earl of Derwentwater and Lord Kenmuir, implicated in the Rebellion of

1715; Lords Kilmarnock and Balmerino, August 18, 1746:

Kilmarnock was executed first and then the scaffold was immediately

new strewn with sawdust, the block new covered, the executioner new

dressed, and a new axe brought. Then old Balmerino appeared,

treading the scaffold with the air of a general, and reading

undisturbed the inscription on his coffin.—Walpole to Mann, August

21, 1746.

Simon, Lord Lovat, April 9, 1747. He was not only the last person

beheaded on Tower Hill, but the last person beheaded in this country.

The Tribulation on Tower Hill, mentioned by Shakespeare, has puzzled his

commentators; the reference seems to be to a Puritan congregation, but

it is hard to see why they should be ready to endure “the youths that

thunder at a playhouse.”

“_Porter._ These are the youths that thunder at a playhouse, and fight

for bitten apples; that no audience but the Tribulation of Tower Hill,

or the limbs of Limehouse, their dear brothers, are able to

endure.”—Shakespeare, _Henry VIII._, Act v. Scene 4.

In 1543 Marillac, the French Ambassador, lived on Tower Hill, and the

Duke of Norfolk (son of the victor of Flodden) and his brother, Lord

William Howard, frequently paid him “mysterious midnight visits.” Lady

Raleigh lodged on Tower Hill while her husband was a prisoner in the

Tower.

“The Lady Raleighe must understand his Ma^{ts} Expresse Will and

commandment that she resort to her house on Tower Hill or ellswhere

w^{th} her women and sonnes to remayne there, and not to lodge hereafter

w^{th}in the Tower.”—Orders concerning the Tower of London, to be

observed by the Lieutenant (Sir Wade’s Reg., 1605, 1611; Addit. MSS.

Brit. Mus., No. 14,044).

William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, was born on Tower Hill,

October 14, 1644.

“Your late honoured father dwelt upon Great Tower Hill on the east side,

within a court adjoining to London Wall.”—P. Gibson to William Penn, the

Quaker (_Sir W. Penn’s Life_, 615).

At a public-house on Tower Hill, known by the sign of the Bull, whither

he had withdrawn to avoid his creditors, it is said Otway, the poet,

died of want, April 14, 1685; but the precise locality and manner of his

death are disputed. In a cutler’s shop on Tower Hill Felton bought the

knife with which he stabbed the first Duke of Buckingham of the Villiers

family; it was a broad, sharp hunting knife, and cost one shilling. The

second duke often repaired in disguise to the lodging of a poor person,

“about Tower Hill,” who professed skill in horoscopes. Smith has

engraved a view of a curious old house on Tower Hill, enriched with

medallions, evidently of the age of Henry VIII., and similar to those at

old Whitehall and at Hampton Court.

Hatton, writing in 1708, describes Tower Hill as a place where there are

“many good new buildings mostly inhabited by gentry and merchants.”

TOWER OF LONDON

By W. J. LOFTIE

[Illustration:

_Pictorial Agency._

BLOCK, AXE, AND SCAVENGER’S DAUGHTER

]

Romance has been more busy with this one building than with all the

other edifices of England put together. A volume might be filled with

the stories founded in the imaginations of Harrison Ainsworth and his

predecessors and imitators. The benefactors, about whose doings he has

so much to tell, were first appointed here by Edward VI., to the number

of fifteen from the Yeomen of the Guard. The interesting drawings made

by George Cruikshank of chambers in towers now long since restored away

or otherwise destroyed have been mixed up with fictitious pictures of

Lady Jane kneeling at a _prie-Dieu_ on a straw-strewn scaffold, while a

hangman brandishes an axe; or of the burning of a sorcerer in the

confined space of Tower Green, with flames which would have been

sufficient to consume the buildings of the whole fortress. Many as were

the inhabitants from time to time, many as were the prisoners, great or

small, no “executions,” that is, no putting to death by process of law,

ever took place within the precincts, except those of four ladies of the

court of Henry VIII. and one other under Queen Mary, while political

considerations and fear of a popular movement in favour of the culprit

led to the death in the same semi-private place of one of Queen

Elizabeth’s some time favourites, Essex. To believe the tale-writers,

the Tower and its courtyards were ordinary places of public punishment.

It is often remarked as a matter of surprise that no blocks, no axes

have remained like jewels and inscriptions in various stone towers. But

if we ask why there should be any, we get no answer. The block long

shown is probably an ordinary chopping block for faggots and of no great

antiquity. The axe is of Roman make, and is known to have been brought

here in 1687. Some curious correspondence is in existence as to the

preparation of a block by the Sheriff of Middlesex for the decapitation

of Lord Lovat. The culprit was so old, obese, and infirm that it was

proposed to arrange for the provision of block at which he could kneel

without lying down, and some measurements were, it is believed,

furnished to the Sheriff with this object. I well remember as a child

being permitted, in the old Tower Armoury, to lay my head on Queen Anne

Boleyn’s block, as it was called. But Queen Anne, we know, had no block,

and was kneeling up when the French executioner, sent by Lord Wentworth,

then Governor of Calais, cut off her head by the sweep of a sword.

Almost as unfortunate as Ainsworth’s anachronisms are those of

innumerable historical writers who confound the Constable with the

Lieutenant and both with the Tower Major.

Things are very different now, from the visitors’ point of view, to what

they were years ago or less. In those days the so-called “Horse Armoury”

was the principal object of attraction. This was built as a long wooden

shed on the south side of the White Tower, and was filled with

fictitious figures on which some of the ancient armour was shown as that

of successive English kings from the Conqueror to James II. We emerged

from this gallery by a staircase which led us up into the crypt of the

Norman chapel through a window in the apse. It was impossible for any

one who had not previously undergone architectural training to recognise

the crypt in “Queen Elizabeth’s Armoury,” as this chamber was called. A

priest’s cubicle in the side wall was pointed out as “Sir Walter

Raleigh’s dungeon,” but the Queen’s robe, covered with mock jewelry, was

an object of far greater interest. At every point make-believe was the

rule, and when we at last visited a great hall, the roof, side-walls,

and pillars of which bristled with swords, bayonets, flint locks, and

other similar adornments, our powers of recognising that we were

traversing the rooms of the White Tower, which, before the reign of

Henry III., formed the principal residence of Rufus, Beauclerc, and

other descendants of the Conqueror, were completely obscured. We could

perhaps see that we had been made parties to a fiction which dwarfed the

most flagrant of Ainsworth or even Victor Hugo, but better counsels

prevailed when Hepworth Dixon pointed out, in his two volumes entitled

_Her Majesty’s Tower_, the great educational value of a visit to these

ancient precincts and the difficulty, under existing arrangements, of

obtaining any clear ideas. By degrees everything has been changed. The

visitor can pause at every step and can obtain without difficulty the

fullest information. In one particular, a serious mistake was committed.

The inscribed stones in the Beauchamp Tower were removed and grouped in

a single chamber, and it was not perceived till too late that thus they

lost more than half their historical value and all that kind of value

which may be termed sentimental. There are inscriptions in all the

inhabited buildings, and it is satisfactory to know that the mistake has

not been repeated, while the example, coupled with the modern aspect of

the Beauchamp Tower, forms a useful lesson for would-be architectural

restorers.

The Tower of London formed the principal feature of a system of

fortification by which William the Norman proposed at once to defend

London from without and to prevent the Londoners from rebellion against

his authority. The other castles are generally supposed to be those of

Wallingford and of Berkhampstead. Here, as a feature of Alfred’s rebuilt

Roman Wall, there was a bastion of extra size, and there are supposed

references to a building which may have stood on the site afterwards

covered by the Norman Keep, or possibly a little lower on the line of

the Roman Wall, where the Wakefield Tower, much altered, now serves for

the preservation and exhibition of the crown jewels.

The Norman Keep has been known at least since the time of Henry III. as

the White Tower. It was commenced in or near 1078, the architect being

Gundulf, Bishop of Rochester, who seems to have laboured here, at

Rochester Cathedral and Castle, at West Malling, and probably in other

places until well on in the reign of Henry I. When, in 1108, he died,

his works here and elsewhere were still uncompleted. He probably left

the Keep, to which there was no entrance except by a system of

scaffolding and ladders connected with the Cold Harbour Tower and the

Wakefield Tower by strong walls enclosing a narrow triangular court. The

precinct surrounding this fortress gradually grew partly within, partly

without, the City boundaries, until it extended over the Outer Ward, as

far as the Bell Tower to the west, the Devereux on the north, and the

Martin on the east. It included the parish church, afterwards known as

St. Peter’s, and the Lanthorn Tower on the south-east, part of an

extension of the royal apartments. Adjoining the palace there was a

little later, say, in the reign of Henry III., an open space or “garden”

south of the White Tower. What had formed the Outer Ward of the Norman

Castle now became the Inner Ward of still more extensive precincts under

Richard and John. Bishop Longchamp took in a further tract to eastward.

King John in 1210 and later years strengthened himself against the

Barons of Magna Charta by increasing the outer fortifications, and work

went on constantly during the long reign of Henry III. and did not add

to his popularity with London citizens. Under Edward I. we first hear of

the Barbican, afterwards, down to 1834, known as the Lion Tower. There

are two interesting views of this building in Ainsworth’s book: one

evidently a careful woodcut of Cruikshank’s drawing on the spot before

the destruction of the building; the other an etching with imaginary

figures. Outside the defences at this corner was the so-called Conning

or Con Tower, a building of timber, opening into a narrow passage. It

led out at right angles to the north. The wooden gate, on this site,

still faces this way, and it is probable that not only the Tower gates

but the City gates at Newgate and Bishopsgate were similarly planned, a

point too often forgotten.

As early as 1347 gunpowder was made in the Tower for the French wars of

Edward III.—“pulvis pro ingeniis suis,” as we read. The Salt Tower must

have received its name from the storage of saltpetre. In 1381 Richard

II. was lodged here for safety from Wat Tyler’s mob; and here they

seized the Archbishop Sudbury and murdered him. It was here in 1399 that

Richard II. surrendered the crown to Henry IV. Jack Cade’s mob attacked

the Tower unsuccessfully. It was attacked again ten years later with a

similar result, and after this period the history of the fortress as a

fortress may be said to terminate.

From the time the Tower combined the functions of a palace and a prison

it became customary for every new sovereign to ride in state to the

coronation at Westminster through the City from the gate of the Tower.

Thus it was that Queen Anne (Boleyn), who had figured in such a

procession, was afterwards a prisoner and was here condemned to death

and beheaded on Tower Green. Here again her daughter, Elizabeth, after

having been a prisoner during the reign of her sister Mary, passed out

to her coronation, pausing on the way at the Lion Tower, where in a

short prayer she compared herself to Daniel emerging in safety from the

lion’s den. The last English king who thus went to Westminster was

Charles II. He and his brother James II. were lodged in the Tower on

several occasions of public danger, but the Civil War, then recently

ended, had shown plainly the weakness of mediæval fortification against

artillery. At the time of the death of Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex, who

in 1683 committed suicide or was murdered in his lodgings in the

Lieutenant’s House, both Charles and his brother were in the royal

apartments.

When the Tower ceased to be used as a palace, the old buildings to the

south of the Keep fell into ruin and have now all disappeared. They

included an annex of some size and importance which contained a few

Roman bricks, possibly taken from such parts of the wall as here reached

the river’s bank. The garden disappeared with the hall and the wardrobe,

and even the names of the buildings adjoining were changed. The Garden

Tower is now called the Bloody, and the odd reason used to be given that

it was because here the sons of Edward IV. were smothered. This is

extremely unlikely, and the name of the gateway was more likely derived

from the supposed suicide of Henry Percy, eighth Earl of Northumberland,

who was found dead in his bed with three bullets through his heart on

June 21, 1585. The Hall Tower, since the disappearance of the adjoining

Hall (in which Queen Anne Boleyn was tried), has been renamed _The

Wakefield_, and here the regalia, described below, are now shown. This

is the sole relic, with the White Tower, of the Norman buildings of

Gundulf. There is a Norman crypt, but the upper structure has been

“restored” away, with large but unsightly windows, and there is a bridge

for the convenience of the Keeper of the Crown Jewels, whose apartments

are in St. Thomas’s Tower, usually renamed _The Traitors Gate_. Between

the archway of this gate and the _Byward Tower_, the chief entrance from

the outer ward, is a long wall, facing which, on the north side of the

narrow roadway, the buildings of the Lieutenant’s Lodgings look over the

walls of the inner ward, ending with the _Bell Tower_. The bell now does

duty at St. Peter’s Church. The roadway is continued to the north as

Mint Street, which further on used to be known as Irish Mint Street.

From the corner under the Bell Tower we see the _Beauchamp Tower_, and

beyond it again the _Devereux_. There is a walk along the leads of the

roofs connecting the Bell with the Devereux, and here, it is said by the

romance writers, Lady Jane, confined in the Lieutenant’s Lodgings, used

to meet her husband, who carved her name in his chamber in the Beauchamp

Tower. The Lieutenant’s Lodgings have of late been renamed _The King’s

House_, and in the late reign, the Queen’s House, a change for which no

reason has ever been assigned.

The towers along the south curtain of the outer ward are the _Cradle_,

so named probably from an arrangement for receiving supplies from a boat

on the Thames, the _Well_, and the _Develin_ or Galleyman’s, so named

after an old warder. On the north side are three comparatively modern

forts, called _Legge’s Mount_, _North Bastion_, and _Brass Mount_, the

first from George Legge, Lord Dartmouth, Master General of the Ordnance

in 1682.

On the eastern side of the inner ward are some old and, for the most

part, unrestored buildings known as _Martin’s Tower_, at the

north-eastern corner; _Constable’s Tower_, _Broad Arrow_, and the _Salt

Tower_, already mentioned. The regalia used to be kept in the Martin,

which was also known as the Burbidge or Brick Tower. Here in 1671 the

crown, then in the custody of Talbot Edwards, was stolen by Colonel

Blood, who carried it nearly to the gate of the Byward Tower before he

was stopped. He was eventually pardoned by Charles II. The Broad Arrow

shows us what some of us remember—the Beauchamp before Salvin’s ruthless

“restoration.”

The Church of _St. Peter ad Vincula_ was so called from the Romanist

saint’s day, August 1, on which it was consecrated, and not from any

allusion to the Tower as a prison. It has often of late been described

as a Chapel Royal, but if there is any Chapel Royal in the Tower it is

St. John’s. What we now see was built in 1512, after a fire. The old

church was long vacant because of the murder, by the parson, of a friar

named Randolph in 1419. Edward IV. proposed to place here a dean and

chapter, but died before anything was arranged. Edward VI. put the

church under the care of the Bishop of London, and it has since usually

been served by a chaplain appointed by the Crown. The organ was formerly

in the Chapel Royal at Whitehall. There are few monuments, but the

burial-places in the chancel of the headless bodies of two of the wives

of Henry VIII., as well as of the Dukes of Somerset and Northumberland

and some others, are marked by an encaustic pavement, highly

inappropriate to what Lord Macaulay described as the saddest spot on

earth.

There are several oratories in the different towers, as, for example,

the apartments over the Traitors’ Gate, known as St. Thomas’s Tower,

where the Keeper of the Jewels is lodged. A similar place for private

prayer in the Wakefield Tower has been in great part obliterated. Here,

according to an ancient tradition, the Duke of Gloucester, afterwards

Richard III., stabbed Henry VI. at his devotions in 1471.

The yeoman waiters or warders are not Yeomen of the Guard, but members

of a separate corps. There are forty yeomen, all old soldiers and

ranking as sergeant majors in the army. They seemed to have been called

beefeaters from the very beginning in Tudor times. The word “yeomen” is

often reckoned as “gentlemen,” being next below “esquire.” They were

only fifteen at first, but Charles II. improved their position and

increased their numbers. Part of their duty used to be to assist the

yeoman gaoler in the custody of prisoners. Persons condemned were by

them handed over to the Sheriff of Middlesex at the Con Gate, where the

City and Tower precincts meet.

THE JEWELS

The crown and other parts of the regalia of the state were long

treasured in the Martin Tower. They were previously in a building

adjoining the palace, on the south side of the White Tower. The removal

took place about 1641, which may be the date at which the palace

buildings were finally pulled down. There had been a “secret jewell

house” in the White Tower in which the most precious or venerable

objects were kept. At the time of the Great Rebellion they were taken to

Westminster and were all broken up and, as far as possible, destroyed.

This sacrilege, for so it must be called, took place in 1649, in the

August which followed the death of Charles I. A certain number of

articles were sent back to the Tower, no doubt to be melted down at the

Mint. These last included “Queen Edith’s crown” of silver-gilt and “King

Alfred’s crown” of gold wirework, with a few slight jewels set in it and

two bells. This must have been an object of the highest antiquity,

perhaps reaching back to the eleventh century. It need hardly be

remarked that “Queen Edith” is a wholly mythical person in this

connection, no wife of a sovereign of the house of Wessex being called

“Queen” or wearing a crown. The Confessor’s wife was “the lady Edith,”

his mother “the old lady.” There is no saying what England lost by the

wholesale destruction of these old crowns. There is a certain

satisfaction in reflecting that the Roundhead treasury was not greatly

benefited, the value of the objects sold or melted amounting only to

£14,221 : 15 : 4. The Crown jewels as we see them now consist mainly of

those required at a coronation, but the old “Regalia” comprised “one

christall pott” standing on crystal balls and mounted with silver gilt,

with a mannikin on the handle, valued then at £9; two gold trencher

plates at £85; more than two dozen crystal cups mounted in gold, and

many set with jewels; crystal and gold dishes; a crystal watch, valued

at £30; salt-cellars of all kinds of precious materials; twenty-six

agate bowls and cups—agate was thought to protect the drinker against

poison; mazers, some mounted in gold; an “old rusty knife, forke, and

spoone,” garnished with gold—it is often asserted that Charles II.

brought in the use of forks, but there were several forks in the old

collection; candlesticks; an old woman of gold for a salt-cellar, and

numerous objects of mother-of-pearl. In addition there were many single

stones, and among them “one ruby ballass pierced, and wrapt in a paper

by itselfe, valued at £4.” The Puritan framers of the catalogue did not

dare evidently to call any attention to the historical and monarchical

associations of this stone. It remained unsold until Oliver Cromwell

coming into sole power, and perhaps foreseeing that, if he lived, these

things might be useful in a coronation, stopped the sale and destruction

of the Crown jewels. This ruby, though it is not of first-rate quality

and is pierced, was saved and is identified by antiquaries as the jewel

which Peter, King of Castile, gave to the Black Prince in 1367, as part

payment, it is supposed, for his help in the battle of Najera. Peter,

who received the name of “the Cruel,” is said to have fought the Moorish

king of Grenada for the sake of his jewels, of which this was one, and

to have murdered him in cold blood. Henry V. wore it at Agincourt, in

1415, in his helmet. Another relic of the old regalia is the sapphire in

the front of the circlet. It was carried away by James II. when he left

England in 1688, and was restored by Cardinal York (Henry IX.) by will,

with some other jewels, to George III., in 1807. Another sapphire

figures in the cross on the summit of the State crown, as it did on that

of Queen Victoria. Its history points to its having been worn by Edward

the Confessor in a ring. The legend connecting it with the present

regalia is in the _Coronation Book of Edward VII._, p. 56 (Cassell and

Company, 1902). A silver-gilt spoon of thirteenth-century work, possibly

of twelfth, is the only other object known to have been in the old

regalia.

The other objects exhibited were chiefly made for the coronation of

Charles II. Silver or silver-gilt plate of that period is very scarce,

and the examples before us, most of which were made by Sir Robert Vyner,

are of the highest quality of which the period was capable. It is not

necessary to go through the different items of which the collection

consists. It will be sufficient to warn the visitor that when he reads

on the label “Crown of St. Edward,” he must take it as if the words were

“Crown (made by Vyner in imitation of that in the old regalia called the

Crown) of St. Edward.” The State crown was worn by King Edward VII. at

his coronation and is the same as that of Queen Victoria, somewhat

enlarged. It is of silver and has about 3000 diamonds, 227 pearls, 5

rubies, 17 sapphires, and 11 emeralds. The Sword of State was carried by

the Marquis of Londonderry, the Sceptre by the Duke of Argyll, and the

Sword of Mercy by the Duke of Grafton. At the coronation of George III.

the sword was forgotten and was left behind in St. James’s Palace. The

Lord Mayor’s sword was borrowed in the Abbey and was borne by the Earl

of Huntingdon. The right sword was, however, brought and laid on the

altar before the close of the service. At the coronation of George IV.

it was carried by the Duke of Dorset, and at that of William IV. by the

Duke of Wellington. At the coronation of Queen Victoria the sword was

borne by Lord Melbourne. Three other swords were borne at the coronation

of George IV., those, namely, of temporal justice, of spiritual justice,

and of mercy.

A visitor who has time should not leave the Wakefield Tower without

seeing an interesting series of stars, collars, and badges of the

different orders of knighthood. They are exhibited in the side cases, as

are also the silver trumpets of the Guards and other objects of the

kind.

THE ARMOURY

Although great stores of arms were accumulated in the Tower during the

Tudor reigns, we do not know of any special collection of ornamental

suits until much later. The armourers of Henry VIII.—men from Italy, and

in particular from Milan and Mantua, whence such words as milliner,

portmanteau, and others—dwelt and worked at Greenwich, where in the

Green Chamber were twelve suits of tilting armour for men and horses, in

the Great Chamber, nine, and in the Harness Chamber, seven, some of them

still incomplete when the inventory was made in 1631. The tilting suits

were removed to the Tower in 1660. Previously the arms stored there were

chiefly for soldiers, and comprised, in the reign of Elizabeth, 2000

equipments for foot-soldiers, known as demi-lances, as many corslets,

1000 shirts of mail, 3000 morions or helmets, and as many steel caps,

called “skulles” in the inventory. Towards the end of the reign the more

ornamental horse and tilting armour began to be brought up from

Greenwich, but the removal was not complete till the time of Charles

II., when the old palace was pulled down to make way for the first

buildings of what is now Greenwich Hospital.

Soon after, the picturesque building, now used as a military hospital,

was designed by Sir Christopher Wren for the reception of the armour.

About the same time, Wren’s friend, Grinling Gibbons, was employed to

carve the horses on which the full knightly panoply could be exhibited.

Some of these horses still remain and must be admired as real works of

art. Previously, no doubt, the equestrian armour was placed upon horses

such as are now called clothes-horses in a house, or saddle horses in a

harness room, convenient enough for the purpose, but unsuitable for any

scenic effect.

The armour was next removed to the Small Armoury. The name does not mean

that the building was small, but that it was designed for the storage

and exhibition of small arms, as distinguished from cannon and other

great guns. It was situated where the Waterloo Barracks are now, and was

entirely destroyed by fire in 1841, having become a store and being full

of inflammable material. It must have resembled the central part of the

great barrack at Winchester, built also by Wren. It was 245 feet long by

60 wide. Founded by James II., it was finished by William and Mary, who

at the opening dined in the great room in state “having all the warrant

workmen and labourers to attend them, dressed in white gloves and

aprons, the usual badges of the orders of masonry,” as Dodsley tells us,

writing in 1761. The “entablature and triangular pediment of the Doric

order” of which he speaks, “and the king’s arms, with enrichments of

trophy work,” were saved, and are now built into a wall on the south

side of a storehouse near the new Lanthorn Tower. The great Small

Armoury was undisturbed in 1821, but large quantities of weapons had

overflowed into the White Tower, where an armourer named Harris, whose

operations were much admired in their day, with his successors, arranged

them in various fantastic designs, many of them very ingenious. It was

Harris who made the trophies of arms at Hampton Court. “He was a common

gunsmith, but after he had performed this work, which is the admiration

of people of all nations, he was allowed a pension from the Crown for

his ingenuity.” This Small Armoury contained, at the time of the fire in

1841, 280 stands of muskets and small arms, ready for use.

The horse armoury had fortunately been removed some ten or twelve years

before the fire. A shed-like gallery, already mentioned, was built south

of the White Tower, and was ready in 1826, when the collection was

removed and arranged by Sir Samuel Meyrick. The visitor on entering saw

a long line of equestrian figures, twenty-two in number, clothed in the

armour supposed to belong to various reigns from Edward I. to James II.

As a fact, very little of the armour dated before the time of Henry

VIII., and the chain mail on a figure labelled Edward I. probably came

from India. A rearrangement was made by Mr. Hewitt about 1859, and a

catalogue. Ten years later a further arrangement was carried out by Mr.

Planché. In 1883, the whole collection was removed to the upper stories

of the White Tower, where it has been examined and put into something

like order by Lord Dillon, whose views are considerably more scientific

than those of Meyrick, Hewitt, or Planché. The change in the aspect of

the collection is considerable, and the visitor may be certain of a

great number of pieces of which few could be considered authentic

before. Lord Dillon calls attention to the mounted figure in chain mail

which used to do duty for Edward I. and before that, for William the

Conqueror. There are several other suits of Oriental armour, but this

one seems, in part at least, to be Persian. The only dated suit was sent

to Charles II. by the Great Mogul about 1660. In the so-called Council

Chamber is a suit worn by Lord Waterford at the Eglinton Tournament. It

shows armour of the time of Richard III. Several suits made for Henry

VIII. are beside it, and some also from Nuremberg of the same date. The

finest “was sent over in 1514, having been made by Conrad Sensenhofer,

whose mark is on the helmet. It was a present from the Emperor

Maximilian to his ally and relative, Henry VIII. Another maker is well

represented, Missaglia of Milan, by a suit for foot combats. Another

bears the Burgundian “cross ragulé,” which must not be confused with the

ragged staff of Robert Dudley, Queen Elizabeth’s Earl of Leicester. This

last-named suit is very rich in extra pieces for the protection of the

left side in tournaments. Another was worn by Dymoke of Scrivelsby at

the coronation of George II. It would be tedious to go through all the

armour, but a case in the first room contains an extensive collection of

helmets, many of them modern imitations, made in Germany, of ancient

forms. “The genuine tilting helmets,” says Lord Dillon, “will be

distinguished from false ones by the arrangement of the ocularium or eye

slit, which in the modern examples would allow of the easy insertion of

the opponent’s lance point.”

It may be worth while here to observe that in the lists two knights

passed each other on the left hand. In many modern pictures of mediæval

fights we see the knights each with his lance in the right hand and

pointing towards another knight on his right. This would have been

impossible, the weight of the lance alone being sufficient to make it

so. If the combatant struck his opponent, he must infallibly have put

his shoulder out and probably would also have broken some of his ribs

with his heavily mailed elbow. In old pictures, and particularly in

those representing tilt yards, the knights will be seen keeping the “off

side,” the lance being held diagonally across the horse’s neck, the

elbow being free so that no fracture ensues when the point strikes

anything hard. The extra pieces in the so-called Leicester’s suit were,

therefore, as Lord Dillon points out, “for the tilt yard and protected

the left side, that on which the riders passed each other.” Pictures in

the National Gallery and illuminated manuscripts in the British Museum

may be consulted on this subject.

Of the more miscellaneous objects in the collection it is not necessary

to say much here. Everything is carefully labelled. There is some Greek

bronze armour from Cumæ near Naples. The series of halberds is

remarkably fine and varied, as are the swords, the maces, early

fire-arms, and gauntlets. We may sum up, in the words of the _Guide_ of

1888, and make up our minds “that of the early linen armour,

supplemented with iron, of the Bayeux Tapestry, we have no examples

extant; that of the Crusaders and their ‘panoply’ in the twelfth century

we are almost equally ignorant; that monumental brasses and illuminated

manuscripts enable us both to judge how the knight was armed in the

thirteenth century, and also to identify a rare helmet here and there as

of the same period; but that for authentic suits of _cap a pie_ and even

much less, and for horse armour, apart from mere saddlery or harness, we

must depend on a period long after the invention and common use of guns

and gunpowder, a period when the skill of the armourer was exercised to

ornament tilting suits, defence against fire-arms proving impossible.”

For an account of the ancient foundation known as St. Katherine’s by the

Tower see _Mediæval London_, vol. ii. p. 335.

ST. PETER AD VINCULA

For history see p. 292.

The earliest date of an incumbent is 1355.

The patronage of the church has always been in the hands of the

Crown; it was constituted a rectory with a rector and three

chaplains by Edward III., February 10, 1353-54.

The chapel consists of a nave and chancel and an aisle on the north

side, separated from the nave by columns of the Decorated period of

architecture. It is 66 feet in length, 54 feet in width, and 25 feet

in height.

In this church are buried: Anne Boleyn; Katherine Howard; Sir Thomas

More; Cromwell, Earl of Essex; Lady Shrewsbury; Admiral Lord

Seymour; the Protector Somerset; John Dudley, Earl of

Northumberland; Lady Jane Grey; Lord Guilford Dudley; Sir Thomas

Overbury; Sir John Elcot; Okey the Regicide; the Duke of Monmouth;

Lords Lovat, Kilmarnock, and Balmerino, and others of lesser note.

=The Minories= lies within Portsoken Ward. Stow says:

“This Portsoken which roundeth as much as the Franchise at the gate, was

sometime a guilde and had this beginning as I have reade. In the dayes

of King Edgar more than 600 yeres since, there were thirteen knights

wellbeloved to the king and realme (for service by them done) which

requested to name a certain portion of land on the east part of the

Citte, left desolate and forsaken by the inhabitants by reason of too

much servitude. They besought the king to have this land, with the

Libertie of a guilde for ever; the king granted to their request with

conditions following that is that each of them should victoriously

accomplish three combates, one above the ground, one under ground, and

the thirde in the water, and after this at a certaine day in East

Smithfield they should run with speares against all commers, all which

was gloriously performed.”

Of the Minories, Stow says:

“From the west part of this Tower Hill towards Ealdegate being a long

continual street amongst other smaller buildings in that row there was

sometimes an abbey of Nunnes of the order of St. Clare called the

Minories.”

This abbey was founded in 1293 by Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, King Edward

I.’s brother, and was suppressed in 1539. For account see _Mediæval

London_, vol. ii. p. 329.

The Minories was later noted for its gunsmiths. “In place of this house

of Nunnes is now builded divers faire and large houses, for armour, and

the habiliments of war.”

HOLY TRINITY, MINORIES

On the suppression of the abbey its chapel became a parish church

for the inhabitants of the old monastic precincts. It escaped the

Great Fire, but was entirely rebuilt in 1706, at the expense of

Daniel King, Lady Pritchard and the parishioners. The earliest date

of an incumbent is 1595.

The patronage of the church originally in the hands of the Crown

passed by its union with St. Botolph, Aldgate (1899), to the Bishop

of London.

The building is very unpretentious. Since 1899 it has been used as a

Sunday School and parish institute. It has no proper tower, only a

turret at the west end. There is some fine carving at the west end,

preserved from the old church and bearing the date 1620.

No chantries were founded here.

The church contains monuments to Colonel William Legge,

Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance to Charles I. and Charles II.,

who died in 1672, also his son, first Lord Dartmouth, Admiral of the

Fleet, who died in 1691. When the vaults were examined in 1849 a

head was brought to light, said to be that of Henry Grey, Duke of

Suffolk, father of Lady Jane Grey, which had been preserved from

decay by sawdust; it is now kept in a glass case in the vestry of

St. Botolph, Aldgate. The church was attended by Sir Isaac Newton,

when Master of the Mint.

Daniel King was donor of £200 and Lady Pritchard of £100 in 1706,

for the rebuilding of the church. No legacies or bequests are

recorded by Stow.

GROUP VI

The sixth group of streets in our division of the City contains all

those streets lying north of St. Paul’s Churchyard and Ludgate Hill.

We may consider this group as connected with Newgate Street and the

streets to the north, and Paternoster Row with the streets and lanes to

north and south. These lie partly in the ward of Farringdon Within and

partly in that of Farringdon Without.

Probably at or before the beginning of the thirteenth century, certainly

in its latter half, the present two wards of Farringdon Without and

Farringdon Within formed but one ward under one alderman. That ward in

early records is found named, as are most other wards, after its

successive aldermen, thus: “Ward of Anketin de Auvergne” (1276-77)

(Riley’s _Memorials_); “the ward which was that of Ralph le Fevre”

(1278); “Ward of William de Farndone” (1283); “Warda Willelmi de

Farendone infra et extra” (1286-87). Yet just before the last date the

ward was called after the two City gates which it contained, thus:

“Warda de Lodgate et Neugate: Willelmus de Farndon [aldermannus]” (_c._

1285) (Sharpe, _Calendar of Wills_); and so it continued some time, for

we find: “Warda Ludgate et Neugate presentat Nicholaum de Farndon

[aldermannum]” (1293). In each case the whole ward, both within the

gates and without, is intended, but it is said that the part without the

gates was sometime known as the “Ward of Fletestrete” (Riley’s

_Memorials_). In the fourteenth century the name of William de Farendone

became permanently attached to this ward, as: [warda] “Farndon Infra

[et] Farndon Extra: Nicholaus de Farndon [aldermannus]” (1319-20)

(Sharpe); [warda] “Farndone infra et extra” (1320) (Riley); “Warda de

Farndone” (1320); “Garde de Faryngdone” (1383). In 1393 the ward was

made into two wards, each with its separate alderman. Henceforward the

aldermanry without the walls was known by an equivalent to the present

style, as: “Ward of Farndone Without” (1415) (Riley); “Ward of Faryndone

Without” (1416) (Riley); “Ward of Faryngdon Without” (1444) (_Catalogue

of Ancient Deeds_); “Warde of Faringdon Extra, or Without” (1598)

(Stow); and so on with varieties of spelling.

The Roman gate of the west stood a little to the north of the later

gate. The massive alcoves of the gate were uncovered in Giltspur Street

near the end of the nineteenth century.

According to Stow, the “New Gate” was erected by Henry I. to relieve the

traffic which had been stopped by the enclosures of St. Paul’s Precinct.

Formerly, he said, the traffic had been conducted along a single street

leading from Aldgate to Ludgate. There is evidently some confusion here.

The “West Gate” is mentioned in a charter dated 857. It is possible that

it means Ludgate; it is not, however, probable that the Saxons allowed

the trade of the north and the west, which was brought down the great

highway to the marsh of Thorney and was then, even before the Roman

occupation, diverted along Oxford Street and Holborn, to resume its old

course across the Marsh and Thorney Island, or that they would have gone

out of their way to construct a new line of route along the present

Piccadilly and the Strand.

It seems perfectly certain that the old line of trade was followed,

partly because trade always does follow in accustomed lines, and partly

because there was no reason why it should not do so. I read, therefore,

the history of Newgate as follows:—The Roman Highway lay along Oxford

Street and Holborn; it crossed the valley of the Fleet by a causeway

through the mud and by a bridge over the stream—the causeway kept in

place by piles and the bridge also resting on wooden piles. On the other

side, the causeway sloped up the bank to the west gate, which stood on

the hill as part of the Roman wall. When the Saxons in the sixth century

came in to the City the causeway and the bridge had been swept away and

destroyed; the old gate was ruinous. The merchants themselves, when they

resumed the former trade, found it easier to break through the wall than

to clear away the ruins of the old gate. They then made their own

causeway and built their own bridge over the marshy valley and the

stream. When Alfred restored the walls, he accepted the new gate and

probably strengthened it, and built up the wall over the old Roman gate.

This gate it was which Henry I. rebuilt, not, as Stow says, built. By

this time, however, Ludgate had been opened as a postern; another

causeway and another bridge had been built across the valley, and houses

were springing up along the rising ground of Fleet Street and the

Strand. And it is also quite possible that the rebuilding of the gate

led to some reconstruction of the line of way through the City.

Henry I., therefore, rebuilt New Gate.

It was a prison from the first. All the City gates were prisons, the

upper chambers being strong and easily guarded by the permanent watch

below. Newgate, however, became a more important prison than any of the

others, “as appeareth,” says Stow, “by records in the reign of King John

and of other kings.”

It would take a whole volume to pass in review the prisoners of Newgate.

Let me take one—an obscure person—because he belongs to the life of

London, whereas the better known prisoners belong to the history of the

country. It was on the eve of Pentecost, 1388, that William Wotton,

Alderman of Dowgate, went to the Shambles in Newgate Street and asked of

one Richard Bole, a butcher, the price of certain pieces of beef.

Richard replied that it was four shillings. “That,” said the Alderman,

“is too dear.” Quoth Richard, impudently, “I do verily believe that the

meat is too dear for thee; who, I suppose, never bought as much meat as

that, for thine own use.” Observing, then, that the inquirer wore an

Alderman’s hood, he asked, “Art thou an Alderman?” “Yes,” William Wotton

replies; “why askest thou?” Whereupon he said, “It is a good thing for

thee and thy fellows, the Aldermen, to be so wise and wary, who make but

light of riding on the Pavement, as some among ye have been doing.” Here

we have reference to some grievance of the day. Why should the Aldermen

ride upon the pavement? One supposes that the pavement was meant for the

convenience of the stalls and not intended for horses. It was

constructed in 1339.

However, William Wotton very speedily had this impudent butcher laid by

the heels in Newgate. He was haled before the Mayor and sentenced to six

months’ imprisonment, after which he was to carry a lighted taper

through the Shambles and Chepe as far as St. Lawrence Lane, when he was

to offer his taper at the Guildhall Chapel. His fellows of the same

trade, however, petitioned, and the imprisonment was remitted; but he

walked in procession bearing that lighted taper, an object-lesson to

those who would beard an Alderman.

In the fifteenth century the want of ventilation and the confinement of

many in so narrow a place bred gaol-fever, which never afterwards left

the prison. In 1419 the gaolers of Newgate all died, and prisoners to

the number of sixty-four.

The case of Hugh le Bever may also be mentioned. He was charged with the

murder of his wife Alice. He refused to plead. He was therefore taken to

Newgate and there put in penance until his death. That is to say, he was

placed in solitary confinement—one can still see the narrow cell in the

old gate-prisons (for example, that at Rouen)—and there left to his own

meditations, with a daily allowance of bread and water. One wonders how

long the poor wretch lingered there. Perhaps his mind fell into a

comatose condition in which the days passed on without any other feeling

than that of blank misery, while the body grew weaker. Perhaps he went

mad. Perhaps he begged to be taken out and hanged. So difficult it was,

so heavy the task of making the people obedient to the law.

In the fourteenth century we find a new departure of a remarkable

character. There sprang up a new thing in the land—a feeling of

compassion for the misery of the unhappy prisoners of Newgate and other

gaols in London. The wills beginning in the year 1348 show bequests for

the poor prisoners. From 1348 to 1500 the wills published in the

_Calendar_ show eighty-one such bequests. This is very curious. It shows

an humanising influence of some kind—what was it? Not the influence of

monks and friars, because their spiritual force was fast declining. Was

it the Lollarding with which the City of the fourteenth and fifteenth

centuries was notoriously “infested”? The question is not easy to

answer. But the fact remains. Further, we find that light bread was

confiscated and given to the prisoners of Newgate; that all other kinds

of food when confiscated for any reason, were also sent there; and that

broken meats were sent to the prison from all men’s tables. It would

appear, therefore, that no food was supplied to prisoners at the time,

an inhuman practice, followed, until their abolition, by all the

debtors’ prisons, causing for hundreds of years miseries unspeakable and

incredible, were it not that compassion is a plant of such slow growth

and so fragile.

The outbreak of gaol fever of 1419 was caused by the well-meant but

injudicious action of the Mayor and Corporation.

They issued an ordinance, the reason of which is explained by the

preamble.

“Whereas the commendable intentions and charitable purpose of those who

have been governors and presidents of the City of London heretofore have

ordained a prison, called Ludgate, for the good and comfort of poor

freemen of the said city who have been condemned, to the end that such

poor prisoners might, more freely than others who are strangers, dwell

in quiet in such place, and pray for their benefactors, and live upon

the alms of the people.... Now, from one day to another, the charitable

intentions and commendable purposes aforesaid are frustrated and turned

to evil, inasmuch as many false persons, of bad disposition and purpose,

have been more willing to take up their abode there, so as to waste and

spend their goods upon the ease and licence that there is within, than

to pay their debts; and, what is even more, do therein compass,

conspire, and imagine oftentimes, through others of their false _coin_,

to indict good and loyal men for felonies and treasons of which they

have never been guilty.”

In other words, freemen of the City chose rather to live in the gaol of

Ludgate, on the alms provided for poor prisoners, than to work and pay

their debts; and, worse still, they made use of their time to get up

conspiracies against honourable citizens. The only remedy that could be

devised was to move all the prisoners to Newgate, and close the gaol.

This was done in the month of June, but in November, Richard Whittington

being mayor, it was found that most of the wretches taken to Newgate had

died there, “by reason of the fetid and corrupt atmosphere”; whereupon

Ludgate was reopened, “seeing that every person is bound to support and

be tender of the lives of men.”

In April 1431, Whittington being dead, the prisoners of Ludgate were

once more removed to Newgate, and, to the general indignation, eighteen

of them were led through the streets, pinioned as if they had been

felons, to the Sheriff’s Compter, probably with the view of not crowding

Newgate again. But in June of the same year they were all taken back to

Ludgate, which remained a debtor’s prison for the citizens of London

till the year 1762, when the gate was taken down and the prisoners

removed to the London Workhouse in Bishopsgate Street. This double

removal looks as if works of enlargement or of repair were in progress

at Ludgate. Twenty years later, in 1454, it was greatly enlarged by Dame

Agnes Forster; see also p. 196.

Meanwhile, however, New Gate and Prison had been enlarged or practically

rebuilt by Whittington, who began it, and his executors, who finished

it. He seems to have furnished the prison with additional chambers on

the south side. It is pleasant to think that one of the last actions of

this great and good man was to improve the “fetid and corrupt atmosphere

in the noxious Prison of Newgate.”

It may be remarked that the gate was decorated with a bas-relief of the

famous cat, showing that there was current in Whittington’s own life the

story of the cat.

[Illustration:

NEWGATE MARKET, 1856

]

Other works of repair, enlargement, and restoration were carried on in

1555 and in 1630. In 1666 the gate and prison were destroyed in the

Great Fire, but rebuilt in 1672.

The gate was removed in 1767, and now the prison has been demolished

also.

The modern account of Newgate Prison will be found in _London in the

Eighteenth Century_, p. 538.

Outside Newgate and on the western edge of the river, there was a suburb

dating from very early times. It grew up round Smithfield where horses

were bought and sold, and where young men shot with the bow and ran and

wrestled. It contained the people who belonged to the service of the

religious houses there, and those who belonged to the hospital. We also

find, outside Newgate, “rents” in the thirteenth century, and bakehouses

and tanneries also outside Newgate, while the spurriers in 1355 are

enjoined to work in their quarters outside Newgate until curfew rings

from St. Sepulchre’s Church.