CHAPTER X.

THE STREETS AND THE PEOPLE.

After the Palace and the Monastery, the City of Refuge, the Sign of the

Red Pale, and the Borough at Election-time, we turn to the City streets

and the people.

Now, if we include that part of the City lying west and north of Charing

Cross and Pall Mall, the part which has been built and occupied since

the seventeenth century, we are face to face with nothing less than the

history of the British aristocracy during the last two centuries. This

history has never been written; it is a work which cannot even be

touched upon in these pages: to consider any part of it in a single

chapter would be absurd. It belongs, like the history of the House of

Commons, to the City of Westminster, because most of its events took

place, and most of the people concerned lived, within the limits of that

City. Also, like the House of Commons, the quarter where the aristocracy

have had their town houses for two hundred years belongs to the national

history, and must be treated independently of the City.

The British aristocracy was never so much a Caste apart as during the

hundred and fifty years ending about the middle of this century. Their

younger sons had quite abandoned the ancient practice of entering the

City and going into trade; every kind of money-making, except the

collection of rents from land, had become unworthy of a gentleman. No

one could buy

[Illustration: GRIFFINS FROM THE ROOF OF HENRY VII.’S CHAPEL.]

or sell and continue to call himself a gentleman. There was a noble

Caste and a trading Caste, quite separate and apart. The noble Caste

possessed everything worth having; the whole of the land was theirs; all

the great offices of state, all the lesser offices worth having, were

theirs; the commands in the army and navy were theirs--not only the

command of armies and fleets, but also of regiments and men-o’-war; the

rich preferments of the Church--the deaneries, canonries, and

bishoprics--were theirs; the House of Commons belonged to them (even the

popular or radical members belonged to the Caste; in the election which

was treated in the last chapter, Fox, the Friend of Liberty, the chosen

of the Independent Electors, belonged to the Caste as much as his

opponents, Lord Hood and Sir Cecil Wray). Everything was theirs, except

the right to trade; they must not trade. To be a banker was to be in

trade; the richest merchant was a tradesman as much as the grocer who

sold sugar and treacle.

The materials for this history are abundant; there are memoirs, letters,

biographies, autobiographies, recollections, in profusion. The life of

the Caste during this period of a hundred and fifty years can be fully

written. The historian, if we were able to exercise the art of

selection, would present a series of highly dramatic chapters; there

would be found in them love, jealousy, and intrigue; there would be

ambition and cabal; there would be back-stairs interest; there would be

Court gossip, and scandal, and whisperings; there would be gaming,

racing, coursing, prize-fighting, drinking; there would be young Mohocks

and old profligates; there would be ruined rakes and splendid

adventurers--in a word, there would be the whole life of pleasure, and

the whole life of ambition. It would be, worthily treated, a noble work.

This Caste, which enjoyed all the fruits of the earth, for which the

rest of the nation toiled with the pious contentment enjoined by the

Church, created for its own separate use a society which was at the same

time free and unrestrained, yet courtly and stately. No one not born and

bred in the Caste could attain its manners; if an outsider by any

accident found himself in this circle, he thought he had got into the

wrong paradise, and asked leave to exchange. Again, among the Caste,

which, with a few brilliant exceptions, was without learning and without

taste, were found all the patrons of art, poetry, and _Belles Lettres_.

Still more remarkable, while the Caste had no religion, it owned the

patronage of all the best livings in the Church. And, while it enjoyed

an immunity never before claimed by any class of men, from morality,

principle, and self-restraint, the Caste was the encouraging and

fostering patron of every useful and admirable virtue, such as thrift,

fidelity, temperance, industry, perseverance, frugality, and

contentment. A wonderful history, indeed--and all of it connected with

Westminster!

Of course, another side presents itself. The Caste was brave--its

courage was undoubted; it was never without ability of the very highest

kind, though a great deal of its ability was allowed to lie waste for

want of stimulus; it was proud; if the occasion had arrived--it was very

near arriving--the Caste would have faced the mob as dauntlessly as its

cousin in France, whom the mob might kill, but could neither terrify nor

degrade.

Again, there is the literary side. With the exception of a few names

belonging to Fleet Street, and a few belonging to Grub Street, most of

our literary history belongs to the quarter lying west of Temple Bar--in

other words, to Westminster. One might go from street to street,

pointing out the residence of Byron here, and of Moore there, of Swift,

of Pope, of Addison. And in this way one could compile a chapter as

interesting as a catalogue.

In the same way, the connection of street and noble residents might be

carefully noted down, with the same result. This, indeed, has been

already done by Jesse. If you read one or two of his chapters, taken

almost at random, you will presently feel that your wits are wandering.

For instance, here is a passage concerning one of the least

distinguished streets in Westminster:

[Illustration: GRIFFINS FROM THE ROOF OF HENRY VII.’S CHAPEL.]

“In Cannon Row stood the magnificent residence of Anne Stanhope, the

scorned and turbulent wife of the great Protector, Duke of Somerset.

Here, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, was the inn or palace of the

Stanleys, Earls of Derby. Close by was the mansion of Henry, second Earl

of Lincoln, who sat in judgment on Mary Queen of Scots, and who was one

of the peers deputed by Queen Elizabeth to arrest the Earl of Essex in

his house. Here, in the reign of James I., the Sackvilles, Earls of

Dorset, had their town residence; and here, in the time of Queen

Elizabeth, was the mansion of the great family of the Cliffords, Earls

of Cumberland.”

How much, gentle reader, are you likely to remember of such information

as this after reading twenty pages of it? How much, indeed, is it

desirable to remember? Why encumber the brain with names and titles

which are meaningless to your mind, and can restore for you no more of

the past life and bygone actors than a handful of Helen’s dust could

restore her beauty?

[Illustration: GRIFFIN FROM THE ROOF OF HENRY VII.’S CHAPEL.]

There is, however, another part of Westminster--a part which concerns us

more than Caste Land. It is the part which lies around the ancient

precincts of the Abbey. Here we touch Westminster; here we are not on

land that belongs to the country, nor among people who belong to the

country; we are in Westminster proper--in the streets which cannot even

now, when all the former spaces of separation are covered up and built

over, be called a part of London or a suburb of London. They are

Westminster.

These streets possessed, until quite recently, the picturesqueness that

belongs to the aged vagrom man. He hardly exists in these days; but one

remembers him. He was old--age had lent no touch of reverence or

dignity; he was clad in many-colored rags and fluttering duds; he leaned

upon a stick; his white locks were the only part of him that presented

any appearance of cleanliness; his face was lined and puckered, his

features were weatherbeaten and prominent, his eyes were wolfish. He was

admirable--in a picture. Such were the streets, such the houses, of

Westminster--that part of the City lying round about the Abbey. Those on

the west and south of the Abbey are comparatively new streets. In the

excellent map by Richard Newcourt showing London and Westminster in the

year 1658, we find Tothill Street completely built; Rochester Row does

not exist; Great St. Peter Street has a few houses, Great College Street

none; St. Anne’s Street has houses with gardens. The crowded part of

Westminster in the seventeenth century was that narrow area north of New

Palace Yard, of which King Street was the most important thoroughfare.

When we consider that this place was a great center of trade long before

and long after the building of London Bridge; that for six hundred years

it was close to the King’s House, with all his followers, huscarles,

archers, or bodyguard--we are not surprised that there has always been

about these streets the flavor of the tavern--always the smell of casks

and pint pots, of stale beer and yesterday’s wine. Where there are

soldiers there are taverns; there also are the minstrels and the music

and the girls. It may also be concluded beyond a doubt that the

Sanctuary was a thirsty place. Long after Court and Camp and Sanctuary

had left the place the name and fame of Westminster for its taverns and

its dens remained. These streets were a byword and a reproach well into

the present century. One or two streets there were that claimed for a

generation or so a kind of respectability. They were the streets lying

between New Palace Yard and Whitehall, such as King Street, and Cannon

Street, with one or two of later growth,--of seventeenth and eighteenth

century respectability,--such as Petty France, Cowley Street, and

College Street.

King Street, especially, if one may brave the reproach of cataloguing,

is full of history. Here lived Oliver Cromwell; his house is said to

have stood on the north side of the Blue Boar’s Head, of which the court

still remains. Sir Henry Wootton lived here; one of Caxton’s successors

set up his press in this street. It was formerly, as we have already

seen, a picturesque and beautiful street, with its gate at either end,

its overhanging gables, and its signs. Half a dozen taverns stood in

this street--the Swan, the Dog, the Bell, the Blue Boar’s Head, etc.

This little street, now so insignificant, was formerly, we are always,

by every writer, called upon to observe, the “highway” between London

and Westminster. But then nobody went by road who could go by river. The

Thames was the highway--not King Street--between London and Westminster;

by the Thames the Port of London sent its goods to the Court of

Westminster or Whitehall;

[Illustration: ROOM IN THE KING’S ARMS, TOTHILL STREET, WESTMINSTER.]

by the river came down country produce for Court and Abbey. There was

doubtless some traffic which found its way along King Street; but for

communication between Westminster and all other parts of the country

except the City and the Strand, we must remember that there was not only

the river, but the old, old road, that which formerly ran down from the

North to the marsh at St. James’s Park, and began again on the other

side of the river; the marsh was now drained, and the road, no longer a

ford, ran across it and formed the most direct entrance to the Court or

the Abbey from the North. We must remember, again, that nobody walked

who could ride; and that nobody rode who could take boat; walking along

streets unpaved, foul with every kind of refuse, muddy after rain,

stinking in dry weather, was never pleasant; therefore no one went afoot

who could go any other way. The streets which contained shops, such as

Cheapside, were kept clean and protected by posts; but King Street was

not one of these. Men who rode into Westminster entered either by King

Street or by Tothill Street; but no one came afoot if they could come by

boat.

In King Street died Spenser “for lack of bread,” said Ben Jonson. But he

goes on to add that the dying poet refused money sent him by the Earl of

Essex. The story has been accepted without question by almost everyone

who writes upon Spenser. Yet it is incredible on the face of it, when

one begins to consider, for the simple reason that starving men never do

refuse help, even at the last gasp. There is no doubt that in the Irish

Rebellion Spenser lost one child, who perished in the flames of the

burning house. He escaped, it is said, with his wife. That he was

desperately poor at this juncture we need not doubt; that he was

wretched is also without doubt; that he died in misery we need not

doubt; but if the Earl of Essex sent him money he would certainly have

taken it if he was starving; if his wife was with him he would have

taken it for her sake if he was dying.

As a matter of fact he was not suffering from want of money; and since

the death of an infant does not often kill the child’s father, we need

not suppose that he died of heart-break. Nor is it probable that he died

of a broken heart over the loss of MSS. He was Sheriff of Cork; he had

his estate, which was not lost, although the rebels burned his

house--they burned his house because he was Sheriff. He had, besides the

estate, a small pension; he had still his wife and his children, and his

friends. He was only forty-six years of age, a time when the world is

still lying fair and far stretched out before the pilgrim. None the less

he died--of what? Of fever caused by the excitement and the trouble of

the rebellion; by exposure; by this or by that--he died. He was buried

in the Abbey near the resting-place of Chaucer; all the poets wrote

elegies and threw them, together with the pens that wrote them, into the

grave of “the little man who wore short hair.” And his widow married

again and quarreled with her eldest son about the estate; and there were

descendants of Edmund Spenser in Ireland until a hundred years ago, when

the last one died.

Queen Square, which is now Queen Anne’s Gate, and Petty France, now York

Street, represent the respectable side of old Westminster. Peg

Woffington lived in Queen Square; so did Bentham. In Petty France

Milton lived when he gave up his chambers in Whitehall Palace. His house

was taken down a year or two ago. Hazlitt occupied Milton’s house for

some years.

[Illustration: GRIFFINS FROM THE ROOF OF HENRY VII.’S CHAPEL.]

Another respectable quarter was the group of streets at the back of

Dean’s Yard, known as Great College Street, Barton Street, and Cowley

Street. There is not anywhere in and about the cities of London and

Westminster a more secluded, peaceful retreat than can be found in these

three streets. The first, whose upper windows look out upon the broad

lawns and noble trees, formerly the garden of the Infirmary, now the

garden of the Canons, might be a street in Amsterdam if its ground-floor

windows were only higher; under this street still flows the stream

which once helped to separate the Isle of Bramble from the marshes and

the meadows; halfway down, hidden by stables, stands the old Jewel House

of the King’s House of Westminster; at the west end is the modern

gateway, still preserving some semblance of its former appearance, the

last that is left of the four gateways of the Abbey. It leads into

Dean’s Yard, the quietest of squares, and, under ancient gates, into

ancient cloisters and covered ways, and the relics and fragments of the

Benedictine Abbey. Behind Great College Street stand Barton Street and

Cowley Street. And for quiet and solitude these should belong to a city

of the dead; or better still, they should be what they pretend to be.

For the houses among themselves pretend to be the Cathedral Close; they

whisper to the stray traveler: “Seek no farther. This, and none other,

is the Close of the Cathedral or Collegiate Church of St. Peter. In this

quiet retreat live, we assure you, the canons and the minor canons. Step

lightly, lest you disturb their meditations.” There are many such spots

about London which thus pretend, and so carry themselves with pride: one

such, for instance, is in Bermondsey, affected by the memory of the

Abbey and the presence of the Parish Church; and another there is at

Hampstead; and in most country towns there is such a quiet, dignified

Street; one such street, so quiet, so dignified, stands in Albany, New

York State; and one in Boston, Massachusetts.

Once there was a tavern in Barton Street, known to all men by its sign

as The Salutation. The excellence of the painting is proved by the fact

that in the Commonwealth the same sign without alteration served for a

new name--viz., The Soldier and Citizen. After

[Illustration: WOOD CARVING AND ORIGINAL SIGN OF THE COCK INN, TOTHILL

STREET, WESTMINSTER.]

the Restoration the Soldier once more became an Angel and the Citizen

returned to the Virgin Mary. But I think that the tavern languished.

Cowley Street was not named after the poet, as one would like to

believe, but after the village of Cowley, in Middlesex, by Mr. Booth

Barton, who built the two streets. There are other associations about

these streets; the name of Keats is mentioned. But they belong to the

catalogue. It is enough for us to recall the babbling brook which once

ran along the roadway here--on this side of the gray stone wall which

still stands, the wall of the Monastery. It ran then through the bending

reeds and the tall grasses of the marsh, and so out into the silver

Thames; the swans came sailing up the brook, and made nests in the low

bank of the eyot. The Abbot’s barge was moored close by the gateway, of

which a modern successor still stands; and there were drawn up on the

bank the boats in which the Abbot’s fishermen went out to catch salmon

and sturgeon in the river. Later on they built these quiet houses along

one side, something after the Dutch style; and they hung up before their

fronts a curtain of green Virginia creeper, but not to hide from the

windows the view of the broad lawns, the flower-beds, and the walnut

trees of the garden behind the wall.

This part of Westminster has always been full of taverns; first for the

solace of the men-at-arms, afterward for that of the Members of

Parliament. The tavern has always been the national place of recreation

and rest; for a time, it is true, the coffee-house displaced it, but

only for a time--the tavern came back again to favor. The signs of these

inns show the date of their erection. There was the White Hart of

Richard II.; the Brown Bear of Warwick; the White Swan of Henry V.; the

Old Rose of Henry VII. And there were the more common signs: the Blue

Boar, the Salutation, the George, the Green Dragon, The Barley Mow, the

Heaven tavern, the Fleece. One of the oldest of these taverns, the Cock,

remained with its open court and its galleries till twenty years ago,

when it was pulled down to make room for the Aquarium. The rafters and

timbers of this tavern were of cedar, and the interior was also adorned

with many curious carvings.

[Illustration: ORIGINAL SIGN, COCK INN.]

More remarkable than the taverns, which we have with us everywhere, were

the Almshouses of Westminster. Until they were destroyed they were

remarkable for their number, for their endowments, and for the quaint

pleasantness and beauty of their appearance. You may now look in vain

for the old buildings: they are gone; in their place we have the

consolidated almshouses and the consolidated schools.

There were almshouses--eight of them--in the Woolstaple, which is now

Cannon Street; they looked out upon the river, and the bedesmen turned

an honest penny by letting them in lodgings for Parliament men. There

were other almshouses founded by Henry VII., outside the Gatehouse in

Tothill Street. There was an almshouse for women founded by Lady

Margaret in the Almonry. But these were ancient things. Perhaps they

disappeared with the Dissolution; perhaps they were “consolidated” the

other day. Of the modern almshouses with schools attached, the most

important was Emanuel College, a lovely House of Refuge, which stood

until yesterday in James Street on the way from Buckingham Gate to

Victoria. After leaving the great mansions near the Park one came

suddenly upon the low red-brick quadrangle open at one side, with its

chapel in the middle and its broad smooth lawn and flower-beds in

front--as peaceful a spot as could be found anywhere. It made one glad

to think that Dives had really remembered Lazarus; it made one reflect

that perhaps money can be put to no better use than to consecrate it to

the maintenance of age. And now that College is taken down; soon the

site will be covered with residential flats, and Lazarus will retire to

his place upon the doorstep. Lazarus is old and worn out in the service

of Dives; he ought to be in an almshouse; he has got rheumatism in all

his joints; he wants a warm place and a quiet place to lie down and rest

in. While this venerable Hospital stood, the world--the world of

fashion, the world of pleasure--was reminded of Lazarus. It has

disappeared; this means that Lazarus is shoved aside, put out of sight,

forgotten; he spends his strength and his skill in the service of the

rich man, who knows and thinks nothing about him, and when his strength

and his skill fail there is nothing to remind his master that thus and

thus should he deal with his old and faithful servant.

All the romance of Westminster City lay in its almshouses and schools.

The City of London was fighting the battle of civic freedom; the City of

London was finding money to fill the King’s Treasury; the City of London

was sending its sails out to the uttermost parts of the earth. This

other City, which was not really a city, but only a collection of

houses, under the rule of Abbot and of Dean,--which had no trade, which

had no municipality, which was a gathering of riffraff and Sanctuary

rabble,--presented a continual spectacle of poverty, misery, and crime,

lying at the very gate of Abbey and of King’s House. Lazarus, actual or

prospective, lived in every house. The Dean

[Illustration: MILTON’S HOUSE IN PETTY FRANCE.]

and Chapter had the poor always with them, as their tenants. They had

not only the impotent and the worn-out, but also the vicious and the

mischievous--the people who would not work. They had but to step outside

their gates in order to obtain illustrations for their sermons on the

extreme misery which, even in this world, follows such a life. The

general wretchedness moved the hearts of many. London itself once had

admirable almshouses; but those of Westminster, considering the

difference in population, are much more important. The City contained an

unparalleled collection of almshouses and free schools. But I do not

find any that were founded by the landlords of the City, the Dean and

Chapter of the Cathedral.

[Illustration: EMANUEL HOSPITAL, LATELY DEMOLISHED.

_By permission of “The Architect.”_]

If you walk down Rochester Row, you will find on the west side a large

modern building, with a hall and offices on one side of a quadrangle and

red-brick houses of pleasing appearance on the other side. These are the

consolidated or United Westminster Charities. They pulled down the old

almshouses, which were so picturesque and so lovely of aspect: they

destroyed the individual character belonging to every one; they rolled

them all together, and with the lump sum, subtracting the leakage that

went to conveyancers and architects, they built this pile.

Yes, it is very well: the pile is perhaps handsome; but I doubt if there

are so many bedesmen in the United Charity as there were in the separate

charities. And it is no longer the same thing. Each House formerly had

its own garden, in which the almsmen took the air; and its own chapel,

in which those on the foundation could remember the founder--Lady Dacre,

to wit; or Cornelius Van Dun, Yeoman of the Guard to Henry VIII., Queen

Mary, and Queen Elizabeth (his house stood near the present Town Hall);

or Emery Hill, or George Whicher, or Judith Kifford, or Nicholas Butler

Palmer. Busts and tablets outside the new buildings commemorate these

worthies, but where are their buildings gone? The Almshouses of

Westminster are all destroyed, and with them have perished the sentiment

and the romance of the streets.

Something still remains; for, with the most laudable desire to destroy

whatever can teach or suggest or soften manners or point to heaven, the

Charity Commissioners have not been able to destroy one or two of the

schools. There were formerly the Grey Coat School, the Green Coat

School, the Blue Coat

[Illustration: THE GRILLE, EMANUEL HOSPITAL.

_By permission of “The Architect.”_]

School, and the Black Coat School. The Grey Coat School has become a

school for nearly four hundred girls; their old house still remains for

them--a most beautiful monument, built in the seventeenth century for a

poorhouse. The great hall in which the paupers formerly lived is now the

school hall; above it ran the old low dormitory, now thrown open to the

roof; there are paneled old rooms for board rooms; there are broad

passages and corridors; there are schoolrooms of later date; and at the

back, still uninjured, lie the broad gardens that belong to the time

when every house in Westminster had its garden.

In any map of London except those of the actual present,--say, in

Crutchley’s of 1838,--there is laid down in its place, just north of

Rochester Row (which is now Artillery Place), St. Margaret’s Hospital,

otherwise called the Green Coat School. This part of Westminster was

once called Palmer’s Village; the Hospital was founded by the parish for

the benefit of orphans. Charles II. endowed it; the Duchess of Somerset

gave the school a thousand pounds; other benefactions flowed in. Forty

years ago the place was thus described by a writer who is not often

eloquent in praise (Walcott’s “Westminster”):

“The Hospital of St. Margaret consists of a large quadrangle. Upon the

east side are the schoolroom, lavatory, and dormitories. The Master’s

house fronts the entrance--a detached building ornamented with a bust of

the kingly founder, and the Royal arms painted in colours widely carved

and gilded, which were, according to tradition, only preserved from the

destructive hands of the Puritans by a thick coating of plaster laid

over the obnoxious remembrancers of the rightful dynasty. The south side

is formed by the refectory and board room, wainscoted--once, it is

said, with old portions of the woodwork which stood in St. Margaret’s

chancel--to a considerable height, in large panels, upon which are hung

full-length paintings of King Charles II., by Sir Peter Lely, and Emery

Hill, an ancient benefactor to the institution, in the manner of the

same master. Over the mantelpiece is a beautiful portrait of King

Charles I., by Vandyke. The windows command a view of the Hospital

Garden, with its fragrant flower-beds and grassy plots--a pleasant

relief to the eye wearied with the interminable brick buildings of the

outer street, and well attesting the constant care bestowed upon it.

“Upon this foundation are maintained twenty-nine boys, who wear a long

green skirt, bound round with a red girdle, similar in form to that worn

by the boys of Christ’s Hospital.”

Where is this lovely place now? It is gone. On its site are some

branches of the Army and Navy Stores. Think what a city loses by the

destruction of such a place! The daily object-lesson in our duty to the

friendless and the helpless; the memory of bygone worthies; the

sentiment of brotherhood. That is one way of considering the loss.

Another way is to think of it as a place of singular beauty, of such

beauty as we cannot possibly reproduce. And we have willfully and

needlessly destroyed it! It is a national disaster of the gravest, the

most irreparable kind, that such monuments as old almshouses, old City

churches, old schools, old gates, old foundations of any kind, should be

given over to any body of men, with permission to tear down and destroy

at their will, and under pretense of benefiting the parish. Can one

benefit a man by destroying his memory? Can one

[Illustration: GREY COAT HOSPITAL: THE ENTRANCE.]

improve a parish by cutting off its connection with the past?

[Illustration:

GREY COAT BOY. GREY COAT GIRL.

FROM THE STATUE IN FRONT OF THE HOSPITAL.]

There is one other endowed school not yet destroyed. It is the Blue Coat

School, first opened in 1688 for boys. In the year 1709 the present

school buildings were erected. They consist of a charming red-brick hall

with the figure of a scholar over the porch; a little garden full of

greenery is at the back; at one side is the master’s residence, a

two-storied house covered all over with a curtain of Virginia creeper;

another little garden, full of such flowers as will grow in the London

air, is behind this house. But master and boys, when they look around

them, begin to tremble, for their place is old, it is beautiful, it

adorns the street, it is sacred to the memory of two hundred years of

Boy--thirty generations of Boy. It is still most useful--therefore one

feels certain that it is doomed; it must soon go, to make room for

residential flats and mansions fifteen stories high; it must, we have no

doubt, follow the other monuments of the Past, and be absorbed into

Consolidated Schools. If there were any other reason wanted for the

destruction of the School, it is the tradition that Wren built it.

[Illustration: GREY COAT HOSPITAL FROM THE GARDEN.]

To my mind Westminster possesses, apart from the Abbey, but one

Church--that of St. Margaret’s. Other modern churches there are, but one

does not heed them: they are things of to-day; even St. John’s and St.

Martin’s are but of yesterday. St. Margaret’s is eight hundred years

old; if not built by the Confessor, it was built--that is to say, the

first church on this site was built--soon after his death. The history

of St. Margaret’s Church must be told by an ecclesiastic; we need only

remember that Caxton lies buried here; there is a tablet to his memory

put up in 1820 by the Roxburgh Club. Raleigh is buried here--within the

chancel. James Harrington, author of “Oceana,” is buried here. John

Skelton, with whom we have conversed in Sanctuary, is buried here. Here

Milton was married to Katharine Woodcock, who died in childbirth a year

later:

[Illustration: CARVING FROM THE DOORWAY OF EMANUEL HOSPITAL.]

Methought I saw my late espousèd saint

Brought to me, like Alcestis, from the grave.

Mine, such as yet once more I trust to have

Full sight of her in heaven, without restraint,

Came vested all in white, pure as her mind.

Her face was veiled; yet to my fancied sight

Love, sweetness, goodness in her person shined.

[Illustration: MEDAL WORN BY THE CAPTAIN OF THE GREY COAT BOYS.]

In the churchyard of St. Margaret’s were interred the remains of those

persons who were turned out of the Abbey at the Restoration: the mother

of Cromwell; his daughter; Admiral Blake, whose remains ought to have

been taken back again long ago; and in this church, or this churchyard,

have been buried a crowd of persons illustrious and of high degree in

their generation, whose deeds have not survived them and whose memory is

only kept alive by the monuments on the walls and nothing else. It is a

church filled with monuments: it reminds one of such a

[Illustration: BLUE COAT SCHOOL, CAXTON STREET.]

church as the Grey Friars’ in the City, which was crowded with tombs of

the illustrious Forgotten.

Not far from the church is the old-new Burial Ground, in the Horseferry

Road. It is now a public garden, and a pleasant garden, with seats and

asphalted paths and beds of grass and flowers. Against the wall are

ranged the tombstones of the obscure Forgotten. I suppose it makes very

little difference to a man whether he has a headstone provided for him

against the wall of a public garden, or a tablet--nay, a

monument--against the wall of St. Margaret’s Church, as soon as he is

properly and completely forgotten.

St. Margaret’s, then, is the only church of which one thinks in

connection with Westminster. There is one scene, one little drama,

enacted or partly enacted in this church, which perhaps may belong to

the pen of the layman. It is the famous case brought before a Court of

Chivalry in the year 1387, to decide the dispute between Sir Richard le

Scrope and Sir Robert Grosvenor respecting the right of either party to

a certain coat-of-arms. This was no common case: it was the alleged

violation of a family possession, a family distinction. The case was

considered so important that more than three hundred witnesses were

called. They are nearly all shadows and empty names now; but one there

is who stands out prominent: his name is Geoffrey Chaucer.

The following is the evidence given by the poet in this great heraldic

case:

“Geoffrey Chaucer, Esquire, forty years of age and more, having borne

arms for twenty-eight years, produced for the side of Sir Richard le

Scrope, sworn and examined. Asked if the arms Azure with a bend Or

belonged or ought to belong to the said Richard of right and

inheritance, said, ‘Yes’; for he had seen him thus armed in France

before the city of Retters, and Sir Henry le Scrope with the same arms

with a white label and a banner, and the said Sir Richard with the

complete arms--Azure and a bend Or; and thus had he seen them armed

during the whole time that the said Geoffrey was present. Asked why he

knew that the said arms belonged to the said Sir Richard, said that he

had heard speech of old knights and squires, and that they had always

continued their possession of the said arms, and for all his time

reputed for these arms in common fame and public ways. And also he said

that he had seen the same arms on banners, on windows, on paintings, on

robes, commonly called the arms of Le Scrope. Asked if he had ever heard

who was the first ancestor of the said Sir Richard, who first bore the

said arms, said ‘No’; but that he had never heard of any, but that they

had come of an old stock and of old gentlefolk, and had held the same

arms. Asked if he had ever heard of any interruption or challenge made

by Sir Robert Grosvenor, or by his ancestors, or by any one in his name,

to the said Sir Richard or to any of his ancestors, said ‘No’; but that

he was once in Friday Street in London, and as he went along the street

he saw hanging out a new sign made of the said arms, and he asked what

house was this that had hung out the arms of Scrope; and one other

replied, and said, ‘Not so: and they are not hung out for the arms of

Scrope, nor painted for those arms, but they are painted and put up

there for a knight of the County of Chester, a man named Robert

Grosvenor’; and that this was the first time that ever he heard tell of

[Illustration: BLUE COAT SCHOOL, FROM THE GARDEN.]

Sir Robert Grosvenor or his ancestors or anybody bearing the name of

Grosvenor.”

The case, at which between three or four hundred witnesses were heard,

was finally decided by “Thomas Fitz au Roy, Duc de Gloucestre, Counte de

Bukyngham et Dessex, Constable Dengleterre,” who, after due care and

deliberation, and the weighing of all the evidence, and consultation

with wise and discreet persons, finally adjudged “les dites armes

d’azure ove une bend dor avoir esté et estre les armes du dit Richard

Lescrop.” And so ended this great case, which somehow puts the poet

before us more clearly than even his “Canterbury Pilgrims.”

And so we come back to the streets proper of Westminster--_i. e._, the

slums on the west and south of the Monastery.

There have always been slums here, even before the Sanctuary rabble and

after. The streets lying about Tothill Lane, however, which were slums

from the beginning, only began in the sixteenth century. The map of

Anthony Van den Wyngeerde (A.D. 1543) shows only a few houses standing

round about the Sanctuary in the northwest corner of the inclosure;

there is a crowd of houses between King Street and the river, and on the

west there is nothing but open country: that part of the City which

contained the most infamous dens and the vilest ruffians, which was

called the “Desert” of Westminster, lying to the south of Tothill

Fields, grew up and ran to waste and seed in the course of the

seventeenth century. In the eighteenth we reaped the harvest of that

seed; at the end of the nineteenth we are still pulling up the weeds and

planting new flowers and sowing better seed.

The “Desert” was bounded on the north by Tothill Street, Broadway, and

Petty France, all with their courts--their sweet and desirable courts;

its southern boundary was the Horseferry Road; the Abbey lay along the

east; and the western marsh was the fringe of Tothill Fields, now marked

by Rochester Row, or perhaps Francis Street. A little remains--here a

court, there a bit of street--to mark what the place was like.

Hear what was written about Westminster so late as the year 1839

(Bardsley on “Westminster Improvements”): “Thorney Island consisted

chiefly of narrow, dirty streets lined with wretched dwellings, and of

numerous miserable courts and alleys, situate in the environs of the

Palace and Abbey, where in the olden time the many lawless characters

claiming sanctuary found shelter; and so great had been the force of

long custom that the houses continued to be rebuilt, century after

century, in a miserable manner for the reception of similar degraded

outcasts. The inhabitants of these courts and alleys are stated in the

reign of Queen Elizabeth ‘to be the most part of no trade or mystery, to

be poor, and many of them wholly given to vice and idleness.’ And in

James I.’s time ‘almost every fourth house is an alehouse, harbouring

all sorts of lewde and badde people.’ And again: ‘In these narrow

streets, and in their close and insalubrious lanes, courts, and alleys,

where squalid misery and poverty struggle with filth and wretchedness,

where vice reigns unchecked, and in the atmosphere of which the worst

diseases are generated and diffused.’”

In the little space of a thousand feet by twelve hundred, the courts

were sometimes so narrow that the people could shake hands across; the

tenements were

[Illustration: LOVING CUP PRESENTED TO THE GUARDIANS OF ST. MARGARET’S,

WESTMINSTER, BY SAMUEL PIERSON, IN 1764.]

sometimes built of boards nailed together; there were no sanitary

arrangements at all; there was no drainage; typhus always held

possession; and actually under the very shadow of the Cathedral were

gathered together the most dangerous and most villainous wretches in the

whole country. Old Pye Street, Orchard Street, Duck Lane, the Almonry,

and St. Anne’s Street were the homes of the professional street beggar

and the professional thief. No respectable person could venture with

safety into these streets.

They are now quite safe; the people are rough to look at, but they are

no longer thieves and cut-throats by calling. Let us take a short, a

very short walk about the Desert. Alas! its glories are gone; the place

is not even picturesque: Vice, we know, is sometimes picturesque, even

in its most hideous mien. Orchard Street has one side pulled down, and

the other side presents a squalid, dilapidated appearance in gray brick;

it was once a fit entrance for the most wicked part of London. The

streets into which it leads--Great St. Anne’s Street, Pye Street, Peter

Street, Duck Lane (now St. Matthew Street) are all transformed. Huge

barracks of lodging-houses stand over the dark and malodorous courts;

the place is now no doubt tolerably virtuous, but the artist turns from

it with a shudder. There was a time when these streets were country

lanes, having few houses, and no courts; at this time many pleasant,

ingenious, and interesting persons lived in this quarter. For example,

Herrick the poet and Purcell the musician lived in St. Anne’s Street.

But we have already condemned the catalogue of connections. He who

seriously studies the streets learns the associations as he goes along.

Outside these streets stretched Tothill Fields and Five Fields. These

fields were to Westminster much as Smithfield and Moorfields were to the

City of London. Anything out of the common could be done in Tothill

Fields. To begin with, they were a pleasant place for walking; in the

spring they were full of flowers--the cuckoo flower, the marsh mallow,

[Illustration: OLD PYE STREET AND THE RAGGED SCHOOL.]

the spurge, the willow herb, the wild parsley, are enumerated; they

contained ponds and streams; in the streams grew watercress, always a

favorite “sallet” of the people; in the ponds there were ducks--the

Westminster boys used to hire dogs to worry the ducks; it is not stated

who paid for those ducks. On the north side of the Fields was St.

James’s Park, with its decoy and Rosamond’s Pond, a rectangular pool

lying across what is now Birdcage Walk, opposite the Wellington

Barracks. Later on, market gardens were laid out in these low-lying

meadows.

[Illustration: BLACK DOG ALLEY. WESTMINSTER.]

Tournaments were held in the Fields--not the ordinary exercises or

displays of the tilt yard, but the grander occasions, as in 1226 at the

coronation of Queen Eleanor. Here, in the same reign, but later, the

Prior of Beverley entertained the Kings and Queens of England and

Scotland, the King’s son, and many great Lords, in tents erected on the

field.

Executions were carried out in the Fields, as when was taken Margaret

Gourdemains, “a witch of Eye beside Westminster,”--was it Battersea

(“Peter’s Ey”)? or was it Chelsea (“Shingle Ey”)?--“whose sorcerie and

witchcraft Dame Eleanour Cobham had long time used, and by her medicines

and drinks enforced the Duke of Gloucester to love her and after to wed

her.” Necromancers were punished here. In the reign of Edward III. a man

was taken practicing magic with a dead man’s hand, and carried to

Tothill, where his dead man’s hand was burned before his face.

Here was held the ordeal of battle. Stow relates one such trial. The

dispute was about a manor in the Isle of Harty. The plaintiffs, two in

number, appointed their champion, and the defendant his. The latter was

a “Master of Defense,” which does not seem quite fair upon the other,

who was only a “big, broad, strong set fellow.” Before the day appointed

for the fight an agreement was arrived at between the parties; only,

“for the defendant’s assurance,” the order for the fight should be

observed, the plaintiffs not putting in an appearance, so that the case

should be judged against them in default. The lists were twenty-one

yards square, set with scaffolds crowded with people--for who would not

go out to see two men trying to kill each other? The Master of Defense,

to whom the proceedings were an excellent advertisement, rode through

London at seven in the morning in splendid attire, having the gauntlet

borne before him; he entered Westminster Hall, but made no long stay

there, going back to King Street, and so through the Sanctuary and

Tothill Street to the lists, where he waited for the Judge. At ten the

Court of Common Pleas removed to the lists. Then the combatants stood

face to face, bare-footed, bare-legged, bare-headed, with their doublet

sleeves turned back, ready for the fight; and all hearts beat faster,

and the ladies caught their breath and gasped, and their color came and

went. Then the Judge gave order that every person must keep his place

and give no help or encouragement by word or by weapon to the

combatants. Next--this was the last of the tedious preliminaries: when

would they begin?--each champion took oath: “This hear you Justices,

that I this day neither eate, drunk, nor have upon me neither bone,

stone, nor glasse, or any enchantment, sorcerie, or witchcraft,

where-through the power of the word of God might be increased or

diminished and the devil’s power increased; and that my appeal is true,

so help me God, and His saints, and by this booke.”

Alas! instead of giving the word to fight it out, the Lord Chief Justice

remarked that the plaintiffs were not present; that there could be no

fight without them; and that the estate consequently went to the

defendant. Then with sad faces and heavy hearts the company dispersed.

No fight, after all--nobody killed! To be sure, the Master of Defense

invited the “big, broad, strong set fellow” to play with him half a

score blows; but the latter refused, saying he had come to fight and not

to play.

A great Fair was held in these Fields on St. Edward’s Day (October 12),

and for fifteen days afterward. It was instituted by Henry III., in the

hope of doing some mischief to the City of London. The Fair continued,

but after the first year it seems to have done no harm to the trade of

London. It continued, in fact, into the present century, when it was an

ordinary fair of booths and shows, with Richardson’s Theater--like

Greenwich Fair or Portsdown Fair. All these Fairs were alike. The two

latter I can remember. Unfortunately my visits to these renowned Fairs

took place in the afternoon; the real fun of the Fair, I believe, took

place in the evening. I remember a great crowd pushing and fighting and

springing rattles on each other; and I remember the performers outside

Richardson’s marching about in magnificent costumes; the band playing;

the clown tumbling; the columbine, a true fairy if ever there was one,

gracefully pirouetting; then all forming into line for a dance; and

after the dance the play in the tent behind. Such a Fair was that of

Tothill Fields, at night the resort of all the ruffians of Westminster

and Lambeth and half London. At least, however, while they were at the

Fair they were out of other mischief. The exact site on which this Fair

was held does not appear; but since it continued for the first quarter

of this century at least, we may look for the place which was the last

to be built upon. In Crutchley’s map of 1834 there are fields between

the Vauxhall Bridge Road and James Street--that is, northwest of

Rochester Row. There are also fields south of Vauxhall Bridge Road

toward Chelsea. The former site seems the more probable.

Of course so fine a situation as Tothill Fields for the favorite

diversions of a sporting people could not be neglected. Hither resorted

all the lovers of those old English games, cock-fighting, bear-baiting,

bull-baiting, cock-throwing, dog-fighting, and prize-fighting. There

were horse races. These sports were continued well into this century.

The Earl of Albemarle in his “Recollections” speaks of these sports. The

Westminster boys of his time haunted the houses called the Seven

Chimneys or the Five Houses,--they were the old pesthouses,--which were

the resort of the bullbaiters, the dog-fanciers, and other gentry of

cognate pursuits. Among them was the unfortunate Heberfield, commonly

known as “Slender Billy,” who seems to have been a good-tempered,

easy-going person, without the least tincture of morals. The following

is the strange and shameful story of his end:

[Illustration: THE WESTMINSTER SNUFFBOX.]

He got into trouble for assisting the escape of a certain French general

who was on parole; took him probably to the south coast,--Lyme Regis,

Rousdon, or Charmouth,--and introduced him to a smuggler who ran him

across. He was caught, tried, and sentenced to imprisonment in Newgate.

Unhappily for him, the Bank of England was just then suffering heavy

losses from forgeries. They badly wanted to hang somebody,--no matter

who,--somebody, in order to deter others from forging notes. The story

is quite amazing, as Lord Albemarle tells it. Can we conceive the

Governing Body of the Bank of England meeting together and resolving to

entrap some miserable wretch into passing the forged notes, so that by

getting him hanged others would be deterred? This is what Lord Albemarle

says they did:

“The Solicitors of the Bank accordingly took into their pay a

confederate of Heberfield’s named Barry. Through this man’s agency

Heberfield was easily inveigled into passing forged notes provided by

the Solicitors of the Bank themselves. On the evidence of Barry,

Heberfield was found guilty and sentenced to death. He was hanged at

Newgate for forgery on January 12, 1812.”

The saddest of all the memories connected with Tothill Fields is that of

the triumphal entry of Cromwell into London after the “crowning mercy”

of Worcester. He brought with him the miserable prisoners he had taken

on that field. There were four thousand of them in all. They camped at

Mile End Green when Cromwell drove into London; the next day they were

marched right through the City and along the Strand to Westminster, and

so to Tothill Fields. On the way they received alms, oatmeal, and

biscuit from any who were moved of their pity to bestow something upon

them. So they lay in the marshy fields, where many died, until they were

sold as slaves to the merchants of Guinea. In Mr. J. E. Smith’s “History

of the Church of St. John the Evangelist” there is an entry which tells

its own story. It is from the Church-wardens’ Accounts of 1652-53:

“Paid to Thomas Wright for 67 load of soyle laid on the graves in

Tothill Fields, wherein 1200 Scotch prisoners, taken at the ffight at

Worcester, were buried, and for other paines taken with his teame of

horsse about amending the Sanctuary Highway when General Ireton was

buried. XXXS.”

How many of the remaining two thousand eight hundred ever got home

again? Chance once threw into my hands a tract which showed the hard

treatment and the barbarities to which Monmouth’s convicts in Barbadoes

were subjected: most of these were men of respectable family, to whom

money might be sent for their exemption from work in the fields, or even

for their redemption. But these other poor fellows were absolutely

friendless and penniless. And they were going to the Guinea Coast, the

Gold Coast, the white man’s grave! One hopes that the mortality on their

arrival was swifter and more extensive than even the mortality in

Tothill Fields, because death was certainly the best thing that could

happen to them.

When these papers first appeared I received a letter of expostulation

from a reader. He said that the streets of Westminster were not all so

disreputable as I seemed to think. He said:

“Westminster only became a slum within this hundred years. The old

Westminster workhouse had been the mansion of Sir John Pye. Sir Francis

Burdett was born in Orchard Street, and Admiral Kempenfeldt who went

down in the _Royal George_ had his house there, and not so very long ago

a pear tree bloomed annually in his garden. The father of Henry Boys,

organist of St. John’s, about 1830 to 1840, was a bullion worker and

carried on his business for many years and up to the thirties in Great

St. Anne’s Lane. My grandmother was born, 1770, in Peter Street, at the

corner of Duck Lane. She told me that all that neighbourhood was very

respectable in her girlhood, Duck Lane being the only exception. She

attributed the downfall of the locality to the cheap houses that were

built at that time in New Peter Street. Towards the end of the century

there was only one shop in Strutton Ground: all the rest being

public-houses. My mother was born in 1802 in Marlborough House, Peter

Street, then the premises of the Cudbear Company. She used to recall

Brown’s Gardens in her young days, that were between St. Peter Street

and the Horseferry Road. They were nursery gardens. Palmer’s village was

a collection of houses for workmen, built about the beginning of this

century or the end of last, between Emanuel Hospital and Brewer’s Green,

and accessible through an archway leading from the latter.”

I am glad to print this protest. I have, however, given my authorities

for what I have stated. It is quite possible that respectable streets

and good houses existed side by side with the slums. There are always

respectable streets and great houses in every neighborhood, just as

among associations of the greatest villains there are always some with

redeeming traits. Among the residents of Westminster our friend might

have mentioned Lord Grey of Wilton, Cornelius Van Dur, Yeoman of the

Guard to four sovereigns, Oliver Cromwell, John Milton, and Dick Turpin.

Hear, however, further from Mr. William Bardell, writing in 1839.

“Another of the peculiarities which this district presents is the number

of middle-men it contains: these generally possess themselves of a

house or houses, with gardens, large or small as it may happen; here

they erect, in open defiance of all building or sewers acts, a number of

tenements of the most wretched description, and to which the only access

is by a passage through one of the front houses; in process of time

these become lanes, or courts, or alleys, or places, or buildings, or

yards. These tenements are divided into separate rooms, and let weekly

by the middle-man, who subsists upon his beneficial interest in the

concern; and so numerous are the houses of this description in the

district, that considerably more than one-half of the number proposed to

be removed are let to weekly lodgers; but these places, most of them

old, and very slightly built, frequently with boards held together by

iron hoops, are so utterly destitute of every convenience, that the

heretofore pleasant gardens of Tothill are most terrible nuisances.

“It is in these narrow streets, and in these close and insalubrious

lanes, courts, and alleys, where squalid misery and poverty struggle

with filth and wretchedness, where vice reigns unchecked, and in the

atmosphere of which the worst diseases are generated and diffused. That

uncleanness and impurity are an unerring index, pointing out the

situation where the malignancy of epidemics more or less exists, is a

truth known and admitted from the earliest ages.”

“Dr. Wright, the assiduous and highly-intelligent medical officer to the

parish, stated before the same Committee, ‘that fever is exceedingly

prevalent, and had been very general in the months of April and May.’

The Doctor had upwards of thirty cases of typhus fever in one court

containing four houses; most of which cases it is probable would have

terminated fatally had the sufferers not been removed from that

locality; ‘that fever is propagated and continued in these miserable

courts long after the ravages of epidemics have ceased in more open

parts.’

“Mr. Cubitt also has stated, that ‘the ground between the Almonry and

the western end of Palmer’s village is occupied by the worst possible

description of inhabitants. The land is exceedingly badly drained, or

rather not drained; and there being no proper outlets for the water, a

great deal of bad air must pass off by evaporation from the quantity of

stagnant water upon the surface and in the cesspools.’”

Here we make an end: it is not a Survey of Westminster to which you have

been invited; it is but this side and that side of the many-sided life

of this remarkable City, which is, as was pointed out at the beginning,

unlike any other city in the world, in having no citizens, but only

residents or tenants; no municipal life; which welcomed all the scum,

riffraff, and _ribauderie_ of the country, and gave them harbor; which

has always belonged to the Church, yet has never been expected to have

any morals; always its streets and courts have been crammed with thieves

and drabs, gamesters, sporting men, cheats, and bullies; and beside the

streets always stood the stately Monastery, the quiet cloister, the

noble Church, the splendid Court, the gallant following of king and

noble, and the gathering of grave and responsible knights and burgesses

assembled to carry on the affairs of the country. I have invited you to

restore Thorney as it was long ago, the stepping-stone and halting-place

of all the trade of the island, busy and noisy; the life of the

Benedictine in his monastery; the consecration of the Anchorite; the

strange life of the mediæval Sanctuary;

[Illustration: THE WESTMINSTER TOBACCO BOX.]

the Palace of the Plantagenets; the Palace of the Stuarts; the Masques

of James I.; the Parliamentary side of the last century; and the streets

and slums. A great many things have been purposely omitted from these

pages which belong to Westminster and have taken place there. For

instance, there is the School with its long line of scholars, afterward

famous. Nothing has been said about the School. There is, again, the

Abbey Church. Very little has been said about the buildings; the

additions, alterations, restorations: nothing at all has been said

about the monuments which crowd its aisles and transepts. There is

Westminster Hall. Very little, indeed, has been said here of the things

done within its walls: the Coronation Banquets; the Trials; the

Receptions. Nothing has been said concerning the executions and the

tournaments which have taken place in Palace Yard, Old and New. Nothing

has been said about the New Houses of Parliament. These things, and a

great many more which the reader can remember for himself, have been

omitted from these pages, partly because they belong to the history of

this country and may be found in all Histories--they happened in

Westminster and they belong to Great Britain; partly because they have

already been so well treated that it is unnecessary and would be even

presumptuous for me to attempt them; and partly because the space at my

disposal is limited, though the materials are practically inexhaustible.

These chapters are not to be considered as a History of Westminster, or

a Survey: they are pictures of the City with its Palace, its Abbey, its

Sanctuary, and its slums, from a time when London did not exist until

the present day.

APPENDIX.

THE COURT OF CHARLES II.

The popular imagination pictures the Court of Charles the Second as a

place of no ceremony or state or dignity whatever; where the King

strolled about the courts and where there was singing of boys, laughter

of women, tinkling of guitars, playing of cards, making merriment

without stint or restraint, a Bohemia of Courts. We have been taught to

think thus of King Charles’s Court by the historian who has seized on

one or two scenes and episodes--for instance, the last Sunday evening of

Charles’s life; by the writer of romance; by the chronicler of scandal;

by the Restoration poets and the Restoration dramatists.

This view of Whitehall after the Restoration is, to say the least,

incomplete. Charles had a Court, like every other sovereign; he had a

Court with officers many and distinguished; there were Court ceremonies

which he had to go through; that part of his private life which is now

paraded as if it was his public life was conducted with some regard to

public opinion. What his Court really was, may be learned from a little

book by Thomas de Laune, Gentleman, called “The Present State of

London,” published in the year 1681, for George Lurkin, Enoch Prosser,

and John How, at the Rose and Crown. Since we have seen what were the

chief offices of the Confessor’s Court and of Richard the Second’s

Court, it may be useful to learn, from this book, the offices and

management of a Stuart’s Court.

_Its Government, Ecclesiastical, Civil, and Military._

1. _Ecclesiastical._--The Dean of the King’s Chapel was generally a

Bishop. The Chapel itself is a Royal Peculiar, exempt from episcopal

visitation. The Dean chose the Sub-Dean or _Precentor Capellæ_;

thirty-six gentlemen of the Chapel, of whom twelve were priests and

twenty-four singing clerks, twelve children, three organists, four

vergers, a sergeant, two yeomen, and a Groom of the Chapel. The King had

his private oratory, where every day one of the chaplains read the

service of the day. Twelve times a year the King, attended by his

principal nobility, offered a sum of money in gold, called the Byzantine

gift, because it was formerly coined at Byzantium, in recognition of the

Grace of God which made him King. James the First used a coin with the

legend, on one side: “Quid retribuam Domino pro omnibus quæ retribuit

mihi?” and on the other side: “Cor contritum et humiliatum non despiciet

Deus.”

In addition there were forty-eight Chaplains in Ordinary, of whom four

every month waited at Court.

The Lord High Almoner, usually the Bishop of London, disposed of the

King’s alms; he received all _deodands_ and _bona felonum de se_ to be

applied to that purpose. Under him were a Sub-Almoner, two Yeomen, and

two Grooms of the Almonry. There was also a Clerk of the Closet, whose

duty was to resolve doubts on spiritual matters. In the reign of good

King Charles the duties of this officer were probably light.

2. _The Civil Government._--The chief officer was the Lord Steward. He

had authority over all the officers of the Court except those of the

Chapel, the Chamber, and the Stable. He was Judge of all offences

committed within the precincts of the Court and within the Verge. In the

King’s Presence the Lord Steward carried a white staff; when he went

abroad the White Staff was borne before him by a footman bareheaded.

His salary was £100 a year with sixteen Dishes daily and allowances of

wine, beer, etc. The Lord Chamberlain had the supervision of all

officers belonging to the King’s Chamber, such as the officers of the

wardrobe, of the Revels, of the music, of the plays, of the Hunt; the

messengers, Trumpeters, Heralds, Poursuivants, Apothecaries,

Chyrurgeons, Barbers, Chaplains, etc.

The third great officer was the Master of the Horse. His duties are

signified by his title, which was formerly _comes stabuli_ or Constable.

Under these principal officers were the Treasurer of the Household, the

Comptroller, the Cofferer, the Master of the Household, the two Clerks

of the Green Cloth, the sergeants, messengers, etc.

In the Compting House was held the Court of Green Cloth, which sat every

day with authority to maintain the Peace within a circle of twelve miles

radius. It was so called from the color of the cloth spread upon the

table.

The chief Clerk was an official of great power and dignity; he received

the King’s guests; kept the accounts; looked after the provisions and

had charge of the Pantry, Buttery, and Cellar. There were clerks under

him. The Knight Harbinger with three Gentlemen Harbingers and seven

Yeoman Harbingers provided lodgings for the King’s Guests, Ambassadors,

officers, and servants.

The Knight Marshal was Judge in all cases in which a servant of the King

was concerned; he was also one of the Judges in the Court of the

Marshalsea. He had six Provost Marshals or Vergers in scarlet coats to

wait upon him.

The Servants in ordinary were the Gentlemen of the Bedchamber, and the

Groom of the Stole, the Vice-Chamberlain, the Keeper of the Privy Purse,

the Treasurer of the Chamber, the Master of the Robes, the twelve

Grooms of the Bedchamber, the six Pages of the Bedchamber, the four

Gentlemen Ushers of the Privy Chamber, the forty-eight Gentlemen of the

Privy Chamber, the six Grooms of the Privy Chamber, the Library Keeper,

Black Rod, the eight Gentlemen Ushers of the Presence Chamber, the

fourteen Grooms of the Great Chamber, six gentlemen waiters, four

cup-bearers, four carvers, four servers, four esquires of the Body, the

eight servers of the Chamber, the Groom Porter, sixteen sergeants at

arms, four other sergeants at arms who attended on the Speaker and on

the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. There were four Physicians in ordinary,

a Master and Treasurer of the Jewel House, three Yeomen of the Jewel

House, a Master of the Ceremonies with an assistant and a marshal; three

Kings at Arms, six Heralds, and four Poursuivants at Arms; a Geographer,

a Historiographer, a Hydrographer, a Cosmographer, a Poet Laureate, and

a Notary.

These were the Officers of the Wardrobe: the Great Wardrobe, the

standing wardrobes at Hampton, Windsor, and other places, and the

Removing Wardrobe which was carried about with the King. For the

wardrobes were one Yeoman, two Grooms, and three Pages.

For the Office of Tents and Pavilions were two Masters, four Yeomen, one

Groom, one Clerk Comptroller, and one Clerk of the Tents. The Master of

the Revels ordered the plays and masques, &c. He had one Yeoman and one

Groom. Attached to the Master of the Robes were workmen, each in his own

craft. The Royal Falconer had thirty-three officers under him. The

Master of Buckhounds had thirty-four assistants; the Master of the otter

hounds had five under him. So had the Master of the Harriers. The Master

of the Ordnance had a Lieutenant, a master Armourer, and seventeen under

officers. There were forty-two messengers of the Chamber. There were

sixty-four Musicians in ordinary; fifteen trumpeters and kettle

drummers; seven drummers and fifes; two Apothecaries; two Chyrurgeons;

two Barbers; three Printers; one Printer of Oriental tongues. There were

bookseller, stationer, bookbinder, silkman, woollen draper, post-master,

and a Master of Cock-fighting.

There were two Embroiderers, one Serjeant Skinner, two Keepers of the

Privy Lodging; two Gentlemen, and two Yeomen of the Bows; one Cross-bow

maker; one Fletcher; one Cormorant keeper; one Hand-gun maker; one

master and marker of Tennis; one Mistress Semstress, and one Laundress;

one Perspective-maker, one Master-Fencer, one Haberdasher of Hats, one

Combmaker, one Sergeant Painter, one Painter, one Limner, one

Picture-Drawer, one Silver-Smith, one Goldsmith, one Jeweller, one

Peruque-maker, one Keeper of Pheasants and Turkies. Joyner, Copier of

Pictures, Watch-maker, Cabinet-maker, Lock-Smith, of each one. Game of

Bears and Bulls, one Master, one Sergeant, one Yeoman. Two Operators for

the Teeth. Two Coffer-bearers for the Back-stairs, one Yeoman of the

Leash, fifty-five Watermen. Upholsterer, Letter Carrier, Foreign Post,

Coffee Maker, of each one.

Ten Officers belonging to Gardens, Bowling-Greens, Tennis-Court,

Pall-Mall, Keeper of the Theatre at Whitehall. Cutler, Spurrier,

Girdler, Corn-Cutter, Button-maker, Embosser, Enameler, of each one.

Writer, Flourisher, and Embellisher, Scenographer, or Designer of

Prospects, Letter-Founder, of each one. Comedians, Seventeen Men, and

Eight Women, Actors.

Gunner, Gilder, Cleaner of Pictures, Scene Keeper, Coffer-maker, Wax

Chandler, of each one. Keeper of Birds and Fowl in St. James’s-Park,

one. Keeper of the Volery, Coffee-club-maker, Sergeant-Painter, of each

one; with divers other officers and servants under the Lord Chamberlain

to serve his Majesty upon occasion.

As to the Officers under the Master of the Horse, there are Twelve

Querries so called of the French Escayer, derived from Escury, a Stable.

Their office is to attend the King on Hunting or Progress, or on any

occasion of Riding Abroad, to help His Majesty up and down from his

Horse, &c. Four of these are called Querries of the Crown-Stable, and

the others are called Querries of the Hunting-Stable. The Fee to each of

these is only £20 yearly, according to the Ancient Custom; but they have

allowance for Diet, to each £100 yearly, besides Lodgings, and two

Horse-Liveries.

Next is the Chief Avener, from Avener, Oats, whose yearly Fee is £40.

There is, moreover, one Clerk of the Stable, four Yeomen-Riders, four

Child-Riders, Yeomen of the Stirrup, Sergeant-Marshal, and

Yeoman-Farriers, four Groom-Farriers, Sergeants of the Carriage, three

Surveyors, a Squire and Yeomen-Sadlers, four Yeomen-Granators, four

Yeomen-Purveyors, a Yeoman-Pickman, a Yeoman-Bitmaker, four Coach-men,

eight Litter-men, a Yeoman of the Close Wagon, sixty-four Grooms of the

Stable, whereof thirty are called Grooms of the Crown Stable, and

thirty-four of the Hunting and Pad-Stable. Twenty-six Footmen in their

Liveries, to run by the King’s Horse. All these Places are in the Gift

of the Masters of the Horse.

There is besides these an antient Officer, called Clerk of the Market,

who within the Verge of the King’s Household, is to keep a Standard of

all Weights and Measures, and to burn all that are false. From the

Pattern of this Standard, all the Weights and Measures of the Kingdom

are to be taken.

There are divers other considerable Officers, not Subordinate to the

Three Great Officers, as the Master of the Great Wardrobe, Post-Master,

Master of the Ordnance, Warden of the Mint, &c.

Upon the King are also attending in his Court the Lords of the Privy

Council, Secretaries of State, the Judges, the College of Civilians, the

King’s Council at Law, the King’s Serjeants at Law, the Masters of

Requests, Clerks of the Signet, Clerks of the Council, Keeper of the

Paper-Office, or Papers of State, &c.

3. _Military._--There is always a Military Force to preserve the King’s

Person, which are His Guards of Horse and Foot. The Guards of Horse are

in Number 600 Men, well armed and equipped; who are generally Young

Gentlemen of considerable Families, who are there made fit for Military

Commands. They are divided into Three Troops, viz.: the Kings Troop,

distinguished by their Blew Ribbons and Carbine Belts, their Red Hooses,

and Houlster-Caps, Embroidered with His Majesties Cypher and Crown. The

Queens Troops by Green Ribbons, Carbine Belts, covered with Green

Velvet, and Gold Lace, also Green Hooses and Houlster-Caps, embroidered

with the same Cypher and Crown. And the Dukes Troop by Yellow Ribbons

and Carbine Belts, and Yellow Hooses, Embroidered as the others. In

which Troops, are 200 Gentlemen, besides Officers. Each of these Three

Troops is divided into Four Squadrons or Divisions, two of which

consisting of one hundred Gentlemen, and Commanded by one Principal

Commissioned Officer, two Brigadiers, and two Sub-Brigadiers, with two

Trumpets mount the Guards one day in six, and are Relieved in their

turns. Their Duty is always by Parties from the Guard, to attend the

Person of the King, the Queen, the Duke, and the Duchess, wheresoever

they go near home, but if out of town, they are attended by Detachments

of the said Three Troops.

Besides these, there is a more strict Duty and Attendance Weekly on the

Kings Person on Foot, wheresoever he walks, from His Rising to His going

to Bed, by one of the Three Captains, who always waits immediately next

the King’s own Person, before all others, carrying in his hand an

Ebony-staff or Truncheon, with a Gold head, Engraved with His Majesty’s

Cypher and Crown. Near him also attends a Principal Commissioned

Officer, with an Ebony-staff, and Silver head, who is ready to Relieve

the Captain on occasion; and at the same time also, two Brigadiers,

having also Ebony-staves, headed with Ivory, and Engraven as the others.

There is added a Troop of Genadiers to each Troop of Guards, one

Division of which mounts with a Division of the Troop to which they

belong; they never go out on small Parties from the Guard, only perform

Centry-Duty on Foot, and attend the King also on Foot when he walks

abroad, but always March with great Detachments. The King’s Troop

consists of a Captain, two Lieutenants, three Sergeants, three

Corporals, two Drums, two Hautbois, and eighty private Souldiers

mounted. The Queens troop, of a Captain, two Lieutenants, two Sergeants,

two Corporals, two Hautbois, and sixty private Souldiers mounted. The

Dukes Troop consists of the like number with the Queens.

The Captains of His Majesties Guards always Command as Eldest Colonels

of Horse; the Lieutenants as Eldest Lieutenant-Colonels of Horse; the

Cornets and Guidons, as Eldest Majors of Horse; the Quartermasters, as

Youngest Captains of Horse; the Brigadiers as Eldest Lieutenants of

Horse; and amongst themselves every Officer, according to the Date of

His Commission, takes precedency, when on Detachments, but not when the

Three Troops march with their Colours, for then the Officer of the

Eldest Troop, commands those of equal Rank with him in the others,

though their Commission be of Elder Date.

Next immediately after the Three Troops of Guards, His Majestys Regiment

of Horse, Commanded by the Earl of Oxford takes place, and the Colonel

of it is to have precedency, after the Captains of the Guards, and

before all other Colonels of Horse, whatsoever change may be of the

Colonel; and all the Officers thereof, in their proper Degree, are to

take place according to the Dates of their Commissions. As to the Foot,

the King’s Regiment, Commanded by the Honorable Colonel John Russel,

takes place of all other Regiments, and the Colonel thereof is always to

precede as the first Colonel. The Coldstream Regiment, Commanded by the

Earl of Craven, takes the next; the Duke of Yorks Regiment next, then

His Majestys Holland Regiment, Commanded by the Earl of Mulgrave, and

all other Colonels, according to the dates of their Commissions. All

other Regiments of Horse and Foot, not of the Guards, take place

according to their Respective Seniority, from the time they were first

Raised, and no Regiment loses its precedency by the Death of its

Colonel.

At the Kings House, there is a guard for his Person, both above and

below stairs. In the Presence Chamber, the Band of Gentlemen Pensioners

wait, instituted by King Henry the VII., and chosen out of the best and

antientest Families in England, to be a Guard to His Majesties Person,

and also to be a Nursery to breed up hopeful Gentlemen, and fit them for

Employments, Civil and Military, as well abroad as at home; as Deputies

of Ireland, Embassadors in Foreign Parts, Counsellors of State, Captains

of the Guard, Governors of Places, Commanders in the Wars, both by Sea

and Land, of all which these have been Examples. They are to attend the

King’s Person to and from His Chappel, only as far as the Privy Chamber:

also in all other Solemnity, as Coronations, publick Audience of

Embassadors, &c. They are 40 in number, over whom there is a Captain,

usually some Peer of the Realm, a Lieutenant, a Standard-Bearer, and a

Clerk of the Check. They wait half at a time quarterly. Those in quarter

wait daily five at a time upon the King in the House, and when He walks

abroad. Upon extraordinary occasions, all of them are Summoned. Their

ordinary Arms are Gilt Pole-Axes. Their Arms on Horse-back in time of

War, are Cuirassiers Arms, with Sword and Pistol. These are only under

their own Officers, and are always Sworn by the Clerk of the Check, who

is to take notice of such as are absent when they should be upon their

duty. Their Standard in time of war, is a Cross Gules in a Field Argent,

also 4 bends.

In the first Room above Stairs, called the Guard-Chamber, attend the

Yeomen of the Guard of His Majesties body; whereof there were wont to be

250 Men of the best quality under Gentry, and of larger Stature than

ordinary (for every one was to be Six Foot high) there are at present

100 Yeomen in dayly waiting, and 70 more not in waiting, and as any of

the 100 die, his place is filled up out of the 70. These wear Scarlet

Coats Down to the Knee, and Scarlet Breeches, both richly guarded with

black Velvet, and rich Badges upon their Coats both before and behind,

moreover, black Velvet round broad Crown’d Caps, with Ribbons of the

King’s Colour; one half of them of late bear in their hands Harquebuzes,

and the other half Pastizans, with large Swords by their Sides; they

have Wages and Diet allowed them. Their office is to wait upon the King

in His standing Houses, 40 by Day, and 20 to Watch by Night; about the

City to wait upon the Kings Person abroad by Water or Land.

* * * * *

The Kings Palace Royal (_ratione Regiæ dignitatis_) is exempted from all

Jurisdiction of any Court, Civil, or Ecclesiastick, but only to the Lord

Steward, and in his absence, to the Treasurer and Comptroller of the

Kings Household, with the Steward of the Marshalsea, who by vertue of

their Office, without Commission, may Hear and Determin all Treasons,

Fellonies, Breaches of the Peace, Committed within the Kings Court or

Palace. The Orders and Rules for the Demeanor of all Officers and

Servants, are hung upon Tables in several Rooms at the Court, and Signed

with the Kings own hand, worthy to be read of all Strangers.

The Court or House where the King resides, is accounted a Place so

Sacred, that if any Man presume to strike another there, and only draw

Blood, his Right Hand shall be cut off, and he committed to perpetual

Imprisonment, and Fined. All occasions of striking are also there

forbidden.

The Court of England, for Magnificence, Order, Number and Quality of

Officers, rich Furniture, Entertainment and Civility to Strangers, and

for plentiful Tables, might compare with the best in Christendom, and

far excels most Courts abroad. It hath for a long time been a Pattern of

Hospitality and Charity, to the Nobility and Gentry of England. All

Noblemen or Gentlemen, Subjects or Strangers, were freely entertained at

the plentiful Tables of His Majesties officers. Divers Dishes were

provided every day extraordinary for the King’s Honour. Two hundred and

fourty Gallons of Beer a day, were allowed at the Buttery-Bar for the

Poor, besides all the broken Meat, Bread, &c., gathered into Baskets,

and given to the Poor, at the Court-Gates, by Two Grooms, and Two Yeomen

of the Almonry, who have Salaries of His Majesty for that Service. The

Lord Almoner hath the Privilege to give the Kings Dish, to whatsoever

Poor Man he pleases; that is, the first Dish at Dinner which is set upon

the Kings Table, or in stead thereof fourpence a day (which anciently

was equivalent to four Shillings now); next he distributes to 24 poor

men, named by the Parishioners of the Parish adjacent to the Kings Place

of Residence, to each of them fourpence in money, a Two-penny Loaf, and

a Gallon of Beer, or instead thereof three pence in Money, equally to be

divided among them every Morning at seven of the Clock at the

Court-Gate. The Sub-Almoner is to Scatter new-coined Two-pences in the

Towns and Places where the King passes through in his Progresses, to a

certain Sum by the Year. Besides, there are many poor Pensioners, either

because so old that they are unfit for Service, or the Widows of any of

the Kings Servants that dyed poor, who have a Competency duly paid them:

Besides, there are distributed among the Poor the larger Offerings which

the King gives in Collar Days.

The magnificent and abundant plenty of the King’s Tables, hath caused

amazement in Foreigners. In the Reign of King Charles I. there were

daily in his Court 86 Tables well furnished each Meal, whereof the Kings

Tables had 28 Dishes, the Queens 24, 4 other Tables 16 Dishes each, 3

other 10 Dishes, 12 other 7 Dishes, 17 other 5 Dishes, 3 other 4, 32 had

3, and 13 had each two; in all about 500 Dishes each Meal, with Bread,

Beer, Wine, and all other things necessary. There was spent yearly in

the Kings House of gross Meat 1500 Oxen, 7000 Sheep, 1200 Veals, 300

Porkers, 400 Sturks or young Beefs, 6800 Lambs, 300 Flitches of Bacon,

and 26 Boars. Also 140 dozen of Geese, 250 dozen of Capons, 470 dozen of

Hens, 750 dozen of Pullets, 1470 dozen of Chickens, for Bread 36400

Bushels of Wheat, and for Drink 600 Tun of Wine, and 1700 Tun of Beer.

Moreover, of Butter 46,640, together with the Fish, and Fowl, Venison,

Fruit, Spice proportionably. This prodigious plenty in the Kings Court

caused Foreigners to put a higher value upon the King, and was much for

the Honour of the Kingdom. The King’s Servants being Men of Quality, by

His Majestys special Order went to Westminster-Hall in Term-Time, to

invite Gentlemen, to eat of the King’s Acates or Viands, and in

Parliament-time, to invite the Parliament-men thereto.

On the Thursday before Easter, called Maundy Thursday, the King, or his

Lord Almoner, was wont to wash the Feet of as many poor Men, as His

Majesty had reigned years, and then to wipe them with a Towel (according

to the Pattern of our Saviour), and then to give everyone of them two

Yards and a half of Woollen Cloth, to make a Suit of Cloaths; also

Linnen Cloth for two Shirts, and a pair of Stockings, and a pair of

Shoes, three Dishes of Fish in Wooden Platters, one of Salt Salmon, a

second of Green Fish or Cod, a third of Pickle-Herrings, Red Herrings,

and Red Sprats, a Gallon of Beer, a Quart Pottle of Wine, and four

six-penny Loaves of Bread, also a Red-Leather-Purse with as many single

Pence as the King is years old, and in another Purse as many Shillings

as the King hath reigned Years. The Queen doth the like to divers poor

Women.

The Form of Government is by the wisdom of many Ages, so contrived and

regulated, that it is almost impossible to mend it. The Account (which

is of so many Natures, and is therefore very difficult, must pass

through many hands, and is therefore very exact) is so wisely contrived

and methodized, that without the Combination of everyone of these

following Officers, viz., the Cofferer, a Clerk of the Green-Cloth, a

Clerk Comptroller, a Clerk of the Kitchin, of the Spicery or Avery, or a

particular Clerk, together with the conjunction of a Purveyor and Waiter

in the Office, it is impossible to defraud the King of a Loaf of Bread,

of a Pint of Wine, a Quart of Beer, or Joint of Meat, or Money, or

anything else.

INDEX.

Abbey, traditional origin of, 6

---- foundation by Sebert, 21

---- miraculous hallowing of, 21

---- church, relics in, 24

---- the, 98

---- Henry III.’s alterations, 145

---- tombs in, 162

---- coronations, 165

---- ---- Henry IV., 165

---- ---- Elizabeth, queen of Henry VII., 167

---- ---- Henry VIII., 168

---- ---- Elizabeth, 168

---- ---- George III., 170

---- ---- Victoria, 170

Aix Cathedral, 27

Almshouses, 341

Anchorite, the, 132

Apollo, Temple of, 20

Archers, Richard II.’s, 41

Aristocracy, history of, 325

---- caste, 330

Bacon, 64

Bailly, Inner and Outer, 48

Banquet, royal, 269, 277

Bardwell’s accounts of Westminster, 5

Barton Street, 338

Benedictines, 110

Black Friars, 253

Blue Coat School, 353, 357, 361

Breaking of sanctuary by Richard III., 182

Broken cross, 201

Brother Ambrosius, 111

Burdett, Sir Francis, 375

Burtt and Harrod, story of robbery of King’s Treasury, 150

Caxton, 211

---- birth and origin, 217

---- apprenticed, 219

Caxton at Bruges, 223

---- house of, 231

---- marriage of, 234

---- at Westminster, 235

---- death of, 246

Charles II., Court of, 381

Charter, Edgar’s, 29

Chaucer, 162

Chaucer’s monk, 126

Chess, 235

Chivalry, 38

City without citizens, 1

---- without industries, 2

---- without Folk’s Mote, 2

---- of the Abbot, 2

Civil Government, 382

Clock Tower, 82

Cnut, King, 35

Cnut’s “Hus Carles,” 41

College buildings, 53

Consecration, service of, 139

Coronation of Elizabeth, 168

---- of George III., 170

Coronations in Abbey, 165

Court, itinerant, 40

---- of Requests, Whitehall, 49

---- of Exchequer, 54

---- under Elizabeth, 267

---- in reign of Elizabeth and James, 267

---- of James I., 277

---- of Charles II., 381

Cromwell’s prisoners, 374

Cross of Neath, 155

Crypt of St. Stephen’s Chapel, 53

Cunningham, Peter, 216

Dean, authority of the, 4

“Desert” of Westminster, 363

Destruction of first church on Thorney, 20

Dissolution, 4

“Domus Anglorum,” 223

Drokenesford, John de, 156

Dyfan and Ffagan, 20

Eagle Tavern, 207

Edgar’s charter, 29

Edward the Confessor, 40

Elections: that of 1741, 294

---- ---- 1784, 294

Elizabeth, queen of Henry VII., in Abbey, 167

---- in Abbey, 168

---- coronation pageant, 168

Elizabeth Woodville, queen of Edward IV., 182

Emanuel Hospital, 345

Essenes, rule of the, 30

Evil May-day, 87

Execution in Tothill Fields, 370

Extent of King’s Palace, 61

Fair of St. Edward’s Day, 372

Ffagan and Dyfan, 20

Fight between London and Westminster, 78

First church on Thorney, founding of, 20

George III. in Abbey, 170

Gourdemains, the witch, 370

Great College Street, 337

Great Seal, seizure of, 306

Green Coat Hospital, 346

Grey Coat Hospital, 351

Gunpowder Plot, 78

Harrod and Burtt, story of robbery of King’s Treasury, 150

Henry II., 40

---- IV. in Abbey, 165

---- VIII. in Abbey, 168

Historical associations of the Palace, 62

Holbein Gate, 262

Horseferry Road, 359

Hospital, Green Coat, 346

---- Grey Coat, 351

House of Lords, old, 49

Houses of Parliament, 291

Hugh de Steyninge, 100

Inigo Jones, 251

---- ---- his design, 260, 261

Inner and Outer Bailly, 48

Invasion of Saxons, 20

Islip, Abbot, 239

Jews, massacre of the, 96

Kensington Palace, 250

Kilburn, the cell of, 147

King’s House, removal to Whitehall, 76

King’s Palace of Westminster, 38 _et seq._

---- ---- ---- Painted Chamber, 49

---- ---- ---- extent of, 61

King Street, 186, 335

----- ---- worthy inhabitants, 332

Knights, ceremony of creation, 165

Large, Robert, 221

Loftie’s theory of origin, 31

Lollardism, 104

London, map of, 28

---- a city of palaces, 39

---- old House of Lords, 49

---- and Westminster, quarrel between, 78

Long Meg, 207

Marsh, great, round Thorney Island, 8

Masque, “Hue and Cry after Cupid,” 283

Masques, 283

Matthew of Westminster, 151

May-day, Evil, 87

May-pole, the, 95

Members for City, 4

Messengers, service of, 71

Milton, 337

Miracle of Hallowing, 21

Mob in Old Palace Yard, 78

Monastic life, services, 103

---- ---- rules, 106

---- ---- state of abbot, 118

---- ---- diversions, 122

---- ---- Scriptorium, 146

Monks, life of, 146

Murder and sacrilege, 160

Neighborhood of Sanctuary, 186

New Palace Yard, 79

Officers of State, 44

Old House of Lords, 49

Old Palace Yard, 78

Old Pye Street, 365

Orchard Street, 365

Ordeal of battle in Tothill Fields, 370

Pageants, splendor of Richard II., 46, 65

Painted Chamber, 49, 64

Palace, picturesque character of the, 61

---- historical association of, 62

---- early morning in the, 65

Palace Yard in 15th century, 82

Park Lane, 32

Parliament suspended, 161

Pickering Cup, 206

Picturesque character of the Palace, 61

Pillory, New Palace Yard, Perkin Warbeck, 82

---- ---- ---- ---- Titus Oates, 82

---- ---- ---- ---- William Prynne, 82

Podelicote, Richard, 147

Prince’s Chamber, 49

Printing, invention of, 228

Prisoners of Cromwell, 374

Quarrel between London and Westminster, 78

Queen of Henry VII., Elizabeth, in Abbey, 167

Queen Anne’s Gate, 336

Queen Square, 336

Raleigh, 64

---- execution of, 78

Ramage, John de, 155

Recuyell, 234

Red Pale, 208

---- ---- sign of, 211

Refugees in Sanctuary, 182

Richard II., Palace in his time, 38

---- ---- his archers, 41

---- ---- his Court, 44

---- ---- ---- ---- Harding’s description, 45

---- ---- built Tower, 57

---- ---- asserts himself, 73

Robbery of Royal Treasury, 147

Rochester Row, 346

Roman civilization, 12

Rosamond’s Pond, 369

Rule of the Essenes, 30

Sacrilege and murder, 160

Sacrist, 154

Sailor’s riot, 318

St. Andrew Undershaft Church, 85

St. James’s Park, 369

St. Katherine Cree curate, 95

St. Margaret’s Church, 354, 355

---- ---- parish of, 3

St. Stephen’s Chapel, 53

---- ---- ---- crypt of, 53

Salutation Inn, 338

Sanctuary, 173

---- theory of, 174

---- refugees, 182

---- breaking of, by Richard III., 182

---- neighborhood of, 186

Saxon Church, destruction of, by Danes, 27

Saxons, invasion of, 20

Scrope _v._ Grosvenor, 281

Sebert, founder of Abbey, 21

Service, the, of the Palace, 41

---- of consecration, 139

Silent City, 4

Skelton, John, 194, 195

“Slender Billy,” 373

Slums, 363

Snipe in South Kensington, 30

Snuff-box, the Westminster, 373

Spanish prisoner, 159

Speaker’s Court, 319

Spenser, poet, 335

Stanhope, Anne, 339

Star Chamber, 54

Steyninge, Hugh de, 100

Taverns, 340

Thames highway, 332

Theory of Sanctuary, 174

Thorney Island, 3, 5, 6

---- ---- evidence of situation, 7

---- ---- ---- of excavation, 9

---- ---- ---- of ancient monuments, 11

Thorney Island, Roman remains on, 10

---- ---- place of trade, 16

---- ---- evidence of tradition, 19

---- ---- founding of first church, 20

---- ---- destruction of first church on, 20

---- ---- evidence of history, 23

---- ---- area of, 34

Tombs in Abbey, 162

Tothill Fields, 366, 372

---- ---- execution in, 370

---- ---- tournaments in, 370

---- ---- ordeal of battle in, 370

---- ---- Cromwell’s entry, 374

Tournaments in Tothill Fields, 370

Tower built by Richard II., 57

Trade route across Thorney Island, 15

Traditional origin of the Abbey, 6

Vanished palace, 248

Victoria in Abbey, 170

Wall of defense, 46

Watling Street, 20, 32

Westminster, Bardwell’s account of, 5

---- older than London, 33

---- King’s Palace of, 38 _et seq._

---- ---- ---- officers of state, 44

Westminster, King’s Palace of, service in, 44

---- ---- ---- Prince’s Chamber, 49

---- ---- ---- St. Stephen’s Chapel, 53

---- ---- ---- Painted Chamber, 49

---- and London, quarrel between, 78

---- elections, 293

---- streets of, 331

---- hustings, 1868, 307

---- “Desert” of, 363

---- the snuff-box, 373

---- slums, 363

Westminster Abbey, arms of, 99

---- ---- Scriptorium, noted, 146

---- ---- monuments of men of letters, 162

---- ---- Addison on, 164

Westminster Hall, 54, 85

Whitehall and Court of Requests, 49

Whitehall Palace, 248

---- ---- description, 259

---- ---- destruction, 265

---- ---- plan of, 280

Woffington, Peg, 336

Wolsey, Cardinal, 197, 257

Wool staple, 85

Wray, Sir Cecil, 307

---- ---- ---- posters, etc., 311

York House, 257

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Stanley, “Westminster Abbey,” p. 7.

[2] Edward the Confessor’s officers were named respectively the

Marshal; the Stallere (_Comes stabuli_, or Constable); the Bower-Thane

(Chamberlain); the Dish-Thane (Seneschal); the Hordere (Treasurer);

with, of lower rank, Carver, Cup-bearer, Butler, Seal-bearer,

Wardrobe-Thane, Harper, and Headsman.

[3] The rules, it is true, were relaxed in the case of scholars engaged

upon any learned work, and there must have been some such scholars at

Westminster.

[4] Here are some of the lesser offices: Infirmarer, Porter,

Refectioner, Hospitaller, Chamberlain, Keeper of the Granary, Master of

the Common House, Orcharder, Operarius, Registrar, Auditor, Secretary,

Butler, Keeper of Baskets, Keeper of the Larder, Baker, Brewer,

Carpenter, Carver, Sculptor, Bookbinder, Copyist, Conveyancer, etc.

[5] “King Richard II.”

[6] See Lacroix, _Les Arts au Moyen Age_, for a sensible _résumé_ of

the whole question.

[7] The chine is always considered the nicest part of the pork, either

roasted or boiled, and is monstrous fine eating when the Norfolk

Turkies are in season.

[8] The tail of a little roasted pig is a nice morsel.

[9] Porkey was the Sow’s name.

[10] Patty is an abbreviation of the Christian name Martha. Patty

contains five letters--Martha has six.

[11] A baker’s dozen is thirteen.

[12] Stye is the name of a place where hogs, pigs, and sows are usually

kept.

[13] China is a great place in the Eastern world, where I have never

been in. But I have cups and saucers, and tea, and a mandarin, and two

fire screens that were actually made there.

[14] Sage chopped in the brains is very common, and if the little

tongue is put among them, it makes the dish better.

[15] The place which contains the entrails, and when stuffed with sweet

things is delicious.

[16] Egg sauce is common in Ireland with pigs.

[17] Potatoes--a vegetable something like a turnip, but more like an

apple. They are sold in Covent Garden, and the Irish are fond of them.