lieth the Old Bayly, as I said, then the high street called Ludgate hill
down to Fleet lane, in which lane standeth the Fleet, a prison house so
called of the Fleet or water running by it, and sometime flowing about
it, but now vaulted over.
I read that Richard I., in the 1st of his reign, confirmed to Osbert,
brother to William Longshampe, Chancellor of England and elect of
Elie, and to his heirs for ever, the custody of his house or palace
at Westminster, with the keeping of his gaol of the Fleet at London;
also King John, by his patent, dated the 3rd of his reign, gave to
the Archdeacon of Welles, the custody of the said king’s house at
Westminster, and of his gaol of the Fleet, together with the wardship
of the daughter and heir of Robert Loveland, etc. Then is Fleet bridge
pitched over the said water, whereof I have spoken in another place.
Then also against the south end of Shoe lane standeth a fair
water-conduit, whereof William Eastfield, sometime mayor, was founder;
for the mayor and commonalty of London being possessed of a conduit
head, with divers springs of water gathered thereinto in the parish of
Padington, and the water conveyed from thence by pipes of lead towards
London unto Teyborne; where it had lain by the space of six years or
more; the executors of Sir William Eastfield obtained licence of the
mayor and commonalty for them, in the year 1453, with the goods of
Sir William to convey the said waters, first in pipes of lead into a
pipe begun to be laid beside the great conduit head at Maribone, which
stretcheth from thence unto a separall, late before made against the
chapel of Rounsevall by Charing cross, and no further, and then from
thence to convey the said water into the city, and there to make receipt
or receipts for the same unto the common weal of the commonalty, to wit,
the poor to drink, the rich to dress their meats; which water was by
them brought thus into Fleet street to a standard, which they had made
and finished 1471.
The inhabitants of Fleet street, in the year 1478, obtained licence of
the mayor, aldermen, and commonalty, to make at their own charges two
cisterns, the one to be set at the said standard, the other at Fleet
bridge, for the receipt of the waste water; this cistern at the standard
they built, and on the same a fair tower of stone, garnished with images
of St. Christopher on the top, and angels round about lower down, with
sweet sounding bells before them, whereupon, by an engine placed in the
tower, they divers hours of the day and night chimed such an hymn as was
appointed.
This conduit, or standard, was again new built with a larger cistern, at
the charges of the city, in the year 1582.
From this conduit up to Fewtars lane, and further, is the parish church
of St. Dunstan called in the West (for difference from St. Dunstan in
the East), here lieth buried T. Duke, skinner, in St. Katherin’s chapel
by him built, 1421; Nicholas Coningstone, John Knape, and other, founded
chantries there; Ralph Bane, Bishop of Coventrie and Lichfield, 1559,
and other.
Next beyond this church is Clifford’s inn, sometime belonging to Robert
Clifford, by gift of Edward II. in these words: “The king granteth to
Robert Clifford that messuage, with the appurtenances, next the church
of St. Dunstane in the West, in the suburbs of London, which messuage
was sometime Malculines de Herley, and came to the hands of Edward
I., by reason of certaine debts which the said Malculine was bound at
the time of his death to our styde father, from the time that hee was
escaetor on this side Trent; which house John, Earle of Richmount, did
holde of our pleasure, and is now in our possession.”--Patent, the 3rd
of Edward II. After the death of this Robert Clifford, Isabel, his wife,
let the same messuage to students of the law, as by the record following
may appear:--
“_Isabel quæ fuit uxor Roberti Clifford, Messuagium unipartitum, quod
Robertus Clifford habuit in parochia sci. Dunstonis West. in suburbio
Londini, etc., tenuit, et illud dimisit post mortem dict. Roberti,
Apprenticiis de banco, pro x. li. annuatium, etc. Anno 18 Eduardi
Tertii, inquisitio post mortem Roberti Clifford._”
This house hath since fallen into the king’s hands, as I have heard, but
returned again to the Cliffordes, and is now let to the said students
for four pounds by the year.
Somewhat beyond this Clifford’s inn is the south end of New street (or
Chancelar lane), on the right hand whereof is Sergeantes’ inn called in
Chauncery lane. And then next was sometime the house of the converted
Jewes, founded by King Henry III., in place of a Jewe’s house to him
forfeited, in the year 1233, and the 17th of his reign, who built
there for them a fair church now used, and called the chapel for the
custody of the Rolles and Records of Chancerie. It standeth not far
from the Old Temple, but in the midway between the Old Temple and the
New, in the which house all such Jewes and infidels, as were converted
to the Christian faith, were ordained and appointed, under an honest
rule of life, sufficient maintenance, whereby it came to pass, that in
short time there were gathered a great number of converts, which were
baptized, instructed in the doctrine of Christ, and there lived under
a learned Christian appointed to govern them; since the which time, to
wit, in the year 1290, all the Jews in England were banished out of the
realm, whereby the number of converts in this place was decayed: and,
therefore, in the year 1377, this house was annexed by patent to William
Burstall Clearke, custos rotulorum, or keeper of the Rolles of the
Chauncerie, by Edward III., in the 5th year of his reign; and this first
Master of the Rolles was sworn in Westminster hall, at the table of
marble stone; since the which time, that house hath been commonly called
the Rolles in Chancerie lane.
Notwithstanding such of the Jewes, or other infidels, as have in this
realm been converted to Christianity, and baptized, have been relieved
there; for I find in record that one William Piers, a Jew that became a
Christian, was baptised in the fifth of Richard II., and had two pence
the day allowed him during his life by the said king.
On the west side was sometime a house pertaining to the prior of Necton
Parke, a house of canons in Lincolnshire; this was commonly called
Hereflete inn, and was a brewhouse, but now fair built for the five
clerks of the Chancerie, and standeth over against the said house called
the Rolles, and near unto the lane which now entereth Fickets croft, or
Fickets field. Then is Shere lane, opening also into Fickets field, hard
by the bars.
On this north side of Fleet street, in the year of Christ 1595, I
observed, that when the labourers had broken up the pavement, from
against Chancerie lane’s end up towards St. Dunston’s church, and had
digged four feet deep, they found one other pavement of hard stone, more
sufficient than the first, and, therefore, harder to be broken, under
the which they found in the made ground, piles of timber driven very
thick, and almost close together, the same being as black as pitch or
coal, and many of them rotten as earth, which proveth that the ground
there (as sundry other places of the city) have been a marish, or full
of springs.
On the south side from Ludgate, before the wall of the city be fair
built houses to Fleet bridge, on the which bridge a cistern for receipt
of spring water was made by the men of Fleet street, but the watercourse
is decayed, and not restored.
Next is Bride lane, and therein Bridewell, of old time the king’s house,
for the kings of this realm have been there lodged; and till the ninth
of Henry III. the courts were kept in the king’s house, wheresoever he
was lodged, as may appear by ancient records, whereof I have seen many,
but for example set forth one in the Chapter of Towers and Castles.
King Henry VIII. built there a stately and beautiful house of new, for
receipt of the Emperor Charles V., who, in the year of Christ 1522, was
lodged himself at the Blacke Friers, but his nobles in this new built
Bridewell, a gallery being made out of the house over the water, and
through the wall of the city, into the emperor’s lodging at the Blacke
Friers. King Henry himself oftentimes lodged there also, as, namely,
in the year 1525, a parliament being then holden in the Black Friers,
he created estates of nobility there, to wit, Henry Fitz Roy, a child
(which he had by Elizabeth Blunt) to be Earl of Nottingham, Duke of
Richmond and of Somerset, Lieutenant General from Trent northward,
Warden of the East, Middle, and West Marches for anenst Scotland; Henry
Courtney, Earl of Devonshire, cousin-german to the king, to be marquis
of Exeter; Henry Brandon a child of two years old, son to the Earl of
Suffolke, to be Earl of Lincolne; Sir Thomas Mannars, Lord Rose, to
be Earl of Rutland; Sir Henry Clifford, to be Earl of Cumberland; Sir
Robert Ratcliffe, to be Viscount Fitzwater; and Sir Thomas Boloine,
treasurer of the king’s household, to be Viscount Rochford.
In the year 1528, Cardinal Campeius was brought to the king’s presence,
being then at Bridewell, whither he had called all his nobility, judges,
and councillors, etc. And there, the 8th of November, in his great
chamber, he made unto them an oration touching his marriage with Queen
Katherine, as ye may read in Edward Hall.
In the year 1529, the same King Henry and Queen Katherine were lodged
there, whilst the question of their marriage was argued in the Blacke
Friers, etc.
But now you shall hear how this house became a house of correction. In
the year 1553, the 7th of King Edward VI., the 10th of April, Sir George
Baron, being mayor of this city, was sent for to the court at Whitehall,
and there at that time the king gave unto him for the commonalty and
citizens to be a workhouse for the poor and idle persons of the city,
his house of Bridewell, and seven hundred marks land, late of the
possessions of the house of the Savoy, and all the bedding and other
furniture of the said hospital of the Savoy, towards the maintenance
of the said workhouse of Bridewell, and the hospital of St. Thomas in
Southwark.
This gift King Edward confirmed by his charter, dated the 26th of June
next following; and in the year 1555, in the month of February, Sir
William Gerarde, mayor, and the aldermen entered Bridewell, and took
possession thereof according to the gift of the said King Edward, the
same being confirmed by Queen Mary.
The Bishop of St. David’s had his inn over against the north side of
this Bridwell, as I have said.
Then is the parish church of St. Bridges, or Bride, of old time a small
thing, which now remaineth to be the choir, but since increased with a
large body and side aisles towards the west, at the charges of William
Venor, esquire, warden of the Fleet, about the year 1480, all which he
caused to be wrought about in the stone in the figure of a vine with
grapes, and leaves, etc. The partition betwixt the old work and the new,
sometime prepared as a screen to be set up in the hall of the Duke of
Somerset’s house at Strand, was brought for eight score pounds, and set
up in the year 1557; one wilful body began to spoil and break the same
in the year 1596, but was by the high commissioners forced to make it up
again, and so it resteth. John Ulsthorpe, William Evesham, John Wigan,
and other, found chantries there.
The next is Salisburie court, a place so called for that it belonged to
the Bishops of Salisburie, and was their inn, or London house, at such
time as they were summoned to come to the parliament, or came for other
business; it hath of late time been the dwelling, first of Sir Richard
Sackvile, and now of Sir Thomas Sackvile his son, Baron of Buckhurst,
Lord Treasurer, who hath lately enlarged it with stately buildings.
Then is Water lane, running down, by the west side of a house called the
Hanging Sword, to the Thames.
Then was the White Friers’ church, called _Fratres beatæ Mariæ de Monte
Carmeli_, first founded (saith John Bale) by Sir Richard Gray, knight,
ancestor to the Lord Gray Codnor, in the year 1241. King Edward I.
gave to the prior and brethren of that house a plot of ground in Fleet
street, whereupon to build their house, which was since re-edified or
new built, by Hugh Courtney, Earl of Devonshire, about the year 1350,
the 24th of Edward III. John Lutken, mayor of London, and the commonalty
of the city, granted a lane called Crockers lane, reaching from Fleet
street to the Thames, to build in the west end of that church. Sir
Robert Knoles, knight, was a great builder there also, in the reign
of Richard II., and of Henry IV.; he deceased at his manor of Scone
Thorpe, in Norffolke, in the year 1407, and was brought to London, and
honourably buried by the Lady Constance his wife, in the body of the
said White Friers’ church, which he had newly built.
Robert Marshall, Bishop of Hereford, built the choir, presbytery,
steeple, and many other parts, and was there buried, about the year
1420. There were buried also in the new choir, Sir John Mowbery, Earl
of Nottingham, 1398; Sir Edwarde Cortney; Sir Hugh Montgomerie, and Sir
John his brother; John Wolle, son to Sir John Wolle; Thomas Bayholt,
esquire; Elizabeth, Countess of Athole; Dame Johan, wife to Sir Thomas
Say of Alden; Sir Pence Castle, Baron; John, Lord Gray, son to Reginald,
Lord Gray of Wilton, 1418; Sir John Ludlow, knight; Sir Richard Derois,
knight; Richarde Gray, knight; John Ashley, knight; Robert Bristow,
esquire; Thomas Perry, esquire; Robert Tempest, esquire; William Call;
William Neddow.
In the old choir were buried: Dame Margaret, etc.; Eleanor Gristles; Sir
John Browne, knight, and John his son and heir; Sir Simon de Berforde,
knight; Peter Wigus, esquire; Robert Mathew, esquire; Sir John Skargell,
knight; Sir John Norice, knight; Sir Geffrey Roose, knight; Mathew
Hadocke, esquire; William Clarell, esquire; John Aprichard, esquire;
William Wentworth, esquire; Thomas Wicham, esquire; Sir Terwit, knight;
Sir Stephen Popham, knight; Bastard de Scales; Henrie Blunt, esquire;
Elizabeth Blunt; John Swan, esquire; Alice Foster, one of the heirs of
Sir Stephen Popham; Sir Robert Brocket, knight; John Drayton, esquire;
John, son to Robert Chanlowes, and his daughter Katherine; John Salvin,
William Hampton, John Bampton, John Winter, Edmond Oldhall, William
Appleyard, Thomas Dabby, esquires; Sir Hugh Courtney, knight; John
Drury, son to Robert Drurie; Elizabeth Gemersey, gentlewoman; Sir Thomas
Townsend, knight; Sir Richarde Greene, knight; William Scot, esquire;
Thomas Federinghey, I. Fulforde, esquire; Edward Eldsmere, gentleman;
W. Hart, gentleman; Dame Mary Senclare, daughter to Sir Thomas Talbot,
knight; Ancher, esquire; Sir William Moris, knight, and Dame Christian
his wife; Sir Peter de Mota, knight; Richard Hewton, esquire; Sir I.
Heron, knight; Richard Eton, esquire; Hugh Stapleton, gentleman; William
Copley, gentleman; Sir Ralph Saintowen, knight; Sir Hugh Bromeflete,
knight; Lord Vessey, principal founder of that order, the 6th of Edward
IV., etc.
This house was valued at £62 7_s._ 3_d._, and was surrendered the 10th
of November, the 30th of Henry VIII.
In place of this Friers’ church be now many fair houses built, lodgings
for noblemen and others.
Then is the Sargeants’ inn, so called, for that divers judges and
sargeants at the law keep a commons, and are lodged there in term time.
Next is the New Temple, so called because the Templars, before the
building of this house, had their Temple in Oldborne. This house was
founded by the Knights Templars in England, in the reign of Henry II.,
and the same was dedicated to God and our blessed Lady, by Heraclius,
Patriarch of the church called the Holy Resurrection, in Jerusalem, in
the year of Christ, 1185.
These Knights Templars took their beginning about the year 1118, in
manner following. Certain noblemen, horsemen, religiously bent, bound
by vow themselves in the hands of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, to serve
Christ after the manner of regular canons in chastity and obedience, and
to renounce their own proper wills for ever; the first of which order
were Hugh Paganus, and Geffrey de S. Andromare. And whereas at the first
they had no certain habitation, Baldwin, king of Jerusalem, granted unto
them a dwelling place in his palace by the Temple, and the canons of the
same Temple gave them the street thereby to build therein their houses
of office, and the patriarch, the king, the nobles, and prelates gave
unto them certain revenues out of their lordships.
Their first profession was for safeguard of the pilgrims coming to
visit the sepulchre, and to keep the highways against the lying in wait
of thieves, etc. About ten years after they had a rule appointed unto
them, and a white habit, by Honorius II. then Pope; and whereas they
had but nine in number, they began to increase greatly. Afterward, in
Pope Eugenius’ time, they bare crosses of red cloth on their uppermost
garments, to be known from others; and in short time, because they had
their first mansion hard by the Temple of our Lord in Jerusalem, they
were called Knights of the Temple.
Many noble men in all parts of Christendom became brethren of this
order, and built for themselves temples in every city or great town in
England, but this at London was their chief house, which they built
after the form of the temple near to the sepulchre of our Lord at
Jerusalem; they had also other temples in Cambridge,[269] Bristow,
Canterbury, Dover, Warwick.[270] This Temple in London, was often made a
storehouse of men’s treasure, I mean such as feared the spoil thereof in
other places.
Matthew Paris noteth, that in the year 1232, Hubert de Burgh, Earl of
Kent, being prisoner in the Tower of London, the king was informed that
he had much treasure laid up in this New Temple, under the custody
of the Templars; whereupon he sent for the master of the Temple, and
examined him straitly, who confessed that money being delivered unto him
and his brethren to be kept, he knew not how much there was of it; the
king demanded to have the same delivered, but it was answered, that the
money being committed unto their trust, could not be delivered without
the licence of him that committed it to ecclesiastical protection,
whereupon the king sent his Treasurer and Justiciar of the Exchequer
unto Hubert, to require him to resign the money wholly into his hands,
who answered that he would gladly submit himself, and all his, unto the
king’s pleasure; and thereupon desired the knights of the Temple, in his
behalf, to present all the keys unto the king, to do his pleasure with
the goods which he had committed unto them. Then the king commanded the
money to be faithfully told and laid up in his treasury, by inventory,
wherein was found (besides ready money) vessels of gold and silver
unpriceable, and many precious stones, which would make all men wonder
if they knew the worth of them.
This Temple was again dedicated 1240, belike also newly re-edified then.
These Templars at this time were in so great glory, that they
entertained the nobility, foreign ambassadors, and the prince himself
very often, insomuch that Matthew Paris crieth out on them for their
pride, who being at the first so poor, as they had but one horse to
serve two of them (in token whereof they gave in their seal two men
riding of one horse), yet suddenly they waxed so insolent, that they
disdained other orders, and sorted themselves with noblemen.
King Edward I. in the year 1283, taking with him Robert Waleran, and
other, came to the Temple, where calling for the keeper of the treasure
house, as if he meant to see his mother’s-jewels, that were laid up
there to be safely kept, he entered into the house, breaking the coffers
of certain persons that had likewise brought their money thither, and he
took away from thence to the value of a thousand pounds.
Many parliaments and great councils have been there kept, as may appear
by our histories. In the year 1308, all the Templars in England, as also
in other parts of Christendom, were apprehended and committed to divers
prisons. In 1310, a provincial council was holden at London, against the
Templars in England, upon heresy and other articles whereof they were
accused, but denied all except one or two of them, notwithstanding they
all did confess that they could not purge themselves fully as faultless,
and so they were condemned to perpetual penance in several monasteries,
where they behaved themselves modestly.
Philip, king of France, procured their overthrow throughout the whole
world, and caused them to be condemned by a general council to his
advantage, as he thought, for he believed to have had all their lands
in France, and, therefore, seized the same in his hands (as I have
read), and caused the Templars to the number of four and fifty (or after
Fabian, threescore) to be burned at Paris.
Edward II. in the year 1313, gave unto Aimer de Valence, Earl of
Pembroke, the whose place and houses called the New Temple at London,
with the ground called Ficquetes Croft, and all the tenements and rents,
with the appurtenances, that belonged to the Templars in the city of
London and suburbs thereof.
After Aimer de Valence (sayeth some) Hugh Spencer, usurping the same,
held it during his life, by whose death it came again to the hands of
Edward III.; but in the meantime, to wit, 1324, by a council holden at
Vienna, all the lands of the Templars (lest the same should be put to
profane uses) were given to the knights hospitalers of the order of St.
John Baptist, called St. John of Jerusalem, which knights had put the
Turkes out of the Isle of Rhodes, and after won upon the said Turkes
daily for a long time.
The said Edward III., therefore, granted the same to the said knights,
who possessed it, and in the eighteenth year of the said king’s reign,
were forced to repair the bridge of the said Temple. These knights had
their head house for England by West Smithfield, and they in the reign
of the same Edward III. granted (for a certain rent of ten pounds by the
year) the said Temple, with the appurtenances thereunto adjoining, to
the students of the common laws of England, in whose possession the same
hath ever since remained; and is now divided into two houses of several
students, by the same of inns of court, to wit, the Inner Temple, and
the Middle Temple, who kept two several halls, but they resort all to
the said Temple church, in the round walk whereof (which is the west
part without the choir) there remaineth monuments of noblemen buried, to
the number of eleven, eight of them are images of armed knights, five
lying cross-legged as men vowed to the Holy Land, against the infidels
and unbelieving Jews; the other three straight-legged; the rest are
coped stones all of grey marble; the first of the cross-legged was W.
Marshall, the elder Earl of Pembroke, who died 1219; Will. Marshall
his son, Earl of Pembroke, was the second, he died, 1231; and Gilbert
Marshall his brother, Earl of Pembroke, slain in a tournament at
Hertford, beside Ware, in the year 1241.
After this Robert Rose, otherwise called Fursan, being made a Templar in
the year 1245, died and was buried there, and these are all that I can
remember to have read of. Sir Nicholas Hare, Master of the Rolls, was
buried there in the year 1557.
In the year 1381, the rebels of Essex and of Kent destroyed and plucked
down the houses and lodgings of this Temple, took out of the church the
books and records that were in hutches of the apprentices of the law,
carried them into the streets, and burnt them; the house they spoiled
and burnt for wrath that they bare Sir Robert Halles, Lord-prior of St.
John’s in Smithfield; but it was since again at divers times repaired,
namely, the gate-house of the Middle Temple, in the reign of Henry
VIII., by Sir Amias Paulet, knight, upon occasion, as in my _Annales_ I
have shown. The great hall of the Middle Temple was newly built in the
year 1572, in the reign of our Queen Elizabeth.