GREENWICH AND OTHER SOUTH-EASTERN SUBURBS
OF LONDON
[Sidenote: Greenwich]
Occupying as it does a unique position on the Thames, which is here
often crowded with British and foreign shipping, owning in the group of
buildings collectively known as the Hospital one of the masterpieces of
eighteenth-century domestic architecture, and in its park one of the
most beautiful open spaces near the capital, whilst its Observatory
gives to it the distinction of a leader in astronomical research,
Greenwich has long ranked as one of the most important and popular
suburbs of London. It is mentioned as Grénawic in the _Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle_, and its history, which is intimately bound up with that of
England, can be traced back to the time of Alfred the Great, when it
was a mere scattered hamlet, the home of a few poor fishermen. In the
days of the protracted struggle with the invading Northmen, their fleet
often lay at anchor for months together near Greenwich, within easy
reach of their camp on the high ground at the edge of Blackheath, now
known as East and West Coombe, that until quite recently retained
traces of {101} their defensive earthworks. It was near Greenwich that
the noble St. Alphege, Archbishop of Canterbury, who had been taken
prisoner at the siege of that town in 1001, was massacred by the Danes
on April 1, 1002, in revenge for his persistent refusal to buy his life
at the expense of his friends, and it is supposed to have been on the
actual scene of his martyrdom that the parish church was built many
centuries afterwards.
[Illustration: GREENWICH HOSPITAL WITH ST. ALPHEGE'S CHURCH]
The manor of Greenwich, with that of Lewisham, to which it originally
belonged, was given by Ethelruda, a niece of King Alfred, to the monks
of the Abbey of St. Peter at Ghent, who held it till it was seized by
the Crown after the disgrace of Bishop Odo of Bayeux. When in 1414 the
alien religious houses were suppressed, it was granted by Henry V. to
the newly founded Abbey of Sheen, but later it again reverted to the
Crown. There seems to have been a royal residence and chapel at
Greenwich as early as the thirteenth century, for it is related that on
a certain occasion King Edward I. made an offering of seven shillings
and his son, the future Edward II., one of three shillings and
sixpence, at each of the holy crosses in the chapel dedicated to the
Blessed Virgin at Greenwich, though exactly where that chapel was
situated there is no evidence to show. Later, Henry IV. made his will,
dated 1408, at his manor-house of Greenwich, and his son Henry V.
bestowed the estate on Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter, for his life.
On his death in 1417 it was given to Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, uncle
of the king, and some few years {102} afterwards two hundred acres of
land were added to the property, whilst permission was granted to its
owner to build on to the manor-house, a concession confirmed and
increased in 1437. The duke, aided by his wife Eleanor, quickly
converted the ancient residence into a palace, to which he gave the
name of the Pleasaunce, or Placentia, that occupied the site of the
western wing of the present hospital--the crypt of its chapel being
still preserved beneath the portion now used as a museum--and he began
to build the tower that now forms part of the famous Observatory. In
1447, however, Duke Humphrey's work was suddenly cut short by his
death, and the greatly improved property reverted to the Crown, to
which it has ever since belonged. The park was added to and stocked
with deer by Edward IV., and Henry VII. greatly improved the palace,
building a brick front on the riverside. He also completed the tower
begun by Duke Humphrey, and built a convent close to the palace for the
Grey Friars, to whom Edward IV. had already, in 1480, given a chantry
and a little chapel dedicated to the Holy Cross, that probably formed
the nucleus of the new monastery. Henry VIII. was born at Placentia,
and to the end of his life he had a very great affection for it,
sparing no expense to beautify it. In its chapel he was married to his
first wife, Katharine of Aragon; in its hall he presided over many
stately banquets, and took part in its park in many a brilliant
tournament. He and his court generally spent Christmas at Greenwich,
and it was there, in 1511, that the first masked ball took place in
England. {103} The Princess Mary was born at Greenwich in 1516, and a
year later her aunt, Mary, Queen-Dowager of France, was married with
much pomp and ceremony, in the chapel of Placentia, to the Duke of
Suffolk. In 1517 no less than three queens--Katharine of Aragon,
Margaret of Scotland, and Mary, Queen-Dowager of the same country--were
together at Greenwich, and in 1527 a grand entertainment was given
there to the French ambassadors, who had come to ask the hand of the
Princess Mary, then eleven years old, for the Duke of Orleans, the
second son of the King of France, although she was already affianced to
the Emperor Charles V. It was at Placentia, too, that the fickle Henry
VIII. spent part of his honeymoon with Anne Boleyn, and thence that the
newly wedded pair made their triumphal progress up the river for the
coronation of the bride at Westminster on May 15, 1533, escorted by a
long procession of gaily decked barges, bearing the Lord Mayor and
Aldermen of London, the officers of the royal household, the bishops,
and great nobles with their retinues, making up such a goodly pageant
as had never before been seen on the Thames. In the autumn of the same
year the Princess Elizabeth was born at Greenwich, and baptized in the
chapel of the Grey Friars convent. For the next two years the
happiness of her father and mother in each other seemed to be complete;
they were often together at Placentia, dividing most of their time
between it and Hampton Court Palace, but after the birth at the latter
of Anne Boleyn's still-born son, the clouds that had already begun to
{104} gather before that event became more threatening than ever. At a
tournament held in the palace park at Greenwich on May Day 1536, Henry
found the excuse he had been long looking for for the condemnation of
his wife. The unfortunate queen accidentally dropped a handkerchief,
and the king chose to assume that it was meant as a signal for one of
the competing knights. Without vouchsafing a word of explanation he
started from his seat, called to a few attendants to follow him, and
hastened off to London, ordering as he went the execution of Anne's
brother. The next morning the same measure was meted out to the queen
herself; she was hurried off to the Tower, her request that she might
be allowed to take leave of her child being refused. On the 19th of
the same month she was executed, her husband, to whom she had addressed
a most pathetic appeal, having steadily declined to see her again. The
death a year later of her successor, soon after the birth of the future
King Edward VI., must have appeared a judgment on the double crime of
murder and bigamy, for the king was married to Jane Seymour the day
before the death of Anne, and it is just possible that even Henry's
hardened conscience may have reproached him, for he avoided Greenwich,
with its melancholy associations, for some little time after the loss
of his third queen. In January 1540, however, it was the scene of the
magnificent reception of the hated Anne of Cleves, whose reluctant
suitor had decided to divorce her before the ceremony at which he
promised to cherish her till death should part him {105} from her. On
the occasion of this mock marriage, that was celebrated in the private
chapel of Placentia, the whole of the park and of the adjoining
Blackheath, in spite of the inclement season of the year, was dotted
with tents and pavilions of cloth of gold for the accommodation of the
queen and her ladies. To quote from Hall's _Chronicle_, the 'esquires
gentlemen pensioners and serving men (were so) well horsed and
apparelled that whoever well viewed them might say that they for tall
and comely personages and clean of limb and body' were able to give the
greatest prince in Christendom a mortal breakfast if he were the king's
enemy.' In the opinion of this partial chronicler, however, Henry
himself, when he rode forth from the palace attended by all his great
nobles and the foreign ambassadors, far excelled them all, so rich was
his apparel, so gorgeous the trappings of his steed, 'so goodly his
personage and his royal gesture.'
Neither the doomed Catherine Howard nor the more fortunate Catherine
Parr, who, but for the fact that she survived her husband, would
probably have shared the fate of her predecessor, were ever at
Greenwich, but the palace there was the home for a short time of Edward
VI., who spent the Christmas of 1552 there, and died in it in 1553.
Queen Mary, too, occasionally resided at Placentia, leading an
extremely quiet life, that was one day disturbed by an alarming
incident, for a salute from a passing vessel was fired by mistake from
a loaded gun, and a ball pierced the wall of the room in which she sat
with her ladies, fortunately without injuring anyone.
{106}
It was Queen Elizabeth who restored to her birthplace something of the
éclat it had enjoyed during her father's lifetime. She spent the
greater part of several summers there, celebrating on April 23 the fête
of St. George, the patron-saint of England, with great pomp, receiving
foreign ambassadors in state, and giving audience to her own faithful
subjects when it suited her humour and convenience. In the first year
of her reign she reviewed in her park at Greenwich a large company of
London volunteers, who had banded themselves together to aid her
against the rebel Duke of Norfolk, and it was in the palace that she
held her first chapter of the Order of the Garter, after which she went
to supper with her devoted adherent, the Earl of Pembroke, at his seat
of Baynard's Castle, who, the repast over, attended her whilst she
indulged in her favourite pastime of boating on the Thames, the royal
barge attended by hundreds of smaller craft passing to and fro again
and again, to the delight of the crowds assembled on the banks to watch
the brilliant scene.
Many significant stories are told of the doings of the maiden queen at
Greenwich; how, for instance, she caused a dishonest purveyor of
poultry to be hanged on the complaint of a farmer who boldly
intercepted her on one of her progresses, crying in a loud voice, in
spite of all the efforts of the attendants to silence him, 'Which is
the Queen? Which is the Queen?' Elizabeth herself replied to him,
listened to all he had to say, and granted his request without more
ado, although he dared to assume that she had {107} devoured the hens
and ducks seized by her servant, declaring that she could eat more than
his own daughter, who was blessed with a very good appetite.
Every year on Maundy Thursday it was the queen's habit to wash one of
the feet of as many poor women as the years of her own life, and the
ceremony on these occasions was alike lengthy and imposing. A service
in the chapel inaugurated the proceedings, and the feet of the chosen
women having been first thoroughly cleansed by members of the queen's
household, her majesty entered the hall attended by her whole court,
and performed her part with great condescension, kissing each foot she
had washed with earnest devotion and making over it the sign of the
cross. Gifts of wearing apparel and food were then presented to the
women, one of them chosen beforehand receiving the costume worn by her
majesty.
It is said to have been at Greenwich that Sir Walter Raleigh was first
presented to the queen, and the oft-told episode of the cloak is by
some authorities supposed to have taken place there, the gallant young
courtier having flung down his richly decorated mantle on the
landing-stage just in time to prevent his royal patron from wetting her
feet as she alighted from her barge opposite the palace. Whether there
be any truth in this version of the story it is certain that Raleigh
was often at Greenwich, as was also his rival the handsome Earl of
Essex, who was so soon to succeed him in the favour of the fickle
queen. It may possibly have been from {108} Placentia that Raleigh
started for Ireland in 1587, and it was certainly there that he learned
to love his future wife Bessy Throckmorton, one of the queen's maids of
honour, jealousy of whom had much to do with his committal to the Tower
in 1592.
To the end Queen Elizabeth retained her affection for Greenwich, and
some of the last walks she took were in her beloved park there, in
which is preserved a mighty hollow oak-tree, capable of holding no less
than twenty people, that is still known as Queen Elizabeth's and is
protected by a railing from injury. Her successor James I., however,
cared little for the palace or its grounds, and bestowed them both in
1605 upon his wife, Anne of Denmark, who became much attached to her
new possession. She greatly improved the old palace and began the
building of another, to which she gave the name of the House of
Delight. Her affection for Greenwich was shared by her son, Charles
I., and his wife, Henrietta Maria, who were often in residence there
before their troubles began, and had the House of Delight, which now
forms the central portion of the Royal Naval School, completed by Inigo
Jones. They opened negotiations, too, with some of the chief artists
of the day, including Rubens, who was often their guest at Placentia,
for the painting of the walls of the new palace, but the terms asked
were prohibitive, and all too soon more pressing matters took up all
the king's time and thoughts. After his fatal journey to Scotland
Charles I. was never again at Greenwich and for some little time after
his death the palaces there were deserted, but later Cromwell resided
for {109} some time in the older of the two. On the Restoration the
Greenwich estate became once more the property of the royal family, and
the widowed queen Henrietta Maria lived in one of the palaces for a
short time. That of Placentia was, however, now in such a melancholy
state of decay that it was decided to pull it down, and a new palace
was begun on its site after the designs of Inigo Jones, of which,
however, only one wing was completed, with which, says Pepys in his
_Diary_, 'the king was mightily pleased,' but his majesty's ardour soon
cooled, and writing in 1669 the gossipy journalist remarks: 'The king's
house at Greenwich goes on slow but is very pretty.' Gradually the
slowness became stagnation, Charles II. lost all interest in the work,
and neither he nor his successors, James II. or William III., used the
new palace as a residence. The wife of the latter, however, who
cherished many happy memories of Greenwich, resolved to turn the royal
buildings there to account by using them as a hospital for disabled
seamen. The idea, it is said, first occurred to her after the great
victory of La Hogue in 1692, at which so many English sailors were
crippled for life; and without waiting for the return of her husband
from Holland, she at once ordered various alterations to be made to
render the building suitable for its new purpose. Later William
entered very cordially into the scheme, and in 1694 the palace and the
estate connected with it were formally given over to trustees 'for the
relief and support of seamen of the Royal navy ... who by reason of age
or other disabilities shall be incapable of further service {110} ...
and also for the sustenance of the widows and maintenance and education
of the children of seamen happening to be slain or disabled in such sea
service.'
Unfortunately Queen Mary died before the work inaugurated by her was
completed, but William III. resolved to make the hospital a worthy
memorial of her, and entrusted the task of supplementing the existing
buildings with another of noble proportions to Sir Christopher Wren,
under whom was to work as treasurer John Evelyn, and as secretary the
famous dramatist and architect Sir John Vanbrugh, who in 1714 built the
mansion known as Vanburgh Castle, still standing on Maize Hill on the
eastern outskirts of the park, in which a number of French prisoners
were shut up during the last war with France.
Greenwich Hospital was designed without fee by Sir Christopher, for
love, as he said, of the cause of the seamen, and is considered one of
his masterpieces. With his usual skill in subordinating detail to
general effect and dovetailing the new on to the old, he made the
colonnades connecting his work with that of his predecessors appear an
integral part of a single harmonious scheme, and fortunately there is
nothing incongruous with that scheme in the additions made since his
death. As it now stands the hospital consists of four groups of
buildings, named respectively after Charles II., Queen Anne, Queen
Mary, and King William. The two first on either side of the great
square face the river and are both handsome structures, but they are
excelled in beauty of design by the two last. In Queen Mary's is the
richly decorated chapel completed in 1789 {111} that replaces an
earlier building destroyed by fire in 1779, whilst King William's
encloses the most important feature of all, the fine Painted Hall
originally the refectory of the pensioners, that was decorated between
1708 and 1729 with a series of mural and ceiling paintings by Sir James
Thornhill, and is now used as a national gallery for portraits of naval
heroes and pictures of marine subjects, some of which, notably Turner's
'Battle of Trafalgar,' are real masterpieces. Many banquets to royal
and other distinguished guests have been held in the Painted Hall, but
the most memorable association with it is the fact that in it in 1806
the dead body of Lord Nelson lay in state for three days before it was
taken by boat on January 8 to be interred in St. Paul's Cathedral.
[Illustration: THE PAINTED HALL, GREENWICH HOSPITAL]
Until 1865 Greenwich Hospital continued to be one of the most useful
and appreciated charitable institutions of the United Kingdom, but at
that date it was decided, in accordance with the wishes of the seamen,
that they should be allowed pensions enabling them to live in their own
homes. In 1869 the last of the inmates left, and four years later the
buildings were re-opened as a naval college, those named after Queen
Anne being set aside as a museum of naval relics, models of ships,
etc., for the use of the students, to which, however, the public are
admitted. From the first the new school throve in a remarkable way,
and at the present day as many as a thousand pupils are received in it
at a time.
The parish church of Greenwich, dedicated to St. Alphege, occupies the
site of an earlier one, {112} that in its turn is supposed to have
replaced a chapel marking the spot where the martyrdom of the holy man
it commemorated took place. The present building was completed in
1718, and is a fairly good example of the Renaissance style then in
vogue. It contains a fine memorial window to its titular saint, who is
represented in his bishop's robes raising the right hand in blessing,
an ornate royal pew, some good carving by the famous Grinling Gibbons,
and on one of the walls a quaint old painting representing Charles I.
in prayer. In the crypt beneath rest Major-General Wolfe, the hero of
Quebec, the celebrated musician, Thomas Tallis, and the famous beauty,
Polly Peacham, who became Duchess of Bolton, and resided with her
husband the duke at Westcombe Park. In the same place was also
interred the noted antiquarian, William Lombarde, who lived in the time
of Elizabeth and founded the picturesque almshouses named after her,
still to be seen opposite the modern railway station, but when the old
church was pulled down his tomb was removed to Sevenoaks.
Greenwich Park, that was first roughly enclosed by Duke Humphrey of
Gloucester and his wife Eleanor in 1433, was further protected some two
centuries later by a brick wall erected by order of James I. The
grounds were laid out by the famous landscape gardener, Le Nôtre,
chosen by Charles II., who took a great interest in the progress of the
work, himself planting many trees, including the noble avenue of
Spanish chestnuts that is still one of the most noteworthy features of
the park. {113} It was the same monarch who decided to transform into
an Observatory the tower built by Duke Humphrey, which had been the
home for many years of the younger members of the royal family, and in
which the Princess Mary, one of the daughters of Edward IV., died in
1482. Later the building, to which the inappropriate name of Mirefleur
was given, was used as a prison, and in it Queen Elizabeth had the Earl
of Leicester shut up after his marriage to the widowed Duchess of
Essex. James I. gave the property to Henry Howard, Earl of
Northampton, founder of the still flourishing Trinity Hospital, and he
greatly enlarged the Tower, converting it into a really fine mansion.
The work of transforming it into an observatory was entrusted to Sir
Christopher Wren, who found it necessary to have the greater part taken
down, but he used the old materials; and in spite of the many additions
that have been made since his time, the group of buildings, with their
numerous turrets and domes, harmonise well with each other and their
surroundings. Through Greenwich Observatory runs the meridian line
from which longitude is reckoned, and from it the exact time is
conveyed by electricity every day at one o'clock to the chief towns of
Great Britain. In it elaborate records are made of the daily changes
in temperature, the direction of the wind, and many other data of
importance to astronomical and meteorological science. The great
telescope, that is twenty-eight feet long and has an object glass of
twenty-eight inches, is the most powerful anywhere in use, and near to
the chief entrance is the huge astronomical clock that shows the {114}
true official time. Many distinguished men have held the important
post of Astronomer-Royal at Greenwich, including Flamsteed, Halley,
Bradley, and Sir George Airey, under whose enlightened auspices the
observatory has won first rank amongst similar institutions elsewhere,
a position it seems likely long to maintain if its interests are
protected from the dangers that have recently begun to threaten them.
The annual reports issued by the Astronomer-Royal are practically a
history of astronomical science, and it is impossible to overestimate
the value of the quiet, systematic, unremitting work done under his
auspices all the year round, or of the unceasing vigilance of the
experts whose business it is to make sure that all the instruments used
are in the highest possible state of efficiency.
From the immediate vicinity of the Observatory, especially from
Flamsteed Hill, a fine view is obtained of the river with its
shipping--the Isle of Dogs, and its church, connected by a subway with
the mainland, and the country between Greenwich and London; but,
unfortunately, the long famous prospect from One Tree Hill, so called
after a single giant growth that formerly surmounted its summit, is now
nearly shut out by trees and shrubs, the planting of which it is
impossible to justify, for they were certainly not needed. In spite of
this, however, Greenwich Park remains one of the most beautiful and
popular open spaces within easy reach of the capital. The deer which
roam about in it are so tame that they will eat out of the hands of
strangers, and even when it is crowded {115} with holiday-makers it
still retains something of the old-fashioned aroma of days long gone
by. The Ranger's Lodge, now used as a restaurant and meeting-place for
local clubs, that has one entrance from Greenwich Park and another from
Blackheath, so that it forms a kind of link between the two, is a fine
old mansion associated with many interesting memories of the time when
the post of Ranger was held by noble or royal personages. It was once
the home, for instance, of the famous Philip, Earl of Chesterfield, and
later of the Dowager-Duchess of Brunswick, whose daughter, the unhappy
Caroline, Princess of Wales, lived near by in the now destroyed
Montague House, going once a week to see her child, the Princess
Charlotte, who was under the care of her mother. In comparatively
recent times the Lodge was occupied by Prince Arthur of Connaught when
he was studying at the Woolwich Academy, and in its grounds, recently
added to the public park, is a model of a fort built by him, and a
curious bath bearing a quaint inscription.
[Sidenote: Blackheath]
The common known as Blackheath, probably because of its sombre
appearance, that adjoins the parish of Greenwich, is all that is left
of a vast unenclosed tract of country, which between the time of St.
Alphege and the early years of the nineteenth century often played an
important part in the history of England. On it, in June 1381, Wat
Tyler and his followers were encamped for some days, their numbers
constantly increasing, before the march to London that was to end so
disastrously. There Richard II. and his young {116} bride Isabel of
France, Henry V. and his victorious troops fresh from Agincourt, and
Henry VI. after his coronation at Paris, were at different times met by
the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London, who had come from the city to
welcome them. There, too, after the tragic death of their leader, the
adherents of Jack Cade knelt, with halters round their necks, before
Henry VI. to plead for pardon; and there, a few months later, the same
monarch, with his army around him, awaited the coming of the Duke of
York, whose claim to the throne was stronger than his own, resolved, in
spite of all his promises to the contrary, to have him sent a prisoner
to London. It was on Blackheath that the son of the Duke, Edward IV.
halted, in 1471, to receive the congratulations of the citizens of
London on his return from Paris after signing the famous treaty of
peace with Louis of France, and there, twenty-six years afterwards,
Henry VII. met and cut to pieces the rebels from Cornwall, who had
marched to London under the joint leadership of Lord Audley and the
sturdy blacksmith Michael Joseph, whose burial-place, a mound locally
known as the Smith's Forge, from which Whitefield used to preach, is
marked by a group of fir-trees. To Blackheath came, in 1519, the Papal
legate Cardinal Campeggio, to take counsel with the Catholic Duke of
Norfolk, and there in the same year the High Admiral of France, the
chivalrous Bonivet, attended by many young French gallants in gorgeous
array, was welcomed with great pomp by the Earl of Surrey, who held the
same office {117} in England. During the reigns of Henry VIII.,
Elizabeth, Charles I., and Charles II., Blackheath was, as a matter of
course, the scene of many a pageant besides the one already alluded to
in connection with Greenwich, when the wooer of so many fair women went
forth from his palace there to receive his bride, the unattractive Anne
of Cleves. The last great historical gathering which took place on the
Heath was that of May 29, 1660, when the army was drawn up on it to
welcome back Charles II., an event graphically described by Macaulay,
who remarks: 'In the midst of the general joy at the restoration, one
spot [Blackheath] presented a dark and threatening aspect, for though
the king smiled, bowed, and extended his hand graciously to the lips of
the colonels and majors, all his courtesy was in vain. The
countenances of the soldiers were sad and lowering, and had they given
way to their feelings the festive pageant in which they reluctantly
formed a part would have had a mournful and bloody end.'
It was in the reign of James I., who introduced in his southern
dominions the favourite game of Scotland, that was founded what is now
the oldest athletic society of England, the Blackheath Golf Club, the
history of which is one of unbroken continuity, for it has flourished
ever since, surviving the popular fair, that until it was suppressed by
Government in 1873 used to take place in May and October of every year.
Blackheath is now in fact a local playground rather than a factor in
the national life; much of it has been built over, and the little
village {118} named after it has become a populous town. There remain,
however, a few fine old mansions to recall the days gone by, notably
that known as Morden's College at the south-eastern corner of the still
unenclosed common, built in 1694 by Sir John Morden as a home for
twelve decayed merchants, and added to later to meet the needs of the
forty pensioners now received in it, the value of the property left in
trust for the charity by the owner having greatly increased since his
death.
The village of Charlton, on a hill about halfway between Greenwich and
Woolwich, with its seventeenth-century church that has been well
restored, and its many old cottages, is now much what Blackheath was a
century ago, but it seems likely ere long to lose its picturesque
appearance. It will always, however, retain the advantage of
commanding a fine view of the Thames valley, and it is still in touch
with much beautiful scenery. Its manor-house, known as Charlton House,
said to have been designed by Inigo Jones, is a good example of the
domestic architecture of the period at which it was built, and probably
occupies the site of the ancient homestead that with the rest of the
estate of Charlton was given by William the Conqueror to Bishop Odo of
Bayeux.
[Illustration: RUINS OF ELTHAM PALACE]
[Sidenote: Eltham]
Two miles south-east of Greenwich is the popular suburb of Eltham, the
name of which is a contraction of the Anglo-Saxon Ealdham, signifying
the ancient homestead, that was in olden times an important town with a
royal palace, of which the banqueting-hall alone remains. Given with
{119} Charlton and many another valuable property in southern England
to Bishop Odo of Bayeux by William the Conqueror, the manor of Eltham
passed through many vicissitudes, reverting again and again to the
Crown, and becoming after the Restoration the property of Sir John
Shaw. The date of the erection of the palace, the ruins of which are
situated near to the picturesque mansion known as Eltham Court, is
unknown, but it is referred to as a royal residence in the supplement
to the thirteenth-century _Historia Major_ of the famous Latin
chronicler Matthew Paris, that is supposed to have been added by
William Rishanger, a monk of St. Albans Abbey. In any case it seems
certain that Henry III. spent Christmas of 1270 in it, though it was
probably not then completed, and Edward II. and his wife Queen Isabella
were very fond of it. It was in it that their son John, familiarly
called John of Eltham, was born, and there his elder brother Edward
III. took his young bride, Philippa of Hainault, in 1328. The first
parliament of his reign was held in it, and he was residing there just
before he broke free from the pernicious influence of his mother, whom
he banished to Rising Castle. It was at Eltham that the famous banquet
was given to the captive king John of France by Edward III. and the
Black Prince in 1363, at which probably the princess royal, who was to
become the wife of the prisoner, was present; and there the English
monarch presided, the year before the death of his beloved son, over
the parliament that met after the {120} conclusion of the long war with
France. Richard II., who was made Prince of Wales at Eltham in 1375,
spent a good deal of time there during his minority, and went there
after his marriage in 1382 to his first wife Anne of Bohemia, who
shared his affection for the palace. The royal couple kept Christmas
at Eltham in 1384, 1385, and 1386, receiving on the last occasion Leo,
King of Bohemia, who had come to England to plead for aid against the
Turks, and also a less welcome deputation of the faithful Commons who
had sought an audience to remonstrate with the young king on his
extravagance.
In 1395, a year after the death of Queen Anne, which was such a bitter
grief to Richard, the French historian Froissart, who was then engaged
in writing his famous _Chronicles_, went to Eltham to present one of
his books to the widowed king, and was present at a council, of which
he gives a very graphic account. He was also, he relates, admitted to
a private audience in the monarch's bedroom and he tells how he laid
his gift upon the bed and how greatly the recipient appreciated it, for
he dipped eagerly into the manuscript here and there reading portions
of it aloud.
It was at Eltham in 1396 that the marriage was arranged between Richard
II. and the eight-year-old Isabella, daughter of Charles VI. of France,
and it was from the palace that the newly married pair went forth in
great state for the coronation of the bride in Westminster Abbey.
Isabella was but eleven years old when three years later her husband
{121} was deposed, and they were never again at Eltham; but Henry IV.
often held his court in the palace, spending Christmas there no less
than four times. It was in it that he was first seized with the
illness that terminated fatally in Westminster Abbey in March 1413, and
there that his son and successor Henry V. spent much of the short time
he lived in England. From Eltham Palace he hastened up to London in
January 1414 to deal with the Lollards. Henry VI., after his long
minority, and before he realised how insecure was his tenure of the
throne, went to Eltham to superintend the restoration of the palace for
the reception of his wife, Margaret of Anjou, and her infant son, the
ill-fated Prince Edward, but so far as the royal family was concerned
his labour was all in vain. The queen never saw the home prepared for
her, and it was her bitter enemy Edward IV. who reaped the benefit of
her husband's improvements. The new king became greatly attached to
his palace at Eltham, and some authorities attribute the building of
the banqueting-hall to him, though the probability is that he only
enlarged and beautified it. In 1480 his third daughter Bridget was
born in the palace, and baptized in the private chapel, and in 1482,
three months before his sudden death, the king kept Christmas there
with great pomp, daily entertaining more than two thousand guests. The
founder of the Tudor dynasty too, Henry VII., whose marriage with one
of Edward IV.'s daughters united the red and white roses, kept up the
traditions of Eltham hospitality, and did much to embellish the palace,
building, according to Hasted, a handsome {122} front towards the moat.
The sixteenth-century chronicler Lambarde gives a vivid description of
the fair residence at Eltham, but he also strikes the note of the
waning of its glory, for he remarks that the court was beginning to
prefer Greenwich to it. Henry VIII., it is true, was sometimes at
Eltham, keeping Christmas there in 1515, when a mock tournament was
held in the banqueting-hall, and again in 1526 when he took refuge
there from the plague then raging in London, but he never really cared
for the palace as a residence. In 1527 Cardinal Wolsey, who was still
in high favour, spent a fortnight at Eltham, drawing up there what are
known as the Statutes of Eltham, and are still honoured at the English
court for regulating the affairs of the royal household. This was
perhaps the last time that any important gatherings assembled in the
once popular residence, for though Queen Elizabeth and James I. were
sometimes there, their visits were but brief. Charles I. never lived
in the palace, but his favourite painter Sir Antony van Dyck was once
the guest of the king's physician Sir Theodore de Mayerne in what was
then Park Lodge, and Horace Walpole in his chatty _Anecdotes of
Painting_ refers to sketches made by the great master in the
neighbourhood.
After the death on the scaffold of Charles I., Eltham Palace was taken
possession of by parliament, and a report was drawn up of its
condition, in which it is stated that it consisted of a fair chapel, a
great hall, and several suites of apartments covering an acre of
ground, all very much out of repair. {123} A little later the entire
building was sold for the modest sum of £2753, the chapel and all the
rooms were pulled down, and the grand banqueting-hall was converted
into a barn. Several centuries elapsed before any effort was made to
rescue it from this degraded position, but in 1828, at the instance of
the Princess Sophia, who was then living at Greenwich, it was carefully
restored, and it now remains, with the picturesque ivy-clad bridge
spanning the moat, a notable witness to what must have been the beauty
and grandeur of the group of buildings of which it was once the most
remarkable feature. The hammer-beam roof, in spite of the loss of most
of its pendants, ranks with that of Westminster Hall as a fine example
of combined lightness and strength of construction, and the effect of
the vast and lofty hall, with its grand bays at the upper end, must
indeed have been impressive before the windows by which it was lighted
from both sides were blocked up.
When Eltham Palace was pulled down, the three parks that had belonged
to it were also practically destroyed, all the venerable trees in them
having been cut down, so that, as remarked by a seventeenth-century
writer of somewhat gruesome tastes, there was scarcely one left to make
a gibbet, the deer were killed off, and what had long been one of the
most beautiful neighbourhoods near London was transformed into a scene
of desolation.
In spite of its many interesting associations there is now little that
is distinctive about modern Eltham. Its church, however, retains the
quaint wooden tower and shingle spire of an earlier building, and {124}
there are a few fine old mansions in the neighbourhood, notably the
Elizabethan Well Hall, now a farmhouse, in which Sir Thomas More's
favourite daughter, Margaret Roper, lived for some time.
Two densely populated suburbs, that not long ago were remote and
secluded villages, picturesquely built on the Ravensbourne, are Lee and
Lewisham, the former connected with Eltham Palace by a subterranean
passage which was discovered in 1836, and is supposed to have formed
part of a complete system of communication between the latter and the
outer world. Its exit from the Eltham end was protected by massive
iron gates beneath the moat, near to which a flight of steps led down
to a strong-room, probably used as a hiding-place for treasure, though,
strange to say, there are no local traditions concerning it.
[Sidenote: Chiselhurst]
All that is now left at Lee to recall the old days when it was an
outlying hamlet of Eltham, is the tower of the ancient parish church;
and Lewisham, the name of which means the homestead in the meadow, is
even more modernised, though its history can be traced back to
Anglo-Saxon times, when it seems to have formed part with Greenwich and
the two Coombes of one property that was given, as related above, by
Ethelruda, a niece of King Alfred to the Abbey of St. Paul's at Ghent,
in connection with which a Benedictine priory was founded at Lewisham,
the memory of which is preserved in the name of the Priory Farm
occupying its site. Another suburb in close touch with Eltham is
Mottino-ham that retains more of its rural character than either {125}
Lee or Lewisham; and not far away are the still pretty villages of
Rushey Green, Catford, and Catford Bridge. More celebrated than any of
these, however, is the important settlement of Chislehurst, that, owing
chiefly to the exceptional beauty of its situation on a lofty common,
defended from encroachment by a natural rampart of woods, seems likely
to be able long to defy the levelling influences which have spoiled so
many of the districts of outlying London.
Originally but a remote and secluded hamlet scarcely known to the
outside world, Chislehurst has of late years become a centre of
archæological interest, for in addition to its other attractions it
enjoys the unique distinction of being in close touch with one of the
most remarkable and extensive systems of subterranean galleries and
caves, the ramifications of which are supposed to be many miles in
length, that have yet been discovered in England. The existence of
this underground world was long known, but it is only recently, thanks
to the enterprise of Mr. Ryan, proprietor of the Beckley Arms Hotel, in
whose grounds there is an entrance to it, that it has been opened to
the public. Mr. Ryan had many of the galleries and chambers cleared of
the rubbish--the accumulation of centuries--encumbering them, and
lighted them with electricity, so that it is now possible to explore
them without fear of being lost or buried alive. The origin and
purpose of this wonderful net-work of excavations are alike unknown,
some experts claiming that they were used for Druidical worship, two
altar tables, probably used {126} for sacrifices, having been found;
whilst others are of opinion that they were used as hiding-places in
times of war, or as storehouses for grain and treasure. Some few of
the smaller chambers, that are mere cells, can only be entered on all
fours, and could be defended by a single man, whilst the larger ones
are capable of holding as many as fifty people. There were two ways of
gaining access to them, one by steps in the sides of the shafts pierced
here and there, the other with the aid of a notched pole which could
easily be removed, and Mr. Nicholls, Vice-President of the
Archæological Society, in a deeply interesting pamphlet on the subject,
expresses an opinion that in times of danger the whole population of
the district may have lived contentedly underground for weeks at a
time. 'The little colony,' he says, 'might be working in the fields or
tending their cattle; suddenly a cry of alarm is raised, the lookout
man rushes in and reports that the enemy is approaching in force. If,'
he adds, 'the incursion were too strong to be resisted, there would be
an immediate stampede; the population would swarm down the shafts, and
in a few minutes not a sound would be left to guide the invaders. Even
if the raiders succeeded in finding a shaft they would be practically
helpless, since one or two resolute men at the foot could hold it
against a host.' Possibly the caves may have been used in succession
by many different tenants, the Britons after their defeat by the Romans
may have withdrawn into yet deeper recesses of the forests, and their
conquerors may have driven new galleries through the ancient moatings,
to be in {127} their turn supplanted by the Jutes, the Angles, and the
Saxons, so that could the whole story of the excavations be read, fresh
light might be thrown on much of the early history of Southern England.
As time goes on, and further explorations are made, new facts may come
to light, but at present, in spite of the many theories advanced, the
mystery remains unsolved.
Originally a dependency of Dartford, now a thriving manufacturing town,
the manor of Chislehurst, the name of which is supposed to signify a
wood of pebbles, was given by King John to a Norman noble known as
Hugh, Earl of St. Paul, and after many vicissitudes it became the
property, in 1584, of the Walsingham family, to whom it was granted on
a long lease by Queen Elizabeth. The Walsinghams were already in
residence in Chislehurst, and the future minister, Sir Francis, was
born in the village in 1536, though exactly where is not known, the
so-called manor-house near the church, which is generally spoken of as
his birthplace, not having been built until 1584.
[Illustration: CHISLEHURST CHURCH AND COMMON]
The parish church of Chislehurst, though practically modern, was built
on the lines of its sixteenth-century predecessor, and with its lofty
spire presents a picturesque appearance. It contains the altar tomb of
the Walsingham family and several other noteworthy memorials, including
a fifteenth-century brass in memory of Alan Porter, and a monument to
William Selwyn, designed by Chantrey. The font is said to be of great
antiquity, and may possibly have been in use in Saxon times, and in
{128} the churchyard are some interesting old tombs, including that in
which rest the remains of Mr. and Mrs. Bonar, who were murdered by
their servant in 1813.
A well-preserved cock-pit, now fortunately disused, opposite the
church, is another Chislehurst link with the past, and in the
neighbourhood are some fine old mansions, of which the most noteworthy
is Camden Place, named after the antiquarian William Camden, who bought
it in 1609, but more celebrated as having been the scene of the cruel
fate of Mr. and Mrs. Bonar, and the home later of Napoleon III., who
died in it in 1873. The widowed Empress Eugénie lived in it for some
time, and built the memorial chapel in connection with the little Roman
Catholic chapel in Crown Lane, in which rested the remains of her
husband, and later of her son, before their removal to the Mausoleum at
Farnborough, near her present home. It was at Camden Place that the
Empress received the news of the death in South Africa of the Prince
Imperial, to whose memory she erected the fine cross outside the
entrance gates.
Within easy reach of Chislehurst, and sharing to some extent the beauty
of its surroundings, are the charming village of Beckley, that owns a
fine modern church and a picturesque tower, the latter now the property
of the Kent Water Company, and the thriving town of Bromley, the name
of which is derived from the broom that flourishes in the
neighbourhood. The latter owns what was once the palace of the bishops
of Rochester, {129} built on the site of the ancient manor-house, and
now a private residence, in the grounds of which is a medicinal well
dedicated to St. Blaise, that used to be credited with miraculous
powers of healing, and is associated with the memory of King Ethelbert,
for to commemorate his conversion to Christianity special indulgences
were granted to those who drank its waters. Another noteworthy feature
of Bromley is the well-restored parish church--in which rests the wife
of Dr. Johnson--rising from the highest point of the town, and
approached by an avenue of venerable elms from a picturesque lych gate,
whilst here and there in the town are a few quaint old houses, and a
little outside it the seventeenth-century buildings of Bromley College,
now a home for the widows and daughters of clergymen.
[Sidenote: Beckenham]
Another village of Kent that has of late years grown into a town is
Beckenham, prettily situated on a tributary of the Ravensbourne, in the
original straggling high street of which there remain, however, several
ancient half-timbered houses. The old manor-house known as Beckenham
Place, too, is still standing, and the modern parish church is as
nearly as possible a reproduction of the old one that was pulled down
on account of its melancholy state of decay in 1885. The
well-preserved lych gate, with an avenue of yews leading from it to the
southern entrance, is but little changed from what it was long years
ago, and in the rebuilding of the church care was taken to preserve the
old monuments, that include the altar-tomb of Sir Humphrey Style, who
died in 1552, and that of {130} Dame Margaret Damsell, who passed away
in 1563.
The history of Beckenham Manor can be traced back to pre-Norman times:
it was given by William the Conqueror to Bishop Odo of Bayeux, and in
the reign of Edward I. it was in the possession of the De la Rochelle
family. Later it was owned, in right of his wife, by William Brandon,
who was standard-bearer to Henry, Earl of Richmond, and was killed at
the battle of Bosworth. During the reign of Henry VII., Charles, Duke
of Suffolk, the son of this William Brandon, often visited Beckenham
Place, and is said to have there entertained Henry VIII. when that
monarch was on his way to meet his bride Anne of Cleves.
The rapidly growing suburb of Shortlands--the birthplace of the
historian George Grote--connects Beckenham with Bromley, and in touch
with it are several noted mansions, including the Georgian Langley
House, Eden Lodge, named after the first Lord Auckland, who lived in it
for many years, and was often visited by William Pitt, and the
eighteenth-century Kelsey House, on the site of an earlier residence
that is often referred to in the records of the reigns of Henry III.
and his successors.
{131}