the antiquary all he has discovered, and from the historian all he has
to tell, there is yet another field of research open to him before he
begins his task. It is the place itself--the _terrain_--the site of the
town, or the modern town upon the site of the old. He must examine that;
prowl about it; search into it; consider the neglected corners of it. I
will give an example. Fifty years ago a certain learned antiquary and
scholar visited the site of an ancient Syrian city, now sadly reduced,
and little more than a village. He looked at the place--he did not
explore it, he looked at it--he then read whatever history has found to
say of it; he proceeded to prove that the place could never have been
more than a small and insignificant town composed of huts and inhabited
by fishermen. Those who spoke of it as a magnificent city he called
enthusiasts or liars. Forty years passed; then another man came; he not
only visited the site, but examined it, surveyed it, and explored it.
This man discovered that the place had formerly possessed a wall--the
remains still existing--two miles and more in length; an acropolis,
strong and well situated--the ruins still standing--protecting a noble
city with splendid buildings. The antiquary, you see, dealing with
little fragments, could not rise above them; his fragments seemed to
belong to a whole which was puny and insignificant. This antiquary was
Dr. Robinson, and the place was the once famous city of Tiberias, by the
shores of the Galilean lake.
In exactly the same manner, he who would understand mediæval London must
walk about modern London, but after _he has read his historian and his
antiquary_, not before. Then he will be astonished to find how much is
left, in spite of fires, reconstructions and demolitions, to illustrate
the past.
Here a quaint little square, accessible only to foot-passengers, shut
in, surrounded by merchants' offices, still preserves its ancient form
of a court in a suppressed monastery. Since the church is close by, one
ought to be able to assign the court to its proper purpose. The hall,
the chapter-house, the kitchens and buttery, the abbot's residence, may
have been built around this court.
Again, another little square set with trees, like a Place in Toulon or
Marseilles, shows the former court of a royal palace. And here a
venerable name survives telling what once stood on the site; here a
dingy little church-yard marks the former position of a church as
ancient as any in the City.
London is full of such survivals, which are known only to one who prowls
about its streets, note-book in hand, remembering what he has read. Not
one of them can be got from the book antiquary, or from the guide-book.
As one after the other is recovered the ancient city grows not only more
vivid, but more picturesque and more splendid. London a city of low mean
tenements? Dr. Brewer--Dr. Brewer! Why, I see great palaces along the
river-bank between the quays and ports and warehouses. In the narrow
lanes that rise steeply from the river I see other houses fair and
stately, each with its gate-way, its square court, and its noble hall,
high roofed, with its oriel-windows and its lantern. Beyond these narrow
lanes, north of Watling Street and Budge Row, more of those houses--and
still more, till we reach the northern part where the houses are nearly
all small, because here the meaner sort and those who carry on the least
desirable trades have those dwellings.
[Illustration: CHURCH OF ST. PAUL'S, BEFORE THE FIRE]
You have seen that London was full of rich monasteries, nunneries,
colleges, and parish churches, in so much that it might be likened unto
the _Ile Sonnante_ of Rabelais. You have now to learn, what I believe no
one has ever yet pointed out, that if it could be called a city of
churches it was much more a city of palaces. This shall immediately be
made clear. There were, in fact, in London itself more palaces than in
Verona and Florence and Venice and Genoa all together. There was not, it
is true, a line of marble _palazzi_ along the banks of a Grande Canale;
there was no Piazza della Signoria, no Piazza della Erbe to show these
buildings. They were scattered about all over the City; they were built
without regard to general effect and with no idea of decoration or
picturesqueness; they lay hidden in narrow winding labyrinthine streets;
the warehouses stood beside and between them; the common people dwelt in
narrow courts around them; they faced each other on opposite sides of
the lanes.
These palaces belonged to the great nobles and were their town houses;
they were capacious enough to accommodate the whole of a baron's
retinue, consisting sometimes of four, six, or even eight hundred men.
Let us remark that the continual presence of these lords and their
following did much more for the City than merely to add to its splendor
by the erecting of great houses. By their residence they prevented the
place from becoming merely a trading centre or an aggregate of
merchants; they kept the citizens in touch with the rest of the kingdom;
they made the people of London understand that they belonged to the
Realm of England. When Warwick, the King-maker, rode through the
streets to his town-house, followed by five hundred retainers in his
livery; when King Edward the Fourth brought wife and children to the
City and left them there under the protection of the Londoners while he
rode out to fight for his crown; when a royal tournament was held in
Chepe--the Queen and her ladies looking on--then the very school-boys
learned and understood that there was more in the world than mere
buying and selling, importing and exporting; that everything must not be
measured by profit; that they were traders indeed, and yet subjects of
an ancient crown; that their own prosperity stood or fell with the
well-doing of the country. This it was which made the Londoners ardent
politicians from very early times; they knew the party leaders who had
lived among them; the City was compelled to take a side, and the
citizens quickly perceived that their own side always won--a thing which
gratified their pride. In a word, the presence in their midst of king
and nobles made them look beyond their walls. London was never a Ghent;
nor was it a Venice. It was never London for itself against the world,
but always London for England first, and for its own interests next.
[Illustration: MONUMENTS OF ST. PAUL'S WHICH SURVIVED THE FIRE (EAST END
OF THE NORTH CRYPT)]
Again, the City palaces, the town-houses of the nobles, were at no time,
it must be remembered, fortresses. The only fortress of the City was the
White Tower. The houses were neither castellated nor fortified nor
garrisoned. They were entered by a gate, but there was neither ditch nor
portcullis. The gate--only a pair of wooden doors--led into an open
court round which the buildings stood. Examples of this way of building
may still be seen in London. For instance, Staple Inn, or Barnard's Inn,
affords an excellent illustration of a mediæval mansion. There are in
each two square courts with a gate-way leading from the road into the
Inn. Between the courts is a hall with its kitchen and buttery.
Clifford's Inn, Gray's Inn and Old Square, Lincoln's Inn are also good
examples. Sion College, before they wickedly destroyed it, showed the
hall and the court. Hampton Court is a late example, the position of
the Hall having been changed. Gresham House was built about a court. So
was the Mansion House. Till a few years ago Northumberland House, at
Charing Cross, illustrated the disposition of such mansions. Those who
walk down Queen Victoria Street in the City pass on the north side a red
brick house standing round three sides of a quadrangle. This is the
Herald's College; a few years ago it preserved its fourth side with its
gate-way. Four hundred years ago this was the town-house of the Earls of
Derby. Restore the front and you have the size of a great noble's town
palace, yet not one of the largest. If you wish to understand the
disposition of such a building as a nobleman's town-house, compare it
with the Quadrangle of Clare, or that of Queens', Cambridge. Derby House
was burned down in the Fire, and was rebuilt without its hall, kitchen,
and butteries, for which there was no longer any use. As it was before
the Fire, a broad and noble arch with a low tower, but showing no
appearance of fortification, opened into the square court which was used
as an exercising ground for the men at arms. In the rooms around the
court was their sleeping accommodation; at the side or opposite the
entrance stood the hall where the whole household took meals; opposite
to the hall was the kitchen with its butteries; over the butteries was
the room called the Solar, where the Earl and Countess slept; beyond the
hall was another room called the Lady's Bower, where the ladies could
retire from the rough talk of the followers. We have already spoken of
this arrangement. The houses beside the river were provided with stairs,
at the foot of which was the state barge in which my Lord and my Lady
took the air on fine days, and were rowed to and from the Court at
Westminster.
[Illustration: ANCIENT NORTH-EAST VIEW OF BISHOPSGATE STREET]
There remains nothing of these houses. They are, with one exception, all
swept away. Yet the description of one or two, the site of others, and
the actual remains of one sufficiently prove their magnificence. Let us
take one or two about which something is known. For instance, there is
Baynard's Castle, the name of which still survives in that of Baynard's
Castle Ward, and in that of a wharf which is still called by the name of
the old palace.
[Illustration: THE COLLEGE OF ARMS, OR HERALD'S OFFICE]
Baynard's Castle stood first on the river-bank close to the Fleet Tower
and the western extremity of the wall. The great house which afterwards
bore this name was on the bank, but a little more to the east. There was
no house in the City more interesting than this. Its history extends
from the Norman Conquest to the Great Fire--exactly six hundred years;
and during the whole of this long period it was a great palace. First it
was built by one Baynard, follower of William. It was forfeited in A.D.
1111, and given to Robert Fitzwalter, son of Richard, Earl of Clare, in
whose family the office of Castellan and Standard-bearer to the City of
London became hereditary. His descendant, Robert, in revenge for private
injuries, took part with the Barons against King John, for which the
King ordered Baynard's Castle to be destroyed. Fitzwalter, however,
becoming reconciled to the King, was permitted to rebuild his house. It
was again destroyed, this time by fire, in 1428. It was rebuilt by
Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, on whose attainder it reverted to the
crown. During one of these rebuildings it was somewhat shifted in
position. Richard, Duke of York, next had it, and lived here with his
following of four hundred gentlemen and men at arms. It was in the hall
of Baynard's Castle that Edward IV. assumed the title of king, and
summoned the bishops, peers, and judges to meet him in council. Edward
gave the house to his mother, and placed in it for safety his wife and
children before going out to fight the battle of Barnet. Here Buckingham
offered the crown to Richard.
Alas! why would you heap these cares on me?
I am unfit for state and majesty;
I do beseech you--take it not amiss--
I cannot, nor I will not, yield to you.
[Illustration: BRIDEWELL]
Henry VIII. lived in this palace, which he almost entirely rebuilt.
Prince Henry, after his marriage with Catherine of Aragon, was conducted
in great state up the river, from Baynard's Castle to Westminster, the
Mayor and Commonalty of the City following in their barges. In the time
of Edward VI. the Earl of Pembroke, whose wife was sister to Queen
Catharine Parr, held great state in this house. Here he proclaimed Queen
Mary. When Mary's first Parliament was held, he proceeded to Baynard's
Castle, followed by "2000 horsemen in velvet coats with their laces of
gold and gold chains, besides sixty gentlemen in blue coats with his
badge of the green dragon." This powerful noble lived to entertain Queen
Elizabeth at Baynard's Castle with a banquet, followed by fireworks. The
last appearance of the place in history is when Charles II. took supper
there just before the Fire swept over it and destroyed it.
[Illustration: VIEW OF THE SAVOY FROM THE THAMES]
Another house by the river was that called Cold Harborough, or Cold Inn.
This house stood to the west of the old Swan Stairs. It was built by a
rich City merchant, Sir John Poultney, four times Mayor of London. At
the end of the fourteenth century it belonged, however, to John Holland,
Duke of Exeter, son of Thomas Holland, Duke of Kent, and Joan
Plantagenet, the "Fair Maid of Kent." He was half-brother to King
Richard II., whom here he entertained. Richard III. gave it to the
Heralds for their college. They were turned out, however, by Henry VII.,
who gave the house to his mother, Margaret, Countess of Richmond. His
son gave it to the Earl of Shrewsbury, by whose son it was taken down,
one knows not why, and mean tenements erected in its place for the
river-side working-men.
[Illustration: VIEW OF THE SOUTH FRONT OF BAYNARD'S CASTLE, ABOUT 1640]
Another royal residence was the house called the Erber. This house
also has a long history. It is said to have been first built by the
Knight Pont de l'Arche, founder of the Priory of St. Mary Overies.
Edward III. gave it to Geoffrey le Scrope. It passed from him to John,
Lord Neville, of Raby, and so to his son Ralph Neville, Earl of
Westmoreland, the stanch supporter of Henry IV. From him the Erber
passed into the hands of another branch of the Nevilles, the Earls of
Salisbury and Warwick. The King-maker resided here, with a following so
numerous that six oxen were daily consumed for breakfast alone, and any
person who was allowed within the gates could take away as much meat,
sodden and roast, as he could carry upon a long dagger. After his death,
George, Duke of Clarence--"false, fleeting, perjured Clarence"--obtained
a grant of the house, in right of his wife, Isabel, daughter of Warwick.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester, succeeded, and called it the King's Palace
during his brief reign. Edward, son of the Duke of Clarence, then
obtained it. In the year 1584 the place, which seems to have fallen into
decay, was rebuilt by Sir Thomas Pulsdon, Lord Mayor. Its last
illustrious occupant, according to Stow, was Sir Francis Drake.
[Illustration: VIEW OF COLD HARBOR IN THAMES STREET, ABOUT 1600]
We are fortunate in having left one house at least, or a fragment of
one, out of the many London palaces. The Fire of 1666 spared Crosby
Place, and though most of the old mansion has been pulled down, there
yet remains the Hall, the so-called Throne Room, and the so-called
Council Room. The mansion formerly covered the greater part of what is
now called Crosby Square. It was built by a simple citizen, a grocer and
Lord Mayor, Sir John Crosby, in the fifteenth century; a man of great
wealth and great position; a merchant, diplomatist, and ambassador. He
rode north to welcome Edward IV. when he landed at Ravenspur; he was
sent by the King on a mission to the Duke of Burgundy and to the Duke of
Brittany. Shakespeare makes Richard of Gloucester living in this house
as early as 1471, four years before the death of Sir John Crosby, a
thing not likely. But he was living here at the death of Edward IV., and
here he held his _levées_ before his usurpation of the crown. In this
hall, where now the City clerks snatch a hasty dinner, sat the last and
worst of the Plantagenets, thinking of the two boys who stood between
him and the crown. Here he received the news of their murder. Here he
feasted with his friends. The place is charged with the memory of
Richard Plantagenet. Early in the next century another Lord Mayor
obtained it, and lent it to the ambassador of the Emperor Maximilian. It
passed next into the hands of a third citizen, also Lord Mayor, and was
bought in 1516 by Sir Thomas More, who lived here for seven years, and
wrote in this house his _Utopia_ and his _Life of Richard the Third_.
His friend, Antonio Bonvici, a merchant of Lucca, next lived in the
house. To him More wrote his well-known letter from the Tower. William
Roper, More's son-in-law, and William Rustill, his nephew; Sir Thomas
d'Arcy; William Bond, Alderman and Sheriff, and merchant adventurer; Sir
John Spencer, ancestor of Lord Northampton; Mary, Countess of Pembroke,
and sister of Sir Philip Sidney--
The gentlest shepherdess that lived that day;
And most resembling, both in shape and spirit
Her brother dear--
the Earl of Northampton, who accompanied Charles I. to Madrid on his
romantic journey; Sir Stephen Langham--were successive owners or
occupants of this house. It was partly destroyed by fire--not the Great
Fire--in the reign of Charles II. The Hall, which escaped, was for
seventy years a Presbyterian meeting-house; it then became a packer's
warehouse. Sixty years ago it was partly restored, and became a literary
institution. It is now a restaurant, gaudy with color and gilding. The
Duc de Biron, ambassador from France in the reign of Queen Elizabeth,
was lodged here, with four hundred noblemen and gentlemen in his train.
And here also was lodged the Duc de Sully.
[Illustration: CROSBY HOUSE, BISHOPSGATE STREET]
In a narrow street in the City, called Tower Royal--Tour De La Reole,
built by merchants from Bordeaux--survives the name of a house where
King Stephen lived in the short intervals when he was not fighting;
King Richard II. gave it to his mother, and called it the Queen's
Wardrobe; he afterwards assigned it to Leon III., King of Armenia, who
had been dispossessed by the Turks. Richard III. gave it to John, Duke
of Norfolk, who lived here until his death at the battle of Bosworth
Field. There is no description of the house, which must have had a tower
of some kind, and there is no record of its demolition: Stow only says
that "of late times it has been neglected and turned into stabling for
the king's horses, and is now let out to divers men, and is divided into
tenements."
The Heralds' College in Queen Victoria Street, already mentioned, stands
on the site of Derby House. Here the first Earl, who married the mother
of Henry VII., lived. Here the Princess Elizabeth of York was the guest
of the Earl during the usurpation of Richard. The house was destroyed in
the Fire and rebuilt in a quadrangle, of which the front portion was
removed to make room for the new street.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF CROSBY HALL]
Half a dozen great houses do not make a city of palaces. That is true.
Let us find others. Here, then, is a list, by no means exhaustive, drawn
up from the pages of Stow. The Fitz Alans, Earls of Arundel, had their
town house in Botolph Lane, Billingsgate, down to the end of the
sixteenth century. The street is and always has been narrow, and, from
its proximity to the fish-market, is and always has been unsavory. The
Earls of Northumberland had town houses successively in Crutched Friars,
Fenchurch Street, and Aldersgate Street. The Earls of Worcester lived in
Worcester Lane, on the river-bank; the Duke of Buckingham on College
Hill: observe how the nobles, like the merchants, built their houses in
the most busy part of the town. The Beaumonts and the Huntingdons lived
beside Paul's Wharf; the Lords of Berkeley had a house near Blackfriars;
Doctor's Commons was the town house of the Blounts, Lords Mountjoy.
Close to Paul's Wharf stood the mansion once occupied by the widow of
Richard, Duke of York, mother of Edward IV., Clarence, and Richard III.
Edward the Black Prince lived on Fish Street Hill; the house was
afterwards turned into an inn. The De la Poles had a house in Lombard
Street. The De Veres, Earls of Oxford, lived first in St. Mary Axe, and
afterwards in Oxford Court, St. Swithin's Lane; Cromwell, Earl of Essex,
had a house in Throgmorton Street. The Barons Fitzwalter had a house
where now stands Grocers' Hall, Poultry. In Aldersgate Street were
houses of the Earl of Westmoreland, the Earl of Northumberland, and the
Earl of Thanet, Lord Percie, and the Marquis of Dorchester. Suffolk Lane
marks the site of the "Manor of the Rose," belonging successively to the
Suffolks and the Buckinghams; Lovell's Court, Paternoster Row, marks the
site of the Lovells' mansion; between Amen Corner and Ludgate Street
stood Abergavenny House, where lived in the reign of Edward II. the Earl
of Richmond and Duke of Brittany, grandson of Henry III. Afterwards it
became the house of John Hastings, Earl of Pembroke, who married Lady
Margaret, daughter of Edward III. It passed to the Nevilles, Earls of
Abergavenny, and from them to the Stationers' Company. Warwick Lane runs
over Warwick House. The Sidneys, Earls of Leicester, lived in the Old
Bailey. The Staffords, Dukes of Buckingham, lived in Milk Street.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF PART OF CROSBY HALL, CALLED THE COUNCIL ROOM,
LOOKING EAST]
Such a list, numbering no fewer than thirty-five palaces--which is not
exhaustive and does not include the town houses of the Bishops and great
Abbots, nor the halls of the companies, many of them very noble, nor the
houses used for the business of the City, as Blackwell Hall and
Guildhall--is, I think, sufficient to prove my statement that London
was a city of palaces.
Nothing, again, has been said about the houses of the rich merchants,
some of which were much finer than those of the nobles. Crosby Hall, as
has been seen, was built by a merchant. In Basing Lane (now swallowed up
by those greedy devourers of old houses, Cannon Street and Queen
Victoria Street), stood Gerrard's Hall, with a Norman Crypt and a
high-roofed Hall, where once they kept a Maypole and called it Giant
Gerrard's staff. This was the hall of the house built by John Gisors,
Mayor in the year 1305. The Vintners' Hall stands on the site of a great
house built by Sir John Stodie, Mayor in 1357. In the house called the
Vintry, Sir Henry Picard, Mayor, once entertained a very noble company
indeed. Among them were King Edward III., King John of France, King
David of Scotland, the King of Cyprus, and the Black Prince. After the
banquet they gambled, the Lord Mayor defending the bank against all
comers with dice and hazard. The King of Cyprus lost his money, and,
unfortunately, his Royal temper as well. To lose the latter was a common
infirmity among the kings of those ages. The Royal Rage of the proverb
is one of those subjects which the essayist enters in his notes and
never finds the time to treat. Then up spake Sir Henry, with admonition
in his voice: Did his Highness of Cyprus really believe that the Lord
Mayor, a merchant adventurer of London, whose ships rode at anchor in
the Cyprian King's port of Famagusta, should seek to win the money of
him or of any other king? "My Lord and King," he said, "be not
aggrieved. I court not your gold, but your play; for I have not bidden
you hither that you might grieve." And so gave the king his money back.
But John, King of France, and David, King of Scotland, and the Black
Prince murmured and whispered that it was not fitting for a king to take
back money lost at play. And the good old King Edward stroked his gray
beard, but refrained from words.
Another entertainer of kings was Whittington. What sayeth the wise man?
"Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before
kings."
[Illustration: GATEWAY, ETC., IN CROSBY SQUARE (NOW DESTROYED)]