which proved to be the most fortunate chance that ever came to the City
of London. He was appointed Royal Agent at Antwerp. The King's loans
were at that time always offered at Antwerp or Bruges, and were taken up
by merchants of the Low Countries at the enormous interest of 14 per
cent. Sometimes a part of the advance had to take the form of jewels.
At this time the annual interest on the debt amounted to £40,000; and
while the exchange was sixteen Flemish shillings to the pound sterling,
the agent had to pay in English money. The post, therefore, was not an
easy one to fill.
[Illustration: FRONT OF SIR PAUL PINDER'S HOUSE, ON THE WEST SIDE OF
BISHOPSGATE STREET WITHOUT]
Gresham, however, reduced the interest from 14 per cent. to 12, or even
10 per cent. He suppressed the jewels, and took the whole of the loan in
money; and he continued to enjoy the confidence of Edward's ministers,
of Queen Mary, and of Queen Elizabeth. In order to effect this, he must
have been a most able and honest servant, or else a most supple
courtier. He was the former. Now, had he done nothing more than played
the part of Royal Agent better than any one who went before him, he
might have been as much forgotten as his predecessors. But he did much
more. The City owes to Gresham a debt of gratitude impossible to be
repaid. This is a foolish sentence, because gratitude can never be
repaid. You may always entertain and nourish gratitude, and you can do
service in return, but gratitude remains. A great service once received
is a possession forever, and generally a fruitful and growing
possession.
When Queen Elizabeth ascended the throne the commercial centre of the
world was Antwerp; when she died, the commercial centre of the world was
London. This transfer had been effected by the wisdom and foresight of
one man taking advantage of the times and their chances. The religious
wars of the Netherlands brought immense losses to Antwerp. These losses
Gresham desired to make London's gains. But he was met with the initial
difficulty that the merchants of London had not yet learned to act
together. They had, it is true, the old trading company of merchant
adventurers, but that stood alone; besides, its ambitions were modest.
They had no experience in union; there was no central institution which
should be the city's brain, the place where the merchants could meet and
receive news and consult together. Now, at Antwerp there was a goodly
Bourse. What if London could also have its Bourse?
Well, Gresham built a Bourse; he gave it to the city; he formed this
place of meeting for the merchants; the Queen opened it, and called it
the Royal Exchange. The possession of the Exchange was followed
immediately by such a development of enterprise as had been unknown
before in the history of the City. Next he persuaded the citizens to
take up the Queen's loans themselves, so that the interest, at 12 per
cent., should remain in the country. He showed his own people how to
take advantage of Antwerp's disasters and to divert her trade to the
port of London. As for his Bourse, it stood on the site of the present
Royal Exchange, but the front was south in Cornhill. The west front was
blocked up by houses. The building was of brick and mortar, three
stories high, with dormer windows in the high-pitched roof. At every
corner was a pinnacle surmounted by a grasshopper--the Gresham crest. On
the south side rose a lofty tower with a bell, which called the
merchants together at noon in the morning and at six in the evening.
Within was an open court surrounded by covered walks, adorned with
statues of kings, behind which were shops rented by milliners,
haberdashers, and sellers of trifles. This was the lower pawne. Above,
in the upper pawne, there were armorers, apothecaries, book-sellers,
goldsmiths, and glass-sellers. The Bourse was opened by Queen Elizabeth
on January 23, 1571. She changed its name from the Bourse to the Royal
Exchange. When it was destroyed in the fire of 1666, it was observed
that all the statues were destroyed, except that of Gresham himself.
[Illustration: THE ROYAL EXCHANGE, CORNHILL]
To illustrate this increase in English trade, we have these facts: In
the reign of Edward VI., a time of great decay, there were few Merchant
Adventurers and hardly any English ships. When Elizabeth began to reign
there were no more than 317 merchants in all, of whom the Company of
Mercers formed ninety-nine. Before her reign it was next to impossible
for the city to raise a loan of £10,000. Before she died the city was
advancing to the Queen loans of £60,000. Before her reign the only
foreign trade was a venture or two into Russia; everything came across
from Antwerp and Sluys. During her reign the foreign trade was developed
in an amazing manner. New commodities were exported, as beer and sea
coal, a great many new things were introduced--new trades, new luxuries.
For instance, apricots, turkeys, hops, tobacco were brought over and
planted and naturalized. Fans, ladies' wigs, fine knives, pins, needles,
earthen fire-pots, silk and crystal buttons, shoe-buckles, glass-making,
nails, paper were made in this country for the first time. The Merchant
Adventurers, who had been incorporated under Edward I., obtained fresh
rights and larger powers; they obtained the abolition of the privileges
enjoyed for three hundred years by the Hanseatic merchant; they
established courts at Antwerp, Dordrecht, and Hamburg; they had houses
at York, Hull, and Newcastle. Further, when we read that they exported
wine, oil, silks, and fruits, in addition to the products of the
country, it is clear that they had already obtained some of the carrying
trade of the world. Of the trading companies founded under Elizabeth and
her successors, only one now survives. Yet the whole trade of this
country was created by these companies.
Who, for instance, now remembers the Eastland Company, or Merchants of
Elbing? Yet they had a long existence as a company; and long after their
commercial life was gone they used to elect their officers every year,
and hold a feast. Perhaps they do still. Their trade was with the
Baltic. Or the Russian Company? That sprang out of a company called the
"Merchant Adventurers for the Discovery of Lands not before known to or
frequented by the English."
This company sent out Sir Hugh Willoughby, with three ships, to find a
north-east passage to China. But Sir Hugh was forced to put in at a port
in Russian Lapland, where he and all his men were frozen to death. The
Russian Company became whalers, and quarrelled with the Dutch over the
fishing. It had a checkered career, and finally died, but, like the
Eastland Company, it continued to elect officers and to dine together
long after its work was over. Or the Turkey Company, which lasted from
1586 to 1825, when it dissolved? Or the Royal African Company, which
lived from 1530 to 1821? There were, also, the Merchants of Spain; the
French Merchants; the Merchants of Virginia; the East India Company, the
greatest and most powerful of any trading company ever formed; the
Hudson Bay Company, which still exists; the South Sea Company; the
Guinea Company; the Canary Company. Some of these belong to a later
period, but they speak of the spirit of the enterprise and adventure
first awakened under Elizabeth.
In the Church of St. Martin Outwich, now pulled down, was a monument to
the chief actor in the promotion of these trading companies. "Here,"
said the tombstone, "resteth the body of the worshipful Mr. Richard
Staple, elected Alderman of this city 1584. He was the greatest Merchant
in his time; the chiefest Actor in the Discovery of the Trade of Turkey
and East India; a man humble in prosperity, painful and ever ready in
affairs public, and discreetly careful of his private. A liberal
house-keeper, bountiful to the Poor, an upright dealer in the world, and
a devout inquirer after the world to come.... _Intravit ut exiret._"
The increase of trade had another side. It was accompanied by
protection, with the usual results. "In the old days," says Harrison,
"when strange bottoms were suffered to come in, we had sugar for
fourpence the pound that now is worth half a crown; raisins and currants
for a pennie that now are holden at sixpence, and sometimes at
eightpence and tenpence, the pound; nutmegs at twopence halfpenny the
ounce; ginger at a pennie the ounce; prunes at a halfpenny farthing;
great raisins, three pound for a pennie; cinnamon at fourpence the
ounce; cloves at twopence; and pepper at twelve or sixteen pence the
pound." He does not state the increase in price of the latter articles;
but if we are to judge by that of sugar, the increase of trade was not
an unmixed blessing to those whose incomes had not advanced with equal
step.
The city associated the new prosperity with their Maiden Queen, for whom
their love and loyalty never abated in the least. When she asked them
for a certain number of ships they sent double the number, fully manned
and provided; when the Queen's enemy, Mary of Scotland, was beheaded,
they rang their bells and made bonfires; while the Queen was living they
thanked God solemnly for her long reign; when she died, their
lamentations were loud and sincere; her monument, until the fire,
adorned many of the city churches. One of the Elizabeth statues yet
remains outside the Church of St. Dunstan's, Fleet Street. It is the
statue which formerly stood on the west side of Lud Gate.
[Illustration: THE STEEL YARD, ETC., THAMES STREET, AFTER THE GREAT FIRE
OF 1666]
To return to Gresham. He not only gave the city a Bourse, but he also
endowed it with a college, which should have been a rival of Trinity or
Christ Church but for the mismanagement which reduced it for a long time
to the level of a lecture institute. The idea of the founder will, no
doubt, be revived some time or other, and Gresham College will become a
place of learning worthy of the city.
The career of Sir Thomas Gresham strangely resembles that of
Whittington. Both were favorites with successive sovereigns. If Gresham
built an Exchange, Whittington, by his will, added to Guildhall; if
Gresham founded a college for the London youth, Whittington founded a
college for priests, and an almshouse; if Gresham restored the finances
of his sovereign, Whittington gave back to his the bonds of all his
debts. Both were mercers; both merchant adventurers; both kept a shop;
both were of good descent.
Gresham's shop was in Lombard Street, at the Sign of the Grasshopper,
his family crest. His shop contained gold and silver vessels; coins,
ancient and modern; gold chains, gold and silver lace, rings, and
jewels. He lent money, as most bankers do, on security, but he got 10
and 12 per cent. for it. He had correspondents abroad, and he gave
travellers letters of credit; he bought foreign coin either to exchange
or to melt down. And he lived in his own house, over his shop, until he
was knighted, when he built a new house between Bishopsgate Street and
Broad Street. Stow calls it "the most spacious of all thereabout;
builded of brick and timber." This house became afterwards Gresham
College.
[Illustration: COLLEGII GRESHAMENSIS A LATERE OCCIDENTALI PROSPECTUS,
A.D. 1739]
Again, this was a great age for the foundation of grammar-schools. The
education of London in the Middle Ages is a subject which has never yet
been adequately treated. We know very well what was taught at the
universities. But what did the merchant learn, the shopkeeper, the
craftsman? To what school was the boy sent before he was apprenticed?
There was a school, it is said, to every religious house. I think that
latterly the monastic school was kept up with about as much sincerity as
the monastic rule of poverty. Stow certainly says that when Henry V.
dissolved the alien priories, their schools perished as well. On the
other hand, consider the great number of religious houses in and around
London. There should have been schools enough for the whole population.
Yet Henry VI. founded four grammar-schools "besides St. Paul's," viz.,
at St. Martin's le Grand, St. Mary le Bow, St. Dunstan's in the west,
and St. Anthony's. Why did he do this if there were already plenty of
schools? And observe that one of his foundations was at a religious
house--St. Martin's. The year after he created four more schools--at St.
Anthony's (Holborn), All Hallows the Great, St. Peter's (Cornhill), and
St. Thomas of Acon. All these schools perished in the Reformation, with
the exception of St. Paul's and St. Anthony's. Why they perished, unless
they were endowed with property belonging to some monastic house, is not
clear.
For a time the city had no schools, no hospitals, no foundations for the
poor, the sick, or the aged. These grievous losses were speedily
amended. St. Paul's was presently newly founded by Dean Colet. The
Blue-Coat School arose on the ruins of the Grey Friars. The Mercers'
Company continued the School of St. Thomas as their own, and it still
exists. The Merchant Taylors founded their school, which is now at the
Charterhouse. At St. Olave's and St. Saviour's schools were established.
A few years later was founded the Charterhouse School, which is now
removed to Godalming.
In these narrow limits it is impossible to reproduce much of the
Elizabethan daily life. Here, however, are certain details.
The ordering of the household was strict. Servants and apprentices were
up at six in the summer and at seven in the winter. No one, on any
pretence, except that of illness, was to absent himself from morning and
evening prayers; there was to be no striking, no profane language.
Sunday was clean-shirt day. Dinner was at eleven, supper at six. There
was no public or private office which was not provided with a Bible. In
the better classes there was a general enthusiasm for learning of all
kinds. The ladies, imitating the example of the Queen, practised
embroidery, wrote beautifully, played curious instruments, knew how to
sing in parts, dressed with as much magnificence as they could afford,
danced corantoes and lavoltas as well as the simple hey, and studied
languages--Latin, Greek, and Italian. The last was the favorite
language. Many collected books. Dr. John Dee had as many as four
thousand, of which one thousand were manuscripts. They were arranged on
the shelves with the leaves turned outward, not the backs. This was to
show the gilding, the gold clasps, and the silken strings. The books
were bound with great care and cost; everybody knows the beauty of the
type used in the printing.
Tournaments were maintained until the end of Elizabeth's reign. But we
hear little of them, and it is not likely that they retained much of
their old popularity. One Sir Henry Lee entered the tilt-yard every year
until age prevented him. They always kept up the sport of tilting at the
Quintain in the water. But their favorite amusements were the pageant
and the play. The pageant came before the play; and while the latter was
performed on a rough scaffold, in an inn-yard, the former was provided
with splendid dresses, music, songs, and properties of every kind.
There were pageants for the reception of the King when he made a
procession into the City; there were court pageants; there were private
pageants in great men's houses; there were pageants got up by companies.
The reception pageants, for instance, are very well illustrated by that
invented for Queen Elizabeth on her visit to the city in the year 1558.
It was in January, but I think people felt cold weather less in those
days. The Queen came by water, attended by the city barges, which were
trimmed with targets and banners of their mysteries, from Westminster to
the Tower, where she lay for two days. She then rode through the City,
starting at two in the afternoon, when everybody had had dinner.
In Fenchurch Street there was a scaffold, where was a band of music, and
a child who presented the Queen with a poetical address.
At the upper end of Gracechurch Street a noble arch had been erected,
with a triple stage. On the lowest stood two children, representing
Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York; on the second, two more, for Henry
VIII. and Anne Boleyn; and on the third, Queen Elizabeth herself. Music
and a poetical address.
[Illustration: CURIOUS PUMP]
At Cornhill there was another pageant, representing the Queen placed on
a seat supported by four figures, viz., Religion, Wisdom, Justice, and
Love, each of which was treading under foot the opposite vice. Music and
a poetical address.
At the entrance of Cheapside a third pageant represented the eight
beatitudes.
At the Conduit a fourth pageant displayed two mountains; one, ragged and
stony, with a withered tree, under which sat one in homely garb; over
her head was a tablet with the legend, "Respublica ruinosa." The other
hill was fair and green, with a flourishing tree, and the words,
"Respublica bene instituta." Between the hills was a cave, out of which
issued Time, with his wings, scythe, and forelock quite complete,
leading a maiden in white silk, on whose head was written _Temporis
Filia_, and on her breast _Veritas_. This fair damsel held a Bible in
her hand, which she let down by a silken thread to the Queen.
At the Conduit in Fleet Street they had erected a stage with four
towers, on which was a throne under a palm-tree. On the throne sat
Deborah, "Judge and Restorer of the House of Israel." On the steps of
the throne stood six personages, two of them representing the nobility,
two the clergy, and two the commons. At Temple Bar they had two giants,
Gogmagog and Albion, and Corineus, the Briton. On the south side was a
"noise" of singing children, one of whom, attired as a poet, bade the
Queen farewell in the name of the City.
The court pageants may be understood by reading the masques of Ben
Jonson. Everything costly, splendid, and precious was lavished upon
these shows. Everything that machinery could contrive was devised for
them. Ben Jonson himself, speaking of the performance of his "Hymenæa,"
says: "Such was the exquisite performance, as, besides the pomp,
splendor, or what we may call apparelling of such presentments, that
alone, had all else been absent, was of power to surprise with delight,
and steal away the spectators from themselves. Nor was there wanting
whatsoever might give to the furniture or complement, either in riches,
or strangeness of the habits, delicacy of dances, magnificence of the
scene, or divine rapture of musick. Only the envy was that it lasted not
still."
It was not until 1570 that the first theatre was built. The popularity
of the play had already begun to grow with amazing rapidity. In twenty
years there were five theatres, with performances every day. The Queen
had four companies of children trained to perform, viz., the children of
St. Paul's, the children of the chapel, the children of Westminster, and
the children of Windsor. The public actors, too, were often called upon
to perform before the Queen.
These companies were: Lord Leicester's company, Sir Robert Lane's, Lord
Clinton's, Lord Warwick's, the Lord Chamberlain's, the Earl of Sussex's,
Lord Howard's, the Earl of Essex's, Lord Strange's, the Earl of Derby's,
the Lord Admiral's, the Earl of Hertford's, and Lord Pembroke's. It is
not supposed that all these companies existed at the same time; but the
list shows how company after company was begun and maintained on the
credit of some great lord.
The theatres at the end of the sixteenth century were seven in
number--the Globe, at Bankside; the Red Bull, in St. John Street; the
Curtain, in Shoreditch; the Fortune, in Whitecross Street. These four
were public theatres. The other three were called private houses--the
Blackfriars, the Whitefriars, and the Cockpit or Phoenix Theatre. In the
next chapter we shall assist at a matinee of one of Shakespeare's plays.
But the people lost no opportunity of "making up," acting, and dancing.
The pageant became more and more a play. There were pageants of more or
less splendor--we all know the great pageants of Kenilworth--held in
every great man's house, in every company's hall, and in private
persons' houses, to mark every possible occasion. Thus, in the year
1562, on July 20, took place the marriage of one Coke, citizen (but of
what company I know not)--was he a cousin of Edward Coke, afterwards
Speaker?--with the daughter of Mr. Nicolls, master of London Bridge. My
Lord Mayor and all the Aldermen, with many ladies and other worshipful
men and women, were present at the wedding. Mr. Bacon, an eminent
divine, preached the wedding sermon. After the discourse the company
went home to the Bridge House to dinner, where was as good cheer as ever
was known--Stow says so, and he knew very well--with all manner of music
and dancing, and at night a masque till midnight. But this was only half
the feast, for next day the wedding was again kept at the Bridge House
with great cheer. After supper more mumming, after that more masques.
One was in cloth of gold, the next consisted of friars, and the third of
nuns. First the friars and the nuns danced separately, one company after
the other, and then they danced together. Considering that it was only
two years since the friars and the nuns had been finally suppressed,
there must have been a certain piquancy in this dance. It is always, at
such times, put on the stage. One of the first things, for instance,
done in Madrid when Spain got her short-lived republic was that in every
_café chantant_ they put a friar and a nun on the stage to dance and
sing together.
They still kept the saint's day of their company; in fact, when the old
faith was suppressed the people willingly endured a change of doctrine
so long as they were not called upon to give up their feasting, which
was exactly what had happened in Italy and elsewhere when the people
were induced or forced to become Christians. They made no objection to
doctrine, provided their practice was not interfered with. Therefore the
Protestant citizens kept up their Whitsun ales, their wakes, their
Easter and Christmas feastings. All the saints' days which brought
something better than ordinary to eat, with morris dances, May-poles,
bonfires, music, and Feasts of Misrule were religiously conserved. As to
the Feast of Misrule, hear the testimony of the contemporary moralist:
"Thus all things set in order, then have they their hobby-horses, their
dragons, and other antiques, together with their pipers and thundering
drummers, to strike up the Devil's Dance. Thus march this merry company
towards the church and church-yard, their pipers piping, their drummers
thundering, their stumpes dancing, their bells jingling, their
handkerchiefs fluttering about their heads like madmen, their
hobby-horses and other monsters skirmishing among the throng, and in
this sort they go to the church like devils incarnate, with such a
confused noise that no man can hear his own voice. Then the foolish
people--they look, they stare, they laugh, they cheer, they mount upon
forms and pews to see the goodly pageants solemnized in this sort. Then,
after this, about the church they go again and again, and so forth into
the church-yard, where they have commonly their summer halls, their
bowers, arbors, and banqueting-houses set up, wherein they feast,
banquet, and dance all that day, and, peradventure, all that night too."
To keep a troop of servants has always been a mark of state. Ladies used
to beat their servants--following the example of the Queen, who
sometimes boxed the ears of her courtiers. Everybody of position
travelled, and nearly everybody went to Italy, with results disastrous
to religion and to morals. One of the worst figures in the Elizabethan
gallery is the Englishman Italianized. Of course on his return the
traveller gave himself strange airs. How they travelled and what they
saw may be read in that most charming book, the _Epistolæ Hoellianæ_.
Card-playing and gaming were the commonest form of amusement. The games
were _primero_, which Falstaff foreswore, trump, _gleek_, _gresco_, new
cut, knave out-of-doors, ruff, noddy, post and pace--all of these games
corresponding, no doubt, to those still played.