record of his appointment to any duties at Holborn Bars has been
discovered, but on April 12th, 1343, he was ordered to "attach" Thomas
Tirwhitt, of Pokelynton,
"who has taken without the realm twelve sarples of wool
uncustomed and uncoketed (_i.e._, unsealed), as the king is
certainly informed, and bring him before the council with all
speed to answer for his contempt."[138]
And on April 1st, 1349, Thomas de Brynchesle was ordered,
"upon pain of forfeiture, to be at Westminster with all the
evidence in his possession for the time when he was appointed
with others to supervise the state of the king's staple in
Flanders, before the king and his council on the morrow of the
close of Easter next, to inform them of things that will be set
forth to him."[139]
It seems apparent, then, that Staple Inn was not unconnected in those
days with the staple of wool.
The Ordinance of the Staple was issued in 1313,[140] but there are good
grounds for believing that long before this date the site was already in
use as a custom house and wool court. The ordinance was embodied in a
statute of the realm in 1353.[141] London was no longer mentioned as a
staple, Westminster being substituted, the bounds of which were defined
as commencing at Temple Bar, and ending at Tothill.[142] But it is
likely that the Inn at Holborn Bars was still occupied by attorneys who
practised for their patrons of the Staple, and that the Merchants for
Wools still had their meetings there. In 1401 Hamond Elyot sued a
plaint of debt against Martyn Dyne, of Haydon, Norfolk, for the sum of
L26 2s. 3d., in the Court of Staple at Westminster;[143] and one hundred
years later, John Dyne, his descendant, also of Haydon, Norfolk, was a
member of Staple Inn. In his will, proved 1505, he gives the names of
the company of the Inn. Edmund Paston, grandson of the Judge, was a
member in 1467, and we learn from one of his letters that the Inn had a
Principal at that date.
In 1529, John Knighton and Alice, his wife, daughter of John Copwode of
the Remembrancer's Office of the Exchequer, sold the inheritance of the
Inn to the Ancients of Gray's Inn, after which there were other
feoffments in trust, the last of which, that we know of, dated June 4th,
1622, being that of Sir Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, to Edward Moseley,
Attorney of the Duchy of Lancaster and others, Readers of Gray's Inn,
"to hold to them, their heirs and assigns of the chief lords of that fee
by the services thence due and of right accustomed."[144] The society
eventually became its own master, and in 1811 had no connection whatever
with Gray's Inn. It was dissolved in 1884, when its property was sold to
a firm of auctioneers, who parted with it in the same year, the
Government buying the southern portion for an extension of the Patent
Office, and the Prudential Assurance Company the remainder. The lawyers
still congregate there; the only difference being a change of landlords,
though the hall has been leased to the Institute of Actuaries. The
frontage of the Inn dates from 1570 and 1586, the hall from 1581.
[Illustration: MIDDLE TEMPLE HALL.]
Davy's Inn is most probably the correct name of the Inn, which for three
centuries past has unaccountably, possibly through Stow's mistake, gone
by the name of Thavies Inn. No record has yet been found earlier than
the reign of Queen Elizabeth in which the name of this Inn is any other
than Davy's or David's. The will of John Davy was proved in the Court of
Hustings in 1398.[145] He desired to be buried in the church of St.
Andrew. To Alice, his wife, he left his lands and tenements in Holborn
for life, with remainder to John Osbern and his wife, Emma, testator's
daughter, in tail; with remainder in trust for the maintenance of a
chantry in St. Mary's Chapel in the church of St. Andrew. The annual
proceeds of this latter bequest were still being received by the church
in the reign of Henry VIII. The testator was an attorney, and his name
occurs in many legal documents relating to Holborn in the reign of
Edward III.; he was also associated with others of the neighbourhood in
various pavage commissions. It is quite possible, however, and probable,
that the Inn which bore his name was an Inn long before his time. It was
bought by Lincoln's Inn in 1548, and sold in 1769. It has since been
demolished.
New Inn, in the Strand, also called St. Mary's Inn, was a guest Inn,
says Sir George Buck, writing in 1615, hired by Sir John Fineux, Chief
Justice of King's Bench, in the reign of Edward IV., for L6 per annum,
to place therein those students who were lodged in "la Baillie," in a
house called St George's Inn, near the upper end of St. George's Lane.
In the year 1348 the will of John Tavy, armourer, was proved in the
Court of Hustings.[146] He therein orders that after the decease of his
wife an Inn, where the apprentices were wont to dwell, should be sold,
and the proceeds devoted to the maintenance of a chantry. These
apprentices are not in the original will described as _ad legem_, but
these words have crept into a subsequent transcription. The testator
was, in 1342, one of the four members of the Company of Armourers
appointed by the mayor and aldermen, and sworn to observe and supervise
the then new regulations respecting the making and selling of
armour.[147] He would certainly have had his apprentices, and it may be
he referred to them in his will. He would have been a member of the
Fraternity or Guild of St. George of the men of the Mistery of
Armourers, St. George being the Armourers' patron saint. This fact seems
to suggest that his Inn became St. George's Inn, which would have stood
not far from the Sessions House, built by William de Langeford.
The _Six Clerks Inn_, formerly Herfleet's Inn, and then Kidderminster
Inn, was on the west side of Chancery Lane, opposite the Rolls Office,
and was probably an Inn of Chancery, though unattached, at a very early
date. In 1454 Nicholas Wymbyssh, one of the clerks of the King's
Chancery, assigned it to the prior of Necton Park, co. Lincoln, to hold
of the King in free burgage.[148] It was then in the parish of St.
Dunstan. It acquired the name of Kidderminster Inn from John
Kidderminster, one of the society, who purchased it at the time of the
dissolution of the monastery. In the eighteenth century the Six Clerks
Inn Society moved to the north-western end of Chancery Lane. Stone
Buildings, part of Lincoln's Inn, now occupies the site.
_Cursitors' Inn_, also in Chancery Lane, was sometimes known as Bacon's
Inn, having been founded, in 1574, by Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of
the Great Seal. In 1478 it was known as _the Bores hedde_, and then
consisted of one tenement and a large garden, about two and a half acres
in extent, bounded on the north by the grounds of the Old Temple and of
Staple Inn; on the east by that property of the Convent of Malmesbury
which had formerly been known as "Lyncolnesynne"; and on the south by a
lane now known as Cursitor Street. The rent was then being paid to the
Corporation of the City of London, who were probably feoffees of the
bishopric of Lincoln; but in 1561 they purchased it of Edward VI., into
whose hands it had come at the dissolution of chantries and chapels; and
they, in 1574, granted it to Sir Nicholas Bacon,[149] who there housed
the cursitor clerks. There were twenty-four cursitor clerks--_i.e._,
Clerks of the Course--whose business was to draw up the writs. The
Cursitor Baron administered the oaths to the sheriffs, bailiffs, and
officers of the Customs, etc. Cursitor Street perpetuates the name of
the Inn.
_Clifford's Inn_, adjacent to, and south of, the House of Converts, came
into the hands of Edward I. in 1298, for the debts of Malcolm de Harley,
Escheator on this side Trent. The Earl of Richmond was placed in custody
of it, but in 1310 Edward II. gave it to Robert de Clifford, a customs'
officer of the Wool Staple, and Marshal of England.[150] When he died in
1316 a third of it only was granted to his widow. During the nonage of
the heir in 1345, Edward III. put his clerk, David de Wollore, who was
also Keeper of the Rolls of Chancery, in charge of the property.[151] It
is said to have possessed its society at this period. It passed from the
Clifford family in June, 1468, when a grant was made to "John Kendale,
Esq., and his heirs male, of Clifford Inne, late of John Clifford,
knight, late Lord Clifford, by reason of forfeiture."[152] The Society
of Clifford's Inn was the last of the Inns of Chancery to dissolve.
Clement's Inn, an Inn of Chancery attached to the Inner Temple, was
divided within recent years from New Inn, which belonged to the Middle
Temple, only by iron railings with a gate. Its origin is unknown, but
its name connects it either with St. Clement's Church, or St. Clement's
Well. It was certainly in existence before the time of Henry VII.
_Lyon's Inn_ is said to have been an Inn of Chancery in the time of
Henry V., but the evidence on this point is uncertain. It was situated
in Newcastle Street, Strand, and was attached to the Inner Temple, who
bought it in 1581. The Aldwych improvements have wiped out the Globe
Theatre which had succeeded it.
Besides the Inns of Court and Chancery, there existed also Inns for
Judges and Serjeants, of which the most important were Scrope's Inn,
opposite to St. Andrew's Church, in Holborn, and the two Serjeants' Inns
in Chancery Lane and Fleet Street, which, however, cannot be treated of
here.
Documents of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries make it quite clear
that Staple Inn, Furnival's Inn, Brooke House, and, of course, the old
Inn of the Earl of Lincoln, in Shoe Lane, were all within the city
boundaries. It was not until December, 1645, that the House of Lords
passed a resolution that the Inns of Court were to form a province by
themselves,[153] and the resolution was interpreted to cover also their
Inns of Chancery dependencies, so that Furnival's Inn and Staple Inn
became cut off from the city, and all the Inns became extra-parochial.
It will have been noticed that the properties of the Inns of Court, and
most of the Inns of Chancery, came to be held directly of the King. The
legal artifice of feoffment to "uses" was adopted in regard to most of
these properties; but though the feoffees were chiefly legal persons,
they did not apparently always represent the societies; nor is it quite
clear whom they did represent; but the societies had no security of
tenure until they purchased their respective properties.
[Illustration: LINCOLN'S INN HALL: THE LORD CHANCELLOR'S COURT.
_From a drawing by T. H. Shepherd._]
It has been shown that the deep hollow, at the bottom of which flowed
the stream of Holborn, formed a natural barrier between the walled city
and its suburb. It also divided the guilds and trade associations of
London from that plexus of schools of laws which at first radiated from
Holborn Bars. The guilds recognised the leading of the Mayor and
Commonalty; the schools of law looked for direction chiefly to the law
officers of the Crown. In Florence, and other cities of the Middle Ages,
the associations of judges, attorneys, and wool-merchant lawyers were as
much a part of civic and communal life as any other guild; the different
conditions which existed in England led to different consequences.
But the hold which the King's officers obtained, both over the machinery
of the Courts and over the voluntary societies of law students, was the
cause, no doubt, of the attempts which were made during the Tudor and
early Stuart periods to organise all the Inns of Court and Chancery into
a University of Law. Those attempts failed; chiefly through the lack of
wisdom displayed in issuing arbitrary and meddlesome Orders in Council,
instead of allowing unification to mature on those natural and voluntary
lines which had already been laid down.
Now the Inns of Chancery have practically vanished, leaving the Inns of
Court to monopolise all the glory of the great future which undoubtedly
still lies before them.
FOOTNOTES:
[75] _Inq. ad quod damnum_, 46 Hen. III., file ii., No. 47.
[76] _Duchy of Lancaster, Ancient Deeds_, L. 132-140.
[77] _Close Rolls_, 14 Ed. I., m. 2d.
[78] _Court of Hustings Wills_, R. R. Sharpe.
[79] _Survey of London_, pp. 32, 33. John Stow, reprint, 1876.
[80] _Patent Rolls_, 16 Ed. II., pt. i., m. 31.
[81] _Inq. p.m. Chan._, 20 Ed. IV., 99.
[82] _Feet of Fines_, London Trin., 44 Eliz.
[83] _Ancient Deeds_, B. 2191.
[84] _Placita Parl._, 35 Edw. I.
[85] _Memorials of London_, p. 357. H. T. Riley, 1868.
[86] _Historical Charters_, W. De Gray Birch.
[87] _The Commune of London_, J. H. Round.
[88] _Charter Rolls_, 19 Hen. III., m. ii.
[89] _Pat. Rolls_, 1 Ed. VI., pt. vi., m. 37.
[90] _Rot. Parl._, vol. i., p. 84, No. 22.
[91] _Chart. Convent of Malmesbury, Cotton MS._ Faust., B. viii., f.
158.
[92] _Ibid._, ff. 245, 245b.
[93] _Ibid._, f. 248.
[94] _Chart. Convent of Malmesbury, Cotton MS._ Faust., B. viii., f.
265.
[95] _Ibid._, ff. 239, 239b, 195b, 192.
[96] _Ibid._, f. 157b.
[97] _Ancient Deeds_, B. 2264.
[98] _Pat. Rolls_, 24 Ed. I., m. 17.
[99] _Cotton MS._, Faust., B. viii., f. 159.
[100] _Ibid._, f. 160b.
[101] _Ibid._, f. 161.
[102] _Ibid._, f. 162b.
[103] _Cotton MS._, Faust., B. viii., ff. 164b, 163b.
[104] _Ibid._, f. 165.
[105] _Ibid._, f. 168b.
[106] _Ibid._, f. 265b.
[107] _Augmentation Office Grants_, 36 Hen. VIII., No. 105.
[108] _Cotton MS._, Faust., B. viii., f. 253b.
[109] _Inq. p.m._; 1 Edw. II., 54, m. 11.
[110] _Inq. ad quod dam._, 8 Ed. II., 169.
[111] _Inq. p. m._, 44 Ed. III., 30, m. 16.
[112] _Close Rolls_, 22 Hen. VII., pt. ii.
[113] _Home Counties Mag._, Jan., 1904.
[114] _Gray's Inn_, p. 18. W. R. Douthwaite.
[115] _Close Rolls_, 5 Ed. II., m. 2.
[116] _Pat. Rolls_, 12 Ed. III., pt. i., m. 34.
[117] _Pat. Rolls_, 6 Ed. III., pt. iii., m. 9.
[118] _Ibid._, 9 Ed. III., pt. ii., m. 27.
[119] _Patent Rolls_, 13 Ed. III., pt. ii., m. 29.
[120] _Inner Temple Records_. F. A. Inderwick.
[121] _Close Rolls_, 165i, pt. x., No. 35.
[122] _Ibid._, 25 Chas. II., 5, m. 14, and 28 Chas. II., 6, m. 31.
[123] _Close Rolls_, Hen. III., 58, m. 15.
[124] _Harl. MS._, No. 4015, f. 198 vo.
[125] _Inq. p. m. Chan._, 8 Eliz., pt. i., No. 85.
[126] _Inq. p. m._, 6 Rich. II., No. 41.
[127] _Fines_, 1 Ed. VI., Hil.
[128] _P.C.C._ Humphry Cade, 21 Nodes.
[129] _Ibid._, John Devereux, 47, Alen.
[130] _Notes and Queries_, ser. vii., vol. ii.
[131] _Inq. ad quod dam._, 32 Hen. VI., file 451, No. 37.
[132] _Inq. p. m. Chan._, Series i., 9 Hen. VI., 54.
[133] _Inq. p. m._, 20 Ed. IV., No. 65.
[134] _Court of Hustings Wills._ R. R. Sharpe.
[135] _Cotton MS._, Faust., B. viii., ff. 247, 247b, 248.
[136] _Inq. ad quod dam._, 247, No. 14.
[137] _Cotton MS._, Faust., B. viii., f. 248.
[138] _Pat. Rolls_, 17 Ed. III., pt. i., m. 25d.
[139] _Close Rolls_, 23 Ed. III., m. 20d.
[140] _Pat. Rolls_, 6 Ed. II., pt. ii., m. 5.
[141] _Stat. of Realm_, 27 Ed. III., ii., c. i.
[142] _Rolls of Parl._, xxxiii., 28 Ed. III.
[143] _Selden Soc._, vol. x., 53.
[144] _Gray's Inn Pension Book_, p. 247. R. J. Fletcher.
[145] _Court of Hustings Wills._ R. R. Sharpe.
[146] _Ibid._
[147] _Memorials of London._ H. T. Riley.
[148] _Inq. ad quod dam. Chan._, f. 451, No. 36.
[149] _Add. MS._ 25,590.
[150] _Pat. Rolls_, 3 Ed. II., mm. 19, 8.
[151] _Ibid._, 19 Ed. III., part iii., mm. 3, 11; 20 Ed. III., part i.,
m. 25.
[152] _Ibid._, 8 Ed. IV., part i., m. 12.
[153] _Lords' Journals_, viii., p. 50.
THE GUILDHALL
BY CHARLES WELCH, F.S.A.
Guildhall, the home of civic government and the battle-ground of many a
hard-won fight for civil and religious liberty, was built anew by the
self-denying efforts of a generation of London citizens just five
hundred years ago. This great work took ten years and more in building,
and, like its sister edifices of still earlier days, the Tower of
London, London Bridge, and Westminster Hall, tested to the utmost the
energy and resources of the Londoners of those times. We learn from
Fabyan, the alderman chronicler, that the building was begun in the year
1411 by Thomas Knowles, then mayor, and his brethren the aldermen. He
tells us:--
"The same was made of a little cottage a large and great house
as now it standeth, towards the charges whereof the companies
gave large benevolences; also offences of men were pardoned for
sums of money church for the maintenance of a chaplain to
celebrate fines, amercements, and other things employed."
[Illustration: THE GUILDHALL.]
King Henry V., in 1415--the year of his famous victory at
Agincourt--granted the City free passage for four boats by water, and as
many carts by land, to bring lime, ragstone, and freestone for the work
at Guildhall. Private citizens also came forward with contributions. The
executors of Sir Richard Whittington, in 1422-3, gave two sums of L60
and L15 for paving the hall with Purbeck stone, and glazed some of the
windows, placing in each the arms of Whittington. The rest of the
windows in the hall and many of those in its various courts were glazed
by various aldermen. So much of this ancient glass as survived the
iconoclasm of the Commonwealth period was swept away by the Great Fire.
The two handsome louvres which formed such conspicuous objects on the
roof of the building were given by Alderman Sir William Hariot during
his mayoralty in 1481. The mayor's chamber, council chamber, and several
rooms above were built in 1425-6. An important part of the building was
still wanting, for the mayors could not keep their feasts at the
Guildhall until the time of Sir John Shaa. Under his leadership, and by
the help of the Fellowships of the City, wealthy widows, and other
well-disposed persons, the kitchens and other necessary offices were
completed for use at his mayoralty feast in 1501. Since that year these
famous banquets, which had till then been held in Merchant Taylors'
Hall, or Grocers' Hall, have regularly taken place at the Guildhall.
On Tuesday, 4th September, 1666, in the course of the Great Fire, the
Guildhall was ablaze, and its oak roof entirely destroyed. Vincent
describes its appearance in his little book, _God's Terrible Voice to
the City_:
"That night the sight of Guildhall was a fearfull spectacle,
which stood the whole body of it for several hours together,
after the fire had taken it without flames (I suppose because
the timber was such solid oake) in a bright shining coale as if
it had been a palace of gold or a great building of burnished
brass."
After the Fire the original open roof was not rebuilt, but the walls
were raised an additional storey, the ceiling covering this being flat
and square panelled; eight circular windows on each side were added.
This poor substitute for a roof was built, as Elmes states, "in haste
and for immediate use, and evidently a temporary covering." It lasted,
nevertheless, nearly two hundred years, until in 1861 the plans for a
new open roof corresponding with the original design of the Guildhall
were approved by the Corporation. The dimensions of this magnificent
building are 152 feet in length, 49 feet 6 inches in width, and 89 feet
in height, from the pavement to the ridge of the roof.
In the angles at the west end of the hall, on lofty pedestals, are the
celebrated figures of the giants Gog and Magog. They have been believed
by some to be Gogmagog and Corinaeus, two mystical personages who were
said to have fought together in some of those imaginary conflicts
between the Trojans and the early inhabitants of Britain, which are
recorded by monkish chroniclers of the Middle Ages. These figures were
made by Captain Richard Saunders, a noted carver in King Street,
Cheapside, and were put up about the year 1708. They took the place of
two old wicker-work giants, which it had formerly been the custom to
carry in procession at the mayoralty pageants.
The basement of the Guildhall consists of two crypts, which extend
beneath the full length of the hall above. The eastern crypt is entirely
vaulted and divided into three aisles by two rows of clustered columns
of Purbeck marble, the intersections of the vaulting being covered with
a most curious series of carved bosses representing flowers, heads, and
shields. This crypt, which, fortunately, escaped the Great Fire, is the
finest and most extensive undercroft remaining in London, and for
excellence of design and sound preservation may be considered a unique
example of its kind. For many years it was neglected and choked with
rubbish, which covered its floors to the depth of several feet. In 1851
it was restored to its original condition, and was used as a supper-room
for H.M. Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort on the 9th July, when the
Corporation entertained the leading persons associated with the Great
Exhibition held in that year. On that occasion it was fitted up as a
baronial hall, the valuable plate lent by the City Companies being
displayed upon an oak sideboard. Around each of the columns stood men
clad in armour brought from the Tower of London, each holding a torch of
gas for lighting the crypt. A charming feature of the decoration was the
treatment of the passage in the western crypt--this was filled with
trees and flowers of various kinds, and hundreds of singing birds were
let free, thus giving the appearance of a forest glade in summer-time.
There is no evidence that this crypt was appropriated to any special use
in former times, but to-day it serves the useful, if unromantic, purpose
of a kitchen for preparing the mayoralty banquet on the historic ninth
of November.
The western crypt, which is separated from that just described by a
massive wall of contemporary date, has a roof of arched brickwork
dating, probably, from the period of the Great Fire. It is doubtful
whether it ever formed an open chamber, and it is now, with the
exception of its central passage, entirely devoted to cellarage. In one
of its deeply-recessed windows were discovered, in 1902, together with
some mediaeval stone coffin-lids, some portions of the famous Cheapside
cross, which was pulled down by order of the Long Parliament in 1643.
These fragments, which were removed to the Guildhall Museum, bear the
sculptured arms and badges of King Edward I. and his consort Queen
Eleanor. The cross was taken down at the request of the Corporation,
and, doubtless, by their officials, the mutilated fragments being
removed to Guildhall, where these two pieces evidently lay for over 250
years.
On the south side of the Guildhall, and providing an entrance to it from
Guildhall Yard, is a large Gothic porch, or archway. This last addition
to the hall, erected in 1425, was one of its most beautiful features,
and has been preserved, practically uninjured, to the present day. The
porch consists of two bays of groined vaulting, the walls having
deeply-recessed moulded and traceried panelling, and being provided
with a convenient seat throughout their length on either side. The front
of the porch was materially altered in the reign either of Elizabeth or
James I., so that we cannot form a complete idea of its magnificent
appearance. It was ornamented with seven finely sculptured statues,
representing at the top our Saviour, a little below Law and Learning,
and lower still, flanking the doorway on either side, Discipline,
Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance. The statue of our Saviour
disappeared at an early date, but the other six figures may still be in
existence, for they were presented by the Corporation, in 1794, to Banks
the sculptor, at whose death, in 1809, they were purchased for L100 by
Henry Bankes, M.P. for Corfe Castle. The present front of the Guildhall,
of which the east wing was removed in 1873, was built by George Dance,
the City Architect, in 1789.
[Illustration: GRAY'S INN HALL AND CHAPEL.]