(_For the Mirror_.)
Stowe says, "On the east side of the churchyard of St. Mary Spittle,
lyeth a large field, of old time called _Lolesworth_, now
_Spittle-Field_, which about the year 1576, was broken up for clay to
make bricke; in digging thereof many earthen pots called urnae, were
found full of ashes and the bones of men, to wit of the Romans that
inhabited here. For it was the custom of the Romans to burne their dead,
to put their ashes in an urne, and then bury the same with certain
ceremonies, in some field appointed for the purpose neere unto their
city. Every one of these pots had in them (with the ashes of the dead)
one piece of copper money, with an inscription of the emperor then
reigning. Some of them were of Claudius, some of Vespasian, some of
Nero, &c. There hath also been found (in the same field) divers coffins
of stone, containing the bones of men; these I suppose to be the bones
of some speciall persons, in the time of the Brittons, or Saxons, after
that the Romans had left to govern here.
"The priory and hospital of St. Mary Spittle, was founded (says Pennant)
in 1197, by Walter Brune, Sheriff of London, and his wife, Rosia, for
canons regular of the order of St. Augustine. It was remarkable for its
pulpit cross, at which a preacher used to preach a sermon consolidated
out of four others, which had been preached at St. Paul's Cross, on Good
Friday, and the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in Easter week; giving
afterwards a sermon of his own. At these sermons the mayor and aldermen
attended, dressed in different coloured robes on each occasion. This
custom continued till the destruction of church government in the civil
wars. They have since been transferred to St. Bride's Church. Queen
Elizabeth, in April, 1559, visited St. Mary Spittal, in great state,
probably to hear a sermon delivered from the cross. This princess was
attended by a thousand men in harness with shirts of mail and corslets,
and morice pikes, and ten great pieces carried through London unto the
court, with drums and trumpets sounding, and two morice-dancers, and in
a cart two white bears."
The priory of St. Mary, of St. Mary Spittle, contained at its
dissolution, about the year 1536, no less than 180 beds for the
reception of sick persons and travellers. Richard Tarleton, the famous
comedian, at the Curtain Theatre, it is said, "kept an ordinary in
Spittle-fields, pleasant fields for the citizens to walk in;" and the
row called Paternoster Row, as the name implies, was formerly a few
houses, where they sold rosaries, relics, &c. The once celebrated
herbalist and astrologer, Nicholas Culpepper, was another inhabitant of
this spot. He died in 1654, in a house he had some time occupied, very
pleasantly situated in the fields; but now a public house at the corner
of Red Lion Court, Red Lion Street, east of Spittlefields market. The
house, though it has undergone several repairs, still exhibits the
appearance of one of those that formed a part of old London. The weaving
art, which has arrived at such an astonishing perfection, was patronized
by the wise and liberal Edward III., who encouraged the art by the most
advantageous offers of reward and encouragement to weavers who would
come and settle in England. In 1331, two weavers came from Brabant and
settled at York. The superior skill and dexterity of these men, who
communicated their knowledge to others, soon manifested itself in the
improvement and spread of the art of weaving in this island. Many
Flemish weavers were driven from their native country by the cruel
persecutions of the Duke d'Alva, in 1567. They settled in different
parts of England, and introduced and promoted the manufacture of baizes,
serges, crapes, &c. The arts of spinning, throwing, and weaving silk,
were brought into England about the middle of the fifteenth century, and
were practised by a company of women in London, called silk women. About
1480, men began to engage in the silk manufacture, and in the year 1686,
nearly 50,000 manufacturers, of various descriptions, took refuge in
England, in consequence of the revocation of the Edict of Nantz, by
Louis le Grand, who sent thousands (says Pennant) of the most
industrious of his subjects into this kingdom to present his bitterest
enemies with the arts and manufactures of his kingdom; hence the origin
of the silk trade in Spittlefields.