at the Southwark end, and another gateway at the northern end. In
the centre was a beautiful chapel, dedicated to Thomas à Becket, and
known as St. Thomas of the Bridge. Houses were built on the bridge,
mostly shops with overhanging signs, as in the streets of the city.
Booksellers and haberdashers predominated, but other trades were
carried on also. After the chapel, the most conspicuous feature of the
bridge was "Nonesuch House," so called to express the wonder that it
was constructed in Holland entirely of wood, brought over the water
piece by piece, and put together on the bridge by dovetailing and pegs,
without the use of a single metal nail. Adjoining the northern gateway
was an engine for raising water by means of a great wheel operated by
the tide. Near the Southwark end were corn-mills, worked on the same
principle, below the last two arches of the bridge. The gateway at the
Southwark end, so well shown in Visscher's view of London, was finished
in 1579, and the traitors' heads, which formerly surmounted a tower
by the drawbridge, were transferred to it. Travellers from the south
received this grim salutation as they approached the bridge, which
led into the city; and when they glanced across the river, the Tower
frowned upon them, and the Traitors' Gateway, like teeth in an open
mouth, deepened the effect of warning and menace.
But these terrors loomed darkling in the background for the most
part. They belonged rather to the time when the sovereign's palaces
at Westminster and at the Tower seemed to hold London in a grip. The
palace at Westminster now languished in desuetude; the Tower was a
State prison, and--with some ironical intent, perhaps--also the abode
of the royal beasts, lions, tigers, leopards, and other captives.
The Queen passed in her royal barge down the river with ceremonious
pageantry from her palace of Whitehall; the drawbridge raised, the
floating court passed the Tower as with lofty indifference on its way
to "Placentia," Her Majesty's palace at Greenwich. Out of the silence
of history a record speaks like a voice, and tells us that here, in
1594, Shakespeare and his fellows performed at least two comedies or
interludes before Her Majesty, and we know even the amounts that were
paid them for their services.
[Illustration: PLAN OF LONDON IN THE TIME OF QUEEN ELIZABETH (1563).]
In the _Survey_ of John Stow we have three separable elements: the
archæology and history of London, Stow's youthful recollections of
London in the time of Henry the Eighth, and Stow's description of
the great change which came over London after the dissolution of the
religious houses, and continued in process throughout his lifetime.
The mediæval conditions were not remote. He could remember when London
was clearly defined by the wall, like a girdle, of which the Tower was
the knot. No heroic change had befallen; the wall had not been cast
down into its accompanying fosse to form a ring-street, as was done
when Vienna was transformed from the mediæval state. London had simply
filled up the ditch with its refuse; its buildings had simply swarmed
over the wall and across the dike; shapeless and haphazard suburbs had
grown up, till the surrounding villages became connected with the city.
Even more grievous, in the estimation of Stow, was the change which he
had witnessed within the city itself. The feudal lords had departed,
and built themselves mansions outside the city. The precincts of the
dissolved religious establishments had been converted into residential
quarters, and a large proportion of the old monastic gardens had been
built upon. The outlines of society had become blurred. Formerly, the
noble, the priest, and the citizen were the defined social strata.
Around each of these was grouped the rest of the social units in
positions of dependence. A new type of denizen had arisen, belonging to
none of the old categories--the typical Elizabethan Londoner.
The outward aspect of Elizabethan London reflected this social change.
On the south of the city, along the line of Thames Street, the wall
had entirely disappeared. On the east and west it was in decay, and
was becoming absorbed in fresh buildings. Only on the north side of
the city, where it had been re-edified as late as 1474, did the wall
suggest its uses for defence. In the map of Agas, executed early in the
reign of Elizabeth, this portion of the wall, with its defensive towers
and bastions, appears singularly well preserved. Thus the condition of
the wall suggested the passing of the old and the coming of the new
order. The gates which formerly defended the city, where the chief
roadways pierced the wall, still remained as monuments, and they were
admirably adapted to the purpose of civic pageantry and ceremonial
shows. Indeed, the gateway on the Oxford road was rebuilt in 1586, and
called Newgate, "from the newness thereof," and it was the "fairest"
of all the gates of London. It is reckoned that this was the year that
Shakespeare came to London from Stratford-on-Avon; and the assumption
is generally allowed that he entered the city by Newgate, which
would be his direct road. A new gate, of an artistic and ornamental
character, set in the ancient wall, was a sign and a symbol of the new
conditions in London, of which Shakespeare himself was destined to
become the chief result.
* * * * *
With the characteristics of London as a great mart and port is included
the foreign elements in its population. In Lombard Street the merchants
of Lombardy from early mediæval times had performed the operations
of banking and foreign exchange; and around them were assembled the
English merchants of all qualities and degrees. Business was conducted
in the open street, and merchants merely adjourned into the adjoining
houses to seal their bonds and make their formal settlements. Henry
VIII. tried to induce the city to make use of the great building of
Leadenhall for this purpose; but the innovation was resisted, and
Lombard Street continued to be the burse of London till long after the
accession of Elizabeth. The name of Galley Key remained in Tower Street
ward to mark the spot on the river bank "where the galleys of Italy
and other parts did discharge their wines and merchandises brought to
this city." The men of the galleys lived as a colony by themselves
in Mincing Lane; the street leading to their purlieus was called,
indifferently, Galley Row and Petit Wales. Here was a great house, the
official territorium of the Principality. The original of Shakespeare's
"Fluellen" may very possibly have been a denizen of this quarter.
Above the bridge, in Thames Street, was the territorium of the Hanse
merchants, alluded to by Stow as "the merchants of Almaine," and by
Camden as "the Easterlings or Dutch merchants of the Steelyard."
Their position in the city was one of great importance: the export
trade of the country in woollen goods was chiefly in their hands,
and they had their own Guildhall in Upper Thames Street, called the
_Gilda Teutonicorum_. The special privileges accorded to this foreign
commercial community carried the obligation to maintain Bishopsgate in
repair, and "to defend it at all times of danger and extremity." When
the house of the Augustine Friars, Old Broad Street, was dissolved,
and its extensive gardens became cut up and built upon, the Dutch
colony settled there in residence, and the church of Austin Friars was
specially assigned to them by Edward VI. Towards the end of the reign
of Elizabeth the privileges of the Hanse merchants were revoked, and
their guildhall was confiscated to the use of the navy. But the Dutch
element continued as a part of the commercial life of the city, and the
church of Austin Friars is still the "church of the Dutch nation in
London."
West of the Steelyard was the Vintry. Here the merchants of Bordeaux
had been licensed to build their warehouses of stone, at the rear of a
great wharf, on which were erected cranes for unloading the lighters
and other boats which brought the casks from the ships below bridge.
The trade of these foreign merchants gave the name of Vintry Ward to
one of the divisions of the city. In Bishopsgate Ward, near the church
of St. Botolph, was a French colony, their purlieus forming a quadrant,
called Petty France.
Elizabethan London was more cosmopolitan than many European capitals.
In Lombard Street the merchants of Germany, France, and Italy were
conspicuously differentiated by the varieties of costume. On the site
of the present Royal Exchange, Sir Thomas Gresham laid the first
stone of his great Bourse in 1566; the design was in imitation of the
Bourse at Antwerp; the materials of its construction were imported
from Flanders; the architect and builder was a Fleming, named Henryke.
The opening of this building by Queen Elizabeth in state in January,
1571, when Her Majesty commanded it to be proclaimed by herald and
trumpet that the Bourse should be called The Royal Exchange from that
time henceforth, is a familiar story, because it is, in fact, one of
the most striking and significant events in the history of London. The
trumpet of that herald, on January 23rd, 1571, announced a new era.
The building was a quadrangle, enclosing an open space. The sides
formed a cloister or sheltered walk; above this was a corridor, or
walk, called "the pawn," with stalls or shops, like the Burlington
Arcade of the present day; above this again was a tier of rooms. The
great bell-tower stood on the Cornhill front; the bell was rung at
noon and at six in the evening. On the north side, looking towards
St. Margaret's, Lothbury, was a tall Corinthian column. Both tower
and column were surmounted by a grasshopper--the Gresham crest. The
inscription on the façade of the building was in French, German, and
Italian. The motley scene of Lombard Street had been transferred to the
Royal Exchange. The merchants of Amsterdam, of Antwerp, of Hamburg,
of Paris, of Bordeaux, of Venice and Vienna, distinguishable to the
eye by the dress of the nations they represented, and to the ear by
the differences of language, conducted their exchanges with English
merchants, and with each other, in this replica of the Bourse of
Antwerp, the rialto of Elizabethan London.[1]
Cheapside was called West Cheap in Elizabethan London, in
contradistinction to East Cheap, famous for ever as the scene of the
humours of "Dame Quickly" and "Falstaff." The change in West Cheap
since the mediæval period was chiefly at the eastern end, on the
north side. Here a large space opposite the church of St. Mary-le-Bow
was formerly kept clear of building, although booths and stalls
for market purposes occupied the ground temporarily. The space was
otherwise reserved for the mediæval jousts, tournaments, and other
civic pageantry. The site of Mercers' Hall was occupied by the _Militia
Hospitalis_, called, after Thomas à Becket, St. Thomas of Acon. After
the Dissolution this establishment was granted by Henry to the Mercers'
Company, who adapted the existing buildings to the purposes of their
hall, one of the principal features of Cheap in Elizabethan times. The
district eastward of Mercers' Hall had become filled up with building,
and the making of Cheap as a thoroughfare was now complete. The
original road westward was from the top of New Fish Street, by East
Cheap, Candlewick or Cannon Street, past London Stone (probably the
Roman _Milliarium_), along Budge Row and Watling Street, to the site of
St. Paul's, where it is conjectured a temple of Diana stood in Roman
times. But Cheap, or West Cheap, was the chief traffic way westward
in Elizabethan London; it was filled with shops and warehouses, a
thriving business centre, the pride of the city. The name of "Cheap"
was derived from the market, and several of the streets leading into
it yet bear names which in Elizabethan times were descriptive of the
trades there carried on. Thus the Poultry was the poulterers' market;
ironmongers had their shops in Ironmonger Lane, as formerly they had
their stalls in the same area; in Milk Street were the dairies; and
towards the west end of Cheap was Bread Street, the market of the
bakers, and Friday Street, where fishmongers predominated. Lying
between these two streets, with frontages in both, was the Mermaid
Tavern, the chief resort of "the breed of excellent and choice wits,"
included by Camden among the glories of Elizabethan London. Stow does
not refer to the Mermaid by name, but possibly he had it in mind when
he wrote the following passage: "Bread Street, so called of bread sold
there, as I said, is now wholly inhabited by rich merchants; and divers
fair inns be there, for good receipt of carriers and other travellers
to the city." The trades kept themselves in their special localities,
although they did not always give the name to the street they occupied.
Thus, to return to the eastern end of Cheap, there was Bucklersbury,
where the pepperers or grocers were located, having given up their
former quarters in Sopars' Lane to the cordwainers and curriers. With
the grocers were mingled apothecaries and herbalists; and hence the
protest of Falstaff, in the _Merry Wives of Windsor_, that he was not
"like a many of these lisping hawthorn-buds, that come like women
in men's apparel, and smell like Bucklesbury in simple time." In
the midst of Cheap, at a point between Mercers' Hall and Old Jewry,
opposite the end of Bucklersbury, was the water conduit--in the words
of Stow, "The great conduit of sweet water, conveyed by pipes of lead
underground from Paddington for the service of this city, castellated
with stone, and cisterned in lead." Around the conduit stood the great
jars used by the water-carriers to convey the water to the houses. The
water-carrier, as a type of Elizabethan London, is preserved by Ben
Jonson in the character of Cob in _Every Man in his Humour_. Going
westward from the Conduit, another object stood out in the roadway--the
Standard, a tall pillar at which the public executions of the city
jurisdiction took place. Still further west, in the midst of Cheap,
stood the Eleanor Cross, one of the most beautiful monuments in London
at this time.
The Guildhall stood where it stands to-day, accessible from Cheap by
Ironmonger Lane and St. Lawrence Lane. Only the walls and the crypt
of the original building remain; but the features of this great civic
establishment, as well as its sumptuous character and beautiful
adornments, were practically the same in the days of Gresham as at
the present time. Stow describes the stately porch entering the great
hall, the paving of Purbeck marble, the coloured glass windows, and,
alas! the library which had been "borrowed" by the Protector Somerset
in the preceding reign. Near the Guildhall was the church of St.
Mary Aldermanbury, the predecessor of the existing edifice. In this
parish dwelt Hemmings and Condell, "fellows" of Shakespeare--that is
to say, players of his company, whom he remembered in his will. These
men conferred a benefit on all future ages by collecting the poet's
plays, seven years after his death, and publishing them in that folio
edition which is one of the most treasured volumes in the world. In
the churchyard a monument to their memory was erected in 1896. It is
surmounted by a bust of the poet, who looks forth serenely greeting the
passer-by from beneath the shade of trees in this quiet old churchyard
in modern London.
To return to Cheap, it remains to speak of a feature which attracted
Queen Elizabeth, and was, indeed, one of the marvels of London. Here
are the _ipsissima verba_ of Stow's contemporary description:
"Next to be noted, the most beautiful frame of fair houses
and shops that be within the walls of London, or elsewhere in
England, commonly called Goldsmiths' Row, betwixt Bread Street
end and the cross in Cheap ... the same was built by Thomas
Wood, goldsmith, one of the sheriffs of London, in the year
1491. It containeth in number ten fair dwelling-houses and
fourteen shops, all in one frame, uniformly built four stories
high, beautified towards the street with the Goldsmiths' arms
and the likeness of woodmen, in memory of his name, riding on
monstrous beasts, all which is cast in lead, richly painted
over and gilt. These he gave to the goldsmiths, with stocks of
money, to be lent to young men having those shops. This said
front was again new painted and gilt over in the year 1594;
Sir Richard Martin being then mayor, and keeping his mayoralty
in one of them."
Beyond Goldsmiths' Row was the old Change; the name and the street both
still exist. Beyond old Change were seven shops; then St. Augustine's
Gate, leading into St. Paul's Churchyard; and then came Paternoster
Row. Between Paternoster Row and Newgate Street stood the Church of
St. Michael-le-Querne, stretching out into the middle of Cheap, where
the statue of Sir Robert Peel now stands. Stretching out from the east
end of the church, still further into the street, was a water conduit,
which supplied all the neighbourhood hereabout, called "The Little
Conduit," not because it was little, but to distinguish it from the
great conduit at the other end of Cheap.
* * * * *
We are concerned in this place not with the history of old St.
Paul's, nor with the technique of its architecture, but with the
great cathedral as a religious and social institution, the centre of
Elizabethan London. Here the streams of life were gathered, and hence
they radiated. It was the official place of worship of the Corporation;
the merchants of the city followed. The monarch on special occasions
attended the services; the nobility followed the royal example. The
typical Elizabethan made the middle aisle his promenade, where he
displayed the finery of his attire and the elegance of his deportment.
The satirists found a grand opportunity in the humours of Paul's
Walk; but the effect of the cathedral is not to be derived from such
allusions in the literature of the time. All classes were attracted by
the beautiful organ and the anthems so exquisitely sung by the choir.
The impressive size and noble proportions of the building, the soaring
height of the nave, the mystery of the open tower, where the ascending
vision became lost in gathering obscurity, and where the chords from
the organ died away; these spiritual associations, these appeals to the
imagination, were uplifting influences so powerful that the vanities of
Paul's Walk were negligible by comparison. As with the gargoyle on the
outer walls, the prevailing effect was so sublime, that it was merely
heightened by this element of the grotesque.[2]
The cathedral stood in the midst of a churchyard. In the mediæval
period this was enclosed by a wall. In the reign of Elizabeth the
wall still existed, but, as Stow observes, "Now on both sides, to
wit, within and without, it be hidden with dwelling-houses." In 1561
the great steeple was struck by lightning and destroyed by fire, but
the tower from which the spire arose remained. The tower was 260 feet
high, and the height of the spire was the same, so that the pinnacle
was 520 feet from the base.[3] Surmounting the pinnacle, in this
earlier portion of Elizabeth's reign, was a weathercock, an object of
curiosity to which Stow devotes a minute description. In the midst of
the churchyard stood Paul's Cross--"a pulpit cross of timber, mounted
upon steps of stone and covered with lead, in which are sermons
preached every Sunday in the forenoon." Many of the monastic features
of the establishment had disappeared; others were transformed and
adapted to other uses. The great central fabric remained, and the
school flourished--"Paul's School," in the east part of the churchyard,
endowed by Dean Colet in 1512, and rebuilt in the later years of
Elizabeth, where one hundred and fifty-three poor men's children were
given a free education under a master, an usher, and a chaplain.
* * * * *
Newgate Street, Cheapside, Cornhill, Leadenhall, and Aldgate formed (as
they do still) nearly a straight line, east and west. From this line to
the wall on the north, in Plantagenet and early Tudor times, the city
was largely composed of open spaces: chiefly the domains of religious
houses; while south of the dividing line to the river the ground was
thickly built over. After the Dissolution the transformation of the
northern area began.
Considerable building took place in the reign of Edward VI.; but at
the time of Elizabeth's accession the generally open character of this
area, as compared with the more southerly part of the city, still
subsisted. The increase of population, however, due very largely to
people who flocked to London from all parts of the country, led to
rapid building, which produced the Queen's famous proclamation to
stay its further progress. To evade the ordinance, and to meet the
ever-increasing demand, large houses were converted into tenements,
and a vast number of people were thus accommodated who lived chiefly
out-of-doors and took their meals in the taverns, inns, and ordinaries
which abounded in all parts of the city. The pressure of demand
continued, and the open spaces became gradually built over. The Queen
and her government, aghast at the incessant tide of increase, in
terror of the plague, recognised the futility of further prohibition,
and avoided communication with the city as much as possible. At the
slightest hint of plague Her Majesty would start off on one of her
Progresses, or betake herself to Richmond, to Hampton Court, or to
Greenwich.
Some of these transformations of ancient monastic purlieus may be
briefly instanced. Within Newgate was the house and precinct of the
Grey Friars. After the Dissolution the whole precinct was presented by
Henry to the citizens of London, and here Edward VI. founded the school
for poor fatherless children, which became famous as Christ's Hospital,
"the Bluecoat school."
Let a short passage from Stow describe this change from the old order
to the new:
"In the year 1552 began the repairing of the Greyfriars house
for the poor fatherless children; and in the month of November
the children were taken into the same, to the number of almost
four hundred. On Christmas Day, in the afternoon, while the
Lord Mayor and Aldermen rode to Paules, the children of
Christ's Hospital stood from St. Lawrence Lane end in Cheape
towards Paules, all in one livery of russet cotton, three
hundred and forty in number; and in Easter next, they were in
blue at the Spittle, and so have continued ever since."
The Greyfriars or Bluecoat school was one of the largest buildings in
London. Its demesne extended to the city wall, in which there was a
gate communicating with the grounds of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, the
famous foundation of Rahere. The wall ran northward from the New Gate,
the ground between the school and the wall on that side had been built
over. There was a continuous line of building along Newgate Street to
St. Martin's le Grand. The shambles or meat market occupied the centre
of the street, called St. Nicholas Shambles, from a church which had
been demolished since the Reformation.
From Newgate Street and the top of Cheapside to St. Anne's Lane was
formerly the territory of the Collegiate Church and Sanctuary of St.
Martin's le Grand. The college was dismantled after the edict of
dissolution, but the sanctuary remained.
Some of the collegiate buildings had been converted into tenements,
and other houses had been erected. These were occupied by "strangers
born"--_i.e._, denizens who were not born Londoners--although within
the walls the civic jurisdiction did not extend over this territory.
Certain trades were carried on here outside the regulated industry of
the city--_e.g._, tailoring and lace-making. The district became one
of the resorts of the Elizabethan ruffler; and under the ægis of the
ancient right of sanctuary a kind of Alsatia came into existence, the
scene of many exciting episodes when debtors and fugitives from justice
evaded their pursuers, and succeeded in reaching these precincts.
In Broad Street the ancient glory of the Augustine Friars was still
a memory, and much of their spacious domain had been divided into
gardens. The beautiful church remained, but the spire was becoming
ruinous from neglect. Stow described the gardens, the gates of the
precinct, and the great house which had been built here by William
Paulet, first Marquis of Winchester, Lord Treasurer of England, "in
place of Augustine friar's house, cloister, gardens, etc." There is an
admirable irony in the recital of Stow at this point: