from Cornhill to Lombard Street, is where in the earliest years of the
13th century, King John had his City palace. The roadway took its name
from the famous tavern of the Pope's Head, which after 1430 stood for
three hundred years on the westerly side.
To the south of the Royal Exchange, in Change Alley, centred, in the
first quarter of the 18th century, the excitement attending the South
Sea Bubble affair. This was the great stock gambling scheme by which the
South Sea Company, holding a monopoly of the trade with the South Seas,
and trading on the extravagant ideas the public had of such trade,
created an extraordinary desire in many persons to participate in the
fabulous profits. The company was carried on by fraud and deceit until
the bubble burst and caused disaster and ruin to thousands of unwise
investors. Gay, in his "Panegyrical Epistle," writing of the South Sea
project said:
Why did 'Change Alley waste thy precious hours
Among the fools who gaped for golden showers?
No wonder they were caught by South Sea schemes
Who ne'er enjoyed a guinea but in dreams.
Garraway's Coffee House in Change Alley was used chiefly by the Bubble
traders in 1720. At this house in 1651, tea was first sold in England,
the proprietor in his announcement recommending it as a cure for all
disorders. It certainly has been used extensively ever since. Next door
was Jonathan's Coffee House, another tavern of long existence. Both
places were burned in 1748, and a bank now marks where they once were.
Plough Court opens out of the south side of Lombard Street. The court is
notable as the birthplace of Alexander Pope, and his father here kept a
linen draper shop.
In the church of St. Edmund, which has stood for a century and a quarter
on the north side of Lombard Street, Joseph Addison was married in 1716,
just after the amazing success of his "Tragedy of Cato," to the Dowager
Countess of Warwick--a marriage which Thackeray referred to as "his
splendid but dismal union." Three years later Addison died.
Quaint and curious is the position of All Hallows, known as the
invisible church, literally buried by surrounding houses and approached
only through a narrow alley on the north side of Lombard Street. It was
in an open space when it was completed in 1694, but the buildings of the
City have gradually crowded about it, as though trying to crush it out
of existence.
St. Margaret Pattens, in Eastcheap at the Rood Lane corner, is a church
of 1678, designed by Wren, and taking its name from the district in
which, in the 17th century, pattens were generally sold. Dr. Thomas
Birch, author of the "Memoirs of the Reign of Elizabeth," was long its
rector. He died in 1766 and was buried beneath the chancel.
Mincing Lane borrowed its name from the Minchens or nuns of St. Helen,
and this order once owned all the ground hereabouts.
The Elephant, a tavern of great note, stood where is now the northwest
corner of Fenchurch Street at Ironmonger's Alley. It was a massive
building of stone, and one of the few in this neighbourhood sturdy
enough to resist the Great Fire. When the flames rushed by leaving a
desert of ruins on every side, the Elephant was a refuge for many who
were left homeless. It was taken down in 1826. At the Elephant lived the
great picture satirist, William Hogarth, in 1697, at a time when he was
very poor indeed.
At the northern end of Mark Lane, crowded about by business houses, may
be seen a fine old church tower. In the Great Fire of 1666, this tower
of All Hallows, Staining, escaped though the church itself was
destroyed. It is reached by narrow Star Alley, on the west side of Mark
Lane, and stands in a bit of the old churchyard which is now the court
of the Clothworkers' Hall. It was to All Hallows that Queen Elizabeth
came to offer up thanks after her deliverance from the Tower.
Hart Street is very short, which makes it easy to discern where once was
the house of Richard Whittington, the Lord Mayor of London, on the
north side of the road where the fourth house east of Mark Lane now
stands. Here, in "Whittington's Palace," Henry V. visited the Mayor, and
here Whittington destroyed the king's note for a debt of 60,000 pounds.
At which the king cried out: "No other king has had such a subject." To
which Whittington bowed low and made answer: "Sire, never had subject
such a king." Perhaps they were both right.
The picturesque gateway decorated with skulls, in narrow Seething Lane
by Hart Street, is an entrance way to the old church of St. Olave, which
escaped the Great Fire. This is the church frequented by Samuel Pepys,
who lived close by in Seething Lane. The pew he occupied is still to be
seen here, facing the memorial to Mrs. Pepys on the north side of the
church. It was from the tower of St. Olave that Pepys watched the great
City burn. Both he and his wife were buried here. The skulls surmounting
the gate were in remembrance of the plague of 1665, when 100,000 persons
died, and many of the victims were buried in this churchyard. In the
register yet may be seen entry of the burial of Mary Ramsey, with the
fatal letter "P" beside it, for she it is who was supposed to have
brought the plague into London.
Aldgate Pump, which has not been in use since 1875, stands at the
junction of Leadenhall and Fenchurch streets. Dickens mentions the old
pump very often in his books. In "Dombey and Son," Mr. Toots walked to
the pump and back for relaxation; and to this neighbourhood Fagan
removed secretly when he feared the result of the revelations of Oliver
Twist.
The Aldgate was the principal eastern gate of the City in Roman days and
later. In 1374 the rooms above the gate were leased by the corporation
to Chaucer the poet, for life. In 1471, the gate was attacked by Thomas
Neville, the Bastard of Falconbergh, when at the moment of success he
was separated from his men and killed. It was demolished in 1760, and
there is now no trace of it.
The church of St. Catherine Cree, in Leadenhall Street since 1631, was
built on the foundations of an older church. Hans Holbein lived close by
the original church, and was buried here when, in 1546, he died of the
plague.
In Leadenhall Street at the St. Mary Axe corner, the turreted church of
St. Andrew Undershaft takes its name from the fact that in olden times
there stood before it, towering above its height, a tall shaft. The
church, built in 1520, is almost five hundred years old. To this day the
passer-by wonders at the big rings of iron set in its wall. In these
rings the shaft or Maypole rested after the May-day sports were over. In
the reign of Edward VI. the Maypole was burned, because a preacher at
Paul's Cross had told the people they had made an idol of it by naming
their parish church "under the shaft." The tomb of John Stow, author of
the "Survey of London," is still to be seen here. Stow was a tailor, and
his book is thought to be the most important work on London ever
written. His efforts were not regarded in his lifetime, and being in
great poverty when he was 80 years old, he applied to James I. for aid,
receiving only a license to beg for a living--which he did. He died in
1605.
The buildings of the East India Company were to be found where Lime
Street touches Leadenhall at the northeast corner. There Charles Lamb,
the essayist and critic, worked. He entered the accountants' office of
the company and worked each day at his desk for thirty years until he
was retired on a pension. He has said that he found recreation in his
writings, and that his true works were to be found in the hundreds of
folios he had filled for the East India Company and that were filed away
in their archives. The East India was a commercial company of renown,
which came into existence in 1599 having its main offices here where had
been the home of Lord Craven. The building was restored many times, and
finally removed in 1862.
There is nothing to be seen of an historic old church in narrow Cornhill
Street, so hemmed in is it, except a tower above the roofs topped by a
windvane in the shape of a great key. Yet this church of St. Peter's,
which has been here since 1681, is most interesting, for the claim is
set up that it stands on the earliest consecrated ground in England. In
the vestry a tablet tells of how it was "originally founded in 179 A. D.
by Lucius, the first Christian King of this land, then called Britaine."
The house where Thomas Gray, the writer of the "Elegy written in a
Country Churchyard," was born, used to be where the building numbered 41
Cornhill now stands.
A carved doorway of quaint design, between two shop windows, and a tower
above the housetops, are all that may be seen of the church of St.
Michael's in narrow Cornhill. This church was built by Wren when he was
90 years old.
FOUR
BY WAY OF THE TOWER AND LONDON BRIDGE
In a passageway leading out of Brick Lane at No. 120 is still to be seen
the large room, pleasantly and airily situated at the top of a safe and
commodious ladder, where, in "Pickwick Papers," Dickens located "The
Brick Lane Branch of the United Grand Junction Ebenezer Temperance
Association." It is as Dickens pictured it, except that now the Mission
Hall is below at the foot of the ladder, and the former mission room at
the top is now a shop. It was here that Brother Tadger stumbled up the
ladder with Mr. Stiggins, and in the room above Sam Weller and his
father found the ladies drinking tea "until such time as they considered
it expedient to leave off." And if they are still in England it is safe
to say that they have never left off but are still drinking tea.
In Commercial Street, Whitechapel, at the corner of Flower and Dean
Street, is a dull and superior looking four story clothier's wareroom.
Though it does not seem it, this building has a history, for years ago
and until 1882 it was a cooking depot for the workers of this
neighbourhood, conducted upon the co-operative system. Dickens, in the
"Uncommercial Traveller" paper called "The Boiled Beef of New England,"
gives an account of the workings and merits of this establishment.
The Minories leads from the Tower to Aldgate High Street. Black and grim
at the head of this thoroughfare, rises the spire of the church of St.
Botolph. This structure, built in 1744, is on the site of an ancient
church. Here is still preserved the head of the Duke of Suffolk, father
of Lady Jane Grey, a relic formerly kept in the church of Holy Trinity.
Off this busy street called Minories, the first turning south of Aldgate
is a narrow hidden way called Church Street. Here, literally buried
from sight, is the tiny yellow and ancient church of Holy Trinity, once
belonging to an abbey of Minorites which was founded by Blanche, Queen
of Navarre, now used as a parish chapel of St. Botolph Aldgate. Many
persons sought out this church in the past, to look upon the head of the
Duke of Suffolk, father of Lady Jane Grey, who was executed on nearby
Tower Hill in 1554, and whose head was preserved as a relic here for
more than three centuries until its removal to St. Botolph Aldgate where
it is now.
The Little Wooden Midshipman, marking Sol Gills' instrument shop told of
in "Dombey and Son," is now used as a sign by an instrument maker at 9
Minories E. The firm employing the sign formerly were located in
Leadenhall Street, just as was Sol Gills' shop which Dickens has made so
real to all of us.
In Wellclose Square beyond the Tower, is a building that is more than
three hundred years old, and in it are still to be seen the oldest
police cells in London. Under them is the entrance to a subway which
tradition says once led direct to the Tower. The house is now used as a
club. The cells are in the rear of the building, and reached by a
winding stone stairway. They are dark and stifling. Many names and
inscriptions are carved on the wooden walls. There is still to be
deciphered the name of Edward Burk hanged for murder; that of Edward
Ray, December 27, 1758, and another inscription reading "Francis
Brittain, June 27, 1758. Remember the poor debtors."
[Illustration: The Tower of London]
The Tower of London, quite the most ancient and historic of English
fortresses, begun by William the Conqueror, has been successively a
royal palace, a State Prison, and is to-day a barracks and an arsenal.
The most ancient portion of the fortress, The White Tower, is still
standing. In this Tower of London, Richard II. while imprisoned, was
deposed; Henry VI. was murdered by the Duke of Gloucester; the Duke of
Clarence, brother of Edward IV., was drowned in a butt of wine; the
princes, Edward V. and his brother, were murdered by order of their
uncle, Duke of Gloucester, who thereafter took possession of the throne
as Richard III. Here Henry VIII. received in state all his wives before
he married them; here were imprisoned countless subjects, among them
Archbishop Cranmer; Shakespeare's patron the Earl of Southampton, and
Prince James of Scotland. Here Sir Walter Raleigh wrote, while a
prisoner, his "History of the World." Here were executed Queen Anne
Boleyn, Catherine Howard, Lady Jane Grey and Robert Devereux, Earl of
Essex. On the Thames side may still be seen the double water gate,
called the Traitors' Gate, through which prisoners charged with high
treason were brought into the Tower. Through this gate passed the
princess who was afterwards Queen Elizabeth, exclaiming as she entered:
"Here landeth as true a subject, being a prisoner, as ever landed at
these stairs; and before Thee, O God, I speak it." Rich in memories,
indeed, is this grimmest of grim monuments consecrated by time and the
tears and blood of many captives.
Where Trinity Gardens are now, to the west of the Tower and at the end
of Great Tower Hill, stood the scaffold where political and state
prisoners were sent from the Tower to be executed. With few exceptions,
only queens were executed within the Tower walls, so that the greater
number of historical executions took place outside them. Here met death,
Protector Somerset, Sir John More, Cromwell, Earl of Essex; James
Fitzroy, Duke of Monmouth, Sir Thomas Wyatt, and many another. The last
execution on Tower Hill, and the last person beheaded in England, was
Simon, Lord Lovat, in 1747. In his last moments he said how remarkable
it seemed that a great gathering should think it worth while to assemble
to see a grey head taken off. A stone in Trinity Square Gardens marks
the exact site of the scaffold. These gardens are a touch of pleasing
contrast close beside grimy warehouses, and in the daytime the constant
din of business life throbs on every side, an offset to their quietness.
Otway, the poet, lived and died on Tower Hill, and on Tower Hill William
Penn was born.
At the head of Tower Street is the church of All Hallows, Barking,
founded by the nuns of Barking Abbey during the reign of Richard I.
Bloody Judge Jeffreys, the leader of the Bloody Assizes, was married
here, as was also John Quincy Adams. William Penn, born close by, was
here baptised.
When Peter the Great visited London in 1698, he frequented a tavern
which stood on the spot where The Czar's Head is now opposite the church
of All Hallows, Barking.
Lower Thames Street is as old as the City itself. It is enclosed by tall
warehouses and shipping marts. Chaucer, sometimes called the father of
English poetry, lived in this street, where his father was a vintner.
St. Dunstan's-in-the-East stands where St. Dunstan's Hill and Idol Lane
meet, between Little Thames and Tower streets. In the building of this
church Wren made his first effort at perching a steeple upon
quadrangular columns. Though the work was much criticised, the architect
was well satisfied with the effect. Once when told that a violent
windstorm had toppled over all the steeples of the City churches Wren
exclaimed, "Not St. Dunstan's, I'm sure." For many years Archbishop
Morton, the tutor of Sir Thomas More, was rector of this church.
Further to the west, St. Mary at Hill was damaged in the Great Fire and
afterwards repaired and reconstructed by Wren in 1672. Here Dr. Young,
author of the tranquil "Night Thoughts," was married in 1731. For many
years John Brand, the author of "The Popular Antiquitus," was rector of
this church and was buried here.
The bad language of Billingsgate is proverbial all over the world. Since
the reign of Elizabeth there has been a market where Billingsgate Market
is now--the chief fish mart of London. Originally it was a place for the
sale of all sorts of provisions, but has been exclusively set apart for
the sale of fish since the time of William III., and the wharf of
Billingsgate is the oldest on the Thames.
On Fish Street Hill is a fluted Doric stone column, two hundred feet
high, crowned by a flaming urn of brass. This was erected in 1671 as a
memorial of the Great Fire of 1666. It has 345 steps leading to the top.
When the Monument was first set up an inscription was put on it which
wrongly traced the cause of the Great Fire to "the treachery and malice
of the Popish faction, in order to carry out their horrid plot for
extirpating the Protestant religion." And Pope, writing of the Monument,
and referring to the charge of the inscription as without foundation,
said:
Where London's column, pointing to the skies,
Like a tall bully, lifts the head and lies.
On the spot where King William joins Cannon Street is the statue of King
William IV. Here for generations stood a celebrated tavern called the
Boar's Head. Shakespeare speaks often of this house in his plays, making
it the scene of the revels of Falstaff and the Prince (afterwards Henry
V.). The original tavern was destroyed in the Great Fire but was
immediately rebuilt. In 1739 it was doubtless the principal tavern of
London. In 1831 it was demolished.
The church of St. Clement, Eastcheap, close by the statue of William IV.
in King William Street, was designed by Sir Christopher Wren. The
parishoners were very proud of their church when it was finished and
they gave the great architect a hogshead of wine costing £4 2_s_. 0_d_.,
and then were so pleased with their own liberality that this fact was
placed in the church records and the entry may be seen to this day.
In Pudding Lane south of the Monument the Great Fire of 1666 started,
raged for six days and destroyed three-quarters of London.
Miles Coverdale, Bishop of Exeter, who made the first complete English
translation of the Bible in 1535, was at one time rector of the church
of St. Magnus the Martyr at the foot of Fish Street Hill. He was buried
here and to the right of the altar is a tablet explaining that:
On the 4 of October 1535, the
first complete English version
of the Bible was published under
his direction.
The first London Bridge was begun in 1176 and completed in 1209 under
the direction of Peter of Colechurch chaplain of the church of St. Mary,
Colechurch, in the Poultry. Narrow and poorly paved, at each end was a
fortified gate, with a chapel in the centre. On the gatehouse were
exposed from time to time heads of poor fellows executed for treason.
There were twenty arches and a drawbridge for vessels, for most of the
arches were too narrow to permit the passage of boats. Afterwards houses
were built on the bridge so that it greatly resembled a regular street.
When the inhabitants needed water they lowered buckets by ropes from
their windows. In 1481 the houses tottered in decay and fell in one
block into the river. They were replaced and not finally removed until
1757. Wat Tyler and his followers entered the City over this bridge,
and Jack Cade and his rebel army chose the same way. Until 1769, London
Bridge was the only archway over the Thames. The present structure was
commenced in 1825, taking the place of the old bridge but about sixty
yards further up the river.
In the church of St. Michaels on College Hill, built by Sir Christopher
Wren, there is a memorial window to Dick Whittington who was buried in
the old church on this site--a church that was destroyed by the Great
Fire.
St. James Garlickhithe in Thames Street, erected in 1683, came by its
name because in earlier times garlic was usually sold close by along the
waterside. Steele has recorded that it was in this church he first
really came to understand the Common Prayer. For here he "heard the
service read so distinctly, so emphatically, and so fervently, that it
was next to an impossibility to be inattentive."
Of the church of St. Mary, Somerset, in Upper Thames Street, only the
tower of the original structure remains, that being spared by a special
Act of Parliament when the old church was demolished in 1868.
Where the red brick church of St. Benet's, Paul's Wharf, is now, used to
be an earlier church, destroyed in the Great Fire. In the older church
Inigo Jones was buried in 1652, and his tomb was not restored when the
present structure was set up by Wren in 1682.
By the riverside just to the east of where the Fleet stream flowed into
the Thames and in the district south of the present Queen Victoria
Street stood Bayard's Castle, where the Duke of Gloucester, afterwards
Richard III., lived. Here the crown of England was offered him, and here
he with pretence of humility at first refused it. The remains of the
castle were swept away in the Great Fire. This was the second castle of
the name on this site, the first having been that of Robert Fitz Walter
a malcontent Baron who fled after refusing allegiance to King John, who
in return destroyed his castle. It was here that King John made violent
but unsuccessful love to the Baron's daughter, Maud Fitz Walter.
Close by where the Victoria Embankment ends at Blackfriars Bridge and
extending broadly to the north was the Black Friars Monastery, dating
from 1276. This Monastery grew in time to great importance because of
the favours bestowed upon it by Edward I. Here this king deposited the
heart of his beloved queen Eleanor although her body was placed in
Westminster Abbey. And it was here, in 1529, Cardinals Wolsey and
Campeggio gave judgment against Catherine of Aragon in her divorce.
Playhouse Yard covers the site of the first theatre set up in the
Blackfriars neighbourhood. The larger part of the Monastery was
demolished by Sir Thomas Cawarden, Master of the King's Revels, when it
was granted to him by Edward VI. Cawarden's executor, Sir William More,
continued the demolition, granting a bit of the site for the Blackfriars
Theatre to James Burbage the actor. Burbage conducted the Blackfriars
Theatre as a private playhouse, in contrast to the public theatres of
the time. Nobility supported it almost entirely. Unlike the other
playhouses the pit as well as the galleries was entirely roofed over.
Also in the pit there were seats, an unusual feature. In ordinary
theatres the pit was filled with persons who ate, drank and made merry
while the play went on as best it could, but at the Blackfriars nothing
of the sort was permitted. There was, too, an unusually good orchestra,
the musicians paying for the privilege of performing here where they
were sure of attracting the attention of the nobility.
Famous Bridewell Prison, founded by King Edward VI., stood on what is
now the westerly side of New Bridge near by Tudor Street. Fleet Brook
occupied the space which is now New Bridge Street, extending as far as
to the Holborn Viaduct of this day. The prison got its name from the
holy spring of St. Bride's in this neighbourhood, the waters of which
were supposed to effect miraculous cures. Before the prison was built,
the site was occupied by the Palace of the Bridewell. Here the Lords of
Court together with the Mayor and Aldermen were summoned by Henry VIII.
when he was smitten with love for Anne Boleyn, to hear of the scruples
that tormented him because of his marriage with Catherine of Aragon. It
was here, too, that Shakespeare places an act of his play of Henry VIII.