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[Illustration: THE NEW HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT: DESIGNED BY BARRY, OPENED
1852.]
THE
HISTORY OF LONDON
BY
WALTER BESANT
AUTHOR OF 'LONDON' 'CHILDREN OF GIBEON' ETC.
_SECOND EDITION_
LONDON
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1894
_All rights reserved_
CONTENTS.
LESSON PAGE
1. The Foundation of London (I) 7
2. The Foundation of London (II) 10
3. Roman London (I) 13
4. " " (II) 16
5. After the Romans (I) 19
6. " " " (II) 23
7. " " " (III) 26
8. The First Saxon Settlement 29
9. The Second Saxon Settlement 32
10. The Anglo-Saxon Citizen 34
11. The Wall of London 38
12. Norman London 42
13. FitzStephen's Account of the City (I) 45
14. FitzStephen's Account of the City (II) 50
15. London Bridge (I) 54
16. " " (II) 57
17. The Tower of London (I) 60
18. " " " (II) 63
19. The Pilgrims 67
20. St. Bartholomew's Hospital 70
21. The Terror of Leprosy 74
22. The Terror of Famine 78
23. St. Paul's Cathedral (I) 82
24. " " " (II) 86
25. Paul's Churchyard 91
26. The Religious Houses 95
27. Monks, Friars, and Nuns 100
28. The London Churches 103
29. The Streets 106
30. Whittington (I) 110
31. " (II) 115
32. " (III) 118
33. Gifts and Bequests 121
34. The Palaces and Great Houses 124
35. Amusements 127
36. Westminster Abbey 131
37. The Court at Westminster 134
38. Justice and Punishments 137
39. The Political Power of London 140
40. Elizabethan London (I) 144
41. " " (II) 147
42. " " (III) 151
43. Trade (I) 155
44. " (II) 158
45. " (III) 164
46. Plays and Pageants (I) 168
47. " " " (II) 170
48. " " " (III) 173
49. " " " (IV) 177
50. The Terror of the Plague (I) 180
51. The Terror of the Plague (II) 183
52. The Terror of Fire (I) 187
53. " " " (II) 192
54. Rogues and Vagabonds 197
55. Under George the Second (I) 201
56. Under George the Second (II) 206
57. Under George the Second (III) 210
58. Under George the Second (IV) 214
59. Under George the Second (V) 218
60. The Government of the City (I) 222
61. The Government of the City (II) 226
62. The Government of the City (III) 228
63. London 230
Notes 235
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
1. The New Houses of Parliament: designed by Barry, opened 1852 _Frontispiece_
2. Early British Pottery 9
3. Roman London 15
4. Remains of a Viking Ship, from a Cairn at Gokstad 22
5. Martyrdom of St. Edmund by the Danes 31
6. Saxon Horsemen 33
7. Saxon Church at Bradford-on-Avon, Wilts 36
8. City Gates 39
9. Remains of the Wall 40
10. Part of the Roman Wall at Leicester 41
11. Tower in the Earlier Style. Church at Earl's Barton 44
12. A Norman Ship 46
13. Building a Church in the later Style 47
14. Lay Costumes in the Twelfth Century 50
15. Costume of Shepherds in the Twelfth Century 51
16. Ecclesiastical Costume in the Twelfth Century 52
17. Royal Arms of England from Richard I. to Edward III. 54
18. Old London Bridge 57
19. The Tower of London 61, 64
20. A Bed in the Reign of Henry III. 67
21. Interior of the Hall at Penshurst, Kent 71
22. The Upper Chamber or Solar at Sutton Courtenay Manor-house 73
23. The Lepers Begging 77
24. London before the Spire of St. Paul's was burned; showing
the Bridge, Tower, Shipping, &c. 83
25. Old St. Paul's, from the East 85
26. Old St. Paul's on Fire 87
27. West Front of St. Paul's Cathedral
Church. (Built by Sir Christopher Wren) 89
28. Paul's Cross 92
29. Bermondsey Abbey 96
30. Ruins of Gateway of Bermondsey Abbey 97
31. Christ's Hospital 99
32. Chepe in the Fifteenth Century 108
33. Large Ship and Boat of the Fifteenth Century 111
34. A Sea-Fight 113
35. Durham, Salisbury, and Worcester Houses 125
36. Bear-baiting 128
37. Shooting at the Butts with the Long-bow 129
38. Tomb of Edward III. in Westminster Abbey 132
39. The Embarkation of Henry VIII. from Dover, 1520 141
40. Coaches in the Reign of Elizabeth 148
41. The City from Southwark 150
42. South-east Part of London in the Fifteenth Century,
showing the Tower and Wall 153
43. King Edward VI. 159
44. Sir Thomas Gresham 161
45. First Royal Exchange 162
46. Shipping in the Thames, _circa_ 1660 166
47. Sir Francis Drake, in his Forty-third Year 167
48. The Globe Theatre 179
49. Civil Costume about 1620 181
50. Costume of a Lawyer 181
Ordinary Civil Costume; _temp._ Charles I.:
51. A Countryman 185
52. A Countrywoman 185
53. A Citizen 187
54. A Citizen's Wife 187
55. A Gentleman 189
56. A Gentlewoman 189
57. Lud-gate on Fire 190
58. Paul Pindar's House 191
59. London, as Rebuilt after the Fire 193
60. Coach of the latter half of the Seventeenth Century 195
61. Waggon of the second half of the Seventeenth Century 195
62. Ordinary Dress of Gentlemen in 1675 197
63. Dress of Ladies of Quality 199
64. Ordinary Attire of Women of the Lower Classes 199
65. Group showing Costumes and Sedan Chair, about 1720 202
66. Temple Bar, London 203
67. Fleet Street and Temple Bar 205
68. A Coach of the Middle of the Seventeenth Century 207
69. View of School connected with Bunyan's Meeting House 209
70. Grenadier in the time of the Peninsular War 211
71. Uniform of Sailors, about 1790 213
72. Costumes of Gentlefolk, about 1784 215
73. Vessels unloading at the Customs House, at the beginning
of the Eighteenth Century 217
74. The Old Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey, 1803 221
LONDON
1. THE FOUNDATION OF LONDON.
PART I.
'In the year 1108 B.C., Brutus, a descendant of AEneas, who was the son
of Venus, came to England with his companions, after the taking of Troy,
and founded the City of Troynovant, which is now called London. After a
thousand years, during which the City grew and flourished exceedingly,
one Lud became its king. He built walls and towers, and, among other
things, the famous gate whose name still survives in the street called
Ludgate. King Lud was succeeded by his brother Cassivelaunus, in whose
time happened the invasion of the Romans under Julius Caesar. Troynovant,
or London, then became a Roman city. It was newly fortified by Helena,
mother of Constantine the Great.'
This is the legend invented or copied by Geoffrey of Monmouth, and
continued to be copied, and perhaps believed, almost to the present day.
Having paid this tribute to old tradition, let us relate the true early
history of the City, as it can be recovered from such documents as
remain, from discoveries made in excavation, from fragments of
architecture, and from the lie of the ground. The testimony derived
from the lie of the ground is more important than any other, for several
reasons. First, an historical document may be false, or inexact; for
instance, the invention of a Brutus, son of AEneas, is false and absurd
on the face of it. Or a document may be wrongly interpreted. Thus, a
fragment of architecture may through ignorance be ascribed to the Roman,
when it belongs to the Norman, period--one needs to be a profound
student of architecture before an opinion of value can be pronounced
upon the age of any monument: or it may be taken to mean something quite
apart from the truth, as if a bastion of the old Roman fort, such as has
been discovered on Cornhill, should be taken for part of the Roman wall.
But the lie of the ground cannot deceive, and, in competent hands,
cannot well be misunderstood. If we know the course of streams, the
height and position of hills, the run of valleys, the site of marshes,
the former extent of forests, the safety of harbours, the existence of
fords, we have in our hands a guide-book to history. We can then
understand why towns were built in certain positions, why trade sprang
up, why invading armies landed at certain places, what course was taken
by armies, and why battles have been fought on certain spots. For these
things are not the result of chance, they are necessitated by the
geographical position of the place, and by the lie of the ground. Why,
for instance, is Dover one of the oldest towns in the country? Because
it is the nearest landing ground for the continent, and because its hill
forms a natural fortress for protecting that landing ground. Why was
there a Roman station at Portsmouth? On account of the great and
landlocked harbour. Why is Durham an ancient city? Because the steep
hill made it almost impregnable. Why is Chester so called? Because it
was from very ancient times a fort, or stationary camp (L. _castra_),
against the wild Welsh.
[Illustration: EARLY BRITISH POTTERY.]
Let us consider this question as regards London. Look at the map called
'Roman London' (p. 15). You will there see flowing into the river Thames
two little streams, one called Walbrook, and the other called the Fleet
River. You will see a steep slope, or cliff, indicated along the river
side. Anciently, before any buildings stood along the bank, this cliff,
about 30 feet high, rose over an immense marsh which covered all the
ground on the south, the east, and the west. The cliff receded from the
river on the east and on the west at this point: on either side of the
Walbrook it rose out of the marsh at the very edge of the river at high
tide. There was thus a double hill, one on the east with the Walbrook on
one side of it, the Thames on a second side, and a marsh on a third
side, and the Fleet River on the west. It was thus bounded on east,
south, and west, by streams. On the north was a wild moor (hence the
name Moorfields) and beyond the moor stretched away northwards a vast
forest, afterwards called the Middlesex forest. This forest covered,
indeed, the greater part of the island, save where marshes and stagnant
lakes lay extended, the haunt of countless wild birds. You may see
portions and fragments of this forest even now; some of it lies in Ken
Wood, Hampstead; some in the last bit left of Hainault Forest; some at
Epping.
The river Thames ran through this marsh. It was then much broader than
at present, because there were no banks or quays to keep it within
limits: at high tide it overflowed the whole of the marsh and lay in an
immense lake, bounded on the north by this low cliff of clay, and on the
south by the rising ground of what we now call the Surrey Hills, which
begin between Kennington and Clapham, as is shown by the name of Clapham
Rise. In this marsh were a few low islets, always above water save at
very high tides. The memory of these islands is preserved in the names
ending with _ea_ or _ey_, as Chelsea, Battersea, Bermondsey. And
Westminster Abbey was built upon the Isle of Thorns or Thorney. The
marsh, south of the river, remained a marsh, undrained and neglected for
many centuries. Almost within the memory of living men Southwark
contained stagnant ponds, while Bermondsey is still flooded when the
tide is higher than is customary.
2. THE FOUNDATION OF LONDON.
PART II.
On these low hillocks marked on the map London was first founded. The
site had many advantages: it was raised above the malarious marsh, it
overlooked the river, which here was at its narrowest, it was protected
by two other streams and by the steepness of the cliff, and it was over
the little port formed by the fall of one stream into the river. Here,
on the western hill, the Britons formed their first settlement; there
were as yet no ships on the silent river where they fished; there was no
ferry, no bridge, no communication with the outer world; the woods
provided the first Londoners with game and skins; the river gave them
fish; they lived in round huts formed of clay and branches with thatched
roofs. If you desire to understand how the Britons fortified themselves,
you may see an excellent example not very far from London. It is the
place called St. George's Hill, near Weybridge. They wanted a hill--the
steeper the side the better: they made it steeper by entrenching it;
they sometimes surrounded it with a high earthwork and sometimes with a
stockade: the great thing being to put the assailing force under the
disadvantage of having to climb. The three river sides of the London
fort presented a perpendicular cliff surmounted by a stockade, the other
side, on which lay the forest, probably had an earthwork also surmounted
by a stockade. There were no buildings and there was no trade; the
people belonged to a tribe and had to go out and fight when war was
carried on with another tribe.
The fort was called Llyn-din--the Lake Fort. When the Romans came they
could not pronounce the word Llyn--Thlin in the British way--and called
it Lon--hence their word Londinium. Presently adventurous merchants from
Gaul pushed across to Dover, and sailed along the coast of Kent past
Sandwich and through the open channel which then separated the island of
Thanet from the main land, into the broad Thames, and, sailing up with
the tide, dropped anchor off the fishing villages which lay along the
river and began to trade. What did they offer? What Captain Cook offered
the Polynesians: weapons, clothes, adornments. What did they take away?
Skins and slaves at first; skins and slaves, and tin and iron, after the
country became better known and its resources were understood. The taste
for trading once acquired rapidly grows; it is a delightful thing to
exchange what you do not want for what you do want, and it is so very
easy to extend one's wants. So that when the Romans first saw London it
was already a flourishing town with a great concourse of merchants.
How long a period elapsed between the foundation of London and the
arrival of the Romans? How long between the foundation and the
beginnings of trade? It is quite impossible even to guess. When Caesar
landed Gauls and Belgians were already here before him. As for the
Britons themselves they were Celts, as were the Gauls and the Belgians,
but of what is called the Brythonic branch, represented in speech by the
Welsh, Breton and Cornish languages (the last is now extinct). There
were also lingering among them the surviving families of an earlier and
a conquered race, perhaps Basques or Finns. When the country was
conquered by the Celts we do not know. Nor is there any record at all of
the people they found here unless the caves, full of the bones which
they gnawed and cut in two for the marrow, were the homes of these
earlier occupants.
When the Romans came they found the town prosperous. That is all we
know. What the town was like we do not know. It is, however, probable
that the requirements of trade had already necessitated some form of
embankment and some kind of quay; also, if trade were of long standing,
some improvement in the huts, the manner of living, the wants, and the
dress of the people would certainly have been introduced.
Such was the beginning of London. Let us repeat.
It was a small fortress defended on three sides by earthworks, by
stockades, by a cliff or steeply sloping bank, and by streams; on the
fourth side by an earthwork, stockade, and trench. The ground was
slightly irregular, rising from 30 to 60 feet. An open moor full of
quagmires and ponds also protected it on the north. On the east on the
other side of the stream rose another low hill. The extent of this
British fort of Llyn-din may be easily estimated. The distance from
Walbrook to the Fleet is very nearly 900 yards; supposing the fort was
500 yards in depth from south to north we have an area of 450,000 square
yards, i.e. about 100 acres was occupied by the first London, the
Fortress on the Lake. What this town was like in its later days when the
Romans found it; what buildings stood upon it; how the people lived, we
know very little indeed. They went out to fight, we know so much; and if
you visit Hampstead Heath you may look at a barrow on the top of a hill
which probably contains the bones of those citizens of London who fell
in the victory which they achieved over the citizens of Verulam when
they fought it out in the valley below that hill.
3. ROMAN LONDON.
PART I.
The Romans, when they resolved to settle in England, established
themselves on the opposite hillock, the eastern bank of the Walbrook.
The situation was not so strong as that of the British town, because it
was protected by cliff and river on two sides only instead of three. But
the Romans depended on their walls and their arms rather than the
position of their town. As was their habit they erected here a strong
fortress or a stationary camp, such as others which remain in the
country. Perhaps the Roman building which most resembles this fort is
the walled enclosure called Porchester, which stands at the head of
Portsmouth Harbour. This is rectangular in shape and is contained by a
high wall built of rubble stone and narrow bricks, with round, hollow
bastions at intervals. One may also see such a stationary camp at
Richborough, near Sandwich; and at Pevensey, in Sussex; and at
Silchester, near Reading, but the two latter are not rectangular. One
end of this fort was on the top of the Walbrook bank and the other, if
you look in your map, on the site of Mincing Lane. This gives a length
of about 700 yards by a breadth of 350, which means an enclosure of
about 50 acres. This is a large area: it was at once the barrack, the
arsenal, and the treasury of the station; it contained the residences of
the officers, the offices of the station, the law court and tribunals,
and the prisons; it was the official residence. Outside the fort on the
north was the burial place. If we desire to know the character of the
buildings we may assure ourselves that they were not mean or ignoble by
visiting the Roman town of Silchester. Here we find that the great Hall
of Justice was a hall more spacious than Westminster Hall, though
doubtless not so lofty or so fine. Attached to this hall were other
smaller rooms for the administration of justice; on one side was an open
court with a cloister or corridor running all round it and shops at the
back for the sale of everything. This was the centre of the city: here
the courts were held; this was the Exchange; here were the baths; this
was the place where the people resorted in the morning and lounged about
to hear the news; here the jugglers and the minstrels and the acrobats
came to perform; it was the very centre of the life of the city--as was
Silchester so was London.
[Illustration: _Walker & Boutallse._
ROMAN LONDON.]
Outside the Citadel the rude British town--if it was still a rude
town--disappeared rapidly. The security of the place, strongly
garrisoned, the extension of Roman manners, the introduction of Roman
customs, dress, and luxuries gave a great impetus to the development of
the City. The little ports of the rivers Walbrook and Fleet no longer
sufficed for the shipping which now came up the river; if there were as
yet no quays or embankments they were begun to be erected; behind them
rose warehouses and wharves. The cliff began to be cut away; a steep
slope took its place; its very existence was forgotten. The same thing
has happened at Brighton, where, almost within the memory of living man,
a low cliff ran along the beach. This embankment extended east and
west--as far as the Fleet River, which is now Blackfriars, on the west,
and what is now Tower Hill on the east. Then, the trade still
increasing, the belt of ground behind the embankment became filled with
a dense population of riverside people--boatmen, sailors, boat-builders,
store-keepers, bargemen, stevedores, porters--all the people who belong
to a busy mercantile port. As for the better sort, they lived round the
Citadel, protected by its presence, in villas, remains of which have
been found in many places.
The two things which most marked the Roman occupation were London Wall
and Bridge. Of the latter we will speak in another place. The wall was
erected at a time between A.D. 350 and A.D. 369--very near the end of
the Roman occupation. This wall remained the City wall for more than a
thousand years; it was rebuilt, repaired, restored; the scanty remains
of it--a few fragments here and there--contain very little of the
original wall; but the course of the wall was never altered, and we know
exactly how it ran. There was first a strong river wall along the
northern bank. There were three water gates and the Bridge gate; there
were two land gates at Newgate and Bishopsgate. The wall was 3 miles and
205 yards long; the area enclosed was 380 acres. This shows that the
population must have been already very large, for the Romans were not
accustomed to erect walls longer than they could defend.
4. ROMAN LONDON.
PART II.
We must think of Roman London as of a small stronghold on a low hill
rising out of the river. It is a strongly-walled place, within which is
a garrison of soldiers; outside its walls stretch gardens and villas,
many of them rich and beautiful, filled with costly things. Below the
fort is a long river wall or quay covered with warehouses, bales of
goods, and a busy multitude of men at work. Some are slaves--perhaps
all. Would you like to know what a Roman villa was like? It was in plan
a small, square court, surrounded on three sides by a cloister or
corridor with pillars, and behind the cloister the rooms of the house;
the middle part of the court was a garden, and in front was another and
a larger garden. The house was of one storey, the number and size of the
rooms varying according to the size of the house. On one side were the
winter divisions, on the other were the summer rooms. The former part
was kept warm by means of a furnace constructed below the house, which
supplied hot-air pipes running up all the walls. At the back of the
house were the kitchen, stables, and sleeping quarters of the servants.
Tesselated pavements, statues, pictures, carvings, hangings, pillows,
and fine glass adorned the house. There was not in London the enormous
wealth which enabled some of the Romans to live in palaces, but there
was comparative wealth--the wealth which enables a man to procure for
himself in reason all the things that he desires.
The City as it grew in prosperity was honoured by receiving the name of
Augusta. It remained in Roman hands for nearly four hundred years. The
Citadel, which marks the first occupation by the Romans, was probably
built about A.D. 43. The Romans went away in A.D. 410. During these four
centuries the people became entirely Romanised. Add to this that they
became Christians. Augusta was a Christian city; the churches which
stand--or stood, because three at least have been removed--along Thames
Street, probably occupied the sites of older Roman churches. In this
part of the City the people were thickest; in this quarter, therefore,
stood the greater number of churches: the fact that they were mostly
dedicated to the apostles instead of to later Saxon saints seems to show
that they stood on the sites of Roman churches. It has been asked why
there has never been found any heathen temple in London; the answer is
that London under the Romans very early became Christian; if there had
been a temple of Diana or Apollo it would have been destroyed or
converted into a church. Such remains of Augusta as have been found are
inconsiderable: they are nearly all in the museum of the Guildhall,
where they should be visited and examined.
The history of Roman London is meagre. Seventeen years after the
building of the Citadel, on the rebellion of Boadicea, the Roman general
Suetonius abandoned the place, as unable to defend it. All those who
remained were massacred by the insurgents. After this, so far as we
know, for history is silent, there was peace in London for 200 years.
Then one Carausius, an officer in command of the fleet stationed in the
Channel for the suppression of piracies, assumed the title of emperor.
He continued undisturbed for some years, his soldiers remaining faithful
to him on account of his wealth: he established a Mint at London and
struck a large amount of money there. He was murdered by one of his
officers, Allectus, who called himself emperor in turn and continued to
rule in Britain for three years. Then the end came for him as well. The
Roman general landing with a large force marched upon London where
Allectus lay. A battle fought in the south of London resulted in the
overthrow and death of the usurper. His soldiers taking advantage of the
confusion began to plunder and murder in the town, but were stopped and
killed by the victors.
Constantine, who became emperor in 306, was then in Britain, but his
name is not connected with London except by coins bearing his name.
Tradition connects the name of Helena, Constantine's mother, with
London, but there is nothing to prove that she was ever in the island at
all.
Late in the fourth century troubles began to fall thick upon the
country. The Picts and the Scots overran the northern parts and
penetrated to the very walls of London. The general Theodosius, whose
son became the emperor of that name, drove them back. About this time
the wall of London was built; not the wall of the Roman fort, but that
of the whole City. From the year 369, when Theodosius the general landed
in Britain, to the year 609 we see nothing of London except one brief
glimpse of fugitives flying for their lives across London Bridge. Of
this interval we shall speak in the next chapter. Meanwhile it is
sufficient to say that the decay of the Roman power made it necessary to
withdraw the legions from the outlying and distant portions of the
Empire. Britain had to be abandoned. It was as if England were to give
up Hong Kong and Singapore and the West Indies because she could no
longer spare the ships and regiments to defend them. The nation which
abandons her possessions is not far from downfall. Remember, when you
listen to those who advocate abandonment of our colonies, the example of
Rome.
5. AFTER THE ROMANS.
PART I.
The Romans left London. That was early in the fifth century; probably in
the year 410.
Two hundred years later we find the East Saxons in London.
What happened during this long interval of seven generations? Not a word
reaches us of London for two hundred years except once when, after a
defeat of the British by the Saxons at Crayford in the year 457, we read
that the fugitives crossed over London Bridge to take refuge within the
walls of the City. What happened during this two hundred years?[1]
We know what happened with other cities. Anderida, now called Pevensey,
was taken by the Saxons, and all its inhabitants, man, woman and child,
were slaughtered, so that it became a waste until the Normans built a
castle within the old walls. Canterbury, Silchester, Porchester,
Colchester--all were taken, their people massacred, the walls left
standing, the streets left desolate. For the English--the Saxons--loved
not city walls. Therefore, we might reasonably conclude that the same
thing happened to London. But if it be worthy of the chronicler to note
the massacre of Anderida, a small seaport, why should he omit the far
more important capture of Augusta?
[1] On this subject, see the author's book _London_ (Chatto & Windus).
Let us hear what history has to tell. Times full of trouble fell upon
the country. Long before the Romans went away the Picts and Scots were
pouring their wild hordes over the north and west, sometimes getting as
far south as the Middlesex Forest, murdering and destroying. As early as
the year 368, forty years before they left the country, the Romans sent
an expedition north to drive back these savages. Already the Saxons, the
Jutes and the Angles were sending piratical expeditions to harry the
coast and even to make settlements. The arm of the Roman was growing
weak, it could not stretch out so far: the fleets of the Romans, under
the officer called the 'Count of the Saxon Shore'--whose duty was to
guard the eastern and southern coasts--were destroyed and their
commander slain. So that, with foes on the eastern seaboard, foes in the
Channel, foes in the river, foes in the north and west, it is certain
that the trade of Augusta was declining long before the City was left to
defend itself.
What sort of defence were the people likely to offer? For nearly four
hundred years they had lived at peace, free to grow rich and luxurious,
with mercenaries to fight for them. Between the taking of the City by
Boadicea and the departure of the Romans, a space of three hundred and
fifty years, the peace of the City was only disturbed by the lawlessness
of Allectus's mercenaries. Their attempt to sack the City was put down,
it is significant to note, not by the citizens but by the Roman soldiers
who entered the City in time. The citizens were mostly merchants: they
were Christians in name and in form of worship, they were superstitious,
they were luxurious, they were unwarlike. Many of them were not Britons
at all, but foreigners settled in the City for trade. Moreover, for it
is not true that the whole British people had grown unfit for war, a
revolt of the Roman legions in the year 407 drew a large number of the
young men into their ranks, and when Constantine the usurper took them
over into Gaul for the four years' fighting which followed, the country
was drained of its best fighting material. The City, then, contained a
large number of wealthy merchants, native and foreign; it also contained
a great many slaves who were occupied in the conduct of the trade, and
few, since the young men went away with Constantine, who could be relied
upon to fight.
One more point may be made out from history. Since London was a town
which then, as now, lived entirely by its trade and was the centre of
the export and import trade of the whole country, the merchants, as we
have seen, must have suffered most severely long before the Romans went
away. We are, therefore, in the year 410, facing a situation full of
menace. The Picts and Scots are overrunning the whole of the north, the
Saxons are harrying the east and the south-east, trade is dying, there
is little demand for imports, there are few exports, it is useless for
ships to wait cargoes which never arrive, it is useless for ships to
bring cargoes for which there is no demand.
[Illustration: REMAINS OF A VIKING SHIP, FROM A CAIRN AT GOKSTAD.
(_Now in the University at Christiania._)]
A declining city, a dying trade, enemies in all directions, an unwarlike
population. When the curtain falls upon the scene in the year 410 that
is what we see.
6. AFTER THE ROMANS.
PART II.
Consider, again, the position of London. It stood, as you have seen,
originally on two low hills overlooking the river. A strong wall built
all along the bank from Blackfriars (now so called) to the present site
of the Tower kept the river from swamping the houses and wharves which
sprang up behind this wall. The walls of the City later on, but only
about fifty years before the Romans went away, enclosed a large area
covered over with streets, narrow near the river and broad farther
north, and with residences, warehouses, villas, and workshops. There was
probably a population of 70,000 or even more. On the west, in the
direction of Westminster, the City wall overlooked an immense marsh: on
the south across the river there was a still broader and longer marsh:
on the east there was another great marsh with the sea overflowing the
sedgy meadows at every high tide: on the north there was a wild moor and
beyond the moor there was an immense forest. Four roads not counting the
river-way kept the City in communication with the rest of the island.
The most important of these roads was that afterwards called Watling
Street, which passed out at Newgate and led across the heart of the
country to Chester and Wales, to York and the north. The second,
afterwards called Ermyn Street, left the City at Bishopsgate and ran
through Lincoln to York, a third road called the Vicinal Way ran into
the eastern counties, and by way of London Bridge Watling Street was
connected with Dover.
London, therefore, standing in its marshes had no means of providing for
itself. All the food for its great population was imported. It was
brought on pack asses along these roads. It came from the farms and
gardens of the country inland by means of these high roads, strong,
broad, and splendid roads, as good as any we have since succeeded in
making. In peaceful times these roads were crowded all the way from
Chester and Lincoln and Dover with long trains of animals laden with
provisions for the people of London, as well as with goods for export
from the Port of London. They were met by long trains of animals laden
with imports being carried to their destination. The Thames in the same
way was filled with barges laden with provisions as well as with goods
going down the river to the people and the Port of London. Below Bridge
the river was filled with merchant ships bringing cargoes of wine and
spices and costly things to be exchanged for skins and slaves and
metals. Let us remember that the daily victualling of 70,000 people
means an immense service. We are so accustomed to find everything ready
to hand in cities containing millions as well as in villages of
hundreds, that we forget the magnitude of this service. No mind can
conceive the magnitude of the food supply of modern London, Paris, New
York, or even such towns as Portsmouth, Plymouth, Bristol. Yet try to
understand what it means to feed every day, without interruption, only a
small town of 70,000 people. So much bread for every day, so much meat,
so much fish, so much wine, beer, mead, or cider--because at no time did
people drink water if they could get anything else--so much milk, honey,
butter, cheese, eggs, poultry, geese and ducks, so much beans, pease,
salad, fruit. All this had to be brought in regularly--daily. There was
salted meat for winter; there was dried fish when fresh could not be
procured; there were granaries of wheat to provide for emergencies. All
the rest had to be provided day by day.
First, the East Saxons, settling in Essex and spreading over the whole
of that county, stopped the supplies and the trade over all the eastern
counties; then the Jutes, landing on the Isle of Thanet, stopped the
ships that went up and down the river; they also spread over the south
country and stopped the supplies that formerly came over London Bridge.
Then the Picts and Scots, followed by more Saxons, harassed the north
and middle of the island, and no more supplies came down Watling Street.
Lastly, the enemy, pressing northward from the south shore, gained the
middle reaches of the Thames, and no more supplies came down the river.
London was thus deprived of food as well as of trade.
This slowly, not suddenly, came to pass. First, one source of supply was
cut off, then another. First, trade declined in one quarter, then it
ceased in that quarter altogether. Next, another quarter was attacked.
The foreign merchants, since there was no trade left, went on board
their own ships and disappeared. Whether they succeeded in passing
through the pirate craft that crowded the mouth of the river, one knows
not. The bones of many lie at the bottom of the sea off the Nore. They
vanished from hapless Augusta; they came back no more.
Who were left? The native merchants. Despair was in their hearts;
starvation threatened them, even amid the dainty appointments of their
luxurious villas; what is the use of marble baths and silken hangings,
tesselated pavements, and pictures, and books, and statues, if there is
no food to be had, though one bid for it all the pictures in the house?
With the merchants, there were the priests, the physicians, the lawyers,
the actors and mimics, the artists, the teachers, all who minister to
religion, luxury, and culture. There were next the great mass of the
people, the clerks and scribes, the craftsmen, the salesmen, the
lightermen, stevedores, boatmen, marine store keepers, makers of ships'
gear, porters--slaves for the most part--all from highest to lowest,
plunged into helplessness. Whither could they fly for refuge? Upon whom
could they call for help?
7. AFTER THE ROMANS.
PART III.
Abroad, the Roman Empire was breaking up. The whole of Europe was
covered with war. Revolts of conquered tribes, rebellions of successful
generals, invasions of savages, the murders of usurpers, the sacking of
cities. Rome itself was sacked by Alaric; the conquest of one country
after another made of this period the darkest in the history of the
world. From over the seas no help, the enemy blocking the mouth of the
river, all the roads closed and all the farms destroyed.
There came a day at length when it was at last apparent that no more
supplies would reach the City. Then the people began to leave the place:
better to fight their way across the country to the west where the
Britons still held their own, than to stay and starve. The men took
their arms--they carried little treasure with them, because treasure
would be of no use to them on their way--their wives and children,
ladies as delicate and as helpless as any of our own time--children as
unfit as our own to face the miseries of cold and hunger and
nakedness--and they went out by the gate of Watling Street, not
altogether, not the whole population, but in small companies, for
greater safety. They left the City by the gate; they did not journey
along the road, but for safety turned aside into the great forest, and
so marching across moors and marshes, past burned homesteads, and
ruined villages, and farm buildings thrown down, those of them who did
not perish by the way under the enemies' sword or by malarious fever, or
by starvation, reached the Severn and the border of the mountains where
the Saxon could not penetrate.
There was left behind a remnant--after every massacre or exodus there is
always left a remnant. The people who stayed in the City were only a few
and those of the baser sort, protected by their wretchedness and
poverty. No one would kill those who offer no defence and have no
treasures; and their condition under any new masters would be no worse.
They shut the gates and barred them: they closed and barred the Bridge:
they took out of the houses anything that they wanted--the soft warm
mantles, the woollen garments, the coverlets, the pillows and hangings,
but they abode in their hovels near the river banks; as for the works of
art, the pictures, statues, and tesselated pavements, these they left
where they found them or for wantonness destroyed them. They fished in
the river for their food: they hunted over the marshes where are now
Westminster, Battersea, and Lambeth: the years passed by and no one
disturbed them: they still crouched in their huts while the thin veneer
of civilisation was gradually lost with whatever arts they had learned
and all their religion except the terror of the Unknown.
Meanwhile the roofs of the villas and churches fell in, the walls
decayed, the gardens were overgrown. Augusta--the proud and stately
Augusta--was reduced to a wall enclosing a heap of ruins with a few
savages huddled together in hovels by the riverside.
For the East Saxon had overrun Essex, the Jute covered Kent and Surrey,
the South Saxon held Sussex, the West Saxon held Wessex. All around--on
every side--London was surrounded by the Conqueror of the Land. Why,
then, did they not take London? Because London was deserted; there was
nothing to take: London was silent. No ships going up or down the river
reminded the Saxon of the City. It lay amid its marshes and its moors,
the old roads choked and overgrown; it was forgotten; it was what the
Saxons had already made of Canterbury and Anderida, a 'Waste Chester,'
that is, a desolated stronghold.
Augusta was forgotten.
This is the story that we learn from the actual site of London--its
position among marshes, the conditions under which alone the people
could be maintained.
How long did this oblivion continue? No one knows when it began or when
it ended. As I read the story of the past, I find a day towards the
close of the sixth century when there appeared within sight of the
deserted walls a company of East Saxons. They were hunting: they were
armed with spears: they followed the chase through the great forest
afterwards called the Middlesex Forest, Epping Forest, Hainault Forest,
and across the marshes of the river Lea, full of sedge and reed and
treacherous quagmires. And they saw before them the gray walls of a
great city of which they had never heard.
They advanced cautiously: they found themselves on a firm road, the
Vicinal Way, covered with grass: they expected the sight of an enemy on
the wall: none appeared. The gates were closed, the timbers were rotten
and fell down at a touch: the men broke through and found themselves
among the streets of a city all in ruins. They ran about--shouting--no
one appeared: the City was deserted.
They went away and told what they had found.
But Augusta had perished. When the City appears again it is under its
more ancient name--it is again London.
8. THE FIRST SAXON SETTLEMENT.
A hundred and fifty years passed away between the landing of the East
Saxons and their recorded occupation of the City. This long period made
a great difference in the fierce savage who followed the standard of the
White Horse and landed on the coast of Essex. He became more peaceful:
he settled down contentedly to periods of tranquillity. Certain arts he
acquired, and he learned to live in towns: as yet he was not a
Christian. This means that the influence of Rome with its religion, its
learning and its arts had not yet touched him.
But he had begun to live in towns; and he lived in London.
Perhaps the first of the new settlers were the foreign merchants
returning, as soon as more settled times allowed, with their cargoes.
London has always been a place of trade. But for trade no one would have
settled in it. Therefore, either the men of Essex invited the foreign
merchants to return; or the foreign merchants returned and invited the
men of Essex to come into the City and to bring with them what they had
to exchange.
In the year 597 Augustine, prior of a Roman monastery, was sent by Pope
Gregory the Great with forty monks, to convert the English. Ethelbert,
King of Kent, and most powerful of the English kinglets, was married to
Bertha, a Christian princess. She had brought with her a chaplain and it
was probably at her invitation or through her influence, that the monks
were sent. They landed at Thanet. They obtained permission to meet the
King in the open air. They appeared wearing their robes, carrying a
crucifix, and chanting Psalms. It is probable that the conversion of the
King had been arranged beforehand; for without any difficulty or delay
the King and all his Court, and, following the King's example, all the
people were baptised.
Augustine returned to Rome where he was consecrated Archbishop of the
English nation. A church was built at Canterbury, and the work of
preaching the Faith went on vigorously. The East Saxons made no more
hesitation at being baptised than the men of Kent. Ethelbert, indeed,
could command obedience; he was Over Lord of all the nations south of
the Humber. He it was, according to Bede, who built the first church of
St. Paul in London, a fact which proves his authority and influence in
London, and his sincere desire that the East Saxons should become
Christians.
They did, in a way. But when King Siebehrt died, they relapsed and drove
their Bishop into exile.
Then--Bede says that they were punished for this sin--the East Saxons
fell into trouble. They went to war with the men of Wessex and were
defeated by them. After this, we find London in the hands of the
Northumbrians and the Mercians--that is to say--these nations one after
the other obtained the supremacy. It was in the year 616 or thereabouts,
that Bishop Mellitus had to leave his diocese. Forty years later another
conversion of London took place under Bishop Cedd, consecrated at
Lindisfarne. The new faith was not strong enough to stand against a
plague, and the East Saxons of London went back once more to their old
gods. After another thirty years, before the close of the seventh
century, London was again converted: and this time for good.
In the eighth century London passed again out of the hands of the East
Saxon kings into those of the Mercians. The earliest extant document
concerning London is one dated 734, in which King Ethelbald grants to
the Bishop of Rochester leave to send one ship without tax in or out of
London Port.
A witan--i.e. a national council--was held in London in 811. It is then
spoken of as an illustrious place and royal city. The supremacy of
Mercia passed to that of Wessex--London went with the supremacy. In 833
Egbert, King of Wessex, held a witan in London.
[Illustration: MARTYRDOM OF ST. EDMUND BY THE DANES.
(_From a drawing belonging to the Society of Antiquaries._)]
When Egbert died the supremacy of Wessex fell with him. Then the Danish
troubles fell thick and disastrous upon the country. When Alfred
succeeded to the Crown the Danes held the Isle of Thanet, which
commanded the river; they had conquered the north country from the Tweed
to the Humber; they had overrun all the eastern counties twice--viz., in
839 and in 852: they had pillaged London, which they presently occupied,
making it their headquarters. With this Danish occupation ends the first
Saxon settlement of the City.
9. THE SECOND SAXON SETTLEMENT.
The Danes held the City for twelve years at least. One cannot believe
that these fierce warriors, who were exactly what the Saxons and Jutes
had been four hundred years before--as fierce, as rude, as
pagan--suffered any of the inhabitants, except the slaves, to remain.
Massacre and pillage--or the fear of both--drove away all the residents.
But the City was the headquarters of the Danes. Alfred recovered it in
the year 884.
He found it as the East Saxons had found it three hundred years before,
a city of ruins; the wall a ruin; the churches destroyed.
King Alfred has left many imperishable monuments of his reign. One of
the greatest is the City of London, which he rebuilt. A recent historian
(Loftie, _Historic Towns_, 'London') says that it would hardly be wrong
to write, 'London was founded, rather more than a thousand years ago, by
King Alfred--who chose for the site of his city a place formerly
fortified by the Romans but desolated successively by the Saxons and the
Danes.'
The first thing he did was to rebuild the wall. This work re-established
confidence in the minds of the citizens. Alfred placed his son-in-law
Ethelred, afterwards Alderman (i.e. Chief man--Governor) of the
Mercians, in command of the City, which seems to have been immediately
filled with people. The London citizens went out with Ethelred to defeat
the Danes at Benfleet, and with Alfred to defeat the Danes at the mouth
of the river Lea; they went out with Athelstan to fight at Brunanburgh.
London was never again taken by the Danes. Twice Sweyn endeavoured to
take the City but was repulsed. Nor did London open her gates to him
until the King had left the City. And when the Danes again entered the
City there was no more pillage or massacre; London was too strong to be
pillaged or massacred, and too rich to be abandoned to the army.
King Ethelred came back and died, and was buried in St. Paul's; the old
St. Paul's--that of King Ethelbert or that of Bishop Cedd--was burned
down and the Londoners were building a new cathedral.
Edmund Ironside was elected and crowned within the City walls. Then
followed a siege of London by Canute. He dug a canal through the swamps,
and dragged his ships by its means from Redriff to Lambeth. But he could
not take the City. But the Treaty of Partition between Edmund and
himself was agreed upon and the Dane once more obtained the City. He has
left one or two names behind him. The church of St. Olave's in Hart
Street, and that in 'Tooley,' or St. Olave's Street, Southwark, and the
Church of St. Magnus, attest to the sovereignty of the Dane.
[Illustration: SAXON HORSEMEN.
(_Harl. MS. 603._)]
At this time the two principal officers of the City were the Bishop and
the Portreeve: there was also the 'Staller' or Marshal. The principal
governing body was the 'Knighten Guild,' which was largely composed of
the City aldermen. But these aldermen were not like those of the present
day, an elected body: they were hereditary: they were aldermen in right
of their estates within the City. What powers the Knighten Guild
possessed is not easy to define. Besides this, the aristocracy of the
City, there were already trade guilds for religious purposes and for
feasting--but, as yet, with no powers. The people had their folk mote,
or general gathering: their ward mote: and their weekly hustings. We
must not seek to define the powers of all these bodies and corporations.
They overlapped each other: the aristocratic party was continually
innovating while the popular party as continually resisted. In many ways
what we call the government of the City had not begun to be understood.
That there was order of a kind is shown by the strict regulations, as
strictly enforced, of the dues and tolls for ships that came up the
river to the Port of London.
10. THE ANGLO-SAXON CITIZEN.
The Londoner of Athelstan and Ethelred was an Anglo-Saxon of a type far
in advance of his fierce ancestor who swept the narrow seas and harried
the eastern coasts. He had learned many arts: he had become a Christian:
he wanted many luxuries. But the solid things which he inherited from
his rude forefathers he passed on to his children. And they remain an
inheritance for us to this day. For instance, our form of monarchy,
limited in power, comes straight down to us from Alfred and Athelstan.
Our nobility is a survival and a development of the Saxon earls and
thanes; our forms of justice, trial by jury, magistrates--all come from
the Saxons; the divisions of our country are Saxon, our municipal
institutions are Saxon, our parliaments and councils are Saxon in
origin. We owe our language to the Anglo-Saxon, small additions from
Latin, French, and other sources have been made, but the bulk of our
language is Saxon. Three-fourths of us are Anglo-Saxon by descent.
Whatever there is in the English character of persistence, obstinacy,
patience, industry, sobriety, love of freedom, we are accustomed to
attribute to our Anglo-Saxon descent. In religion, arts, learning,
literature, culture, we owe little or nothing to the Anglo-Saxon. In all
these things we are indebted to the South.
Let us see how the Anglo-Saxon Londoner lived.
He was a trader or a craftsman. As a trader he received from the country
inland whatever it had to produce. Slaves, who were bred like cattle on
the farms, formed a large part of the exports; hides, wool, iron, tin,
the English merchant had these things, and nothing more, to offer the
foreigner who brought in exchange wine, spices, silk, incense, vestments
and pictures for the churches and monasteries, books, and other
luxuries. The ships at first belonged to the foreign merchants: they
traded not only at London, but also at Bristol, Canterbury, Dover,
Arundel, and other towns. Before the Conquest, however, English-built
ships and English-manned fleets had already entered upon the trade.
The trader, already wealthy, lived in great comfort. He was absolute
master in his own house, but the household was directed or ruled by his
wife. Everything was made in the house: the flour was ground, the bread
was baked, the meat and fish were salted; the linen was woven, the
garments were made by the wife, the daughters, and the women servants.
The Anglo-Saxon ladies were remarkable for their skill in embroidery;
they excelled all other women in this beautiful art.
The Anglo-Saxon house developed out of the common hall. Those who know
the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge can trace the growth of the house
in any of them. First there is the Common Hall. In this room, formerly,
the whole family, with the serving men and women, lived and slept. There
still exists at Higham Ferrars, in Northampton, such a hall, built as an
almshouse. It is a long room: at the east end, raised a foot, is a
little chapel; on the south side is a long open stove; the almsmen slept
on the floor on reeds, each man wrapped in his blanket.
[Illustration: SAXON CHURCH AT BRADFORD-ON-AVON, WILTS.]
Everybody lived and slept in the Common Hall. All day long the women
worked at the spinning and weaving and sewing and embroidery. Women were
defined by this kind of work--we still speak of spinsters. Formerly
relationship through the mother was called 'on the spindle side,' while,
long after the men had to fight every day against marauding tribes,
relationship through the father was called 'on the spear side.' All day
long the men worked outside in the fields, or in the warehouse, and on
the quays or at their craft. In the evening they sat about the fire and
listened to stories, or to songs with the accompaniment of the harp.
The first improvement was the separation of the kitchen from the hall:
in the Cambridge College you see the hall on one side and the kitchen
the other, separated by a passage. The second step was the construction
of the 'Solar,' or chamber over the kitchen, which became the bedroom of
the master and the mistress of the house. Then they built a room behind
the solar for the daughters and the maidservants; the sons and the
menservants still sleeping in the Hall. Presumably the house was at this
stage in the time of King Ethelred, just before the Norman Conquest. The
ladies' 'bower' followed, and after that the sleeping rooms for the men.
There was no furniture, as we understand it. Benches there were, and
trestles for the tables, which were literally laid at every meal: a
great chair was provided for the Lord and Lady: tapestry kept out the
draughts: weapons, musical instruments, and other things hung upon the
walls. Dinner was at noon: supper in the evening when work was over:
they made great use of vegetables and they had nearly all our modern
fruits: they drank, as the national beverage, beer or mead.
But everybody was not a wealthy merchant: most of the citizens were
craftsmen of some kind. These lived in small wooden houses of two rooms,
one above the other: those who were not able to afford so much slept in
hovels, consisting of four uprights with 'wattle and daub' for the
sides, a roof of thatch, no window, and a fire in the middle of the
floor. They lived very roughly: they endured many hardships: but they
were a well-fed people, turbulent and independent: their houses were
crowded in narrow lanes--how narrow may be understood by a walk along
Thames Street; they were always in danger of fire--in 962, in 1087, in
1135, the greater part of the City was burned to the ground. They lived
in plenty: there was work for all: they had their folk mote--their City
parliament--and their ward mote--which still exists: they had no feudal
lord to harass them: as for the dirt and mud and stench of the narrow
City streets, they cared nothing for such things. They were free: and
they were well fed: and they were cheerful and contented.
11. THE WALL OF LONDON.
Let us examine into the history and the course of the Wall of London, if
only for the very remarkable facts that the boundary of the City was
determined for fifteen hundred years by the erection of this Wall; that
for some purposes the course of the Wall still affects the government of
London; and that it was only pulled down bit by bit in the course of the
last century.
You will see by reference to the map what was the course of the Wall. It
began, starting from the east where the White Tower now stands. Part of
the foundation of the Tower consists of a bastion of the Roman wall. It
followed a line nearly north as far as Aldgate. Then it turned in a N.W.
direction just north of Camomile Street and Bevis Marks to Bishopsgate.
Thence it ran nearly due W., north of the street called London Wall,
turning S. at Monkwell Street. At Aldersgate it turned W. until it
reached Newgate, where it turned nearly S. again and so to the river, a
little east of the present Blackfriars Bridge. It ran, lastly, along the
river bank to join its eastern extremity. The river wall had openings or
gates at Dowgate and Bishopsgate, and probably at Queen Hithe. The
length of the Wall, without counting the river side, was 2 miles and 608
feet.
This formidable Wall was originally about 12 feet thick made of rubble
and mortar, the latter very hard, and faced with stone. You may know
Roman work by the courses of tiles or bricks. They are arranged in
double layers about 2 feet apart. The so-called bricks are not in the
least like our bricks, being 6 inches long, 12 inches wide and 11/2 inch
thick. The Wall was 20 feet high, with towers and bastions at intervals
about 50 feet high. At first there was no moat or ditch, and it will be
understood that in order to protect the City from an attack of
barbarians--Picts or Scots--it was enough to close the gates and to man
the towers. The invaders had no ladders.
[Illustration: CITY GATES.]
In the course of centuries a great many repairs and rebuildings of the
Wall took place. The Saxons allowed it to fall into a ruinous condition.
Alfred rebuilt it and strengthened it. The next important repairs were
made in the reign of King John in 1215, by Henry III., Edward I.,
Edward II., Edward III., Richard II., Edward IV. After these various
rebuildings there would seem to be little left of the original Wall.
That, however, a great part of it continued to be the hard rubble core
of the Roman work seems evident from the fact that the course of the
Wall was never altered. The only alteration was when they turned the
Wall west at Ludgate down to the Fleet River and so to the confluence of
the Fleet and the Thames. The river side of the Wall was also allowed to
be removed.
[Illustration: REMAINS OF THE WALL.]
The City was thus protected by a great wall pierced by a few gates, with
bastions and towers. At the East End after the Norman Conquest rose the
Great White Tower still standing. At the West End was a tower called
Montfichet's Tower.
[Illustration: PART OF THE ROMAN WALL AT LEICESTER.]
But a wall without a ditch, where a ditch was possible, became of
little use as soon as scaling ladders were invented with wooden movable
towers and other devices. A ditch was accordingly constructed in the
year 1211 in the reign of King John. It appears to have been from the
very first neglected by the citizens, who trusted more to their own
bravery than to the protection of a ditch. It was frequently ordered to
be cleansed and repaired: it abounded, when it was clean, with good fish
of various kinds: but it was gradually allowed to dry up until, in the
reign of Queen Elizabeth, nothing was left but a narrow channel or no
channel at all but a few scattered ponds, with market gardens planted in
the ditch itself. In Agas's map of London these gardens are figured,
with summer houses and cottages for the gardeners and cattle grazing. On
the west side north of Ludgate the ditch has entirely disappeared and
houses are built against the Wall on the outside. Houndsditch is a row
of mean houses facing the moat. Fore Street is also built over against
the moat. Within and without the Wall they placed churchyards--those of
St. Alphege, Allhallows, and St. Martin's Outwich, you may still see for
yourselves within the Wall: that of St. Augustine's at the north end of
St. Mary Axe, has vanished. Those of the three churches of St. Botolph,
Bishopsgate, Aldgate, Aldersgate, and that of St. Giles are churchyards
without the Wall. Then the ditch became filled up and houses were built
all along the Wall within and without. Thus began unchecked, perhaps
openly encouraged, the gradual demolition of the Wall. It takes a long
time to tear down a wall of solid rubble twelve feet thick. It took the
Londoners about 160 years. In the year 1760 they finally removed the
gates. Most of the Wall was gone by this time but large fragments
remained here and there. You may still see a considerable piece, part of
a bastion in the churchyard of St. Giles, and the vestry of All Hallows
on the Wall is built upon a bastion. In Camomile Street and in other
places portions of the Wall have been discovered where excavations have
been made: and, of course, the foundation of the Wall exists still, from
end to end.
12. NORMAN LONDON.
When William the Conqueror received the submission of the City he gave
the citizens a Charter--their first Charter--of freedom. There can be no
doubt that the Charter was the price demanded by the citizens and
willingly paid by the Conqueror in return for their submission. The
following is the document. Short as it is, the whole future of the City
is founded upon these few words:--
'William King greets William Bishop and Gosfrith Portreeve and all the
burghers within London, French and English, friendly.
'I do you to wit that I will that ye be all law worthy that were in King
Edward's day, and I will that every child be his father's heir after his
father's day: and I will not endure that any man offer any wrong to you.
'God keep you.'
The ancient Charter itself is preserved at Guildhall. Many copies of it
and translations of it were made from time to time. Let us see what it
means.
The citizens were to be 'law worthy' as they had been in the days of
King Edward. This meant that they were to be free men in the courts of
justice, with the right to be tried by their equals, that is, by jury.
'All who were law worthy in King Edward's day.' Serfs were not law
worthy, for instance. That the children should inherit their father's
property was, as much as the preceding clause, great security to the
freedom of the City, for it protected the people from any feudal claims
that might arise. Next, observe that there was never any Earl of London:
the City had no Lord but the King: it never would endure any Lord but
the King. An attempt was made, but only one, and that was followed by
the downfall of the Queen--Matilda--who tried it. Feudal customs arose
and flourished and died, but they were unknown in this free city.
But the City with its strong walls, its great multitude of people, and
its resources, might prove so independent as to lock out the King.
William therefore began to build the Tower, by means of which he could
not only keep the enemy out of London but could keep his own strong hand
upon the burghers. He took down a piece of the wall and enclosed twelve
acres of ground, in which he built his stronghold, within a deep and
broad ditch. The work was entrusted to Gundulph, Bishop of Rochester,
who left it unfinished when he died thirty years after.
The next great Charter of the City was granted by Henry the First. He
remitted the payment of the levies for feudal service, of tax called
Danegeld, originally imposed for buying off the Danes: of the murder
tax: of wager of battle, that is, that form of trial in which the
accused and the accuser fought it out, and from certain tolls. He also
gave the citizens the county of Middlesex to farm on payment to the
Crown of 300_l._ a year--a payment still made: they were to appoint a
Sheriff for the county: and they were to have leave to hunt in the
forests of Middlesex, Surrey, and the Chiltern Hills. They were also
empowered to elect their own justiciar and allowed to try their own
cases within their own limits.
[Illustration: TOWER IN THE EARLIER STYLE. CHURCH AT EARL'S BARTON.
(_The battlements are much later._)]
This was a very important Charter. No doubt, like the first, it was
stipulated as a price for the support of the City. William Rufus was
killed on Thursday--Henry was in London on Saturday. He must therefore
have ridden hard to get over the hundred and twenty miles of rough
bridle track between the New Forest and London. But the City supported
him and this was their reward.
We are gradually approaching the modern constitution of the City. The
Portreeve or first Magistrate, in the year 1189, in the person of Henry
Fitz Aylwin, assumed the title of Mayor--not Lord Mayor: the title came
later, a habit or style, never a rank conferred. With him were two
Sheriffs, the Sheriff of the City and the Sheriff of the County. There
was the Bishop: there was the City Justiciar with his courts. There were
also the Aldermen, not yet an elected body.
The Londoners elected Stephen King, and stood by him through all the
troubles that followed. The plainest proof of the strength and
importance of the City is shown in the fact that when Matilda took
revenge on London by depriving the City of its Charters the citizens
rose and drove her out of London and made her cause hopeless.
13. FITZSTEPHEN'S ACCOUNT OF THE CITY.
PART I.
The White Tower is the only building in modern London which belongs to
Norman London. Portions remain--fragments--a part of the church of St.
Bartholomew the Great, a part of the church of St. Ethelburga, the crypt
of Bow Church: very little else. All the rest has been destroyed by
time, by 'improvements,' or by fire, the greatest enemy to cities in
every country and every age. Thus, three great fires in the tenth and
eleventh century swept London from end to end. No need to ask if
anything remains of the Roman or the Saxon City. Not a vestige is
left--except the little fragment, known as the London Stone, now lying
behind iron bars in the wall of St. Swithin's Church. Churches, Palaces,
Monasteries, Castles--all perished in those three fires. The City, no
doubt, speedily sprang again from its ashes, but of its rebuilding on
each occasion we have no details at all.
Most fortunately, there exists a document priceless and unique, short as
it is and meagre in many of its details, which describes London as it
was in the reign of Henry II. It is written by one FitzStephen, Chaplain
to Thomas Becket. He was present at the murder of the Archbishop and
wrote his life, to which this account is an introduction.
[Illustration: A NORMAN SHIP.
(_From the Bayeux Tapestry._)]
He says, first of all, that the City contained thirteen larger
conventual churches and a hundred and twenty-six parish churches. He
writes only fifty years after the Great Fire, so that it is not likely
that new parishes had been erected. All the churches which had been
destroyed were rebuilt. Most of them were very small parishes, with,
doubtless, very small churches. We shall return presently to the
question of the churches.
[Illustration: BUILDING A CHURCH IN THE LATER STYLE.
(_From a drawing belonging to the Society of Antiquaries._)]
On the east was the White Tower which he calls the 'Palatine Castle:'
on the west there were two towers--there was the Tower called
Montfichet, where is now Blackfriars station, and Baynard's Castle,
close beside it. The walls of the City had seven double gates. The river
wall had by this time been taken down. Two miles from the City, on the
west, was the Royal Palace (Westminster), fortified with ramparts and
connected with the City by a populous suburb. Already, therefore, the
Strand and Charing Cross were settled. The gates were Aldgate,
Bishopsgate, Cripplegate, Aldersgate, Newgate, Ludgate, and the Bridge.
FitzStephen says that the citizens were so powerful that they could
furnish the King with 20,000 horsemen and 60,000 foot. This is clearly
gross exaggeration. If we allow 500 for each parish, we get a population
of only 63,000 in all, and in the enumeration later on, for the poll tax
by Richard the Second, there were no more than 48,000. This, however,
was shortly after a great Plague had ravaged the City.
But the writer tells us that the citizens excelled those of any other
city in the world in 'handsomeness of manners and of dress, at table,
and in way of speaking.' There were three principal schools, the
scholars of which rivalled each other, and engaged in public contests of
rhetoric and grammar.
Those who worked at trades and sold wares of any kind were assigned
their proper place whither they repaired every morning. It is easy to
make out from the surviving names where the trades were placed. The
names of Bread Street, Fish Street, Milk Street, Honey Lane, Wood
Street, Soapers' Lane, the Poultry, for instance, indicate what trades
were carried on there. Friday Street shows that the food proper for fast
days was sold there--namely, dried fish. Cheapside preserves the name
of the Chepe, the most important of all the old streets. Here, every
day, all the year round, was a market held at which everything
conceivable was sold, not in shops, but in _selds_, that is, covered
wooden sheds, which could be taken down on occasion. Do not think that
'Chepe' was a narrow street: it was a great open space lying between St.
Paul's and what is now the Royal Exchange, with streets north and south
formed by rows of these _selds_ or sheds. Presently the sheds became
houses with shops in front and gardens behind. The roadway on the south
side of this open space was called the Side of Chepe. There was another
open space for salesmen called East Chepe, another at Billingsgate,
called Roome Lane, another at Dowgate--both for purposes of exposing for
sale imports landed on the Quays and the ports of Queenhithe and
Billingsgate. Those who have seen a market-place in a French town will
understand what these places were like. A large irregular area. On every
side sheds with wares for sale: at first all seems confusion and noise:
presently one makes out that there are streets in orderly array, in
which those who know can find what they want. Here are mercers; here
goldsmiths; here armourers; here glovers; here pepperers or grocers; and
so forth. West Chepe is the place of shops where they sell the things
made in the City and all things wanted for the daily life.
On the other side of the Walbrook, across which there is a bridge where
is now the Poultry, is East Chepe, whither they bring all kinds of
imported goods and sell them to the retailers: and by the river side the
merchants assemble in the open places beside Queenhithe and Billingsgate
to receive or to buy the cargoes sent over from France, Spain, and the
Low Countries. One more open space there was, that round St. Paul's,
the place where the people held their folkmotes. But London was not, as
yet, by any means built over. Its northern parts were covered with
gardens. It was here, as we shall see, that the great monasteries were
shortly to be built.
[Illustration: LAY COSTUMES IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY.]
14. FITZSTEPHEN'S ACCOUNT OF THE CITY.
PART II.
Outside the walls, he says, there were many places of pleasant resort,
streams and springs among them. He means the Fleet River winding at the
bottom of its broad valley: farther west Tyburn and Westbourne: on the
south the Wandle, the Effra, the Ravensbourne. There was a well at
Holywell in the Strand--it lies under the site of the present Opera
Comique Theatre: and at Clerkenwell: these wells had medicinal or
miraculous properties and there were, no doubt, taverns and places of
amusement about there. At Smithfield--or Smooth Field--just outside the
City walls, there was held once a week--on Friday--a horse fair.
Business over, horse racing followed. Then the river was full of fish:
some went fishing for their livelihood: some for amusement: salmon were
plentiful and great fish such as porpoises sometimes found their way
above Bridge.
Then there were the sports of the young men and the boys. They played at
ball--when have not young men played at ball? The young Londoners
practised some form of hockey out of which have grown the two noble
games of cricket and golf. They wrestled and leaped. Nothing is said
about boxing and quarterstaff. But perhaps these belonged to the
practice of arms and archery, which were never neglected, because at any
moment the London craftsman might have to become a soldier. They had
cock fighting, a sport to which the Londoner was always greatly
addicted. And they loved dancing with the girls to the music of pipe and
tabor. In the winter, when the broad fens north of the walls were
frozen, they skated. And they hunted with hawk and hound in the Forest
of Middlesex, which belonged to the City.
[Illustration: COSTUME OF SHEPHERDS IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY.]
The City, he tells us, is governed by the same laws as those of Rome.
Like Rome, London is divided into wards: like Rome the City has annually
elected magistrates who are called Sheriffs instead of Consuls: like
Rome it has senatorial and inferior magistrates: like Rome it has
separate Courts and proper places for law suits, and like Rome the City
holds assemblies on ordered days. The writer is carried away by his
enthusiasm for Rome. As we have seen, the government, laws, and customs
of London owed nothing at all, in any single respect, to Rome.
Everything grew out of the Anglo-Saxon laws and customs.
[Illustration: ECCLESIASTICAL COSTUME IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY.]
By his loud praise of the great plenty of food of every kind which could
be found in London, FitzStephen reminds us that he has lived in other
towns, and especially in Canterbury, when he was in the service of the
Archbishop. We see, though he does not mention it, the comparison in his
mind between the plentiful market of London and the meagre market of
Canterbury. Everything, he says, was on sale. All the roasted meats and
boiled that one can ask for; all the fish, poultry, and game in season,
could every day be bought in London: there were cookshops where dinners
and suppers could be had by paying for them. He dwells at length upon
this abundance. Now in the country towns and the villages the supplies
were a matter of uncertainty and anxiety: a housewife had to keep her
pantry and her larder well victualled in advance: salt meat and salt
fish were the staple of food. Beef and mutton were scarce: game there
was in plenty if it could be taken; but game laws were strict; very
little venison would find its way into Canterbury market. To this cleric
who knew the country markets, the profusion of everything in London was
amazing.
Another thing he notices--'Nearly all the Bishops, Abbots, and Magnates
of England are, as it were, citizens and freemen of London; having their
own splendid houses to which they resort, where they spend largely when
summoned to great Councils by the King, or by their Metropolitan, or
drawn thither by their own private affairs.'
In another century or two London will become, as you shall see, a City
of Palaces. Observe that the palaces are already beginning. Observe,
also, that London is already being enriched by the visits and residence
of great lords who, with their retinues, spend 'largely.' Down to the
present day the same thing has always gone on. The wealthy people who
have their town houses in the West End of London and the thousands of
country people and foreigners who now flock to the London hotels are the
successors of the great men and their following who came up to London in
the twelfth century and spent 'largely.'
'I do not think,' says FitzStephen, 'that there is any city with more
commendable customs of church attendance, honour to God's ordinances,
keeping sacred festivals, almsgiving, hospitality, confirming,
betrothals, contracting marriages, celebration of nuptials, preparing
feasts, cheering the guests, and also in care for funerals and the
interment of the dead. The only pests of London are the immoderate
drinking of fools and the frequency of fires.'
15. LONDON BRIDGE.
PART I.
Nobody knows who built the first Bridge. It was there in the fourth
century--a bridge of timber provided with a fortified gate, one of the
gates of the City. Who put it up, and when--how long it stood--what
space there was between the piers--how broad it was--we do not know.
Probably it was quite a narrow bridge consisting of beams laid across
side by side and a railing at the side. That these beams were not close
together is known by the fact that so many coins have been found in the
bed of the river beneath the old Bridge.
[Illustration: ROYAL ARMS OF ENGLAND FROM RICHARD I. TO EDWARD III.
(_From the wall arcade, south aisle of nave, Westminster Abbey._)]
Besides the Bridge there were ferries across the river, especially
between Dowgate and the opposite bank called St. Mary Overies Dock,
where was afterwards erected St. Mary Overies Priory, to which belonged
the church now called St. Saviour's, Southwark. The docks at either end
of the old ferry still remain.
The Bridge had many misfortunes: it is said to have been destroyed by
the Danes in 1013. Perhaps for 'destruction' we should read 'damage.' It
was, however, certainly burned down in the Great Fire of 1136. Another,
also of wood, was built in its place and, in the year 1176, a bridge of
stone was commenced, which took thirty years to build and remained
standing till the year 1831, when the present Bridge was completed and
the old one pulled down.
The Architect of this stone Bridge, destined to stand for six hundred
and fifty years, was one Peter, Chaplain of St. Mary Colechurch in the
Old Jewry (the church was destroyed in the Great Fire and not rebuilt).
Now the building of bridges was regarded, at this time, as a work of
piety. If we consider how a bridge helps the people we shall agree with
our forefathers. Without a bridge, those living on one side of a river
can only carry on intercourse with those on the other side by means of
boats. Merchants cannot carry their wares about: farmers cannot get
their produce to market: wayfarers can only get across by ferry: armies
cannot march--if you wish to follow an army across a country where there
are no bridges you must look for fords. Roads are useless unless bridges
cross the rivers. The first essential to the union of a nation is the
possibility of intercommunication: without roads and bridges the man of
Devon is a stranger and an enemy to the man of Somerset. We who have
bridges over every river: who need never even ford a stream: who hardly
know what a ferry means: easily forget that these bridges did not grow
like the oaks and the elms: but were built after long study of the
subject by men who were trained for the work just as other men were
trained and taught to build cathedrals and churches. A religious order
was founded in France in the twelfth century: it was called the Order of
the 'Pontife' Brethren--_Pontife_ is Pontifex--that is--Bridge Builder.
The Bridge Building Brothers constructed many bridges in France of
which several still remain. It is not certain that Peter of Colechurch
was one of this Brotherhood, perhaps not. When he died, in 1205, before
the Bridge was completed, King John called over a French 'Pontife' named
Isembert who had built bridges at La Rochelle and Saintes. But the
principal builders are said to have been three merchants of London named
Serle Mercer, William Almain, and Benedict Botewrite. The building of
the Bridge was regarded as a national work: the King: the great Lords:
the Bishops: as well as the London Citizens, gave money to hasten its
completion. The list of donors was preserved on 'a table fair written
for posterity' in the Chapel on the Bridge. It was unhappily destroyed
in the Great Fire.
It must not be supposed that the Bridge of Peter Colechurch was like the
present stately Bridge of broad arches. It contained twenty arches of
irregular breadth: only two or three being the same: they varied from 10
feet to 32 feet: some of them therefore were very narrow: the piers were
also of different lengths. These irregularities were certainly
intentional and were based upon some observations on the rise and fall
of the tide. No other great Bridge had yet been constructed across a
tidal river.
When the Bridge was built it was thought necessary to consecrate it to
some saint. The latest saint, St. Thomas Becket, was chosen as the
titular saint of this Bridge. A chapel, dedicated to him, was built in
the centre pier of the Bridge: it was, in fact, a double chapel: in the
lower part, the crypt, was buried Peter of Colechurch himself: the upper
part, which escaped the Great Fire, became, after the Reformation, a
warehouse.
16. LONDON BRIDGE.
PART II.
Houses were erected in course of time along the Bridge on either side
like a street, but with intervals; and along the roadway in the middle
were chain posts to protect the passengers. As the Bridge was only 40
feet wide the houses must have been small. But they were built out at
the back overhanging the river, and the roadway itself was not intended
for carts or wheeled vehicles. Remember that everything was brought to
the City on pack horse or pack ass. The table of Tolls sanctioned by
King Edward I. makes no mention of cart or waggon at all. Men on
horseback and loaded horses can get along with a very narrow road.
Perhaps we may allow twelve feet for the road which gives for the houses
on either side a depth of 14 feet each.
[Illustration: OLD LONDON BRIDGE.]
These houses were occupied chiefly by shops, most of which were
'haberdashers and traders in small wares.' Later on there were many
booksellers. Paper merchants and stationers, after the Reformation,
occupied the chapel. The great painter Hans Holbein lived on the Bridge
and the two marine painters Peter Monamy and Dominic Serres also lived
here.
The narrowness of the arches and the rush of the flowing or the ebbing
tide made the 'shooting' of the Bridge a matter of great danger. The
Duke of Norfolk in 1429 was thrown into the water by the capsizing of
his boat and narrowly escaped with his life. Queen Henrietta, in 1628,
was nearly wrecked in the same way by running into the piers while
shooting the Bridge. Rubens the painter was thrown into the water in the
same way.
One of the twenty arches formed a drawbridge which allowed vessels of
larger size than barges to pass up the river and could be used to keep
back an enemy. In this way Sir Thomas Wyatt in 1557 was kept out of
London. Before this drawbridge stood a tower on the battlements of which
were placed the heads of traitors and criminals. The heads of Sir
William Wallace, Jack Cade, Sir Thomas More and many others were stuck
up here. On the Southwark side was another tower.
The Bridge, which was the pride and boast of London, was endowed with
lands for its maintenance: the rents of the houses were also collected
for the same purpose: a toll was imposed on all merchandise carried
across, and a Brotherhood was formed, called the Brothers of St. Thomas
on the Bridge, whose duty it was to perform service in the chapel and to
keep the Bridge in repair.
Repairs were always wanting: to keep some of the force of the water off
the piers these were furnished with 'starlings,' i.e. at first piles
driven down in front of the piers, afterwards turned into projecting
buttresses of stone. Then corn mills were built in some of the openings,
and in the year 1582 great waterworks were constructed at the southern
end. The tower before the drawbridge was by Queen Elizabeth rebuilt and
made a very splendid house--called Nonesuch House. The Fire destroyed
the houses on the Bridge, some of which were not rebuilt: and in the
year 1757 all the houses were removed from the Bridge.
The New Bridge was finished and opened in 1831--it stands 180 feet west
of its predecessor. Then the Old Bridge was pulled down. The work of
Peter Colechurch lasted from 1209 to 1831 or 622 years. The Pontife
Brothers, therefore, knew how to put in good and lasting work.
This is the history of London Bridge. First a narrow wooden gangway of
beams lying on timber piles with a fortified gate; then a stone
structure of twenty irregular arches, the Bridge broad but the roadway
still narrow with houses on either side and a fortress and a chapel upon
it--in those times there was always a fortress, and there was always a
chapel. It must have been a pleasant place of residence: the air fresh
and clear: the supply of water unlimited--one drew it up in a bucket:
always something going on: the entrance of a foreign ambassador, a
religious procession, a riding of the Lord Mayor, a pageant, a nobleman
with his livery, a Bishop or a Prior with his servants, a pilgrimage, a
string of pack horses out of Kent bringing fruit for the City: always
something to see. Then there were the stories and traditions of the
place, with the songs which the children sang about the Bridge.
Especially there was the story of Edward Osborne. He was the son of one
Richard Osborne, a gentleman of Kent. Like many sons of the poor country
gentlemen, he was sent up to London and apprenticed to Sir William
Hewitt a cloth worker who lived on London Bridge. His master had a
daughter named Anne, a little girl who one day, while playing with her
nurse at an open window overhanging the river, fell out into the rushing
water sixty feet below. The apprentice, young Osborne, leaped into the
river after her and succeeded in saving her. When the girl was grown up
her father gave her to his ex-apprentice, Edward Osborne, to wife.
Edward Osborne became Lord Mayor. His descendant is now Duke of Leeds.
So that the Dukedom of Leeds sprang from that gallant leap out of the
window overhanging the river Thames from London Bridge.
17. THE TOWER OF LONDON.
PART I.
In an age when every noble's house was a castle, and when every castle
was erected in order to dominate, as well as to defend, the town and the
district in which it stood, the Tower of London was erected. The builder
of the White Tower was William the Conqueror, who gave the City its
Charter but had no intention of giving up his own sovereignty; the
architect, as has been already said, was one Gundulph, Bishop of
Rochester. Part of the City wall was pulled down to make room for it,
and it was intended at once for the King's Palace, the King's Castle,
and the King's Prison. It was also the key of London--who held the
Tower, held the City.
William Rufus built a wall round the Tower so as to separate it entirely
from the City and to prevent the danger of a hasty rising of the
people: with the same object he gave it a water gate.
A hundred years later, while Richard Coeur de Lion was on his Crusade,
the moat was constructed. Henry III. and his son Edward I. added to the
outer walls and strengthened them.
[Illustration: TOWER OF LONDON.]
There is a plan of the Tower made from a survey of the year 1597 and
published by the Society of Antiquaries. A study of the plan should be
made before visiting the place. Remark first of all that the fortress
has three entrances only: one at the S.W. angle to the City; one to the
river now called Traitors' Gate; and one on the S.E. angle called the
Irongate: that it is surrounded by a broad and deep moat which could be
filled at every high tide: that from the moat rises a battlemented wall,
and that within this first wall is another, flanked with protecting
towers; that the City entrance is most jealously guarded by a strong
gate first: then by a narrow way passing under a tower: then over a
bridge. In all mediaeval castles the first thought was to make it
impossible to carry the place by a rush. If we would restore the Tower
of Queen Elizabeth to the Tower of Edward III. we must abolish all those
buildings which stand on the north and east sides, with those called
'Lieutenants' Lodgings' on the south. The space on the north side of the
Keep was the exercising ground: stables there must have been somewhere
in this great area; the men at arms would live in the smaller towers. If
you will study this plan carefully, you will understand the general
arrangement of a mediaeval castle.
In the sixteenth century the place was no longer regarded as a fortress
for the defence or the domination of the City. But the old forms were
kept up: nobody was admitted who carried arms: the guard kept the gate:
a garrison was maintained. Within, there was an armoury, the beginning
of the splendid collection which is now shown: there was a Mint for the
coining of money: there were collections of tapestry, saddles, bed
furniture and robes belonging to the Crown: here were kept the Crown and
sceptre and insignia: here was the Royal menagerie. Here were the rooms
reserved for state criminals. It was no longer the Royal Palace but the
sovereign sometimes occupied the Tower. James the First was here, for
instance, in 1604.
Near the outer gate where is now the Refreshment Room were kept the
King's lions. Henry I. began this menagerie which was continued until
the year 1834. At the entrance of the fortress is the Bell Tower where
Queen Elizabeth was once confined. The Water Gate called Traitors' Gate
is under St. Thomas's Tower. The Beauchamp Tower has been the prison of,
among others, Queen Anne Boleyn and Lady Jane Grey. In the Great White
Tower Richard II. abdicated in favour of Henry IV. In the vaults are
dungeons, once the prison of Guy Fawkes. In the Chapel the newly made
Knights of the Bath watched their armour all night long. The collection
of arms contains examples of weapons and armour of every age. In the
Church of St. Peter ad Vincula you will find the graves of the
unfortunate Princes, Queens, and nobles who have been executed for State
offences. Nothing, except the Royal tombs of Westminster, so much helps
to prove the reality of History, as this collection of graves and slabs
and tablets in this little church. And here were kept the Crown jewels
about which many a chapter might be written.
But to study the Tower of London one must visit it with the History of
England in hand. Hither were brought all the State prisoners: here they
were confined: here they were executed. Every tower, every stone reminds
one of sufferers and criminals and traitors and innocent victims. Do
not, however, forget that this Tower was built for the restriction of
the liberties of the people. That purpose has been defeated. The
liberties have grown beyond what could ever have been hoped while the
privileges of the Crown, which this Tower was built to protect and to
enlarge, have been restricted beyond the greatest fears of the mediaeval
kings.
18. THE TOWER OF LONDON.
PART II.
Of all the prisoners who suffered death at the termination of their
captivity in the Tower, there is none whose fate was so cruel as that of
Lady Jane Grey. Her story belongs to English history. Recall, when next
you visit the Tower, the short and tragic life of this young Queen of a
nine days' reign.
[Illustration]
She was not yet eighteen when she was beheaded, not through any fault of
her own, but solely because her relationship to the Crown placed her in
the hands of men who used her for their own political purposes. She was
the second cousin of Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth. Her grandmother
was the sister of Henry VIII., widow of Louis XII. of France, and wife
of Charles, Duke of Suffolk. The young King on his deathbed was
persuaded to name her as his successor. She was sixteen years of age:
she was already married to Lord Guilford Dudley, son of the Duke of
Northumberland: when she was proclaimed Queen. Nine days after the
proclamation she was a prisoner. On the 8th of July she was
acknowledged Queen by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen: on the 10th she was
taken by water from Greenwich to the Tower, and proclaimed Queen in the
City: on the 17th another proclamation was made of Queen Mary, and her
reign was over. But the Tower she was never more to leave.
On the 13th of November--after five months of suspense--she was tried
for high treason with Cranmer, her husband Lord Guilford, and her
husband's brother, Lord Ambrose. They were all four found guilty, and
condemned to death--their judges being the very men who had sworn
allegiance to her as Queen. It would seem that Mary had no desire to
carry out the sentence: Cranmer she reserved for a more cruel death than
that of beheading--he was to be burned as a heretic. The other three,
two boys and a girl, it would be dangerous to execute on account of the
popular sympathy their death would awaken. They were therefore sent back
to the Tower. Probably it was intended that Lady Jane, at least, should
pass the rest of her life in honourable captivity, as happened later on
to Arabella Stuart. But the rebellion of Wyatt showed that her name
could still be used as a cry in favour of a Protestant succession. It
was therefore resolved to put both husband and wife to death. What
further harm the young Lord Guilford Dudley could do is not apparent.
Even then the Queen's advisers shrank from exhibiting on Tower Hill the
spectacle of a young and beautiful girl, taken forth to be beheaded
because certain hot-headed partizans had used her name. She was executed
therefore within the verge of the Tower itself, on the so-called
'Green.'
'The Green' is a place where no grass will grow--it used to be said--on
account of the blood that had been shed upon it. Among the sufferers
here was Hastings, executed by order of King Richard: Anne Boleyn:
Katharine Howard: and Lady Jane Grey. A stone marks the spot on which
the scaffold was set up.
It was on the morning of the 12th of February that Lady Jane Grey was
put to death. She was then confined in the 'Brick' Tower, the residence
of the Master of the Ordnance. From her window she saw the headless body
of her husband brought back from Tower Hill in a cart. She looked upon
it without shrinking. 'Oh! Guilford,' she said, 'the antipast is not so
bitter after thou hast tasted, and which I shall soon taste, as to make
my flesh tremble: it is nothing compared to the feast of which we shall
partake this day in Heaven.' So she went forth with her two gentlewomen,
Elizabeth Tylney and Mistress Helen, but she shed no tears. When she was
on the scaffold she spoke to the officers of the Tower and the soldiers
that stood around. No man or woman, however wise and dignified, could
speak more clearly and with greater dignity than this girl of sixteen.
They had been trying to make her a Catholic. Therefore, she made
confession of the Protestant Faith: 'Good Christian people, bear witness
that I die a true Christian woman and that I do look to be saved by no
other means but only by the mercy of God, in the blood of his only son,
Jesus Christ.'
So she made her gentlewomen bare her neck and bind her eyes and kneeling
down laid her head upon the block, and while she was saying, 'Lord, into
Thy hands I commend my spirit,' the axe fell and she was dead.
She lies buried before the altar of St. Peter's Church, near the bodies
of the Queens Anne Boleyn and Katharine Howard.
So she died, this poor innocent child of whom all we know is that she
was so scholarly that she could read Greek in the original: that she
was beautiful: of a grave and sweet disposition: and raised far above
the voice of calumny. She had, says Foxe, 'the innocency of childhood,
the beauty of youth, the gravity of age: she had the birth of a
princess, the learning of a clerk, the life of a saint, and the death of
a malefactor for her parents' offences.'
[Illustration: A BED IN THE REIGN OF HENRY III.]
19. THE PILGRIMS.
In the time when the road connecting village with village and town with
town was but an uncertain bridle path through woods and over waste
places, where in winter horse, man, and wayfarer struggled with bog and
quagmire, where robbers lurked in the thickets, and fevers and agues
haunted the marsh, where men went armed and every stranger was a foe: it
would seem as if most men stayed where they were born and desired not to
court the dangers of the unknown world. In many villages, especially in
the remote places of the country, this was the case. The men of Somerset
abode where they were born, speaking their own language, a race apart:
the men of Norfolk abode in their county cut off from the rest of the
world by fens in the west and sea on the north and east: their language
was not understood by the men of the west or the south country. Had the
other conditions of life allowed this isolation to continue
undisturbed, the nation could never have been created: we should have
remained a scattered collection of tribes speaking each its own language
and developing its own customs.
There were three causes which stirred the stagnant waters. The first was
War. The Baron, or Feudal Lord, carried off the young men of the village
to fight: those of them who returned had things to tell of the outside
world. They fired the imagination and awakened the enterprise of the
lads. The second was Trade at the trading ports: the lads saw, and
continued to talk with, the foreign sailors--the Fleming, the German,
the man of Rouen or Bordeaux: some of them went on board the ships of
the merchant adventurers and sailed to foreign lands. Lastly, there were
the Pilgrimages.
From the tenth to the fifteenth century there was a rage for pilgrimage.
Everybody wanted to become a pilgrim. No money was wanted: there would
certainly be found every day some monastery at which bed and a supper
would be provided for the pilgrim: it was a joyous company which fared
along the road, some riding, some on foot, travelling together for
safety, all bound to the same shrine where they would hear the masses
and make their vows and so return, light-hearted: it was, in fact, the
mediaeval way of taking a holiday. Sometimes it was to Canterbury, where
was the shrine of Thomas Becket, that the pilgrims were bound: sometimes
to Walsingham, where was the miraculous image of the Virgin: sometimes
to Glastonbury, hallowed by the thorn miraculously flowering every year
on Christmas Day, planted by Joseph of Arimathea himself: sometimes it
was farther afield--to Compostella in Spain, Rome, or even
Jerusalem--that the pilgrims proposed to go. Chaucer describes such a
company all starting together, riding from London to Canterbury on
pilgrimage to the shrine of Thomas Becket. They are pilgrims, but there
is very little piety in their discourse: one can see that, whatever the
motive, whether for the expiation of sin, or any other cause, the
journey is full of cheerfulness and enjoyment. The Crusades were one
outcome of this passion for pilgrimage. Nay, the first Crusade itself
was little better than a great pilgrimage of the common people, so
ignorant that they asked at the sight of every walled town if that was
Jerusalem. It was a pilgrimage from which few, indeed, returned.
In England, the chief gain from pilgrimage was the bringing together of
men from the different parts of the country. Remember that the men of
the North could not understand the speech of the men of the South: a
Norfolk rustic at the present day would hardly understand a man of
Devon: there was always danger of forgetting that they all belonged to
the same realm, the same nation, and the same race.
But the love of pilgrimage spread so wide that it became a danger. The
rustic left the plough: the blacksmith his anvil: the carpenter his
bench: all left their wives and their children in order to tramp across
the country on pilgrimage to some shrine. By day they marched together:
at night they sat round the fire in the strangers' room of the
monastery, and took their supper and slept on the reeds. A delightful
change from the monotony and hard work of the village! But the Bishops
interposed. Let no one go on pilgrimage without his Bishop's license.
Let not the monasteries give a bed and supper to any pilgrim who could
not show his Bishop's license. Then the rustics and the craftsmen had to
remain at home where they have stayed, except when they went out to
fight, ever since.
When the pilgrim--especially the pilgrim who had been over the
seas--came home, he was able to entertain his friends with stories he
had seen all the rest of his life. Thus, the earliest plan of the Holy
Sepulchre is one drawn by a pilgrim for the instruction of certain monks
who entertained him. The pilgrims were the travellers of the time. They
observed foreign manners and customs: they brought home seeds and told
of strange food: they extended the boundaries of the world: they
prevented the native village from becoming the whole world: they taught
and encouraged men to cease from regarding a stranger as an enemy. The
world was thus opened out by War, Trade, and Pilgrimage, but most of all
by Pilgrimage.
20. ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S HOSPITAL.
The oldest of the City Hospitals is that great and splendid Foundation
which stands in Smithfield--the Smooth Field. It was first founded by
one Rahere, of whom we know little or nothing except that he lived in
the reign of Henry I., and that he founded the Priory and Monastery of
St. Bartholomew. In the church of St. Bartholomew the Great you may see
a very beautiful tomb said to be his, but the work is of a later date.
It is related that while on a pilgrimage to Rome he fell ill and was
like to die. And he vowed that if he were restored to health he would
erect and establish a hospital for poor sick people. He did recover and
he fulfilled his vow. He built the Priory of St. Bartholomew, whose
church still stands in part and beside it established his hospital. The
place called Smithfield was then a swampy field used for a horse fair:
it was also a place of execution without the City wall. At first the
hospital was a very small place. It consisted probably of two large
rooms or halls, one for men and one for women--with a chapel. If it had
any endowment at all it must have been very small, because the Master or
Hospitaller had to go every morning to the Shambles, Newgate, in order
to beg meat for the maintenance of the sick. Two hundred years later the
hospital was taken in hand by Edward IV. and provided with an
establishment of Master, eight brethren, priests, and four sisters, who
served the sick. They were all subject to the Rule of St. Austin. After
the death of Whittington, the hospital buildings were repaired by his
bequests. On the dissolution of the religious houses, the Priory and
Hospital of Bartholomew fell with the rest, but five years later the
hospital was refounded and endowed by the King and the City.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE HALL AT PENSHURST, KENT.
(_Showing the screen with minstrels' gallery over it, and the brazier
for fire in the middle; built about 1340._)]
If you visit a hospital and are taken into a ward, you see a row of
clean white beds arranged in orderly position on either side of the long
room: the temperature is regulated: the ventilation is perfect: there
are means by which the patient can be examined in private: the diseases
are apportioned to separate wards: every thing is managed with the
greatest cleanliness and order: if an operation is performed the patient
is kept under chloroform and feels nothing. The physicians are men of
the highest scientific reputation: the nurses are trained assistants:
the food is the best that can be procured. The poorest man brought to
the hospital is treated with the same care, the same science, the same
luxuries as the richest.
Look, however, at the hospital as founded by Rahere.
There is a great hall with a chapel at one end: at which mass is daily
sung. The room is narrow and lofty, lit by Norman windows, two or three
on a side: there is a lanthorn in the roof: under the lanthorn a fire is
burning every day, the smoke rising to the roof: the hall is dark and
ill ventilated, the air foul and heavy with the breath of sixty or
seventy sick men lying in beds arranged in rows along the wall. There
are not separate beds for each patient, but as the sick are brought in
they are laid together side by side, in the same bed, whatever the
disease, so that he who suffers from fever is placed beside another who
suffers from palsy. There are four in a bed, and in times of pressure
even more. Sometimes one arrives who develops the plague, when the
whole of the patients in the hospital catch the infection and all die
together. The surgeons are especially skilled in the dressing of wounds
received in battle or in fray: the sisters can tie up a broken limb and
stop a bleeding wound. The brethren go about the beds administering the
last offices of the Church to the dying. The food is scanty: the
appliances are rude: there is small hope of recovery: yet to die in
hospital tended and consoled instead of in the hut where life has been
passed is something for which to be grateful.
[Illustration: THE UPPER CHAMBER OR SOLAR AT SUTTON COURTENAY
MANOR-HOUSE.
(_Date, about 1350._)]
Consider into how great, how noble a Foundation the little hospital of
Rahere has grown. The modern hospital contains 676 beds: it receives
about 150,000 patients every year, of whom 7,000 are inpatients, 18,000
out patients, and 130,000 casuals. The eight brethren have become 30
physicians and surgeons besides the assistants called clinical clerks
and dressers. The four sisters are now 159 sisters and nurses. There is
a noble school of medicine: there are museums, libraries, lecture rooms,
and there is a residential college for medical students: there is a
convalescent hospital in the country. No hospital in the world has a
larger or a more noble record than this of St. Bartholomew. And it all
sprang from the resolution of one man, who started a humble house for
the reception of the sick in a poor and despised place outside the City
wall, but near to the Shambles where one could beg for broken victuals
and for the pieces of meat that the butchers could not sell. Thus out of
one good deed, apparently of small importance, has grown a never-ending
stream of refreshment and healing. It has lasted for 700 years already:
there seems no reason why it should ever stop.
21. THE TERROR OF LEPROSY.
One mile outside the City walls, on the west, stood for four hundred
years the Hospital of St. Giles in the Fields.
Here was a Lazar House, i.e. a Hospital for Lepers. It was founded by
Maud, Queen of Henry I. It was dedicated to St. Giles because this saint
was considered the protector of cripples. Hence the name Cripplegate,
which really means the Little Gate, was applied to the church of St.
Giles, and supposed to mean the gate near the church dedicated to the
Patron Saint of Cripples. A common result of leprosy was to make the
sufferer lame and crippled. Hence the connection. Generally, however,
Lazarus, whom our Lord raised from the dead, was esteemed the Saint of
Lepers, whence a Leper's Hospital was always called a Lazar House.
In the middle ages the mysterious disease called leprosy was an ever
present terror. Other plagues appeared at intervals and disappeared.
Leprosy remained. It never left the land. It struck the King on his
Throne, the Bishop in his Cathedral, the Abbess in her Nunnery, the
soldier in camp, the merchant in his counting house, the sailor at sea.
No class could escape it. Robert Bruce died of it; Orivalle, Bishop of
London, died of it; Baldwin, King of Jerusalem, died of it. To this day
it prevails in India, at the Cape, in the Pacific Islands, while there
are occasional cases found in our own hospitals. The disease was
incurable: the man, woman, or child, attacked by it would surely and
slowly die of it. The leper was unclean: he was thrust out of the town:
he had to live apart, or congregated in hospitals with other wretches
similarly afflicted: if he walked abroad he wore a grey gown for
distinction and carried a clapper as he went along, crying 'Unclean,
Unclean,' so that the people might stand aside and not so much as touch
his garments. And since he could not work with his hands, he was
permitted to carry into the market a 'clap dish,' that is to say, a bowl
or basin in which to receive food and alms.[2]
[2] Lacroix, _Science_, p. 146.
Leprosy is supposed to have had its origin in Egypt: the laws laid down
in the Book of Leviticus for the separation of lepers are stringent and
precise: it was believed, partly, no doubt, on account of these statutes
in the Book of the Jewish Law, that the disease was brought into Western
Europe by the Crusaders; but this was erroneous, because it was in this
country before the Crusaders. Thus the Palace of St. James stands upon
the site of a lazar house founded before the Conquest for fourteen
leprous maidens.
This is not the place to describe the symptoms and the results of this
dreadful disease. Suffice it to say that the skin thickens, is
discoloured and ulcerates: that the limbs swell: that the fingers and
toes drop off: that the voice sinks to a whisper: and that the
sufferer's mind is weakened by his malady.
The fearful scourge was so prevalent that there was not a town, hardly a
village, in any country of Europe which had not, in those centuries, its
lepers and its lazar house, great or small. Every effort was made to
isolate them: they were not allowed to worship with the rest of the
people: they were provided with a separate building or chapel where,
through a hole in the wall, they could look on at the performance of
mass. And in addition, as you have seen, they lived apart and took their
food apart.
As for their houses--the lazar houses--the chief of them all, the place
where Abbot possessed some kind of authority over the others, was one
built in a village near Melton Mowbray called Burton Lazars. The
Hospital of St. Giles, for instance, became shortly after its foundation
a 'cell,' or dependency, of this House.
Whatever the cause of this malady, whether it be contagious, i.e.
communicated by touch; or infectious, that is, communicated by breathing
the same air; or hereditary; it is quite certain that it was greatly
aggravated by the habits of the time. Bad food, uncleanly habits, bad
air, all contributed to the spread of leprosy. Especially it has been
considered that the long fasts during which meat was prohibited
encouraged the disease: not because abstinence from meat is in itself a
bad thing, but because the people had to eat fish imperfectly cured or
kept too long, and unwholesome. Fresh-water fish could not be procured
in sufficient quantities and it was impossible to convey fish from the
sea more than a certain distance inland.
[Illustration: THE LEPERS BEGGING.]
The dreadful appearance of the lepers, their horrible sufferings,
produced loathing more than pity. People were horror stricken at the
sight of them: they drove them out of their sight: they punished them
cruelly if they broke the rules of separation: they imprisoned any
citizen who should harbour a leper: they kept bailiffs at the City gates
to keep them from entering. Fourteen of these afflicted persons were
required to be maintained in accordance with Queen Maud's Foundation by
the Hospital of St. Giles: there was also a lazar house in the Old Kent
Road, Southwark: one between Mile End and Bow: one at Kingsland between
Shoreditch and Stoke Newington: one at Knightsbridge, west of Charing
Cross, and one at Holloway.
On the Dissolution of the Monasteries, all these lazar houses were
suppressed. Now, since we hear very little more about lepers, and since
no new lazar houses were built, and since the prohibitions to enter
churches, towns, &c., are no more renewed, it is tolerably certain that
leprosy by the middle of the sixteenth century had practically
disappeared. The above will show, however, how great and terrible a
thing it was between the ninth and the sixteenth centuries.
22. THE TERROR OF FAMINE.
Suppose that all the ocean traffic were stopped; that there was no
communication, or exchange of commodities, between our country and
another; suppose that the people of this island depended entirely on
their own harvests and their own cattle for their support. You would
then easily understand how a single bad year might produce scarcity of
food, and a very bad year might produce a famine. That was our condition
down to the fifteenth century. Some corn may have been brought over from
Prussia or from Hamburg; but there was no regular supply; the country
depended on its own harvests. Therefore, the fear of a famine--or of
scarcity--was ever present to the people.
Many of these famines are on record. In the year 990 a famine raged over
the whole of England; in 1126 there was a terrible scarcity. Wheat was
sold at 6_s._ a horseload. Now, in the twelfth century a shilling meant
more than a pound of our money, in purchasing power. It is not stated
how much constituted a horseload. It would probably mean the filling of
the two baskets hanging on either side of the packhorse. In 1257, after
a wet season and a bad harvest, wheat rose to 24_s._ a quarter, a price
which prohibited all but the richest from eating wheaten bread. It is
said that 20,000 perished of starvation. In 1316, after the same cause,
wheat became so scarce that its price rose to 4_l._ a quarter. So great
was the distress this year, that great nobles had to dismiss their
retainers; the roads in the country were crowded with robbers. Robberies
were openly committed in the streets for the sake of food: in the
prisons the unfortunate criminals, left to starve, murdered and devoured
each other. The people ate carrion and dead dogs. In 1335 there was
another time of scarcity and suffering; in 1439, the distress was so
great that the people made bread of fern roots and ivy berries. Then,
for the first time, we read of the famine being assuaged by the arrival
of rye from Prussia. In 1527 a threatened famine was checked by the
Hanseatic merchants who gave, or sold, a hundred quarters of wheat to
the City and sent three ships to Dantzig for more. In 1593 and in 1597
wheat rose to an enormous price. The last time of scarcity was during
the long war with France, which lasted, from 1792 to 1815, nearly a
quarter of a century. We were then compelled to depend almost entirely
upon our own harvests. Wheat went up as high as 103_s._ a quarter.
At no time did the poorer classes depend much upon wheat. Rye and oats
made the bread of the working people. But bad harvests affected rye and
oats as much as wheat.
The famine prices of wheat may be explained by the following facts. In
the reign of Henry I., at ordinary prices, bread enough for one meal for
100 men could be bought for a shilling and a whole sheep cost fourpence.
In the next century, when wheat was at 6_s._ a quarter, a farthing loaf
was to weigh 24 oz. whole meal and 16 oz. white. When it was at 1_s._
6_d._ a quarter the farthing loaf was to weigh 96 oz. whole grain and 64
oz. white. The quartern loaf of 4 lb. or 64 oz. now costs 5_d._, wheat
being very cheap. So that prices in time of plenty being supposed the
same, money was worth twenty times in that century as much as it is
worth now. In the reign of Edward I. wheat went down to 1_s._ a quarter.
The food of the craftsmen in London was, in ordinary times, plentiful
and cheap. The City, as we have seen, was always remarkable for the
great abundance of provision which was brought there. And there is every
reason to believe that while the rustic fared poorly and was underfed,
the craftsman of the towns always enjoyed good food and enough of it.
This made a time of scarcity hard to bear for one who habitually lived
well.
Once or twice an attempt was made to provide the City with granaries in
case of famine. Thus the origin of Leadenhall, the great City market,
was the erecting of a public granary here by Sir Simon Eyre in 1419.
Attached to the Hall, after the manner of the time, was a chapel
dedicated to the Holy Trinity, which the founder endowed for 60 priests
who were to prepare service every day for those who frequented the
market.
Another public granary was established in 1610 at Bridewell Palace. This
was built to contain 6,000 quarters of wheat.
Nothing more is heard about these public granaries. Probably the public
mind grew more assured on the subject of famine as it became better
understood that the loss of one country might be made up from the
superfluous harvests of another. The lesson taught by the Hanseatic
merchants in sending to Prussia for corn was not likely to be lost.
At the present moment, with means of transport always in readiness and
the electric wire joining the most distant countries, it might seem that
famine was a thing no longer to be feared. There cannot be bad harvests
all over the world. Not only can we every year import so much wheat that
we need grow little in this country, but we import frozen meat in vast
quantities: we bring fruit of all kinds from the most distant countries,
insomuch that there are some fruits, such as apples, oranges, grapes,
bananas, which we can enjoy the whole year round. But famine may yet
play a great and a disastrous part in our history. We must not forget
that we enjoy our present abundance of all things on one of two
conditions; first, that we are strong enough to protect the waterway and
keep it open, or, secondly, that we remain at peace. The latter we
cannot hope to do always. Therefore it is of vital importance that we
maintain a strong fleet, well equipped, ready to fight, at all times and
at the shortest notice, superior to any likely combination that may be
brought against us. Therefore, again, it behoves every man in these
Isles to be jealous of the fleet, for a time may come when the way of
the ocean may be closed and when Great Britain, through the neglect of
her rulers, may be starved into a shameful and ruinous surrender.
23. ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL.
PART I.
When London was converted to Christianity, in the year 610, the first
Bishop of London, Mellitus, built a church on the highest ground within
the walls of the City. This church he dedicated to St. Paul the Apostle
who first preached to the Gentiles. What kind of church this
was--whether great or small--whether of wood or of stone--how often
rebuilt or repaired--we know not. Probably it was quite a small church
at first. This church, or its successor, was taken down in the year 1087
when Bishop Maurice began to build a new and far more stately Cathedral.
Fifty years later most of the church, not yet completed, was burned
down. Its building, thus delayed, was continued for nearly two
centuries. The steeple was not completed, for instance, till a hundred
and fifty years after the commencement of the building. The drawing
shows the church as it was in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
Old St. Paul's was one of the largest churches in Europe: its length was
at least 600 feet; the spire reached the height of 460 feet. The church
stood in a large walled enclosure, still kept partly open, though the
wall has long since been pulled down and there have been encroachments
on the north side.
[Illustration: LONDON BEFORE THE SPIRE OF ST. PAUL'S WAS BURNED: SHOWING
ALSO THE BRIDGE, THE TOWER, SHIPPING, ETC.]
The church in the fourteenth century was not regarded only as a place
for public worship. Masses and services of all kinds were going on all
day long: the place was bright, not only with the sunlight streaming
through the painted glass, but with wax tapers burning before many a
shrine--at some, all day and all night. People came to the church to
walk about, for rest, for conversation, for the transaction of
business--to make or receive payments: to hire servants. The middle
aisle of the church where all this was done was called Paul's Walk or
Duke Humphrey's Walk. Here were tables where twelve licensed scribes sat
writing letters for those who wanted their services. They would also
prepare a lease, a deed, a conveyance--any legal document. The church
was filled with tombs and monuments, some of these very ancient, some of
the greatest interest. Here was one called the tomb of Duke
Humphrey--Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, who was really buried at St.
Alban's. On May Day the watermen used to come to St. Paul's in order to
sprinkle water and strew herbs upon this tomb--I know not why. Those who
were out of work and went dinnerless were said to dine with Duke
Humphrey: and there was a proverb--'Trash and trumpery is the way to
Duke Humphrey.' Trumpery being used in its original
meaning--_tromperie_--_deceit_. Among other tombs there were those of
the Saxon Kings Sebbi and Ethelred. The first of these was King of the
East Saxons. He was converted by Bishop Erkenwald. The second was the
elder brother of King Alfred. There were tombs or shrines to many saints
now forgotten--that of St. Erkenwald, whose fame rivalled that of Edward
the Confessor at Westminster, St. Cuthbert at Durham, and St. Thomas a
Becket at Canterbury: that of St. Ethelbert: that of St. Roger, Bishop
of London--a cope which St. Roger wore is still preserved in the
Sacristy: and that of St. Wilford. At every one of these shrines
miracles were wrought--or believed to be wrought. There was also a
miraculous crucifix said to have been discovered by Lucius, the first
Christian King of ancient Britain in the year 140. Great gifts were
constantly made to this crucifix.
Under the Cathedral, in the crypt, was a parish church--that of St.
Faith's--it is now united with the parish church of St. Augustine's in
Watling Street.
[Illustration: OLD ST. PAUL'S, FROM THE EAST.
(_Showing its condition just before the Great Fire; from an engraving by
Hollar._)]
Outside the church, almost against the south wall, was the parish church
of St. Gregory. In the same way the parish church of St. Margaret's
stands outside Westminster Abbey. Within, we can see, in imagination,
the people walking about--they have not yet begun to stand bareheaded in
church--some dictating to the scribes: some leaning against the tombs:
some sitting on the bases of the great round pillars--there were no
pews, benches, or chairs in the Cathedral: the chantry priests are
saying masses in the chapels: the people are kneeling before the golden
shrine of St. Erkenwald, resplendent with lights, jewels, gold, and
silver: women lay their offerings before the miraculous crucifix praying
for the restoration to health of son or husband: a wedding is celebrated
in one chapel: a funeral mass is being said in another: servants gather
about a certain pillar waiting to be hired: porters carrying baskets on
their heads enter at the north door and tramp through, going out of the
south: processions of priests and choir pass up and down the aisles: the
organ peals and echoes along the long and lofty roof. See; here comes a
troop of men. They carry instruments of music: they are dressed in a
livery, a cloak of green: they march together entering at the western
doors and tramping through the whole length of the church to the chapel
of Our Lady in the East. This is the Guild of the Minstrels. There were
many other guilds attached to the Cathedral. You shall learn presently
what was the meaning of these guilds.
24. ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL.
PART II.
Such was Paul's in the fifteenth century. In the sixteenth the
Reformation came. The candles were all put out; the shrines were
destroyed; the altars were taken out of the chapels: the miraculous
images were taken away: the church, compared with its previous
condition, became a shell. The choir was walled off for public worship:
the rest of the church became a place of public resort: the poets of the
time are full of allusions to Paul's Walk. It was a common thoroughfare
even for men leading pack horses and asses. The Cathedral, left to
neglect, began to fall into a ruinous condition. An attempt was made at
restoration: funds were collected, but they came in slowly. Laud, who
became Bishop of London in 1631, gave an impetus to the work: the
celebrated Inigo Jones was appointed architect: in order to prevent the
church from being turned into an Exchange, he built a West Porch, which
is shown in some of the pictures of St. Paul's. In the time of the
Commonwealth this portico was let off in shops and stalls: the nave of
the church actually became a cavalry barrack.
[Illustration: OLD ST. PAUL'S ON FIRE.
(_From Longman's 'A History of the Three Cathedrals of St. Paul's.'_)]
When King Charles returned it was resolved to repair and restore the
cathedral, by this time almost in ruins: but while the citizens were
considering what should be done, the Great Fire of London settled the
question by burning down all that was left.
Then Christopher Wren began the present building. The first stone was
laid on June 21, 1675, nine years after the Fire. Divine service was
performed on December 2, 1697, the day of thanksgiving for the Peace of
Ryswick. The work was completed in 1710, thirty-five years after its
commencement. The present church is 100 feet shorter than its
predecessor: its dome is also 100 feet lower than the former spire. The
grandeur of the building cannot be appreciated by any near view, because
the houses block it in on all sides, and the former view from the bottom
of Ludgate Hill is now spoiled by the railway bridge. Those who wish to
see what St. Paul's really is--how splendid a church it is--how grandly
it stands above the whole City--must cross the river and look at it from
Bankside, Southwark.
The dome is three fold: it consists of an outer casing of wood covered
with lead: a cone of bricks which supports the lantern and cross: and an
inner cupola of brick which supports nothing. The towers at the west end
are 222 feet in height.
St. Paul's, especially since the crowding at Westminster Abbey, is
becoming the National Burial Church. It is already well filled with
monuments of British worthies and heroes of this and the last century.
Of men distinguished in Literature, Art, and Science, there are buried
here Dr. Johnson, Hallam the historian, Sir Joshua Reynolds the painter,
Turner the painter, Rennie the engineer who built Waterloo Bridge, Sir
William Jones, the great Oriental scholar, and Sir Astley Cooper, the
great surgeon. There is also buried here, as he should be, Sir
Christopher Wren himself. But those who visit the Cathedral desire most
to see the tombs of Wellington and Nelson. The remains of the former lie
in a great sarcophagus worked out of a single piece of Cornish porphyry.
Those of the Admiral were placed first in a coffin made from the main
mast of the French ship _Orient_, taken at the Battle of the Nile.
This was deposited in a sarcophagus made by Cardinal Wolsey and intended
for the burial of King Henry the Eighth. In the Cathedral, too, you will
find the monuments of those splendid fighting men, Lord Collingwood,
Nelson's friend: Howe and Rodney: Earl St. Vincent, who won the battle
of Cape St. Vincent: Lord Duncan of Camperdown, and many others.
[Illustration: WEST FRONT OF ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL CHURCH.
(_Built by Sir Christopher Wren._)]
In the crypt you will find, if you look for it, the brass tablet which
marks the spot where lie the remains of a man whose history should be an
encouragement to every boy who reads this book. His name was Edward
Palmer. Born without family influence, plainly educated at the grammar
school of his town, he taught himself in the teeth of all
difficulties--that of bad health especially--Arabic, Persian, and all
the languages which belong to that group: at the age of twenty-four he
was so splendid an Oriental scholar that the greatest Orientalist at
Cambridge declared that he could teach him nothing. He was elected to a
Fellowship at St. John's College and became the Lord Almoner's Professor
of Arabic. He mastered, in addition to his Oriental studies, all the
European languages except Russian and the Slavonic group. He explored
the Desert of the Exodus and the Peninsula of Sinai. He did a great deal
of literary work. But he was not buried in St. Paul's Cathedral for
these studies. In the year 1882, when the Egyptian War broke out, he was
sent on a secret mission to the tribes of the Desert. He knew them all:
he could talk their language as well as his own: he was the equal of any
one in his knowledge of Arabic poetry and his power of telling stories:
they welcomed him with open arms: the service that he rendered to his
country for which he was honoured with a funeral at St. Paul's, was that
he prevented these tribes from destroying the Suez Canal. He succeeded
in reaching the British camp at Suez in safety, his task accomplished,
the safety of the Canal assured. He was murdered in return by a party of
Egyptian Arabs sent from Cairo. His bones were recovered by Sir Charles
Warren--who further tracked down and hanged every man connected with the
murder. The road to possible greatness lies open to all, but the way
leads through a difficult and thorny way only to be passed, as Palmer
found, by resolution invincible and by long patient industry.
25. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD.
St. Paul's Cathedral stood in the centre of an oval-shaped enclosure
very much like the present St. Paul's Churchyard, save that the houses
now in the north are an encroachment. This open space was surrounded by
a wall, in which were six gates embattled. The first was the Great
Western Gate, facing Ludgate Hill: the second in Paul's Alley in
Paternoster Row: the third at Canon Alley: the fourth, or Little Gate,
where is now the entrance into Cheapside: the fifth, St. Augustine's
Gate, Watling Street: the sixth at Paul's Chain.
[Illustration: PAUL'S CROSS.]
Walking round this enclosure we come first upon the Bishop's Palace,
standing on the north side of the Nave. The Palace was provided with a
private entrance into the Cathedral. Beyond the Palace was a very
beautiful cloister called Pardon Church Haugh. In this cloister stood a
chapel built by Gilbert, father of Thomas a Becket. Many monuments and
tombs of great persons stood within this cloister, which was also
remarkable for its 'Dances of Death.' This was a series of paintings
representing Death as a skeleton armed with a dart, leading by the hand
men and women of every degree, from the highest to the lowest. There
were formerly many examples of such dances. Next to the cloister was
the library, the catalogue of which still exists to show what a
scholar's collection of books then meant. Next to the library stood the
College of the Minor Canons: then came Charnel Chapel, beneath which was
a crypt filled with human bones taken from the churchyard. Remember that
this has been a burial place ever since the year 610, when a church was
first built here. From the year 610 till the year 1840, or for a period
of 1,200 years, new graves were continually made in this ground. Who can
guess how many thousands lie buried here? Every handful of the dust is a
handful of human remains. From time to time, however, the bones were
collected and placed in this crypt of Charnel Chapel. The chapel itself
was apparently a large building, for when it was pulled down the
materials were used by the Duke of Somerset at the Reformation in
building Somerset House in the Strand. There are yet standing some
portions of the original house, so that the stones of Charnel Chapel may
still be seen. As for the crypt, they carried away the bones, which made
a thousand cartloads, and laid them over Finsbury Fields, covering them
with ground, on which were erected three windmills. The site is marked
by the street called Windmill Street.
Next to Charnel Chapel stood the famous Paul's Cross.
This famous place was a Pulpit Cross, from which sermons might be
preached in the open air. Several London churches had their open-air
pulpits: notably St. Michael's, Cornhill; St. Mary's Spital, without
Bishopsgate--at this Cross a sermon was preached every Easter to the
Lord Mayor and aldermen. When Paul's Cross was erected is not known: it
probably stood on the site of some scaffold or steps, from which the
people were anciently harangued, for this was the place of the
folk-mote, or meeting of the people. Here were read aloud, and
proclaimed, the King's Laws and Orders: here the people were informed of
War and Peace: here Papal Bulls were read. There was a cross standing
here in the year 1256--very likely it was already ancient. In the year
1387 it was ruinous and had to be repaired. It was again repaired or
rebuilt in 1480. Paul's Cross played a very important part in the
Reformation. Here the 'Rood' of Bexley, which was a crucifix where the
eyes and lips were made to move and the people were taught that it was
miraculous, was exposed and broken to pieces: here the famous images of
Walsingham and Ipswich, the object of so many pilgrimages, were brought
to be broken to pieces before the eyes of the people. Here Latimer
preached, a man of the people who could speak to them in a way to make
them understand. Had it not been for the preaching of Latimer and others
like him in plain language, the Reformation would have been an attempt,
and probably a failure, to enforce upon the people the opinions of
certain scholars. Paul's Cross did not perish in the Fire: it was taken
down in the year 1643, or thereabouts, in order to be rebuilt; but this
was not done, and when the Fire destroyed the Cathedral Paul's Cross was
forgotten. Its site may be seen in the churchyard at the N.E. corner of
the choir, marked by a flat stone, but it must be remembered that the
old church was wider but farther south.
On the south side of Paul's Churchyard we pass in succession the
beautiful Chapter House: the Church of St. Gregory and the Deanery.
Close to the western gate are residences for the Canons, south of the
enclosure are the Cathedral Brewhouse and Bakehouse.
Such are some of the buildings in Paul's Churchyard. The Cathedral
establishment supported a great army of priests and people. For many of
them, perhaps for most, there were residences of some kind either within
the enclosure or close beside it. Thus the priests, including Bishop,
Dean, Archdeacons and Canons, a hundred and thirty in number: then there
were the inferior officers: yet persons of consideration and authority,
such as Sacrist, Almoner, Bookbinder, Chief Brewer, Chief Baker, with
all their servants: scribes, messengers, bookbinders, illuminators and
copyists: singing-men and choir boys, and women to keep the church
clean. When we add that the Brewer had to provide 200 gallons of beer a
day, it is obvious that there must have been a good many people
belonging to the Cathedral who lived in the enclosure called the
Churchyard.
26. THE RELIGIOUS HOUSES.
If we take a map of London in the fourteenth century and lay down upon
it all the monasteries and religious Houses that then existed we shall
find twenty, all rich and splendid Foundations, without counting those
of Westminster and the villages within a few miles of London Stone.
These were built for the most part either just within or just without
the City wall. The reason was that the City was less densely populated
near the wall than lower down along the river-side. Every one of these
Societies was possessed of estates in the country and streets and houses
in the City. Every one then retained, besides the monks or friars and
nuns, a whole army of officers and servants. A great monastery provided
employment for a very large number of people. In every separate estate
which belonged to it, the monastery wanted tenant farmers, foresters and
hunters, labourers, stewards and bailiffs, a curate or vicar in charge
of the church and all the officers who are required for the management
of an estate. For the House itself there were wanted first, the service
of the chapel, apart from the singing which was done by the brethren:
the school: the library: lawyers and clerks to administer the estates
and guard the rights and privileges of the House: the brewhouse,
bakehouse, kitchen, cellar, stables, with all the officers and servants
required in a place where everything was made in the house; the
architects, surveyors, carpenters and people wanted to maintain the
buildings. It is not too much to reckon that a fourth part of the
population of London belonged in some way or other to the monasteries,
while these Houses were certainly the best customers for the wines,
silks and spices which were brought to the quays of Queenhithe and
Billingsgate.
[Illustration: BERMONDSEY ABBEY.]
It is generally believed that the monasteries, besides relieving the
sick and poor and teaching the boys and girls, threw open their doors
readily to any poor lad who desired to take the vows of the Order.
[Illustration: RUINS OF GATEWAY OF BERMONDSEY ABBEY.]
All this is a misconception: there were the same difficulties about
relieving the poor as there are with us at the present moment. That is
to say, indiscriminate charity then, as now, turned honest working men
into paupers. This the monks and friars understood very well. They were
therefore careful about their charities. Also in many Houses the school
was allowed to drop into disuse. And as regards the admission of poor
boys it was done only in cases where a boy showed himself quick and
studious. It has been the glory of the Church in all ages that she has
refused to recognise any barrier of birth: but she has also been careful
to preserve her distinctions for those who deserve them. Most of the
brethren in a rich Foundation were of gentle birth and good family. If a
poor boy asked to join a monastery he was lucky if he was allowed to
become one of its servants and to wear its livery. Then his livelihood
was assured. There is every reason to believe that the rule of the
brethren, strict for themselves, was light and easy for their servants.
You may find out for yourselves where the London monasteries were, by
the names of streets now standing on their sites. Thus, following the
line of the wall from the Tower north and west you find St. Katharine's
Dock where stood St. Katharine's Hospital: the Minories marks the House
of the Minorites or Sisters of St. Clare; Great St. Helens is on the
site of St. Helen's Nunnery: Spital Square stands where St. Mary's
Spital formerly received the sick: Blackfriars, Charter House and
Bartholomew's still keep their name: Austin Friars is the name of a
court and the Friars' Church still stands: Whitefriars is still the name
of a street: Grey Friars is Christ's Hospital: the Temple is now the
lawyer's home; part of the Church of the Knights Hospitallers is still
to be seen. Three great Houses, it is true, have left no trace or memory
behind. Eastminster or the Cistercian Abbey of St. Mary of Grace, which
stood north of St. Katharine's, and was a very great and stately place
indeed: the Priory of the Holy Trinity, which stood where is now Duke's
Place, north of the church of St. Catharine Cree: and St. Mary of
Bethlehem, which stood just outside Bishopsgate. The memory of
Bermondsey Abbey and St. Mary Overy on the south side of the river has
also departed, but the church of the latter still stands, the most
beautiful church in London next to Westminster Abbey.
[Illustration: Christ's Hospital]
But besides all these religious Houses employing thousands of people,
there were in the City of London no fewer than 126 parish churches. Many
of the parishes were extremely small--a single street--or half a street:
many of the churches were insignificant: but many were rich and costly
structures, adorned and beautified by the piety of many generations: all
were endowed with funds for the saying of masses for the dead, so that
there were many priests to every parish. Consider these things and you
will understand that the City was filled with ecclesiastics--priests,
friars, servants of the Church: at every corner rose a church: to one
standing on the other bank of the river the City presented a forest of
spires and towers. The church then occupied a far larger part of the
daily life than is now the case even with Catholic countries. All were
expected to attend a daily service: the trade companies went to church
in state: young men belonged to a guild: the ringing of the bells was
never silent: no one could escape, if he desired, from the Church. No
one did desire to escape, because every one belonged to the Church. You
must understand, not only that the Church was so great and rich that it
owned and ruled a very large part of the country, but also that the
people all belonged to the Church: it was part of their life as much as
their daily work, their daily food, their daily rest.
27. MONKS, FRIARS, AND NUNS.
We must not speak of monks indiscriminately as if they were all the
same. There were as many varieties among the Orders as there are sects
among Protestants and as much rivalry and even hatred of one with the
other. Let us learn some of the distinctions among them.
Monks were first introduced into Western Europe in the year 529. There
had long been brotherhoods, hermits, and solitaries in the East, where
they existed before the Christian age. St. Benedict founded at Monte
Casino in Campania a monastery for twelve brethren in that year. The
Benedictines are the most ancient Order: they have also been always the
most learned. The Priory of the Holy Trinity in London was Benedictine.
Several branches sprang out of this Order, mostly founded with the view
of practising greater austerities. Among them were the Carthusians, a
very strict Order--in London they had the Charter House, a name which is
a corruption of Chartreuse, their original House: and the Cistercians,
founded at Citeaux in France--they had Eastminster, or the Abbey of St.
Mary of Grace. All these were monks.
The Augustine, or Austin Friars, pretended to have been founded by
Augustine, but were not constituted until the year 1256. They had the
monastery of Austin Friars in London. There were several branches of
this Order.
There were next the three great Mendicant Orders, Franciscans,
Dominicans, and Carmelites. These were the popular Orders. The monks
remained in their Houses alone, separated from the world. The friars
went about among the people. By their vows they were to possess nothing
of their own: they were to sleep where they could: they were to beg
their food and raiment: they were to preach to the people in the streets
and in their houses: they were to bring the rites of the Church to those
who would not enter the doors of the Church. None were to be too poor or
too miserable for them. In their humility they would not be called
fathers but brothers--fratres--friars. In their preaching they used
every way by which they could move the hearts of the people; some
thundered, some wept, some made jokes. They preached in the midst of the
markets, among the sports of the Fair, wherever they could get an
audience together.
The Franciscans, who had Grey Friars House, now the Bluecoat School,
were founded by St. Francis of Assisi in the beginning of the thirteenth
century. They came over to England and appeared in London a few years
later. On account of their austerities and the faithfulness with which
the earlier Franciscans kept their vows and the earnestness of their
preaching they became very popular in this country. Their name--Grey
Friars--denotes the colour of their dress. The old simplicity and
poverty did not last long. It must, however, be acknowledged that wealth
was forced upon them.
The Dominicans were founded by St. Dominic about the year 1215. Sixty
years later they came to London and established themselves in the place
still known by their name--Blackfriars. Their dress was white with a
black cloak. They were never so popular as the Franciscans perhaps
because they insisted more on doctrine, and were associated with the
Inquisition.
The third of the Mendicant Orders was the Carmelite. They were the
Whitefriars, their dress being white with a black hood. Their House was
in Fleet Street. Here was a sanctuary whose privileges were not
abolished till the year 1697.
Other Orders represented in London were the Cluniacs, a branch of
Benedictines--they had the Abbey of St. Saviour in Bermondsey; the Black
Canons, established at St. Bartholomew's: the Canons Regular of St.
Augustin--who had the Southwark Priory of St. Mary Overie: the Knights
Templars; and the Knights of St. John.
As a general rule it is enough to remember that the monks were
Benedictines with their principal branches of Carthusians, Cistercians,
and Cluniacs: that the friars were those named after Augustine, Dominic,
Francis, and Mount Carmel; that the monks remained in their Houses,
practising a life of austerity and prayer--so long as they were faithful
to their vows: and that the friars went about among the people,
preaching and exhorting them.
Of the nunneries some were Benedictine, some Franciscan: that of the
Minorites belonged to the latter Order: that of St. Helen's, to the
former.
The Religious Houses were dissolved at the Reformation. You must
remember that if it had not been for the existence of these Houses, most
of the arts, science, and scholarship of the world would have perished
utterly. The monks kept alive learning of all kinds: they encouraged
painting: they were discoverers and inventors in science: they were the
chief agriculturists and gardeners: they offered an asylum to the poor
and the oppressed. 'The friendship of the poor,' said Bernard, 'makes
us the friends of Kings.' And in an age of unrestrained passions they
showed an example of self-restraint and austerity. The friars did more:
they were poor among the poor: no one was below their care and
affection: they had nothing--they would take nothing--at first: till the
love and gratitude of the people showered gifts upon them and even
against their will, if they still retained any love for poverty, they
became rich.
28. THE LONDON CHURCHES.
Before the Great Fire of London there were 126 churches and parishes in
the City. Most of these were destroyed by the Fire, and many were never
rebuilt at all. Two or even three and four parishes were united in one
church. Of late years there has been a destruction of City churches
almost as disastrous as that of the Fire. Those who have learned from
this book, and elsewhere, to respect the monuments of the past and to
desire their preservation, should do their utmost to prevent the
demolition of these churches, in consideration of their history and
their association with the past.
Looking at a picture of London after the Fire, you will certainly remark
the great number of spires and towers. London, in fact, was then, and
much more so before the Fire, a city of churches. Those which are here
represented and those which now remain are nearly all the work of
Christopher Wren, the architect of St. Paul's. Many of them are very
beautiful internally; many have been decorated and adorned with the most
splendid carved woodwork. About many there cling the memories of dead
men and great men who worshipped here and made gifts to the church and
were buried here.
Let us show, by a few examples, how worthy these City churches are of
preservation and respect.
First, many of them stand on the sites of the most ancient churches in
the history of London. Those about Thames Street, dedicated to St.
Peter, St. Paul (the Cathedral), St. James, probably represent Christian
temples of Roman London. The church of St. Martin's, Ludgate Hill, was
traditionally built by a British prince: that of St. Peter, Cornhill, by
a Roman general. The tradition proves at least the antiquity of the
churches. St. Augustine's preserves the memory of the preacher who
converted the Saxons. St. Olave's and St. Magnus mark the Danish rule:
St. Dunstan's, St. Alphege, St. Ethelburga, St. Swithin, St. Botolph,
commemorate Saxon saints. Why, for instance, are there three churches
all dedicated to St. Botolph just outside City gates? Because this
saint--after whom the Lincolnshire town of Icanhoe changed its name to
Botolph's town, now Boston--was considered the special protector of
travellers. Then the names of churches still commemorate some fact in
history. St. Mary Woolnoth, marks the wool market: St. Osyth's--the name
exists in Sise Lane, was changed into St. Bene't Shere Hog--or
Skin-the-Pig--because the stream called Walbrook which ran close by was
used for the purpose of assisting this operation. St. Austin's was the
chapel of Austin Friars Monastery. St. Andrew's Undershaft tells that
the City May Pole was hung up along its wall. St.
Andrew's-by-the-Wardrobe commemorates the existence of the Palace
formerly called the King's Wardrobe. In St. Michael's Bassishaw survives
the name of an old City family--the Basings. In St. Martin Orgar's--now
destroyed--we have another old City name--Orgar.
Or, again, there are the people who are buried or were baptised in these
churches.
In All Hallows, Bread Street, now pulled down, was baptised the greatest
poet of our country, John Milton. For this cause alone the church should
never have been suffered to fall into decay. It was wickedly and
wantonly destroyed for the sake of the money its site would fetch in the
year 1877. When you visit Bow Church, Cheapside, look for the tablet to
the memory of Milton, now fixed in that church. It belonged to All
Hallows, Bread Street.
Three poets in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn:
The first in loftiness of thought surpassed,
The next in majesty--in both the last.
The force of Nature could no further go;
To make a third she joined the other two.
Christ Church, Newgate, stands on part of the site once occupied by the
splendid church of the Grey Friars. Four Queens lie buried here, and an
immense number of princes and great soldiers and nobles.
Very few people, of the thousands who daily walk up and down Fleet
Street, know anything about the statue in the wall of St. Dunstan's
Church. This is the statue of Queen Elizabeth which formerly stood on
the west side of Lud Gate. This gate was taken down in the year 1760,
and some time after the statue was placed here. One of the sights of
London before the old church was pulled down was a clock with the figure
of a savage on each side who struck the hours and the quarters on a bell
with clubs. London has seldom been without some such show. As long ago
as the fifteenth century there was a clock with figures in Fleet Street.
Tyndal the Reformer, and Baxter the famous Nonconformist were preachers
in this church.
St. Mary le Bow, was so called because it was the first church in the
City built on arches--bows--of stone. The church is most intimately
connected with the life and history of the City. Bow Bell rang for the
closing of the shops. If the ringer was late the prentice boys reminded
him pretty plainly.
'Clarke of the Bow Bell with thy yellow lockes:
In thy late ringing, thy head shall have knockes.'
To which the clerk replied:
'Children of Chepe, hold you all stille:
For you shall have Bow Bell ring at your will.'
St. Mary's Woolnoth was for many years the church of the Rev. John
Newton, once the poet Cowper's friend. He began his life in the merchant
service and was for many years engaged in the slave trade.
For these reasons--their antiquity, their history, their
associations--the destruction of the City churches ought to be resisted
with the utmost determination. You who read this page may very possibly
become parishioners of such a church. Learn that, without the consent of
the parishioners, no church can be destroyed. A meeting of parishioners
must be called: they must vote and decide. Do not forget this privilege.
The time may come when your vote and your's alone, may retain for your
posterity a church rich in history and venerable with the traditions of
the past.
29. THE STREETS.
You have seen how the wall surrounded Roman London. The same wall which
defended and limited Augusta defended and limited Plantagenet London.
Outside the wall on the east there continued to extend wide marshes
along the river; moorlands and forest on the north; marshes with rising
ground on the west; marshes on the south. Wapping was called Wapping in
the Wose (Wash or Ouze), meaning in the Marsh: Bermondsey was Bermond's
Island, standing in the marsh: Battersea was Batter's Island, or perhaps
Island of Boats: Chelsea was the Island of Chesel or Shingle:
Westminster Abbey was built on the Isle of Thorns. The monasteries
standing outside the wall attracted a certain number of serving people
who built houses round them: some of the riverside folk--boat-builders,
lightermen, and so forth--were living in the precinct of St. Katharine,
just outside the Tower: all along the Strand were great men's houses,
one of which, the Somerset House, still stands in altered form, and
another, Northumberland House, was only pulled down a few years ago.
Southwark had a single main street with a few branches east and west: it
also contained several great houses, and was provided with many Inns for
the use of those who brought their goods from Kent and Surrey to London
Market. It was also admitted as a ward. On either side of the High
Street lay marshes. The river was banked--hence the name Bank Side--but
it is not known at what time.
That part of the wall fronting the river had long been pulled down, but
the stairs were guarded with iron chains, and there was a river police
which rowed about among the shipping at night.
[Illustration: CHEPE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.]
The streets and lanes of London within the walls were very nearly the
same as they are at present, except for the great thoroughfares
constructed within the last thirty years. That is to say, when one
entered at Lud Gate and passed through Paul's Churchyard, he found
himself in the broad street, the market place of the City, known as
Chepe. This continued to the place where the Royal Exchange now stands,
where it broke off into two branches, Cornhill and Lombard Street.
These respectively led into Leadenhall Street and Fenchurch Street,
which united again before Aldgate. Another leading thoroughfare crossed
the City from London Bridge to Bishopsgate, and another, Thames Street,
by far the most important, because here the merchant adventurers--those
who had ships and imported goods--met for the transaction of business.
The rough cobbled pavement of Thames Street was the Exchange of
Whittington and the merchants of his time, who all had their houses on
the rising ground, among the narrow lanes north of the street. You have
seen what splendid houses a London merchant loved to build. What kind of
house did the retailer and the craftsman occupy? It was of stone in the
lower parts, but the upper storey was generally of wood, and the roof
was too often thatched. The window was glazed in the upper part, but had
open work and shutter for the lower half: this half, with the door,
stood open during the greater part of the year. The lower room was the
living room, and sometimes the work room of the occupant. The upper
floor contained the bed rooms. There was but one fireplace in the
house--that in the living room. At the back of the house was generally a
small garden. But, besides these houses, there were courts dark, narrow,
noisome, where the huts were still 'wattle and daub,' that is, built
with posts, the sides filled in with branches or sticks and clay or mud,
the fire in the middle of the floor, the chimney overhead. And still, as
in Saxon times, the great danger to the City was from fire.
Men of the same trade still congregated together for convenience. When
all lived together the output would be regulated, prices maintained, and
wages agreed upon. Nothing was more hateful to the mediaeval trader than
forestalling and regrating. To forestall was to buy things before they
arrived at market with intent to sell at a higher price. To regrate was
to buy up in the market and sell again in the same market at an advanced
price. To undersell your neighbour was then also an unpardonable crime.
You discover, therefore, that trade in Plantagenet London was not like
trade in Victorian London. Then, all men of the same trade stood by each
other and were brothers: now, too often, men of the same trade are
enemies.
The names of streets show the nature of the trades carried on in them.
Turners and makers of wooden cups and platters, Wood Street:
ironmongers, in their Lane: poultry sellers, the Poultry: bakers, Bread
Street: and so on. Chepe was the great retail market of the City. It was
built over gradually, but in early times it was a broad market covered
with stalls, like the market-place of Norwich, for instance; these
stalls were ranged in lines and streets: churches stood about among the
lines. Then the stalls, which had been temporary wooden structures, were
changed into permanent shops, which were also the houses of the tenants:
the living room and kitchen were behind the shop: the master and his
family slept above, and the prentices slept under the counter.
[Illustration: LARGE SHIP AND BOAT OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
(_The mainsail of the ship has the Beauchamp arms, and the streamer the
bear and ragged staff. From the 'Life of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of
Warwick,' by John Rous; drawn about 1485._)]
30 WHITTINGTON.
PART I.
The story of Dick Whittington has been a favourite legend for many
generations. The boy coming up to London poor and friendless; lying
despairing on the green slope of Highgate; resolved to return to the
country since he can find no work in London: the falling upon his ears
of the bells of Bow, wafted across the fields by the south wind--every
child knows all this. What did the bells say to him--the soft and
mellow bells, calling to him across four miles of fields? 'Turn again,
Whittington--Turn again, Whittington--Lord Mayor of London--Turn again,
Whittington.' He did turn, as we know, and became not once, but four
times Lord Mayor of London and entertained kings, and was the richest
merchant of his time. And all through a cat--we know how the cat began
his fortune.
That is the familiar legend. Now you shall learn the truth.
There was a Dick Whittington: and he was Lord Mayor of London--to be
accurate, he was Mayor of London, for the title of Lord Mayor did not
yet exist.
He was not a poor and friendless lad by any means. He belonged to a good
family, his father, Sir William Whittington, Knight, being owner of an
estate in Herefordshire called Soler's Hope, and one in Gloucestershire
called Pauntley. The father was buried at Pauntley Church, where his
shield may still be seen. Richard was the youngest of three sons of whom
the eldest, William, died without children: and the second, Robert, had
sons of whom one, Guy, fought at Agincourt. From the second son there
are descendants to this day.
Richard, at the age of fourteen, was sent to London, where he had
connections. Many country people had connections in London who were
merchants. Remember that in those days it would be impossible for a boy
to rise from poverty to wealth and distinction by trade. Such a lad
might rise in the church, or even, but I know not of any instance, by
distinguished valour on the field of battle. Most certainly, he would be
prenticed to a craft and a craftsman he would remain all his life.
Whittington was a gentleman: that was the first and necessary condition
to promotion: he came to London, not to learn a craft at all, but to be
apprenticed to his cousin Sir John Fitzwarren, Mercer and Merchant
Adventurer. The Mercers were the richest and most important company in
London: the merchant adventurers were those--the foremost among the
Mercers--who owned ships which they despatched abroad with exports and
with which they imported stuffs and merchandise to the Port of London.
Whittington's master may have had a shop or stall in Chepe--but he was a
great importer of silks, satins, cloth of gold, velvets, embroideries,
precious stones, and all splendid materials required for an age of
splendid costume.
[Illustration: A SEA-FIGHT.
(_From the 'Life of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick'; drawn by John
Rous about 1485._)]
What is the meaning of the 'cat' story? Immediately after Whittington's
death the story was spread about. When his executors repaired Newgate
they placed a carven cat on the outside: when Whittington's nephews, a
few years later, built a house in Gloucester they placed a carven cat
over the door in recognition of the story. All sorts of explanations
have been offered. First, that there never was any cat at all. Next,
that by a 'cat' is meant a kind of ship, a collier. Thirdly, that the
cat is symbolical and means something else. Why need we go out of our
way at all? A cat at that time was a valuable animal: not by any means
common: in certain countries where rats were a nuisance a cat was very
valuable indeed. Why should not the lad entrust a kitten to one of his
master's skippers with instructions to sell it for him in any Levantine
port at which the vessel might touch? Then he would naturally ever
afterwards refer to the sale of the cat, the first venture of his own,
as the beginning and foundation of his fortune. But you must believe
about the cat whatever you please. The story has been told of other men.
There was a Portuguese sailor, named Alphonso, who was wrecked on the
Coast of Guinea. He carried a cat safely ashore and sold her to the
King for her weight in gold: with this for his first capital he rapidly
made a large fortune. Again, one Diego Almagro, a companion of Pizarro,
bought the first cat ever taken to South America for 600 pieces of
eight. And the story is found in Persia and in Denmark, and I dare say
all over the world. Yet I believe in its literal truth.
In the year 1378 Whittington's name first appears in the City papers. He
was then perhaps twenty-one--but the date of his birth is uncertain--and
was already in trade, not, as yet, very far advanced, for his assessment
shows that as yet he was in the lowest and poorest class of the
wholesale Mercers.
31. WHITTINGTON.
PART II.
For nearly fifty years after this Whittington leads an active, busy,
prosperous life. It was a distracted time, full of troubles and
anxieties. A Charter obtained in 1376, two or three years before he
began business, was probably the real foundation of Whittington's
fortune. For it forbade foreign merchants to sell by retail. This meant
that a foreign ship bringing wine to the port of London could only
dispose of her merchandise to the wholesale vintners: or one bringing
silk could only sell it to wholesale mercers. The merchants, no doubt,
intended to use this Charter for the furtherance of their own shipping
interests.
This important Charter, presented by the King, was nearly lost a little
after, when there was trouble about Wycliffe. The great scholar was
ordered to appear at St. Paul's Cathedral before the Archbishop of
Canterbury and the Bishop of London, to answer charges of heresy. He
was not an unprotected and friendless man, and he appeared at the
Cathedral under the protection of the powerful John of Gaunt, Duke of
Lancaster, son of King Edward III. The Bishop of London rebuked the Duke
for protecting heretics, so the Duke, enraged, threatened to pull the
Bishop out of his own church by the hair of his head. The people outside
shouted that they would all die before the Bishop should suffer
indignity. John of Gaunt rode off to Westminster and proposed that the
office of Mayor should be abolished and that the Marshal of England
should hold his court in the City--in other words, that even the
liberties and Charters of the City should be swept clean away. Then the
Londoners rushed to the Savoy, the Duke's palace, and would have sacked
and destroyed it but for the Bishop. This story indicates the kind of
danger to which, in those ages, the City was liable. There were no
police; a popular tumult easily and suddenly became a rebellion: no one
knew what might happen when the folk met together and wild passions of
unreasoning fury were aroused.
Another danger of the time for the peaceful merchant. For some years the
navigation of the North Sea and the Channel was greatly impeded by a
Scottish privateer or pirate named Mercer. In vain had the City made
representations to the King. Nothing was done, and the pirate grew daily
stronger and bolder. Then Sir John Philpot, the Mayor, did a very
patriotic thing. He built certain ships of his own, equipped them with
arms, went on board as captain or admiral, and manned them with a
thousand stout fellows. He found the pirate off Scarborough, fell upon
him, slew him with all his men and returned to London Port with all his
own ships and all the pirate's ships--including fifteen Spanish vessels
which had joined Mercer.
The King pretended to be angry with this private mode of carrying on
war, but the thing was done, and it was a very good thing, and
profitable to London and to the King himself, therefore when Sir John
Philpot gave the King the arms and armour of a thousand men and all his
own ships and prize ships, the Royal clemency was not difficult to
obtain. I wish that I could state that Whittington had sailed with Sir
John on this gallant expedition.
A third trouble arose in the year 1381 on the rebellion of the peasants
under John Ball, Wat Tyler, Jack the Miller, Jack the Carter, and Jack
Trewman. The rebels held possession of the City for awhile. They
destroyed the Savoy, the Temple and the houses of the foreign merchants
(this shows that they had been joined by some of the London people).
They murdered the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Prior of St. John's
Hospital. Then the citizens roused themselves and with an army of 6,000
men stood in ranks to defend the King.
Then there happened the troubles of John of Northampton, Mayor in 1382.
You have learned how trades of all kinds were banded together each in
its own Company. Every Company had the right of regulating prices. Thus
the Fishmongers sold their fish at a price ordered by the Warden or
Master of the Company. It is easy to understand that this might lead to
murmurs against the high price of fish or of anything else. This, in
fact, really happened. It was a time of great questioning and doubt; the
rising of Wat Tyler shows that this spirit was abroad. The craftsmen of
London, those who made things, grumbled loudly at the price of
provisions. They asked why the City should not take over the trade in
food of all kinds and sell it to the people at lower prices. John of
Northampton being Mayor, took the popular view. He did not exactly make
over the provisioning of the City to the Corporation, but he first
obtained an Act of Parliament throwing open the calling of fishmonger to
all comers; and then another which practically abolished the trade of
grocers, pepperers, fruiterers, butchers, and bakers. Imagine the rage
with which such an Act would now be received by London tradesmen!
The next Mayor, however, obtained the rescinding of these Acts. In
consequence, fish went up in price and there was a popular tumult, upon
which one man was hanged and John of Northampton was sent to the Castle
of Tintagel on the Cornish Coast, where he remained for the rest of his
life.
32. WHITTINGTON.
PART III.
In the year 1384, being then about twenty-six years of age, Whittington
was elected a member of the Common Council. In the year 1389 he was
assessed at the same sum as the richest citizen. So that these ten years
of his life were evidently very prosperous. In the year 1393 he was made
Alderman for Broad Street Ward. In the same year he was made Sheriff. In
the year 1396, the Mayor, Adam Bamme, dying in office, Whittington
succeeded him. The following year he was elected Mayor.
In the year 1401, water was brought from Tyburn (now the N.E. corner of
Hyde Park) to Cornhill in pipes, a great and important boon to the City.
In the year 1406 he was again elected Mayor. The manner of his election
is described in the contemporary records. After service in the chapel
of the Guildhall, the outgoing Mayor, with all the Aldermen and as many
as possible of the wealthier and more substantial Commoners of the City,
met in the Guildhall and chose two of their number, viz., Richard
Whittington and Drew Barentyn. Then the Mayor receiving this nomination
retired into a closed chamber with the Aldermen and made choice of
Whittington.
In the year 1419 he was elected Mayor for the third and last time, but,
counting his succession to Bamme, he was actually four times Mayor. In
1416 he was returned Member of Parliament for the City.
It was not a new thing for a citizen to be made Mayor more than once.
Three during the reign of Edward III. were Mayor four times; two, three
times; seven, twice.
In Whittington's later years began the burning of heretics and Lollards.
It is certain that Lollardism had some hold in the City, but one knows
not how great was the hold. A priest, William Sawtre, was the first who
suffered. Two men of the lower class followed. There is nothing to show
that Whittington ever swerved from orthodox opinions.
In 1416, the City was first lighted at night: all citizens were ordered
to hang lanterns over their doors. How far the order was obeyed,
especially in the poorer parts of the City, is not known.
In 1407 a plague carried off 30,000 persons in London alone. If this
number is correctly stated it must have taken half the population.
Many improvements were effected in the City during these years: it is
reasonable to suppose that Whittington had a hand in bringing these
about. Fresh water brought in pipes: lights hung out after dark: the
erection of a house--Bakewell Hall--for the storage and sale of
broadcloth: the erection of a store for the reception of grain, in case
of famine--this was the beginning of Leadenhall--the building of a new
Guildhall: and an attempt to reform the prisons--an attempt which
failed.
In his last year of office Whittington entertained the King, Henry V.
and his Queen.
There was as yet no Mansion House: every Mayor made use of his own
private house.
The magnificence of the entertainment amazed the King. Even the fires
were fed with cedar and perfumed wood. When the Queen spoke of this
costly gift the Mayor proposed to feed the fire with something more
precious still. He then produced the King's bonds to the value of
60,000_l._ which he threw into the fire and burned. This great sum would
be a very considerable gift even now. In that time it represented at
least six times its present value. The Mayor therefore gave the King the
sum of 360,000_l._
This is, very shortly, an account of Whittington's public life.
He lived, I believe, on the north side of St. Michael's Paternoster
Royal. I think so because his College was established there after his
death, and as he had no children it is reasonable to suppose that his
house would be assigned to the College. There is nothing to show what
kind of house it was, but we may rest assured that the man who could
entertain the King and Queen in such a manner was at least well housed.
There is a little court on this spot which is, I believe, on the site of
Whittington's house. They used to show a house in Hart Street as
Whittington's, but there was no ground for the tradition except that it
was a very old house.
Whittington married his master's daughter, Alice Fitzwarren. He had no
children, and he died in 1423 when he was sixty-five years of age.
Such was the real Whittington. A gentleman by birth, a rich and
successful man, happy in his private life, a great stickler for justice,
as a magistrate severe upon those who cheat and adulterate, a loyal and
patriotic man, and always filled with the desire to promote the
interests of the City which had received him and made him rich.
33. GIFTS AND BEQUESTS.
The stream of charity which has so largely enriched and endowed the City
of London began very early. You have seen how Rahere built and endowed
Bartholomew's, and how Queen Maud founded the Lazar House of St. Giles.
The fourteenth century furnishes many more instances. Thus William
Elsinge founded in 1332 a hospital for a hundred poor blind men: in 1371
John Barnes gave a chest containing 1,000 marks to be lent by the City
to young men beginning trade. You have heard how one Mayor went out to
fight a pirate and slew him and made prizes of his vessels. Another when
corn was very dear imported at his own expense a great quantity from
Germany. Another gave money to relieve poor prisoners: another left
money for the help of poor householders: another provided that on his
commemoration day in the year 2,400 poor householders, of the City
should have a dinner and every man two pence. This means in present
money about L600 a year, or an estate worth L20,000: another left money
to pay the tax called the Fifteenth, for three parishes: another brought
water in a conduit from Highbury to Cripplegate.
But the greatest and wisest benefactor of his time was Whittington. In
his own words: 'The fervent desire and busy intention of a prudent,
wise, and devout man, should be to cast before and make secure the state
and the end of this short life with deeds of mercy and pity, and
especially to provide for those miserable persons whom the penury of
poverty insulteth, and to whom the power of seeking the necessaries of
life by act or bodily labour is interdicted.'
With these grave words, which should be a lesson to all men, rich or
poor, Whittington begins the foundation of his College. If a man were in
these days to found a College he would make it either a school for boys
or a technical school--in any case a place which should be always
_working_ for the world. In those days, when it was universally believed
that the saying of masses was able to lift souls out of punishment, a
man founded a College which should _pray_ for the world. Whittington's
College was to consist of a Master and four Fellows--who were to be
Masters of Arts--with clerks, choristers, and servants. They were every
day to say mass for the souls of Richard and Alice Whittington in the
church of St. Michael's Paternoster Royal--which church Whittington
himself had rebuilt. Behind the church he founded and built an almshouse
for thirteen poor men, who were to have 16_d._ each per week, about
7_s._ of our money, with clothing and rooms on the condition of praying
daily for their founder and his wife. Part of the ground for the
building was granted by the Mayor and Corporation.
The College continued until the Dissolution of the Religious
Houses--that is, for one hundred and fifty years: the almshouse
continues to this day: but it has been removed to Highgate: on its site
the Mercers' Company has established a school.
Whittington, further, built a library for the Franciscan House; part of
the building still remains at Christ's Hospital. It was 129 feet long
and 31 feet broad. He also gave the friars 400_l._ to buy books. He
restored and repaired the Hospital of St. Bartholomew's, to which he
gave a library. He paved and glazed the new building of Guildhall: he
gave large sums for the bridge--and the chapel on the bridge--at
Rochester--as a merchant he was greatly interested in keeping this
important bridge in order: he repaired Gloucester Cathedral--the
cathedral church of his native diocese: he made 'bosses,' i.e. taps of
water, to the great aqueduct: he rebuilt and enlarged Newgate Prison;
and he founded a library at Guildhall.
Many of these things were done after his death by his executors.
Such were the gifts by which a City merchant of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries sought to advance the prosperity of the citizens.
Fresh water in plenty by 'bosses' here and there: the light of learning
by means of libraries: almshouses for the poor: mercy and charity for
the prisoners: hospitals for the sick: help for the young: prayers for
the dead. These things he understood.
We cannot expect any man to be greatly in advance of his age. Otherwise
we should find a Whittington insisting upon cleanliness of streets:
fresh air in the house: burial outside the City: the abolition of the
long fasts which made people eat stinking fish and so gave them leprosy:
the education of the craftsmen in something besides their trade: the
establishment of a patrol by police: and the freedom of trade.
He did not found any school. That is a remarkable omission. One of his
successors, Sir William Sevenoke, founded a school for lads of his
native town Sevenoaks: another, Sir Robert Chichele, founded a school,
an almshouse, and a college in his native town of Higham Ferrers. A
friend of his own, Sir John Niel, proposed to establish four new grammar
schools in the City. And yet Whittington left no money for a school. We
may be quite sure that there was a reason for the omission. Perhaps he
was afraid of the growing spirit of doubt and inquiry. Boys who learn
grammar and rhetoric may grow into men who question and argue; and so,
easily and naturally, get bound to the stake and are consumed with the
pile of faggots. Everything was provided except a school for boys.
Libraries for men; but not a school for boys. The City of London School
was founded by Whittington's executor, John Carpenter. There must have
been reasons in Whittington's mind for omitting any endowment of
schools. What those reasons were I cannot even guess.
34. THE PALACES AND GREAT HOUSES.
When you think of a great city of the thirteenth or fourteenth century
you must remember two things. First, that the streets were mostly very
narrow--if you walk down Thames Street and note the streets running
north and south you will be able to understand how narrow the City
streets were. Second, that the great houses of the nobles and the rich
merchants stood in these narrow streets, shut in on all sides though
they often contained spacious courts and gardens. No attempt was made to
group the houses or to arrange them with any view to picturesque effect.
It has been the fashion to speak of mediaeval London as if it were a city
of hovels grouped together along dark and foul lanes. This was by no
means the case. On the contrary, it was a city of splendid palaces and
houses nearly all of which were destroyed by the Great Fire. You have
seen how the City was covered with magnificent buildings of monasteries
and churches. Do not believe that the nobles and rich merchants who
endowed and built these places would be content to live in hovels.
[Illustration: DURHAM, SALISBURY, AND WORCESTER HOUSES.]
The nobles indeed wanted barracks. A great Lord never moved anywhere
without his following. The Earl of Warwick, called the King Maker, when
he rode into London was followed by five hundred men, wearing his
colours: all of these had to find accommodation in his town house. This
was always built in the form of a court or quadrangle. The modern
Somerset House, which is built on the foundations of the old house,
shows us what a great man's house was like: and the College of Heralds
in Queen Victoria Street, is another illustration, for this was Lord
Derby's town house. Hampton Court and St. James's, are illustrations of
a great house with more than one court. Any one who knows the colleges
of Oxford and Cambridge will understand the arrangement of the great
noble's town house in the reign of Richard II. On one side was the hall
in which the banquets took place and all affairs of importance were
discussed. The kitchen, butteries and cellars stood opposite the doors
of the hall; at the back of the hall with a private entrance were the
rooms of the owner and his family: the rest of the rooms on the
quadrangle were given up to the use of his followers.
Baynard's Castle--the name yet survives--stood on the river bank not far
from Blackfriars. It was a huge house with towers and turrets and a
water gate with stairs. It contained two courts. It was at last, after
standing for six hundred years, destroyed in the Great Fire, and was one
of the most lamentable of the losses caused by that disaster. The house
had been twice before burned down, and that which finally perished was
built in 1428. Here Edward IV. assumed the Crown: here he placed his
wife and children for safety before going forth to the Battle of Barnet.
Here Buckingham offered the Crown to Richard. Here Henry VIII. lived.
Here Charles II. was entertained.
Eastward, also on the river bank and near the old Swan Stairs, stood
another great house called Cold Harbour. It belonged to Holland, Dukes
of Exeter, to Richard III. and to Margaret, Countess of Richmond.
North of Thames Street near College Hill was the Erber, another great
house which belonged successively to the Scropes and the Nevilles. Here
lived the King-maker Earl of Warwick. His following was so numerous that
every day six oxen were consumed for breakfast alone. His son-in-law,
who had the house afterwards, was the Duke of Clarence--'false,
fleeting, perjured Clarence.'
If you would know how a great merchant of the fifteenth century loved to
be housed, go visit Crosby Hall. It is the only specimen left of the
ancient wealth and splendour of a City merchant. But as one man lived so
did many. We cannot believe that Crosby was singular in his building a
palace for himself.
London with its narrow streets, its crowded courts, and the corners
where the huts and hovels of wood and daub and thatch stood among their
foul surroundings, a constant danger to the great houses of fire and
plague, was a city of great houses and palaces, with which no other city
in Europe could compare. Venice and Genoa had their Crosby Halls--their
merchants' palaces; but London had in addition, the town houses of all
the nobles of the land. In the City alone, without counting the Strand
and Westminster, there were houses of the Earls of Arundel,
Northumberland, Worcester, Berkeley, Oxford, Essex, Thanet, Suffolk,
Richmond, Pembroke, Abergavenny, Warwick, Leicester, Westmoreland. Then
there were the houses of the Bishops and the Abbots. All these before we
come to the houses of the rich merchants. Let your vision of London
under the Plantagenets be that of a city all spires and towers, great
churches and stately convents, with noble houses as great and splendid
as Crosby Hall scattered all about the City within the walls and lining
the river bank from Ludgate to Westminster.
35. AMUSEMENTS.
We have heard so much of the religious Houses, Companies, Hospitals,
quarrels and struggles that we may have forgotten a very important
element in the life of the City--the amusements and pastimes of the
citizens. Never was there a time when the City had more amusements than
in these centuries. You have seen that it was always a rich town: its
craftsmen were well paid: food was abundant: the people were well fed
always, except in times of famine, which were rare. There were taverns
with music and singing: there were pageants, wonderful processions
representing all kinds of marvels, devised by the citizens to please the
King or to please themselves: there were plays representing scenes from
the Bible and from the Lives of the Saints: there were tournaments to
look at. Then there were the Festivals of the year, Christmas Day,
Twelfth Day, Easter, the Day of St. John the Baptist, Shrove Tuesday,
the Day of the Company, May Day, at all of which feasting and merriment
were the rule. The young men, in winter, played at football, hockey,
quarterstaff, and single stick. They had cock fighting, boar fights, and
the baiting of bulls and bears. On May Day they erected a May-pole in
every parish: they chose a May Queen: and they had morris-dancing with
the lads dressed up as Robin Hood, Friar Tuck, Little John, Tom the
Piper, and other famous characters.
[Illustration: BEAR-BAITING.
(_From the Luttrell Psalter._)]
Then they shot with the bow and the cross-bow for prizes: they had
wrestlings and they had foot races.
The two great festivals of the year were the Eve of St. John the Baptist
and the Day of the Company.
[Illustration: SHOOTING AT THE BUTTS WITH THE LONG-BOW.]
On the former there took place the March of the Watch. Bonfires were lit
in the streets, not for warmth but in order to purge and cleanse the air
of the narrow streets: at the open doors stood tables with meat and
drink, neighbour inviting neighbour to hospitality. Then the doors were
wreathed with green branches, leaves, and flowers: lamps of glass were
hanging over them with oil burning all the night: some hung out branches
of iron curiously wrought with hundreds of hanging lights. And
everywhere the cheerful sounds of music and singing and the dancing of
the prentice lads and girls in the open street. Through the midst of
this joyousness filed the Watch. Four thousand men took part in this
procession which was certainly the finest thing that Mediaeval London had
to show. To light the procession on its way the City found two hundred
cressets or lanterns, the Companies found five hundred and the
constables of London, two hundred and fifty in number, each carried one.
The number of men who carried and attended to the cressets was two
thousand. Then followed the Watch itself, consisting of two thousand
captains, lieutenants, sergeants, drummers and fifers, standard bearers,
trumpeters, demilances on great horses, bowmen, pikemen, with
morris-dancers and minstrels--their armour all polished bright and some
even gilded. No painter has ever painted this March: yet of all things,
mediaeval, it was the most beautiful and the most mediaeval.
On the day of the Company, i.e. the Company's Saint's Day, all the
members assembled in the Hall, every man in a new livery, in the
morning. First they formed in procession and marched to church, headed
by priests and singing boys, in surplices: after these walked the
servants, clerks, assistants, the chaplain, the Mayor's sergeants, often
the Lord Mayor himself. Lastly came the Court with the Master and
Wardens followed by the Livery, i.e. the members.
After church they returned in like manner to the Hall, where a great
banquet awaited them, music played in the gallery: the banners of the
Company were hung over their heads: they burned scented wood: they sat
in order, Master and Wardens and illustrious guests at the high table:
and the freemen below, every man with his wife or some maiden if he were
unmarried. After dinner the loving cup went round: the minstrels led in
the players: and they had dramatic shows, songs, dances and 'mummeries'
for the rest of the day.
Do not think of mediaeval London as a dull place--it was full of life and
of brightness: the streets were narrow perhaps, but they were full of
colour from the bright dresses of all--the liveries of the
Companies--the liveries of the great nobles--the splendid costume of the
knights and richer class. The craftsman worked from daylight till curfew
in the winter: from five or six in the summer: he had a long day: but he
had three holidays: he had his evenings: and his Sundays. A dull time
was going to fall upon the Londoners, but not yet for two hundred years.
36. WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
Hitherto our attention has been confined to the City within the walls.
It is time to step outside the walls.
All this time, i.e. ever since peaceful occupation became possible, a
town had been growing up on the west side of London. You have seen that
formerly there spread a broad marsh over this part. Some rising ground
kept what is now the Strand above the river, but Westminster, except for
certain reed-grown islets, was nothing but a marsh covered over twice in
the day by the tide. The river thus spreading out over marshes on either
bank was quite shallow, and could in certain places be forded. The spot
where any ford existed afterwards became a ferry. Lambeth Bridge spans
the river at one such place, the memory of which is now maintained in
the name of the Horseferry Road. The largest of these islets was once
called Thorney, i.e. the Isle of Thorns. If you will take a map of
Westminster, shift the bank of the river so as to make it flow along
Abingdon Street, draw a stream running down College Street into the
Thames; another running into the Thames across King Street, and draw a
ditch or moat connecting the two streams along Delahaye Street and
Princes Street you will have Thorney, about a quarter of a mile long,
and not quite so much broad, standing just above high water level. This
was the original Precinct of Westminster.
[Illustration: TOMB OF EDWARD III. IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.]
The Abbey of St. Peter's, Westminster, is said to have been founded on
the first conversion of the East Saxons, and at the same time as the
Foundation of St. Paul's. We know nothing about the foundation of the
church. During the Danish troubles the Abbey was deserted. It was
refounded by Dunstan. It was, however, rebuilt in much greater splendour
by Edward the Confessor. Of his work something still remains, and can be
pointed out to the visitor. But the present Abbey contains work by Henry
III., Edward I., Richard II.--Whittington being commissioner for the
work--Henry VII. and Wren, Hawksmoor and Gilbert Scott the architects.
There is no monument on British soil more venerable than Westminster
Abbey. You must not think that you know the place when you have visited
it once or twice. You must go there again and again. Every visit should
teach you something of your country and its history. The building itself
betraying to those who can read architecture the various periods at
which its builders lived: the beauty of the building, the solemnity of
the services--these are things which one must visit the Abbey often in
order to understand. Then there are the associations of the Abbey; the
things that have been done in the Abbey: the crowning of the Kings, in a
long line from Edward the Confessor downwards. Here Edward the Fourth's
Queen, Elizabeth Woodville, took sanctuary when her husband suffered
reverse: here the unfortunate Edward V. was born. Here the same unhappy
Queen brought her two boys when her husband died. Here Caxton set up his
first printing press: here is the coronation chair. Here is the shrine
of the sainted Edward the Confessor. It is robbed of its precious stones
and its gold: but the shrine is the same as that before which for five
hundred years people knelt as to the protector saint of England. This is
the burial-place of no fewer than twenty-six of our Kings and their
Queens. This is the sacred spot where we have buried most of our great
men. To name a few whose monuments you should look for, here are Sir
William Temple, Lord Chatham, Fox and Wilberforce, among statesmen; of
soldiers there are Prince Rupert and Monk; of Indian fame, here are Lord
Lawrence and Lord Clyde; of sailors, Blake, Cloudesley Shovel, and Lord
Dundonald. Of poets, Chaucer, Spenser, Beaumont, Ben Jonson, Dryden,
Prior, Addison, Gay, Campbell. Of historians and prose writers, Samuel
Johnson, Macaulay, Dickens, Livingston, Isaac Newton. Many others there
are to look for, notably the great poet Tennyson, buried here in October
1892.
Read what was written by Jeremy Taylor, a great divine, on Westminster
Abbey:--
'A man may read a sermon, the best and most passionate that ever man
preached, if he shall but enter into the sepulchre of Kings.... There
the warlike and the peaceful, the fortunate and the miserable, the
beloved and the despised princes mingle their dust and pay down their
symbol of mortality; and tell all the world that when we die our ashes
shall be equal to kings, and our accounts easier, and our pains or our
crowns shall be less.'
37. THE COURT AT WESTMINSTER.
Although the Kings of England have occasionally lodged in the Tower and
even at Baynard's Castle, and other places in the City, the permanent
home of the Court was always from Edward the Confessor to Henry VIII. at
the Royal Palace of Westminster. Of this building, large, rambling,
picturesque, only two parts are left, Westminster Hall and the crypt of
St. Stephen's Chapel. When King Henry VIII. exchanged Westminster for
Whitehall the rooms of the old Palace were given over to various
purposes. One of them was the Star Chamber, in which the Star Chamber
Court was held: one was the Exchequer Chamber: St. Stephen's Chapel was
the House of Commons; and the House of Lords sat in the Old Court of
Bequests. All that was left of the Palace except the Great Hall, was
destroyed in the fire of 1834. Very fortunately the Hall was saved. This
magnificent structure, one of the largest rooms in the world not
supported by pillars, was built by William Rufus, and altered by Richard
II. Here have been held Parliaments and Grand Councils. Here have been
many State trials. Sir William Wallace was condemned in this Hall. Sir
Thomas More; the Protector Somerset; Lady Jane Grey; Anne Boleyn; King
Charles I.; the rebels of 1745, Lords Kilmarnock, Balmerino and Lovat:
Earl Ferrers, for murdering his steward; all these were condemned. One
or two have been acquitted, Lord Byron--cousin of the poet--for killing
Mr. Chaworth: and Warren Hastings, the great Indian statesman. In
Westminster Hall used to be held the Coronation Banquets at which the
hereditary champion rode into the Hall in full armour and threw down a
glove.
After the removal of the Court the Hall became the Law Courts. It is
almost incredible that three Courts sat in this Hall, cases being heard
before three Judges at the same time. In addition to the Courts, shops
or stalls were ranged along the walls where dealers in toys, milliners,
sempstresses, stationers and booksellers sold their wares. A picture
exists showing this extraordinary use of the Hall.
It is more difficult to restore ancient Westminster than any part of the
City. We must remember that the great Hall formed part of a square or
quadrangle on which were the private rooms of the Sovereign, the State
rooms of audience and banquet, the official rooms of the King's
ministers and servants; this court led into others--one knows not how
many--but certainly as many as belong to the older part of Hampton
Court, which may be taken as resembling Westminster Palace in its
leading features. The courts were filled with men-at-arms, serving men,
pages, and minstrels. They went backwards and forwards on their business
or they lay about in the sun and gambled. Sometimes there crossed the
court some great noble followed by two or three of his servants on his
way to a Council: or a bishop with his chaplain, to have speech with the
King: or a group of townsmen after a brawl, who had been brought here
with ropes about their necks, uncertain whether all would be pardoned or
half a dozen hanged, the uncertainty lending a very repentant and
anxious look to their faces. Or it would be the Queen's most Excellent
Highness herself with her ladies riding forth to see the hunt. This was
the daily life of the Court: we read the dry history of what happened
but we forget the scenery in which it happened--the crowds of nobles,
bishops, abbots, knights, men-at-arms, serving men, among whom all these
things took place. We are apt to forget, as well, the extraordinary
brightness, the colour, the glitter and gleam that belonged to those
times when every man went dressed in some gay livery wearing the colours
and the crest of his lord. Who rides there, the hart couchant--the deer
at rest--upon his helm? A Knight belonging to the Court: one of the
Knights of King Richard the Second. Who march with the bear and ragged
staff upon their arms? They are the Livery of the Earl of Warwick. The
clash and gleam of arms and armour everywhere: colour on the men as well
as the women: colour on the trappings of the horses: colour on the
hanging arras of the wall: colour on the cloth of scarlet which they
hang out of the windows when the royal pageant rides along.
Close to the Palace, the Abbey. That too belongs to the time. Within the
Abbey precincts the people are almost as crowded as in the Palace. But
it is a different crowd. There is not so much colour: no arms or armour:
an orderly crowd: there are the Benedictine monks themselves, with their
crowd of servants, cooks, and refectory men: brewers: bakers: clothiers:
architects, builders and masons: scribes and lawyers: foresters and
farmers from the estates: stewards: cellarers: singing boys:
organists--for the Abbey Church of St. Peter is as great and as rich and
maintains as large an army of servants as the Cathedral Church of St.
Paul.
38. JUSTICE AND PUNISHMENTS.
In the time of the Plantagenets the punishments inflicted on wrongdoers
were much more lenient than those which followed in later years. There
is none of that brutal flogging which grew up in the last century, the
worst time in the whole history of the country, for the people. This
flogging not only in the army and navy but also for such offences as
vagrancy, lasted even into the present century. In the year 1804 six
women were publicly flogged at Gloucester for this offence. Under
Whittington this barbarous cruelty would not have been done. There were,
it is true, certain punishments which seem excessively cruel. If a man
struck a sheriff or an alderman he was sentenced to have his right hand
chopped off. That is, indeed, worse than hanging. But, consider, the
whole strength of London lay in its power to act and its resolution
always to act, as one man. This could only be effected by habitual
obedience to law and the most profound respect to the executive
officers. Therefore the worst penalty possible--that which deprived a
man of his power to work and his power to fight--which reduced him to
ruin--which made his innocent children beggars--which branded him till
death as a malefactor of the most dangerous kind--was inflicted for such
an offence. Here, again, mercy stepped in; for, when the criminal was
brought out for execution, if he expressed contrition the offended
officer, represented by the Alderman of the Ward--begged that he might
be pardoned.
For burglary criminals were ruthlessly hanged. This crime is bad enough
now; it is a crime which ought at all times to be punished with the
utmost rigour. But in these days what is it that a burglar can carry
away from an ordinary house? A clock or two: a silver ring: a lady's
watch and chain: a few trinkets: if any money, then only a purse with
two or three pounds. The wealth of the family is invested in various
securities: if the burglar takes the papers they are of no use to him:
there is a current account at the bank; but that cannot be touched.
Books, engravings, candlesticks, plated spoons--these are of little real
value. Formerly, however, every man kept all his money--all his
wealth--in his own house; if he was a rich merchant he had a stone safe
or strong box constructed in the wall of his cellar or basement--I have
seen such a safe in an old house pulled down about seven years ago. If
he was only a small trader or craftsman he kept his money in a box: this
he hid: there were various hiding places: behind the bed, under the
hearthstone--but they were all known. A burglar, therefore, might, and
very often did, take away the whole of a man's property and reduce him
to ruin. For this reason it was very wisely ordered that a burglar
should be hanged.
They began in the reign of Henry IV. to burn heretics. Later on they
burned witches and poisoners. As yet they had not begun to slice off
ears and to slit noses: there was no rack: nobody was tortured: nobody
was branded on the hand: there was no whipping of women in Bridewell as
a public show--that came later: there was no flogging at the cart tail.
Punishments were mild. Sometimes the criminal performed the _amende
honorable_, marching along Chepe bareheaded and wearing nothing but a
white shirt, carrying a great wax taper, escorted by the Mayor's
sergeants. There was a ducking-stool on the other side of the river, at
Bank Side, in which scolds were ducked. There was the thewe, which was a
chair in which women were made to sit, lifted high above the crowd,
exposed to their derision. There was the pillory, which served for
almost all the cases which now come before a police
magistrate--adulteration, false weights and measures, selling bad meat:
pretending to be an officer of the Mayor: making and selling bad work:
forging title deeds; stealing--all were punished in the same way. The
offender was carried or led through the City--sometimes mounted with his
head to the horse's tail--always with something about his neck to show
the nature of his offence, and placed in pillory for a certain time.
There was one punishment always in reserve--the worst of all. This was
deprivation of the privileges of a freeman and banishment from the City.
'Go,' said the Mayor. 'Thou shalt dwell with us; trade with us;
converse with us; no more. Go.' And so that source of trouble was
removed.
We have seen how the trades formed companies--every trade having its own
company. It must not, however, be understood that the working man gained
much power by their unions. They were organised: they had to obey:
obedience was very good for them as it is for all of us, always; but it
must be obedience to a corporate body, not to a master. This they did
not understand and they tried to form 'covins' or trades unions of their
own. The City put down these attempts with a stern hand. The trade
companies ruled hours of work, wages, and standard of work. Lastly,
though there was no City police to guard the streets, there were certain
laws for the maintenance of order. Nobody under the rank of knight was
to carry arms in the streets: no one was to walk about the street after
nine at night: houses were not to be built over streets. In a word,
there were not many laws; but the people were law abiding. And this,
perhaps, as much as anything else, explains the greatness of London.
[Illustration: THE EMBARKATION OF HENRY VIII. FROM DOVER, 1520.
(_From the original painting at Hampton Court._)]
39. THE POLITICAL POWER OF LONDON.
Until the rapid growth of the manufacturing interests created immense
cities in the North, the wealth and prosperity and population of London
gave it a consideration and power in the political situation which was
unequalled by that of any other mediaeval city. Even Paris, for instance,
has never held an equal importance in the history of France. This power
has been especially, and significantly, employed in the election and
proclamation of Kings. It is not only that London has been the place
of proclamation: it is that the Londoners themselves have repeatedly
said, 'This shall be our King': and, as repeatedly, by that very act,
have given him to understand that if he would not reign well he should,
like some of his predecessors, be deposed. London chose Kings Edmund and
Harold Harefoot, before the Conquest. After the Conquest, they elected
Stephen at a folkmote, a gathering of all the citizens. They put him on
the Throne and they kept him there. The power of the Londoners is very
well put by Froissart, who wrote in the time of Richard II. and Henry
IV., and was an eyewitness of many things which he relates. 'The
English,' he says, 'are the worst people in the world: the most
obstinate and the most presumptuous: and, of all England, the Londoners
are the leaders; for, to say the truth, they are very powerful in men
and in wealth. In the City there are 24,000 men completely armed from
head to foot and full 30,000 archers. This is a great force and they are
bold and courageous, and the more blood is spilled, the greater is their
courage.'
Take the deposition of Edward II., also described by Froissart. He says
that when the Londoners found the King 'besotted' with his favourites,
they sent word to Queen Isabella that if she could land in England with
300 armed men she would find the citizens of London and the majority of
the nobles and commonalty ready to join her and place her on the Throne.
This the Queen effected: the citizens joined the little army thus
collected--without their assistance, Froissart says, the thing could not
have been done--and made Edward prisoner at Berkeley Castle.
Or there was the capture of Richard II. This also was effected by an
army composed entirely of Londoners 12,000 strong, led by Henry of
Lancaster. Afterwards, when Henry of Lancaster was Henry IV., and a
conspiracy was formed against him, the Lord Mayor said, 'Sire, King we
have made you: King we will keep you.' The City played almost as great a
part against Henry VI.--half-heartedly at first, because they thought
that as he had no children there would be at some time or other an end.
Moreover, they could not readily forget his grandfather, their own King;
and his father, the hero of Agincourt. When, however, a son was born,
the Londoners became openly and unreservedly Yorkists. And the Yorkists
triumphed. The election of Richard III. was made in London. When Lady
Jane Grey was proclaimed Queen, it was not by the Mayor and Aldermen,
but by the Duke of Northumberland, and the City looked on in apathy,
expecting trouble. The greatest strength of Elizabeth lay in the
affection and support of London, which never wavered. Had Charles I.
conciliated the City he might have died in his bed, still King of
England. It was the City which forced James II. to fly and called over
William Prince of Orange. It was, again, London which supported Pitt in
his firm and uncompromising resistance to Napoleon. And in the end
Napoleon was beaten. It cannot be too often repeated that two causes
made the strength of London: the unity of the City, so that its vast
population moved as one man: and its wealth. The King thought of the
subsidies--under the names of loans, grants, benevolences--which he
could extort from the merchants. We who enjoy the fruits of the long
struggle maintained especially by London for the right of managing our
own affairs, especially in the matter of taxation, cannot understand the
tyrannies which the people of old had to endure from Kings and nobles.
Richard II., for instance, forced the citizens to sign and seal blank
'charts'--try to imagine the Prime Minister making the Lord Mayor, the
Aldermen, the Common Council men, and all the more important merchants
sign blank cheques to be filled in as he pleased! That, however, was the
last exaction of Richard II. Henry of Lancaster went out with 12,000
Londoners, and made him prisoner.
Another factor, less generally understood, assisted and developed the
power of London.
It was also the position of the City as the centre of the country; not
geographically, which would give Warwick that position, but from the
construction of the roads and from its position on the Thames. But, to
repeat, the use and wont of the City to act together by order of the
Mayor, principally made it so great a power. Whatever troubles might
arise, here was a solid body--'24,000 men at arms and 30,000 archers,'
all acting on one side. The rest of the country was scattered,
uncertain, inclined this way and that. The City, to use a modern phrase,
'voted solid.' There were no differences of opinion in the City. And
that, even more than its wealth, made London a far more important
factor, politically, than the barons with all their following.
40. ELIZABETHAN LONDON.
PART I.
A map of Elizabethan London, drawn by one Agas, which is almost a
picture as well as a map, shows us very clearly the aspect of the City.
Let us lay down the map before us. First of all, we observe the wall of
the City; it is carefully drawn of uniform height, with battlements, and
at regular intervals, bastions. Outside the wall there is the ditch, but
it is now, as Stow describes it, laid out in gardens--cows are grazing
in some parts of it--and there are mean houses built on the other side
of it. There is a single street of houses with large gardens outside
Aldgate, which is now Whitechapel. The north side of Houndsditch is
already built. A street of houses runs north of Bishopsgate. No houses
stand between this street and two or three streets outside Cripplegate.
Moorfields are really fields. There are windmills, gardens with
summer-houses, pasture-fields with cows, a large 'dogge house,' and
fields where women appear to be laying out clothes to dry. Really, they
are tenter fields, i.e. fields provided with 'tenters,' or pegs, by
means of which cloth could be stretched. North of Moorfields is
indicated rising ground with woods. There can be no doubt at all as to
the course of the wall, which is here marked with the greatest
clearness. On the east of the Tower there is already a crowded quarter
in the Precinct of St. Katherine's: and a few buildings mark the former
site of the great monastery of Eastminster. In the Minories a group of
new houses marks the site of the nunnery which stood here. London Bridge
is covered with houses: on Bank Side, Southwark, there are two round
buildings, 'The Bearebayting' and 'The Bullebayting.' There is also,
opposite to Blackfriars, Paris Garden, a very favourite place of resort
for the citizens. But as yet there are no theatres. Along the river
outside the walls we find, beyond Bridewell Palace, an open space where
was formerly Whitefriars. Here presently grew up a curious colony called
Alsatia, which claimed to retain the right of Sanctuary once belonging
to the monastery. Arrests for debt could not be made within its limits.
That is to say, it was so claimed by the residents, who resisted any
attempt to violate this privilege by force of arms. It was a notorious
place in the seventeenth century, filled with rogues and broken-down
gamblers, spendthrifts and profligates. As yet (when this map was drawn)
there are very few houses between Whitefriars and the Temple. Beyond the
Temple there are marked Arundel Place, Paget Place, Somerset Place, the
Savoy, York Place. Duresme--i.e. Durham--Place, and 'the Court'--i.e.
Whitehall--of which the map gives a plan, which gives us a clear idea of
the plan and appearance of this palace, of which only the Banqueting
Hall remains. The Savoy, at the time (1561) was a hospital. Henry VII.
made a hospital of it, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, receiving 100
poor people. At the Dissolution of the Monasteries it was suppressed.
Queen Mary restored it, and it continued as a hospital till the year
1702, when it was finally suppressed. Like Whitefriars, and for the same
reason, it claimed the right of Sanctuary: therefore it became the
harbour of people described as 'rogues and masterless men.' In the City
itself there are many large gardens and open spaces. The courts of the
Grey Friars, now a school, are still standing: there are gardens on the
site of the Austin Friars' monastery and gardens between Broad Street
and Bishopsgate Street. We must not think of London as a city crowded
with narrow lanes and courts, the houses almost touching their opposite
neighbours. Such courts were only found beside the river: many streets,
it is true, were narrow, but there were broad thoroughfares like
Cheapside, Gracechurch Street, Canwicke (now Cannon Street) Tower
Street, and Fenchurch Street. The river is covered with boats: one of
them is a barge filled with soldiers, which is being tugged by a
four-oared boat: packhorses are being taken to the river to drink: below
bridge the lighters begin: two or three vessels are moored at
Billingsgate: the ships begin opposite the Tower: two or three great
three-masted vessels are shown: and two or three smaller ships of the
kind called ketch, sloop, or hoy. Along the river front of the Tower are
mounted cannon. The ditch of the Tower is filled with water. On Tower
Hill there stands a permanent gallows: beside it is some small
structure, which is probably a pillory with the stocks.
Such is a brief account of London from this map. The original is the
property of the Corporation and is kept in the Guildhall Library. A
facsimile reprint has been made.
41. ELIZABETHAN LONDON.
PART II.
We have passed over two hundred years. We left London under the Three
Edwards. We find it under Elizabeth. It was a City of
Palaces--monasteries, with splendid churches and stately buildings: town
houses of bishops, abbots, and noble lords, every one able to
accommodate a goodly following of liveried retainers and servants: the
mansions of rich City merchants, sometimes as splendid as those of the
lords: the halls of the City Companies: the hundred and twenty City
churches. Look at London as Shakespeare saw it. Everywhere there are the
ruins of the monasteries: some of the buildings have been destroyed with
gunpowder: some have been pulled down: where it has been too costly to
destroy the monastic chapels they are used as storehouses or workshops:
the marble monuments of the buried Kings and Queens have been broken up
and carried off: the ruins of refectory, dormitory, library, chapter
house stand still, being taken down little by little as stones are
wanted for building purposes: some of the ruins, indeed, lasted till
this very century, notably a gateway of the Holy Trinity Priory, at the
back of St. Catharine Cree, Leadenhall Street, and some of the buildings
of St. Helen's Nunnery, beside the church of Great St. Helen's. One
would think that the presence of all these ruins would have saddened the
City. Not so. The people were so thoroughly Protestant that they
regarded the ruins with the utmost satisfaction. They were a sign of
deliverance from what their new preachers taught them was false
doctrine. Moreover, there were other reasons why the citizens under
Queen Elizabeth could not regret the past.
[Illustration: COACHES IN THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH.
(_From 'Archcaeologia.'_)]
The parish churches were changed. The walls, once covered with paintings
of saints and angels, were now scraped or whitewashed: instead of altars
with blazing lights, there was a plain table: there were no more
watching candles: there were no more splendid robes for the priest and
the altar boys: the priest was transformed into a preacher: the service
consisted of plain prayers, the reading of the Bible, and a sermon. In
very few churches was there an organ. There was no external beauty in
religion. Therefore external beauty in the church itself ceased for
three hundred years to be desired. What was required was neatness, with
ample space for all to be seated, so arranged that all might hear the
sermon. And whereas under the Plantagenets every other man was a priest,
a friar, or some officer or servant of a monastery, one only met here
and there a clergyman with black gown and Genevan bands.
This change alone transformed London. But there were other changes. Most
of the great nobles had left the City. Long before they went away their
following had been cut down to modest numbers: their great barracks had
become useless: they were let out in tenements, and were falling into
decay: some of them had been removed to make way for warehouses and
offices: one or two remained till the Great Fire of 1666. Among them
were Baynard's Castle, close to Blackfriars, and Cold Harbour. A few
nobles continued to have houses in the City. In the time of Charles II.,
the Duke of Buckingham had a house on College Hill, and the palaces
along the Strand still remained.
[Illustration: THE CITY FROM SOUTHWARK.]
The merchants' houses took the place of these palaces. They were built
either in the form of a quadrangle, standing round a garden, with a
cloister or covered way running round, of which Gresham House, pulled
down in the last century, was a very fine example. But, since few
merchants could afford to build over so large a piece of ground and land
was too valuable to be wasted on broad lawns and open courts, the houses
were built in four or five stories, with rich carvings all over the
front. The house called Sir Paul Pinder's House in Bishopsgate Street,
pulled down only a year or two ago, was a very fine example of such a
house. The great hall was henceforth only built in great country houses:
in the City the following of the richest merchants, in his private
house, consisted of a few servants only; small rooms henceforward became
the rule: when entertainments and festivities on a large scale are held,
the Companies' Halls may be used. The inferior kind of Elizabethan house
may still be seen in Holborn--outside of Staple Inn: in Wych Street: in
Cloth Fair: and one or two other places. They were narrow: three or
four stories high: each story projected beyond the one below: they were
gabled: the windows were latticed, with small diamond panes of glass:
they were built of plaster and timber. Building with brick only began in
the reign of James the First. Before every house hung a sign, on which
was painted the figure by which the house was known: some of these signs
may still be seen: there is one in Holywell Street: one in Ivy Lane: and
there are many old Inns which still keep their ancient signs.
42. ELIZABETHAN LONDON.
PART III.
The population of London at this time was perhaps, for it is not
certain, 150,000. There were no suburbs, unless we call the Strand and
Smithfield suburbs; the London citizen stepped outside the gates into
the open country. This fact must be remembered when we think of the
narrow lanes. The great danger of the City still remained, that of fire,
for though the better houses were built of stone, the inferior sort, as
was stated above, continued to be built of timber and plaster. There
were no vehicles in the streets except carts, and the number of these
was restricted to 420. When you think of London streets at this time
remember that in most of them, in all except the busy streets and the
chief thoroughfares, there was hardly ever any noise of rumbling wheels.
The packhorses followed each other in long procession, laden with
everything; there were doubtless wheelbarrows and hand carts; but the
rumbling of the wheels was not yet a part of the daily noise.
The Lord Mayor was directed by Elizabeth always to keep a certain number
of the citizens drilled and instructed in the use of arms. When the
Spanish invasion was threatened, the Queen ordered a body of troops to
be raised instantly. In a single day 1,000 men, fully equipped, were
marched off to camp. Afterwards 10,000 men were sent off, and
thirty-eight ships were supplied. Both men and sailors were raised by
impressment. A constant danger to the peace of the City was the
turbulence of the prentices, these lads were always ready to rush into
the streets, shouting, ready to attack or destroy whatever was unpopular
at the moment. Thus, early in the reign of Henry VIII., at a time when
there was great animosity against foreign merchants, of whom there were
a great many beside the Hanse merchants of the Steelyard, there was a
riot in which a great many houses of foreigners were destroyed, many
persons were killed, Newgate was assailed and taken, eleven rioters
hanged and 400 more taken before the King with halters round their necks
to receive his pardon. This was called 'Evil May Day.' The disorderly
conduct of the prentices continued during Elizabeth's reign, she ordered
the Provost-Marshal in order to put an end to this trouble, to hang all
disorderly persons so convicted by any Justice of the Peace.
There was much complaint of extravagance in dress: rules were passed by
the Common Council on the subject. Prentices especially were forbidden
to dress in any but the warmest and plainest materials. The dress of the
Blue Coat boy is exactly the dress of the prentice of the period,
including the flat cap which the modern wearer of the dress carries in
his pocket.
[Illustration: SOUTH-EAST PART OF LONDON IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY,
SHOWING THE TOWER AND WALL.]
The punishments of this time are much more severe than had been found
necessary in the Plantagenet period. They not only carried criminals in
shameful procession through the City, but they flogged girls for
idleness, apprentices for immorality, and rogues for selling goods
falsely described. A 'pillar of reformation' was set up at the Standard
in Cheap; here on Sunday morning the mayor superintended the flogging of
young servants. When Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed Queen a young fellow,
for speaking slightingly of her title, had his ears nailed to the
pillory and afterwards cut off, heretics were burned, traitors were
hanged first for a few minutes and then taken down and cut open--one of
the most horrible punishments ever inflicted.
The Reformation, which suppressed the religious Houses, at the same time
suppressed the hospitals which were all religious Houses and the schools
which belonged to the religious Houses. St. Bartholomew's, St. Thomas's,
St. Mary's, St. Mary of Bethlehem, besides the smaller houses, were all
suppressed. The sick people were sent back to their own houses; the
brethren and sisters were dispersed. One House contained one hundred
blind men, all these were cast adrift; another contained a number of
aged priests--these were turned into the streets. Eight schools perished
at the Dissolution. For a time London had neither schools nor hospitals.
This could not continue. Bartholomew's, St. Thomas's, Bethlehem, and,
under Queen Mary, the Savoy were refounded under new statutes as
hospitals. For schools, St. Paul's which was never closed, was endowed
by Dean Colet; St. Anthony's continued, the Blue Coat School was founded
on the site of the Franciscan House. The Mercers took over the school of
St. Thomas. The Merchant Taylors founded their school. In Southwark,
schools were founded at St. Olave's and St. Saviour's. A few years later
Charterhouse was converted into an almshouse and a school.
43. TRADE.
PART I.
London was anciently the resort of 'foreign' merchants. It was rich
because 'foreign' merchants brought and exchanged their goods at this
port. There were no ships built in England until the reign of King
Alfred. When the kingdom became tranquil he is said to have hired out
his ships to foreign merchants. A list of tolls paid by foreign ships in
the reign of King Ethelred II. shows that the imports were considerable.
The foreign merchants, however, were not to 'forestall their markets
from the burghers of London,' so that the retail trade was kept in
native hands. When retail trade was separated from wholesale trade all
that the London merchants had was the collection, the warehousing, and
the sale of the exports. It is reasonable to suppose that foreign
merchants coming to the City year after year would find it useful to
have a permanent settlement--a wharf with officers and servants of their
own. Such a settlement was, no doubt, permitted from very early times.
But in the year 1169 was founded a trade association which, for wealth,
success, and importance, might compare with our East India Company. This
was the Hanseatic League (so called from the word _Hansa_, a
convention). In the League were confederated: first, twelve towns in the
Baltic, Luebeck at the head; next, sixty-four--and even eighty--German
towns. They were first associated for protection against pirates: they
speedily became the greatest trading company of the period. In the reign
of Henry III. the League obtained a Royal Charter granting them liberty
of constant residence at a place in London. They were permitted to have
a permanent establishment at a place called the Steelyard--i.e. the
place where the Steelyard or Scales had formerly been kept--under
certain conditions, including the payment of custom dues. They were
called the Merchants of the Steelyard: they at once drew to themselves
the whole trade of England with the northern ports: and they remained
there for nearly 400 years.
There was another association of foreigners called the Merchants of the
Staple. That is to say, they dealed in what was called the 'staples' of
England--in the raw produce, as lead, tin, wool, &c. Gradually, however,
the word Staple came to be applied solely to wool as the most important
export. The Lord Chancellor, to this day, is seated on a Woolsack. The
Merchants of the Staple became merged in the Merchants of the Steelyard.
These foreign merchants were at all times extremely unpopular with the
Londoners, who envied their wealth, which they thought was made at the
expense of the City, not understanding, for a long time, that the same
way of wealth was open to themselves. When they began to put forth
merchant ships on their own account, they at first sought the southern
ports, sailing to Dunquerque, Sluys, Rouen, Havre, Bordeaux, Lisbon, and
even to the Mediterranean ports. Whittington's trade was entirely with
the South. It was not at Luebeck or on the shores of the Baltic that he
found his cloth of gold, his rich velvets, his silks, his gold
embroidery, his scented wood, his wines, his precious stones. And the
reason why he sent his ships to the South was that the trade of the
North was in the hands of the Steelyard.
Edward III. seems first of our kings to have understood the value of
manufactures and of foreign trade. He first passed laws for the repair
of the highways: under his reign the Merchant Adventurers were
encouraged and assisted: he first stimulated the making of English
cloth instead of selling our wool: under him the shipping of the London
merchants began to increase and to develop. Still the foreign merchants
continued to occupy the Steelyard: still our merchants were shut out of
the northern ports: still other foreigners received permission to
settle: even craftsmen came over from Germany and the Low Countries and
followed their trade in London. Richard III., in order to please the
citizens, ordered their expulsion, but it does not appear that the order
was obeyed. Henry VII., on the other hand, persuaded many Flemish
woollen manufacturers to come over to this country.
Early in the sixteenth century the exports of English cloth by the
foreign merchants amounted to 44,000 pieces, while the English ships
took away no more than 1,000 pieces. When our own merchants were
prepared with ships and had what may be called the machinery of trade;
as a market, wharves, permission to buy and sell; it is obvious that the
old state of things could no longer continue. It was not, however, until
the reign of Edward VI. that the foreign merchants were finally deprived
of all their privileges and charters.
These rivals, with their powerful organisations and their hold over all
the northern ports, once out of the way the English merchants began to
push out their enterprises in all directions. You shall see immediately
how they prospered.
Meantime there remains a monument erected in memory of the Hanseatic
League. In the reign of Queen Anne the merchants of Hamburg presented to
the church where the merchants of the Steelyard had worshipped for 400
years, a splendid screen of carved wood. Unless the church, which is
already threatened with destruction, is pulled down, you should go to
see that screen, and remember all that it means and commemorates.
44. TRADE.
PART II.
English trade, that is to say, trade in English hands, practically began
with Edward III. and, slowly increasing under his successors, gained an
enormous development under Elizabeth. Several causes operated to produce
this increase. In the first place the abolition of the Steelyard, though
ordered by Edward VI., was not completely carried out till many years
afterwards. During this period the merchants were learning the immense
possibilities open to them when this incubus should be removed. Next,
the great rival of London, Antwerp, suffered, like the rest of the
Netherlands, from the religious wars. Thirdly, the wise and farseeing
action of Gresham transferred the commercial centre of the northern
world from that town to London.
Antwerp in the fifteenth century was the richest and most prosperous
city in western Europe. There were 200,000 inhabitants, a great many
more than could be counted in London: 5,000 merchants met every day in
the Bourse for the transaction of business: 2,500 vessels might be
counted in the river: 500 loaded waggons entered every day from the
country. It was the port of the great and rich manufacturing towns of
Bruges and Ghent. In the latter town there were 40,000 weavers, and an
army of 80,000 men fully armed and equipped, could be raised at any
moment. The former town, Bruges, was the Market--the actual commercial
centre--of the world. Hither came the merchants of Venice and Genoa,
bringing the silks, velvets, cloth of gold, spices and precious stones
from the East to exchange for the English wool and the produce of
Germany and the Baltic.
[Illustration: KING EDWARD VI.
(_From a picture belonging to H. Hucks Gibbs, Esq._)]
The Religious Wars of the sixteenth century: the ferocities, cruelties,
and savagery of those wars: depopulated and ruined this rich and
flourishing country: the Inquisition drove thousands of Flemings, an
industrious and orderly folk, to England, where they established silk
manufactures: and the carrying trade which had been wholly in the hands
of the Antwerp shipowners was diverted and went across the narrow seas
to London, where it has ever since remained.
Before the ruin of Antwerp, Bruges, and Ghent, it was of these towns
that the Kings of England obtained their loans. They were taken up by
the merchants of the Low Countries at an interest of 14 per cent. This
enormous interest, then thought quite moderate and reasonable, explains
how the merchants of that time grew so wealthy. Part of the loans, also,
often had to be taken in jewels. In order to negotiate these loans and
to pay the interest an agent of the English Sovereign was kept at
Antwerp, called the Royal Agent. Very fortunately for London, the Royal
Agent under Edward VI., Mary, and the early years of Elizabeth, was Sir
Thomas Gresham.
You must learn something about this great man. He was the son of Sir
Richard Gresham, formerly Lord Mayor: nephew of Sir John Gresham, also
Lord Mayor (who preserved Bethlehem Hospital on the Dissolution of the
Religious Houses): he came of a Norfolk family originally of the village
of Gresham: like Whittington he was of gentle birth. He was educated at
Cambridge: he was apprenticed to his uncle after taking his degree: and
he was received into the Mercers' Company at the age of twenty-four. It
must be observed that from the outset the young man had every
advantage--good birth, good education, good society, and wealth.
[Illustration: SIR THOMAS GRESHAM.]
At the age of thirty-two he was appointed Royal Agent at Antwerp. At
this time the City was at the height of its splendour and prosperity.
Gresham walked upon the long quays, gazed at the lines of ships, saw
the river alive with boats and barges, loading and unloading, watched
the throng of merchants in the Bourse, saw the palaces, the rows and
streets of palaces in which they lived, thought of London which he had
formerly regarded with so much pride though he now perceived that it was
even poor and quiet compared with this crowded centre of an enormous
trade--why, the city which he had thought the envy of the whole world
could show no more than 317 merchants in all, against Antwerp's 5,000:
and these, though there were some esteemed wealthy, could not between
them all raise a loan of even 10,000_l._ The King had to go abroad for
the money and to pay 14 per cent. for it. Then he began to ask himself
whether something could not be done to divert some of this trade to his
native town.
[Illustration: FIRST ROYAL EXCHANGE.]
First of all, he applied himself to the reduction of the interest. This
he managed to lower from fourteen per cent. to twelve and even to ten. A
gain of four per cent. on a loan of, say, 60,000_l._ meant a saving of
2,400_l._ a year.
When he came back to England he brought with him a discovery which seems
simple. It is, however, the most difficult thing in the world for people
to understand: we are always discovering it, over and over again.
His discovery was this--it applies to every kind of business or
enterprise--It is that union will effect what single effort is powerless
to attempt. The City had for centuries understood this in matters of
government: they were now to learn the same thing in matters of trade.
The merchants of Antwerp had a central place where they could meet for
purposes of union and combination. Those of London had none. As yet
union had only been practised for the regulation of trade prices and
work. True, the merchant adventurers existed, but the spirit of
enterprise had as yet spread a very little way.
Gresham determined to present to his fellow citizens such a Bourse as
the merchants of Antwerp had enjoyed for centuries. He built his Bourse;
he gave it to the City: he gave it as a place of meeting for the
merchants: he gave it for the advance of enterprise. The Queen opened it
with great State, and called it the Royal Exchange. It stood exactly
where the present Royal Exchange stands, but its entrance was on the
south side, not the west. And no gift has ever been made to any city
more noble, more farseeing, more wise, or productive of greater
benefits.
45. TRADE.
PART III.
The merchants got their Exchange. What did they do in it? They did most
wonderful things with it. Greater things were never done in any
Exchange. For the first time they were enabled to act together: and it
was the most favourable opportunity that ever happened to any trading
community. The charters of the foreigners were abolished: the markets of
Bruges were depressed in consequence of the civil wars already
beginning: that city itself, with Antwerp and Ghent, was on the point of
ruin. The way was open, and the spirit of enterprise was awakened. In
ordinary times it would have been the love of gain alone that awakened
this spirit. But these were not ordinary times. The people of Western
Europe took a hundred years to discover that Columbus had doubled the
world: that there was a new continent across the ocean. They began to
send their ships across: nobody as yet knew the possibilities of that
continent with its islands: the Spaniards had the first run, but the
French and the English were beginning to claim their share. Then a way
to India and the East had been found out: we were no longer going to be
dependent on the Venetians for the products of Persia, India, the
Moluccas, China. All those turbulent and restless spirits who could not
settle down to peaceful crafts or the dull life of the desk, longed to
be on board ship sailing Westward Ho. Fortune was waiting for them
there: fortune with fighting, privation, endurance--perhaps death by
fever or by battle: yet a glorious life. Or they might sail southwards
and so round the Cape of Good Hope--called at first the Cape of
Storms--and across the Indian Ocean to the port of Calicut, there to
trade. There were dangers enough even on that voyage to tempt the most
adventurous: Moorish pirates off the coast of Morocco: European
pirates--English pirates--coming out of the rivers and ports of Western
Africa: storms off the Cape: hurricanes in the Indian Ocean: the rocks
and reefs of seas as yet unsurveyed: treachery of natives. Yet there
were never wanting men in plenty to volunteer for these long and
perilous voyages. At home, then, the spirit of enterprise, joined with
the spirit of adventure, achieved mighty things. The merchant
adventurers succeeding to some of the trade of the Hanseatic League,
established 'courts,' i.e. branches at Antwerp, Hamburg, and Dordrecht:
they had also courts at York, Hull, and Newcastle. Many other companies
were founded. There was the Eastland Company or merchants of Ebbing.
Their trade was with the Baltic. There was the 'Merchant Adventurers for
the discovery of Lands, not before known to, or frequented by, the
English.' This afterwards became the Russian Company. They sent out Sir
Hugh Willoughby with three ships to find a North-East passage to China.
He and all his men were frozen to death on the shores of Russian
Lapland. The Company afterwards took to whaling. There was also the
Turkey Company, which lasted to well into the present century. There was
the Royal African Company, which has been revived. There were the
Merchants of Spain: the Merchants of France: the Merchants of Virginia:
the East India Company: the Hudson's Bay Company: the South Sea Company:
the Guinea Company: the Canary Company. Some of these companies were
founded later, but they are all sprung from the spirit of enterprise,
first called into existence by Gresham when he built his Exchange and
brought the merchants together.
[Illustration: SHIPPING IN THE THAMES, CIRCA 1660.
(_From Pricke's 'South Prospect of London.'_)]
By leaps and bounds the prosperity of the City increased, and has still
continued to increase, for the three hundred years that have passed
since Queen Elizabeth opened the Royal Exchange. Whether this prosperity
will still further advance; whether forces, as yet unnoticed, will bring
about the decay of London, no one can venture to prophecy. Antwerp may
again become her rival: may perhaps surpass her; the port of Antwerp is
rising yearly in importance: and that of Hamburg further north, has,
like Liverpool, its miles of quays and wharves and its hundreds of
vessels. But the trade of London is still far greater than that of any
other port in the world, and for its three hundred years of prosperity
we must thank, above all men, that wise merchant Sir Thomas Gresham.
[Illustration: SIR FRANCIS DRAKE, IN HIS FORTY-THIRD YEAR.
(_From the engraving by Elstracke._)]
He did more than give an Exchange to the City. He gave a college: he
gave his own house in Broad Street for a college: he endowed it with
professorships: he intended it to become for London what Christ Church
was to Oxford, or Trinity to Cambridge. It has been converted into a
place for the delivery of lectures, but there are signs that the City
will once more have such a college as Gresham intended.
46. PLAYS AND PAGEANTS.
PART I.
There were no theatres in England, nor any Plays, before the reign of
Queen Elizabeth. This is a statement which is true, but needs
explanation. It is not the case that there was no acting. On the
contrary, there has always been acting of some kind or other. There was
acting at the fairs, where the Cheap Jack and the Quack had their
tumbling boys and clowns to attract the crowd. There were always
minstrels and tumblers, men and women who played, sang, danced, and
tumbled in the hall for the amusement of the great people in the long
winter evenings. Not including the wandering mummers, the Theatre was
preceded by the Religious Drama, the Pageant, and the Masque.
The Religious Drama was usually performed in churches, but sometimes in
market-places and in front of churches. They represented scenes from the
Bible and acts of saints. In a time when the people could not read, such
shows presented Sacred History in a most vivid form. No one could
possibly forget any detail in the Passion of Our Lord who had once seen
it performed in a Mystery, with the dresses complete, with appropriate
words and action, and with music. In the year 1409 there was a play
representing the Creation of the World performed at Clerkenwell. It
lasted eight days, and was witnessed by a vast concourse of all ranks.
Here were shown Paradise, our first parents, the admonition of the
Creator, the Fall, and the expulsion. Such a sight was better than a
hundred sermons for teaching the people.
The plays were not generally so long and so ambitious. They acted
detached scenes: the two men of Emmaus meeting the Risen Lord: the
Raising of Lazarus: the Birth of Christ: the Flood: the Fall of Lucifer:
the Shepherds of Bethlehem: and other scenes. The Mystery or Sacred Play
was the Sunday school of the middle ages. By those plays they learned
the whole of Scripture History. The churches taught detached portions by
the frescoes on the wall, the painted windows and the carvings: but the
history in its sequence was taught by the Sacred Dramas.
We have very full accounts of one Miracle Play, that which was annually
performed by the Guilds of the City of Chester. It was performed at
Whitsuntide and lasted three days. The play began with the 'Fall of
Lucifer' performed by the tanners: went on to the 'Creation,' by the
drapers: then to the 'Flood,' and so on. Nine plays were performed on
the first day; nine on the second; and seven on the third. Each Guild
provided a scaffold on wheels. The scaffold was provided with a canopy
which would represent the sky, or the roof of a house, or a tent, or a
cave, as the play demanded: the performers were properly dressed for
their parts: there was music, and in some cases there were songs. Under
the scaffold was the room where the actors dressed and where the
'properties' were kept. Every play was performed in every principal
street. When one was finished the scaffold was rolled to another station
and the play was repeated. This method prevented crowding. The most
sacred Persons were exhibited at these plays, and nothing was spared to
make them realistic to the last degree. Sometimes devils were put upon
the stage: flames issued from their mouths: they performed tricks of
buffoonery: they dragged off sinners to their doom. Sometimes comic
scenes were introduced, as in the play of the 'Flood,' where it was
common to represent Noah's wife as a shrew who beats her husband and
refuses to go into the Ark.
These plays were swept away by the Reformation. They had been productive
for a long time of mischief rather than of instruction. The profanity of
the comic scenes increased: and reverence was destroyed when in the same
tableau which presented the most sacred of events appeared the most
unbridled buffoons. Religious plays have never been allowed since the
Reformation. Should they again be put upon the stage it must be under
the safeguard of those who can be trusted to admit of no other
consideration than the presentation in the most reverent manner of
sacred subjects. There must be no thought of gain for those who manage,
or those who act, such plays. Many scenes and events of the Bible would
lend themselves wonderfully to dramatic rendering. But the choice of
these must not be left to the lessee of a theatre: nor must the acting
of such plays be permitted to those who live by making the people laugh.
47. PLAYS AND PAGEANTS.
PART II.
After the religious dramas, the Pageants gratified the desire for
spectacle and show. Pageants were held on every grand occasion: to
welcome the sovereign: to honour the new Lord Mayor: to celebrate a
victory. Then they erected triumphal arches adorned with pasteboard
castles, ships, houses, caves--all kinds of things. They either carried
with them, as part of the procession, or they stationed at some point,
the City Giants. London was not alone in having giants. York, Norwich,
Chester, possessed city giants. In Belgium the city giant is still
carried in procession in Antwerp, Douai, and other towns. The figure of
the giant symbolised the strength and power of the city. After Agincourt
Henry V. was welcomed at the south gate of London Bridge by two giants:
his son, Henry VI., was also received by a giant seventeen years later.
Two giants stood on London Bridge to welcome Philip and Mary: the same
two, at Temple Bar, afterwards welcomed Elizabeth. The pair of giants
now in Guildhall were carved in 1707. The names Gog and Magog are wrong.
The original names were Gogmagog and Corineus.
The following account of the Pageant to celebrate the return of the
victor Henry V. after Agincourt is preserved in Stow's 'London.'
The Mayor and Aldermen, dressed in scarlet, with collars and chains,
with 400 citizens in 'murrey,' all well mounted, rode out to meet the
King at Blackheath. Then, after formal greetings, they all rode to
London. In Southwark the King was met by all the London clergy in their
most sumptuous robes, with crosses and censers. At the entrance of
London Bridge, on the top of the tower, stood a pair of giants, male and
female, the former bearing in his right hand an axe, and in his left
hand the keys of the City. Around them stood a band of trumpeters.
On the drawbridge were two lofty columns, on one of which stood an
antelope and on the other a lion--both the King's crests.
At the other end of the Bridge was another tower, and within it an image
of St. George, with a great number of boys representing angels. These
sang an anthem, 'Give thanks, O England, to God for victory.' This is
supposed to be preserved in the song 'Our King went forth to Normandy.'
On Cornhill there was erected a tent of crimson cloth ornamented with
the King's arms. Within it was a company of 'prophets' in golden coats.
As the King approached they set loose a great number of small birds,
which fluttered about while the 'prophets' sung 'Cantate Domino canticum
novum'--'Sing unto the Lord a new song.'
In Cheapside the conduit was hung with green. Here sat the twelve
Apostles and the twelve Kings, Martyrs and Confessors of England. They
also sung a chant and made the conduit run with wine. This represented
the reception of Abraham by Melchisedek.
The Cross of Chepe was built over by a high tower of wood covered all
over with splendid coats of arms. There was a stage in front, on which a
crowd of girls came with timbrels dancing and singing. Thus the maidens
welcomed David when he returned from the slaughter of Goliath. And all
about the building were crowds of boys, representing the Heavenly Host,
who showered down coins resembling gold, and boughs of laurel, and sang
'Te Deum Laudamus.'
Lastly, there was another tower at the west end of Chepe. In each corner
of this stood a girl, who out of a cup strewed golden leaves before the
feet of the King. And there was a high canopy painted with blue and
stars, and beneath a figure all gold, to represent the sun surrounded by
angels singing and playing all kinds of musical instruments.
This witnessed, the King went on to St. Paul's to pay his devotions.
When you read this bald account of one of the greatest Pageants ever
celebrated in the City, you must fill it up by imagining the long
procession, every one in his place. Trumpeters, bowmen in leather
jerkins, men-at-arms in shining helmet and cuirass, horsemen in full
armour, knights, nobles, heralds all in full panoply, banners and
bannerets, the Bishop and all the clergy, the King and his retinue, the
Lord Mayor and his four hundred followers. Imagine the blare of the
trumpets, the singing of the chants, the roaring of the people, the
crimson hangings all along the line of march at every window. There were
no police to keep the line: you might see the burgesses running out of
the taverns on their way with blackjacks of Malmsey to regale the
gallant soldiers who had fought and won the victory. You would see the
King bareheaded. Why was he bareheaded? Because he was so modest--this
brave King. Because he would not let the people see his helmet dinted
and misshapen with the signs and scars of hard battle in which he had
played his part as well as any humble leather-jerkined bowman in his
array. Your ancestors, these soldiers and these citizens: your
forefathers. They knew, far better than you will ever know, how to
marshal a gallant show. We have lost the art of making a Pageant. It
remains with us--once a year--in the Lord Mayor's Show. But think of
Henry's Riding into London compared with the Lord Mayor's Show!
48. PLAYS AND PAGEANTS.
PART III.
Between the Pageant and the Play stands the Masque, a form of
entertainment which achieved its greatest splendour both in stage
mounting and in the words and songs in the reigns of Elizabeth and
James I. Nowhere was the Masque more carefully studied and more
magnificently presented than in London. The scenic display which in the
early theatre was so meagre was carried in the Masque to a height never
surpassed until the splendid shows of the present day. Nor did the
greatest poets disdain to write words for the Masque. The most beautiful
of those which remain are to be found in Ben Jonson's works. Every great
man's house had a hall which was used for the Masque. Bacon, who gives
directions for building a house, orders that there must be a room built
on purpose for these performances. Under it is to be another room for
the actors to dress and for the 'properties'--i.e. the things requisite
for the presentation of the Masque, such as scenery, the woods,
fountains, rocks, palaces, &c.--that might be required. Let us show what
a Masque was like by describing one of Ben Jonson's. It is called the
Masque of Oberon, and was performed before Prince Henry, the eldest son
of James I., who died in youth.
The scene presents a rock with trees beyond it and 'all the wildness
that can be presented.' All is dark. Presently the moon rising shows a
Satyr, one of the beings with whom the ancients peopled the forests and
wild places. They were drawn with the feet and legs of goats, short
horns on the head, and the body covered with thick hair. This Satyr
lifts his head and calls his companions. There is no answer. He blows
his cornet. Echo answers him. He blows again, and is again mocked by the
Echo. A third time he blows, and other Satyrs come leaping and dancing
upon the stage. Silenus, their leader, bids them prepare to see the
young Prince Oberon.
The scene opens: the rocks and forests disappear: there is shown a
glorious palace whose walls and gates are transparent. Before the gates
lie asleep two 'Sylvans'--i.e. men of the woods. The Satyrs gather round
these sleeping sentinels and wake them up with singing:
Buzz, quoth the blue fly:
Hum, quoth the bee:
Buzz and hum they cry
And so do we.
In his ear, in his nose,
Thus do you see? [They tickle them.]
He ate the dormouse
Else it was he.
The Sylvans wake: they explain that it is yet too early for the gates to
open. Meantime let them sing and dance to while away the time. One of
them sings therefore. After the song they fall into an 'antick dance
full of gesture and swift motion' and thus continue till the crowing of
a cock gives the signal for the whole palace to open. It is like a
transformation scene at a pantomime. There is the palace with all its
occupants--the 'whole nation of Fays' or Fairies. Some are playing
instruments of music; some are singing: some are bearing lights: at the
back of the stage sit the 'Knights masquers.' With them Oberon in his
chariot. And then, drawn by two white bears, guarded by three Sylvans on
each side, the chariot moves down the stage. Observe that to produce all
these effects the stage must have been very deep. The song they sing is
in praise of the King:
Melt earth to sea, sea flow to air,
And air fly into fire,
Whilst we in tunes to Arthur's chair
Bear Oberon's desire:
Than which there's nothing can be higher
Save James to whom it flies:
But he the wonder is of tongues and ears and eyes--
The Satyrs leap and dance again for joy at so splendid a sight.
Then Silenus speaks in praise of Prince Oberon, who is, of course,
Prince Henry, the elder son of James, who died young. The flattery is no
worse than was usual in Masques. Silenus says that the Prince--
Stays the time from turning old,
And keeps the age up in a head of gold.
He makes it ever day and ever spring
When he doth shine, and quickens everything.
Then two Fays sing a song and all the Fays together dance, after which
all together sing. Then Oberon and his knights dance. Another song
follows. Then they all together dance 'measures, corantos, and
galliards,' till Phosphorus the day star appears and calls them away--
To rest! To rest! The herald of the day,
Bright Phosphorus commands you hence. Obey.
They quickly dance their last dance, one by one getting into the Palace.
Then the Star vanishes, the day breaks, and while the last song is sung
the 'machine closes'--i.e. the Palace becomes a wall of the room and the
show is over. This is the pretty song which ends the Masque:
O yet how early and before her time,
The envious morning up doth climb,
Though she not love her bed!
What haste the jealous sun doth make
His fiery horses up to take
And once more show his head!
Lest, taken with the brightness of this night,
The world should wish it last and never miss his light.
49. PLAYS AND PAGEANTS.
PART IV.
Through the Religious Drama, the Pageant, the Masque, we work our way to
the Play itself. The first beginnings of the modern Drama must here be
passed over: there were the rough and unformed comedies such as 'Gammer
Gurton's Needle,' performed in a college hall: or the tragedy played on
boards spread over a waggon in the courtyard of an inn. Let us suppose
that we are past the beginnings and are in Shakespeare's time--i.e. the
end of Queen Elizabeth and the whole reign of James I.
The first theatre was built in 1570. Thirty years after there were
seven. The Queen had companies of children to play before her. They were
the boys of the choirs of St. Paul's, Westminster, Whitehall, and
Windsor. The actors called themselves the servants of some great lord.
Lord Leicester, Lord Warwick, Lord Pembroke, Lord Howard, the Earl of
Essex, and others all had their company of actors--not all at the same
time. The principal Houses were those at Southwark, and especially at
Bank Side, where there were three, including the famous Globe: the
Blackfriars Playhouse: the Fortune in Golden Lane, and the Curtain at
Shoreditch. If you will look at the map you will observe that not one of
these theatres is within the City--that at Blackfriars was in the former
precinct of the Dominicans and outside the City. No theatre was allowed
in the City. Thus early sprang up the prejudice against actors. Probably
this was of old standing, and first belonged to the time when the
minstrel and the tumbler, the musician and the dancing girl, the buffoon
and the contortionist, wandered about the country free of rule and
discipline, leading careless and lawless lives.
The theatre was octagonal in shape but circular within. What we call the
pit was called the 'yarde.' The stage projected into the 'yarde,' about
three or four feet high. The people who filled the 'yarde' were called
groundlings. Round the house were three galleries, the lowest of which
contained 'rooms' or private boxes: what we call the upper circle and
the gallery were above. There were no seats in the pit, nor apparently
in the upper circles. On either side of the stage sat or lay gentlemen,
chiefly of the younger kind, who smoked pipes of tobacco and talked
loudly, disturbing the performance. At the back of the stage was a kind
of upper stage, supported on columns, which gave the players a tower,
gallery, wall, a town, or an upper story of a house, or anything of the
kind that they wanted. There was a great sale of apples, nuts, and ale
before the play began and between the acts: boys hawked the newest books
about the 'rooms': the people while they waited smoked pipes, played
cards. Above the stage on one side was the 'music.' Three times the
trumpets sounded. At the first, those who were outside hurried in to get
a place: at the second, the card-players left off their games: at the
third, those who bawled apples and ale and shouted the name of the new
book became silent: the audience settled down: the Play began. Not much
costume was wanted: that of the Elizabethan--noble--courtier--young
knight--clown--fitted any and every age. There was little scenery
required: blue hangings above meant day: black hangings night: the
actors came out upon the advanced stage and played their parts. No doubt
the illusion was as complete as we can contrive with all our scenery,
mounting, and correctness of costume.
[Illustration: THE GLOBE THEATRE.]
The parts of women were taken by boys. No women appeared on the stage
until the reign of Charles II. The Play began with the Prologue, spoken
by an actor dressed in a long black velvet coat bowing very humbly to
the audience. After the Play was over the clowns began to tumble and to
sing. In short, a farce succeeded a tragedy. The time of performance was
one o'clock, and the performance lasted until five.
In the year 1610 the Lord Mayor and Aldermen being alarmed at the
increasing popularity of the Play, ordered that there should be only two
theatres, the Fortune in Golden Lane and the Globe at Bankside. This
order, however, like so many other laws, was only passed to satisfy a
passing scare and does not seem to have been carried into effect. It was
in such a theatre as this and with such scenery that the immortal plays
of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson were acted. When next you read a play of
Shakespeare, remember the stage projecting into the pit; the people in
the pit all standing, the gallants on the stage talking and smoking, the
ladies in the boxes, the boys enjoying apples and nuts and ale and new
books, and the actors playing partly on the stage advanced and partly on
the stage behind.
50. THE TERROR OF THE PLAGUE.
PART I.
You have seen the City as it appeared to one who walked about its
streets and watched the people. It was free, busy and prosperous, except
at rare intervals, when its own internal dissensions, or the civil wars
of the country, or the pretensions of the Sovereign, disturbed the peace
of the City. Behind this prosperity, however, lay hid all through the
middle ages, and down to two hundred years ago, four great and
ever-present terrors. The first was the Terror of Leprosy: the second
the Terror of Famine: the third was the Terror of Plague: the last was
the Terror of Fire.
[Illustration: CIVIL COSTUME ABOUT 1620.
(_From a contemporary broadside._)]
[Illustration: COSTUME OF A LAWYER.
(_From a broadside, dated 1623._)]
As for the first two, we have seen how lazar houses were established
outside every town, and how public granaries were built. Let us consider
the third. The Plague broke out so often that there was hardly any time
between the tenth and the seventeenth century when some living person
could not remember a visitation of this awful scourge. It appeared in
London first--i.e. the first mention of it occurs in history--in the
year 962: again in 1094: again in 1111: then there seems to have been a
respite for 250 years. In the year 1348 the Plague carried off many
thousands: in 1361 it appeared again: in 1367 and in 1369. In 1407
30,000 were carried off in London alone by the Plague. In 1478 a plague
raged throughout the country, which was said to have destroyed more
people than the Wars of the Roses. But we must accept all mediaeval
estimates of numbers as indicating no more than great mortality. With
the sixteenth century began a period of a hundred and sixty years,
marked with attacks of the Plague constantly recurring, and every time
more fatal and more widespread. Nothing teaches the conditions of human
life more plainly than the history of the Plague in London. We are
placed in the world in the midst of dangers, and we have to find out for
ourselves how to meet those dangers and to protect ourselves. Thus a
vast number of persons were crowded together within the walls of the
City. The streets were all narrow: the houses were generally of three or
more stories, built out in front so as to obstruct the light and air;
there were many courts, in which the houses were mere hovels: there was
no drainage: refuse of all kinds lay about the streets: everything that
was required for the daily life was made in the City, which added a
thousand noisome smells and noxious refuse. Then the Plague came and
carried off its thousands and disappeared. Then the survivors went on
their usual course. Nothing was changed. Yet the Plague was a voice
which spoke loudly. It said 'Clean yourselves: cease to defile the soil
of the City with your decaying matter: build your houses in wider
streets: do not shut out the sunshine--which is a splendid purifier--or
light and air. Keep yourselves clean--body and raiment, and house and
street.' The voice spoke, but no one heard. Then came the Plague again.
Still no one heard the voice. It came again and again. It came in 1500,
in 1525, in 1543, in 1563, in 1569, in 1574, in 1592, in 1603 (when
30,575 died), in 1625 (when 35,470 died), in 1635 (when 10,400 died),
and lastly, in 1665. And in all that time no one understood that voice,
and the City was never cleansed. All that was done was to light bonfires
in the street in order to increase the circulation of the air. After the
last, and worst attack, in 1666 the City was burned, and in the
purification of the flames it emerged clean, and the Plague has never
since appeared. The same voice speaks to mankind still in every
visitation of every new pestilence. It used to cry aloud in time of
Plague: it cries aloud now in time of typhoid, diphtheria, and cholera.
Diseases spring from ignorance and from vice. Physicians cannot cure
them: but they can learn their cause and they can prevent.
The Plague of 1665 began in the autumn of the year before. It had been
raging in Amsterdam and Hamburg in 1663. Precautions were taken to keep
it out by stopping the importation of goods from these towns. But these
proved ineffectual. Certain bales from Holland were landed and taken to
a house in Long Acre, Drury Lane. Here they were opened by two
Frenchmen, both of whom caught the disease and died. A third Frenchman
who was seized in the same house was removed to Bearbinder Lane, St.
Swithin's Lane, where he, too, died. And then the disease began to
spread. A severe frost checked it for a time. But in March, when milder
weather returned, it broke out again.
The disease, when it seized upon a person, brought upon him a most
distressing horror of mind. This was followed by fever and delirium. But
the certain signs of the plague were spots, pustules, and swellings,
which spread over the whole body. Death in most cases rapidly followed.
Some there were who recovered, but the majority gave themselves over for
lost on the first appearance. Many of the physicians ran away from the
infected City: many of the parish clergy deserted their churches. The
Lord Mayor and Aldermen, however, remained, by their presence giving
heart to those of the clergy and physicians who stayed, and by their
prudent measures preventing a vast amount of additional suffering which
would otherwise have fallen upon the unhappy people.
51. THE TERROR OF THE PLAGUE.
PART II.
In the month of May it was found that twenty City parishes were
infected. Certain preventions, rather than remedies, of which there were
none, were now employed by the Mayor. Infected houses were shut up: no
one was allowed to go in or to come out: food was conveyed by buckets
let down from an upper window: the dead bodies were lowered in the same
way, from the windows: on the doors were painted red crosses with the
words, 'Lord, have mercy upon us!' Watchmen were placed at the doors to
prevent the unhappy prisoners from coming out. All the dogs and cats in
the City, being supposed to carry about infection in their fur or hair,
were slaughtered--40,000 dogs, it is stated, and 200,000 cats, which
seems an impossible number, were killed. They also tried, but without
success, to kill the rats and mice. Everything was tried except the one
thing wanted--air and cleanliness. At the outset a great many of the
better sort left the City and stayed in the country till the danger was
over: others would have followed but the country people would not suffer
their presence and drove them back with clubs and pikes. So they had to
come back and die in the City. Then all the shops closed: all industries
were stopped: men could no longer sit beside each other: the masters
dismissed their apprentices and their workmen and their servants. In the
river the ships lay with their cargoes half discharged: on the quays
stood the bales, unopened. In the churches there were no services except
where the scanty congregation sat singly and apart. The Courts of
Justice were empty: there were no crimes to try: in the streets the
passengers avoided each other. In the markets which had to be kept open,
the buyer lifted down his purchase with a hook and dropped the money
into a bowl of vinegar. Many families voluntarily shut their houses and
would neither go in or out. Some of these escaped the infection; the
history of one such family during their six months' imprisonment has
been preserved. They thanked God solemnly every morning for continued
health: they prayed three times a day for safety. Some went on board
ship and, as the Plague increased, dropped down the river.
[Illustration: A COUNTRYMAN. A COUNTRYWOMAN.
ORDINARY CIVIL COSTUME; _temp._ CHARLES I.
(_From Speed's map of 'The Kingdom of England,' 1646._)]
The deaths, which in the four weeks of July numbered 725, 1,089, 1,843,
and 2,010, respectively, rose in August and September to three, four,
five, and even eight thousand a week: but it was believed that the
registers were badly kept and that the numbers were greater than
appeared. Every evening carts were sent round, the drivers who smoked
tobacco as a disinfectant, crying out, 'Bring out your Dead. Bring out
your Dead,' and ringing a bell. The churchyards were filled and pits
were dug outside the City into which the bodies were thrown without
coffins. When the pestilence ceased the churchyards were covered with a
thick deposit of fresh mould to prevent ill consequences. It was
observed that during the prevalence of the disease there was an
extraordinary continuance of calm and serene sunshine. For many weeks
together not the least breath of wind could be perceived.
When the summer was over and the autumn came on, the disease became
milder in its form: it lasted longer: and whereas, at the first, not one
in five recovered, now not two in five died. Presently the cold weather
returned and the Plague was stayed. They burned or washed all the linen,
flannel, clothes, bedding, tapestry and curtains belonging to the
infected houses: and they whitewashed the rooms in which the disease had
appeared. But they did not take steps for the cleansing of the City. The
voice had spoken in vain. The number of deaths during the year was
registered as 97,306 of which 68,596 were attributed to the Plague. But
there seems little doubt that the registers were inefficiently kept. It
was believed that the number who perished by Plague alone was at least
100,000.
It is easy to write down these figures. It is difficult to understand
what they mean. Among them, a quarter at least, would be the
breadwinners, the fathers of families. In many cases all perished
together, parents and children: in others, the children were left
destitute. Then there was no work. There were 100,000 working men out of
employment. All these people had to be kept. The Lord Mayor, assisted by
his Aldermen and two noble Lords, Albemarle and Craven, organised a
service of relief. The King gave a thousand pounds a week: the City gave
600_l._ a week: the merchants contributed thousands every week. And so
the people were kept from starving.
When it was all over Pepys, who kept his Diary through the time of the
Plague but was not one of those who stayed in the infected City, notes
the enormous number of beggars. Who should they be but the poor
creatures, the women and the children, the old and the infirm who had
lost their breadwinners, the men who loved them and worked for them? The
history is full of dreadful things: but this amazing crowd of beggars is
the most dreadful.
52. THE TERROR OF FIRE.
PART I.
[Illustration: A CITIZEN. A CITIZEN'S WIFE.
ORDINARY CIVIL COSTUME; _temp._ CHARLES I.
(_From Speed's map of 'The Kingdom of England,' 1646._)]
The City of London has suffered from fire more than any other great
town. In the year 961 a large number of houses were destroyed: in 1077,
1086, and 1093, a great part of the City was burned down. In 1136, a
fire which broke out at London Stone, in the house of one Aylward,
spread east and west as far as Aldgate on one side and St. Erkinwald's
shrine in St. Paul's Cathedral on the other. London Bridge, then built
of wood, perished in the fire, which for five hundred years was known
as the Great Fire. In these successive fires every building of Saxon
erection, to say nothing of the Roman period, must have perished.
But the ravages of all the fires together did less harm than the
terrible fire which laid the greater part of London in ashes in the year
1666. If you will refer to the map of London you may mark off within the
walls the North-East angle: that part contained by the wall and a
straight line running from Coleman Street to Tower Hill. With the
exception of that corner the whole of London within the walls, and
beyond as far as the Temple, was entirely destroyed.
The fire broke out at a baker's in Pudding Lane, Thames Street. It was
early on Sunday morning on the second day of September, 1666. It was
then, and is now, a place where the houses stood very thick and close
together: all round were warehouses filled with oil, wine, tar, and
every kind of inflammable stuff. The baker's shop contained a large
quantity of faggots and brushwood, so that the flames caught and spread
very rapidly. The people, for the most part, had time to remove their
most valuable things, but their furniture, their clothes, the stock of
their shops, the tools of their trade, they had to leave behind them.
Some hurriedly placed their things in the churches for safety, as if the
fire would respect the sanctity of these buildings. A stranger Sunday
was never spent than this, when those who had escaped were asking where
to go, and those upon whom the flames were advancing were tearing out of
their houses whatever they could carry away, and the rest of the town
were looking on and asking whether the flames would be stayed before
they reached their houses.
Among those who thought that a church would be a safe place were the
booksellers of Paternoster Row. They carried all their books into St.
Paul's Cathedral and retired--their stock in trade was safe. But the
flames closed round upon the Cathedral: they seized on Paternoster Row,
so that the booksellers like the rest were fain to fly: and presently
towering to the sky flamed up the lofty roof of nave and chancel and
tower. Then with an awful crash the flaming timbers fell down into the
church below. Even the Cathedral was burned with the rest, and with it
all the books.
[Illustration: A GENTLEMAN. A GENTLEWOMAN.
ORDINARY CIVIL COSTUME; _temp._ CHARLES I.
(_From Speed's map of 'The Kingdom of England,' 1646._)]
All Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and part of Wednesday, the fire raged, till
it seemed as if there would be no end until the City was utterly
destroyed. Happily a remnant was saved, as you have seen. The fire was
stopped at last by blowing up houses everywhere to arrest its progress.
Close by the Temple Church (which barely escaped) they stopped it in
this way. At Aldersgate, Cripplegate, and Bishopsgate, they used the
same means, and at Pye Corner, Smithfield. Nearly opposite Bartholomew's
Hospital, you may still see the image of a boy set up to commemorate the
stopping of the fire at that point. Had it gone further we should have
lost St. Bartholomew the Great and the houses of Cloth Fair.
[Illustration: LUD-GATE ON FIRE.]
When the fire stopped the people sat down to consider the losses they
had sustained and the best way out of them.
St. Paul's Cathedral, that ancient and venerable edifice, with its thick
walls and roof so lofty, that it seemed as if no fire but the fire from
heaven could reach it, was a pile of ruins, the walls of the nave and
transept standing, the choir fallen into the crypt below. The Parish
churches to the number of 88 were burned: the Royal Exchange--Gresham's
Exchange--was down and all the statues turned into lime, with the
exception of Gresham's alone: nearly all the great houses left in the
City, the great nobles' houses, such as Baynard's Castle, Coldharbour,
Bridewell Palace, Derby House, were in ashes: all the Companies' Halls
were gone: warehouses, shops, private residences, palaces and
hovels--everything was levelled with the ground and burned to ashes.
Five-sixths of the City were destroyed: an area of 436 acres was covered
with the ruins: 13,200 houses were burned: it is said that 200,000
persons were rendered homeless--an estimate which would give an average
of 15 residents to each house. Probably this is an exaggeration. The
houseless people, however, formed a kind of camp in Moorfields just
outside the wall, where they lived in tents, and cottages hastily run
up. The place now called Finsbury Square stands on the site of this
curious camp.
[Illustration: PAUL PINDAR'S HOUSE.]
We ask ourselves in wonder how life was resumed after so great a
calamity. The title deeds to houses and estates were burned--who would
claim and prove the right to property? The account books were all
lost--who could claim or prove a debt? The warehouses and shops with
their contents were gone--who could carry on business? The craftsmen had
lost their employment--how were they to live?
Of debts and rents and mortgages and all such things, little could be
said. It was not a time to speak of the past. They must think of the
future: they must all begin the world anew.
53. THE TERROR OF FIRE.
PART II.
They must begin the world anew. For most of the merchants nothing was
left to them but their credit--their good name: try to imagine the havoc
caused by burning all the docks, warehouses, wharves, quays, and shops
in London at the present day with nothing at all insured!
[Illustration: LONDON, AS REBUILT AFTER THE FIRE.]
But the citizens of London were not the kind of people to sit down
weeping. The first thing was to rebuild their houses. This done there
would be time to consider the future. The Lord Mayor and the Aldermen
took counsel together how to rebuild the City. They called in Sir
Christopher Wren, lately become an architect after being astronomer at
Cambridge, and Evelyn: they invited plans for laying out the City in a
more uniform manner with wider streets and houses more protected from
fire. Both Wren and Evelyn sent in plans. But while these were under
consideration the citizens were rebuilding their houses.
They did not wait for the ashes to get cool. As soon as the flames were
extinct and the smoke had cleared: as soon as it was possible to make
way among the ruined walls, every man sought out the site of his own
house and began to build it up again. So that London, rebuilt, was
almost--not quite, for some improvements were effected--laid out with
the same streets and lanes as before the fire. It was two years,
however, before the ruins were all cleared away and four years before
the City was completely rebuilt. Ten thousand houses were erected during
that period, and these were all of brick: the old timbered house with
clay between the posts was gone: so was the thatched roof: the houses
were all of brick: the roofs were tiled: the chief danger was gone. At
this time, too, they introduced the plan of a pavement on either side of
smooth flat stones with posts to keep carts and waggons from interfering
with the comforts of the foot passengers. It took much longer than four
years to erect the Companies' Halls. About thirty of the churches were
never rebuilt at all, the parishes being merged in others. The first to
be repaired, not rebuilt, was that of St. Dunstan's two years after the
fire: in four years more, another church was finished. In every year
after this one or two: and the last of the City churches was not rebuilt
till thirty one years after the fire.
[Illustration: COACH OF THE LATTER HALF OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
(_From Loggan's 'Oxonia Illustrata.'_)]
[Illustration: WAGGON OF THE SECOND HALF OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
(_From Loggan's 'Oxonia Illustrata.'_)]
It was at this time of universal poverty that the advantages of union
was illustrated to those who had eyes to see. First of all, the
Corporation had to find food--therefore work. Thousands were employed in
clearing away the rubbish and carting it off so as to make the streets,
at least, free for traffic. The craftsmen who had no work to do, were
employed when this was done on the building operations. The quays were
cleared, and the warehouses put up again, for the business of the Port
continued. Ships came, discharged their cargoes, and waited for their
freight outward bound. Then the houses arose and the shops began to open
again. And the Companies stood by their members: they gave them credit:
advanced loans: started them afresh in the world. Had it not been for
the Companies, the fate of London after the fire would have been as the
fate of Antwerp after the Religious Wars. But there must have been many
who were ruined completely by this fearful calamity. Hundreds of
merchants, and retailers, having lost their all must have been unable to
face the stress and anxiety of making this fresh start. The men advanced
in life; the men of anxious and timid mind; the incompetent and feeble:
were crushed. They became bankrupt: they went under: in the great crowd
no one heeded them: their sons and daughters took a lower place: perhaps
they are still among the ranks into which it is easy to sink; out of
which it is difficult to rise. The craftsmen were injured least: their
Companies replaced their tools for them: work was presently resumed
again: their houses were rebuilt and, as for their furniture, there was
not much of it before the fire and there was not much of it after the
fire.
The poet Dryden thus writes of the people during and after the fire:
Those who have homes, when home they do repair,
To a last lodging call their wandering friends:
Their short uneasy sleeps are broke with care
To look how near their own destruction tends.
Those who have none sit round where once it was
And with full eyes each wonted room require:
Haunting the yet warm ashes of the place,
As murdered men walk where they did expire.
The most in fields like herded beasts lie down,
To dews obnoxious on the grassy floor:
And while the babes in sleep their sorrow drown,
Sad parents watch the remnant of their store.
[Illustration: ORDINARY DRESS OF GENTLEMEN IN 1675.
(_From Loggan's 'Oxonia Illustrata.'_)]
54. ROGUES AND VAGABONDS.
The aspect of the City varies from age to age: the streets and the
houses, the costumes, the language, the manners, all change. In one
respect however, there is no change: we have always with us the same
rogues and the same roguery. We do not treat them quite after the manner
followed by our forefathers: and, as their methods were incapable of
putting a stop to the tricks of those who live by trickery, so are ours;
therefore we must not pride ourselves on any superiority in this
direction. A large and very interesting collection of books might be
formed on the subject of rogues and vagabonds. The collection would
begin with Elizabeth and could be carried on to the present day, new
additions being made from year to year. But very few additions are ever
made to the customs and the methods of the profession. For instance,
there is the confidence trick, in which the rustic is beguiled by the
honest stranger into trusting him. This trick was practised three
hundred years ago. Or there is the ring-dropping trick, it is as old as
the hills. Or there is the sham sailor--now very rarely met with. When
we have another war he will come to the front again. We have still the
cheating gambler, but he has always been with us. In King Charles the
Second's time he was called a Ruffler, a Huff, or a Shabbaroon. The
woman who now begs along the streets singing a hymn and leading borrowed
children, did the same thing two hundred years ago and was called a
clapperdozen. The man who pretends to be deaf and dumb went about then,
and was known as the dummerer. The burglar was then the housebreaker.
Burglary was formerly a far worse crime than it is now, because the
people for the most part kept all their money in their houses, and a
robbery might ruin them. The pickpocket plied his trade, only he was
then a cutpurse. The footpad lay in wait on the lonely country road or
among the bushes of the open fields at the back of Lincoln's Inn. The
punishments, which seem so mild under the Plantagenets, increased in
severity as the population outgrew the powers of the government. Instead
of plain standing in pillory, ears were nailed to the post and even
sliced off: whippings became more commonly administered, and were much
more severe: heretics were burned by Elizabeth as well as by Mary,
though not so often. After the civil wars we enter upon a period when
punishment became savage in its cruelty, of which you will presently
learn more. Meantime remark that when the City was less densely
populated, and when none lived outside the wards and walls, the people
were well under the control of the aldermen and their officers: they
were also well known to each other: they exercised that
self-government--the best of any--which consists in refusing to harbour
a rogue among them. If in every London street the tenants would refuse
to suffer any evildoer to lodge in their midst, the police of London
might be almost abolished. But the City grew: the wards became densely
populated: then houses and extensive suburbs sprang up at Whitechapel,
Wapping, outside Cripplegate, at Smithfield north of Fleet Street,
Lambeth, Bermondsey and Rotherhithe: the aldermen no longer knew their
people: the men of a ward did not know each other: rogues were harboured
about Smithfield and outside Aldgate: the simple machinery for enforcing
order ceased to be of any use: and as yet the new police was not
invented. Therefore the punishments became savage. Since the government
could not prevent crime and compel order, they would deter.
[Illustration: DRESS OF LADIES OF QUALITY.
(_From Sandford's 'Coronation Procession of James II.'_)]
[Illustration: ORDINARY ATTIRE OF WOMEN OF THE LOWER CLASSES.
(_From Sandford's 'Coronation Procession of James II.'_)]
Apart from active crime, vagrancy was a great scourge. Wars and civil
wars left crowds of idle soldiers who had no taste for steady work: they
became vagrants: there was also--and there is still--a certain
proportion of men and women who will not work: they become vagrants by a
kind of instinct: they are born vagabonds. Laws and proclamations were
continually passed for the repression of vagrants. They were passed on
to their native place: they were provided with passes on their way. But
these laws were always being evaded, and vagrants increased in number.
Under Henry VIII. a very stringent statute was passed by which old and
impotent persons were provided with license to beg, and anybody begging
without a license was whipped. But like all such acts it was imperfectly
carried out. For one who received a whipping a dozen escaped. Stocks,
pillory, bread and water, all were applied, but without visible effect,
because so many escaped. London especially swarmed with beggars and
pretended cripples. They lived about Turnmill Street, Houndsditch and
the Barbican, outside the walls. From time to time a raid was carried on
against them, and they dispersed, but only to collect again. In the year
1575, for instance, it is reported that there were few or no rogues in
the London prisons. But in the year 1581, the Queen observing a large
number of sturdy rogues during a drive made complaint, with the result
that the next day 74 were arrested: the day after 60, and so on, the
catch on one day being a hundred, all of whom were 'soundly paid,' i.e.
flogged and sent to their own homes. The statute ordering the whipping
of vagabonds was enforced even in this present century, women being
flogged as well as men. No statutes, however, can put down the curse of
vagrancy and idleness. It can only be suppressed by the will and
resolution of the people themselves. If for a single fortnight we should
all refuse to give a single penny to beggars: if in every street we
should all resolve upon having none but honest folk among us: then and
only then, would the rogue find this island of Great Britain impossible
to be longer inhabited by him and his tribe.
55. UNDER GEORGE THE SECOND.
PART I.
THE WEALTH OF LONDON.
If a new world was opened to the adventurous in the reign of Queen
Elizabeth, this new world two hundred years later was only half explored
and was constantly yielding up new treasures. The lion's share of these
treasures came to Great Britain and was landed at the Port of London.
The wealth and luxury of the merchants in the eighteenth century
surpassed anything ever recorded or ever imagined. So great was their
prosperity that historians and essayists predicted the speedy downfall
of the City: the very greatness of their success frightened those who
looked on and remembered the past.
[Illustration: GROUP SHOWING COSTUMES AND SEDAN CHAIR, ABOUT 1720.
(_From an engraving by Kip._)]
Though the appearance of the City had changed, and its colour and
picturesqueness were gone, at no time was London more powerful or more
magnificent. There were no nobles living within the walls: only two or
three of the riverside palaces remained along the Strand: there were no
troops of retainers riding along the streets in the bright liveries of
their masters: the picturesque gables, the latticed windows, the
overhanging fronts--all these were gone: instead of the old churches
rich with ancient carvings, frescoes in crimson and blue, marble
monuments and painted glass, were the square halls--preaching halls--of
Wren with their round windows, rich only in carved woodwork: the houses
were square with sash windows: the shop fronts were glazed: the streets
were filled with grave and sober merchants in great wigs and white
ruffles. They lived in stately and commodious houses, many of which
still survive--see the Square at the back of Austin Friars Church for a
very fine example--they had their country houses: they drove in
chariots: and they did a splendid business. Their ships went all over
the world: they traded with India, not yet part of the Empire: with
China, and the Far East: with the West Indies, with the Levant. They had
Companies for carrying on trade in every part of the globe. The South
Sea Company, the Hudson's Bay Company, the Turkey Company, the African
Company, the Russian Company, the East India Company--are some. The
ships lay moored below the Bridge in rows that reached a mile down the
river.
[Illustration: TEMPLE BAR, LONDON.
(_Built by Sir Christopher Wren in 1670; taken down in 1878 and since
rebuilt at Waltham Cross._)]
All this prosperity grew in spite of the wars which we carried on during
the whole of the last century. These wars, though they covered the
Channel and the Bay of Biscay with privateers, had little effect to stay
the increase of London trade. And as the merchants lived within the
City, in sight of each other, their wealth was observed and known by
all. At the present day, when London from nightfall till morning is a
dead city, no one knows the wealth of the merchants and it is only by
considering the extent of the suburbs that one can understand the
enormous wealth possessed by those men who come up by train every day
and without ostentation walk among their clerks to their offices in the
City. A hundred and fifty years ago, one saw the rich men: sat in church
with them: sat at dinner with them on Company feast days: knew them. The
visible presence of so much wealth helped to make London great and
proud. It would be interesting, if it were possible, to discover how
many families now noble or gentle--county families--derive their origin
or their wealth from the City merchants of the last century.
In one thing there is a great change. Till the middle of the seventeenth
century it was customary for the rank of trade to be recruited--in
London, at least--from the younger sons. This fashion was now changed.
The continual wars gave the younger sons another career: they entered
the army and the navy. Hence arose the contempt for trade which existed
in the country for about a hundred and fifty years. It is now fast dying
out, but it is not yet dead. Younger sons are now going into the City
again.
[Illustration: FLEET STREET AND TEMPLE BAR.]
The old exclusiveness was kept up jealously. No one must trade in the
City who was not free of the City. But the freedom of the City was
easily obtained. The craftsman and the clerk remained in their own
places: they were taught to know their places: they were taught, which
was a very fine thing, to think much of their own places and to take
pride in the station to which they were called: to respect those in
higher station and to receive respect from those lower than
themselves. Though merchants had not, and have not, any rank assigned to
them by the Court officials, there was as much difference of rank and
place in the City as without. And in no time was there greater personal
dignity than in this age when rank and station were so much regarded.
But between the nobility and the City there was little intercourse and
no sympathy. The manners, the morals, the dignity of the City ill
assorted with those of the aristocracy at a time when drinking and
gambling were ruining the old families and destroying the noblest names.
There has always belonged to the London merchant a great respect for
personal character and conduct. We are accustomed to regard this as a
survival of Puritanism. This is not so: it existed before the arrival of
Puritanism: it arose in the time when the men in the wards knew each
other and when the master of many servants set the example, because his
life was visible to all, of order, honour, and self-respect.
[Illustration: A COACH OF THE MIDDLE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
(_From an engraving by John Dunstall._)]
56. UNDER GEORGE THE SECOND.