On the 26th of June, 1541, Francis Pizarro, the conqueror of Peru, was
assassinated. He was born at Truxillo, in Spain; his birth was
illegitimate, and in his youth he was a keeper of hogs. Becoming a
soldier, he went to America, and settled at Punama, where he projected
the prosecution of discoveries to the eastward of that settlement. By
means of an expedition, which he solicited, and was intrusted to command
from the court of Spain, he entered Peru when the empire was divided by
a civil war between Huascar the legitimate monarch, and Atahualpa his
half brother. Pretending succour to Atahualpa, he was permitted to
penetrate twelve days’ journey into the country, and received as an ally
by Atahualpa, whose confidence he rewarded by suddenly attacking him,
and making him prisoner. The exaction of an immense ransom for this
king’s release; the shameful breach of faith, by which he was held in
captivity after his ransom was paid; his brutal murder under the
infamous mockery of a trial; the horrible frauds by which he was
inveigled to die in the profession of the christian faith, without being
able to comprehend its tenets; and the superaddition of other acts of
perfidy and cruelty, will render the name of Pizarro infamous so long as
it exists.
His assassination was effected by the friends of Almagro, his original
associate, with whom he had quarelled, and whom he caused to be executed
when he got him into his power.
[Illustration: ~Copenhagen-house~]
In olden times, so high a rise
Was, perhaps, a Tor or beacon ground
And lit, or ’larm’d, the country round,
For pleasure, or against surprise
There is a cobler’s stall in London that I go out of my way to look at
whenever I pass its vicinity, because it was the seat of an honest old
man who patched my shoes and my mind, when I was a boy. I involuntarily
reverence the spot; and if I find myself in Red Lion-square, I, with a
like affection, look between the iron railings of its enclosure,
because, at the same age, from my mother’s window, I watched the taking
down of the obelisk, stone by stone, that stood in the centre, and
impatiently awaited the discovery of the body of Oliver Cromwell, which,
according to local legend, was certainly buried there in secrecy by
night. It is true that Oliver’s bones were not found; but then “every
body” believed that “the workmen did not dig deep enough.” Among these
believers was my friend, the cobbler, who, though no metaphysician, was
given to ruminate on “causation.” He imputed the nonpersistence of the
diggers to “private reasons of state,” which his awfully mysterious look
imported he had fathomed, but dared not reveal. From ignorance of
wisdom, I venerated the wisdom of ignorance; and though I now know
better, I respect the old man’s memory. He allowed me, though a child,
to sit on the frame of his little pushed-back window; and I obtained so
much of his good-will and confidence, that he lent me a folio of
fragments from Caxton’s “Polychronicon,” and Pynson’s “Shepherd’s
Kalendar,” which he kept in the drawer of his seat, with “St. Hugh’s
bones,” the instruments of his “gentle craft.” This black-letter lore,
with its wood-cuts, created in me a desire to be acquainted with our old
authors, and a love for engravings, which I have indulged without
satiety. It is impossible that I should be without fond recollections of
the spots wherein I received these early impressions.
From still earlier impressions, I have like recollection of the meadows
on the Highgate side of Copenhagen-house. I often rambled in them in
summer-time, when I was a boy, to frolic in the new-mown hay, or explore
the wonders of the hedges, and listen to the songs of the birds. Certain
indistinct apprehensions of danger arose in me from the rude noises of
the visitors at Copenhagen-house itself, and I scarcely ventured near
enough to observe more than that it had drinking-benches outside, and
boisterous company within. I first entered the place in the present
month of June, 1825, and the few particulars I could collect concerning
it, as an old place of public entertainment, may be acceptable to many
who recollect its former notoriety. Speculators are building up to it,
and if they continue with their present speed, it will in a few years be
hidden by their operations.
* * * * *
Copenhagen-house stands alone in the fields north of the metropolis,
between Maiden-lane, the old road to Highgate on the west, and the very
ancient north road, or bridle-way, called Hagbush-lane, on the east; on
this latter side it is nearly in a line with Cornwall-place, Holloway.
Its name is said to have been derived from a Danish prince, or a Danish
ambassador, having resided in it during a great plague in London;
another representation is, that in the beginning of the seventeenth
century, it was opened under its present name by a Dane, as a place of
resort for his countrymen. “Coopen-Hagen” is the name given to it in the
map in Camden’s “Britannia,” published in 1695.[189] It is situated in
the parish of Islington, in the manor of St. John of Jerusalem, in the
rental of which manor, dated the 25th of February, 1624, its name does
not occur;[190] it is therefore probable from thence, and from the
appearance of the oldest part of the present edifice, that it was not
then built.
* * * * *
It is certain that Copenhagen-house has been licensed for the sale of
beer, and wine, and spirits, upwards of a century; and for such
refreshments, and as a tea-house, with a garden and grounds for skittles
and Dutch pins, it has been greatly resorted to by Londoners. No house
of the kind commands so extensive and uninterrupted a view of the
metropolis and the immense western suburb, with the heights of Hampstead
and Highgate, and the rich intervening meadows. Those nearest to London
are now rapidly destroying for their brick-earth, and being covered with
houses; though from Copenhagen-street, which is built on the green lane
from White Conduit-house, there is a way to the footpath leading to
Copenhagen-house, from the row of handsome cottages called
Barnesbury-park.
The latter buildings are in the manor of Berners, or Bernersbury,
otherwise Barnesbury; the name being derived from the Berners’
family,[191] of whom the most distinguished individual was John
Bourchier, the last lord Berners, and “the fifth writer in order of time
among the nobility.” He was author of “a comedy usually acted in the
great church of Calais after vespers,” of which town he held the command
by appointment of king Henry VIII.;[192] he also translated several
works, and particularly “Froissart’s Cronycles, oute of Frenche into our
maternale Englysshe tongue.”
West of Barnesbury-park, and close to the footpath from thence to
Copenhagen-house, are the supposed remains of a Roman encampment. It is
a square of about one hundred and twenty feet, surrounded by a ditch,
with a high embankment or breast work to the west. This is presumed to
have been a position occupied by Suetonius, the Roman general, when he
destroyed eighty thousand of the Britons under Boadicea, in a memorable
engagement presumed to have been fought from this place in the fields of
Pentonville, and terminating in the plain at Battle-bridge, from whence
that place is said to have been so named.
* * * * *
From Battle-bridge up Maiden-lane, and from Barnesbury-park, there are
still footways to Copenhagen-house, which, from standing alone on an
eminence, is visible from every open spot for many miles round. To the
original edifice is attached a building at the west end, with a large
parlour below for drinking and smoking, and beyond it is a
billiard-room; above is a large tea-room. The engraving represents its
present appearance, from a drawing made for that purpose.
About the year 1770, this house was kept by a person named Harrington;
at his decease the business was continued by his widow, wherein she was
assisted for several years by a young woman who came from Shropshire.
This female assistant afterwards married a person named Tomes, and kept
the Adam and Eve at Islington; she is now a widow; and from her
information the editor of the _Every-Day Book_ gathers, that at the time
of the London riots in the year 1780, a body of the rioters passed
Copenhagen-house on their way to attack the seat of lord Mansfield, at
Caen-wood: happily, they did not sack Copenhagen; but Mrs. Harrington
and her maid were so alarmed, that they despatched a man to justice
Hyde, who sent a party of soldiers to garrison this important place,
where they remained till the riots were quelled. From this spot the view
of the nightly conflagrations in the metropolis must have been terrific.
Mrs. Tomes says, she saw nine large fires at one time. On new-year’s day
previous to this, the house was broken into after the family had retired
to rest. The burglars forced the kitchen window, and mistaking the
salt-box in the chimney corner for a man’s head, fired a ball through
it. They then ran up stairs with a dark-lantern, tied the man and the
woman servant, burst the lower pannel of Mrs. Harrington’s room-door,
while she secreted fifty pounds between her bed and the mattress, and
three of them rushed to her bedside, armed with a cutlass, crowbar, and
pistol, while a fourth remained on the watch outside. They demanded her
money; and as she denied that she had any, they wrenched her drawers
open with the crowbar, refusing to use the keys she offered to them. In
these they found about ten pounds belonging to her daughter, a little
child, whom they threatened to murder unless she ceased crying, while
they packed up all the plate, linen, and clothes, which they carried
off. They then went to the cellar, set all the ale-barrels running,
broke the necks off the wine-bottles, spilt the other liquors, and
slashed a round of beef with their cutlasses. From this wanton spoil
they reserved sufficient to carouse with in the kitchen, where they ate,
drank, and sung, till they resolved to “pinch the old woman, and make
her find more money.” On this, they all ran up stairs again, where she
still lay in bed, and by their threats and violence soon obtained from
her a disclosure of the hidden fifty pounds. This rather appeared to
enrage than pacify them, and they seriously proposed cutting her throat
for the deception; but that crime was not perpetrated, and they departed
with their plunder. Rewards were offered, by government and the parish
of Islington, for the apprehension of the felons: in May following, one
of them, named Clarkson, was discovered, and hopes of mercy tendered to
him if he would discover his accomplices. This man was a watch-maker in
Clerkenwell, the other three were tradesmen; his information led to
their discovery; they were tried and executed, and Clarkson was
pardoned; though, some time afterwards, he, also, suffered death, for
obtaining a box of plate from the White-horse, in Fetter-lane, upon
pretence that it had been sent thither by mistake.
The robbery at Copenhagen-house, was so far fortunate to Mrs.
Harrington, that she obtained a subscription considerably more in amount
than the value of the money and property she had lost. Mr. Leader, the
coachmaker, in Long-acre, who was her landlord, remitted to her a year’s
rent of the premises, which at that time was 30_l._ The notoriety of the
robbery increased the visitors to the house, and Mr. Leader built the
additional rooms to the old house, instead of a wooden room, to
accommodate the new influx of custom; and soon afterwards the house was
celebrated for fives-playing. This last addition was almost accidental.
“I made the first fives-ball,” says Mrs. Tomes, “that was ever thrown up
against Copenhagen-house. One Hickman, a butcher at Highgate, a
countryman of mine, ‘used’ the house, and seeing me ‘country,’ we talked
about our country sports, and amongst the rest _fives_; I told him we’d
have a game some day: I laid down the stone in the ground myself, and,
against he came again, made a ball. I struck the ball the first blow and
he gave it the second, and so we played; and as there was company they
liked the sport, and it got talked of. This was the beginning of the
_fives-play_, which has since become so famous at Copenhagen-house.”
* * * * *
A word or two on _ball-play_.
_Fives_ was our old _hand-tennis_, and is a very ancient game.
In the fourteenth century there was a game at ball, where a line, called
the _cord_, was traced upon the wall, below which the stroke was faulty.
Some of the players were on foot; others had the two hands tied
together, or played in a hollow cask.[193]
_Hand-ball_ was before the days of Homer. He introduces the princess
Corcyra, daughter of Alcinous, king of Phœacia, amusing herself, with
her maidens, at hand-ball:--
“O’er the green mead the sporting virgins play;
Their shining veils unbound, along the skies,
Tost and re-tost, the ball incessant flies.”[194]
It is related of St. Cuthbert, who lived in the seventh century, that
“whan he was viii yere old, as he _played at the ball_ with other
chyldren, sodeynly there stode amonge them a fayre yonge chylde,” who
admonished Cuthbert against “vayne playes,” and seeing Cuthbert take no
heed, he fell down, wept sore and wrung his hands; “and than Cuthbert
and the other chyldren lefte their playe and comforted hym; and than
sodeynly he vanyshed away; and than he knewe veryly that it was an
angel; and, fro than forth on, he lefte all such vayne playes, and never
used them more.”[195]
_Ball-play_ was formerly played at Easter in churches, and statutes
passed to regulate the size of the ball. The ceremony was as follows:
the ball being received, the dean, or his representative, began an
antiphone, or chant, suited to Easter-day; then taking the ball in his
left hand, he commenced a dance to the tune, others of the clergy
dancing round, hand in hand. At intervals the ball was handed or tossed
by the dean to each of the choristers, the organ playing according to
the dance and sport: at the conclusion of the anthem and dance, they
went and took refreshment. It was the privilege of the lord, or his
locum tenens, to throw the ball, and even the archbishop did it.[196]
The French _palm-play_ consisted in receiving the ball and driving it
back again with the palm of the hand. Anciently they played with the
naked hand, then with a glove, which, in some instances, was lined;
afterwards they bound cords and tendons round their hands, to make the
ball rebound more forcibly; and hence, says St. Foix, the _racket_
derived its origin.
In the reign of Charles V., _palm-play_, which, Strutt says, may
properly enough be denominated _hand-tennis_, or _fives_, was
exceedingly fashionable in France, being played by the nobility for
large sums of money; and when they had lost all that they had about
them, they would sometimes pledge a part of their wearing apparel rather
than give up the game. The duke of Bourbon having lost sixty francs at
palm-play with M. William de Lyon, and M. Guy de la Trimouille, and not
having money enough to pay them, gave his girdle as a pledge for the
remainder.
A damsel, named Margot, who resided at Paris in 1424, played at
_hand-tennis_ with the palm, and also with the back of her hand, better
than any man; and what is most surprising, says St. Foix, at that time
the game was played with the naked hand, or at least with a double
glove.
_Hand-tennis_ still continues to be played, though under a different
name, and probably a different modification of the game: it is now
called _fives_, which denomination, perhaps, it might receive from
having five competitors in it, as the succeeding passage shews: When
queen Elizabeth was entertained at Elvetham, in Hampshire, by the earl
of Hertford, “after dinner about three o’clock, ten of his lordship’s
servants, all Somersetshire men, in a square greene court before her
majesties windowe, did hang up lines, squaring out the forme of a tennis
court, and making a cross line in the middle; in this square they, being
stripped out of their dublets, played five to five with hand-ball at
bord and cord as they tearme it, to the great liking of her
highness.”[197]
* * * * *
_Fives-playing_ at Copenhagen-house, is recorded in a memoir of
Cavanagh, the famous _fives_-player, by Mr. Hazlitt. It first appeared
in the _Examiner_ of February 17, 1819, and is subjoined, with the
omission of a passage or two, not essentially connected with the
subject.