CHEAPSIDE TRIBUTARIES, NORTH (_continued_).
Milk Street--Sir Thomas More--The City of London School--St. Mary
Magdalen--Honey Lane--All Hallows' Church--Lawrence Lane and St.
Lawrence Church--Ironmonger Lane and Mercers' Hall--The Mercers'
Company--Early Life Assurance Companies--The Mercers' Company in
Trouble--Mercers' Chapel--St. Thomas Acon--The Mercers'
School--Restoration of the Carvings in Mercers' Hall--The Glories of
the Mercers' Company--Ironmonger Lane.
In Milk Street was the milk-market of Mediaeval London. That good and
wise man, Sir Thomas More, was born in this street. "The brightest man,"
says Fuller, with his usual quaint playfulness, "that ever shone in that
_via lactea_." More, born in 1480, was the son of a judge of the King's
Bench, and was educated at St. Anthony's School, in Threadneedle Street.
He was afterwards placed in the family of Archbishop Morton, till he
went to Oxford. After two years he became a barrister, at Lincoln,
entered Parliament, and opposed Henry VII. to his own danger. After
serving as law reader at New Inn, he soon became an eminent lawyer. He
then wrote his "Utopia," acquired the friendship of Erasmus, and soon
after became a favourite of Henry VIII., helping the despot in his
treatise against Luther. On Wolsey's disgrace, More became chancellor,
and one of the wisest and most impartial England has ever known.
Determined not to sanction the king's divorce, More resigned his
chancellorship, and, refusing to attend Anne Boleyn's coronation, he was
attainted for treason. The tyrant, now furious, soon hurried him to the
scaffold, and he was executed on Tower Hill in 1535.
This pious, wise, and consistent man is described as having dark
chestnut hair, thin beard, and grey eyes. He walked with his right
shoulder raised, and was negligent in his dress. When in the Tower, More
is said to have foreseen the fate of Anne Boleyn, whom his daughter
Margaret had found filling the court with dancing and sporting.
"Alas, Meg," said the ex-chancellor, "it pitieth me to remember to what
misery poor soul she will shortly come. These dances of hers will prove
such dances that she will sport our heads off like foot-balls; but it
will not be long ere her head will dance the like dance."
It is to be lamented that with all his wisdom, More was a bigot. He
burnt one Frith for denying the corporeal presence; had James Bainton, a
gentleman of the Temple, whipped in his presence for heretical opinons;
went to the Tower to see him on the rack, and then hurried him to
Smithfield. "Verily," said Luther, "he was a very notable tyrant, and
plagued and tormented innocent Christians like an executioner."
The City of London School, Milk Street, was established in 1837, for the
sons of respectable persons engaged in professional, commercial, or
trading pursuits; and partly founded on an income of L900 a year,
derived from certain tenements bequeathed by John Carpenter, town-clerk
of London, in the reign of Henry V., "for the finding and bringing up of
four poor men's children, with meat, drink, apparel, learning at the
schools, in the universities, &c., until they be preferred, and then
others in their places for ever." This was the same John Carpenter who
"caused, with great expense, to be curiously painted upon a board, about
the north cloister of Paul's, a monument of Death, leading all estates,
with the speeches of Death, and answers of every state." The school year
is divided into three terms--Easter to July; August to Christmas;
January to Easter; and the charge for each pupil is L2 5s. a term. The
printed form of application for admission may be had of the secretary,
and must be filled up by the parent or guardian, and signed by a member
of the Corporation of London. The general course of instruction includes
the English, French, German, Latin, and Greek languages, writing,
arithmetic, mathematics, book-keeping, geography, and history. Besides
eight free scholarships on the foundation, equivalent to L35 per annum
each, and available as exhibitions to the Universities, there are the
following exhibitions belonging to the school:--The "Times" Scholarship,
value L30 per annum; three Beaufoy Scholarships, the Solomons
Scholarship, and the Travers Scholarship, L50 per annum each; the Tegg
Scholarship, nearly L20 per annum; and several other valuable prizes.
The first stone of the school was laid by Lord Brougham, October 21st,
1835. The architect of the building was Mr. J.B. Bunning, of Guildford
Street, Russell Square, and the entire cost, including fittings and
furniture, as nearly L20,000. It is about 75 feet wide in front, next
Milk Street, and is about 160 feet long; it contains eleven class-rooms
of various dimensions, a spacious theatre for lectures, &c, a library,
committee-room, with a commodious residence in the front for the head
master and his family. The lectures, founded by Sir Thomas Gresham, on
divinity, astronomy, music, geometry, law, physics, and rhetoric, which
upon the demolition of Gresham College had been delivered at the Royal
Exchange from the year 1773, were after the destruction of that building
by fire, in January, 1838, read in the theatre of the City of London
School until 1843; they were delivered each day during the four Law
Terms, and the public in general were entitled to free admission.
In Milk Street stood the small parish church of St. Mary Magdalen,
destroyed in the Great Fire. It was repaired and beautified at the
charge of the parish in 1619. All the chancel window was built at the
proper cost of Mr. Benjamin Henshaw, Merchant Taylor, and one of the
City captains.
This church was burnt down in the Great Fire, and was not rebuilt. One
amusing epitaph has been preserved:--
"HERE LIETH THE BODY OF SIR WILLIAM STONE, KNT.
"As the Earth the
Earth doth cover,
So under this stone
Lyes another;
Sir William _Stone_,
Who long deceased,
Ere the world's love
Him released;
So much it loved him,
For they say,
He answered Death
Before his day;
But, 'tis not so;
For he was sought
Of One that both him
Made and bought.
He remain'd
The Great Lord's Treasurer,
Who called for him
At his pleasure,
And received him.
Yet be it said,
Earth grieved that Heaven
So soon was paid.
"Here likewise lyes
Inhumed in one bed,
Dear Barbara,
The well-beloved wife
Of this remembered Knight;
Whose souls are fled
From this dimure vale
To everlasting life,
Where no more change,
Nor no more separation,
Shall make them flye
From their blest habitation.
Grasse of levitie,
Span in brevity,
Flower's felicity,
Fire of misery,
Wind's stability,
Is mortality."
"Honey Lane," says good old Stow, "is so called not of sweetness
thereof, being very narrow and small and dark, but rather of often
washing and sweeping to keep it clean." With all due respect to Stow, we
suspect that the lane did not derive its name from any superlative
cleanliness, but more probably from honey being sold here in the times
before sugar became common and honey alone was used by cooks for
sweetening.
On the site of All Hallows' Church, destroyed in the Great Fire, a
market was afterwards established.
"There be no monuments," says Stow, "in this church worth the noting; I
find that John Norman, Maior, 1453, was buried there. He gave to the
drapers his tenements on the north side of the said church; they to
allow for the beam light and lamp 13s. 4d. yearly, from this lane to the
Standard.
"This church hath the misfortune to have no bequests to church or poor,
nor to any publick use.
"There was a parsonage house before the Great Fire, but now the ground
on which it stood is swallowed up by the market. The parish of St.
Mary-le-Bow (to which it is united) hath received all the money paid for
the site of the ground of the said parsonage."
All Hallows' Church was repaired and beautified at the cost of the
parishioners in 1625.
Lawrence Lane derives its name from the church of St. Lawrence, at its
north end. "Antiquities," says Stow, "in this lane I find none other
than among many fair houses. There is one large inn for receipt of
travellers, called 'Blossoms Inn,' but corruptly 'Bosoms Inn,' and hath
for a sign 'St. Lawrence, the Deacon,' in a border of blossoms or
flowers." This was one of the great City inns set apart for Charles V.'s
suite, when he came over to visit Henry VIII. in 1522. At the sign of
"St. Lawrence Bosoms" twenty beds and stabling for sixty horses were
ordered.
The curious old tract about Bankes and his trained horse was written
under the assumed names of "John Dando, the wier-drawer of Hadley, and
Harrie Runt, head ostler of Besomes Inne," which is probably the same
place.
St. Lawrence Church is situate on the north side of Cateaton Street,
"and is denominated," says Maitland, "from its dedication to Lawrence, a
Spanish saint, born at Huesca, in the kingdom of Arragon; who, after
having undergone the most grievous tortures, in the persecution under
Valerian, the emperor, was cruelly broiled alive upon a gridiron, with a
slow fire, till he died, for his strict adherence to Christianity; and
the additional epithet of Jewry, from its situation among the Jews, was
conferred upon it, to distinguish it from the church of St. Lawrence
Pulteney, now demolished.
"This church, which was anciently a rectory, being given by Hugo de
Wickenbroke to Baliol College in Oxford, anno 1294, the rectory ceased;
wherefore Richard, Bishop of London, converted the same into a vicarage;
the advowson whereof still continues in the same college. This church
sharing the common fate in 1666, it has since been beautifully rebuilt,
and the parish of St. Mary Magdalen, Milk Street, thereunto annexed."
The famous Sir Richard Gresham lies buried here, with the following
inscription on his tomb:--
"Here lyeth the great Sir Richard Gresham, Knight, some time Lord
Maior of London; and Audrey, his first wife, by whom he had issue,
Sir John Gresham and Sir Thomas Gresham, Knights, William and
Margaret; which Sir Richard deceased the 20th day of February, An.
Domini 1548, and the third yeere of King Edward the Sixth his
Reigne, and Audrey deceased the 28th day of December, An. Dom.
1522."
There is also this epitaph:--
"Lo here the Lady Margaret North,
In tombe and earth do lye;
Of husbands four the faithfull spouse,
Whose fame shall never dye.
One Andrew Franncis was the first,
The second Robert hight,
Surnamed Chartsey, Alderman;
Sir David Brooke, a knight,
Was third. But he that passed all,
And was in number fourth,
And for his virtue made a Lord,
Was called Sir Edward North.
These altogether do I wish
A joyful rising day;
That of the Lord and of his Christ,
All honour they may say.
Obiit 2 die Junii, An. Dom. 1575."
In Ironmonger Lane, inhabited by ironmongers _temp._ Edward I., is
Mercers' Hall, an interesting building.
The Mercers, though not formally incorporated till the 17th of Richard
II. (1393), are traced back by Herbert as early as 1172. Soon
afterwards they are mentioned as patrons of one of the great London
charities. In 1214, Robert Spencer, a mercer, was mayor. In 1296 the
mercers joined the company of merchant adventurers in establishing in
Edward I.'s reign, a woollen manufacture in England, with a branch at
Antwerp. In Edward II.'s reign they are mentioned as "the Fraternity of
Mercers," and in 1406 (Henry IV.) they are styled in a charter,
"Brothers of St. Thomas a Becket."
Mercers were at first general dealers in all small wares, including
wigs, haberdashery, and even spices and drugs. They attended fairs and
markets, and even sat on the ground to sell their wares--in fact, were
little more than high-class pedlers. The poet Gower talks of "the
depression of such mercerie." In late times the silk trade formed the
main feature of their business; the greater use of silk beginning about
1573.
The mercers' first station, in Henry II.'s reign, was in that part of
Cheap on the north side where Mercers' Hall now stands, but they removed
soon afterwards higher up on the south side. The part of Cheapside
between Bow Church and Friday Street became known as the Mercery. Here,
in front of a large meadow called the "Crownsild," they held their
little stalls or standings from Soper's Lane and the Standard. There
were no houses as yet in this part of Cheapside. In 1329 William Elsing,
a mercer, founded an hospital within Cripplegate, for 100 poor blind
men, and became prior of his own institution.
In 1351 (Edward III.), the Mercers grew jealous of the Lombard
merchants, and on Midsummer Day three mercers were sent to the Tower for
attacking two Lombards in the Old Jewry. The mercers in this reign sold
woollen clothes, but not silks. In 1371, John Barnes, mercer, mayor,
gave a chest with three locks, with 1,000 marks therein, to be lent to
younger mercers, upon sufficient pawn and for the use thereof. The
grateful recipients were merely to say "De Profundis," a Pater Noster,
and no more. This bequest seems to have started among the Mercers the
kindly practice of assisting the young and struggling members of this
Company.
In the reign of Henry VI. the mercers had become great dealers in silks
and velvets, and had resigned to the haberdashers the sale of small
articles of dress. It is not known whether the mercers bought their
silks from the Lombards, or the London silk-women, or whether they
imported them themselves, since many of the members of the Company were
merchants.
Twenty years after the murder of Becket, the murdered man's sister, who
had married Thomas Fitz Theobald de Helles, built a chapel and hospital
of Augustine Friars close to Ironmonger Lane, Cheapside. The hospital
was built on the site of the house where Becket was born. He was the son
of Gilbert Becket, citizen, mercer and portreeve of London, who was said
to have been a Crusader, and to have married a fair Saracen, who had
released him from prison, and who followed him to London, knowing only
the one English word "Gilbert." The hospital, which was called "St.
Thomas of Acon," from Becket's mother having been born at Acre, the
ancient Ptolemais, was given to the Mercers' Fraternity by De Hilles and
his wife, and Henry III. gave the master and twelve brothers all the
land between St. Olave's and Ironmonger Lane, which had belonged to two
rich Jews, to enlarge their ground. In Henry V.'s reign that illustrious
mercer Whittington, by his wealth and charity, reflected great lustre on
the Mercers' Company, who at his death were left trustees of the college
and almshouses founded by the immortal Richard on College Hill. The
Company still preserve the original ordinance of this charity with a
curious picture of Whittington's death, and of the first three wardens,
Coventry, Grove, and Carpenter.
In 1414, Thomas Falconer, mercer and mayor, lent Henry V., towards his
French wars, ten marks upon jewels.
In 1513, Joan Bradbury, widow of Thomas Bradbury, late Lord Mayor of
London, left the Conduit Mead (now New Bond Street), to the Mercers'
Company for charitable uses. In pursuance of the King's grant on this
occasion, the Bishop of Norwich and others granted the Mercers' Company
29 acres of land in Marylebone, 120 acres in Westminster, and St. Giles,
and St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, of the annual value of L13 6s. 8d., and
in part satisfaction of the said L20 a year. The Company still possess
eight acres and a half of this old gift, forming the north side of Long
Acre and the adjacent streets, one of which bears the name of the
Company. Mercer Street was described in a parliamentary survey in 1650
to have long gardens reaching down to Cock and Pye Ditch, and the site
of Seven Dials. In 1544 the three Greshams (at the time the twelve
Companies were appealed to) lent Henry VIII. upon mortgaged lands L1,673
6s. 8d. In 1561, the wardens of the Mercers' Company were summoned
before the Queen's Council for selling their velvets, satins, and
damasks so dear, as English coin was no longer base, and the old excuse
for the former high charges was gone. The Mercers prudently bowed before
the storm, promised reform, and begged her Majesty's Council to look
after the Grocers. At this time the chief vendors of Italian silks
lived in Cheapside, St. Lawrence Jewry, and Old Jewry.
[Illustration: THE "SWAN WITH TWO NECKS," LAD LANE (_see page 374_).]
During the civil wars both King and Parliament bore heavily on the
Mercers. In 1640 Charles I. half forced from them a loan of L3,030, and
in 1642 the Parliament borrowed L6,500, and arms from the Company's
armoury, valued at L88. They afterwards gave further arms, valued at L71
13s. 4d., and advanced as a second loan L3,200. The result now became
visible. In 1698, hoping to clear off their debts, the Mercers' Company
engaged in a ruinous insurance scheme, suggested by Dr. Assheton, a
Kentish rector. It was proposed to grant annuities of L30 per cent. to
clergymen's widows according to certain sums paid by their husbands.
"Pledging the rents of their large landed estates as security for the
fulfilment of their contracts with usurers, the Mercers entered on
business as life assurance agents. Limiting the entire amount of
subscription to L100,000, they decided that no person over sixty years
of age should become a subscriber; that no subscriber should subscribe
less than L50--_i.e._, should purchase a smaller contingent annuity than
one of L15; that the annuity to every subscriber's widow, or other
person for whom the insurance was effected, should be at the rate of
L30 for every L100 of subscription. It was stipulated that subscribers
must be in good and perfect health at the time of subscription. It was
decided that all married men of the age of thirty years or under, might
subscribe any sum from L50 to L1,000; that all married men, not
exceeding sixty years of age, might subscribe any sum not less than L50,
and not exceeding L300. The Company's prospectus further stipulates
'that no person that goes to sea, nor soldier that goes to the wars,
shall be admitted to subscribe to have the benefit of this proposal, in
regard of the casualties and accidents that they are more particularly
liable to.' Moreover, it was provided that 'in case it should happen
that any man who had subscribed should voluntarily make away with
himself, or by any act of his occasion his own death, either by
duelling, or committing any crime whereby he should be sentenced to be
put to death by justice; in any or either of these cases his widow
should receive no annuity, but upon delivering up the Company's bond,
should have the subscription money paid to her.'
"The Mercers' operations soon gave rise to more business-like
companies, specially created to secure the public against some of the
calamitous consequences of death. In 1706, the Amicable Life Assurance
Office--usually, though, as the reader has seen, incorrectly, termed the
First Life Insurance Office--was established in imitation of the
Mercers' Office. Two years later, the Second Society of Assurance, for
the support of widows and orphans, was opened in Dublin, which, like the
Amicable, introduced numerous improvements upon Dr. Assheton's scheme,
and was a Joint-Stock Life Assurance Society, identical in its
principles with, and similar in most of its details to, the modern
insurance companies, of which there were as many as one hundred and
sixty in the year 1859."
[Illustration: CITY OF LONDON SCHOOL.]
Large sums were subscribed, but the annuities were fixed too high, and
the Company had to sink to 18 per cent., and even this proved an
insufficient reduction. In 1745 they were compelled to stop, and, after
several ineffectual struggles, to petition Parliament.
The petition showed that the Mercers were indebted more than L100,000.
The annuities then out amounted to L7,620 per annum, and the
subscriptions for future amounts reached L10,000 a year; while to answer
these claims their present income only amounted to L4,100 per annum. The
Company was therefore empowered by Act of Parliament, 4 George III., to
issue new bonds and pay them off by a lottery, drawn in their own hall.
This plan had the effect of completely retrieving their affairs, and
restoring them again to prosperity.
Strype speaks of the mercers' shops situated on the south side of
Cheapside as having been turned from mere sheds into handsome buildings
four or five storeys high.
Mercers' Hall and Chapel have a history of their own. On the rough
suppression of monastic institutions, Henry VIII., gorged with plunder,
granted to the Mercers' Company for L969 17s. 6d. the church of the
college of St. Thomas Acon, the parsonage of St. Mary Colechurch, and
sundry premises in the parishes of St. Paul, Old Jewry, St. Stephen,
Walbrook, St. Martin, Ironmonger Lane, and St. Stephen, Coleman Street.
Immediately behind the great doors of the hospital and Mercers' Hall
stood the hospital church of St. Thomas, and at the back were
court-yards, cloisters, and gardens in a great wide enclosure east and
west of Ironmonger Lane and the Old Jewry.
St. Thomas's Church was a large structure, probably rich in monuments,
though many of the illustrious mercers were buried in Bow Church, St.
Pancras, Soper Lane, St. Antholin's, Watling Street, and St. Benet
Sherehog. The church was bought chiefly by Sir Richard Gresham's
influence, and Stow tells us "it is now called Mercers' Chappell, and
therein is kept a free grammar school as of old time had been
accustomed." The original Mercers' Chapel was a chapel toward the street
in front of the "great old chapel of St. Thomas," and over it was
Mercers' Hall. Aggas's plan of London (circa 1560) shows it was a little
above the Great Conduit of Cheapside. The small chapel was built by Sir
John Allen, mercer and mayor (1521), and he was buried there; but the
Mercers removed this tomb into the hospital church, and divided the
chapel into shops. Grey, the founder of the hospital, was apprenticed to
a bookseller who occupied one of these shops, and after the Fire of
London he himself carried on the same trade in a shop which was built on
the same site. Before the suppression, the Mercers only occupied a shop
of the present front, the modern Mercers' Chapel standing, says Herbert,
exactly on the site of part of the hospital church.
The old hospital gate, which forms the present hospital entrance, had an
image of St. Thomas a Becket, but this was pulled down by Elizabethan
fanatics. The interior of the chapel remains unaltered. There is a large
ambulatory before it supported by columns, and a stone staircase leads
to the hall and court-rooms. The ambulatory contains the recumbent
figure of Richard Fishborne, Mercer, dressed in a fur gown and ruff. He
was a great benefactor to the Company, and died in 1623 (James I.).
Many eminent citizens were buried in St. Thomas's, though most of the
monuments had been defaced even in Stow's time. Among them were ten
Mercer mayors and sheriffs, ten grocers (probably from Bucklersbury,
their special locality), Sir Edward Shaw, goldsmith to Richard III., two
Earls of Ormond, and Stephen Cavendish, draper and mayor (1362), whose
descendants were ancestors of the ducal families of Cavendish and
Devonshire.
William Downer, of London, gent., by his last will, dated 26th June,
1484, gave orders for his body to be buried within the church of St.
Thomas Acon's, of London, in these terms:--"So that every year, yearly
for evermore, in their foresaid churche, at such time of the year as it
shal happen me to dy, observe and keep an _obyte_, or an anniversary for
my sowl, the sowles of my seyd wyfe, the sowles of my fader and moder,
and al Christian sowles, with _placebo_ and dirige on the even, and mass
of requiem on the morrow following solemnly by note for evermore."
Previous to the suppression, Henry VIII. had permitted the Hospital of
St. Thomas of Acon, which wanted room, to throw a gallery across Old
Jewry into a garden which the master had purchased, adjoining the
Grocers' Hall, and in which Sir Robert Clayton afterwards built a house,
of which we shall have to speak in its place. The gallery was to have
two windows, and in the winter a light was ordered to be burned there
for the comfort of passers-by. In 1536, Henry VIII. and his queen, Jane
Seymour, stood in the Mercers' Hall, then newly built, and saw the
"marching watch of the City" most bravely set out by its founder, Sir
John Allen, mercer and mayor, and one of the Privy Council.
In the reign of James I., Mercers' Chapel became a fashionable place of
resort; gallants and ladies crowded there to hear the sermons of the
learned Italian Archbishop of Spalatro, in Dalmatia, one of the few
prize converts to Protestantism. In 1617 we look in and find among his
auditors the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, the Earls of
Arundel and Pembroke, and Lords Zouch and Compton. The chapel continued
for many years to be used for Italian sermons preached to English
merchants who had resided abroad, and who partly defrayed the expense.
The Mercers' School was first held in the hospital and then removed to
the mercery.
The present chapel front in Cheapside is the central part alone of the
front built after the Great Fire. Correspondent houses, five storeys
high, formerly gave breadth and effect to the whole mass. Old views
represent shops on each side with unsashed windows. The first floors
have stone balconies, and over the central window of each room is the
bust of a crowned virgin. It has a large doorcase, enriched with two
genii above, in the act of mantling the Virgin's head, the Company's
cognomen displayed upon the keystone of the arch. Above is a cornice,
with brackets, sustaining a small gallery, from which, on each side,
arise Doric pilasters, supporting an entablature of the same order;
between the intercolumns and the central window are the figures of Faith
and Hope, in niches, between whom, in a third niche of the entablature,
is Charity, sitting with her three children. The upper storey has
circular windows and other enrichments.
The entrance most used is in Ironmonger Lane, where is a small court,
with offices, apparently the site of the ancient cloister, and which
leads to the principal building. The hall itself is elevated as
anciently, and supported by Doric columns, the space below being open
one side and forming an extensive piazza, at the extremity whereof is
the chapel, which is neatly planned, wainscoted, and paved with black
and white marble. A high flight of stairs leads from the piazza to the
hall, which is a very lofty apartment, handsomely wainscoted and
ornamented with Doric pilasters, and various carvings in compartments.
In the hall, besides the transaction of the Company's business, the
Gresham committees are held, which consist of four aldermen, including
the Lord Mayor _pro tempore_, and eight of the City corporation, with
whom are associated a select number of the assistants of the Mercers. In
this hall also the British Fishery Society, and other corporate bodies,
were formerly accustomed to hold their meetings.
The chief portraits in the hall are those of Sir Thomas Gresham
(original), a fanciful portrait of Sir Richard Whittington, a likeness
of Count Tekeli (the hero of the old opera), Count Panington; Dean Colet
(the illustrious friend of Erasmus, and the founder of St. Paul's
school); Thomas Papillon, Master of the Company in 1698, who left L1,000
to the Company, to relieve any of his family that ever came to want; and
Rowland Wynne, Master of the Company in 1675. Wynne gave L400 towards
the repairing of the hall after the Great Fire.
In Strype's time (1720), the Mercers' Company gave away L3,000 a year in
charity. In 1745 the Company's money legacies amounted to L21,699 5s.
9d., out of which the Company paid annually L573 17s. 4d. In 1832, the
lapsed legacies of the Company became the subject of a Chancery suit;
the result was that money is now lent to liverymen or freemen of the
Company requiring assistance in sums of L100, and not exceeding L500,
for a term, without interest, but only upon approved security.
The present Mercers' School, which is but lately finished, is a very
elegant stone structure, adjoining St. Michael's Church, College Hill,
on the site of Whittington's Almshouses, which had been removed to
Highgate to make room for it.
The school scholarship is in the gift of the Mercers' Company, and it
must not be forgotten that Caxton, the first great English printer, was
a member of this livery.
Subsequently to the Great Fire, says Herbert, there was some discussion
with Parliament on rebuilding the Mercers' School on the former site of
St. Mary Colechurch. That site, however, was ultimately rejected, and by
the Rebuilding Act, 22 Charles II. (1670), it was expressly provided
that there should be a plot of ground, on the western side of the Old
Jewry, "set apart for the Mercers' School." Persons who remember the
building, says Herbert, describe it whilst here as an old-fashioned
house for the masters' residence, with projecting upper storeys, a low,
spacious building by the side of it for the school-room, and an area
behind it for a playground, the whole being situate on the west side of
the Old Jewry, about forty yards from Cheapside.
The great value of ground on the above spot, and a desire to widen, as
at present, the entrance to the Old Jewry, occasioned the temporary
removal of the Mercers' School, in 1787, to No. 13, Budge Row, about
thirty yards from Dowgate Hill (a house of the Company's, which was
afterwards burnt down). In 1804 it was again temporarily removed to No.
20, Red Lion Court, Watling Street; and from thence, in 1808, to its
present situation on College Hill. The latter premises were hired by the
Company, at the rent of L120, and the average expense of the school was
L677 1s. 1d. The salary of the master is L200, and L50 gratuity, with a
house to live in, rent and taxes free. Writing, arithmetic, and
merchant's accounts were added to the Greek and Latin classics, in 1804;
and a writing-master was engaged, who has a salary of L120, and a
gratuity of L20, but no house. There are two exhibitions belonging to
the school.
With the Mercers' Hospital, in the Middle Ages, many curious old City
customs were connected. The customary devotions of the new Lord Mayor,
at St. Thomas of Acon Church, in the Catholic times, identify
themselves in point of locality with the Mercers' Company, and are to be
ranked amongst that Company's observances. Strype has described these,
from an ancient MS. he met with on the subject. The new Lord Mayor, it
states, "_after dinner_," on his inauguration day (the ceremony would
have suited much better _before_ dinner in modern days), "was wont to go
from his house to the Church of St. Thomas of Acon, those of his livery
going before him; and the aldermen in like manner being there met
together, they came to the Church of St. Paul, whither, when they were
come, namely, in the middle place between the body of the church,
between two little doors, they were wont to pray for the soul of the
Bishop of London. William Norman, who was a great benefactor to the
City, in obtaining the confirmation of their liberties from William the
Conqueror, a priest saying the office _De Profundis_ (called a dirge);
and from thence they passed to the churchyard, where Thomas a Becket's
parents were buried, and there, near their tomb, they said also, for all
the faithful deceased, _De Profundis_ again. The City procession thence
returned through Cheapside Market, sometimes with wax candles burning
(if it was late), to the said Church Sanctae Thomae, and there the mayor
and aldermen offered single pence, which being done, every one went to
his home."
On all saints' days, and various other festivals, the mayor with his
family attended at this same Church of St. Thomas, and the aldermen
also, and those that were "of the livery of the mayor, with the honest
men of the mysteries," in their several habits, or suits, from which
they went to St. Paul's to hear vespers. On the Feast of Innocents they
heard vespers at St. Thomas's, and on the morrow mass and vespers.
The Mercers' election cup, says Timbs, of early sixteenth century work,
was silver-gilt, decorated with fretwork and female busts; the feet,
flasks; and on the cover is the popular legend of an unicorn yielding
its horn to a maiden. The whole is enamelled with coats of arms, and
these lines--
"To elect the Master of the Mercerie hither am I sent,
And by Sir Thomas Leigh for the same intent."
The Company also possess a silver-gilt wagon and tun, covered with
arabesques and enamels, of sixteenth century work. The hall was
originally decorated with carvings; the main stem of deal, the fruit,
flowers, &c., of lime, pear, and beech. These becoming worm-eaten, were
long since removed from the panelling and put aside; but they have been
restored by Mr. Henry Crace, who thus describes the process:--
"The carving is of the same colour as when taken down. I merely washed
it, and with a gimlet bored a number of holes in the back, and into
every projecting piece of fruit and leaves on the face, and placing the
whole in a long trough, fifteen inches deep, I covered it with a
solution prepared in the following manner:--I took sixteen gallons of
linseed oil, with 2 lbs. of litharge, finely ground, 1 lb. of camphor,
and 2 lbs. of red lead, which I boiled for six hours, keeping it
stirred, that every ingredient might be perfectly incorporated. I then
dissolved 6 lbs. of bees'-wax in a gallon of spirits of turpentine, and
mixed the whole, while warm, thoroughly together.
"In this solution the carving remained for twenty-four hours. When taken
out, I kept the face downwards, that the oil might soak down to the face
of the carving; and on cutting some of the wood nearly nine inches deep,
I found it had soaked through, for not any of the dust was blown out, as
I considered it a valuable medium to form a substance for the future
support of the wood. This has been accomplished, and, as the dust became
saturated with the oil, it increased in bulk, and rendered the carving
perfectly solid."
The Company is now governed by a master, three wardens, and a court of
thirty-one or more assistants. The livery fine is 53s. 4d. The Mercers'
Company, though not by any means the most ancient of the leading City
companies, takes precedence of all. Such anomalous institutions are the
City companies, that, curious to relate, the present body hardly
includes one mercer among them. In Henry VIII.'s reign the Company
(freemen, householders, and livery) amounted to fifty-three persons; in
1701 it had almost quadrupled. Strype (1754) only enumerates fifty-two
mayors who had been mercers, from 1214 to 1701; this is below the mark.
Halkins over-estimates the mercer mayors as ninety-eight up to 1708. Few
monarchs have been mercers, yet Richard II. was a free brother, and
Queen Elizabeth a free sister.
Half our modern nobility have sprung from the trades they now despise.
Many of the great mercers became the founders of noble houses; for
instance--Sir John Coventry (1425), ancestor of the present Earl of
Coventry; Sir Geoffrey Bullen, grandfather of Queen Elizabeth; Sir
William Hollis, ancestor of the Earls of Clare. From Sir Richard Dormer
(1542) sprang the Lords Dormer; from Sir Thomas Baldry (1523) the Lords
Kensington (Rich); from Sir Thomas Seymour (1527) the Dukes of Somerset;
from Sir Baptist Hicks, the great mercer of James I., who built Hicks'
Hall, on Clerkenwell Green, sprang the Viscounts Camden; from Sir
Rowland Hill, the Lords Hill; from James Butler (Henry II.) the Earls of
Ormond; from Sir Geoffrey Fielding, Privy Councillor to Henry II. and
Richard I., the Earls of Denbigh.
The costume of the Mercers became fixed about the reign of Charles I.
The master and wardens led the civic processions, "faced in furs," with
the lords; the livery followed in gowns faced with satins, the livery of
all other Companies wearing facings of fringe.
"In Ironmonger Lane," says Stow, giving us a glimpse of old London, "is
the small parish church of St. Martin, called Pomary, upon what occasion
certainly I know not; but it is supposed to be of apples growing where
now houses are lately builded, for myself have seen the large void
places there." The church was repaired in the year 1629. Mr. Stodder
left 40s. for a sermon to be preached on St. James's Day by an
unbeneficed minister, in commemoration of the deliverance in the year
1588 (Armada); and 50s. more to the use of the poor of the same parish,
to be paid by the Ironmongers.