the hunting of the lyon (of which there was plenty in that country)
was not answerable unto it. In the interim one began to praise her for
her colour, another commending her for her valour, one said she had
the countenance of a lyon, and every one gave his sentence. When the
poor cat finding no more work for her to do, went round to the King and
Queen purling and curling (as their manner is), which they apprehended
to be, as if she inquired of them what she had deserved for that late
service.
To cut off circumstance, no price could part them, and the rather when
the factor had told the king that she was with kittens, and that her
brood would in some few years, being carefully lookt into, furnish the
whole kingdom, so that Whittingtons cats adventure only surmounted all
the ships lading beside, with which fortune and unexpected gain we
bring them safe into England; the ship lying at anchor near Blackwal,
and the Pilot and Cape-merchant, with some other officers in the ship
at Mr. Fitzwarrens house, which was by Leaden-Hall, to give accompt
of their voyage. But these caskets of jewels and pearls, with other
unvaluable (_sic_) riches which were given for the cat, they caused to
be brought along, not daring, by reason of their inestimable value,
to trust them in the ship. The Bills of lading and the benefit of the
return of the Commodities being viewed and considered of by the owner,
he praised God for so prosperous a voyage, and called all his servants
and gave order that according to their adventures every one should
receive his portion.
At length casting his eye upon those rich caskets and cabinets, he
asked to whose share they belonged; who whispered him in the ear,
and told him to his poor Whittington, relating every particular as is
before discoursed. To whom Master Fitzwarren replyed, if they then be
his, God forbid I should keep from him the least farthing that is his
right, and presently commanded Whittington to be sent for by the name
of Mr. Whittington.
The servants not knowing anything of the business, went unto him into
the kitchin, where he was then rubbing the spits, scouring the kettles,
and making clean the dressers, and told him he must come to his Master
presently into the parlor. The poor man excused himself, that his
shooes were dirty and the room was rubb’d, and if he should but touch
any thing there he should spoyl and deface those things in the room.
But still the master of the House called for Master Whittington,
sending one servant after another till he was brought before him; and
having scraped some few legs, instantly his master took him by the
hand, and called for a chair for Master Whittington, his daughter, the
pilot, and the factor, every one of them saluted him by the name of Mr.
Whittington and forced him to sit down. He wondering what this should
mean desired them not to mock a poor simple man who meant none any
harm, &c. and wept (the tears dropping from his eyes), desiring them
not to deride his poverty, for his ambition was never to come so high
as from the kitchin to the hall much more from the hall to the parlor.
Then came his master to him seriously and said, Indeed Mr. Whittington,
we are all in very good earnest, for you are at this time a better
man than myself in estate, and then shewed him all those cabinets and
caskets, and how richly they were lined.
When he perceived by all their earnest asservations that all was true
he first fell down upon his knees and gave God most hearty thanks,
who out of his great bounty would vouchsafe to cast an eye upon so
poor and wretched a creature as himself; then turning to his master
he presented all his riches before him and told him that all he had
was at his disposing and service, who answered him again, that for his
own part God had sent him sufficient of his own, neither would he take
from him the value of one Barbary ducket. He came nere and with a low
leg saluted his mistris, and told her that when she pleased to make
choice of a husband he would make her the richest marriage in London,
because she was so willing out of her own purse (when he was altogether
penniless) to lay out for his adventure. To the pilot, and master, and
every officer, and common saylor he gave liberal according to their
degree, even to the ship boy, and then to every servant of the house,
nay to the very kitchin wench who was so churlish unto him, and had so
often basted him instead of her roast meats; having caused her to be
called unto him he gave her an hundred pounds towards her marriage.
This being done, taylors were sent for, sempsters and the like to put
him into cloaths and linnen of the best, who were to accommodate him
with all speed possible, and his lodging in the garret was chang’d into
the best chamber of the house. And when the barber had been with him
and the rest to make him compleat in his habit, there was a strange and
sudden metamorphosis; for out of a smoky and dirty kitchin-drudge there
appeared a proper and well-proportioned man, and gentile merchant, in
so much that his young mistris began to cast a more amorous eye upon
him than before, which not a little pleased Master Fitzwarren her
father, who intended a match betwixt them.
The brute of this great adventure was presently revised through the
whole city, insomuch that his master intreated his late servant to
walk with him into the Exchange to see the fashion of the merchants,
which he did, when all of them came about him and saluted him, some
bid God give him joy of his fortune, others desired of him better and
further acquaintance, and every one as his several fancy led him:
some commended him for his person, others for his modest answers and
discreet carriage. Indeed, wealth is able to make all these good where
they are most wanting, which was not in him as appears by the sequel.
Within few weeks the match was propounded betwixt Master Whittington
and Mistris Alice, and willingly entertained by both parties and not
without great cost, with the invitation of the Lord Mayor and the
Aldermen very nobly celebrated, and the bridegroom by this means had
got acquaintances with the best.
After this his father-in-law demanded of his son what he purposed to
take in hand (his freedom being offered him). Who made answer again
that since God had so blest him in his small adventure he would not
leave it of so, but prove his goodness in a greater, and that his
purpose was to turn merchant, which reply gave him no small content in
regard he knew the best among them would be glad to have the society of
so hopeful a citizen, which he continued adventuring in divers bottoms
with his father, and had very happy and prosperous returns.
The time being come when he was prickt for Sheriff he modestly refused
it as unable to take so great a charge, and would willingly have paid
his fine, which his father-in-law would not suffer, at whose persuasion
he took the place upon him, in which he so well behaved himself in the
management of all affairs belonging to his office that he not only left
it without the least taxation, but with a general love and approbation,
insomuch that the universal eye of the whole city was fixt upon him in
an hopeful expectation what a profitable member of that united body he
might futurely prove, and this hapned in the year of our Lord 1493,
Sir John Hodley grocer being mayor and Drewerie Barentine his fellow
Sheriff, of the truth of which Mr. Fabian in his _Chronicle_ and Mr.
John Stow in his _Survey of London_ can fully satisfie you.
In the year 1497 and the one and twentieth of the same Kings reign, Sir
Richard Whittington was Lord Mayor of London, John Woodcok and William
Askam being Sheriffs, and he held the place with great reputation and
honour. In which time of his Mayoralty there was much discontent in
the kingdom, by reason of many differences betwixt the King and the
Commons; the circumstances whereof were here too long to relate, only
one thing is worthy of observation that whether by his adventures or
no may it be questioned, bringing in yearly such store of gold, silks,
sattins, velvets, damasks, stones, and jewels, &c. into the kingdom
might be the cause of that great pride and rioting in apparel which was
used in those days. But as Harding, Fabian, and others have left to me
how in that year of his Mayoralty and after there resorted to the Kings
Court at their pleasures daily, at the least ten thousand persons. In
his kitchin were three hundred servitors, and in every office according
to that rate. Moreover of ladies, chambermaids, and laundresses about
three hundred, and they all exceeded in gorgeous and costly apparel far
above their degrees; for even the yeomen and grooms were clothed in
silks and velvets, damasks, and the like, with imbroydery, rich furs,
and goldsmiths work, devising very strange and new fashions.
And in this year also, about the feast of St. Bartholomew, grew a great
discord betwixt the Duke of Hereford and Mowbery, Duke of Norfolk,
the beginning thereof being as followeth: The two Dukes riding from
the Parliament towards their lodgings, the Duke of Norfolk said to
the other, Sir, you see how variable the King is in his words, and
(reflecting upon what had past) how without mercy he putteth his Lords
and kinsfolks to death, imprisoning some and exciting others. Therefore
it behoveth us not too much to trust to his fair and smooth language,
for doubtless in time he will bring even to us the like death and
destruction. Of which words he accused him to the King, which the other
denying it was to be tryed by combate. The lists were appointed and the
day of meeting the eleventh day of September, to which place and on the
day assigned came both the Dukes and bravely accoutred, appeared before
the King ready to enter into battel; when the King threw down his
warder, and staying the combate banished the Duke of Hereford for ten
years, but the Duke of Norfolk for ever, was travelling many countries,
at the last came to Venice and then ended his life.
Again in 1406, and in the eighth of Henry the fourth, Sir Richard
Whittington was the second time Lord Mayor, Nicholas Worton and Geffery
Brook being Sheriffs. Again in the year 1409, being the seventh year
of Henry the fifth, he supplyed the Pretorship, Robert Whittington
(his near Kinsman) and John Butler being Sheriffs, and which is more
remarkable of him then of any other that ever preceded him in that
place of honour, he was once Sheriff and three times Lord Mayor of this
famous and honourable City in three several Kings reigns.
Now to cut off all circumstances and come close to the matter, we may
easily find what this man was, by the pious and religious acts done in
his life to the Cities present grace, use and benefit, and to his own
blessed memory for ever.
In the Vintry-ward he built a church and dedicated it to S. Michael
calling it Pater Noster in the Royal, and added to it a Colledge
founded to St. Mary, and placed therein a President and four fellows
which ought to be masters of arts, besides other yearly allowance to
clerks and young schollars, near which he erected an Hospital which
he called God’s house, for thirteen poor men, and there according to
the devout superstition of those days were to pray for the souls of
his father-in-law Hugh Fitzwarren and Dame Molde his wife, for whom
he erected a fair tomb in the church he before built, leaving also a
place for himself and Dame Alice his lady when it should please God to
call them. In which place they were afterwards both of them according
to their degree very honourably interred, great mourning and much
lamentation being made for him by the Commons of the City in regard he
was a man so remarkable for his charity.
He builded another brave structure which he called after his own name
Whittington Colledge, with a perpetual allowance for Divinity Lectures
to be read there for ever, leaving good land for the maintenance
thereof.
And on the west side of the City he built that famous gate and prison
to this day called Newgate, and thereupon caused the Merchants arms
to be graven in stone. He added to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in
Smithfield and was at the charge of repairing thereof.
Further at the Grey-Fryars in London he erected a Library as a
testimony of the great love he had to Learning, which he began in the
year of our Lord 1421 and finished it in the year following. Moreover
that place which is called the Stocks to this day, betwixt Cheapside
and Cornhill, a good house of stone, which for a flesh market and a
fish market greatly beneficial to the City.
Besides he enlarged Guild Hall and glazed most or all of the windows at
his own costs or charges, paving the Hall and contributing largely to
the Library, adding to those places a conduit which yieldeth store of
sweet and wholesome water to the general good and benefit of the City.
In the year 1497, when Sir Richard Whittington was first elected Lord
Mayor, that rebel Sir John Oldcastle was taken in the territories of
the Lord Powess, not without danger and hurt of some that took him, at
which time all the States of the realm were assembled at Parliament
in London, therein to provide the King of a subsidy and other aid of
money and ammunition, who took great pains beyond the seas in France.
These Lords and others when they heard that the publick enemy was
taken they agreed all not to dissolve the Parliament, until he were
examined, and heard to answer in the same. Whereupon the Lord Powess
was sent for to fetch him up with power and great aid, who brought him
to London in a lyter wounded very much having received seventeen wounds
and also a clerk which he called his Secretary with him that was of his
counsel in all his secrecy. As soon as the aforesaid Sir John Oldcastle
was brought into the Parliament before the Earl of Bedford who was
then left Regent and Governour of the Realm in the time of the King’s
absence being in France and other Lords and States, his indictment
being read before him of his forcible insurrection against the King
and State in St. Gyles’s Fields, and other treasons and outrages by
him committed, the question was asked how he could excuse himself and
show why he should not be judged to dye according to the law. But he
seeking other talk and discourse of the mercies of God, and that all
mortal men that would be followers of God ought to prefer mercy above
judgment and that vengeance pertained only to the Lord, and ought not
to be practised by them that worship, but to be left to God alone, with
many other words to protract the time, until the Lord Chief Justice
admonished the Regent not to suffer him to spend the time so vainly,
in molesting the nobles of the Realm, whereupon the Duke of Bedford,
Regent, commanded him to answer formally and punctually to the matter
laid to his charge.
Then said Sir John, being thus urged at last after deliberation
taken, he said, It is the least thing that I account of to be judged
by you as of man’s judgment, and again he began to talk, but nothing
to the purpose until the Chief Justice commanded him again to answer
finally, and to answer them if he could, why he should not suffer death
according to his desert. To which he stoutly answered that he had no
judge amongst them, so long as his liege Lord King Richard was alive
and in his realm of Scotland, which answer when he had made, because
there needed no further witness, he was then presently censured to
be drawn and hanged on a gallows and then to be burnt hanging upon
the same, which judgment was executed upon him the thirtieth day of
December in St. Gyles’s Fields, where many honourable persons were
present, and the last words that he spake were to Sir Thomas Upingham,
adjuring him that if he saw him rise from death to life again the third
day he would procure that his sect which he had raised might be in
peace and quiet. He was hanged by the neck in a chain of iron and after
consumed by fire.
Moreover it is recorded that in the time of this worthy pretor Sir
Richard Whittington the glorious city of Constantinople was taken by
Mahomet the Second, Prince of the Turks, whose souldiers sacked it with
all extremity and omitted no manners of cruelty by violence to either
virgins, aged women, or sucking babes. This Sir Richard Whittington had
traffick from thence by his factors which there abode, and were then
taken prisoners, so that he lost near upon fifteen thousand pounds,
which when he heard of never was so much as cast down or dismayed, but
said God will send more; yea such was the incessant practice of the
Turkish tyranny upon this imperial city, as it exceeded the damage,
rapes and spoyls of other cities. They also beheaded at the same time
Constantine, sticking his head upon a launce, and with derision caused
it to be carried thorow the Turkish camp.
In the space of a week after, there hapned a horrible tempest of
thunder and lightning which burned almost eight hundred houses and
spoiled three thousand people at the sacking of the aforesaid city by
the said Mahomet. The Turks found therein so much treasure that they
wondred that the citizens would not spend it in souldiers for their own
defence, but so dotingly to spare the true spending thereof to become
an enticing prey for their irreconcileable enemies, for indeed it was
thought that if the State would have hired souldiers, and given them
good pay they might have raised the siege of the Turks. It is an old
and true saying, Covetousness is the mother of ruine and mischief.
This strange thing hapned in the second time that he was elected Lord
Mayor and that was upon the twenty-seventh of April, being Tuesday
in Easter week: William Foxley, Pot maker for the Mint in the Tower
of London, fell asleep, and so continued sleeping and snoring and
could not be wakened with pricking, cramping, or otherwise burning or
whatsoever till the first day of the term, which was full 14 days and
15 nights. The cause of this his sleeping could not be known though
the same was diligently searched for by the King’s Command of his
Physicians and other learned men, yea the King himself examined the
said William Foxley, who was in all points sound at his awaking to be
as if he had slept but one night, and yet lived 41 years after. But in
length of time did call to mind how he did wish to God that he might
sleep a fortnight together if it was not so and so concerning a bargain
between a neighbour of his and himself.
One Thursday in Whitson week following the Duke of Somerset with
Anthony Rivers and four others kept Justs and Tournament before the
King and Queen and others of the nobility in the Tower of London,
against three Esquires of the Queen’s Bedchamber, which were performed
before some of the French nobility that then were Prisoners to the
King, which he took in France, to the great admiration of those
strangers who never saw the like action before, being so earnestly
performed. There was also Sir Richard Whittington and the two
Sheriffs, and that night the King and Queen did sup with the Lord Mayor.
Those strangers which beheld those Justs were prisoners in the Tower at
that time, namely, the Duke of Orleance and Burbon, brother to the Duke
of Britain, the Earls of Vaudosine, of Ewe and Richmond, and the High
Marshal of France, and many other Knights and Esquires to the number of
seven hundred, all which were at one time prisoners to the King, but
nobly used and attended every one according to their rank and quality,
who when they were ransomed made it known to their King how honourably
they were attended in England, and what respect the King and our
English nation shewed them being prisoners who might have taken their
lives away as well as their persons prisoners.
The second thing that was remarkable in Sir Richard Whittington’s year
was that the King kept his Christmas at Lambeth, and at the feast of
Purification seven Dolphins of the sea came up to the River of Thames
and played there up and down until four of them were kill’d.
On Saturday the eve of St. Michael the Archangel the year following, in
the morning before day, betwixt the hour of one and two of the Clock,
began a terrible earthquake with Lightning and thunder which continued
the space of six hours, and that universally through the whole world,
so that most men thought the world as then would have ended. The
unreasonable beasts roared and drew to the town with a hideous noise,
also the fowls of the ayr cryed out, such was the work of God at that
time to call his people to repentance.
The four and twentieth day of January following a battel or combat
was fought in Smithfield within the lists before the King between the
men of Feversham in Kent, John Upton Notary Appelant and John Down
Gentleman defendant. John Upton accused John Down that he and his
compiers should design the King’s death on the day of his Coronation
following. When they had fought somewhat long and received each of them
some wounds, and still persisting in their violent action and no hopes
to find out the truth, the King took up the matter and forgave both
parties.
On Candlemas eve following in divers places of England was great
weathering of wind, hail, snow, rain with thunder and lightning,
whereby the church of Baldock in Hertfordshire and the church and part
of the town of Walden in Essex, with other neighbouring villages, were
sore shaken, and the steeple of St. Pauls in London about two in the
afternoon was set on fire in the midst of the shaft first on the west
side and then on the south, and divers people espying the fire came to
quench it in the steeple, which they did with vinegar, so far as they
could find, so that when the Lord Mayor with much people came to Pauls
to have holpen if need had been they returned again every man to his
own home, trusting in God all had been well, but anon after between
eight and nine of the clock the fire burst out again afresh out of the
steeple, by reason of the wind more hot and fervent then before, and
did much hurt to the lead and timber thereof. Then the Lord Mayor and
many people came thither again and with vinegar quenched the fire which
was so violent, but no man received any hurt.
Moreover in Sir Richard Whittington’s time lived one Richard Fleming,
Bishop of Lincoln, in the year 1430 who founded Lincoln Colledge in
Oxford, which was afterwards in Richard the third’s time in the year of
our Lord 1479 by Thomas Rotherham Bishop of the same sea (_sic_) much
augmented and enlarged with great revenues. Likewise Magdalen Colledge
in Oxford was built by William Wainfleet Bishop of Winchester, who
was a loving and constant friend to Sir Richard Whittington and did
much good in many parts of this kingdom, and the said Sir Richard did
largely contribute to these and the like pious uses by the intreaty of
this Bishop.
In the year of our Lord 1419, in which Sir Richard Whittington was the
third time inaugurated into the Mayoralty as is before mentioned King
Henry the fifth, who having conquered the greatest part of France and
espoused Katherine sole daughter to the King and heir to the crown,
taking leave of his father-in-law, embarked with his Royal bride and
landed at Dover upon Candlemas Day, leaving in France for his deputy
his brother the Duke of Clarence, from thence arrived in London the
fourteenth day of February, and the Queen came thither the one and
twentieth day of the same month, being met upon Black-Heath by the
Lord Mayor and three hundred aldermen and prime citizens in gold chains
and rich costly habits with other sumptuous and brave devices as
pageants, speeches and shows to the great delight and content of both
their Maiesties.