Part 19
To keep a troop of servants has always been a mark of state. Ladies used to beat their servants--following the example of the Queen, who sometimes boxed the ears of her courtiers. Everybody of position travelled, and nearly everybody went to Italy, with results disastrous to religion and to morals. One of the worst figures in the Elizabethan gallery is the Englishman Italianized. Of course on his return the traveller gave himself strange airs. How they travelled and what they saw may be read in that most charming book, the _Epistolæ Hoellianæ_.
Card-playing and gaming were the commonest form of amusement. The games were _primero_, which Falstaff foreswore, trump, _gleek_, _gresco_, new cut, knave out-of-doors, ruff, noddy, post and pace--all of these games corresponding, no doubt, to those still played.
Another favorite amusement was dancing in all its various forms, from the stately court dance to the merry circle on the village green. The principal dances were the solemn _pavane_, the _brawl_, the _Passamezzo galliard_, the _Canary dance_, the _coranto_, the _lavolta_, the _jig_, the _galliard_, the _fancy_, and the _hey_.
Gentlemen were followed in the streets by their servants, who carried their master's sword. Their dress was blue, with the master's badge in silver on the left arm.
The pages of Stow, Harrison, Hall, Greene, and Nash contain not only glimpses, but also set pictures of the time, from which extracts by the hundred might be made. There are the awful examples, for instance, of Sir John Champneys, Alderman and Lord Mayor, and Richard Wethell, citizen and tailor. Both these persons built high towers to their houses to show their pride and to look down upon their neighbors--one is reminded of the huge leaning towers in Bologna. What happened? The first went blind, so that though he might climb his tower he could see nothing. The second was afflicted with gout in hands and feet, so that he could not walk, much less climb his tower. Stubbes has other instances of judgments, particularly the terrible fate of the girl who invoked the devil to help her with her ruff.
Here is a curious little story. It happened in the reign of King James. One day, in Bishopsgate Ward, a poor man, named Richard Atkinson, going to remove a heap of sea-coal ashes in his wheelbarrow, discovered lying in the ashes the body of a newly-born child. It was still breathing, and he carried it to his wife, who washed and fed it and restored it to life. The child was a goodly and well-formed boy, strong and well-featured, without blemish or harm upon it. They christened the child at St. Helen's Church, by a name which should cause him to remember, all through his life, his very remarkable origin. They called him, in fact, Job Cinere Extractus. A noble name, for the sake of which alone he should have lived. What an ancestor to have had! How delightful to be a Cinere Extractus! Who would not wish to belong to such a family, and to point to the ash-heap as the origin of the first Cinere Extractus? Nothing like it in history since the creation of Adam himself. What a coat of arms! A shield azure, an ash-heap proper, with supporters of two dustmen with shovels; crest a sieve; motto, like that of the Courtenays, "from what heights descended?" But alas! poor little Job Cinere Extractus died three days afterwards, and now lies buried in St. Helen's church-yard, without even a monument.
Another baby story--but this belongs to Charles I.'s time--it happened, in fact, in the last month of that melancholy reign. It was seven o'clock in the evening. A certain ship-chandler became suddenly so foolish as to busy himself over a barrel of gunpowder with a candle. Naturally a spark fell into the barrel, and he was not even left time enough to express his regrets. Fifty houses were wrecked. How many were killed no one could tell, but at the next house but one, the Rose Tavern, there was a great company holding the parish dinner, and they all perished. Next morning, however, there was found on the leads of All Hallows Barking a young child in a cradle as newly laid in bed, neither child nor cradle having sustained the least harm. It was never known who the child was, but she was adopted by a gentleman of the parish, and lived certainly to the age of seventeen, when the historian saw her going to call her master, who was drinking at a tavern. It is two hundred and fifty years ago. That young woman may have at this moment over a thousand descendants at least. Who would not like to boast that she was his great-grandmother?
A reform of vast importance, though at first it seems a small thing, was introduced in this reign. It was the restoration of vegetables and roots as part of daily diet. Harrison is my authority. He says that in old days--as in the time of the First Edward--herbs, fruits, and roots were much used, but that from Henry IV. to Henry VIII. the use of them decayed and was forgotten. "Now," he says, "in my time their use is not only resumed among the poore commons--I mean of melons, pompines, gourds, cucumbers, radishes, skirrets, parsneps, carrots, marrowes, turnips, and all kinds of salad herbes--but they are also looked upon as deintie dishes at the tables of delicate merchants, gentlemen, and the nobilitie, who make their provision yearly for new seeds out of strange countries from whence they have them abundantly."
Perhaps the cause of the disuse of roots and vegetables was the enormous rise in wages after the Black Death, when the working-classes, becoming suddenly rich, naturally associated roots with scarcity of beef, and governed themselves accordingly.
The use of tobacco spread as rapidly, when once it was introduced, as that of coffee later on. King James speaks of those who spend as much as £300 a year upon this noxious weed. Those who took tobacco attributed to it all the virtues possible for any plant to possess, and more.
It was the custom of the better sort of citizens to have gardens outside the City, each with its own garden-house, in some cases a mere arbor, but in others a house for residence in the summer months. Moorfields had many of these gardens, but Bethnal Green, Hoxton (Hoggesden), and Mile End were favorite spots for these retreats. Of course, the city madams were accused of using these gardens as convenient places for intrigue.
The education of girls was never so thorough as at this time. Perhaps Lucy Hutchinson and Lady Jane Grey--well-known cases--ought not to be taken as average examples. The former, for instance, could read at four, and at seven was under eight tutors, who taught her languages, music, dancing, writing, and needle-work. She also became a proficient in the art of preparing simples and medicines. Of her husband she says that he was a masterly player on the viol; that he was a good marksman with gun and bow; and that he was a collector of paintings and engravings. Perhaps there was never a time when body and mind were equally trained and developed as they were in the sixteenth century. Think with what contempt Sidney and Raleigh would regard an age like the present, when the young men are trained to foot-ball, running, and cricket, but, for the most part, cannot ride, cannot shoot, cannot fence, cannot box, cannot wrestle, cannot sing, cannot play any instrument, cannot dance, and cannot make verses!
In the matter of rogues, vagabonds, and common cheats, the age of Elizabeth shows no falling off, but quite the reverse. We have little precise information on English _ribauderie_ before this time, but now, thanks to John Awdely, Thomas Harman, Parson Hybesdrine, Thomas Dekker, Robert Greene, and others, we learn the whole art and mystery of coney-catching as practised under the Tudor dynasty. The rogues had their own language. No doubt they always had their language, as they have it now; and it varied from year to year as it varies now, but the groundwork remained the same, and, indeed, remains the same to this day. The rogues and thieves, the beggars and the impostors, are still with us. They are still accompanied by their autem morts, their walking morts, their Kynchen morts, their doxies, and their dolls, only some of those cheats are changed with the changes of the time. Under Queen Gloriana they abound in every town and in every street, they tramp along all the roads, they haunt the farm-houses, they rob the market-women and the old men. They have their ranks and their precedency. The Upright man is a captain among them; the Curtall has authority over them; the Patriarch Co-marries them until death do them part--that is to say, until they pass a carcass of any creature, when, if they choose, they shake hands and go separate ways. They are well known by profession and name at every fair throughout the country. They are Great John Gray and Little John Gray; John Stradling with the shaking head; Lawrence with the great leg; Henry Smyth, who drawls when he speaks; that fine old gentleman, Richard Horwood, who is eighty years of age and can still bite a sixpenny nail asunder with his teeth, and a notable toper still; Will Pellet, who carries the Kynchen mort at his back; John Browne, the stammerer; and the rest of them. They are all known; their backs and shoulders are scored with the nine-tailed cat; not a headborough or a constable but knows them every one. Yet they forget their prison and their whipping as soon as they are free. Those things are the little drawbacks of the profession, against which must be set freedom, no work, no masters, and no duties. Who would not go upon the budge, even though at the end there stands the three trees, up which we shall have to climb by the ladder?
The Budge it is a delicate trade, And a delicate trade of fame; For when that we have bit the bloe, We carry away the game.
But when that we come to Tyburn For going upon the Budge, There stands Jack Catch the hangman, That owes us all a grudge.
And when that he hath noosed us, And our friends tip him no cole; O then he throws us into the cart, And tumbles us in the hole.
In the streets of London they separate and practise each in the quarter most likely to catch the gull. For instance, observe this well-dressed young gentleman, with the simple manner and the honest face, strolling along the middle-walk of Paul's. Simple as he looks, his eye glances here and there among the throng. Presently he sees a young countryman, whom he knows by the unfailing signs; he approaches the countryman; he speaks to him; in a few minutes they leave the Cathedral together and betake them to a tavern, where they dine, each paying for himself, in amity and friendship, though strangers but an hour since. Then comes into the tavern an ancient person, somewhat decayed in appearance, who sits down and calls for a stoup of ale. "Now," says the first young man, "you shall see a jest, sir." Whereupon he accosts the old gentleman, and presently proposes to throw the dice for another pot. The old man accepts, being a very simple and childlike old man, and loses--both his money and his temper. Then the countryman joins in.... After the young countryman gets home, he learns that the old man was a "fingerer" by profession, and that the young man was his confidant.
The courtesy man works where the sailors and sea-captains congregate; he accosts one who looks credulous and new; he tells him that he is one of a company, tall, proper men, all like himself--he is well-mannered; they are disbanded soldiers, masterless and moneyless; for himself he would not beg, but for his dear comrades he would do anything. When he receives a shilling he puts it up with an air of contempt, but accepts the donor's good-will, and thanks him for so much. A plausible villain, this.
Outside Aldgate, where the Essex farmers are found, the "ring faller" loves to practise his artless game. Have we not still with us the man who picks up the ring which he is willing to let us have for the tenth of its value? The Elizabethan mariner, who has been shipwrecked and lost his all, has vanished. The Tudor disbanded soldier has vanished, but the army reserve man sells his matches in the street when he cannot find the work he looks for so earnestly; the counterfeit cranker who stood at the corner of the street covered with mud, and his face besmeared with blood, as one who has just had an attack of the falling sickness, is gone, because that kind of sickness is known no longer; the "frater" who carried a forged license to beg for a hospital, is also gone; the abraham man, who pretended to be mad, is gone; the "palliard" or "clapper dodger;" the angler, who stuck a hook in a long pole and helped himself out of the open shops; the "prigger of prancers," a horse thief; the ruffler, the swigman and prigman, are also gone, but their descendants remain with us, zealous in the pursuit of kindred callings, and watched over paternally by a force 38,000 strong--about one policeman for every habitual criminal--so that, since every policeman costs £100 a year, and every criminal steals, eats, or destroys property to the same amount at least, every criminal costs the country, first, the things which he steals--say £100 a year; next, his policeman, another £100; thirdly, the loss of his own industry; and fourthly, the loss of the policeman's industry--making in all about £500 a year. It would be cheaper to lock him up.
In the matter of punishments, we have entered upon a time of greater cruelty than prevailed under the Plantagenets. Men are boiled, and women are burned for poisoning; heretics are still burned--in 1585 one thus suffered for denying the divinity of Christ; ears are nailed to the pillory and sliced off for defamation and seditious words; long and cruel whippings are inflicted--in one case through Westminster and London for forgery; an immense number are hanged every year; the chronicler Macheyn continually sets down such a fact as that on this day twelve were hanged at Tyburn, seven men and five women; mariners were hanged at low water at Wapping, for offences committed at sea; the good old custom of pillory was maintained with zeal; and the parading of backsliders in carts or on horseback was kept up. Thus, one woman for selling fry of fish, unlawful, rode triumphantly through the town with garlands of fish decorating her head and shoulders and the tail of the horse, while one went before beating a brass basin. Another woman was carried round, a distaff in her hand and a blue hood on her head, for a common scold. A man was similarly honored for selling measly pork; and another, riding with his head to the animal's tail, for doing something sinful connected with lamb and veal.
The cruelty of punishments only shows that the administration of the law was weak. In fact, the machinery for enforcing law and repressing crime was growing more and more unequal to the task, as the City grew in numbers and in population. The magistrates sought to deter by the spectacle of suffering. This is a deterrent which only acts beneficially when punishment is certain, or nearly certain. The knowledge that nine criminals will escape for one who is whipped all the way from Charing Cross to Newgate encourages the whole ten to continue. Men are like children: if they are to be kept in the paths of virtue, it is better to watch and prevent them continually than to leave them free and to punish them if they fall. But this great law was not as yet understood.
VII
TUDOR LONDON
II. A PERAMBULATION
It was on the morning of June 23, in the year of grace 1603, that I was privileged to behold John Stow himself in the flesh, and to converse with him, and to walk with him through the streets of the city whose history and origin he knew better than any man of his own age or of any time that has followed him. It is common enough for a man to live among posterity, to speak to them and counsel them and comfort them; but for a man to visit his forefathers is a thing of rarer occurrence. At another time the way and manner of slipping backward up the ringing grooves of change may be explained for the benefit of others. For the moment, the important thing is the actual fact.
I found the venerable antiquary in his lodging. He lived--it was the year before he died--with his old wife, a childless pair, in a house over against the Church of St. Andrew Undershaft, in the street called St. Mary Axe. The house itself was modest, containing two rooms on the ground-floor, and one large room, or solar, as it would have been called in olden time, above. There was a garden at the back, and behind the garden stood the ruins of St. Helen's Nunnery, with the grounds and gardens of that once famous house, which had passed into the possession of the Leathersellers' Company. This open space afforded freedom and sweetness for the air, which doubtless conduced to the antiquary's length of days. Outside the door I found, sitting in an arm-chair, Mistress Stow, an ancient dame. She had knitting in her lap, and she was fast asleep, the day being fine and warm, with a hot sun in the heavens, and a soft wind from the south. Without asking her leave, therefore, I passed within, and mounting a steep, narrow stair, found myself in the library and in the presence of John Stow himself. The place was a long room, lofty in the middle, but with sloping sides. It was lit by two dormer windows; neither carpet nor arras, nor hangings of any kind, adorned the room, which was filled, so that it was difficult to turn about in it, with books, papers, parchments, and rolls. They lay piled on the floor; they stood in lines and columns against the walls; they were heaped upon the table; they lay at the right hand of the chair ready for use; they were everywhere. I observed, too, that they were not such books as may be seen in a great man's library, bound after the Italian fashion, with costly leather, gilt letters, golden clasps, and silken strings. Not so. These books were old folios for the most part; the backs were broken; the leaves, where any lay open, were discolored; many of them were in the Gothic black letter. On the table were paper, pens, and ink, and in the straight-backed arm-chair sat the old man himself, pen in hand, laboriously bending over a huge tome from which he was making extracts. He wore a black silk cap; his long white hair fell down upon his shoulders. The casements of the windows stood wide open, and through one of them, which looked to the south, the summer sunshine poured warm and bright upon the old scholar's head, and upon the table at which he sat.
When I entered the room he looked up, rose, and bowed courteously. His figure was tall and spare; his shoulders were rounded by much bending over books; his face was scored with the lines and wrinkles of old age; his eyes were clear and keen; but his aspect was kindly; his speech was soft and gentle.
"Sir," he said, "you are welcome. I had never expected or looked to converse in the flesh, or in the spirit--I know not which this visit may be called--with one from after generations; from our children and grandchildren. May I ask to which generation--"
"I belong to the late nineteenth century."
"It is nearly three hundred years to come. Bones o' me! Ten generations! I take this visit, sir, as an encouragement; even a special mark of favor bestowed upon me by the Lord, to show His servant that his work will not be forgotten."
"Forgotten? Nay, Master Stow, there are not many men of your age whom we would not lose before you are forgotten. Believe me, the _Survey by John Stow_ will last as long as the City itself."
"Truly, sir," the old man replied, "my sole pains and care have ever been to write the truth. It is forty years-- Ah, what a man was I at forty! What labors could I then accomplish between uprising and downlying! Forty years, I say, since I wrote the lines:
Of smooth and feathering speech remember to take heed, For truth in plain words may be told; of craft a lie hath need.
"Of craft," he repeated, "a lie hath need. If the world would consider--well, sir, I am old and my friends are mostly dead, and men, I find, care little for the past wherein was life, but still regard the present and push on towards the future, wherein are death and the grave. And for my poor services the king hath granted letters patent whereby I am licensed to beg. I complain not, though for one who is a London citizen, and the grandson of reputable citizens, to beg one's bread is to be bankrupt, and of bankrupts this city hath great scorn. Yet, I say, I complain not."
"In so long a life," I said, "you must have many memories."
"So many, sir, that they fill my mind. Often, as I sit here, whither cometh no one now to converse about the things of old, my senses are closed to the present, and my thoughts carry me back to the old days. Why"--his eyes looked back as he spoke--"I remember King Harry the Eighth himself, the like of whom for masterfulness this realm hath never seen. Who but a strong man could by his own will overthrow--yea, and tear up by the very foundations--the religion which seemed made to endure forever? Sure I am that when I was a boy there was no thought of any change. I remember when in the streets every second man was priest or monk. The latter still wore his habit--grey, white, or black. But you could not tell the priest from the layman, for the priests were so proud that they went clothed in silks and furs; yea, and of bright colors like any court gallant; their shoes spiked; their hair crisped; their girdles armed with silver; and in like manner their bridles and their spurs; their caps laced and buttoned with gold. Now our clergy go in sober attire, so that the gravity of their calling is always made manifest to their own and others' eyes by the mere color of their dress. I remember, being then a youth, how the Houses were dissolved and the monks turned out. All were swept away. There was not even left so much as an hospital for the sick; even the blind men of Elsing's were sent adrift, and the lepers from the Lazar house, and the old priests from the Papey. There was no help for the poor in those days, and folk murmured, but below breath, and would fain, but dared not say so, have seen the old religion again. The king gave the houses to his friends. Lord Cromwell got Austin Friars, where my father, citizen and tallow-chandler, had his house. Nay, so greedy of land was my lord that he set back my father's wall, and so robbed him of his garden, and there was no redress, because he was too strong."
He got up and walked about the room, talking as he paced the narrow limits. He talked garrulously, as if it pleased him to talk about the past. "When we came presently to study Holy Scripture," he said, "where there is an example or a warning for everything, we read the history of Ahab and of Naboth's vineyard; and for my own part I could never avoid comparing my Lord Cromwell with Ahab, and the vineyard with my father's garden, though Naboth had never to pay rent for the vineyard which was taken from him as my father had. The end of my Lord Cromwell was sudden and violent, like the end of King Ahab."
"You belong to an old city family, Master Stow?" I asked.