Part 12

These two last crowns, when his Majesty goes in state to the parliament house, are carried by the keeper of the Jewel Office, attended by the warders, privately in a hackney coach to Whitehall, where they are delivered to the officers appointed to receive them, who with some yeomen of the guard carry them to the robing rooms adjoining to the house of Lords, where his Majesty and the Prince of Wales put on their robes. The King wears this crown on his head while he sits upon the throne; but that of the Prince of Wales is placed before him, to shew that he is not yet come to it. As soon as the King is disrobed, the two crowns are carried back to the Tower by the persons who brought them from thence, and again locked up in the jewel office.

VIII. The late Queen Mary’s crown, globe and scepter, with the diadem she wore at her coronation with her consort King William III.

IX. An ivory scepter with a dove on the top, made for the late King James the second’s Queen, whose garniture is gold, and the dove on the top gold, enamelled with white.

X. The _curtana_, or sword of mercy, which has a blade thirty two inches long, and near two broad, is without a point, and is borne naked before the King at his coronation, between the two swords of justice, spiritual and temporal.

XI. The golden spurs, and the armillas, which are bracelets for the wrists. These, tho’ very antique, are worn at the coronation.

XII. The _ampulla_ or eagle of gold, finely engraved, which holds the holy oil the Kings and Queens of England are anointed with; and the golden spoon that the Bishop pours the oil into. These are two pieces of great antiquity. The golden eagle, including the pedestal, is about nine inches high, and the wings expand about seven inches. The whole weighs about ten ounces. The head of the eagle screws off about the middle of the neck, which is made hollow, for holding the holy oil; and when the King is anointed by the Bishop, the oil is poured into the spoon out of the bird’s bill.

The following legend is told of this eagle. Thomas Becket being in disgrace at Sens in France, the holy Virgin appeared to him, and gave him a stone vessel of oil inclosed in a golden eagle, and bid him give it to William a monk, to carry to Pictavia, and there hide it under a great stone, in St. Gregory’s church, where it should be found for the use of pious and prosperous Kings: accordingly Henry III. when Duke of Lancaster, received it from a holy man in France; and Richard II. finding it among other jewels, endeavoured to be anointed with it; but was supplanted by Archibald Arundel, who afterwards anointed Henry IV. Such is the fabulous history of the _ampulla_.

XIII. A rich salt-seller of state, in form like the square white tower, and so exquisitely wrought that the workmanship of modern times is in no degree equal to it. It is of gold, and used only on the King’s table at the coronation.

XIV. A noble silver font, double gilt, and elegantly wrought, in which the royal family are christened.

XV. A large silver fountain, presented to King Charles II. by the town of Plymouth, very curiously wrought; but much inferior in beauty to the above.

Besides these, which are commonly shewn, there are in the jewel office all the crown jewels worn by the Prince and Princesses at coronations, and a vast variety of curious old plate.

This office is governed by a Master, who has 450_l._ a year patent fees; two yeomen, who have 106_l._ 15_s._ _per annum_ each; a groom, who has 105_l._ 8_s._ 4_d._ a year, and a clerk.

JEWIN _street_, Aldersgate street.†

JEWS HARP _court_, Angel alley, Bishopsgate street.*

JEWS _row_, Chelsea.

JEYE’S _yard_, Three Colts street, Limehouse.†

INDEPENDENTS, a set of dissenters from the church of England, received their name from each congregation being entirely independent with respect to church government. They are Calvinists, and like the Baptists receive the sacrament in the afternoon; none are admitted to communion till after having given in a paper containing an account of their conversion, religious experiences, &c. Their places of worship within the bills of mortality, are, 1. Berry street, St. Mary Ax. 2. Boar’s Head yard, Petticoat lane. 3. Brick Hill lane, Thames street. 4. Broad street, near Old Gravel lane. 5. Coachmakers hall, Noble street. _Antinomian._ 6. Collier’s rents, White street. 7. Court yard, Barnaby street, Southwark. 8. Crispin street, Spitalfields. 9. Deadman’s Place, Southwark. 10. Hare court, Aldersgate street. 11. Jewin street, Aldersgate street. 12. Lower street, Islington, two meeting houses. 13. Mare street, Hackney. 14. New Broad street, Moorfields. 15. New court, Carey street. 16. Old Artillery Ground, Spitalfields. 17. Orchard, Wapping. 18. Paved alley, Lime street. 19. Pavement row, Moorfields. 20. Pinner’s hall, Broad street, in the morning, the only Independent congregation that is not Calvinist. 21. Queen street, Ratcliff. 22. Queen street, Rotherhith. 23. Redcross street, Barbican. 24. Ropemakers alley, Little Moorfields. 25. St. Michael’s lane, Canon street. 26. St. Saviour’s Dockhead, Southwark. 27. Staining lane, Maiden lane. 28. Stepney fields. 29. Turner’s hall, Philpot lane. 30. White Horn yard, Duke’s Place. 31. Zoar street, Southwark.

INGATSTONE or ENGERSTONE, a town in Essex, twenty-three miles from London, from which it is a great thoroughfare to Harwich, has many good inns, and a considerable market on Wednesdays, for live cattle brought from Suffolk.

Here is the seat of the ancient family of the Petres; to whose ancestor Sir William, this manor was granted by Henry VIII. at the dissolution of Barking Abbey, to which it till then belonged. That gentleman founded eight fellowships at Oxford, called the Petrean fellowships, and erected and endowed an almshouse here for twenty poor people. He lies interred under a stately monument in the church, as do several others of that family.

INGRAM’S _court_, an open well-built place in Fenchurch street, thus named from Sir Thomas Ingram, who built this small square on the ground where his own house before stood.

INNER SCOTLAND _yard_, Whitehall.

INNER TEMPLE. See the article TEMPLE.

INNER TEMPLE _lane_, Fleet street.

INNHOLDERS, a company incorporated by letters patent granted by Henry VIII. in the year 1515. They are governed by a Master, three Wardens, and twenty Assistants, and have a livery of an hundred and thirty-nine members, whose fine upon admission is 10_l._

They have a handsome and convenient hall in Elbow lane.

INNS OF CHANCERY. The colleges of the professors and students of the municipal and common law, are stiled Inns, an old English word, formerly used for the houses of noblemen, bishops, and persons of distinguished rank, and the eight Inns of chancery were probably thus denominated from there dwelling in them such clerks, as chiefly studied the forming of writs, which regularly belonged to the cursitors, who are officers in chancery. These are Lincoln’s Inn, New Inn, Clement’s Inn, Clifford’s Inn, Staple’s Inn, Lion’s Inn, Furnival’s Inn, and Barnard’s Inn. These were formerly considered as preparatory colleges for younger students, many of whom were entered here, before they were admitted into the Inns of court; but now they are for the most part taken up by attorneys, sollicitors and clerks, who have separate chambers, and their diet at a very easy rate in an hall together, where they are obliged to appear in grave long robes, and black round knit caps. See the articles CLEMENT’S INN, CLIFFORD’S INN, LINCOLN’S INN, LION’S INN, &c.

INNS OF COURT, were so named, either from the students, who live in them, serving the courts of judicature; or, according to Fortescue, from these colleges anciently receiving none but the sons of noblemen, and gentlemen of high rank.

The Inns of court, are only four, viz. the two Temples, Lincoln’s Inn, and Gray’s Inn. See the articles TEMPLE, LINCOLN’S INN, and GRAY’S INN.

Though these societies are no corporation, and have no judicial power over their members, they have certain orders among themselves, which have by consent the force of laws: for small offences, they are only excommoned, or not allowed to eat at the common table with the rest; and for greater offences they lose their chambers, and are expelled the college, after which they are not to be received by any of the other three Inns of court.

As these societies are not incorporated, they have no lands or revenues, nor any thing for defraying the charges of the house but what is paid at admittance, and other dues for their chambers. The whole company of gentlemen may be divided into four parts, benchers, utter-barristers, inner-barristers and students.

The benchers are the seniors, who have the government of the whole house, and out of these are annually chosen a treasurer, who receives, disburses and accounts for all the money belonging to the house. See SERJEANTS INN.

There are at present no mootings, or readings in any of the courts of Chancery. _Chamberlain’s Present State._

It ought not to be omitted, that gentlemen may take chambers in the Inns of Court or Chancery, without laying themselves under an obligation to study the law.

A description of the structures and gardens belonging to these Inns we have given under their respective heads: but it may not be improper here to add, that strangers are apt to be disgusted at the nastiness of the walls, and the dirt and filth observable on all the stairs and public passages leading to the Inns of Court and Chancery: where every thing seems neglected, and generally out of repair: but on stepping into the chambers, one is surprised to see so remarkable a contrast; to observe the utmost neatness reign there, and the most handsome and commodious rooms, furnished and adorned with great elegance.

Dr. Blackstone in his discourse on the study of the law, gives us the following curious account of the changes and revolutions in this study, and of the origin of the several _Inns of Court and Chancery_.

That ancient collection of unwritten maxims and customs, says he, which is called the common law, however compounded or from whatever fountains derived, had subsisted immemorially in this kingdom: and, though somewhat altered and impaired by the violence of the times, had in a great measure weathered the rude shock of the Norman conquest. This had endeared it to the people in general, as well because its decisions were universally known, as because it was found to be excellently adapted to the genius of the English nation. In the knowledge of this law consisted great part of the learning of those dark ages; it was then taught, says Mr. Selden, in the monasteries, in the universities, and in the families of the principal nobility. The clergy in particular, as they then engrossed almost every other branch of learning, so (like their predecessors the British Druids) they were peculiarly remarkable for their proficiency in the study of the law.

‘But the common law being not committed to writing, but only handed down by tradition, use, and experience, was not so heartily relished by the foreign clergy who came over hither in shoals during the reign of the Conqueror and his two sons, and were utter strangers to our constitution as well as our language. And an accident, which soon after happened, had nearly completed its ruin.’

A copy of Justinian’s Pandects, being newly discovered at Amalfi, about A.D. 1130, soon brought the civil law into vogue all over the rest of Europe. It became in a particular manner the favourite of the Popish clergy; and Theobald, a Norman Abbot, being elected to the see of Canterbury, A.D. 1138, and extremely addicted to this new study, brought over with him in his retinue many learned proficients therein; and among the rest Roger surnamed Vacarius, whom he placed in the university of Oxford to teach it. The monkish clergy (devoted to the will of a foreign Primate) received it with eagerness and zeal; but the laity, who were more interested to preserve the old constitution, and had already severely felt the effect of many Norman innovations, continued wedded to the use of the common law.

The clergy, finding it impossible to root out the municipal law, withdrew by degrees from the temporal courts; and in 1217, they passed a canon in a national synod, forbidding all ecclesiastics to appear as advocates _in foro sæculari_[1]; nor did they long continue to act as judges there, not caring to take the oath of office which was then found necessary to be administered, that they should in all things determine according to the law and custom of this realm; though they still kept possession of the high office of Chancellor, an office then of little juridical power; and afterwards as its business increased by degrees, they modelled the process of the court at their own discretion.

Footnote 1:

Sir H. Spelman conjectures (Glossar 335.) that coifs were introduced to hide the tonsure of such renegade clerks, as were still tempted to remain in the secular courts in the quality of advocates or judges, notwithstanding their prohibition by canon.

But wherever they retired, and wherever their authority extended, they carried with them the same zeal to introduce the rules of the civil, in exclusion of the municipal law. This appears in a particular manner from the spiritual courts of all denominations, from the Chancellor’s courts in both our universities, and from the high court of Chancery; in all of which the proceedings are to this day in a course much conformed to the civil law. And if it be considered, that our universities began about that period to receive their present form of scholastic discipline; that they were then, and continued to be till the time of the reformation, entirely under the influence of the Popish clergy; this will lead us to perceive the reason, why the study of the Roman laws was in those days of bigotry[2] pursued with such alacrity in these seats of learning.

Since the reformation, the principal reason that has hindered the introduction of this branch of learning, is, that the study of the common law, being banished from hence in the times of Popery, has fallen into a quite different channel, and has hitherto been wholly cultivated in another place.

As the common law was no longer taught, as formerly, in any part of the kingdom, it perhaps would have been gradually lost and over-run by the civil, had it not been for the peculiar incident which happened at a very critical time, of fixing the court of Common Pleas, the grand tribunal for disputes of property, to be held in one certain spot; that the seat of ordinary justice might be permanent and notorious to all the nation. Formerly that, in conjunction with all the other superior courts, was held before the King’s justiciary of England, in the _aula regis_, or such of his palaces wherein his royal person resided, and removed with his houshold from one end of the kingdom to the other. This was found to occasion great inconvenience to the suitors; to remedy which it was made an article of the great charter of liberties, both that of King John and King Henry the Third, that, “Common Pleas should no longer follow the King’s court, but be held in some certain place:” in consequence of which they have ever since been held (a few necessary removals in times of the plague excepted) in the palace of Westminster only. This brought together the professors of the municipal law, who before were dispersed about the kingdom, and formed them into an aggregate body; whereby a society was established of persons, who (as Spelman observes) addicted themselves wholly to the study of the laws of the land.

Footnote 2:

There cannot be a stronger instance of the absurd and superstitious veneration that was paid to these laws, than that the most learned writers of the times thought they could not form a perfect character, even of the blessed Virgin, without making her a Civilian and a Canonist. Which Albertus Magnus, the renowned Dominican Doctor of the thirteenth century, thus proves in his _Summa de laudibus Christiferæ Virginis (divinum magis quam humanum opus) qu. 23. §. 5_. “_Item quod jura civilia, & leges, & decreta scivit in summo, probatur hoc modo: sapientia advocati manifestatur in tribus; unum, quod obtineat omnia contra judicem justum & sapientem; secundo, quod contra adversarium astutum & sagacem; tertio, quod in causa desperata: sed beatissima Virgo, contra judicem sapientissimum, Dominum; contra adversarium callidissimum, dyabolum; in causa nostra desperata; sententiam optatam obtinuit._“

They naturally fell into a kind of collegiate order; and, being excluded from Oxford and Cambridge, established a new university of their own, by purchasing certain houses (now called the Inns of Court and Chancery) between the city of Westminster, the place of holding the King’s courts, and the city of London; for advantage of ready access to the one, and plenty of provisions in the other.

In this juridical university (for such it is insisted to have been by Fortescue and Sir Edward Coke) there are two sorts of collegiate houses; one called Inns of Chancery, in which the younger students of the law used to be placed, “learning and studying, says Fortescue, the originals, and as it were, the elements of the law; who, profiting therein, as they grow to ripeness so are they admitted into the greater Inns of the same study, called the Inns of Court.” And in these Inns of both kinds, he goes on to tell us, the knights and barons, with other grandees and noblemen of the realm, did use to place their children, though they did not desire to have them thoroughly learned in the law, or to get their living by its practice; and that in his time there were about two thousand students at these several Inns, all of whom he informs us were _filii nobilium_, or gentlemen born.

But in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Sir Edward Coke does not reckon above a thousand students, and the number at present is very considerably less: ‘Which seems principally owing to these reasons; first, because the Inns of Chancery being now almost totally filled by the inferior branch of the profession, they are neither commodious nor proper for the resort of gentlemen of any rank or figure; so that there are now very rarely any young students entered at the Inns of Chancery: secondly, because in the Inns of Court all sorts of regimen and academical superintendance, either with regard to morals or studies, are found impracticable, and therefore entirely neglected: lastly, because persons of birth and fortune, after having finished their usual courses at the universities, have seldom leisure or resolution sufficient to enter upon a new scheme of study at a new place of instruction. Wherefore few gentlemen now resort to the Inns of Court, but such for whom the knowledge of practice is absolutely necessary: such, I mean, as are intended for the profession.’

INOCULATION HOSPITAL for the smallpox, in the Lower street, Islington, beyond the church; in an old building situated backwards, out of the view of the street. This hospital is under the direction of the Small-pox hospital, in Cold Bath fields. See the article SMALL-POX HOSPITAL.

_Clerk of the_ INROLLMENTS OF FINES AND RECOVERIES, an officer under the three puisne judges of the court of Common Pleas. The inrollments here filed are by statute valid in law, and are of great use in preventing law-suits. This office is kept in the Inner Temple.

JOAN HARDING’S, near Oakey street, Thames street.

JOCKEY FIELD _row_, Near Gray’s Inn.

JOHN DEVER’S _yard_, Seething lane.†

JOHN’S _alley_, Budge row.

_St._ JOHN’S _alley_, St. Martin’s le Grand.

_St._ JOHN _the Baptist_, a church which stood on the west side of Dowgate; but being destroyed by the fire of London in 1666, and not since rebuilt, the parish is annexed to the church of St. Antholin.

_St._ JOHN _the Evangelist_, a church that was seated in Watling street, at the north east corner of Friday street; but being consumed by the fire of London, and not rebuilt, the parish is united to that of Allhallows Bread street.

_St._ JOHN _the Evangelist_, Southwark, like several other churches in the suburbs, owed its rise to the great increase of buildings and inhabitants, and is one of the fifty new churches ordered to be built by act of parliament. It was finished in 1732, and the district of Horselydown, being separated from St. Olave’s, was by act of parliament constituted its parish. The sum of 3500_l._ was also granted by parliament to be laid out in lands, tenements, &c. in fee simple, and as a farther provision, the church wardens are to pay him the additional sum of 60_l._ to be raised by fees arising from burials. _Maitland._

The body of this church is enlightened by two ranges of windows, with a Venetian in the center; the tower which rises square has a balustrade on the top, and from thence rises the spire, which is very properly diminished and well wrought; but the architect having absurdly resolved to give it some resemblance to a column, has not only fluted it; but placed on the top an Ionic capital, which last gives the whole edifice an aukward whimsical appearance.

This church, which is situated near the lower end of Fair street, is in the gift of the Crown, as well as that of St. Olave’s, from whence this parish was taken. _Stow._

_St._ JOHN’S _Wapping_, situated on the north side of the street near the Thames, was built in the year 1617, when the increase of houses in the parish of St. Mary Whitechapel, rendered such an edifice necessary. It was dedicated to St. John the Baptist, and as there were other churches under the patronage of the same saint, it was distinguished, from its situation, by the name of Wapping. Originally it was no more than a chapel of ease to St. Mary’s parish; but in 1694, the hamlet of Wapping was constituted a distinct parish; the inhabitants were impowered to purchase 30_l._ _per annum_ in mortmain, and as a farther provision for the Rector, he was allowed to receive all ecclesiastical dues, except tithes, instead of which the Rector has 130_l._ a year raised upon the inhabitants by an equal pound rate. _Maitland._

This church, which was built at the expence of 1600_l._ is a very mean building, it consisting of a plain body, a tower which scarcely deserves the name, and a spire that might be taken for a lengthened chimney. _English Architecture._

The advowson of this church is in the principal and scholars of King’s hall and Brazen Nose college, Oxford.

_St._ JOHN’S _Westminster_. The parish of St. Margaret’s Westminster being greatly increased in the number of houses and inhabitants, it was judged necessary to erect one of the fifty new churches within it; this church being finished, was dedicated to St. John the Evangelist; a parish was taken out of St. Margaret’s, and the parliament granted the sum of 2500_l._ to be laid out in the purchase of lands, tenements, &c. for the maintenance of the Rector: but besides the profits arising from this purchase, it was also enacted that as a farther provision for the Rector, the sum of 125_l._ should be annually raised by an equal pound rate upon the inhabitants. _Maitland._