Part I. p. 3) in 1259; “St. Michael de Paternoster-cherch” in 1284;

and “Paternostercherche near la Rayole” in 1301. It was rebuilt by Sir Richard Whittington. Early in the fifteenth century the old church was small, frail, and ruinous: it stood where it now stands, but north and east lay unbuilt spaces, green with grass, and possibly tree-planted. Across the green to the north stood “The Tabard,” the dwelling-house of Whittington, who rebuilt the church on a larger scale, granting land of his own for the purpose in 1411. The site available measured 113 feet long from east to west, just as now there is a graveyard 26 feet long. The new building had a castellated parapet: the tower stood at the west end, square, embattled, surmounted by a great cross. Beneath the tower a great doorway opened upon Paternoster Lane. It was destroyed in the Great Fire and rebuilt by Edward Strong, Wren’s master-mason, in 1694; the steeple was added in 1713. The church of St. Martin Vintry was not rebuilt after the Fire, its parish being annexed to this. The parishes of Allhallows the Great and Allhallows the Less were also annexed in 1893. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1282.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Prior and Convent of Christ Church, Canterbury, 1282; the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury from 1550 to 1666, when St. Martin Vintry was annexed and the patronage was alternate with the Bishop of Worcester.

Houseling people in 1548 were 213.

The church is oblong in shape, 67 feet in length, 47 feet in width, and 38 feet in height. The oak altar-piece is said to be the work of Grinling Gibbons, and above it there is a painting by William Hilton, R.A., presented in 1820 by the directors of the London Institution. The tower is square and contains three stories terminated by a cornice and parapet, with vases at the angles; it is surmounted by a shallow dome on four arches, and encircled by Ionic columns. Above this the steeple is octagonal, crowned by a pedestal with finial and vane. The total height is 128 feet 3 inches. The church was repaired and the interior arrangements remodelled in 1864; in 1895 was again repaired; at this date the carved woodwork and the organ case from Allhallows the Great were utilised on the demolition of that church. Beneath the tower is preserved a carving of the royal arms (William and Mary); this stood above the reredos before the placing of the picture there in 1820. The tower contains one bell.

A chantry was founded here by Lawrence Duket in 1289.

The church contained but few monuments of note. There was one in memory of John Haydon, mercer, Sheriff 1582, and benefactor of the parish. Sir Richard Whittington, the founder of the church, was also commemorated; he was buried here with his wife, and the traditional site of the tomb, which was destroyed in the Great Fire, is where the sanctuary rail and organ are.

The only monument of any interest in the present building is one to Sir Samuel Pennant, who died 1750, during his mayoralty; he died of gaol fever, caught in discharging his duty in visiting Newgate. There is a memorial tablet to Jacob Jacobsen on the west wall; Bishop Wadington’s arms can be seen in the south-west window.

Reginald Peacock, Bishop of Chichester, 1449, was rector here; also William Ive (d. 1485), Vice-Chancellor of Oxford; Humphrey Hody (1659-1707), Regius Professor of Greek, Oxford; and Richard Smith (1500-1563), Dean of Douai and a great pillar of the Catholic Church.

Under Whittington’s will, the church became collegiate in 1424. A college of St. Spirit and St. Mary, the college house, the almshouse, also of Whittington’s foundation, and a parcel of ground then a garden, but intended for consecration as a new churchyard, were grouped north of the church, between that and Whittington’s own dwelling. They probably composed a quadrangle. The almshouse was called “God’s House or Alms-house or the hospital of Richard Whittington.” It was for twelve poor folk, men and women, and a “tutor” who had custody of the goods, and was to preserve order. He had a separate apartment—the twelve others lived more together; all dined and supped in common hall. They were to pray daily for their founder, his wife and others; to behave seemly; to read, work, or meditate; to dress in dark brown, “not staring nor blazing in colour.” The college house was for the accommodation of five fellows or chaplains, two clerks, and four choristers; these composed the collegiate staff. The fellows were secular priests, that is to say, not regulars or conventual clergy; they were to be masters of art, poor men, unbeneficed. One of them was to occupy the position of master. The church ceased as a rectory when it became a collegiate. The then rector was appointed the first master and he was to continue his parochial duties.

Before the end of the century the members had formed themselves into a fraternity—_Fraternitas Scantæ Sopluæ_—for the reading of a divinity lecture. A little later a divinity reader was provided by a bequest, and another legacy was allotted to the fellows, so that each should deliver two additional sermons every year, either in the City or out. Whittington’s estates originally produced £63 per annum for the college and £40 per annum for the almshouse. At the suppression of the former, under Edward VI., the value was returned at only £20 : 1 : 8 per annum; the college house and garden were sold for £92 : 2s. to Armagil Waad, or Wade, Clerk of the Council, in 1548. The almshouse was not then affected, but was and is administered by the Mercers Company. It was rebuilt after the Great Fire. In 1808 the almshouse people were removed to Highgate. The Mercers’ School, rebuilt in Old Jewry in 1670, removed to Budge Row in 1787, and burnt down and removed to 20 Red Lion Court, opposite to St. Antholin’s, Watling Street, in 1804, was settled in the old almshouses on their becoming empty. In 1832 the premises were rebuilt. Externally they present a plain structure of stone, with a great projecting cornice; the interior is spacious, the flagged playground still preserves a suggestion of collegiate cloisters. Here almsmen walked, here college fellows paced, here hearty schoolboys shouted—now all is silent and untenanted. The Mercers’ School is now removed to Holborn.

The name College Hill does not occur in Stow, but Newcourt’s map of 1658 so styles it: it bore reference to Whittington’s College. As the Duke of Buckingham’s “Litany” (1679) has it, there was thus “Nought left of a College, but College Hill.” Ogilby’s post-Fire map (1677) names the street College Hill only so far north as Cloak Lane; above that it was Tower Royal Street: both portions are now reckoned as College Hill as far as Cannon Street. At the corner of the present Maiden Lane was situated, in the fourteenth century, the house and tavern of Richard Chaucer, vintner, step-grandfather to Geoffrey Chaucer, the poet. Perhaps the latter dwelt here.

After the Great Fire “a very large and graceful building” with great courtyards was erected on College Hill. Here lived the second and last Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, “for the more security of his trade, and convenience of driving it among the Londoners.” This dissolute but clever courtier was nicknamed “Alderman Buckingham” and satirised by Dryden as “Zimri” who was “everything by starts and nothing long.” The house was sometime the residence of Sir John Lethieullier, merchant and alderman, sheriff in 1674; it has since disappeared, but portions of the courtyard remain. One of these is Newcastle Court, on the west of College Hill, now merely a yard between backs of great houses, and a postern entrance to the Cloak Lane Police Station.

Of the general houses which Strype (1720) says were “well built and inhabited by merchants and others,” none remain, except Nos. 3 and 4 on the west side, of which the latter has a quaintly carved tympanum above the front door: and Nos. 21 and 22 on the east side. The two last or some part of them stand upon the site of “The Tabard,” Whittington’s own dwelling-house. Here are two stories of cellars in the northern house, whose foundation walls are built from stones possibly once forming the materials of Whittington’s mansion. Both premises have massive staircases, and the southernmost possesses some well-carved doorcases. The little courtyards before them are each entered through a great porch with timbered sides, and heavy panelled doors shut it off from the street. The arched gateways of the porches are pedimented, the tympanums filled with a profusion of luxuriant carvings—grotesque heads, drapery, garlands of flowers and fruit. Above the gateways stand porch-rooms; still higher little latticed dormer windows peep out of the quaint, tiled roofs. The porches are the pride of the hill, and well serve to mark so illustrious a site.

Stow calls =Dowgate Hill= “the high street called Downgate,” and by that he doubtless includes both the hill on the north side of Thames Street and Dowgate Dock on the south side of the same. The east side is now wholly occupied by the immense wall of Cannon Street hotel and station. Only a portion of the former is in the ward. Beneath the latter, opening upon the street, are several cellars called Dowgate vaults. Previously to the erection of the station a lane called Chequer Yard ran from opposite Dyers’ Hall to Bush Lane. Stow terms it Chequer Lane, or Alley, “of an inn called the Chequer.” Its former name, he says, was Carter Lane, “of carts and carmen having stables there.” Strype calls it “a pretty good open space.” Malcolm (1802) says Chequer Yard then consisted of a vast range of warehouses, many stories in height, always filled with tobacco, cotton, coffee, etc. Amongst these were the Plumbers’ Hall warehouses. Here formerly stood Plumbers’ Hall (see Appendix) and the Chequer Inn. “The Chequer” is mentioned as a brew-house so early as the reign of Richard III., when it appears to have appertained to the Erber. It was rebuilt as an inn after the Great Fire, and stood in a courtyard on the south side of the lane, near the west end. It had a gate and a passage into Dowgate Hill. Strype (1720) says it was “an inn of no great account, being chiefly for livery stables and horses.” In Strype’s 1754 edition all mention of the inn is omitted, so that it had, presumably, vanished during the intervening thirty-four years. At the north-west corner of Chequer Yard was the site of the Erber (p. 245). Previously to the erection of the station, the hill forked opposite to Skinners’ Hall and turned into Cannon Street by two narrow lanes. Of these the north-eastern was Turnwheele Lane, “from a turnpike in the middle thereof”; the north-western retained the name of Dowgate Hill. They had between them at the fork a block of buildings. When the station was built, Turnwheele Lane was covered and Dowgate Hill was widened by absorbing the block. Towards “the upper end of the hill, stood the fair Conduit-upon-Dowgate,” mentioned by Stow as “castellated, and made in the year 1568, at charges of the citizens.” In Ryther’s map, 1604 (British Museum), it is shown to stand in the middle of Dowgate Hill opposite the end of Cloak Lane. It was destroyed in the Great Fire and not rebuilt. Allen, in his _History of London_, places it at the south-east corner of Walbrook, in Walbrook ward; evidently he is mistaken. On the west side the ward begins at the corner of Cloak Lane, of which only a part of the southern side is in Dowgate. Thence proceeding southwards is Tallow Chandlers’ Hall (see p. 243).

At 8 Dowgate Hill is

THE SKINNERS COMPANY

It is probable that, like other traders who came to London in early times, men following the trade of Skinners were assigned some separate locality in the town and associated together for the purposes of a guild.

In course of time, as the guild grew in importance, the Skinners seem to have absorbed or affiliated unto themselves two other trades, the Upholders and the Tawyers.

It is clear that as long ago as the reign of Henry VI. the guild included among its members other than those who exercised the trades of Skinner, Tawyer, and Upholder, for in one of the Company’s books, dated 25th July, 23 Henry VI., there is a list of names of the brethren and sistren of the guild at that time. They amount to twenty in all, and include one doctor, three gentlemen, nine of no trade or description, two butchers, one dyer, one joiner, one skinner, one grocer, as brethren, and one sister as silkwife.

The Company has a copy of the charter of Henry VI., but none of that of Philip and Mary. They are Inspeximus charters, as also is that of 22nd March, 2 Elizabeth.

During the reign of Queen Elizabeth differences arose between the working “artesans” of the guild and the rest of the fraternity, especially the governing body, which continued for many years and culminated in a surreptitious application in 1606 by the Artisan Skinners for new Letters Patent from the Crown without the consent or privity of the master and wardens of the guild, and in December 1606 (4 James I.) a charter was issued. Full inquiry was made. The Lord Mayor and aldermen made their report to the lords of the Privy Council, who thereupon ordered (March 22, 1606) that the privy seal that had been procured by the Artisan Skinners for this new charter appertaining to the Company of Skinners should be cancelled.

The charters and title deeds of the Skinners Company were surrendered in 1625 like those of the other City Companies, but in 1641 their privileges were restored.

After the restoration of King Charles II. the Skinners Company obtained the charter dated 20th June, 19 Charles II. It grants nothing new, but merely confirms to the master and wardens of the guild or fraternity all they had under any of their previous charters.

Passing to 1744, the Artisan Skinners appear to have thought that if they could only be more fully represented on the governing body of the Company, their trade grievances would be redressed, and they accordingly, in October 1744, presented a remonstrance to the Court.

The result of this was that in three months the master and three wardens were served with a copy of a rule for a mandamus commanding them to choose a number of Artisan Skinners to be wardens and assistants. The governing body, in reply, set out the whole of the proceedings of 1606, but the mandamus was ultimately issued and a return made to the writ. At the hearing, counsel for the prosecutors, the artisans, informed the Court of King’s Bench that he had perused the return and could not find any fault with it, and accordingly the judges ordered the return of the master and wardens to be affirmed.

In December 1747 similar hostile proceedings were renewed, and led finally to an information for a false return being filed against the master and wardens in June 1748. The cause came on for trial at the King’s Bench bar on the 24th April following, and the jurors, without going out of court, brought in a verdict of not guilty.

The number of liverymen is 200; the Corporate Income is £27,500; the Trust Income is £17,500.

A freeman of the Skinners Company is eligible, as vacancies from time to time occur, to a presentation for his child to Christ’s Hospital, ten such presentations being given to the Company under the benefaction of Mr. William Stoddart. Besides being eligible for certain almshouses and pensions, poor freemen who have fallen into straitened circumstances obtain charitable assistance from the Company at the discretion of the governing body, as also do the widows and children of such poor freemen. Freemen are entitled to a preference among applicants for loans under trusts administered by the Company. They are also with their sons and apprentices eligible under certain conditions for exhibitions founded by the Company, and their sons will have a preference for admission into the Company’s Middle School, referred to in another part of this return, if there should not be room for all the candidates. Liverymen have similar claims. They also attend at dinners given to the livery at the Company’s Hall, and have the privilege of occasionally introducing friends at such dinners. The master and wardens and other members of the court have similar rights and privileges. They also receive fees as members of the governing body in respect of their attendance at courts and committees as already stated.

Assistance is granted by the Company to members if it appears upon inquiry that from misfortune or by reason of sickness, infirmity, or from other good cause they are in need.

Stow describes Skinners’ Hall as “a fair house, which was sometime called Copped Hall by Downgate.” Copped Hall was purchased by the Skinners, together with several small tenements adjacent, in the reign of Henry III. (about 1260-62). The Company afterwards held it under a licence of mortmain granted by that king. It was subsequently alienated, though by what means is uncertain, and in 1326, according to Stow, it was possessed by Ralph de Cobham, the brave Kentish warrior, who made Edward III. his heir. Edward III. restored the hall to the Skinners at about the time of the Company’s legal incorporation (1327).

Of Copped Hall no plan exists, but it is probable that four small tenements occupied the Dowgate Hill frontage (50 feet), and it is known that there was a court or quadrangle somewhat like the present one with an entrance from it direct into the hall. It perished in the Great Fire of 1666, soon after which the rubbish and lead were sold. There still remain, however, some of the old walls, and the great stone fireplace of the kitchen was discovered when excavating in the present cellars about 1870. On October 15, 1668, a committee, of which Sir George Waterman, Master of the Skinners, and Sir Thomas Pilkington were members, was appointed to carry out the rebuilding, the Company meanwhile holding their courts in various places as at Salters’ Hall, the Red Bull Inn, Bishopsgate, and in the church of St. Helen.

In November 1688 “the front houses at Skinners’ Hall” were ordered to be rebuilt; in the February following the Renter was empowered to make a gateway of stone or timber as he thought fit; and the quadrangle was ordered to be 40 feet square. By 1672 the rebuilding must have been practically finished, for Sir George Waterman kept his mayoralty here in 1672-73, renting the hall for £160.

The Dowgate Hill front was rebuilt under the Company’s surveyor in 1777, and Mr. Jupp, afterwards surveyor to the Company, also made some alterations. This front is somewhat like that of Old Covent Garden Theatre in the time of Garrick. It is a regular three-storied building of the Ionic order. The basement part to the level of the first story is of stone, and rusticated; from this rise six pilasters supporting an entablature and pediment all of the same material. In the tympanum are the Company’s arms. In the facade are two doorways, one leading to the quadrangle before the great hall, the other to the clerks’ offices. Across the quadrangle is a carved doorway, the principal entrance to the lobby in front of the great hall. This hall is a very handsome apartment. It was rebuilt 1849-50 under the direction of Mr. G. B. Moore, and was restored and decorated in 1891 at much expense. Up to that time the walls had been wainscotted; they are now panelled in light oak to a higher level, the panelling being crowned by a fine frieze decorated with raised shields, and a cornice. The carved roof is richly decorated and contains a wagon-headed skylight. The entrance to the hall is at the north end through a splendid carved oak screen, which in 1891 supplanted the original Ionic screen ordered for the hall in 1760. Behind the hall is a small Committee room with a good fireplace, above which is a carved panel in the style of Grinling Gibbons. Beyond is the court room. On the floor above is the great cedar parlour or withdrawing room. It is a magnificent chamber, redolent with the scent of the red cedar, in which material the whole of the interior is executed. The cedar wood is said to have been presented by the East India Company. The walls are wainscotted up to the frieze and cornice, the former of which is carved both in light and dark wood, the whole being richly gilt. From the cornice springs the coved ceiling, which is panelled and painted, and which, some years ago, when the room was redecorated under the mastership of Mr. Charles Barry, architect, was substituted for the old ceiling. The doors are handsomely carved and pedimented. Over the fireplace is a panel carved in Grinling Gibbon’s best style, displaying the Company’s arms wreathed about with festoons of dark wood on the light cedar panel.

At one end, in glass cases, are two curious coloured statuettes, one representing Edward III., the other Sir Andrew Judd, both neat pieces of work.

The grand staircase is well designed, and displays some of the massy carving and rich ornaments in vogue just after the Great Fire. Attached to the hall is a small garden, in which are a tree and several flower-beds, also a curiously embossed cistern dated 1768. The original cost of the Skinners’ Hall was, according to the _New View of London_ (1708), £18,000, but much has since been spent upon it. Several Lord Mayors and sheriffs have kept their year of office here, and in 1691 the new East India Company, before their incorporation with the old Company, began to hold their meetings here, paying an annual rent of £300. In consequence of these meetings the new Company afterwards presented to the hall a carved mahogany court-table and silver candlesticks.

THE DYERS COMPANY

The Dyers Company was in existence in 1381, and probably even earlier.

The first charter was that granted by Henry VI. in 1471; this was renewed by Edward IV. in 1472. The charter was confirmed or renewed by Henry VIII., Edward VI., Elizabeth, and Mary. An Inspeximus charter was granted, 2 Elizabeth 1559 and by 4 James I. 1606; James II. gave the Company a charter 1688, and they were re-incorporated by Anne 1704.

The number of the livery is now 61; the Corporate Income is £5000; the Trust Income £1000.

The Company has the right to keep swans on the river Thames. This privilege they share with the vintners, and the “Barge masters” of both Companies have the care of the swans.

Dyers’ Hall extends from Skinners’ Hall to the corner of College Street, and occupies the site of Jesus’ Commons, which was, says Stow (1598), “a college of priests, a house well furnished with brass, pewter, napery, plate, etc., besides a fair library well stored with books, all which of old time was given to a number of priests that should keep commons there, and as one left his place, by death or otherwise, another should be admitted into his room, but this order within this thirty years being discontinued, the said house was dissolved, and turned to tenements.”

The Dyers’ Hall consists of a plain four-storied building, the basement being of stone, the upper part of white brick with stone facings. Part of the lower story is let out as business premises, the corner at College Street being allotted to the Bunch of Grapes Inn. The great hall is a large and lofty room, but comparatively plain. It is relieved by rather handsome frieze and cornice and is lighted by two windows, one at either end.

The Company’s Hall in use prior to 1666 stood at the south end of what is now Dyers’ Hall Wharf, Upper Thames Street. It was destroyed in the Great Fire and apparently rebuilt in a stately manner, but again destroyed by fire in 1681. (Malcolm, 1802.) For several years the Company met in Salters’ Hall. Maitland (1739) says “the Company has converted one of their houses in little Elbow Lane into a hall to transact their business in.” This fell down in 1768. The next hall was erected about 1770. It was a tolerably spacious unassuming building, the exterior distinguished by a double flight of steps, but was not of any architectural merit. The present hall was built 1839-40 (Charles Dyer, architect). Some additions and alterations were made to it 1865-67 by D. A. Corbett, architect. (See Lond. and Mid. _Arch. Trans._ vol. v. p. 452.)

The Dyers’ Wharf estate is now covered with warehouses. Those on the riverside are known as the Monument Bonded Warehouses. The archives of the Company were destroyed in the Great Fire.

The slope of Dowgate Hill is now a gradual one, but Stow speaks of it as of rapid descent, and relates that in 1574 the channels became so swollen and swift in a heavy storm of rain, that a lad of eighteen, endeavouring to leap over near the conduit, was taken with the stream and carried thence against a cartwheel that stood in the watergate, “before which time he was drowned and stark dead.” Strype (1720) mentions that the hill was still so steep that in great rains floods arose in the lower parts. Ben Jonson speaks of “Dowgate torrents falling into Thames.”

Dowgate Wharf or Dock is supposed to have gained its name from its steep descent to the river, as it was sometimes called Downgate, but this derivation sounds highly improbable. One of the most ancient ferries over the Thames was at Dowgate. On the east side of the dock is Walbrook Wharf, showing the spot where the ancient stream, the Walbrook, reached the Thames.

Robert Green the dramatist, from whom Shakespeare borrowed the plot of his _Winter’s Tale_, died (1592) in an obscure lodging at the house of a shoemaker in Dowgate, indebted to his landlord for the bare necessaries of life.

At the north end of Dowgate Hill near Cloak Lane stood St. John the Baptist’s Church.

=St. John the Baptist= was situated on the west side of Dowgate Hill in the ward of Walbrook. _Ecclesia Sancti Johannis super Walbroc_, occurs about 1181; _ecclesia Sancti Johis de Walbrook_ is set down in the “Taxatio Ecclesiasticus” of Pope Nicholas IV. (1291). The first mention of the church is contained in a book at the Cathedral (Newcourt, i. p. 371) compiled in the time of Ralph de Diceto made dean 1181. The entry is as follows:—“_Ecclesia Sancti Johannis super Walbroc_ est Canonicorum, & reddit eis ii sol. per manum _Vitalis_ clerici, solvit Synodalia ivd, Archidiacono xiid. & habet in domino suo quondam terram, quae reddit ii sol. & est de feodo _Willimi de la Mare_, & etiam terrulam, quae est inter ecclesiam & _Walbroc_ & reddit iii sol. non habet coemiterium.”

Thus the earliest church stood upon the east side of the stream, a little tract of land intervening between its west wall and the bank. When the watercourse was diverted to flow more eastwards, the chancel bordered on the brook. It was rebuilt about 1412, and again in 1621, but destroyed by the Great Fire in 1666, when its parish was annexed to that of St. Antholin. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1150.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s in 1150, who granted it to the Prioress and Convent of St. Helen about 1373, till it was seized by Henry VIII. and so continued in the Crown up to 1671, when it was annexed to St. Antholin.

Houseling people in 1548 were 375.

Only two monuments are recorded by Stow as being of note—W. Combarton, Skinner, who gave lands to the church, buried 1410; and John Stone, Taylor, Sheriff 1464.

The site of the building was converted into a churchyard, and upon the wall is a stone with this inscription:

“‘Before the dreadfull Fire, anno domini 1666, here stood the parish church St. John Baptist, upon Walbrook—William Wilkins, James Whitchurch, churchwardens this present year anno domini 1674.’ The above stone was refaced, and the letters fresh cut anno domini 1836—Rev. John Gordon M.A. rector, Edward Jones, Lewis Williams, churchwardens.”

The parsonage was not rebuilt, and Strype notes (1754, vol. i. p. 516) that neither its site nor that of its garden was given in the 1693 visitation. Newcourt (_Repertorium_, i. p. 371) further notes that the same visitation records great encroachments having been made on the churchyard since the Fire “to some of which the parish had consented, and others have been done by the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen, without the consent of the Archbishop and Bishop of London (as ’tis said) and the Chamberlain of London receives the rent for them.”

It was reserved for the commercial civilisation of this century to “encroach” the churchyard out of existence. The Act of the Metropolitan Railway gave the Company power to construct their Cannon Street Station (1883) under the burial-ground, and to remove the human remains. The churchyard is no more; the greater part of its site is enclosed by a brick wall which screens the opening in the roof of the station below. At the extreme west end an asphalted square has been railed in and reserved as a home for gravestones, and a large ornament bearing this melancholy and curious inscription:

Sacred to the memory of the dead interred in the ancient church and churchyard of St. John the Baptist upon Walbrook during four centuries. The formation of the District Railway having necessitated the destruction of the greater part of the churchyard, all the human remains contained therein were carefully collected and re-interred in a vault beneath this monument A.D. 1884.—Rev. LEWIS BORRETT WHITE, D.D., rector; JOHN R. W. LUCK, EDWARD WHITE, churchwardens.

But why sacred to the memory of the dead during “four centuries” only? Had not those buried previously to 1484 any right to commemoration? The churchyard existed in 1378 and the church in 1181. Truly inscription writers are marvellous in their discriminating powers. The vault containing the remains is situated alongside the railway line beneath.

Very interesting discoveries were made when excavating for the station. Mr. E. P. Seaton, the resident engineer, has preserved some careful notes, from which the following is an extract: “At the west end of the churchyard was found a subway running north and south. The arch was formed of stone blocks (Kentish rag) placed 3 feet apart, the space between being filled up with brickwork. The sides were of worked red ragstones, 8 by 11 inches, and 3 feet long (some 1 foot 4 inches long), surrounded with rough rubble masonry, set in mortar of a brown colour. The flat bottom varied from 2 to 4 feet in thickness and was formed of random rubble masonry. The brick invert was of much later date, about 6 inches thick and almost a semicircle. The space between the underside of that and the bottom was filled with made earth. A portion of the arch had been broken in, and was filled with human bones. The other parts of the subway or sewer were filled with hand-packed stones. This is supposed to be the centre of the ancient Walbrook (this supposition is quite correct) and made earth was found to a distance of 35 feet from the surface. Clay of a light grey colour was then found, impregnated with the decayed roots of water-plants. The foundations (it is a matter of regret that no plan of the foundations was taken; the opportunity is now lost for ever) of the old church of St. John the Baptist, destroyed 1666, and pulled down about 1677, were discovered about 10 to 12 feet from the surface and composed of chalk and Kentish ragstones. They ran about north-north-east to south-south-west. Piles of oak were found which seem to denote that the church was built on the edge of the brook, which must have been filled up during the Roman occupation, as numerous pieces of Roman pottery were found.” The bottom of the Walbrook valley was reached at 32 feet below the present street level, and is now 11 feet below the level of the lines in the station. During the excavations the piles and sill of the Horseshoe bridge which crossed the Walbrook hereabouts were also found near the churchyard, together with the remains of an ancient boat. These were unfortunately too rotten to preserve, but a block of Roman herring-bone pavement, formerly constituting part of a causeway or landing-place on the brook, is now at the Guildhall Museum. It was found beneath the churchyard 21 feet below the present level of the street, and was presented by the rector and churchwardens. Most of the Samian pottery and Roman coins found at this time were also presented to the Guildhall.

THE TALLOW CHANDLERS COMPANY

The first charter of incorporation of this Company bears date the 8th of March 1462, 2 Edward IV., wherein the then members of the Company are described as “our beloved and faithful subjects, the Freemen of the Mystery or Art of Tallough Chandlers of our City of London.”

It is evident, however, that a company, guild, or other association of tallow chandlers existed in London before the date of the above charter, seeing that in the year 1426, or thirty-six years prior thereto, Letters Patent were granted by Henry VI. to the mayor of the City of London, and the master and wardens of the Mystery or Craft of Tallow Chandlers of the same city for the time being, empowering them to search for and destroy all bad and adulterated oils.

Also in the year 1456, or six years prior to the said charter, a grant of arms and crest was made by John Smert, Garter King-at-Arms, to John Priour, John Thurlow, William Blakeman, and Richard Grenecroft, sworn wardens or keepers (gardiens) and several other notable men of the trade and of the Company of Tallow Chandlers (Chandeliers de Suif) of the City of London, on behalf of and in the name of their whole confraternity.

At present there is a livery of 102; the Corporate Income was not returned to the Commissioners. The Trust Income is £220. Maitland says that the Fraternity anciently dealt not only in candles, but also in oils, vinegar, butter, hops, soap, etc.

Stow designates the hall of the Tallow Chandlers “a proper house.” After the Great Fire it was rebuilt (1672). In 1884 a large red brick and terra-cotta building of five stories, standing upon a granite base, was erected on Dowgate Hill instead, and upon the site of the old house of the Company’s clerk and beadle, and the hall is now approached by a vestibule running under this building. The vestibule leads into an open quadrangle, which was diminished when the above-mentioned house was built. It is surrounded by a Tuscan piazza of ten arcades. This piazza in part belongs to the 1672 building. It was restored in 1871. The building itself is of red brick. On the first floor is the great hall, a handsome apartment 50 feet long by 27 feet wide, having a decorated ceiling, and walls wainscotted with oak panelling and looking-glass to a height of 30 feet. On the south wall are three great mirrors; in a broken pediment over the central one are the arms of Charles II. At the north end is a carved oak screen, in the centre of which are the entrance doors, of handsome carved work filled with stained glass, erected in 1894. The screen itself is of the 1672 building. A heavy carved frieze and cornice passes round the hall above the long windows. The pictures include two by Sir Godfrey Kneller. The court parlour is the handsomest room. It is wainscotted to the ceiling, which is magnificently panelled in oak, and richly gilt, having in the centre an oval compartment enclosed by an exquisitely moulded wreath of flowers. The rest is divided into squares and oblongs, filled with groups of flowers and fruit.

An inscription tells us:

“This parlour was wainscotted at the expense of Sir Joseph Sheldon, Knt., a member of this Company and Lord Mayor of this City A.D. 1675. Who also gave this Company a barge with all its furniture.”

On the second floor is the court-room, which is also wainscotted to the ceiling.

Dowgate, the Steelyard, and Cold Harbour were all very near together. The Steelyard was so called from the beam of steel by which goods imported into London were weighed. It stood just where Cannon Street Station now is. It had a fine hall and courtyard, and was for 300 years held by the members of the Hanseatic League, a community of foreigners who enjoyed the monopoly of importing hemp, corn, wax, linen and many other things into England, to the great loss of our own traders. (See _London in the time of the Tudors_, p. 82.)

Beyond the station is the City of London Brewery. The archway spanning the central entrance to this occupies the site of an earlier arch which once carried the choir and steeple of Allhallows the Less, and led to what Stow speaks of as “the great house called Cold Harbrough.” Its site is now covered by the brewery. The name of the house is conjectured to be a corruption of the German words Colner Herberg (Cologne Inn), which passed into Coln Harbrough, Cole Harbrough, Cold Harbrough, and Cold Harbour. Cologne being one of the principal of the Hanse towns, the proximity of the steelyard makes this derivation appear likely. There are several Cold Harbours in England, none of them remarkable for bleak situations, but most of them existing in places where commerce once greatly throve. The house stood at the water’s edge. It was a large building, with steps leading down to the river through an arched door. About the year 1600 it is represented with five gables facing the water, and rows of mullioned diamond-pane windows—a beautiful building. It had the right of sanctuary, though how or when gained is not known.

Until 1607 Cold Harbour had been outside the City jurisdiction, for it is one of the places added to the City’s rule by the charter of James I. to the mayor, commonalty, and citizens of London in that year. It must have been deserted by its original inhabitants, the Cologne merchants, before the reign of Edward II. It belonged to the Poultney family, and was for some time called Poultney’s Inn.

“In the year 1397, 21 Richard II., John Holland, Earl of Huntingdon, was lodged there, and Richard II., his brother, dined with him. It was then counted a right fair and stately house: but in the next year following Edmond, Earl of Cambridge, was there lodged, notwithstanding the said house still retained the name of Poultney’s Inn in the reign of Henry VI., the 26th of his reign” (Stow).

In 1410 Henry IV. gave it to Henry, Prince of Wales, for life. Margaret, Countess of Richmond, mother of Henry VII., lodged here temporarily; in the reign of Henry VIII., the Bishop of Durham’s house, already mentioned, “being taken into the King’s hands,” Cuthbert Tunstall, Bishop of Durham, was lodged in “the Cold Harbrough.” This Bishop of Durham remained here until 1553, when he was deposed from his bishopric and Cold Harbour was taken from him. It was granted by Edward VI., together with its appurtenances and six houses or tenements in the parish of St. Dunstan’s-in-the-East, and certain lands in Yorkshire, to the Earl of Shrewsbury and his heirs. Edward VI. is said to have given it to the Earl at the instance of the Duke of Northumberland, “who practised to gain as many of the nobility as he could to his purpose.” It then became known as Shrewsbury House. Francis, fifth Earl of Shrewsbury, who died in 1560, and his son, the sixth Earl, the guardian for fifteen years of Mary, Queen of Scots, took it down, “and in place thereof built a great number of small tenements, now letten out for great rents to people of all sorts” (Stow). The Earl died in 1590. The tenements were destroyed in the Fire of 1666. No remains of the building exist unless Wren utilised some of the stones in rebuilding Allhallows the Great. Hubbard, writing in 1843, says that a foundation wall of the house and the ancient stairs still survived in his time.

Stow calls =The Erber= a “great old house” and says that Geoffrey Scroope held it by gift of Edward III. in 1341. It subsequently belonged to John Nevil, Earl of Raby, who appears to have died some years prior to 1396. The last of the honourable family of the Scroopes to possess it was William de Scroope, Knt., who lived in the reign of Henry IV. He gave it for life to his brother Ralph Nevil, Earl of Westmoreland, who married, as his second wife, Joan, daughter of the Duke of Lancaster. Ralph Nevil died, seised of the Erber, in 1426, and his wife in 1441. Their son Richard Nevil, Earl of Salisbury, was lodged here in 1547. He died in 1460, and the Erber passed to his son Richard, Earl of Warwick and Salisbury, “the king-maker,” who was slain at the battle of Barnet Field in 1471. In 1474, George, Duke of Clarence, who had married Isabel, daughter of “the king-maker,” then received it from Edward IV. who gave it to him and his heirs so long as there was living male issue of the Marquis Montacute. If the said male issue should die during the duke’s life, then the duke to remain seised for life, taking precedence of the rights of all others than the marquis and his issue. The Duke of Clarence died in 1479. After his death, Edward, his son, was seised of the Erber, and George, Duke of Bedford, son of John Nevil, Marquis Montacute, dying without male issue in 1483, the lands remained in the hands of Edward till 1500, when he was attainted and the lands thus came to the Crown. Here they remained until 1512, when Henry VIII. gave them to John, Earl of Oxford, and his heirs male. In 1513 the King gave the reversion to Sir Thomas Bulleyn, Knt., and his male heirs. In 1514 he restored Margaret, daughter and heir to George, Duke of Clarence, and to all the lands of Richard, Earl of Salisbury, “who by colour of restitution entered, and was attainted in 1540. So the lands came back to the Crown, and were given in the next year to Sir Philip Hoby, who in 1545 sold the Erber to one Doulphin, a draper, who in 1553 sold it to the Drapers Company. Strype, who gives these particulars, says that notwithstanding this account “by some lawyers and historians in those days,” it appears by the Rolls (1405) that there was a surrender of the Erber from Ralph, Earl of Westmoreland, to the King for the use of John Darrel, and Walter de Arkham; that Richard III. possessed it under the name of “The King’s Palace,” and that one Ralph Dowel, a yeoman of the Crown, was keeper of this place. Dowel seems to have repaired not only the Erber, but also other houses belonging to it, “particularly a brewhouse called the Chequer,” as appears by a ledger-book of the King’s in which the accounts of Dowel are said to be examined by John Hewyk, one of the King’s auditors. Orders were given to Lethington, bailiff of the lordship of the Clavering in Essex, “to content him,” but £14 : 18 : 3 still remained in arrears due to him for the repairs. Stow says that the Erber had been lately rebuilt by Sir Thomas Pullison, and that it was afterwards inhabited by Sir Thomas Drake.

=St. Mary Bothaw= was situated on the east side of Turnwheele Lane, Cannon Street. The date of foundation is unknown. Newcourt mentions Adam Lambyn as a rector, who died 1279. In the Taxation Book of Pope Nicholas IV., 1291, the church occurs as Sancte Marie de Bothaw. It was destroyed by the Great Fire, but not rebuilt, its parish being annexed to that of St. Swithin. Stow supposes, for want of a better theory, that “this church being near unto the Down-Gate in the river of Thames, hath the addition of Bothaw, or Boat Haw, of near adjoining to a haw or yard, wherein of old time boats were made, and landed from Downgate to be mended.” Strype mentions that it seems “of old to be called St. Mary de Bothache,” and Mr. Loftie in his _London City_ (1891) says that the name is “most likely from ‘la board hatch,’ a wooden gate-lock called also in some ancient documents ‘Board-Hatch.’” The map by Agas _c._ 1560, and Hollar’s view of London, call the church St. Mary Buttolph Lane. It is somewhat remarkable that Dowgate is almost the only one of the older City gates which has no Church of St. Botolph near by, as at Billingsgate, Aldgate, Bishopsgate, and Aldersgate. The term St. Mary Bothol occurs more than once in records of the sixteenth century. Can it be that the name bears witness to the existence of a St. Botolph’s Church here, which was dedicated to the Virgin, with the name Botolph attached as a remembrance of the former appellation? The earliest date of an incumbent is 1281.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Prior and Convent of Christ Church, Canterbury, before 1281; the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury from 1552 up to the time it was annexed to St. Swithin in 1666.

Houseling people in 1548 were 182.

Chantries were founded here: By Lady Joan Fastolf, to which Robert Kirke was instituted, May 10, 1445; by and for John, son of Adam de Salusbury, who endowed it with a tenement called the “Key” in Coleman Street, which fetched £7 in 1548; by and for John Hamond, before 1387; by James le Butler; by Hugh Fostall.

Many noble persons were buried here, as appeared from the arms in the windows, the defaced tombs, and print of plates torn up and carried away. The most remarkable, perhaps, was that of Sir Henry Fitz-Alwine, draper, the first Lord Mayor of London, who continued in his position for twenty-four years. Here, too, Robert Chicheley, grocer and mayor of London in 1422, was buried; he appointed by his will that 2400 poor men should each have a good dinner on his birthday, and he also gave a plot of land for the building of the parish church, called St. Stephen’s, Walbrook.

No charitable gifts are recorded by Stow.

At the construction of Cannon Street station and hotel, in 1866-68, the churchyard was built over. Its site is now immediately under the steps leading from the hotel to the forecourt, and is occupied by part of a corridor, a carpenter’s shop, a knife-cleaning room, and a coal cellar, all of which belong to the hotel basement.

The north-western side of the station forecourt stands upon the site of =Turnwheele Lane=, a narrow turning which formerly led from Cannon Street by a westerly slope into Dowgate Hill, which it joined opposite the northern boundary of Skinners’ Hall. Stow calls it “a little lane with a turnpike in the middle thereof.” Strype (1720) terms it Turnwheele Lane, but the _New Remarks of London_ (1732) style it Turnmill Lane. By the eastern side of the station runs Allhallows Lane leading northward into Bush Lane. The church of Allhallows the Great stood here until 1898, and east of it was Allhallows the Less.

=Allhallows the Great= was situated on the south side of Thames Street. This church has been known, at various times, as All Saints, Allhallows-ad-foenum, Allhallows-in-the-Hay, Allhallows-in-the-Ropery (“because,” says Stow, “of hay sold thereunto at Hay Wharf, and ropes of old time made and sold in the high street”), Allhallows the More (“for a difference from Allhallows the Less”), Allhallows the Great, which has been the name at least since the Fire. Of its first foundation there is no record, but from the fact that the riverside is the oldest inhabited part of the City it may be nearly coeval with the establishment of Christianity in London. The first actual mention of it is in 1361 when, according to Newcourt, one Thomas de Wodeford was rector. In 1627 and 1629 it was repaired and redecorated, and a gallery built at the west end, but the whole was destroyed by the Great Fire. In 1683 it was rebuilt, the architect being Wren, and Allhallows the Less, its neighbour, united with it by Act of Parliament. In 1877 the tower and north aisle were taken down to widen Thames Street. The church was taken down in 1898. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1279.

The patronage was in the hands of the family of Le Despensers before 1314; Richard Beauchamp; Richard Nevil, Earl of Warwick and Salisbury, 1465; George, Duke of Clarence, before 1480; Edward, eldest son of Isabel, Duchess of Clarence, 1480; Edward IV.; Henry VII., as a gift from Anne, widow of Richard Nevil, Earl of Warwick and Salisbury; Henry VIII.; the Archbishop of Canterbury, by exchange, 1569, in whose successors it continues.

Houseling people in 1548 were 550.

There was a large cloister originally on the south side of the church, but it was in a considerable state of ruin in 1627.

The plan was nominally an oblong square, but, owing probably to the desire of Wren to make use of the old foundations, its walls were neither built parallel nor four-square. The length was 87 feet, the height 33 feet, and the width 60 feet, of which the nave was made 48 feet wide and a north aisle 12 feet wide. To the north aisle was also attached a heavy square tower, occupying a portion of the aisle. The elevation was finished with a cornice and parapet. The tower rose above the second division from the east to a height of 86 feet. The church was celebrated for its beautiful woodwork, which, on its demolition, was removed to St. Michael Royal.

Chantries were founded here by: Richard de Preston, citizen and grocer, at the Altar of St. Katherine, for himself and Agnes his wife, and to which Alfred Lyndon was admitted chaplain in 1396; Peter Cosin whose will is dated 1291 (Pat. 43 Edward III. p. 2 m. 12); Sir Nicholas Lovin for himself and dame Margaret his wife; William Lichfield, augmented by Thomas Westhowe, both of which endowments fetched £8 : 16 : 8 in 1548; and William Peston.

The church formerly contained monuments to: William Lichfield, Doctor of Divinity; John Brickles, a great benefactor. Queen Elizabeth’s monument, “If Royal Vertues, etc.,” was also in this church.

Two charity schools were erected in 1715, consisting of thirty boys and twenty girls supported by voluntary subscriptions from the inhabitants of the ward.

Among the notable rectors of this church are: Thomas White (1628-98), Bishop of Peterborough; Hon. James York, Bishop of Ely, 1781; Robert Richardson, D.D. (1732-81), Dean of Lincoln; Edward Waddington (d. 1731), Bishop of Chichester; William Vincent (1739-1815), Dean of Westminster; William Cave, author (1637-1713).

In 1877 a new vestry was built on the south side of the church. It is approached from Allhallows Lane by steps, through an arched doorway, above which stands what is called “the tower,” a mean erection and a mere apology for a tower. Its height does not extend beyond the church roof. The vestry is fitted with the panelling and the pedimented doorway brought from the old north aisle, from which also come the two fantastically and beautifully carved wooden shields, now placed respectively over the fireplace and the door. The ceiling is a neat piece of panelling. The room is used for the holding of the Dowgate wardmotes. The churchyard (south of the church) is much higher than the lane at its side. It contains one tree, several tombs, and in the north-west corner the vestry-room. The enclosure remains an open space even after the demolition of the church.

Allhallows Church was dismantled in 1894. The screen, the pulpit, the altar rails, the brass candelabra, and some of the woodwork went to St. Margaret, Lothbury; the organ case, the font rails, the statues of Moses and Aaron, most of the carved woodwork, the monuments, and the stained-glass arms of Bishop Waddington went to St. Michael, Paternoster Royal. The carved-wood altar was allotted to the new Church of Allhallows, North St. Pancras, which was to be erected partially from the funds arising out of the sale. The clock by Ericke was bought by a gentleman connected with the City of London Brewery, where it now stands. The site and the materials of the fabric were sold by auction on July 31, 1894, for £31,100.

ALLHALLOWS THE LESS

Allhallows the Less was situated on the south side of Thames Street, to the east of Allhallows the Great; it was called by some Allhallows-on-the-Cellars, from its standing on vaults. It is said to have been built by Sir John Poultney. After the Great Fire the church was not rebuilt and the parish was annexed to Allhallows the Great. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1242.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Bishops of Winchester in 1242; master and chaplains of Corpus Christi College, Candlewick Street.

Houseling people in 1548 were 200.

The steeple and choir of this church stood on an arched gate, which was the entry to a great house called Cold Harbour. Dormers were made on the south side of the church in 1613 to lighten it, and several galleries subsequently added.

A chantry was founded here by James Andrew, the endowment of which fetched £8 : 9 : 4 in 1548.

The donors of charities to this church were: Elizabeth Bannister, £5; Anne Hope, £5; Roger Daniel, £8; and Samuel Goldsmith, £6, paid by the Company of Dyers.

Two charity schools were erected in 1715 consisting of thirty boys and twenty-eight girls supported by voluntary contributions from the inhabitants of the ward.

=Cannon Street= was formerly Candlewick Street. It was part of the ancient Roman highway that ran through the City and was once called Watling Street throughout its whole length. Many deeds are extant relating to Candlewick Street.

Roman remains have been found in Cannon Street including tessellated pavements and a bronze statuette of Hercules.

In 1369 mention is made of the “Yeldehalle” in Candlewick Street, probably the “Hula Dacorum,” Hall of the Danes mentioned in the _Liber Albus_, where we learn that it was occupied by the Cologne merchants and perhaps by those of Dinant also. The building was probably the “Great stone Binn” called “Olde Hall” mentioned by Stow.

One of the Caxton family, of whom there were so many in the City, named William de Caxton, lived here in 1342, and left to the Rector of St. Swithin his mansion in this street for the maintenance of a chantry.

The _Calendar of Wills_ proves that we are in the most populous and ancient part of London. Between 1259 and 1350 there are more than fifty references to Candlewyke Street. The place is famous for its weavers, and especially for the coarse cloth they made here called “burel.” There was a fraternity of the “Burellers” working here. In 1334 one hundred foot-soldiers were provided with “gowns” of cloth made in Candlewyke Street. There was also a petition drawn up by the “good-folk” of this street and Clement’s Lane against the melting of lead in their midst.

From Eastcheap to Walbrook, the title was for many centuries Candlewick, Candlewright, or Canewyke Street. “Candelwykestrete” is mentioned in the City Records as early as 1308; “Canewykestrete” appears 1376-99, and again as “Cainwicke St.” in the map of Ralph Agas c. 1560. Stow gives three possible derivations: (1) From Candlewright, a maker of candles; (2) from the yarn or cotton candle-wick; (3) from candle-wike, a “wike” being a place where things are made. The proximity of Tallow Chandlers’ Hall in Dowgate Hill points to this as the candlemakers’ quarter of the City, and favours the first and third theories rather than the second. In Ryther’s map of London, 1604, it is styled “Conning Streete,” (probably a misprint for Canning Street), and Newcourt in his 1658 map of London calls it “Cannon Street,” so that the change from Candlewick to Canwyke, Conning, and Cannon appears to have taken place within a comparatively short space of time.

The weavers of woollen cloths, brought from Flanders by Edward III., probably dwelt here: “cloth of Candelwykestrete” is mentioned in City records in 1334; and Stow says that these weavers obtained permission in 1371 to meet in the churchyard of St. Lawrence Pountney close by. They appear not to have remained long in the neighbourhood, but their advent led to a settlement of many drapers in this part of the City and ultimately to the founding of the Drapers’ Hall in St. Swithin’s Lane. In Stow’s time the street was “possessed by rich drapers, sellers of woollen cloth, etc.” After the Great Fire the street, Strype says, was “well built and inhabited by good tradesmen.”

There are two churches in the street, which is now extended to the south-east corner of St. Paul’s, sweeping away Distaff Lane, Basing Lane, Little St. Thomas Apostle, and a bit of Budge Row. London Stone is in this street. Beside London Stone Henry Fitz Ailwyn or Alwyne, first mayor of London, had his residence. Here lived the Earl of Oxford, who, about the year 1540, according to Stow, rode to his house with eighty gentlemen in “livery of Reading tawny,” and chains of gold about their necks and “one hundred tall yeomen in the like livery to follow him without chains, but all having his cognizance of the blue boar introduced on their left shoulders.” This retinue was discountenanced by the Tudors and fell into disuse. Perhaps this earl was the last to maintain so great a following.

London Stone was probably the pillar set up in the Roman fort to mark the _milliarium_, the beginning of mile.

Some have supposed this stone to be the remains of a British druidical circle or religious monument. Strype quotes Owen of Shrewsbury as giving rise to this view by his assertion that “the Druids had pillars of stone in veneration, which custom they borrowed from the Greeks, who, as Pausanius writeth, adored rude and unpolished stones.” Malcolm suggests that, if it is of British origin, “policy may have induced the Romans to preserve it, as a relic highly valued by the Londoners, or as the monument of some great event.” The general opinion, since Camden’s time, seems to be that the stone is of Roman origin, but its first purpose still remains uncertain. Stow notes that some considered it to have been set “as a mark in the middle of the City within the wall; but, in truth, it standeth far nearer to the river of Thames than to the wall of the City.” He says, also, that others thought it was set for the payment of debts, on appointed days, “till, of later times, payments were most usually made at the font in Pont’s Church (St. Paul’s), and now most commonly at the Royal Exchange.”

Sir Christopher Wren was of opinion that “by reason of its large foundation, it was rather some more considerable monument in the Forum; for, in the adjoining ground to the south, upon digging for cellars after the Great Fire, were discovered some tessellated pavements, and other extensive remains of Roman workmanship and buildings.” Originally, no doubt, the erection was of considerable proportions, and a suggestion is made in the _Parentalia_ that this milliarium was not in the form of a pillar as at Rome, but probably resembled that at Constantinople, which must have been a large building “for under its roof, according to Cedrenus, and Seidas, stood statues of Constantine and Helena, Trajan, an equestrian statue of Hadrian, a statue of Fortune, and many other figures and decorations.”

Strype considers it likely that this stone was, in after days, the place from which proclamations and public notices were made. This is confirmed in _Pasquill and Marforius_ (1589): “Set up this bill at London Stone. Let it be done solemnly with drom and trumpet.” Malcolm considers that it was certainly regarded for some ages as “a rallying point for the citizens in times of insurrection, as Guildhall would now be.” At any rate, when in 1540 Jack Cade, “the Kentish rebel, who feigned himself to be Lord Mortimer,” forced his way into the City from Southwark, he marched to London Stone, where he found a great concourse of citizens, the Lord Mayor being among them. Here, according to Holinshed’s account, he struck his sword upon the stone, exclaiming, “Now is Mortimer Lord of this City,” as if, Pennant remarks, “that had been a customary ceremony of taking possession.” This scene occurs in the second part of _Henry IV._, Act iv. Sc. 6, where Shakespeare makes Cade enter Cannon Street with his followers, and strike the stone with his _staff_ instead of his _sword_. To quote Fabian, “Rome, Carthage, and Jerusalem have been caste downe” with many other “cytyes,” yet

Thys, so oldely founded, Is so surely grounded, That no man may confounde yt, It is so sure a stone That yt is upon sette, For though some have it thrette With Manasses grym and great, Yt hurt hath it none: Chryste is the very stone That the Citie is set upon: Which from all his foon Hath ever preserved it. By means of dyvyne servyce That incontinuall wyse Is kept in devout guyse Within the mure of it.

However great the stone may have been in the beginning, the ravages and fires of London could have left but little of the original remaining in the sixteenth century.

After the Fire its foundations were disclosed by Wren: no doubt a certain part of its upper end had been destroyed in the flames and possibly damaged in clearing away debris, but at all events a small portion of it, in shape somewhat like a cannon ball, was saved, says Strype, and placed within “a new stone handsomely wrought, cut hollow underneath, so as the old stone may be seen, the new stone being over it to shelter and deface the venerable one.” Strype’s map shows that the stone, in its new case, was at first re-erected on the old site on the south side of the street. On December 13, 1742, it was complained of as an obstruction, and was removed by order of the churchwardens of St. Swithin, at a cost of 12s., to the opposite of the “kerbstone” on the north side of the street. By kerbstone is here meant the stone protecting the foot of the buildings and not (as now) a stone protecting a pavement. At the beginning of 1798 the church was about to undergo a complete repair, and the historic stone was actually doomed to be removed as a nuisance. Fortunately Mr. Thomas Maiden, a printer of Sherborne Lane, championed the cause, and prevailed on one of the parish officers to preserve it and to have it replaced against the church wall. The enclosing stone, “somewhat like a Roman altar,” had formerly a curved bar of iron projecting across the elliptical aperture through which the relic is seen; but the present grill was placed over the front of the case in 1869, when the present inscription, in English and Latin, was cut in the wall of the church over the stone at the instance of a Committee consisting of members of the London and Middlesex Archæological Society, and the parish officers. At the same time a careful examination of the stone itself was made. It was found to measure about a foot cube, and that instead of being basaltic, capable of giving off sparks when struck by steel, it was in reality an oolite, such as the Romans used extensively in their buildings, and sometimes for coffins and sepulchral monuments, thus corroborating the idea of its Roman origin.

In Cannon Street is the Cordwainers’ Hall.

THE CORDWAINERS COMPANY

The Allutarii or Cordwainers appear to have been voluntarily associated together as a craft or mystery from very remote times, probably as early as the Conquest, in close connection with the municipality of London. Its object was to encourage and regulate the trades connected with the leather industry, and included the flaying, tanning, and currying of hides, and also the manufacture and sale of shoes, boots, goloshes, and other articles of leather. In the thirteenth and following centuries several branches separated and formed distinct communities, such as the girdlers, tanners, curriers, and leather sellers.

The first existing Ordinance of the Cordwainers (Allutarii) is found in _Liber Horn_, folio 339, and was made in the 56th year of King Henry III., Anno Domini 1272.

The Company was originally called the “Allutarii,” and became first connected with the “Coblers” in the 14th century. Maitland explains that the Cobler was not only the maker but the vendor of boots and shoes. As people in cold countries always wanted shoes, the Guild or Fraternity of shoemakers was certainly ancient. In 1375 the “reputable” Cordwainers submitted their ordinances to the mayor. In 1378 we learn that “discreet” men of the trade had authority to seize hides badly tanned. In 1395 the Cordwainers and the Coblers—_i.e._ the workers in new and old shoes—adjusted their differences, but that in 1409 the dissensions between them broke out again and were once more composed. In 1387 three journeymen cordwainers were haled before the mayor, charged with illegally forming a Fraternity of themselves excluding the masters. Another indication of the existence of an ancient Fraternity is that of the brawling and fighting in 1304 of the cordwainers and the tailors.

The first charter of incorporation was granted by King Henry VI. 1439, whereby, in consideration of the payment of fifty marks, he granted to the freemen of the Mysterie of Cordwainers (Allutariorum) of the City of London that they should be one body or commonalty for ever, that they should every year elect and make of themselves one master and four wardens to rule and govern the said mysterie, and all men and workers of the mysterie and commonalty, and all workmen and workers whatsoever of tanned leather relating to the said mysterie, to search and try black and red tanned leather and all new shoes which should be sold or exposed for sale, as well within the said City as without, within two miles thereof.

The above charter was exemplified and confirmed by the charter 4 and 5 Philip and Mary (June 17, 1557).

The charter or Letters Patent of Queen Elizabeth, dated August 24, in the fourth year of Her Majesty’s reign (A.D. 1562), exemplifies and confirms the exemplification of Philip and Mary.

The charter further grants to them the government of all persons exercising the said trade within the City of London and three miles round about the said City and suburbs, the privilege having previously run only to two miles. Also the power of making bylaws for such purpose is thereby given to the master, wardens, assistants, and commonalty.

King James I., in the tenth year of his reign, granted another charter to the Company.

A new charter was granted by King James II. in the first year of his reign, but it would appear that this charter was afterwards annulled by Act 2 William and Mary, cap. 9; but this same Act restored and confirmed all previous charters.

The first Hall was burned in the Great Fire: it stood in Great Distaff Street; since this street was swallowed up by Cannon Street, the Hall, rebuilt after the Fire, and again in 1788, and greatly altered since then, has now a frontage in Cannon Street.

The livery is now 100; the Corporate Income is £7700; the Trust Income £1600.

Of the cordwainers, Stow speaks as follows:

“In this Distar Lane, on the north side thereof, is the Cordwainers’, or Shoemakers’ hall, which company were made a brotherhood or fraternity, in the 11th of Henry IV. Of these cordwainers I read, that since the 5th of Richard II. (when he took to wife Anne, daughter of Vesalaus, King of Boheme), by her example, the English people had used piked shoes, tied to their knees with silken laces, or chains of silver or gilt, wherefore in the 4th of Edward IV. it was ordained and proclaimed, that beaks of shoone and boots should not pass the length of two inches, upon pain of cursing by the clergy, and by parliament to pay twenty shillings for every pair. And every cordwainer that shod any man or woman on the Sunday to pay thirty shillings.”

Suffolk House, in =Suffolk Lane=, stands upon the site of the old Merchant Taylors’ School, and hence also upon the site of the =Manor of the Rose=.

This was a famous mansion once called Poultney’s Inn, from Sir John Poultney, who dwelt here after his removal from Cold Harbour. This was probably in 1348, for in that year (the year after he founded his college of Corpus Christi, by the church of St. Lawrence Poultney (or Pountney) on Lawrence Poultney Hill) he gave the Cold Harbour to the Earl of Hereford and Essex, for “one Rose at Midsummer, to him and his heirs for all services, if the same were demanded” (Stow). It seems most probable that this light “service” is accountable for the name of the Manor of the Rose. Subsequently the Manor belonged to John Holland, Duke of Exeter, then to William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, attainted and beheaded 1450. His son John, made Duke of Suffolk in 1463, does not appear to have possessed it, but his son John, Earl of Lincoln, owned it at the time of his attainder in 1487. It remained with the Crown until 1495, when it was restored to Edmund de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, on whose forfeiture of it by treason it was granted in 1506 to Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, who kept possession of it until he was attainted and beheaded in 1521. Shakespeare (_Henry VIII._, Act i. Sc. 2) alludes to “The Rose within the parish of St. Lawrence Poultney,” in connection with the Duke of Buckingham. After remaining with the Crown for about four years it was granted in 1526 to Henry Courtenay, Earl of Devon, who had recently been created Marquis of Exeter. He was beheaded in 1539, when the property again fell to the Crown. In 1540 it was granted to Robert Radcliffe, Lord Fitzwalter, Earl of Sussex, whose son and grandson held it in turn. In 1560-61 it was sold and shortly after divided into moieties, of which one part was afterwards sold for the use of the Merchant Taylors’ School. All that remained intact of the mansion perished in the Fire of 1666, except a few portions of which the chief were a wall in Ducksfoot Lane, and a crypt extending from Suffolk Lane to Lawrence Poultney Hill. At the rebuilding of the City, No. 3 Lawrence Poultney Hill stood over this crypt, which remained until that house was pulled down in 1894, when, despite the protests of the antiquarians, the crypt was ruthlessly destroyed.

After the Fire the school was rebuilt on the old site, in 1675, the head-master’s house being erected adjoining it.

The school premises were enlarged at various times, especially in 1829. In 1875 they became too small for the requirements of the school, and the old Charterhouse School having been removed to Godalming, the Charterhouse site was bought by the Merchant Taylors Company for £90,000, and Merchant Taylors’ School was moved to its present quarters. The old premises were taken down, and Suffolk House was erected in part upon their site in 1882.

The pious Robert Nelson, author of the _Fasts and Festivals_, was born in Suffolk Lane, June 22, 1656. His father, John Nelson, was a wealthy trader to the Levant.

Strype calls =Ducksfoot Lane= Duxford. The name is, perhaps, a corruption of Duke’s Footmen’s Lane, tradition asserting that this lane contained the servants’ entrance to the Duke of Suffolk’s house, the Manor of the Rose. In that case “footmen” is equivalent to retainers, or men-at-arms, whose quarters would probably be at the back of the mansion. Wilson (_History of St. Lawrence Poultney_) thinks it was once called Duke’s-foot-lane, meaning a narrow way to the mansion.

The only old house in the Lane is No. 2, which possesses a very interesting interior. The building is now used for offices, but was originally a merchant’s residence. The old dining-room is a fine chamber, having panelled walls profusely decorated with florid designs in raised composition. The panel over the chimney-piece is particularly good. The entablature of the handsome mantel is supported by fluted Ionic pilasters, the frieze filled with flowers and fruit, and the keystone embellished with a curious rural scene. There are several other quaint mantels in the house, one being of coloured marbles exquisitely painted with figures and scenes. The great staircase with its wainscotted walls and fine balusters is a good piece of work. The cellars are very extensive, and there are traces of a subterranean passage which formerly led to the Thames. The staircase and the old dining-room were copied by Mr. John Hare, and staged at the Garrick Theatre for Mr. Pinero’s play _The Profligate_, first performed in 1889.

=Laurence Pountney Hill.=—Stow calls this hill St. Laurence Hill. The part from Cannon Street to Suffolk Lane was formerly Green Lettice Lane, but was renamed under the present title only, on the widening of Cannon Street, 1853-54. The two houses at the corner of Suffolk Lane are splendid specimens of early eighteenth-century architecture. Both are finished with a handsome cornice. The doorways of both are side by side and have lintels and architraves of such rich carving as to be unsurpassed in the City by any doorways of similar size and style. The lintels are both concave: that on the southern house contains garlands of flowers, a cherub’s head, and the date 1703, that on the northern consists of a large scallop shell having in it two naked children. The staircase in the northern house, with its fine twisted balusters, is one of the best original staircases left in the City. The southern house has been modernised for business premises and spoiled. Next below is a plot recently bared, where was the vault alluded to under Suffolk Lane.

At the north-east corner of Ducksfoot Lane is an old house, a good specimen of the domestic architecture after the Fire. Next to it eastwards is the southern half of St. Lawrence Pountney Churchyard now disused. It contains three trees and several tombs. In summer a large-leafed plant covers almost the whole area. Across the enclosure is another fine old house, now used for offices, containing handsome rooms and a fine balustered well-staircase.

Dr. William Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood, came to live with his brother Eliab opposite St. Lawrence Pountney Church, after the surrender of Oxford. Both Eliab and another brother Daniel were rich and distinguished merchants on the hill. Richard Glover, the author of _Leonidas_, was also an eminent merchant on this hill.

The character of Laurence Pountney Lane on both sides (except the modern warehouses on the east side at the corner of Upper Thames Street) is that of the rebuilding after the Fire. Perhaps as a whole this lane preserves this character better than any other thoroughfare in the ward. At the Upper Thames Street end, on the west side, is a house which, though rebuilt on the Upper Thames Street front, retains the old side wall. This is still pierced with narrow windows filled with little squares of glass in lead-work. On the same side of the lane are several carved lintels, and well-panelled deeply recessed doorways. Near the lower end is an old house beneath which is an archway leading to a courtyard, cellars, and offices. The house is partly tenanted by Messrs. Cooper, Box & Co., who first made beaver hats here in 1830 or thereabouts. The back part at the end of the yard, and the front windows were added about 1855. The cellars at the rear of the yard used to contain the vats in which the beaver hats were dyed. The lease of the house dating from shortly after the Fire is still in existence. In the yard is an arched doorway of stone, and solid arches of the same material support the walls of the house in the basement cellars. The stone no doubt came out of the ruins of buildings destroyed in the Fire; possibly some of it from the Manor of the Rose.

At the beginning of 1543 Master Arundel kept a house of entertainment in this lane, much resorted to by the gay young men of that time. Henry, Earl of Surrey, the poet, was summoned before the Privy Council to answer certain charges, when Mistress Arundel, being examined, said that the Earl of Surrey and other young noblemen frequented her house. They ate meat in Lent and committed other improprieties. At Candlemas they went out at 9 o’clock at night, with stone bows, and did not return till past midnight; and next day there was a great clamour of breaking of windows, both of houses and churches, and shouting at men in the street, and the voice was that those hurts were done by my lord and his company. Again at night, rowing on the Thames, they used these stone bows to shoot, as she was told, “at the queens on the Bankside” (MS. quoted by Froude, vol. iv. p. 253).

=St. Lawrence Poultney= or =Pountney= was situated on the west side of Laurence Pountney Lane, between Cannon Street and Thames Street in the Ward of Candlewick Street. Thomas Cole added to it a chapel of Jesus, for a master and a chaplain, and this together with the parish church was made into a college by John Poultney and confirmed by Edward III. At the suppression of the religious houses it was valued at £97 : 17 : 11 and surrendered in the reign of Edward VI. The church was burnt down by the Great Fire and its parish annexed to that of St. Mary Abchurch. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1318.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The chaplains of this college; Henry VIII., who seized it and so continued in the Crown till Queen Elizabeth granted it to Edward Dorening and Roger Rant as an appendage of the manor of East Greenwich.

Houseling people in 1548 were 270.

No benefactors are recorded by Stow. There are few monuments recorded, and those of little note: John Oliffe, alderman, was buried in the church in 1577; also Robert and Henry Radcliffe, Earls of Sussex.

William Latymer was master of this college; he was prosecuted for complaining with John Hooper, of Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London.

In Martin’s Lane a high tower resembling the steeple of a church projects at the end of a block of modern buildings. The old clock, which is attached and hangs out over the street, makes the resemblance to a church more noticeable. The building was erected on the site of the old church of St. Martin Orgar. The churchyard below is comparatively large and includes a row of trees. It is considerably above the level of the street. At the east end are some old seventeenth or eighteenth century houses with rusticated woodwork beneath their gables. On the west side of the lane No. 7 is an old eighteenth-century house, a fine specimen, with brick courses across its frontage.

=St. Martin Orgar= was situated in St. Martin’s Lane, near Candlewick Street. It was burnt down in the Great Fire and not rebuilt, its parish being annexed to St. Clement’s, Eastcheap. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1348.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: Orgarus, who gave it about 1181 to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s, who held it up to 1666, when the church was burnt down.

Houseling people in 1548 were 280.

Chantries were founded here by: William Cromer, whose endowment fetched £30 : 15 : 4 in 1548, when John Carre was priest; John Weston, who gave to the Augmentation of Our Lady’s Mass to be “songe by note” £12 : 18 : 8 a year in 1548; William Oreswicke, whose endowment for two chaplains fetched £13 : 5 : 0 in 1548.

The church contained monuments to: William Crowmer, mayor, who built a chapel on the south side of the church, and who was buried there in 1433; Sir Humphrey Browne, Lord Chief Justice (d. 1562); Sir Allen Cotton, lord mayor (d. 1628). There was also a monument to Queen Elizabeth.

According to Stow the parish enjoyed the benefits of many benefactors. Among others, Benedict Barnham was donor of £10 yearly; Thomas Nicolson of £5; Sir Humphrey Walwyn of £5; and James Hall of three tenements to the value of £18 : 10 : 0.

Brien Walton (d. 1661), Bishop of Chester, was rector here.

=Crooked Lane= has been partly destroyed to make way for the approach to London Bridge, which has also swallowed up St. Michael’s Lane and Great Eastcheap. In Crooked Lane stood a house before the Fire called “the Leaden Porch,” which belonged to one Sir John Sherston in the fifteenth century. The lane also contained St. Michael’s Church, the burial-place of William Walworth.

=St. Michael, Crooked Lane=, was situated on the east side of Miles’s Lane, Great Eastcheap, and was one of the thirteen “Peculiars” in the City, subject to the Archbishop of Canterbury. It was repaired and redecorated in 1610, but burnt down by the Great Fire and rebuilt from Wren’s designs in 1687; the steeple was not built till 1698. In 1831 the building was pulled down, its parish being united with those of St. Magnus and St. Margaret. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1286.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Prior and Convent of Christ Church, Canterbury, before 1286; the Archbishop of Canterbury, who presented in 1408, in whose successors it continued up to 1848, when the church was annexed to St. Magnus the Martyr.

Houseling people in 1548 were 354.

The church built by Wren, which was without aisles, measured 78 feet in length and 46 feet in breadth. The tower was surmounted by a circular lantern in three stages, supporting a cupola with a lofty vane and cross, and reached a height of about 100 feet.

Chantries were founded here: By William Walworth (mayor 1380) of five chaplains; he endowed it with lands, etc., which fetched £20 : 13 : 4 in 1548, when the priests were William Berte, Thomas Harper, William Hale, William Clayton, and John Nesehame; by John Rothinge, who left £6 yearly, which is appropriated to finding a Walworth chaplain; by Walter Morden, who endowed it with the “bores hedde” in Eastcheap, valued at £4 a year; by William de Burgo, who had the King’s licence June 21, 1318, whose endowment fetched £6 : 13 : 4 in 1548; by Pentecost Russel and Gerard de Staundon at the altar of St. Thomas Martyr and St. Edmund; the King granted his licence July 14, 1321, for himself, his father and mother, and G. de Staundon, late parson of Stevenage, Herts; by Henry Grubbe, for which the King granted his licence April 20, 1371; by Roger Steere, who endowed it with tenements valued at £8 : 8 : 0 yearly, which is spent towards finding the Walworth chaplains; by William Jordan, who left £5 : 16 : 8 to find a priest, but this was also appropriated to the Walworth chaplains; by Robert Brocket, who endowed it with £7 a year; by John Longe, who left 10s. per annum; March 10, 1380-81—the King granted his licence to William Walworth, citizen and merchant of London, to unite diverse chantries in this church, founded by Pentecost Russell; Matilda and Roger Steere; John Harewe; John Abell; W. Burgh; Henry Grubbe; William Jordan; Walter Mordon; and Thomas atte Leye, which by changes of time are insufficient to maintain these chantries, and he was further empowered to found a college of one master and nine chaplains there.

The church formerly contained monuments to: John Lovekin, fishmonger, four times Lord Mayor, through whom the church, 1348, 1358, 1365, and 1366, was rebuilt; also Sir William Walworth, the mayor who overthrew Wat Tyler—he enlarged the church with a new choir and side-chapels and founded a college in connection with it; Sir John Brug, mayor 1520, donor of £50.

No legacies or charitable gifts are recorded by Stow.

John Poynet (d. 1556), Bishop of Rochester and of Winchester, was rector here; also Adam Molens or Molyneux (d. 1450), Bishop of Chichester, who was slain at Portsmouth by the Marines, incited by Richard, Duke of York; Giovanni Giglii (d. 1498), Bishop of Worcester.

At the end of =Swan Lane= is Old Swan Pier, beneath which are the famous Old Swan Stairs; these now consist of stone steps followed by a flight of wooden ones, descending straight into the water. Stow calls them “a common stair on the Thames.” In 1441, when the Duchess of Gloucester did penance at Christchurch-by-Aldgate, she landed here, and walked the rest of the way. When persons did not care to risk “shooting London Bridge,” it was customary for them to land at these stairs, walk to the other side of the bridge, and then take to the water again. Pepys in his _Diary_ (1661) mentions taking Mr. Salisbury to Whitehall: “But he could not by any means be moved to go through the bridge, and we were fain to go round by the Old Swan Pier”; and Boswell says that he and Johnson “landed at the Old Swan and walked to Billingsgate,” where they took oars for Greenwich.

The race for Doggett’s Coat and Badge, open to watermen, is rowed between the Old Swan and the White Swan at Chelsea. Near these stairs was John Hardcastle’s counting-house, where were first brought forth the Hibernian Society, the London Missionary Society, the British and Foreign Bible Society, and the Religious Tract Society.

At the end of Swan Lane (west side) is the entrance to the subway called Waterside. It passes beneath Tennants’, Commercial, and Dyers’ Hall wharves, in front of Red Bull Wharf (the only place where it emerges into the open), and ultimately runs under the City of London Brewery into All Hallows Lane. In Strype’s 1754 map the whole of the riverside from Swan to All Hallows Lane is shown as a broad path (40 feet wide) open to the water, and called New Key, upon which debouch all the lanes leading from Thames Street to the shore. It was part of a design of Wren for improving the river-bank after the Great Fire. In a map of 1819 the “key,” though mostly open, is shown to be a subway under a portion of the brewery. It is marked as a “Public Way.” It has been gradually covered over by the extension of the brewery and the wharves, so that now what was once a riverside walk has become a subway, from which the water is nowhere visible, unless one of the wharf doors happens to be open.

The Fishmongers’ Hall rises squarely beside London Bridge, and not far off is the Monument, with an absurd _chevaux de frise_ of spikes rising from its golden ball, and representing flames, very much as they are represented in the contemporary illustrations of the Fire. St. Magnus’s white steeple makes a good foreground.

THE FISHMONGERS COMPANY

The origin of the Fishmongers Company is lost in remote antiquity; it is unquestionable that it existed prior to the reign of Henry II., and originated in an association or brotherhood.

The Fishmongers Company lost the greater part of its earlier records, books, and muniments in the Great Fire of London; the earliest existing record in the possession of the Company being a court book dating from 1592.

The privileges of the Company were confirmed by royal charters in the reign of Edward I., 1272, Edward II., 1307, and Edward III., 1327.

The first extant charter is in Norman French, dated July 10, 1364, 37 Edward III.

It recites that from ancient times, whereof memory runs not, it was a custom that no fish should be sold in the City of London but by fishmongers, except stockfish, which belongs to the mistery of stockfishmongers (subsequently incorporated with the fishmongers), and further recites that the mistery of fishmongers had grants from the King’s progenitors in ancient times, that the fishmongers should choose yearly certain persons of the mistery to well and lawfully rule the same.

The foregoing charter was confirmed by a proclamation of the following year, July 12, 1365, 38 Edward III., which granted further power and privileges to the mistery of fishmongers of the City of London.

By a further mandate of King Edward III., dated July 24 in the same year, the King granted to the fishmongers of the said city, and of the liberty of the halmote of the same mistery, that no person, stranger or inhabitant, should in any manner occupy the mistery of fishmongers in the said city, or intermeddle therewith, unless he were of the same mistery; and that the fishmongers of the same liberty should be able in every year to elect four persons (to be sworn) to oversee the buying and selling of fish in the said city, and well and faithfully to rule the said mistery “for the common commodity of our people.”

In the twenty-second year of King Richard II., May 9, 1399, another charter was granted.

By an Inspeximus of 6 Henry VI., July 10, 1427, the charter of King Richard II. was confirmed.

By charter of 23 Henry VII., dated July 3, 1508, the Letters Patent of 11 Henry VI., 1433, are set forth and ratified and confirmed.

By a charter of 24 King Henry VII., dated September 20, 1508, the stockfishmongers of the City of London were incorporated by the name of “The Wardens and Commonalty of the Mistery of Stockfishmongers of the City of London,” with perpetual succession and a common seal.

In the twenty-seventh year of King Henry VIII., 1537, a charter was granted by which the two corporations of the Fishmongers Company and Stockfishmongers Company were incorporated as one company, and in the same year a deed was executed between the two companies regulating the terms of such union.

The rest of the brief history furnished by the Company is a recital of the later charters, which do not seem of very great importance. The number of liverymen in 1898 was 344; the Corporate Income was £46,053; the Trust Income was £7235.

Freemen, the widows of freemen, and freewomen, being in poor circumstances, are eligible for pecuniary relief by way of grant or pension, or for election to the Company’s almshouses. The children of freemen are eligible for weekly pensions or pecuniary relief.

Loans are also made by the Company in special cases in aid of freemen in necessitous circumstances.

The Company has established a number of educational exhibitions for the children of deserving freemen, and subscribe liberally to the City of London Institute.

The children of freemen are also eligible for the nominations to Christ’s Hospital in the gift of the Company.

Liverymen have the usual privileges, and receive invitations in turn to dine at livery dinners in the Company’s hall.

The Company’s first hall was the house of Lord Fanhope given to the Fishmongers by him in the reign of Henry VIII. It was rebuilt after the Fire by Jarman. It stood on the north foot of the present bridge. The present hall was erected when New London Bridge swallowed up its predecessor.

ST. MAGNUS, LONDON BRIDGE

St. Magnus stands on the south side of Thames Street at the bottom of Fish Street Hill; it was called the “Martyr” from its dedicatory saint, who suffered martyrdom in Cæsarea in the time of Aurelian the Emperor. It was burnt down by the Great Fire, and rebuilt by Wren, who completed it in 1676, with the exception of the steeple, which was not added till 1705. The parish of St. Margaret, New Fish Street, was annexed to this after the Fire. In 1831 that of St. Michael, Crooked Lane, was also annexed. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1247.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Prior and Convent of Bermondsey before 1252, and the Abbot and Convent of Westminster alternately, since 1252; Henry VIII. seized it, and granted it to the Bishop of Westminster, January 20, 1540-41; Bishop of London by grant of Edward VI. in 1550, confirmed by Queen Mary, March 3, 1553-54, in whose successors it continued.

Houseling people in 1548 were 535.

The building is one of the most beautiful of all the City churches; it measures 90 feet in length, 59 feet in breadth, and 41 feet in height. It contains a nave and side-aisles separated by slender Ionic columns standing a considerable distance from each other. The steeple rising near London Bridge is seen to great advantage, and is considered one of the best of Wren’s works. It consists of a tower with a cornice, parapet, and vases, surmounted by an octagonal lantern with a cupola, which, in its turn, is surmounted by a slender lantern and spire, with a finial and vane. The total height is 185 feet.

Chantries were founded here by: Andrew Hunt, whose endowment fetched £6 : 13 : 4 in 1548, when Gilbert Smythe was chaplain; Thomas Makinge, whose endowment yielded £16 in 1548, when Thomas Parker was chaplain; Sir John Deepdene, Knt., for himself and Elizabeth his wife, at the Altar of Blessed Virgin Mary, and also at the same altar by Robert Ramsey, for himself and Jane his wife, for which the King granted his licence, February 5, 1404-1405—the endowments fetched £16 : 13 : 4 in 1548, when Joseph Stepneth was chaplain; Ralph de Gray, whose endowment fetched £4 in 1548; Hugh Pourt, who was sheriff of London 1303, for himself and Margaret his wife, at the Altar of Blessed Virgin Mary, to which Hugo de Waltham was admitted chaplain, October 10, 1322—this chantry was augmented by Roger Clovill, and the King granted his licence in mortmain, June 10, 1370; John Bever, for the support of two priests, whose endowment fetched £20 : 6 : 8 in 1548, but no priests have been found since Henry IV.’s time—the King granted his licence, May 26, 1448, to constitute the Guild of S. Maxentius and S. Thomas; Andrew Hunt and several others founded and endowed the Brotherhood of Salve Regina, whose gifts fetched £49 : 0 : 4 in 1548, when John Swanne and William Bunting were the chaplains.

The old church was the place of sepulture of several persons of note in their day, amongst whom may be mentioned Henry Yeuele, master-mason to Edward III., Richard II., and Henry IV.; Sir W. Gerrard, mayor in 1555; and Sir John Gerrard, mayor in 1601; and Thomas Collet, for twenty years deputy of this ward, who died in 1703. On the demolition of St. Bartholomew by the Exchange, the remains of Miles Coverdale were brought here, as he had been rector of the church 1563-66. His monument is on the east wall, south of the communion table.

Sixty boys and forty girls were maintained in the Candlewick and Bridge Wards.

The parish did not possess many large charitable gifts: Samuel Petty was donor of £600, of which only £250 was received, owing to the bonds not being good; Susanna Chambers, £17; Thomas Arnold, £2 : 12s.; John Jennings, £13.

Besides Miles Coverdale, other rectors of note were: Richard de Medford or Mitford, Bishop of Chichester in 1389; Maurice Griffith (d. 1558), Bishop of Rochester.

=Great Eastcheap=, now destroyed, was in Stow’s time a market-place for butchers: it had also cooks mixed among the butchers and such others as sold victuals ready dressed of all sorts. “For of old time when friends did meet and were disposed to be merry, they went not to dine and sup at taverns but to the cooks, where they called for meat what they liked which they found ready dressed and at a reasonable rate.” In Great Eastcheap was the immortal tavern of the Boar’s Head, already mentioned p. 106.

There was apparently another Boar’s Head in this ward. Maitland mentions it:

“In this Ward there was a house called The Boar’s Head, inhabited by William Sanderson, which came to King Edward VI. by the Statute about Chantries; which, with the shops, cellars, solars, and other Commodities and easements, he sold in the second of his reign, together with other lands and tenements, to John Sicklemore and Walter Williams for two thousand six hundred and sixty-eight pounds, and upwards” (Maitland, vol. ii. p. 793).

=Fish Street Hill=, or New Fish Street, formerly Bridge Street, led to Old London Bridge past St. Magnus’s Church. It contained an ancient stone house which had once been occupied by the Black Prince, and was afterwards converted into an inn called the Black Bell. Very frequent mention is made of Bridge Street. Here lived Andrew Horne, fishmonger, City Chamberlain, author of the _Liber Horne_. A note which concerns him may be found in Riley’s _Memorials_, A.D. 1315. Among the signs of the street were the “King’s Head”; the “Harrow”; the “Swan and Bridge”; the “Star”; the “Mitre”; the “Golden Cup”; the “Salmon”; the “Black Raven”; the “Crown”; the “Maiden Head”; the “White Lion”; the “Swan,” etc. Foundations of Roman buildings have been found here. Riley has notices of the street between 1311 and 1340. Notices are found in the _Calendar of Wills_ from 1273. In the Guildhall MSS. the earliest mention of the street is 1189. In this street stood the Church of St. Margaret, not rebuilt after the Fire. This church was on the west above Crooked Lane.

=St. Margaret, New Fish Street=, sometimes called St. Margaret, Bridge Street, stood on the east side of Fish Street Hill, where the Monument now stands; it was destroyed by the Great Fire, and its parish united to that of St. Magnus the Martyr. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1283.

The patronage of the church, before 1283, was in the hands of: The Abbot and Convent of Westminster, 1283-84; Henry VIII., who granted it to the Bishop of Westminster, January 20, 1540-41; the Bishop of London, by grant of Edward VI. in 1550, confirmed by Queen Mary, March 3, 1553-54, in whose successors it continued up to 1666, when the parish was annexed to St. Magnus.

Houseling people in 1548 were 200.

Chantries were founded here by: Roger de Bury, for which the King granted his licence in 1318; John Coggeshall, at the Altar of St. Peter—his endowment fetched £13 : 10s. in 1548, when Richard Bec was chaplain; Thomas Dursley, whose endowment yielded £4 in 1548; John Rous, whose endowment fetched £5 in 1548; Robert Whaplode, whose endowment yielded 40s. in 1548.

Only one monument of note is recorded by Stow, that of John Coggeshall, 1384, and the reason of his eminence is not stated.

Some of the chantries belonging to this parish were: £2 : 10s., the gift of John Wybert; £2, the gift of Katherine Parry; £1 : 10s., the gift of Mr. Mosyer.

Candlewick and Bridge Wards maintained sixty boys and forty girls.

John Seton (d. 1568), Prebendary of York, author of _Dialectica_; William Cotton (d. 1621), Bishop of Exeter; Samuel Hasnet, Archbishop of York 1629, are among the notable rectors.

On the east side, higher up, stood the Church and burial-ground of St. Leonard’s Milk Church, also destroyed by the Fire and not rebuilt (see p. 266). The most important building in Fish Street is, of course, the Monument.

For =The Monument= we quote the account taken by Maitland from the life of Sir Christopher Wren:

“In the year 1671, the Surveyor began the building of the great fluted column of Portland Stone, and of the Dorick Order (commonly called the Monument of London, in memory of the burning and rebuilding of the City), and finished it in 1677. The Artificers were obliged to wait sometimes for Stones of proper scantlings; which occasioned the work to be longer in execution than otherwise it would have been. The altitude from the pavement is two hundred and two feet, the diameter of the shaft or body of the column is fifteen feet, the ground bounded by the Plinth or lowest part of the pedestal is twenty-eight feet square, and the pedestal in height is forty feet. Within is a large staircase of black marble, containing three hundred and forty-five steps, ten inches and an half broad, and six inches rising. Over the Capital is an Iron Balcony, encompassing a Cippus or Meta, thirty-two feet high, supporting a blazing urn of brass gilt. Prior to this, the Surveyor (as it appears by an original drawing) had made a design of a pillar of somewhat less proportion, viz.: fourteen feet in diameter, and after a peculiar device: For, as the Romans expressed by Relievo, on the pedestals, and round the shafts of their Columns, the history of such actions and incidents as were intended to be thereby commemorated; so this Monument of the conflagration and resurrection of the City of London was represented by a pillar in flames; the flames, blazing from the loopholes of the shaft (which were to give light to the stairs within), were figured in brasswork gilt, and on the top was a Phoenix rising from her ashes, of brass gilt likewise.” The total expense was about £14,500.

The height (202 feet) is supposed to be equal to its distance eastward from the house in Pudding Lane in which the Fire broke out. Inside are 345 steps, by which any one after paying 3d. may ascend to the caged-in platform near the top. The pedestal has Latin inscriptions on the north, south, and east panels. In 1681 a further inscription, running round the base of the pedestal, was added as follows:

This pillar was set up in perpetual remembrance of that most dreadful burning of this Protestant City begun and carried on by y^e treachery and malice of y^e Popish factio, in y^e beginning of Septem in y^e year of our Lord 1666 in order to y^e carrying on their horrid plott for extirpating the Protestant religion and old English liberty, and the introducing Popery and slavery.

This was obliterated in the reign of James II., but recut in that of his successor, causing Pope’s comment:

Where London’s column, pointing to the skies, Like a tall bully rears its head and lies.

The obnoxious inscription was not erased until 1831.

On the west panel of the pedestal is a bas-relief representing Charles II. in Roman dress attended by Liberty, Genius, and Science.

In the background the City is being rebuilt, and at the King’s feet Envy tries to rekindle the flames.

ST. LEONARD, EASTCHEAP

This church stood at the corner of Eastcheap on Fish Street Hill; it was sometimes called St. Leonard Milk Church, from one Am. Milker, who built it. It suffered considerably from a fire in 1618, but was subsequently well repaired. The building was destroyed by the Great Fire, and its parish annexed to that of St. Benet, Gracechurch Street. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1348.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Prior and Convent of Christ Church, Canterbury, 1353; Henry VIII., who seized it in 1540, and soon after gave it to the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury.

Houseling people in 1548 were 260.

Chantries were founded here by: Reginald de Canterbury, citizen, at the Altar of St. Thomas the Archbishop in 1329, when John de Lacelbrigge was admitted chaplain; William Ivorye, whose endowment yielded £8 : 6 : 8 in 1548; John Bromesburye and John Wasselbye, whose endowments fetched £10 in 1548; Margery Bedyn, whose endowment yielded £10 : 8s. in 1548; Hugo Browne, whose endowment fetched £18 : 11s. in 1548; John Doggett, whose endowment yielded £10 in 1548; Robert Boydon.

A considerable number of monuments were recorded by Stow to have been well preserved. That of the greatest antiquity was one in memory of John Johnson, who died 1280. Several were erected to various members of the Doggett family, of whom Walter Doggett was sheriff in 1380, John Doggett, a citizen of eminence in his day, buried 1456 (_circa_); Robert Fitzhugh (d. 1436), Bishop of London, was rector here.

=Pudding Lane= was formerly Rother Lane, or Red Rose Lane. It was called, according to Stow, “Pudding Lane, because the butchers of Eastcheap have their scalding houses for hogs there, and their puddings with other filth of beasts are voided down that way to their dung boats on the Thames. This lane stretcheth from Thames Street to Little East Cheap, chiefly inhabited by basket makers, turners and butchers, and is all of Billingsgate Ward” (Cunningham). But the lane has its chief claim to remembrance in the fact that here originated the Great Fire.

In Stow’s time it was occupied by basket-makers, turners, and butchers. On the north-east of the lane stood Butchers’ Hall, destroyed by the Fire, and rebuilt; burned again in 1829; rebuilt in 1831; removed to Bartholomew Close in 1884.

ST. GEORGE’S CHURCH

St. George’s Church was burnt down in the Great Fire, rebuilt by Wren in 1674, and became the parish church for St. Botolph’s, Billingsgate, which had been also destroyed but not re-erected. In 1895 the building was closed on account of its dilapidated state. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1321. [Since pulled down.]

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Prior and Convent of St. Saviour, Bermondsey, in 1321; then the Crown, since 1541 up to 1666, when it was annexed to St. Botolph, Billingsgate, and with it to St. Mary-at-Hill.

Houseling people in 1548 were 123.

The present church measures 54 feet in length, 36 feet in breadth, and 36 feet in height. It has two side-aisles, each separated from the nave by two composite columns, placed far apart. The tower, which rises at the north-west, consists of three stories, concluded by a cornice and parapet, the angles of which are adorned with vases. The total height is about 84 feet.

Stow records a chantry founded by Roger Delakere.

The monuments of the original church were well preserved, Stow says. Those commemorated, however, were of comparatively little eminence; amongst them were William Combes, donor of £40; James Mountford, another benefactor to the church, who died 1544. Among the more recent ones was one in memory of George Clint, parish clerk for thirty years, who died in 1605.

=Monument Street= was only opened about ten years ago, and cost half a million of money; this was spent partly in compensation to the dispossessed leaseholders. It was designed to afford a wide and direct route to the City for the fish brought from Billingsgate. A row of new red brick buildings lines part of the way on the right; at the corner of St. Mary-at-Hill is a post-office. Beyond these buildings is the ancient graveyard of St. Botolph, Billingsgate, which church was burnt in the Great Fire and not rebuilt. The graveyard is now used as a public recreation ground, and is fronted by a neat wall with a parapet, and on either side of the gate is a high brick pier with a lamp on the summit. On the south side of Monument Street fragments of waste ground remain still unbuilt on, and form receptacles for decayed fish and garbage.

For the Coal Exchange see p. 270.

THE WATERMEN

In the sixth year of the reign of Henry VIII. an Act was passed regulating the traffic of watermen, ferrymen, and bargemen on the Thames, and settling the fares to be charged by them. In 1555 a court was held by the “Company,” and in 1648 a proclamation compelled certain “dirtboats and bumboats” to submit to the regulations of “the Company.” The Lightermens Company was united to the Watermens in 1667. But the first charter of incorporation was not granted until 7 and 8 George IV., 1827; and this was amended by two acts of Victoria in 1859 and 1864.

After the Great Fire the Watermen’s Hall was erected on the south-west corner of the Cold Harbour quay, where Strype’s map shows it. It was a handsome brick building, and was in use by the Company until 1780, when, their premises being required for an extension of the brewery, they vacated them, afterwards removing to their present hall in St. Mary-at-Hill. The old hall faced the Thames upon New Key, and in front to the river there was a large flight of stone stairs, open at all times to watermen and the public. They had been in uninterrupted use for a long period since the Great Fire, and had neither gate nor other obstruction. They became at length much dilapidated, and were “altogether removed and the wharf closed up” says Wilkinson, a few years prior to 1825. The hall, wharf, and stairs are shown in an engraving published by S. and N. Buck in 1749.

Love Lane was formerly Rope Lane, afterwards Lucas Lane, and then corruptly Love Lane.

It is a crooked winding thoroughfare paved by flags, and the houses are mainly inhabited by fish salesmen who work at Billingsgate. Beyond the church are large warehouses, and business houses in the usual style.

The back of a famous old house now used as a ward school is in Love Lane, but its front faces on to a cobble-stone yard connected with Botolph Lane by a covered entry. Within the house everything points to its having been the residence of some one of wealth and taste. The hall is paved with alternate slabs of black and white marble. The staircase is wide and beautifully proportioned and decorated. The date 1670 is on the ceiling; on the first floor four doors with rich wood carving on the pediments and lintels attract attention. Ceilings and fireplaces alike bespeak careful work. One of the latter is inlaid in different coloured marbles with a white marble plaque of a sleeping child. But downstairs, in a small room on the ground floor, is the chief feature of interest. The walls and panels are literally covered with oil-paintings with the artist’s name and the date “R. Robinson, 1696.” The subject seems to be life in different parts of the globe. The ceiling is of oak heavily carved, though, alas! whitewashed.

The house is now a ward school, and though in repair shows inevitable signs of wear and tear. The hall pavement is stained and broken, the carved woodwork thickly covered with paint and varnish, yet in spite of all this is a place well worth seeing, probably the oldest dwelling-house in the City.

=St. Andrew Hubbard=, sometimes called St. Andrew, Eastcheap, formerly stood in Love Lane. It was burnt down in the Great Fire and not rebuilt. The parish was then annexed to St. Mary-at-Hill. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1366.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Earl of Pembroke in 1323; John, Lord Talbot, cousin and heir of the above, 1427; Edward IV., who restored it, 1463, to the Earl of Shrewsbury, who presented it in 1470; the Earl of Northumberland up to 1666, when it was annexed to St. Mary-at-Hill, after which the alternate patronage was shared with the Duke of Somerset.

Houseling people in 1548 were 282.

The charitable gifts recorded of this parish are very few; the donors of them were: Margaret Dean, 3s. 4d. per annum; Mr. Jacobs, £1 : 6 : 4; Mr. Green, £1. All were for the use of the poor.

The most notable rector was John Randall (1570-1622), Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford.

In =Little Eastcheap= was the weigh-house, built on the site of St. Andrew Hubbard, and rebuilt after the Fire.

“Which said Weighhouse was before in Cornhill. In this House are weighed merchandizes brought from beyond seas to the King’s Beam, to which doth belong a Master, and under him four Master Porters, with labouring Porters under them. They have Carts and Horses to fetch the goods from the Merchants’ Warehouses to the Beam, and to carry them back. The house belongeth to the Company of Grocers, in whose gifts the several Porters’, etc., places are. But of late years little is done in this office, as wanting a compulsive power to constrain the merchants to have their goods weighed; they alleging it to be an unnecessary trouble and charge” (Cunningham).

=Philpot Lane= was named after Sir John Philpot, mayor.

At the south-east end of =Rood Lane= is the Church of St. Margaret Pattens, so called, according to Stow, because pattens were sold there. Formerly the lane was called St. Margaret Pattens, but when about 1536-38 the church was rebuilt, a rood was set up in the churchyard and oblations made to the rood were employed in building the church. But in 1538 the rood was discovered to be broken, together with the “tabernacle” wherein it had been placed. There was then a colony or settlement of basket-makers in the parish, among whose houses a fire broke out in the same month, which destroyed twelve houses and took the lives of nine persons.

ST. MARGARET PATTENS

This church was rebuilt, as Stow records, in the reign of Henry VIII.; thoroughly repaired in 1614 and 1632, but destroyed by the Great Fire. The present church was completed by Wren in 1687. The parish of St. Gabriel’s, Fenchurch, was annexed to it after 1666. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1305.

The derivation of the name is obscure; Stow’s conjecture has already been given.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The family of the Nevils in 1281; Robert Rickenden and Margaret his wife, who confirmed it to Richard Whittington, who bestowed it on the Mayor and Commonalty of London in 1411, with whom it continued up to 1666 when St. Gabriel’s was annexed, and it was therefore shared alternately with the Crown.

Houseling people in 1548 were 223.

The church measures 66 feet in length, 52 feet in breadth, and 32 feet in height, and consists of a nave, chancel, and north aisle. The steeple consists of a tower, terminated by a cornice and balustrade, with four pinnacles at the corners, above which a spire rises, culminating in a ball and vane. The spire, which is 200 feet, is taller than any other of Wren’s similar ones, and the steeple comes third in order of height of those of his churches. There is a picture on the north side of the church which is said to be the work of Carlo Maratti (1625-1713), a Roman painter. The church is famous for its canopied pews, the only ones in the city; in one of these the initials C. W., supposed to be those of Sir Christopher Wren, and the date 1686, are inlaid.

A chantry was founded here by: Peter at Vyne, at the Altar of Blessed Virgin Mary, to which John Skelton was admitted chaplain 1472-73.

The original church does not seem to have possessed any monuments of note. Of the later ones, the most interesting are those of: Giles Vandeput, erected by his son, Sir Peter Vandeput, who was sheriff in 1684, and donor of £100 to the parish; Sir Peter Delme, Lord Mayor in 1723, whose monument is the work of Johan Michael Rysbrack, or Rysbrach, of Antwerp; Dr. Thomas Birch, Secretary of the Royal Society, and author, who was rector here for nearly nineteen years, was buried in the chancel, 1766. The side altar of the north aisle contains a Della Robbia plaque representing the Virgin and Child, in memory of Thomas Wagstaffe, the ablest of the non-jurors, appointed rector here in 1684 and deprived in 1690.

Sir Peter Vandeput was donor of £100 to the parish; —— Collyer of £5; Thomas Salter of £20; Richard Camden of £20. The other charitable gifts recorded amounted to £6 per annum.

John Milward (1556-1609), chaplain to James I., was rector here; also Thomas Birch (1705-66), Secretary to the Royal Society; and Peter Whalley (1722-91), head-master of Christ’s Hospital, and author of various works.

ST. MARY-AT-HILL

We pass on to St. Mary-at-Hill; a church well known on account of the energetic work of its rector, Rev. W. Carlile, founder of the Church Army, who popularises church work among his poor parishioners by lantern services and other devices. The date of the foundation of the original church is not known, but there is evidence of its existence in the middle of the fourteenth century. In 1616 it was thoroughly repaired, but the body of it was destroyed by the Great Fire and rebuilt by Wren, 1672-77. The stone tower remained standing till 1780, when it was considered insecure and pulled down, when it was replaced by the present one. In 1892 the church was closed for two years, while 3000 bodies were removed from beneath the flooring to Norwood Cemetery. The parish of St. Andrew Hubbard was not rebuilt after the Fire, and was annexed to this. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1337.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of Richard Hackney, sheriff of London, who presented to it in 1337, and so on; it remained in private persons up to 1640, when the parishioners presented to it, up to 1666, when the parish of St. Andrew Hubbard was annexed to it, the patronage now being alternate, Sir Henry Peek having presented last in right of St. Andrew Hubbard in 1891.

Houseling people in 1548 were 400.

The church measures 96 feet in length and 60 feet in breadth, and is crowned by a cupola which rises to the height of 38 feet. The cupola is divided into panels and is supported by four Doric columns, forming two side aisles. The ceiling to the east and west of this is arched, as well as that of the side aisles between the columns, so that the appearance of the roof is thus rendered cruciform. There is a great quantity of carving in the church, but of a late date, being the work of Mr. W. Gibbs Rogers, who executed it in 1848-49 when the church was remodelled.

Chantries were founded here: By Rose Wrytell, at the Altar of St. Edmund the King, before 1336. She left six marks for an endowment, and Michael de Leek was licensed as chaplain, November 5, 1365. The value was £8 : 2 : 6 in 1548, when Christopher Burley was priest at the age of 43 years, “a good singer and well learned.” By John Weston, whose endowment fetched £8 : 13 : 4 in 1548. By John Nasing, at the Altar of St. Katherine. Harry Yorkflete the chaplain exchanged it with John atte Welle, February 20, 1395-96; Thomas Lewes was priest in 1548, “of the age of 42 years, a good singer and player on the organ and prettily learned.” By William Cambridge, whose endowment fetched £10 : 6 : 8 in 1548, when Matthew Berye was priest, “of the age of 40 years, a good singer and indifferently well learned.” By John Cawston, whose endowment yielded £20 : 17 : 8 in 1548, when Edmond Alston was priest, “of 36 years, a good singer and handsomely learned.” By Richard Gosselinge, whose endowment produced £9 in 1548, when John Sherpyn was priest, “of the age of 44 years, a teacher of children.” By John Bodman, whose endowment fetched £14 : 6 : 8 in 1548.

The church formerly contained a considerable number of monuments, but the persons commemorated are of comparatively little eminence. Sir John Hampson, Knight and alderman, was buried here in 1607. Within the communion rails of the present building the body of the Rev. John Brand lies interred, who died in 1806; he was Fellow and Secretary of the Society of Antiquaries, and rector here for some years. Edward Young, the poet, was married here to Lady Elizabeth Lee, in 1731.

£10 or £11 per annum were given to the poor by several benefactors, to be expended on bread. Other gifts recorded by Stow are: £40, from Sir William Leman, for the maintenance of a Divinity Lecture; from Jane Revel; £4 : 10s. to be paid every tenth year, from Bernard Hyde.

Andrew Snape, D.D., Master of Eton College, Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge 1721-23, was rector here.

At the south-eastern corner of St. Mary-at-Hill stands the mighty building of the Coal Exchange. The material used is Portland stone, and the great tower and cupola which rises above the street still retains its whiteness. The Exchange was opened in 1849. Monday is the principal market day, but markets are also held on Wednesdays and Fridays. Under the Exchange are the remains of an old Roman bath, which was discovered when the foundations were being made. Strype says that above the stairs at Billingsgate “the coalmen and woodmongers meet every morning about eight or nine o’clock, this place being their Exchange, for the coal trade which brings a great resort of people and occasions a great trade to the inhabitants. And this place is now more frequented than in ancient time, when Greenhithe was made use of for the same purpose, this being more commodious. And therefore it was ordained to be the only port for all such sorts of merchandise.”

Up to 1846 Billingsgate Fish-market contained only sheds and squalid buildings in which the fish trade was carried on. But in that year J. B. Bunning, the City architect, was employed to build a regular market. In 1872 the great increase of the trade and the necessity for further accommodation induced the Corporation to pull down this building and rebuild on a larger scale. Old Darkhouse Lane and Billingsgate Stairs were utilised to gain an increased site as the great bulk of the Custom House prevented any expansion eastward.

Sir Horace Jones was the architect. The building is of an Italian design and is of Portland stone with facings of yellow brick and polished grey granite plinths and wall linings. A long arcade faces Thames Street, and at each end there are pavilion buildings. Within, the basement has an area of about 20,000 superficial feet. On the ground floor the area is 39,000 square feet. The roof is on the Louvre glass principle carried on lattice girders of 60 feet span. There is a gallery with an area of 4000 feet; this is utilised for the sale of haddocks and dried fish.

=St. Botolph, Billingsgate=, stood against St. Botolph’s Lane, on the south side of Thames Street. It was repaired in 1624, but burnt down by the Great Fire and not rebuilt, its parish being annexed to St. George, Botolph Lane. It stood against the Bridge Gate of the first London Bridge, just as the other three churches of St. Botolph stood at Aldgate, Aldersgate, and Bishopsgate. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1343.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s, who received it from Orgarus about 1181.

Houseling people in 1548 were 300.

Chantries were founded here: By and for Thomas Snodyland, late rector, who died 1349, in the chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary, of which Nicholas de Wansyngdon was chaplain, and exchanged it April 11, 1163—the King granted a licence for it December 15, 1371; by John Pickman, at the Altar of Our Lady, whose endowment fetched £10 in 1548, when Thomas Serle was priest, “of the age of 50 years, of good consideration and learning touching ordinary things”; by Thomas Aubrey, whose endowment fetched £8 : 6 : 8 in 1548, when Thomas Baynton was priest, “of the age of 60 years, of good consideration and learning”; by Roger Smallwood. Here was founded the Fraternity of Our Lady and St. John the Baptist. The endowment fetched £14 in 1548, when William Lucay was priest, “of the age of 50 years, a man of good conversation and small learning.”

The church originally contained many monuments, but most of them had disappeared by 1633. John Rainwell, mayor, 1426, had been buried in it; also Stephen Forster, mayor in 1454.

Some of the donors of charitable gifts to the parish were: Robert Fellows, of £25; William Fellows, of £25; Thomas Barber, of £6 : 18 : 6, and others of small amounts.

The parishes of St. George, Botolph Lane, and St. Botolph, Billingsgate, in conjunction with the other part of Billingsgate ward, maintained forty boys by subscription.

Laurence Bothe, rector here, became Bishop of Durham, 1457; of York, 1476-80 (died): also William Sherlock (d. 1707), Dean of St. Paul’s.

=Billingsgate=, like Queenhithe, is an artificial port, constructed with great ease by digging out the foreshore of mud and shingle, and protecting the square harbour thus formed by piles of timber, on which beams were laid to form a quay, and sheds were built up for the protection of the merchandise.

The port was close to the north end of the first bridge, so that goods landed here might be easily carried into the Roman fort, while the port itself was protected by the fort. After the desertion of London by the Romans, the occupation by the Saxons, and the revival of trade, Billingsgate remained the principal port, though a large share of the trade went to Queenhithe. The mouth of the Walbrook seems to have ceased very early in the history of London to be a port. Billingsgate robbed Queenhithe of its trade in spite of all injunctions of restraint.

The fish-market has long since overwhelmed every other kind of merchandise. The language and manners, the rough customs, and the drinking habits of the Billingsgate fish-wives are proverbial. They have now, however, all vanished, and the market is as quiet and decorous as any other. A curious custom is noted by Cunningham. The porters who plied at Billingsgate used to invite the passengers to stop and salute a certain post. If one complied, and paid down sixpence, they gave him a name, and pretended to be his sponsors. If one refused, they laid hold of him and bumped him against the post. The custom reminds one of the same bumping practised in walking the bounds of the parish; it had probably the same origin, in keeping alive the memory of something by the infliction of pain. The custom remained when the cause and reason had long been forgotten.

This end of Thames Street was called Petty Wales. Stow has an interesting note on this subject:

“Towards the east end thereof, namely, over against Galley key, Wool key, and the Custom House, there have been of old time some large buildings of stone, the ruins thereof do yet remain, but the first builders and owners of them are worn out of memory, wherefore the common people affirm Julius Cæsar to be the builder thereof, as also of the Tower itself. But thereof I have spoken already. Some are of another opinion, and that a more likely, that this great stone building was sometime the lodging appointed for princes of Wales, when they repaired to this city, and that, therefore, the street in that part is called Petty Wales, which name remaineth there most commonly until this day, even as where the kings of Scotland were used to be lodged betwixt Charing Cross and White Hall, it is likewise called Scotland, and where the earls of Britons were lodged without Aldersgate, the street is called Britain Street, etc.

“The said building might of old time pertain to the princes of Wales, as is aforesaid, but is since turned to other use.”

The Custom House itself, with its magnificent frontage and fine quay, is the fifth built upon the same spot. The first was built in 1385. The second, third, and fourth were all destroyed by fire. No doubt the Custom officers could tell fine tales of exciting adventure, of ruin or fortune, of clever evasions and despicable tricks; but these things are secret. The House itself, with the ships, the busy wharfingers, the boatmen, and the general liveliness of the scene, are all that are apparent. Yet it requires little imagination to see the enormous importance of the business done in this solid building of Smirke’s. A great source of our national income, a large part of the nation’s wealth, comes from this house. Tons of goods—ranging from hemp, honey, leeches, tobacco, to manufactured goods, marble, sugar, and spirits—are daily surveyed by the Customs officers. Our total imports for 1901 were worth nearly £522,000,000.

Beyond the Custom House is Wool Wharf, then several small quays, of which one, Galley Quay, carries a history in its name. It was so called because the Venetian and Genoese galleys here discharged their cargoes. There is a tradition of some religious house having stood here also. Hear what Stow says:

“In this Lane of old time dwelt divers strangers, born of Genoa and those parts; these were commonly called galley men, as men that came up in the galleys brought up wines and other merchandises, which they landed in Thames Street, at a place called Galley key; they had a certain coin of silver amongst themselves, which were halfpence of Genoa, and were called Galley halfpence; these halfpence were forbidden in the 13th of Henry IV., and again by parliament in the 4th of Henry V. And it was enacted that if any person bring into this realm Galley halfpence, suskins, or dodkins, he should be punished as a thief; and he that taketh or payeth such money shall lose a hundred shillings, whereof the king shall have the one half, and he that will sue the other half. Notwithstanding, in my youth, I have seen them pass current, but with some difficulty, for that the English halfpence were then, though not so broad, somewhat thicker and stronger.”

THE BAKERS COMPANY

The Guild or Fraternity of Bakers would seem to have been in existence as early as any other, seeing that the craft or mystery of baking is the most ancient in existence. In the reign of Henry II., A.D. 1155, the Fraternity was charged in the Great Roll of the Exchequer with one mark of gold for their Guild.

The Bakers Company, as the united Company of White and Brown bakers, was first incorporated by charter of Henry VIII., dated July 22, 1509, to make, create, build, and establish a certain perpetual fraternity or guild of one master and four keepers of the commonalty of freemen of the mystery of bakers of the City of London and suburbs thereof then dwelling, or thereafter to dwell, and of the brothers and sisters freemen of the said mystery and others who would choose to be of the same fraternity or guild within the City aforesaid, and that the same master, four keepers, and commonalty should for ever continue to be one corporate body, with power to elect annually from among themselves one master and four keepers for the superintending, ruling, and governing of the said mystery and commonalty.

Previous to 1509 there were separate Companies of White Bakers and Brown Bakers, and the White Bakers appear to have been incorporated as early as 1307. From 1509 to 1622 the two Companies remained united as the Bakers Company, but in 1622 the Brown Bakers, conceiving themselves in some way ill-used or neglected, succeeded in getting a separate charter of their own, and remained a separate Company for thirty to forty years, when a peace was patched up, and the two Companies were finally united in the Bakers Company.

Their hall in Harp Lane, formerly Hart Lane, is said by Stow to have been the residence of one of the Chichele family, a grand-nephew of the Archbishop and grandson of his brother the mayor or his brother the sheriff. It was burned down in 1714 and rebuilt in 1719. The genealogy below shows how this John Chichele was related to the Archbishop of Canterbury and Founder of All Souls.

John Chichele ├── Henry, Archbishop. ├── Robert, Sheriff, 1402; Mayor, 1411. └── William, Alderman and Sheriff, 1409. ├── John, Chamberlain. │ └── Twenty-four children. └── William, Archdeacon.

The livery consists of 111; the Corporate Income is about £1580; the Trust Income is £320.

Roman remains have been found in =Tower Street=. Mention is made of the street from the thirteenth century, if not earlier, but the street is singularly lacking in historical associations. Here the Earl of Rochester, escaping from his friends, took up lodgings and pretended for some weeks, not without success, to be an Italian physician. Here was the tavern frequented by Peter the Czar after getting through his day’s work.

At the west end of Tower Street was a “fair house” once belonging to one Griste, by whom Jack Cade was feasted. After the feast he requited his host by robbing him.

There is also a house once owned by Sir John Champney, mayor in 1534. He built a high tower of brick, proposing, in his pride, to look down upon his neighbours. But he did not succeed, being punished by blindness. The house was afterwards occupied by Sir Percival Hart, Knight Harbinger to the Queen.

ST. DUNSTAN IN THE EAST

St. Dunstan in the East stands on St. Dunstan’s Hill, between Great Tower Street and Upper Thames Street, and was anciently known as St. Dunstan Juxta-Turrim. The date of its foundation is not known, but an enlargement is recorded in 1382. It was partially destroyed in the Great Fire and restored under Wren’s hands in 1698. This building, with the exception of the steeple, was pulled down in 1810, and in 1817 the body of the present church was built of Portland stone in the Perpendicular style by Laing and Tite. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1312.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of the Prior and Chapter of Christ Church, Canterbury, who granted it, April 24, 1365, to Simon Islip, Archbishop of Canterbury, and his successors, in whom it continues.

Houseling people in 1548 were 900.

The present church is in the Perpendicular Gothic style, and contains two side aisles divided from the central portion by slender clustered columns and pointed arches, with a clerestory above. It measures 115 feet in length, 65½ feet in breadth, and 40 feet in height. The steeple is one of Wren’s most striking works. The tower, measuring 21 square feet at the base, has four stories, surmounted by four tall pinnacles; from behind these spring four arched ribs, supporting a lantern and spire, terminating in a ball and vane. The total height is 180 feet 4 inches. Though it is fragile in appearance, it is very scientifically and strongly constructed. The central east window has been closely copied from fragments which were found during the excavations previous to rebuilding, and is the work of Mr. John Buckler. Many of the windows contain the coats-of-arms of benefactors, the work of Messrs. Baillie.

The only relics of the wood-carving by Grinling Gibbons which adorned Wren’s church are the arms of Archbishop Tenison, primate from 1695, now placed in the vestry-room; and the organ case for Father Smith’s organ—this was sold to St. Alban’s Abbey, but is to be brought back.

Several chantries were founded here: The Fraternity of Our Lady founded by John Joye; by Joan Maken and Alice Lynne, at the Altar of Jesus—their endowment fetched £20 : 11 : 8 in 1548, when Philip Matthew was chaplain; for Richard de Eymne in 1285; by John Bosham cl., and Alice, who was the wife of Nicholas Potyn, at the Altar of Holy Trinity, for John and Alice, and for Nicholas Potyn (the King granted his licence June 20, 1408; the endowment fetched £17 : 16 : 8 in 1548, when Robert Neale was priest); by Richard Coldbrok, whose endowment fetched £13 : 3 : 4 in 1548, when Thomas Rock was priest; by William Barret, at the Altar of Our Lady—his endowment yielded £12 in 1548, when John Flude was chaplain.

Before the Great Fire, the church contained a monument to Sir John Hawkins, the naval hero; and here Admiral Sir John Lawson, who was mortally wounded in the sea-fight with the Dutch off Lowestoft in 1665, was buried. The present building contains a considerable number of monuments, but few of those commemorated were persons of eminence. There is a monument on the north wall to Sir John Moore, President of Christ’s Hospital, and friend and partisan of Charles II.; he died in 1702. The largest monument is one on the south side of the chapel to Sir William Russell, who died in 1705. On the north wall there is a tablet in memory of Richard Hale, in gratitude for his granddaughter’s (Lady Williamson) gift of £4000 for the rebuilding of the church. The most recent memorial is one affixed to the north wall commemorating Colonel John Finnis, one of the heroes of the Indian Mutiny 1857.

The names of a large number of benefactors are recorded by Stow, among them, Sir Bartholomew James, William Sevenoaks, Sir William Hariott, whose coat-of-arms is to be seen in the windows of the north and south walls. William Bateman was a donor of £200, and Gilbert Keate of £120.

Richard Smith (1503-63), Dean of Douai, was rector here 1554-57; also John May (d. 1598), Bishop of Carlisle; Dr. John Jortin (1698-1770), author of _The Life of Erasmus_; John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury; William Barlow (d. 1613), Bishop of Rochester and Bishop of Lincoln.

=Mincing Lane= is so called from having been at one time the residence or the property of certain Minchuns or Nuns, Stow says, belonging to St. Helen’s. This house was only founded in 1212.

This street is not mentioned in Riley’s _Memorials_. In the _Calendar of Wills_ it occurs in 1273, “houses in Menechinlane”; also in 1294; in 1304, “land and shops in Minchom Lane.” In 1362, “Mengeonlane”; and many other dates up to 1620.

From end to end this street is lined with solid business houses chiefly in dark imitation stone. A building which attracts attention about half-way down on the east side is the Commercial Sale Rooms, occupying Nos. 30 to 34. This is new, of light-coloured stone, and along the frontage of the top floor run small granite columns in couples. Dunster Court is surrounded by offices, etc. In it is Dunster House, occupied chiefly by brokers and merchants. Next to it is the Clothworkers’ Hall.

THE CLOTHWORKERS COMPANY

The craft of Fullers, and the Fraternity of Sheermen, arose out of an association of persons subsidiary to the ancient “Gild” of Tellarii, or woollen weavers, together with the Burrellers and Testers, who seem to have been absorbed into the great guilds or companies of Drapers and Merchant Taylors, all being associations of persons connected with the fabrication, finishing, or vending of cloth. The earliest notice existing in the Company’s archives is in 1456, respecting the Sheermen.

It appears, by reference to patent roll of 19 Edward IV., membrane 28, “Pro Pannariis Civitatis London,” that the wardens of the fellowship of Sheermen, albeit unincorporate, had the power of search over their own craft, “according to the laudable custom of the city,” but the master wardens and fellowship of the two crafts and mysteries of Drapers and Taylors, were thereby assured that no charter of incorporation should be given to the Sheermen, etc.

The Fullers were incorporated the next year, 28th April, 20 Edward IV., “Pro Fraternitate in arte Fullorum.” They would appear to have been resident in the neighbourhood of Whitechapel Church, that parish having been called “Villa Beatæ Mariæ de Matfellon,” a designation derived, as has been supposed, from the fact of the herb called “Matfellon” (“Fullers’ Teasel”), used extensively by the fullers inhabiting that quarter, growing in a field hard by where their tenter grounds were situate; the patron saint of the Fullers, as of the Clothworkers afterwards, being the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Fullers’ Hall was in Billiter Square.

The Sheermen received their charter, “Incorporatio de lez Shermen, Lond.,” 24th January, 23 Henry VII., 1507-8.

The guilds or companies of Fullers and Sheermen were united and reincorporated under the name and style of “The Master Wardens and Commonalty of Freemen of the Art or Mystery of Clothworkers of the City of London,” 18th January, 19 Henry VIII.

A freeman or woman of the Company is entitled, if well accounted and continuing of good name and fame, and having fallen into poverty or necessity, to be refreshed weekly, monthly, or quarterly towards his or her sustentation and living, out of the corporate funds of the Company, as well as out of the trust funds specifically left for that purpose by benefactors; also to be decently buried on their decease at the costs of the Company. There are a limited number of almshouses for freemen and women, founded by members of the Company, and there are trust funds likewise left by former benefactors for the relief and sustentation of decayed or worn-out members.

The livery is 180 in number; the Corporate Income is £42,000; the Trust Income is £18,000. The hall is at 41 Mincing Lane. Stow merely mentions the existence of the hall. The original hall was burned down in the Fire, rebuilt, taken down in 1856, and rebuilt by Samuel Angell, architect. Among the most distinguished members of this Company were Samuel Pepys, President of the Royal Society, and Master of the Company in 1677; and Lord Kelvin, who filled similar positions.

This rich Company has long been remarkable even among the other wealthy Companies of the City for the encouragement and advancement of technical education. It has either wholly or in part endowed technical and scientific schools at Bradford, Leeds, Huddersfield, Keighley, Bristol, and other places. It has contributed to the City and Guilds of London Technical Institute sums amounting to £118,350, and in addition gives an annual subsidy of £3300.

=Mark Lane=, once Mart Lane, is mentioned in the thirteenth century; in 1276, Robert le Chaloner had a house in Mark Lane in the ward of William de Hadestocke, _i.e._ Town Ward. And the _Calendar of Wills_ mentions the lane a little later and has many references to it. In 1750 it contained “divers large houses for merchants, though some of them are old timber houses.” The street escaped the Fire.

Milton’s friend Cyriack Skinner lived here. Isaac Watts was assistant preacher in a meeting-house in this street.

Mark Lane is of the same general character as Mincing Lane, but possesses a point of distinction in the Corn Exchange. The new building is on the east side, a little to the south of the old one. This is a fine building, erected 1881 by Edward l’Anson. The high glass roof is supported in the interior by rows of light stone columns. The old Corn Exchange, rebuilt 1747 by J. Woods, has a heavy colonnade of fluted Doric columns which attracts attention in the line of the street. In a small court opposite the new building is a fine doorway, and passing down the entry we find ourselves facing a splendid old red-brick City mansion in good repair. Brick pilasters ending in ornate stuccoed capitals run up to a frieze or cornice above the first floor. The elaborate pediment over the doorway is supported by fluted columns and encloses a design of cherubs and foliage.

On the east side of Mark Lane we have Nos. 69 and 70 of rather unusual design, and the remainder of the street is one uniform sweep of buildings in an unobtrusive and useful style.

On the west side near the north end was the church of Allhallows Staining.

=Allhallows Staining= was so called from its having been built of stone and not of timber. It was not burnt down in the Great Fire, but fell down suddenly in 1669, and was rebuilt in 1694. The building was taken down in 1870. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1258.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The family of de Waltham, 1285; the Abbey and Convent of St. Mary Graces; the Crown; George Bingley and others; Lady Slaney, 1802, who bequeathed it to the Grocers Company.

Houseling people in 1548 were 424.

The church contained a beautiful east window of pointed glass presented by the Company of Grocers.

Chantries were founded here by: William de Grenestede, to which John de Paxton, priest, was admitted November 27, 1362; William Palmer, whose endowment fetched £3 : 6 : 8 in 1548.

This church contained monuments to: John Gostin, a benefactor to the parish; Sir Richard Yate, Knight Ambassador for Henry VIII.; William Frith, painter; and Ralf Hanson, a benefactor of the church.

Some of the donors of charitable gifts were: John Gostin, of 800 bushels of coal; Mary Baynham, of £5 : 4s.; Thomas Bulley, Esq., of £15 for the minister and poor; William Winter, of £30 for the education of six boys. Six boys were taught to read and write, and, when qualified, put out as apprentices, with each of whom was given £10, in accordance with the will of William Winter.

=Hart Street, Crutched Friars, Seething Lane.=—These streets may all be taken together. The most remarkable historical association of the streets is the Crutched Friars’ House, on the site of which was afterwards erected the Navy Office. The square court of the office, which had one entrance in Crutched Friars and another in Seething Lane, was originally the cloister garth of the convent. The Navy Office has been removed, but the square remains, and one may still see the lions that were placed at the principal entrance. Pepys lived for nine years in Seething Lane so as to be near his office. Sir Francis Walsingham lived and died in this street, and here the Earl of Essex had his town house.

The monastery of the Crutched or Crossed Friars was founded in 1298. The symbol was a cross worn upon their habit; this cross was made of red cloth. Henry VIII. granted their house to Sir Thomas Wyatt, who built a new mansion on part of the site.

After the destruction of the house, the site of the church became a “Carpenter’s yard, a tennis court, and the like.” The Friars’ Hall became a glasshouse until 1575, when it was destroyed by fire. There appear to be no remains at all of the monastic buildings. For account, see _Mediæval London_, vol. ii. p. 342.

It was in Crutched Friars that the massive fragment of the three seated goddesses, the _Dea Matres_, was found.

Here were the Milbourne Almshouses.

“Concerning this gift of Sir John Milbourn, it appears by Dolphin’s will that he built thirteen Almshouses in his Life time on a Plot of Ground in the Parish of St. Olave’s near the Tower Algate Ward, next adjoining on the South part of the Choir, or Chancel of the Conventual Church of the Priory of Crossed Friers of London, and the Convent of the said Place, within the Precinct sometime of their House.”

Pepys’ connection with Seething Lane has already been mentioned.

In Hart Street lived Sir Richard Whittington; his house was round a courtyard entered by a gateway not far from Mark Lane.

ST. OLAVE, HART STREET

This church is at the corner of Hart Street and Seething Lane. It was formerly called St. Olave Juxta-Turrim. The date of its foundation is unknown, but the present building was probably constructed during the fifteenth century. Stow speaks of Richard and Robert Cely as the “principal builders and benefactors,” but gives no date. It was expensively repaired early in the reign of Charles I. and again in 1863 and 1870, when several interesting relics were transferred from Allhallows Staining, which was annexed. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1314.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of the family of Nevils, 1281, from whom it passed to John Luffwick, and others about 1398, and so passed to several private persons, up to 1557, when it came to the Windsor family, from whom it passed to Sir Andrew Riccard, Knt., who in 1672 bequeathed it to trustees for the parish, of whom there are five.

Houseling people in 1548 were 1435.

The present church is built in the Perpendicular style, and contains two side aisles separated from the central portion by clustered columns and pointed arches with a clerestory above. It is one of the smallest of the City churches being a square of only 54 feet.

There are many interesting monuments, the most ancient of which is a brass in memory of Sir Richard Haddon, mercer, twice Lord Mayor (1506 and 1512). On the east wall of the south aisle William Turner is commemorated, Dean of Wells and physician to Protector Somerset; he was the author of a botanical book, _Herbal_, the first of its kind published in English. Against the north wall there is a monument to Sir Andrew Riccard (d. 1672), one of the greatest merchants of his age. The most interesting person connected with this church is Samuel Pepys, the Diarist, Secretary to the Admiralty in 1673, and President of the Royal Society 1684-85. He was buried here in 1703, and a monument erected to him in 1884 and unveiled by the late James Russell Lowell. His colleague, Admiral Sir John Mennis, is also commemorated by a tablet at the south end of the chancel; he was Comptroller of the Navy and part author of _Musarum Deliciae_. In the parish register the baptism of Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex, is entered; he commanded the parliamentary forces at the outbreak of the Civil War.

The most notable of the benefactors to this parish were: Sir John Worstenholm, donor of £100; Andrew Windsores, of £6 : 13 : 4; Sir James Dean, of £5 : 4s.

In Crutched Friars there were fifteen almshouses belonging to the Drapers Company for as many decayed freemen of that Company and their wives, to whom 5s. per month was allowed and one load of coals per annum. In Gunpowder Alley there were ten almshouses (the gift of Lord Banyan in 1631, but surrendered to the parish by 1732), which allowed each of their poor in that place 1s. to 4s. per week and two, three, or four bushels of coals at Christmas.

Dr. Daniel Mills, to whom Samuel Pepys frequently refers in his _Diary_, was rector here for thirty-two years.

=Seething Lane= betrays some characteristic features. A pair of similar eighteenth-century houses with porches stand on each side of the entrance to Catherine Court. Opposite them are old grimy warehouses. Succeeding these are huge buildings known as Corn Exchange Chambers. No. 40 on the east is an old stuccoed house, and facing the church are more towering warehouses. The churchyard is a quaint little spot, with many tombstones inclining at every imaginary angle and a few twisted young elm-trees. The gateway is curious, being surmounted by a peculiar _chevaux de frise_ of spikes and ornamented by three stuccoed skulls.

Catherine Court is delightful in its completeness. Every house in the two long sober coloured rows, which face one another across a narrow flagged space, is of the same date. The date is given on an oval slab set in the wall at the east end, “Catherine Court, Anno Dom. 1725.”

ALLHALLOWS BARKING

The church of Allhallows Barking stands at the east end of Tower Street near Mark Lane Station. It was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary and all Saints, whence its name. The date of its foundation is unknown, but it is to the convent of Barking that its foundation is probably due, which might carry it back to the end of the seventh century. It was endowed and enlarged by Richard I., Edward I., and Richard III. During the seventeenth century it was repaired five times; it narrowly escaped the Great Fire of 1666. There was extensive restoration during the last century. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1269.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The kings of England, while it was a rectory, 1269; the Abbess and Convent of Barking from 1387, when it became a vicarage; the Crown, at the suppression in 1540, who exchanged it with the Archbishop of Canterbury, who presented in 1584, and in whose successors it continues.

Houseling people in 1548 were 800.

The church consists of a nave and chancel together with north and south aisles. It is 108 feet in length, 67 feet in breadth, and in height 35 feet to the ceiling of the nave, but to that of the aisles considerably less. The western portion is older than the chancel, and probably the original building only occupied the site of the present nave. The massive pillars at the west end are of Norman character in contrast to the slender columns of the eastern arches, probably not erected before the fifteenth century. The large east window, in the Late Decorated style, seems to have been left untouched during the numerous alterations of the seventeenth century. The present tower, erected in 1659 after the original had been destroyed by an explosion, is of plain brick, with a turret and weather-vane, and rises above the west end of the nave. The original tower rose from the west end of the south aisle. The total height of it is 80 feet.

Chantries were founded here by: Adam de Blackeneye, citizen, for himself and Cecilia his wife, A.D. 1295 (his will, dated 1310); Thomas Crolys, and Thomas Pilke, before 1365; John Cade; Robert Tate, mayor of London, who died in 1488; Richard I., augmented by Edward I., who erected there an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary; Edward IV. granted a licence to found a fraternity here (Pat. 9 Edward IV. p. 2. m. 2). This chapel was newly built by Richard III., who founded a college here consisting of a dean and six canons.

Owing to the proximity of the Tower, Allhallows was frequently used for the temporary interment of the remains of those who perished on the scaffold on Tower Hill. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, Bishop Fisher, and Archbishop Laud, found here a temporary grave. Humphrey Monmouth, sheriff in 1535, is one of the most notable persons buried here. Allhallows contains the best collection of monumental brasses to be found in any London church. Some of the most noteworthy are: A Flemish brass, in memory of Andrew Evyngar; that of William Thynne, one of the earliest editors of Chaucer’s works; William Armer, of the Clothworkers Company; and the Tonge brass, the oldest in the City. Under the east window of the south aisle is a monument by Peter Scheemakers, the sculptor of several monuments in Westminster Abbey; the name of the Quaker William Penn is associated with this church, where he was baptized in 1644.

Some of the donors of charitable gifts were: Margaret Martin, £1 : 6 : 8 per annum for the poor; William Armer; Alice Polstead, £6 : 13 : 4 per annum; William Haines, £5 per annum. The parish received a very large number of gifts.

A school was founded in this parish, 1692, by Alderman Hickson for twenty boys. There was also a hospital for the insane, in the time of Edward III.

The most notable vicar was Thomas Ravis (d. 1609), who became Bishop of London.

=Jewry= was formerly called Poor Jewry Street. This street originally consisted of mean tenements, and was greatly improved by the removal of the wall which admitted air into the street and gave space for building. Stow says that “in time of old” there were Jews living in this place, whence its name. In his time there were only a few poor tenements. The name “Poor Jewry” is found in the Records of 1438. As the Jews were banished in 1290, we may therefore conclude that the name was certainly older than that date.

=Trinity Square=, Tower Hill, is of an irregular shape, including an oval garden. It is named after Trinity House, which stands on the north side. In Ogilby’s map is a part of Great Tower Hill. Cooper’s Row was then called Woodruff Lane; George Street was then George Yard, where was the postern of the wall. North of George Street there is still a long piece of the wall standing within certain warehouses. Here are also other walls and fireplaces which are said to have belonged to a workhouse. I cannot, however, discover that there was any workhouse on this spot. This is apparently the same part of the wall that is figured in Wilkinson’s _Londina Illustrata_.

=Trinity House.=—Maitland’s account of the house and the corporation is as follows:

“In Water Lane is situated Trinity House which belongs to an ancient Corporation of Mariners, founded in King Henry VIII.’s time, for the Regulation of Seamen, and security and convenience of ships and mariners on our coasts. In the said King’s reign lived Sir Thos. Spert, Knight, Comptroller of the Navy to that King; who was the first founder and master of the said society of Trinity House; and died Anno 1541, and was buried in the chancel of Stepney church. To whose memory the said Corporation, Anno 1622, set up a monument there for him eighty years and one after the decease of the said Spert, their founder. And by an inscription antienter than that set up by the said corporation, lost long since in the church, but preserved by Norden; we learn, that this gentleman had three wives, Dame Margery, Dame Anne, and Dame Mary, all lying in the chancel there; and that his Coat of Arms was Two Launces in Saltier, between four Hearts, on a Chief, a ship with the sails furled. He was commander of the biggest ship then that the sea bore, namely, _Henry Grace de Dieu_, built by King Henry VIII. near the beginning of his reign.

“The house, where the corporation usually meets, belonged to them before the great Fire, but how long I know not. They took a long lease and rebuilt it. This house was burnt down about the year 1718 again, but is now by the said Brotherhood built up fairly a second time.

“This corporation one of the considerablest in the Kingdom, is governed by a master, four wardens, eight assistants, and the eldest brothers of the Company, as they are called, one and thirty in all. The rest of their Company are called Younger Brothers, without any fixed number: For any seafaring men that will, are admitted into the Society under that name: But they are not in the Government.

“Their service and use is, that they appoint all pilots: They set and place the buoys and seamarks for the safe direction of ships in their sailing. For which they have certain duties payable by Merchant-men. They can licence poor seamen, antient and past going to sea, to exercise the calling of a waterman upon the Thames, and take in fares, tho’ they have not been bound to any one free of the Watermen’s Company. They do maintain in pensions at this time two thousand poor seamen, or their widows; every one of which have at least half-a-crown paid them every first Monday in the month, and some more, besides accidental distressed seamen.

“They have three fair Hospitals, built by themselves; two at Deptford, and one at Mile End, near London. That at Mile End is a very handsome structure with a fair chapel, and is peculiar for decayed Sea-Commanders, masters of vessels, or such as have been pilots, and their widows.

“And thus as they do a great deal of good, so they have large revenues to do it with: Which arise partly, from sums of money given and bequeathed unto them for charitable uses, partly from Houses and Lands also given them, and particularly and chiefly from ballast. For they only have, by Act of Parliament, the benefit of providing ballast for ships in the Thames; and all ships that take in ballast pay them 12d. a ton: For which it is brought to their ship’s side. They have also certain light-houses, as at Scilly and Dungeness in the West. To which Houses all ships pay one half-penny a tun.”

The house that was burned down in 1718 was again rebuilt and pulled down in 1787, when the Corporation removed to Tower Hill.

Lastly, in this group of streets, we arrive at =Tower Hill=. The memories of this place are summed up by Stow and others.

“From and without the Tower ditch west and by north is the said Tower Hill, sometime a large plot of ground, nowe greatly strengthened [straitened] by means of incrochments (unlawfully made and suffered) for gardens and houses.... Upon this Hil is alwayes readily prepared, at the charges of the Citie, a large scaffold, and gallows of timber, for the execution of such traitors or other transgressors as are delivered out of the Tower, or otherwise to the sheriffes of London, by writ, there were to be executed.... On the north side of this hill is the said Lord Lumley’s house.”

The scaffold was removed about the middle of the 18th century.

Many were the disputes between the King and the City as to the setting up of scaffold and gallows, which the King claimed to do, as Tower Hill was in the Liberties of the City and not the City itself. Among notable persons executed there are the names of:

Bishop Fisher, June 22, 1535; Sir Thomas More, July 6, 1535:

Going up the scaffold, which was so weak that it was ready to fall, he said hurriedly to the Lieutenant, “I pray you, Master Lieutenant, see me safe up, and for my coming down let me shift for myself.”—Roper’s _Life_.

Cromwell, Earl of Essex, July 28, 1540; Margaret, Countess of Shrewsbury, mother of Cardinal Pole, May 27, 1541; Earl of Surrey the poet, January 21, 1547; Thomas, Lord Seymour of Sudeley, the Lord Admiral, beheaded March 20, 1549, by order of his brother the Protector Somerset; the Protector Somerset January 22, 1552; Sir Thomas Wyatt, 1554; John Dudley, Earl of Warwick and Northumberland, 1553; Lord Guildford Dudley (husband of Lady Jane Grey), February 12, 1553-54; Sir Gervase Elways or Helwys, Lieutenant of the Tower, hanged for his share in the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury; Earl of Strafford, May 12, 1641; Archbishop Laud, January 10, 1644-45; Sir Harry Vane, the younger, June 14, 1662 (“The trumpets were brought under the scaffold that he might not be heard”); William Howard, Lord Viscount Stafford, December 29, 1680, beheaded on the perjured evidence of Titus Oates and others; Algernon Sidney, December 7, 1683:

Algernon Sidney was beheaded this day; died very resolutely, and like a true rebel, and republican.—Duke of York to Prince of Orange, December 7, 1683.

Duke of Monmouth, July 15, 1685; Sir John Fenwick, January 28, 1697; Earl of Derwentwater and Lord Kenmuir, implicated in the Rebellion of 1715; Lords Kilmarnock and Balmerino, August 18, 1746:

Kilmarnock was executed first and then the scaffold was immediately new strewn with sawdust, the block new covered, the executioner new dressed, and a new axe brought. Then old Balmerino appeared, treading the scaffold with the air of a general, and reading undisturbed the inscription on his coffin.—Walpole to Mann, August 21, 1746.

Simon, Lord Lovat, April 9, 1747. He was not only the last person beheaded on Tower Hill, but the last person beheaded in this country. The Tribulation on Tower Hill, mentioned by Shakespeare, has puzzled his commentators; the reference seems to be to a Puritan congregation, but it is hard to see why they should be ready to endure “the youths that thunder at a playhouse.”

“_Porter._ These are the youths that thunder at a playhouse, and fight for bitten apples; that no audience but the Tribulation of Tower Hill, or the limbs of Limehouse, their dear brothers, are able to endure.”—Shakespeare, _Henry VIII._, Act v. Scene 4.

In 1543 Marillac, the French Ambassador, lived on Tower Hill, and the Duke of Norfolk (son of the victor of Flodden) and his brother, Lord William Howard, frequently paid him “mysterious midnight visits.” Lady Raleigh lodged on Tower Hill while her husband was a prisoner in the Tower.

“The Lady Raleighe must understand his Ma^{ts} Expresse Will and commandment that she resort to her house on Tower Hill or ellswhere w^{th} her women and sonnes to remayne there, and not to lodge hereafter w^{th}in the Tower.”—Orders concerning the Tower of London, to be observed by the Lieutenant (Sir Wade’s Reg., 1605, 1611; Addit. MSS. Brit. Mus., No. 14,044).

William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, was born on Tower Hill, October 14, 1644.

“Your late honoured father dwelt upon Great Tower Hill on the east side, within a court adjoining to London Wall.”—P. Gibson to William Penn, the Quaker (_Sir W. Penn’s Life_, 615).

At a public-house on Tower Hill, known by the sign of the Bull, whither he had withdrawn to avoid his creditors, it is said Otway, the poet, died of want, April 14, 1685; but the precise locality and manner of his death are disputed. In a cutler’s shop on Tower Hill Felton bought the knife with which he stabbed the first Duke of Buckingham of the Villiers family; it was a broad, sharp hunting knife, and cost one shilling. The second duke often repaired in disguise to the lodging of a poor person, “about Tower Hill,” who professed skill in horoscopes. Smith has engraved a view of a curious old house on Tower Hill, enriched with medallions, evidently of the age of Henry VIII., and similar to those at old Whitehall and at Hampton Court.

Hatton, writing in 1708, describes Tower Hill as a place where there are “many good new buildings mostly inhabited by gentry and merchants.”

TOWER OF LONDON

By W. J. LOFTIE

Romance has been more busy with this one building than with all the other edifices of England put together. A volume might be filled with the stories founded in the imaginations of Harrison Ainsworth and his predecessors and imitators. The benefactors, about whose doings he has so much to tell, were first appointed here by Edward VI., to the number of fifteen from the Yeomen of the Guard. The interesting drawings made by George Cruikshank of chambers in towers now long since restored away or otherwise destroyed have been mixed up with fictitious pictures of Lady Jane kneeling at a _prie-Dieu_ on a straw-strewn scaffold, while a hangman brandishes an axe; or of the burning of a sorcerer in the confined space of Tower Green, with flames which would have been sufficient to consume the buildings of the whole fortress. Many as were the inhabitants from time to time, many as were the prisoners, great or small, no “executions,” that is, no putting to death by process of law, ever took place within the precincts, except those of four ladies of the court of Henry VIII. and one other under Queen Mary, while political considerations and fear of a popular movement in favour of the culprit led to the death in the same semi-private place of one of Queen Elizabeth’s some time favourites, Essex. To believe the tale-writers, the Tower and its courtyards were ordinary places of public punishment. It is often remarked as a matter of surprise that no blocks, no axes have remained like jewels and inscriptions in various stone towers. But if we ask why there should be any, we get no answer. The block long shown is probably an ordinary chopping block for faggots and of no great antiquity. The axe is of Roman make, and is known to have been brought here in 1687. Some curious correspondence is in existence as to the preparation of a block by the Sheriff of Middlesex for the decapitation of Lord Lovat. The culprit was so old, obese, and infirm that it was proposed to arrange for the provision of block at which he could kneel without lying down, and some measurements were, it is believed, furnished to the Sheriff with this object. I well remember as a child being permitted, in the old Tower Armoury, to lay my head on Queen Anne Boleyn’s block, as it was called. But Queen Anne, we know, had no block, and was kneeling up when the French executioner, sent by Lord Wentworth, then Governor of Calais, cut off her head by the sweep of a sword. Almost as unfortunate as Ainsworth’s anachronisms are those of innumerable historical writers who confound the Constable with the Lieutenant and both with the Tower Major.

Things are very different now, from the visitors’ point of view, to what they were years ago or less. In those days the so-called “Horse Armoury” was the principal object of attraction. This was built as a long wooden shed on the south side of the White Tower, and was filled with fictitious figures on which some of the ancient armour was shown as that of successive English kings from the Conqueror to James II. We emerged from this gallery by a staircase which led us up into the crypt of the Norman chapel through a window in the apse. It was impossible for any one who had not previously undergone architectural training to recognise the crypt in “Queen Elizabeth’s Armoury,” as this chamber was called. A priest’s cubicle in the side wall was pointed out as “Sir Walter Raleigh’s dungeon,” but the Queen’s robe, covered with mock jewelry, was an object of far greater interest. At every point make-believe was the rule, and when we at last visited a great hall, the roof, side-walls, and pillars of which bristled with swords, bayonets, flint locks, and other similar adornments, our powers of recognising that we were traversing the rooms of the White Tower, which, before the reign of Henry III., formed the principal residence of Rufus, Beauclerc, and other descendants of the Conqueror, were completely obscured. We could perhaps see that we had been made parties to a fiction which dwarfed the most flagrant of Ainsworth or even Victor Hugo, but better counsels prevailed when Hepworth Dixon pointed out, in his two volumes entitled _Her Majesty’s Tower_, the great educational value of a visit to these ancient precincts and the difficulty, under existing arrangements, of obtaining any clear ideas. By degrees everything has been changed. The visitor can pause at every step and can obtain without difficulty the fullest information. In one particular, a serious mistake was committed. The inscribed stones in the Beauchamp Tower were removed and grouped in a single chamber, and it was not perceived till too late that thus they lost more than half their historical value and all that kind of value which may be termed sentimental. There are inscriptions in all the inhabited buildings, and it is satisfactory to know that the mistake has not been repeated, while the example, coupled with the modern aspect of the Beauchamp Tower, forms a useful lesson for would-be architectural restorers.

The Tower of London formed the principal feature of a system of fortification by which William the Norman proposed at once to defend London from without and to prevent the Londoners from rebellion against his authority. The other castles are generally supposed to be those of Wallingford and of Berkhampstead. Here, as a feature of Alfred’s rebuilt Roman Wall, there was a bastion of extra size, and there are supposed references to a building which may have stood on the site afterwards covered by the Norman Keep, or possibly a little lower on the line of the Roman Wall, where the Wakefield Tower, much altered, now serves for the preservation and exhibition of the crown jewels.

The Norman Keep has been known at least since the time of Henry III. as the White Tower. It was commenced in or near 1078, the architect being Gundulf, Bishop of Rochester, who seems to have laboured here, at Rochester Cathedral and Castle, at West Malling, and probably in other places until well on in the reign of Henry I. When, in 1108, he died, his works here and elsewhere were still uncompleted. He probably left the Keep, to which there was no entrance except by a system of scaffolding and ladders connected with the Cold Harbour Tower and the Wakefield Tower by strong walls enclosing a narrow triangular court. The precinct surrounding this fortress gradually grew partly within, partly without, the City boundaries, until it extended over the Outer Ward, as far as the Bell Tower to the west, the Devereux on the north, and the Martin on the east. It included the parish church, afterwards known as St. Peter’s, and the Lanthorn Tower on the south-east, part of an extension of the royal apartments. Adjoining the palace there was a little later, say, in the reign of Henry III., an open space or “garden” south of the White Tower. What had formed the Outer Ward of the Norman Castle now became the Inner Ward of still more extensive precincts under Richard and John. Bishop Longchamp took in a further tract to eastward. King John in 1210 and later years strengthened himself against the Barons of Magna Charta by increasing the outer fortifications, and work went on constantly during the long reign of Henry III. and did not add to his popularity with London citizens. Under Edward I. we first hear of the Barbican, afterwards, down to 1834, known as the Lion Tower. There are two interesting views of this building in Ainsworth’s book: one evidently a careful woodcut of Cruikshank’s drawing on the spot before the destruction of the building; the other an etching with imaginary figures. Outside the defences at this corner was the so-called Conning or Con Tower, a building of timber, opening into a narrow passage. It led out at right angles to the north. The wooden gate, on this site, still faces this way, and it is probable that not only the Tower gates but the City gates at Newgate and Bishopsgate were similarly planned, a point too often forgotten.

As early as 1347 gunpowder was made in the Tower for the French wars of Edward III.—“pulvis pro ingeniis suis,” as we read. The Salt Tower must have received its name from the storage of saltpetre. In 1381 Richard II. was lodged here for safety from Wat Tyler’s mob; and here they seized the Archbishop Sudbury and murdered him. It was here in 1399 that Richard II. surrendered the crown to Henry IV. Jack Cade’s mob attacked the Tower unsuccessfully. It was attacked again ten years later with a similar result, and after this period the history of the fortress as a fortress may be said to terminate.

From the time the Tower combined the functions of a palace and a prison it became customary for every new sovereign to ride in state to the coronation at Westminster through the City from the gate of the Tower. Thus it was that Queen Anne (Boleyn), who had figured in such a procession, was afterwards a prisoner and was here condemned to death and beheaded on Tower Green. Here again her daughter, Elizabeth, after having been a prisoner during the reign of her sister Mary, passed out to her coronation, pausing on the way at the Lion Tower, where in a short prayer she compared herself to Daniel emerging in safety from the lion’s den. The last English king who thus went to Westminster was Charles II. He and his brother James II. were lodged in the Tower on several occasions of public danger, but the Civil War, then recently ended, had shown plainly the weakness of mediæval fortification against artillery. At the time of the death of Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex, who in 1683 committed suicide or was murdered in his lodgings in the Lieutenant’s House, both Charles and his brother were in the royal apartments.

When the Tower ceased to be used as a palace, the old buildings to the south of the Keep fell into ruin and have now all disappeared. They included an annex of some size and importance which contained a few Roman bricks, possibly taken from such parts of the wall as here reached the river’s bank. The garden disappeared with the hall and the wardrobe, and even the names of the buildings adjoining were changed. The Garden Tower is now called the Bloody, and the odd reason used to be given that it was because here the sons of Edward IV. were smothered. This is extremely unlikely, and the name of the gateway was more likely derived from the supposed suicide of Henry Percy, eighth Earl of Northumberland, who was found dead in his bed with three bullets through his heart on June 21, 1585. The Hall Tower, since the disappearance of the adjoining Hall (in which Queen Anne Boleyn was tried), has been renamed _The Wakefield_, and here the regalia, described below, are now shown. This is the sole relic, with the White Tower, of the Norman buildings of Gundulf. There is a Norman crypt, but the upper structure has been “restored” away, with large but unsightly windows, and there is a bridge for the convenience of the Keeper of the Crown Jewels, whose apartments are in St. Thomas’s Tower, usually renamed _The Traitors Gate_. Between the archway of this gate and the _Byward Tower_, the chief entrance from the outer ward, is a long wall, facing which, on the north side of the narrow roadway, the buildings of the Lieutenant’s Lodgings look over the walls of the inner ward, ending with the _Bell Tower_. The bell now does duty at St. Peter’s Church. The roadway is continued to the north as Mint Street, which further on used to be known as Irish Mint Street. From the corner under the Bell Tower we see the _Beauchamp Tower_, and beyond it again the _Devereux_. There is a walk along the leads of the roofs connecting the Bell with the Devereux, and here, it is said by the romance writers, Lady Jane, confined in the Lieutenant’s Lodgings, used to meet her husband, who carved her name in his chamber in the Beauchamp Tower. The Lieutenant’s Lodgings have of late been renamed _The King’s House_, and in the late reign, the Queen’s House, a change for which no reason has ever been assigned.

The towers along the south curtain of the outer ward are the _Cradle_, so named probably from an arrangement for receiving supplies from a boat on the Thames, the _Well_, and the _Develin_ or Galleyman’s, so named after an old warder. On the north side are three comparatively modern forts, called _Legge’s Mount_, _North Bastion_, and _Brass Mount_, the first from George Legge, Lord Dartmouth, Master General of the Ordnance in 1682.

On the eastern side of the inner ward are some old and, for the most part, unrestored buildings known as _Martin’s Tower_, at the north-eastern corner; _Constable’s Tower_, _Broad Arrow_, and the _Salt Tower_, already mentioned. The regalia used to be kept in the Martin, which was also known as the Burbidge or Brick Tower. Here in 1671 the crown, then in the custody of Talbot Edwards, was stolen by Colonel Blood, who carried it nearly to the gate of the Byward Tower before he was stopped. He was eventually pardoned by Charles II. The Broad Arrow shows us what some of us remember—the Beauchamp before Salvin’s ruthless “restoration.”

The Church of _St. Peter ad Vincula_ was so called from the Romanist saint’s day, August 1, on which it was consecrated, and not from any allusion to the Tower as a prison. It has often of late been described as a Chapel Royal, but if there is any Chapel Royal in the Tower it is St. John’s. What we now see was built in 1512, after a fire. The old church was long vacant because of the murder, by the parson, of a friar named Randolph in 1419. Edward IV. proposed to place here a dean and chapter, but died before anything was arranged. Edward VI. put the church under the care of the Bishop of London, and it has since usually been served by a chaplain appointed by the Crown. The organ was formerly in the Chapel Royal at Whitehall. There are few monuments, but the burial-places in the chancel of the headless bodies of two of the wives of Henry VIII., as well as of the Dukes of Somerset and Northumberland and some others, are marked by an encaustic pavement, highly inappropriate to what Lord Macaulay described as the saddest spot on earth.

There are several oratories in the different towers, as, for example, the apartments over the Traitors’ Gate, known as St. Thomas’s Tower, where the Keeper of the Jewels is lodged. A similar place for private prayer in the Wakefield Tower has been in great part obliterated. Here, according to an ancient tradition, the Duke of Gloucester, afterwards Richard III., stabbed Henry VI. at his devotions in 1471.

The yeoman waiters or warders are not Yeomen of the Guard, but members of a separate corps. There are forty yeomen, all old soldiers and ranking as sergeant majors in the army. They seemed to have been called beefeaters from the very beginning in Tudor times. The word “yeomen” is often reckoned as “gentlemen,” being next below “esquire.” They were only fifteen at first, but Charles II. improved their position and increased their numbers. Part of their duty used to be to assist the yeoman gaoler in the custody of prisoners. Persons condemned were by them handed over to the Sheriff of Middlesex at the Con Gate, where the City and Tower precincts meet.

THE JEWELS

The crown and other parts of the regalia of the state were long treasured in the Martin Tower. They were previously in a building adjoining the palace, on the south side of the White Tower. The removal took place about 1641, which may be the date at which the palace buildings were finally pulled down. There had been a “secret jewell house” in the White Tower in which the most precious or venerable objects were kept. At the time of the Great Rebellion they were taken to Westminster and were all broken up and, as far as possible, destroyed. This sacrilege, for so it must be called, took place in 1649, in the August which followed the death of Charles I. A certain number of articles were sent back to the Tower, no doubt to be melted down at the Mint. These last included “Queen Edith’s crown” of silver-gilt and “King Alfred’s crown” of gold wirework, with a few slight jewels set in it and two bells. This must have been an object of the highest antiquity, perhaps reaching back to the eleventh century. It need hardly be remarked that “Queen Edith” is a wholly mythical person in this connection, no wife of a sovereign of the house of Wessex being called “Queen” or wearing a crown. The Confessor’s wife was “the lady Edith,” his mother “the old lady.” There is no saying what England lost by the wholesale destruction of these old crowns. There is a certain satisfaction in reflecting that the Roundhead treasury was not greatly benefited, the value of the objects sold or melted amounting only to £14,221 : 15 : 4. The Crown jewels as we see them now consist mainly of those required at a coronation, but the old “Regalia” comprised “one christall pott” standing on crystal balls and mounted with silver gilt, with a mannikin on the handle, valued then at £9; two gold trencher plates at £85; more than two dozen crystal cups mounted in gold, and many set with jewels; crystal and gold dishes; a crystal watch, valued at £30; salt-cellars of all kinds of precious materials; twenty-six agate bowls and cups—agate was thought to protect the drinker against poison; mazers, some mounted in gold; an “old rusty knife, forke, and spoone,” garnished with gold—it is often asserted that Charles II. brought in the use of forks, but there were several forks in the old collection; candlesticks; an old woman of gold for a salt-cellar, and numerous objects of mother-of-pearl. In addition there were many single stones, and among them “one ruby ballass pierced, and wrapt in a paper by itselfe, valued at £4.” The Puritan framers of the catalogue did not dare evidently to call any attention to the historical and monarchical associations of this stone. It remained unsold until Oliver Cromwell coming into sole power, and perhaps foreseeing that, if he lived, these things might be useful in a coronation, stopped the sale and destruction of the Crown jewels. This ruby, though it is not of first-rate quality and is pierced, was saved and is identified by antiquaries as the jewel which Peter, King of Castile, gave to the Black Prince in 1367, as part payment, it is supposed, for his help in the battle of Najera. Peter, who received the name of “the Cruel,” is said to have fought the Moorish king of Grenada for the sake of his jewels, of which this was one, and to have murdered him in cold blood. Henry V. wore it at Agincourt, in 1415, in his helmet. Another relic of the old regalia is the sapphire in the front of the circlet. It was carried away by James II. when he left England in 1688, and was restored by Cardinal York (Henry IX.) by will, with some other jewels, to George III., in 1807. Another sapphire figures in the cross on the summit of the State crown, as it did on that of Queen Victoria. Its history points to its having been worn by Edward the Confessor in a ring. The legend connecting it with the present regalia is in the _Coronation Book of Edward VII._, p. 56 (Cassell and Company, 1902). A silver-gilt spoon of thirteenth-century work, possibly of twelfth, is the only other object known to have been in the old regalia.

The other objects exhibited were chiefly made for the coronation of Charles II. Silver or silver-gilt plate of that period is very scarce, and the examples before us, most of which were made by Sir Robert Vyner, are of the highest quality of which the period was capable. It is not necessary to go through the different items of which the collection consists. It will be sufficient to warn the visitor that when he reads on the label “Crown of St. Edward,” he must take it as if the words were “Crown (made by Vyner in imitation of that in the old regalia called the Crown) of St. Edward.” The State crown was worn by King Edward VII. at his coronation and is the same as that of Queen Victoria, somewhat enlarged. It is of silver and has about 3000 diamonds, 227 pearls, 5 rubies, 17 sapphires, and 11 emeralds. The Sword of State was carried by the Marquis of Londonderry, the Sceptre by the Duke of Argyll, and the Sword of Mercy by the Duke of Grafton. At the coronation of George III. the sword was forgotten and was left behind in St. James’s Palace. The Lord Mayor’s sword was borrowed in the Abbey and was borne by the Earl of Huntingdon. The right sword was, however, brought and laid on the altar before the close of the service. At the coronation of George IV. it was carried by the Duke of Dorset, and at that of William IV. by the Duke of Wellington. At the coronation of Queen Victoria the sword was borne by Lord Melbourne. Three other swords were borne at the coronation of George IV., those, namely, of temporal justice, of spiritual justice, and of mercy.

A visitor who has time should not leave the Wakefield Tower without seeing an interesting series of stars, collars, and badges of the different orders of knighthood. They are exhibited in the side cases, as are also the silver trumpets of the Guards and other objects of the kind.

THE ARMOURY

Although great stores of arms were accumulated in the Tower during the Tudor reigns, we do not know of any special collection of ornamental suits until much later. The armourers of Henry VIII.—men from Italy, and in particular from Milan and Mantua, whence such words as milliner, portmanteau, and others—dwelt and worked at Greenwich, where in the Green Chamber were twelve suits of tilting armour for men and horses, in the Great Chamber, nine, and in the Harness Chamber, seven, some of them still incomplete when the inventory was made in 1631. The tilting suits were removed to the Tower in 1660. Previously the arms stored there were chiefly for soldiers, and comprised, in the reign of Elizabeth, 2000 equipments for foot-soldiers, known as demi-lances, as many corslets, 1000 shirts of mail, 3000 morions or helmets, and as many steel caps, called “skulles” in the inventory. Towards the end of the reign the more ornamental horse and tilting armour began to be brought up from Greenwich, but the removal was not complete till the time of Charles II., when the old palace was pulled down to make way for the first buildings of what is now Greenwich Hospital.

Soon after, the picturesque building, now used as a military hospital, was designed by Sir Christopher Wren for the reception of the armour. About the same time, Wren’s friend, Grinling Gibbons, was employed to carve the horses on which the full knightly panoply could be exhibited. Some of these horses still remain and must be admired as real works of art. Previously, no doubt, the equestrian armour was placed upon horses such as are now called clothes-horses in a house, or saddle horses in a harness room, convenient enough for the purpose, but unsuitable for any scenic effect.

The armour was next removed to the Small Armoury. The name does not mean that the building was small, but that it was designed for the storage and exhibition of small arms, as distinguished from cannon and other great guns. It was situated where the Waterloo Barracks are now, and was entirely destroyed by fire in 1841, having become a store and being full of inflammable material. It must have resembled the central part of the great barrack at Winchester, built also by Wren. It was 245 feet long by 60 wide. Founded by James II., it was finished by William and Mary, who at the opening dined in the great room in state “having all the warrant workmen and labourers to attend them, dressed in white gloves and aprons, the usual badges of the orders of masonry,” as Dodsley tells us, writing in 1761. The “entablature and triangular pediment of the Doric order” of which he speaks, “and the king’s arms, with enrichments of trophy work,” were saved, and are now built into a wall on the south side of a storehouse near the new Lanthorn Tower. The great Small Armoury was undisturbed in 1821, but large quantities of weapons had overflowed into the White Tower, where an armourer named Harris, whose operations were much admired in their day, with his successors, arranged them in various fantastic designs, many of them very ingenious. It was Harris who made the trophies of arms at Hampton Court. “He was a common gunsmith, but after he had performed this work, which is the admiration of people of all nations, he was allowed a pension from the Crown for his ingenuity.” This Small Armoury contained, at the time of the fire in 1841, 280 stands of muskets and small arms, ready for use.

The horse armoury had fortunately been removed some ten or twelve years before the fire. A shed-like gallery, already mentioned, was built south of the White Tower, and was ready in 1826, when the collection was removed and arranged by Sir Samuel Meyrick. The visitor on entering saw a long line of equestrian figures, twenty-two in number, clothed in the armour supposed to belong to various reigns from Edward I. to James II. As a fact, very little of the armour dated before the time of Henry VIII., and the chain mail on a figure labelled Edward I. probably came from India. A rearrangement was made by Mr. Hewitt about 1859, and a catalogue. Ten years later a further arrangement was carried out by Mr. Planché. In 1883, the whole collection was removed to the upper stories of the White Tower, where it has been examined and put into something like order by Lord Dillon, whose views are considerably more scientific than those of Meyrick, Hewitt, or Planché. The change in the aspect of the collection is considerable, and the visitor may be certain of a great number of pieces of which few could be considered authentic before. Lord Dillon calls attention to the mounted figure in chain mail which used to do duty for Edward I. and before that, for William the Conqueror. There are several other suits of Oriental armour, but this one seems, in part at least, to be Persian. The only dated suit was sent to Charles II. by the Great Mogul about 1660. In the so-called Council Chamber is a suit worn by Lord Waterford at the Eglinton Tournament. It shows armour of the time of Richard III. Several suits made for Henry VIII. are beside it, and some also from Nuremberg of the same date. The finest “was sent over in 1514, having been made by Conrad Sensenhofer, whose mark is on the helmet. It was a present from the Emperor Maximilian to his ally and relative, Henry VIII. Another maker is well represented, Missaglia of Milan, by a suit for foot combats. Another bears the Burgundian “cross ragulé,” which must not be confused with the ragged staff of Robert Dudley, Queen Elizabeth’s Earl of Leicester. This last-named suit is very rich in extra pieces for the protection of the left side in tournaments. Another was worn by Dymoke of Scrivelsby at the coronation of George II. It would be tedious to go through all the armour, but a case in the first room contains an extensive collection of helmets, many of them modern imitations, made in Germany, of ancient forms. “The genuine tilting helmets,” says Lord Dillon, “will be distinguished from false ones by the arrangement of the ocularium or eye slit, which in the modern examples would allow of the easy insertion of the opponent’s lance point.”

It may be worth while here to observe that in the lists two knights passed each other on the left hand. In many modern pictures of mediæval fights we see the knights each with his lance in the right hand and pointing towards another knight on his right. This would have been impossible, the weight of the lance alone being sufficient to make it so. If the combatant struck his opponent, he must infallibly have put his shoulder out and probably would also have broken some of his ribs with his heavily mailed elbow. In old pictures, and particularly in those representing tilt yards, the knights will be seen keeping the “off side,” the lance being held diagonally across the horse’s neck, the elbow being free so that no fracture ensues when the point strikes anything hard. The extra pieces in the so-called Leicester’s suit were, therefore, as Lord Dillon points out, “for the tilt yard and protected the left side, that on which the riders passed each other.” Pictures in the National Gallery and illuminated manuscripts in the British Museum may be consulted on this subject.

Of the more miscellaneous objects in the collection it is not necessary to say much here. Everything is carefully labelled. There is some Greek bronze armour from Cumæ near Naples. The series of halberds is remarkably fine and varied, as are the swords, the maces, early fire-arms, and gauntlets. We may sum up, in the words of the _Guide_ of 1888, and make up our minds “that of the early linen armour, supplemented with iron, of the Bayeux Tapestry, we have no examples extant; that of the Crusaders and their ‘panoply’ in the twelfth century we are almost equally ignorant; that monumental brasses and illuminated manuscripts enable us both to judge how the knight was armed in the thirteenth century, and also to identify a rare helmet here and there as of the same period; but that for authentic suits of _cap a pie_ and even much less, and for horse armour, apart from mere saddlery or harness, we must depend on a period long after the invention and common use of guns and gunpowder, a period when the skill of the armourer was exercised to ornament tilting suits, defence against fire-arms proving impossible.”

For an account of the ancient foundation known as St. Katherine’s by the Tower see _Mediæval London_, vol. ii. p. 335.

ST. PETER AD VINCULA

For history see p. 292.

The earliest date of an incumbent is 1355.

The patronage of the church has always been in the hands of the Crown; it was constituted a rectory with a rector and three chaplains by Edward III., February 10, 1353-54.

The chapel consists of a nave and chancel and an aisle on the north side, separated from the nave by columns of the Decorated period of architecture. It is 66 feet in length, 54 feet in width, and 25 feet in height.

In this church are buried: Anne Boleyn; Katherine Howard; Sir Thomas More; Cromwell, Earl of Essex; Lady Shrewsbury; Admiral Lord Seymour; the Protector Somerset; John Dudley, Earl of Northumberland; Lady Jane Grey; Lord Guilford Dudley; Sir Thomas Overbury; Sir John Elcot; Okey the Regicide; the Duke of Monmouth; Lords Lovat, Kilmarnock, and Balmerino, and others of lesser note.

=The Minories= lies within Portsoken Ward. Stow says:

“This Portsoken which roundeth as much as the Franchise at the gate, was sometime a guilde and had this beginning as I have reade. In the dayes of King Edgar more than 600 yeres since, there were thirteen knights wellbeloved to the king and realme (for service by them done) which requested to name a certain portion of land on the east part of the Citte, left desolate and forsaken by the inhabitants by reason of too much servitude. They besought the king to have this land, with the Libertie of a guilde for ever; the king granted to their request with conditions following that is that each of them should victoriously accomplish three combates, one above the ground, one under ground, and the thirde in the water, and after this at a certaine day in East Smithfield they should run with speares against all commers, all which was gloriously performed.”

Of the Minories, Stow says:

“From the west part of this Tower Hill towards Ealdegate being a long continual street amongst other smaller buildings in that row there was sometimes an abbey of Nunnes of the order of St. Clare called the Minories.”

This abbey was founded in 1293 by Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, King Edward I.’s brother, and was suppressed in 1539. For account see _Mediæval London_, vol. ii. p. 329.

The Minories was later noted for its gunsmiths. “In place of this house of Nunnes is now builded divers faire and large houses, for armour, and the habiliments of war.”

HOLY TRINITY, MINORIES

On the suppression of the abbey its chapel became a parish church for the inhabitants of the old monastic precincts. It escaped the Great Fire, but was entirely rebuilt in 1706, at the expense of Daniel King, Lady Pritchard and the parishioners. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1595.

The patronage of the church originally in the hands of the Crown passed by its union with St. Botolph, Aldgate (1899), to the Bishop of London.

The building is very unpretentious. Since 1899 it has been used as a Sunday School and parish institute. It has no proper tower, only a turret at the west end. There is some fine carving at the west end, preserved from the old church and bearing the date 1620.

No chantries were founded here.

The church contains monuments to Colonel William Legge, Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance to Charles I. and Charles II., who died in 1672, also his son, first Lord Dartmouth, Admiral of the Fleet, who died in 1691. When the vaults were examined in 1849 a head was brought to light, said to be that of Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, father of Lady Jane Grey, which had been preserved from decay by sawdust; it is now kept in a glass case in the vestry of St. Botolph, Aldgate. The church was attended by Sir Isaac Newton, when Master of the Mint.

Daniel King was donor of £200 and Lady Pritchard of £100 in 1706, for the rebuilding of the church. No legacies or bequests are recorded by Stow.

GROUP VI

The sixth group of streets in our division of the City contains all those streets lying north of St. Paul’s Churchyard and Ludgate Hill.

We may consider this group as connected with Newgate Street and the streets to the north, and Paternoster Row with the streets and lanes to north and south. These lie partly in the ward of Farringdon Within and partly in that of Farringdon Without.

Probably at or before the beginning of the thirteenth century, certainly in its latter half, the present two wards of Farringdon Without and Farringdon Within formed but one ward under one alderman. That ward in early records is found named, as are most other wards, after its successive aldermen, thus: “Ward of Anketin de Auvergne” (1276-77) (Riley’s _Memorials_); “the ward which was that of Ralph le Fevre” (1278); “Ward of William de Farndone” (1283); “Warda Willelmi de Farendone infra et extra” (1286-87). Yet just before the last date the ward was called after the two City gates which it contained, thus: “Warda de Lodgate et Neugate: Willelmus de Farndon [aldermannus]” (_c._ 1285) (Sharpe, _Calendar of Wills_); and so it continued some time, for we find: “Warda Ludgate et Neugate presentat Nicholaum de Farndon [aldermannum]” (1293). In each case the whole ward, both within the gates and without, is intended, but it is said that the part without the gates was sometime known as the “Ward of Fletestrete” (Riley’s _Memorials_). In the fourteenth century the name of William de Farendone became permanently attached to this ward, as: [warda] “Farndon Infra [et] Farndon Extra: Nicholaus de Farndon [aldermannus]” (1319-20) (Sharpe); [warda] “Farndone infra et extra” (1320) (Riley); “Warda de Farndone” (1320); “Garde de Faryngdone” (1383). In 1393 the ward was made into two wards, each with its separate alderman. Henceforward the aldermanry without the walls was known by an equivalent to the present style, as: “Ward of Farndone Without” (1415) (Riley); “Ward of Faryndone Without” (1416) (Riley); “Ward of Faryngdon Without” (1444) (_Catalogue of Ancient Deeds_); “Warde of Faringdon Extra, or Without” (1598) (Stow); and so on with varieties of spelling.

The Roman gate of the west stood a little to the north of the later gate. The massive alcoves of the gate were uncovered in Giltspur Street near the end of the nineteenth century.

According to Stow, the “New Gate” was erected by Henry I. to relieve the traffic which had been stopped by the enclosures of St. Paul’s Precinct. Formerly, he said, the traffic had been conducted along a single street leading from Aldgate to Ludgate. There is evidently some confusion here. The “West Gate” is mentioned in a charter dated 857. It is possible that it means Ludgate; it is not, however, probable that the Saxons allowed the trade of the north and the west, which was brought down the great highway to the marsh of Thorney and was then, even before the Roman occupation, diverted along Oxford Street and Holborn, to resume its old course across the Marsh and Thorney Island, or that they would have gone out of their way to construct a new line of route along the present Piccadilly and the Strand.

It seems perfectly certain that the old line of trade was followed, partly because trade always does follow in accustomed lines, and partly because there was no reason why it should not do so. I read, therefore, the history of Newgate as follows:—The Roman Highway lay along Oxford Street and Holborn; it crossed the valley of the Fleet by a causeway through the mud and by a bridge over the stream—the causeway kept in place by piles and the bridge also resting on wooden piles. On the other side, the causeway sloped up the bank to the west gate, which stood on the hill as part of the Roman wall. When the Saxons in the sixth century came in to the City the causeway and the bridge had been swept away and destroyed; the old gate was ruinous. The merchants themselves, when they resumed the former trade, found it easier to break through the wall than to clear away the ruins of the old gate. They then made their own causeway and built their own bridge over the marshy valley and the stream. When Alfred restored the walls, he accepted the new gate and probably strengthened it, and built up the wall over the old Roman gate. This gate it was which Henry I. rebuilt, not, as Stow says, built. By this time, however, Ludgate had been opened as a postern; another causeway and another bridge had been built across the valley, and houses were springing up along the rising ground of Fleet Street and the Strand. And it is also quite possible that the rebuilding of the gate led to some reconstruction of the line of way through the City.

Henry I., therefore, rebuilt New Gate.

It was a prison from the first. All the City gates were prisons, the upper chambers being strong and easily guarded by the permanent watch below. Newgate, however, became a more important prison than any of the others, “as appeareth,” says Stow, “by records in the reign of King John and of other kings.”

It would take a whole volume to pass in review the prisoners of Newgate. Let me take one—an obscure person—because he belongs to the life of London, whereas the better known prisoners belong to the history of the country. It was on the eve of Pentecost, 1388, that William Wotton, Alderman of Dowgate, went to the Shambles in Newgate Street and asked of one Richard Bole, a butcher, the price of certain pieces of beef. Richard replied that it was four shillings. “That,” said the Alderman, “is too dear.” Quoth Richard, impudently, “I do verily believe that the meat is too dear for thee; who, I suppose, never bought as much meat as that, for thine own use.” Observing, then, that the inquirer wore an Alderman’s hood, he asked, “Art thou an Alderman?” “Yes,” William Wotton replies; “why askest thou?” Whereupon he said, “It is a good thing for thee and thy fellows, the Aldermen, to be so wise and wary, who make but light of riding on the Pavement, as some among ye have been doing.” Here we have reference to some grievance of the day. Why should the Aldermen ride upon the pavement? One supposes that the pavement was meant for the convenience of the stalls and not intended for horses. It was constructed in 1339.

However, William Wotton very speedily had this impudent butcher laid by the heels in Newgate. He was haled before the Mayor and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment, after which he was to carry a lighted taper through the Shambles and Chepe as far as St. Lawrence Lane, when he was to offer his taper at the Guildhall Chapel. His fellows of the same trade, however, petitioned, and the imprisonment was remitted; but he walked in procession bearing that lighted taper, an object-lesson to those who would beard an Alderman.

In the fifteenth century the want of ventilation and the confinement of many in so narrow a place bred gaol-fever, which never afterwards left the prison. In 1419 the gaolers of Newgate all died, and prisoners to the number of sixty-four.

The case of Hugh le Bever may also be mentioned. He was charged with the murder of his wife Alice. He refused to plead. He was therefore taken to Newgate and there put in penance until his death. That is to say, he was placed in solitary confinement—one can still see the narrow cell in the old gate-prisons (for example, that at Rouen)—and there left to his own meditations, with a daily allowance of bread and water. One wonders how long the poor wretch lingered there. Perhaps his mind fell into a comatose condition in which the days passed on without any other feeling than that of blank misery, while the body grew weaker. Perhaps he went mad. Perhaps he begged to be taken out and hanged. So difficult it was, so heavy the task of making the people obedient to the law.

In the fourteenth century we find a new departure of a remarkable character. There sprang up a new thing in the land—a feeling of compassion for the misery of the unhappy prisoners of Newgate and other gaols in London. The wills beginning in the year 1348 show bequests for the poor prisoners. From 1348 to 1500 the wills published in the _Calendar_ show eighty-one such bequests. This is very curious. It shows an humanising influence of some kind—what was it? Not the influence of monks and friars, because their spiritual force was fast declining. Was it the Lollarding with which the City of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was notoriously “infested”? The question is not easy to answer. But the fact remains. Further, we find that light bread was confiscated and given to the prisoners of Newgate; that all other kinds of food when confiscated for any reason, were also sent there; and that broken meats were sent to the prison from all men’s tables. It would appear, therefore, that no food was supplied to prisoners at the time, an inhuman practice, followed, until their abolition, by all the debtors’ prisons, causing for hundreds of years miseries unspeakable and incredible, were it not that compassion is a plant of such slow growth and so fragile.

The outbreak of gaol fever of 1419 was caused by the well-meant but injudicious action of the Mayor and Corporation.

They issued an ordinance, the reason of which is explained by the preamble.

“Whereas the commendable intentions and charitable purpose of those who have been governors and presidents of the City of London heretofore have ordained a prison, called Ludgate, for the good and comfort of poor freemen of the said city who have been condemned, to the end that such poor prisoners might, more freely than others who are strangers, dwell in quiet in such place, and pray for their benefactors, and live upon the alms of the people.... Now, from one day to another, the charitable intentions and commendable purposes aforesaid are frustrated and turned to evil, inasmuch as many false persons, of bad disposition and purpose, have been more willing to take up their abode there, so as to waste and spend their goods upon the ease and licence that there is within, than to pay their debts; and, what is even more, do therein compass, conspire, and imagine oftentimes, through others of their false _coin_, to indict good and loyal men for felonies and treasons of which they have never been guilty.”

In other words, freemen of the City chose rather to live in the gaol of Ludgate, on the alms provided for poor prisoners, than to work and pay their debts; and, worse still, they made use of their time to get up conspiracies against honourable citizens. The only remedy that could be devised was to move all the prisoners to Newgate, and close the gaol. This was done in the month of June, but in November, Richard Whittington being mayor, it was found that most of the wretches taken to Newgate had died there, “by reason of the fetid and corrupt atmosphere”; whereupon Ludgate was reopened, “seeing that every person is bound to support and be tender of the lives of men.”

In April 1431, Whittington being dead, the prisoners of Ludgate were once more removed to Newgate, and, to the general indignation, eighteen of them were led through the streets, pinioned as if they had been felons, to the Sheriff’s Compter, probably with the view of not crowding Newgate again. But in June of the same year they were all taken back to Ludgate, which remained a debtor’s prison for the citizens of London till the year 1762, when the gate was taken down and the prisoners removed to the London Workhouse in Bishopsgate Street. This double removal looks as if works of enlargement or of repair were in progress at Ludgate. Twenty years later, in 1454, it was greatly enlarged by Dame Agnes Forster; see also p. 196.

Meanwhile, however, New Gate and Prison had been enlarged or practically rebuilt by Whittington, who began it, and his executors, who finished it. He seems to have furnished the prison with additional chambers on the south side. It is pleasant to think that one of the last actions of this great and good man was to improve the “fetid and corrupt atmosphere in the noxious Prison of Newgate.”

It may be remarked that the gate was decorated with a bas-relief of the famous cat, showing that there was current in Whittington’s own life the story of the cat.

Other works of repair, enlargement, and restoration were carried on in 1555 and in 1630. In 1666 the gate and prison were destroyed in the Great Fire, but rebuilt in 1672.

The gate was removed in 1767, and now the prison has been demolished also.

The modern account of Newgate Prison will be found in _London in the Eighteenth Century_, p. 538.

Outside Newgate and on the western edge of the river, there was a suburb dating from very early times. It grew up round Smithfield where horses were bought and sold, and where young men shot with the bow and ran and wrestled. It contained the people who belonged to the service of the religious houses there, and those who belonged to the hospital. We also find, outside Newgate, “rents” in the thirteenth century, and bakehouses and tanneries also outside Newgate, while the spurriers in 1355 are enjoined to work in their quarters outside Newgate until curfew rings from St. Sepulchre’s Church.

Within Newgate, where a “pavement” was constructed to keep the stalls from the mud of the unpaved street, was the Market of the Shambles. Here were two churches—St. Ewen’s, at the north-east corner of Warwick Lane, and St. Nicholas Fleshambles in what is now King Edward Street, formerly Butcher’s Lane or Stinking Lane. Both parishes were united to form that of Christ Church after the Dissolution.

Newgate Market is generally spoken of as a meat market only, which in later years it became; but formerly many other things were sold there. It is the natural tendency of markets to admit goods for sale other than those for which they were created.

Thus we find in the fourteenth century that wheat was sold in the “corn market of Newgate”; that poulterers who were freemen had to sell their fowls either in Newgate Market or else west of the Tun in Cornhill; that cheese brought into the City by “foreigners” had to be sold in the market between the Shambles and Newgate, and nowhere else; that blacksmiths were forbidden to sell their goods except in the pavement of Newgate or else by the Tun of Cornhill; and that pork was also sold in the market. Further investigations would doubtless bring to light the fact that it became a general market.

There was a great deal of trouble with the butchers. They were an unruly class—we have seen how one of them was put to shame for impudence; they persisted in pouring the blood from the shambles down the gutters; they carried the offal through the streets, and threw it into the river at the Temple. In 1369 strict ordinances were passed that animals should be slaughtered outside the walls. As the butchers disobeyed the law it was again proclaimed two years later, with the exception for the butchers of East Chepe and the Stocks. I do not think, however, that the slaughter of beasts was ever carried on without the walls. The market stood all along Newgate Street, with a “Middle Row” of sheds, under which were the stalls for the sale of grain, cheese, butter, poultry, etc., besides that of meat. The butchers also had their stalls in Butchers’ Lane. The Middle Row became like that in Holborn—a row of houses over shops. This Middle Row must have made Newgate Street narrow and intolerably dark and close. The Great Fire swept it away, and among the improvements made after the Fire it was ordered “that the Ground where the Middle Row of the Shambles stood and the ground of the four late houses in Newgate Market between Warwick Lane End and the Bell Inn there shall be laid into the streets” (Maitland).

Those who can remember Newgate Street before the butchers’ shops were taken to Smithfield, can bear witness to the horrible appearance of the street, lined as it was with butchers’ shops, where the passenger, who never went through the street if he could avoid it, was jostled by greasy blue smocks, and saluted on the cheek with ribs and legs of bleeding ox flesh. The end of Newgate Street and of Paternoster Row facing Cheapside was, in 1720, called Jackanapes Row, a modern name given for some unknown reason. Passing along Newgate Street on the north side we come to Christ’s Hospital.

CHRIST’S HOSPITAL

When we pass from the pre-Reformation schools to the great institution of Christ’s Hospital, which has become indissolubly associated with the name of Edward VI., the first Protestant king of England, we might expect to find that we passed from darkness to light; from groping in the dark after fragmentary hints of evidence, to an era of charters and documents well known and well understood. Yet there is no great school the history of which has been more misunderstood or misrepresented than that of Christ’s Hospital. In 1898, at the laying of the foundation stone of the new buildings at Horsham, Sussex, which are destined to convert Christ’s Hospital from a London school into a “non-local” public school, the Duke of Cambridge, as Chairman of the Governors of Christ’s Hospital, gave the layer of the stone, the Prince of Wales, a succinct version of the story of its origin.

“It was founded,” he said, “by the saintly King Edward the VIth, who, besides assigning it a site in the City of London, with his own hands inserted in the charter power to take lands in mortmain, which has enabled the munificence of subsequent benefactors to provide for nearly three and a half centuries for the nurture and education of children.”

So the historian of Cambridge University, Mr. J. Bass Mallinger,[13] speaking of Edward VI. had said: “Upwards of 30 Free Grammar Schools founded at this time have permanently associated the name of Edward VI. with popular education”; and among the thirty free grammar schools founded by him, he includes Christ’s Hospital.

Carlisle, in his _Endowed Grammar Schools_, made a more cautious statement.

“The precise endowment of the institution by the Royal Founder is not known. It is certain that part of the premises which it now comprises, commonly called Grey Friars and the Cloisters, with a part of the building, were given by Edward VI.”

A closer examination of the facts will show us that Christ’s Hospital was not founded as a grammar school; that neither site nor buildings were given by Edward VI.; and that he did not inscribe a licence in mortmain with his own hand. Christ’s Hospital was founded as a Foundling Hospital and Ragged School for gutter children of both sexes, by the inhabitants of London, by means of public subscriptions and rates, on a site and in buildings already acquired by the City from Henry VIII., and Edward VI.’s contribution to it consisted of a piece of parchment, some confiscated church linen, and his name.

Perhaps the most startling revelation to those who have heard so often of the magnificence of the foundation of Edward VI., is to find that Christ’s Hospital at first had no endowments beyond its sites and buildings, and never received a penny of income from the property comprised in Edward’s charter.

Christ’s Hospital is alone among the great public schools in that it has entirely departed from the class and the objects for which it was originally intended. Winchester and Eton, Westminster and St. Paul’s were intended always for the same class or classes which now frequent them. The scholars were meant to be, and were, taken from the poorer members of the upper middle class, squires, parsons, barristers, merchants, and the like, “who could not, without help, send their sons to the University”; the commoners or paying boys from the richer members of the same class. Christ’s Hospital, unlike these, was intended for the poorest of the poor. Its foundation was not due, like that of the other ancient public schools, to any single founder, or to any desire to further education. It was a part of a great scheme to put down pauperism, and so effect by voluntary and charitable effort what in Elizabeth’s day and since has been effected, or attempted, by compulsion and the Poor Law. It was intended to rid the streets of London of the curse of sturdy rogues and vagabonds, on principles which were strictly in accordance with the doctrines of political economy, and would be highly approved by the Charity Organisation Society. It aimed at getting rid of the poor by setting those who were merely unfortunate to work, while making things unpleasant for the undeserving and idle, and by bringing up their children in the way they should go to earn their own living.

The establishment of Christ’s Hospital is inextricably mixed up with that of the other “Royal Hospitals,”[14] St. Bartholomew’s and St. Thomas’s Hospital and the Bridewell. It may be traced to a movement to rid London, and especially the parish churches, of the crowds of poor, some sick and diseased, some mere idle “rogues and vagabonds.” Historians like Father Gasquet in his _Henry VIII. and the Monasteries_, following some older authors, _laudatores temporis acti_, write as if beggary and vagrancy were a special product of the Reformation Era, and were caused by the suppression of the monasteries. This is putting the cart before the horse. It could easily be shown that hundreds of years earlier the State made efforts to put them down. But for the present purpose we need go no further back than the first part of the sixteenth century. In London an Act of Common Council,[15] passed in 1518, before Luther had ever been heard of beyond Wittemburg, and long before the suppression of monasteries had even been dreamt of by Henry, directed that for getting rid of “all mighty beggars, vagabonds, and all other suspect and evil-disposed persons out of this city, every alderman in his ward shall get two or three persons in each parish to form lists of all persons living on alms, and certify them to the Common Council.”

But, while the monasteries and friaries, and especially the latter—those great schools of pauperism and seminaries of beggary—were continually creating new swarms of the poor they were supposed to relieve, any real diminution of beggary was hopeless. We find the Common Council in 1533, before the suppression, vainly trying to abate the evil by the institution of a voluntary poor-rate, directing the aldermen to “weekly depute some honest persons of every parish to gather the devotions of the parishioners, and the same to be delivered at the church doors to poor folk,” so as to prevent them crowding into the churches, carrying their disgusting sores and infection with them.

Almost immediately after the dissolution of the monasteries, August 1, 1540, the City began to negotiate with Henry VIII. for the purchase of the “four houses and churches of Friars,” the Black, White, Grey, and Austin, because they were the finest buildings in the City after St. Paul’s and St. Martin-le-Grand. The Grey Friars’ Church was no less than 300 feet long. The City urged that they would be “a very great comfort, aid and refuge for the avoiding and eschewing” of plague and sickness. They offered “a thousand marks esterling (£666 : 13 : 4), if they can be gotten no better cheap, down for them.”[16] Sir Richard Gresham was the negotiator, and had to inform the court of aldermen that His Highness thought the citizens “pinchpence” to offer so little, and refused. At last, however, in 1547, they came to an agreement, not for all the houses unfortunately, but for the Grey Friars only. They also acquired St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, which had been dissolved as part of the Priory of St. Bartholomew, and Bethlehem or Bedlam Hospital, which, being in the hands of the secular clergy, had not been dissolved. What was paid for the grant does not appear in the documents; though that something considerable was paid there is little doubt. On December 27, 1547, the City got a conveyance from Henry, confirmed by charter of the same date, with a licence in mortmain precisely in the same words as the one which, we are told, was so providentially invented by Edward VI.; as was perhaps not surprising since the formula was some two centuries old.

Henry purported to make the grants of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital and the Grey Friars’ Church, cloisters, and conventual buildings with the whole precinct, and all the houses in it, valued at some £50 a year, because he considered “the miserable estate (the poor, aged, sick, sore and impotent people), as well men as women, lying and going about begging in the common streets of the City of London[17] and the suburbs of the same ... to the great infection and [an]noyance of his grace’s loving subjects.”

St. Bartholomew’s was to be a hospital or house for the poor. The Grey Friars was not granted for a hospital but for a church. It was to be a parish church for the Grey Friars’ precinct, Newgate and St. Sepulchre’s parish, with a vicar; “a visitor of Newgate,” or prison chaplain, and five other priests, partly curates, partly chantry-priests, all to be appointed by the corporation of the City. The City, that is, “the Mayor and Commonalty and citizens,” were given a licence in mortmain to hold lands up to the value of a thousand marks a year for the purposes of this grant. By the same grant they were made the custodians of the Bethlehem Hospital.

The Common Council, on obtaining possession of the Grey Friars’ Church, promptly gutted it[18] of all its famous and beautiful tombs, royal and civic alike, stripping down its stall-work, and reducing the dimensions of the nave. In fact, they emulated the Crown and nobility in the work of plunder and destruction, not sparing their own ancestors.

At first efforts were made to maintain St. Bartholomew’s Hospital by voluntary donations, “a weekly collection of the devotion of the people,” but this was found not to “take any good success or semblance of good contynnance,” and by an order of Common Council, September 29, 1547, “a moietie or half deale of one hole fiftene” was levied for its support. In December 1543 certain dues levied in respect of the measuring of leather up to 500 marks a year were granted to it; and the other 500 marks to be paid out of the half-fifteenth[19] was assessed instead on the Companies at the rate of £24 a quarter from the Mercers down to 13s. 4d. a quarter from small Companies like the Glaziers.

In 1549 the City was already in treaty with the Protector Somerset[20] “for the alteration of parcel of the foundacion of the house of the poor.” Nothing, however, was done during his stormy reign, which ended by his being sent to the Tower in January 1550. In the following Lent, Lever,[21] the Master of St. John’s College, Cambridge, preached some famous sermons at St. Paul’s Cross, inveighing against the breach of the Acts of dissolution both of monasteries and chantries, according to which the proceeds were to be applied “for erecting of Grammar Schools, the further augmenting of the Universities and better provision for the poor.” He voiced, not merely the wishes of his own college and university, but also those of the City of London. Edward VI.’s action has been attributed to a sermon of Ridley “the martyr,” the Bishop of London, in 1552. It seems doubtful, however, whether Ridley was the prime mover or only an agent of the City. A letter of his own, intended to be pathetic, but which surely must have had a ring of comicality even to his contemporaries, goes to show that Lord Mayor Sir Richard Dobbs was the originator of the movement.

“O Dobbs, Dobbs, alderman and Knight, thou in thy year didst win my heart for evermore for that honourable act, that most blessed work of God, of the erection and setting up of Christ’s holy hospitals and truly religious houses which by thee and through thee were begun.... Thou didst plead their cause (the cause of Christ’s ‘silly members’) yea and not only in thine own person thou didst set forth Christ’s cause but to further the matter thou broughtest me into the Council Chamber of the City before the Aldermen alone, whom thou hadst assembled there together to hear me speak what I would say as an advocate by office and duty in the poor man’s cause.”[22]

The Bishop, in fact, acted as the Bishops of London now do, as a kind of public orator and common vouchee of all charitable organisations; he was not the originator or organiser.

The detailed story of the foundation is told in an account written by J. Howes, “Renter” of Christ’s Hospital, in the form of a delightful dialogue between Dignity (an Elizabethan alderman) and Duty, or Howes himself.[23]

Dobbs, he tells us, with the Bishop and a few others, “devised a book” to provide for the various classes of poor. “First[24] they devised to take out of the streets all the fatherless children and other poor men’s children that were not able to keep them, and to bring them to the late dissolved house of the Grey Friars, which they devised to be an Hospital for them, where they should have meat and drink and clothes, lodging and learning, and officers to attend upon them. They also devised that there should be provision made to keep the sick from the whole, and laid a ‘platte’ (a plot or plan) to have purchased Finsbury Court, and there to have kept the children in fresh air in the time of sickness, because they feared lest through the corrupt nature of the children, who might infect one another, being packed up in one house, and so put the whole city in danger of infection. Then the Governors devised that the sucking children and such as were not able to learn should be kept in the country and always at Easter brought home.” The lame and aged poor were to be removed to St. Thomas’s Hospital, forthwith; the “Lazar” people should be removed out of the streets, and have monthly pensions paid to them to the end they should not annoy the King’s subjects resorting to the City; and all the decayed poor citizens should be made known and every one of them have weekly a pension according to his necessity. But “all the idle and lusty rogues, as well men as women, should all be taken up and conveyed into some house where they should have all things necessary and be compelled to labour.” A committee of thirty was appointed to collect statistics. They reported that the number to be provided for was—

Fatherless children 300 Sore and sick persons 200 Poor men overburthened with their children 350 Aged persons 400 Decayed householders 650 Idle vagabonds 200 ———— 2100 ————

They then set to work to provide ways and means.

The committee of thirty found close on £1500 themselves. The parsons were set to work to extract weekly “pensions” from their parishioners; boxes were distributed to the wardens of every Company. There was a “devise that every honest householder in London should have a bill printed, wherein there was a glass window left open for his name and for his sum of money,” and the churchwardens were to get these filled in.

In February 1551[25] the City began to negotiate for the purchase of “the Hospitall in Suthwarke,” the Hospital of St. Thomas à Becket in Southwark, which until the Dissolution had been in the hands of Augustinian canons. On the 25th March the Privy Council granted an order for the purchase to be carried into effect. A detailed estimate of the charges and net income of the hospital on the proposal to purchase is extant at the Record Office.[26] From this it appears that the total gross value of its possessions was £314 : 17 : 1: the charges for the poor, the priests, and so on were estimated at £154 : 17 : 1, leaving a surplus of about £160 a year. Of this, £36 odd was derived from land estimated at twenty years’ purchase, and £123 from houses and cottages taken at fourteen years’ purchase. The City paid £2461 : 2 : 6 down for the grant of the endowment, with the hospital site and buildings thrown in. The transaction was completed by Letters Patent of August 12 and 13, 1551, which included a licence in mortmain up to £46 a year above the issue of the lands, _i.e._ £200 a year in all.

Having acquired St. Thomas’s Hospital for the sick poor, the City next set itself to work to petition[27] the King for a grant of the old palace of Bridewell. For the proposed inhabitants of this they had in “readiness most profitable and wholesome occupations for the continuing in godly exercise ... which is the guider and begetter of all wealth, virtue and honesty.” This was followed up by a further grant of the Savoy Hospital, founded by Henry VII. on the site of the old mansion of John of Gaunt, and completed by Henry VIII. It was intended for old soldiers and pilgrims.

We gather from Howes that the motives of the King in making the grant of Bridewell, and of the revenues of the Savoy Hospital, to Christ’s Hospital were not of the very highest order.

“What” [says Dignity] “should move the King to depart from so beautiful a house as Bridewell was, so richly garnished, with so great charges, and being so late builded, and to convert the lands of the Savoy to the City?”

“The situation of Bridewell” [replies Duty] “was such that all the cost was cast away; there was no coming to it but through stinking lanes or over a filthy ditch, which did so continually annoy the house, that the King had no pleasure in it. And therefore the King being required by the citizens to converte it to so good a use God moved his heart to bestow it to that use, rather than to be at any charge in keeping of it, or to suffer it to fall down; and so not profitable to any. And this, I am sure, was the reason that moved the King. For at that time it stood void and was daily spoiled by the keepers. And now as touching the turning over of the Savoy lands you shall understand that the Savoy was erected by King Henry VIIth in the time of papistry chiefly for pilgrims, wayfaring men, and for maimed and bruised soldiers that they might have meat, drink and lodging for a time. The pilgrims being suppressed and so no use of them, and as for such wayfaring men and soldiers as that house did commonly harbour, [they] were none other but common rogues and idle pilfering knaves, which they received in at night and every morning turned out at the gates without meat, drink or clothes; and so lay wandering all day abroad seeking their adventure in filching and stealing, and at night came and were received in again. And so the Savoy was nothing else but a nursery of all villany. The revenues and profits of the rents came wholly to the use of the Masters, who were priests, and officers of the house. And so the virtuous prince King Edward had great reason in converting the lands to the City, where the poor received the profits.”

The Savoy lands were worth £450 a year; but the institution was in debt to the amount of £178, which the City had to pay off, and they also had to pension the officers of the Savoy Hospital to the extent of £101 : 6 : 8 a year.

According to Howes, all the income from endowment went to St. Thomas’s Hospital, the Bridewell was maintained by labour, and Christ’s Hospital chiefly by the liberal devotion of the citizens; but if any one of these three wanted then the other two did supply the lack.

Meanwhile on July 26, 1552, the City began to repair the Grey Friars for the use of the poor children.

Separate committees of the thirty above-mentioned were appointed to prepare or “make sweet” the various places for the poor. That for Christ’s Hospital consisted of Mr. Roe, “which was afterwards Lord Mayor,” as Treasurer, and Stephen Cobbe, John Blondell, Thomas Lodge, Thomas Bartlett, Thomas Eaton, and Richard Grafton as “surveyors.” “The late dissolved Grey Friars at that time[28] stood void and empty, only a number of ‘whores and rogues’ harboured therein at nights; saving one Thomas Bryckett, vicar of Christchurch, with whom the Governors compounded and bought all his tables, bedsteads and other things; and made out of his lodgings ‘a compting house and lodging for their clerk.’” Then they appointed officers: a warden, clerk, steward, butler, under-butler, cook, two porters; surgeon, barber, tailor, coal-keeper, a “mazer” or bowl scourer, a matron, twenty-five sisters or nurses, a porter, and a sexton. With them were also the schoolmasters in the old triple division of grammar, song, and writing, with reading (assumed in the ordinary grammar school to have been already mastered) added.

There was—

£ _s._ _d._ A Grammar Schoole Mayster, John Robynson, whose yearly fee was 15 0 0 A Grammar Usher, James Seamer 10 0 0 A Teacher to wrighte, John Watson 3 6 8 Schoolmasters for the Petties ABC, Thomas Lowes and Thomas Cutts, whose yearly fees to each of them was 2 13 4 A schule maister for musicke 2 13 4 A teacher of pricksonge whose yearly fee was 2 13 4

John Watson the writing master was also clerk, in which latter capacity he received £10 a year. The status of the various teachers may be judged from the fact that the head surgeon received the same stipend as the head schoolmaster; the under-surgeon received £4 against the usher’s £10, while the arts got £8. The “Absies,” _i.e._ ABC or elementary schoolmaster, received 13s. 4d. a year more than the barber, and a great deal less than the porters, who had £6 a year each.

The foundation was a stupendous charitable effort, the money it cost being certainly underestimated by the common reckoning at twelve times the then value, or £30,000 of our money. It included, for instance, “500 feather beds, and 500 pads of straw to put under the feather beds, and as many blankets and 1000 pair of sheets” from one contractor alone. In all, double that number was provided. But many “there were that brought feather beds, coverlets, sheets, blankets, shirts and smocks, and disbursed great sums of money, which never came to any public account.” The “virtuous prince” himself was most generous. He issued a warrant under his own hand “that all the linen belonging to the churches in London should be brought and delivered to the Governors for the use of the poor, reserving sufficient for the Communion Table, with towels and surplices for the ministers and churches.” The linen, we are told, did good service, “and especiale in St. Thomas Hospital.”[29]

In November 1552[30] no less than 380 children were taken into the house. At first the “idle men and women” were also brought into Christ’s Hospital “and put in what is now (_i.e._ in 1582) the schoolmaster’s house, where they were kept from doing any further harm, although not employed to any occupations, for the place served not.” When Bridewell was obtained, the workhouse folk were removed there; but this was not before midsummer 1554.[31]

The preparation of Christ’s Hospital was entirely done by voluntary contributions. For St. Thomas’ the City granted £100, and “turned over” to it “£50 a year of that which had been purchased from the King.” But no endowment income was forthcoming for Christ’s Hospital. Nor is it possible to ascertain how much capital was given for Christ’s Hospital alone as the contemporary “State and charge of the new erected Hospitals—A.D. 1553”[32] gives the cost of St. Thomas’ indistinguishably mixed with that of Christ’s Hospital. The total was £2479 : 15 : 10, towards which £2476 was received in subscriptions and donations.

Though Christ’s Hospital was in full working order from November 1552, the legal foundation, which appears to have been delayed by the conclusion of the arrangements about Bridewell, was not complete till June 1553. An “Indenture of Covenants,” dated June 12, 7 Edward VI. (1553), was made in English between the King and the mayor, commonalty, and citizens of London, which was carried out by Letters Patent in Latin on the 26th June. The patent contained grants of the manor of Bridewell, the lands belonging to the Savoy Hospital, and the bedding in the same; but not the hospital itself. It created the City Corporation a special corporation with a separate common seal by the name of “the Governors of the possessions, revenues and goods of the Hospitals of Edward the Sixth, King of England, of Christ, Bridewell and St. Thomas the Apostle,” and gave them a licence in mortmain to hold lands for the purposes of the three hospitals up to 4000 marks (£3333 : 16 : 8) a year.

The charter in the most distinct terms emphasises the poor law character of the foundation, and states also with equal distinctness that the idea did not originate with the King. “Whereas we pitying the miserable estate of the poor, fatherless, decrepit, aged, sick, infirm and impotent persons, languishing under various kinds of diseases, and also of our special grace thoroughly considering the honest and pious endeavours of our most humble and obedient subjects the Mayor and Commonalty and citizens of our city of London, who by all ways and methods diligently study for the good provision of the aforesaid poor and of every sort of them”—such is the preamble to the grant. The charter deals with every class of destitute poor: sick, aged, orphans; the poor by misfortune; and rogues and vagabonds; the wilfully poor. The preamble states as its object “that neither children yet being in their infancy shall lack good education and instruction, nor when they shall attain riper years shall be without honest callings and occupations, nor that the sick or diseased when they be recovered and restored to healthe may remain idle and lazy vagabonds, but that they in like manner may be placed and compelled to labour.” In like manner the conclusion of the charter is a grant to the corporation of power to search towns and playhouses, and arrest ruffians, vagabonds, and beggars.

The story of the boy king inserting the licence in mortmain with his own hands is absurd. The licence, occupying a good quarto page of close print, is in the usual legal common form. The story arose, no doubt, from an exaggerated version of Strype’s[33] tale that “space was left in the patent for His Grace to put in what sum it pleased him” up to the yearly value of which the City might hold lands in mortmain for the hospitals, not Christ’s Hospital alone, but all together. “He looking on the void place called for pen and ink, and with his own hand wrote this sum, 4000 marks by the year.” Unfortunately for the story, in the patent the sum is written in the same hand as the rest of the document, and the sum had been previously settled, since it appears in the agreement executed a fortnight before, and could not have been altered without a breach of contract. In the agreement it is written in a different hand to the rest of the document; but there is no reason to think that it was Edward’s own hand, which it does not the least resemble. So much for the legend of St. Edward the VI. It is as apocryphal as the picture, said to be by Holbein, which hangs in the Great Hall of Christ’s Hospital and shows Edward on his throne surrounded by the Council, giving the charter to the Lord Mayor on his knees, while 15 boys and 15 girls of the Hospital kneel in the foreground, the smallest boy and girl facing the throne and holding up their hands in rapt admiration. It is a matter of history that the poor boy-king died within a week of the date of the charter—July 6, 1553,—and was invisible for many days before he died; a passing glimpse of him being exhibited to assure the people that he was still alive.

The foundation of Edward VI. nearly succumbed under his successor Mary. When “she came out of Norfolk and was to be received into London, the Governors set up a stage without Aldgate and placed themselves and the children on the stage, and prepared a child of the Free School to make an oracion to hir. But when she came near unto them she cast her eye another way and neither stayed nor gave any countenance to them.” “She did not like ‘the blewe boyes,’” said Howes; “but if they had been so many Grey Friars she would have given them better countenance.” According to him, “the Friars made great friends and great means to be restored to that house because it stood whole, and was not spoiled, as other houses were, but they never durst open their mouths to suppress that house as long as Friar John was within the land.” He tells a famous tale, “how Friars Peto and Perrin did their good wills to have subverted all.” But Friar John, a Spaniard, was brought by the rest of the Commissioners to have his opinion, who, “being there at dinner-time and seeing the poor children set at the tables in the hall and seeing them served with meat, he was so wrapt in admiration that suddenly he burst into tears, and said in Latin to the company that he had rather be a scullion in their kitchen than steward to their king.” “Alfonsus,” the King’s Confessor, also supported them, while Dr. Story was made a friend by having been given the lease of the house where he dwelt, which was “parcel” of the Friars, for he thought that if the Friars were restored that then they would bring his house in question; while the Bishop of Chichester being tenant of the chief lodging of the Prior was also friendly for the same reason. The children were therefore kept undisturbed, though Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, when Chancellor, “clapped Mr. Grafton fast in the Fleet for two days because he suffered the children to learn the English Premier when they should have learned the Latin Absies (A, B, Cs).”

There is plenty of evidence as to the class of children taken into Christ’s Hospital. The most striking is a passage from Howes’ book. “A number of the children,” he says, “being taken from the dunghill, when they came to sweet and clean keeping and to a pure diet died outright.... And a number of them would watch daily when the porters were absent that they might steal out and fall to their old occupation.” This is corroborated by the Court Book of the Hospital, which unfortunately only begins in December 1556, with such entries as this: May 10, 1557, “Graunted that a woman child left on Mr. Gunter’s stall in Cornhill, and by him kept since Candlemas, should be admitted.” November 8, “a woman childe left in a pewe at St. Peter’s, Cornhill, admitted.” March 14, 1557, a child “found in Thames Streete near the Bridge admitted.” In the “Children’s Register,” beginning 1563, we come across many names pointing to the foundling origin of the children. Richard Nomoreknowen, five years old. He died in the sick-ward in 1570. Augustine Old Change, six years old. “To service, March 30, 1567.” “Dorothy Buttriedore” (she had evidently been deposited behind the buttery door), “three years old. To service, 1570. Delivered to Mr. His for his own, but received back. Delivered to Margaret Garraway for her own, 1571; again to F. Tousbury, April 19, 1572.” “Jane Fridaiestreete, aged six, sent to service 1568.” Perhaps the two quaintest names were “Grace-That-God-sent-us,” “delivered out on the 19th, and died April 21, 1563,” and “Jane-that-God-sent-us,” sent to service 1568.

Stow says of Christ’s Hospital: “A full Courte shal be when xiij of the Governours of this said Hospitall be assembled at the least, whereof two shal be Aldermen, the one of them to be the President, with ten Commoners besides the Thresorer; and what these xiij Persons or vij of them at the leaste, the President being one of the Number, shal decree, ordaine or agree upon, the same shal stand in Force, and shal not be altered nor disallowed except by a like Courte to be called in that behalfe.

“Item. That no Governour be taken into this Hospitall in the Place of any that shal happen to die within the Year except it be at a full Courte, to be holden as afore, for weighty Causes; and the Name of him so admitted, to be presented to the Maior and Courte of Aldermen, before he be called to receive his Charge.

“Item. That no Sale of Land, Tymber, or Wood, Lease, Alienation, Buildinge, or Reparation be determined or done, of Lands or Tenements geven to th’ onlye Use of Christ’s Hospitall, or in any wise belonginge properlie to the same, except at a full Courte, to be holden in the said Hospitall as before.

“Item. That no Reward be given to any Person above the Some of v Shillings at once; which must be done by the consent of the Thresorer and one of the Almoners at the least; except first the same be graunted and determined in a full Courte, as before.

“Item. That there be no Leases lett in Reversion but one Year before the ould Lease be expired; and that no such Graunt be made but by a full Courte, as before, or els not; and that all the same Leases be drawn in Paper by a Scryvenor, one of the Governours of the saide Hospitall, before they be engrossed; and he to be allowed for every Draught accordinge to the Quantitie: And the Clerke of the said Hospitall to engrosse them, and to procure the Sealing of all such Leases before the Lord Maior and Courte of Aldermen, in the Chamber of London, where the Common Seal of the Hospitall doeth remaine.

“That noe manner of Bargaines be made for Timber, Tile, or such like, or any other Necessaries for the saide howse, before the same be determined at a full Courte, to be holden as before; and the Persons then and there to be named and appointed which shal be the Doers thereof” (Stow, Appendix II.).

In 1680 Sir John Frederick rebuilt the hall at his own expense; Sir Robert Clayton rebuilt the east cloister and south front. In 1825 the Hospital was largely rebuilt.

The two chief classes in the school are the Grecians and Deputy Grecians; of which many of the former go on to the universities with exhibitions. The Mathematical School was founded by Charles II. in 1672, and the boys are called “King’s boys.” The King’s boys and Grecians are the only boys who remain in the school after the age of fifteen. The ancient costume, consisting of long blue gown, leather belt, yellow stockings, combined with an absence of head-covering, makes the boys conspicuous wherever they may be. The old customs of supping in public in Lent, and the visit to the Lord Mayor on Easter Tuesday, are still kept up. But the old English diet of bread and beer for breakfast was done away with in 1824.

Among the most distinguished names of old scholars are those of S. T. Coleridge, the poet (d. 1834), Charles Lamb (d. 1834), Leigh Hunt (d. 1859). The system of admission is by presentations by governors; the Lord Mayor makes two presentations annually. A governor must give at least £500.

For an account of the Grey Friars see _Mediæval London_, vol. ii. p. 348.

CHRIST CHURCH

Christ Church, which unites the ancient parishes of St. Ewen’s and St. Nicholas and part of St. Sepulchre, stands on the eastern part of the noble Franciscan Church which was greatly destroyed by the Fire.

On the suppression of the convent of the Franciscans, their Church was named Christ Church and was made parochial. After the Great Fire it was rebuilt by Wren between 1687 and 1704. St. Leonard’s, Foster Lane, was annexed to this parish in 1672. The earliest date of a custodian is 1225. The earliest date of a vicar is 1547.

The patronage of the church was given by Henry VIII. to the governors of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, in whose successors it continues.

The present building contains two side-aisles separated from the nave by slender Corinthian columns. At the east part of the church shelves are attached to the north and south walls, to hold loaves for distribution among the poor. The steeple attains a height of 153 feet.

The original church of the Franciscans was a favourite place of sepulture. Dame Mary Ramsey, a benefactress to Christ’s Hospital and other institutions, was buried here in 1596, and a modern tablet records her deeds on the north wall of the church. The two most conspicuous monuments are those of the Rev. Samuel Crowther and the Rev. Michael Gibbs, both of whom were vicars of the parish for many years. Lady Venetia, wife of Sir Kenelm Digby, was buried here. Also the celebrated Nonconformist, Richard Baxter, in 1691, and his wife in 1681. On the east wall a tablet commemorates John Stock, who at his death in 1781 bequeathed £13,000 to charitable purposes.

No large gifts are recorded in this parish by Stow: John Bankes was donor of £1 for a sermon; Thomas Barnes was donor of £1 for a sermon, and several others were donors of the same amounts.

There were two charity schools, one for fifty boys and one for forty girls.

Some of the most notable vicars were: Sampson Price (1585-1620); William Jenkyn (1613-1685); Robert Cannon (1663-1722), Prebendary of Westminster; Joseph Trapp, D.D. (1679-1747); and William Bell (1731-1816), Prebendary of Westminster.

=King Edward Street= was formerly Butchers’ Lane or Stinking Lane or Chick Lane. The Franciscans, on their coming to London, were allotted a piece of ground on the west side of this lane, probably the least desirable place of residence in the whole city. When we read of shops and tenements in the Shambles, this is the place intended.

=Roman Bath Street= comes next. This place was formerly called Pinnock’s Lane, _i.e._ Pentecost Lane. Houses in Pentecost Lane are mentioned as early as 1280. It contained the forbidden slaughter-houses. At the upper end stood the Royal Bagnio. There were two Bagnios—this of Pinnock’s Lane and another in Long Acre. The Royal Bagnio was opened in 1679; it was simply a turkish bath, a place for sweating and hot bathing: for a time it was very much esteemed as a preventative against some forms of disease and a cure for headache. The Royal Bagnio contained one large room with a cupola and several smaller rooms, the walls of which were lined with Dutch tiles. The place was converted into a hot and cold bathhouse, and finally closed and pulled down in 1876.

ST. SEPULCHRE

This church was rebuilt, Stow says, about the time of Henry VI. or Edward IV., mainly by “one of the Pophames.” The greater part was destroyed by the Great Fire, and in 1670 it was again rebuilt, by whom is uncertain. It received considerable alterations in 1738, 1837, 1863, 1875, and again 1878-80. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1249.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: Roger, Bishop of Sarum (1107-39), who gave it to the Prior and Convent of St. Bartholomew, Smithfield ; Henry VIII., who seized it and so it continued in the Crown up to 1609, when James I. gave the advowson of the Vicarage to Francis Philips and others; the President and Scholars of St. John’s College, Oxford, who presented to the Vicarage in 1662, and in whose successors it continued.

Houseling people in 1548 were 3400.

The church consists of a nave, chancel, and two side-aisles, and an adjunct on the north side called the chapel of St. Stephen; it measures 150 feet in length, 81 feet in width, and 149 feet 11 inches in height, to the summit of the tower. The organ was built by Renatus Harris, and is considered one of his finest productions; its case is said to have been the work of Grinling Gibbons.

A chantry was founded here by: John de Tamworth, who had a licence from the King to assign one messuage and sixteen cottages in the suburbs of London, for a chaplain to sing for his soul, on certain days in this church, February 20, 1373-74. Here also was founded the Brotherhood of Our Lady and St. Stephen, endowed by various persons with rents, etc., which fetched £9 : 13 : 4 in 1548.

Roger Ascham, Queen Elizabeth’s tutor, and author of _Toxophilus_ and the _Scholemaster_, who died in 1568, was buried here, but has no memorial. Here also the remains of Captain John Smith were interred in 1631; he was Governor of Virginia and Admiral of New England, and author of the _General History of Virginia_. His monument has perished, but there is a replica of the original inscription on a plate on the south wall. Sir Robert Peake, a distinguished cavalier and engraver, was also interred here in 1667, but no one else of eminence appears to have been buried in the church.

In 1605 Robert Dowe gave £50 to the parish on condition that the night before every execution a hand-bell, which he presented, should be rung in front of the condemned prisoners’ dungeon, and an exhortation given them. His donation has now passed into the hands of the Charity Commissioners. No names of benefactors are recorded by Stow. According to the Record of the Parish Clerk of 1732 the donations of the poor, for ever, amounted to £250, besides which there were forty-seven other donations of less value than £40 or £20 per annum. Richard Reeves left £100 per annum. In addition, the stock of money given by eight persons was £500, and eight others gave £128 : 15s. per annum to provide coals and fuel.

There were two charity schools, one for fifty boys and one for fifty girls, and without the Liberty there were two for thirty boys and twenty girls. There were also three almshouses, for eight poor people, who had from 5s. to 15s. paid them every quarter by the Company of Armourers.

Rowland Lee (d. 1543), D.D., Bishop of Lichfield, was a rector here; also C. Blake (1664-1739), divine and poet; and John Rogers, who was burnt at Smithfield, 1555.

=Giltspur Street=, which is alternately called by Stow Knightrider’s Street, is obviously connected with the knights riding to Smithfield.

At the south end is a low building with the inscription, “The water house erected 1791.” To the north of this are the schools, in a long low building covered with rough stucco. Little wych-elms and limes shadow the small playground before them. The row of houses succeeding are all similar—plain, severe brick; in the middle is the White Hart Hotel. Green Dragon Yard is closed by iron gates; the next court is very small. Near Windmill Court is the Plough public-house. The houses here are either brick or stucco; some old, some modern.

At the north end, on the Fortune of War public-house, at the corner of Hosier Lane, is a quaint little stucco figure of a fat child about a couple of feet high. This is _Pie Corner_, the spot where the Great Fire ended.

=Cock Lane= is a filthy, narrow little street, and looks almost deserted, as many of the buildings are untenanted. Bits of paper and refuse bestrew the pavement, grimy old warehouses stand in melancholy disorder with dirty little yards between. It is chiefly associated with the ridiculous imposture known as the Cock Lane Ghost, which deceived even Dr. Johnson. For Smithfield see p. 357.

Turning now to the streets south of Newgate, we find =Warwick Lane= is mentioned in the Guildhall MSS. as early as 1206; by Riley (_Mem._) in 1313, and in the _Calendar of Wills_ in 1364; in Eldedene Street (Old Dean Street) Hon. Walter Stapleton, Bishop of Exeter, had a town house. In the _Chronicle of the Mayors and Sheriffs_ a brief account of his murder by the mob is presented.

Warwick Inn, Stow says, was formerly described as a messuage in Eldedene Lane in 28th Henry VI., when Cecily, Duchess of Warwick, possessed it. There were other houses in the Lane in the fourteenth century. It was in this house that the Earl of Warwick maintained his following of 600 men when he was in London.

We have already read (pp. 4, 6) of the beheading of Walter Stapleton, Bishop of Exeter, in Cheapside; he was seized as he was riding towards his hostel in “Eldedeaneslane” to dine there; and just then he was proclaimed a traitor: upon hearing of which he took to flight and rode towards St. Paul’s church, where he was met and instantly dragged from his horse, and carried into “Chepe”: and there he was despoiled, and his head cut off. Also one of his esquires, William Walle by name, and John de Padington, warden of the said bishop’s manor, were beheaded the same day in Chepe. On the same day towards Vespers came the choir of St. Paul’s and took the headless body of the bishop into St. Paul’s, where they were given to understand that he had died under sentence, upon which the body was carried to the church of St. Clement [Danes].

About the same date is a grant by Godfrey de Acra, chaplain to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s, and to a perpetual chaplain who shall celebrate for him and his benefactors in the chapel of St. James, in St. Paul’s, of all his houses, rents, etc., in the parish of St. Faith, “inter vicum veteris Decani versus occidentem et vicum Cecilie de Turri versus orientem.” He made provision for the maintenance of the chaplain, and for the distribution of the money on his anniversary: Thomas Fitz Thomas, Mayor of London, and eleven others are named as witnesses (Historical MSS., Com. Rep. IX. Pt. I. p. 9a).

Sir John Paston (1475) writes to his brother, John Paston, or to his uncle, William Paston, in Warwick Lane. The street had, therefore, in the fifteenth century received its new name after the great house of the Earl of Warwick. In 1496 William Paston wills that all “godes moveable in Warwikes Inn” shall be sold to pay his debts. When Charles V. came to England in 1522, two houses in Warwick Lane were assigned to his retinue—that of Mistress Lewes having a little entry, a hall, two chambers, and three feather beds; the other that of Edward Sharnebroke having one hall, four chambers, two parlours, a chapel, four feather beds, with houses of office, and a stable for eight horses.

In the Historical MSS. Report IX. there are many deeds and documents in which this street is mentioned. Roman remains have been found here.

In the street stood the _College of Physicians_ built by Wren.

The first house of the College was that of Linacre, physician to Henry VIII., the founder of the College in Knightrider Street: the Physicians then moved to Amen Corner and, after the Fire, to Warwick Lane, where they continued until 1823 when the new College in Pall Mall East was opened by Sir Henry Halford.

There were two famous inns in Warwick Lane, of which one was the Bell.

“Archbishop Leighton used often to say that if he were to choose a place to die in, it should be an Inn; it looking like a pilgrim’s going home, to whom this world was all as an Inn, and who was weary of the noise and confusion in it. He added that the officious tenderness and care of friends was an entanglement to a dying man; and that the unconcerned attendance of those that could be procured in such a place would give less disturbance. And he obtained what he desired; for he died [1684] at the Bell Inn in Warwick Lane.”

The inn has gone, but Old Bell Inn Yard, now a railway booking-office wagon yard, is there to mark the site. On the west side was an equally famous inn, the Oxford Arms.

At the Oxford Arms Inn lived John Roberts, from whose shop issued the majority of the squibs and libels on Pope. The inn was south of Warwick House.

Views of this picturesque old inn have been preserved in the Crace collection.

The Cutlers’ Hall adds vivid colour to Warwick Lane farther north by its brilliant red brick, and its handsome frieze in relief. It is faced with red sandstone. The next few houses look doubly grimy by contrast with their neighbour.

THE CUTLERS COMPANY

An Ordinance of the Cutlers was enrolled in the Guildhall in the year 1380. Their dissensions with the Sheath-makers were settled in 1408; and in 1413 we find (Riley, p. 597) the freedom of the City withdrawn from one William Wysman because, being already a member of the trade of Cutlers, he had joined that of the Coursers (horse-dealers).

There are no means for supplying the exact date of the foundation of the Company, but it would appear that it was in existence in the year 49 Edward III., as at that time it was stated to have elected two members of the Court of Common Council.

It would appear that the first charter granted to the Company was in the reign of Henry V., 1415, which was confirmed by a charter of Henry VI. in 1422. Charters were also granted by Henry VIII. in 1509, Philip and Mary in 1553, Elizabeth in 1558, and James I. in 1607. James II., in 1685, revoked these charters; but in 1668 the Act of James II. was made void, and by a statute of William and Mary in 1689 the charter of James I. was confirmed, and it was subsequently reaffirmed by a charter of Queen Anne in 1703. The charter, therefore, of James I., which was granted in 1607, is now the governing charter of the Cutlers’ Company. The Company has no means of furnishing an abstract of the earlier charters, nor would this appear to be necessary, inasmuch as they are documents of record.

The Cutlers were united some time with the Sheath- and Haft-makers, a fact commemorated in their arms, the supporters of which are two elephants.

In 1898 the number of the livery was 100; the Corporate Income was £5350; the Trust Income £50.

On the south side of Cloak Lane, east of College Hill, is the old site of Cutlers’ Hall. The history is retraceable to the twelfth century. Lawrence Gisors, living, apparently, in the reign of Henry III., possessed this land: his son Peter succeeded; Peter’s son John, by will enrolled 1282, ordained that his houses in St. Michael, Paternostercherche parish, should be sold to fulfil his testament:[34] the site in question was presumably involved. Stow records, without giving a date, that it afterwards passed to Hugonis de Dingham; moreover, that in 1296 Richard de Wilehale confirmed to Paul Butelar the edifices upon the same land. The boundaries at the time were: the stream of Walbrook on the east; Wilehale’s own tenement to the south; Paternoster-church Lane, now College Hill, on the west. Butelar was to pay yearly “one clove Gereflowers[35] at Easter, and to the prior and convent of St. Mary Overie, Southwark, six shillings.” Simon Dolseley, pepperer, mayor 1359, owned it and bequeathed it for life to his wife Johanna by will dated 1362.[36] In the year 1451 Thomas Frill executed to the Cutlers Company a conveyance of messuages in College Hill and Cloak Lane. The property consisted of two houses: one became converted into the Company’s Hall, and one served as a house for their beadle. The Fire of 1666 necessitated complete rebuilding. The new hall was erected in 1667-68; it received Maitland’s praise in 1739 as “convenient and beautiful.” Allen, 1828, differs: in his eyes it was “a plain brick building, totally devoid of architectural adornment.”

When the Cutlers’ old Hall was pulled down the present College Hill Chambers was built upon its site.[37]

On the north-west corner of Warwick Lane is an effigy of Guy, Earl of Warwick. He is dressed as a knight in armour, and the stone bears date 1668. The capital letters “G. C.” on one side, and below are the words—

Restored J. Deykes 1817 a ch. 492, Pennant’s _London_, 5th edit.

The last word and the date are only conjectural, being considerably worn away.

=White Hart Street=, on the east side of Warwick Lane, connected it with Newgate Market, the square afterwards called Paternoster Square. White Hart Street was chiefly occupied by poulterers.

=Rose Street= connected Newgate Street with Newgate market.

=Ivy Lane= occurs in 1312, where an Inquisition was held as to a piece of land between that and Warwick Lane. It was also called Fulk-mere-lane or Folks-mare-lane. Riley (_Memorials_, p. xii.) thinks that Ivy Lane was inhabited in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries by wax chandlers, who supplied wax tapers for St. Paul’s and the City churches. The symbolic use of the lighted taper, borne through the streets by way of punishment and penance, is not easy to understand in a country and an age when, happily, ecclesiastical symbolism is little practised. There was a club held at the King’s Head Tavern in Ivy Lane, 1749-65. Dr. Johnson was a member. Every visitor to London turns out of St. Paul’s Churchyard or Newgate Street to see the sign still remaining on the east wall of Panyer Alley. It consists of a pannier with a boy sitting upon it, and the inscription—

When you have sought the City round, Yet still this is the highest ground,

with the date August 26, 1668. I believe that this is not the highest ground. The site of the “Standard” in Cornhill is slightly higher.

Newgate Street formerly ended at Panyer Alley, where Blowbladder Street began, which ran on into Cheapside, and is now included in it.

It is evident, by a glance at the map, that Newgate Street was here a continuation of Cheapside. So far Stow’s statement about the continued street from Aldgate to Ludgate is confirmed. But if we consider the improvements effected here after the Fire, we shall understand that there was at first no thought of a continuation of Cheapside into Newgate.

Newgate Street, then, ended at Panyer Alley. What followed was a narrow lane bending sharply to the south. Into this lane on the north ran another narrow lane, now St. Martin’s-le-Grand. Panyer Alley was a passage only wide enough for one person at a time, and there were many of these narrow passages from one street to another. After the Fire, Blowbladder Street was enlarged to the breadth of 40 feet. This increase of width made it possible for Newgate Street to appear as a continuation of Cheapside; the lane running through St. Martin’s-le-Grand was also enlarged to the breadth of 40 feet; and Panyer Alley was enlarged to the breadth of 9 feet and paved with freestone. Further, to block the passage from Cheapside to Newgate, there stood outside Paternoster Row the parish church of St. Michael le Querne.

=St. Michael le Querne= derived its name Querne, or Corn, from its proximity to a corn-market. It was repaired in 1617, but burnt down in the Great Fire and not rebuilt, its parish being annexed to that of St. Vedast. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1274.

The church has always been in the gift of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s.

Houseling people in 1548 were 350.

Chantries were founded here: By Robert Newcomen, at the Altar of the Blessed Virgin Mary about 1304, for himself and for Matilda his wife—William Wilton was chaplain and died in 1370; by John Combe, at the Altar of St. Katherine, for himself, and Petronella his wife—licence was granted by the King, May 18, 1405; by John Lydat, whose will was dated June 23, 1545—he gave £7 : 10s. for a priest for seven years; by John Mundham before 1310.

John Leland, the antiquary, was buried here in 1552; his monument perished in the Fire, but his great work, _The Itinerary_, still remains. The church also contained a monument in memory of John Bankes who died in 1630, leaving £6000 to be distributed amongst various charities and parishes. In 1605 Sir Thomas Browne, author of _Religio Medici_, was baptized here.

There were several bequests given to the poor for clothing and bread; but no names are recorded by Stow.

Anthony Tuckney (1599-1670), Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge, was rector here; also George Downham (d. 1634), Bishop of Derry.

ST. PAUL’S

By W. J. LOFTIE

St. Paul’s Church is the cathedral of the diocese of London, and was so dedicated by its first founder. According to Beda, this was Ethelbert, King of Kent, “who had command over all the nations of the English as far as the river Humber.” His nephew, Sebert, King of the East Saxons, held London in 604, when Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury, sent Mellitus to preach Christianity north of the Thames. He does not seem to have succeeded very well, and after the deaths of Augustine, Ethelbert and Sebert, Mellitus was expelled. From that time for sixty years or more, we hear nothing of St. Paul’s, and the next bishops of the East Saxons do not seem to have lived in London. They converted the kings who made Rendlesham, Tillingham, and Tilbury their headquarters. The City within the Roman wall was probably but sparsely inhabited. The Anglo-Saxons disliked Roman sites, and especially hated the repair of walls. There is a tradition that Erkenwald, or Archibald, the fourth bishop, incited the Londoners to this task and himself built the northern gate, since named Bishopsgate. Another tradition relates that at his death, which is variously placed in 685 and 693, the citizens buried his body in the cathedral. In 1148, it was translated into a sumptuous tomb. Against the whole legend of St. Erkenwald, as it grew in the Middle Ages, there is so much of inconsistent anachronism to be alleged that we must pass it by, merely assuming that a bishop of that name comes fourth on the list, that he was designated by Ini, King of Wessex, a predecessor of Alfred, as “Erkenwald, my bishop,” and that he made a serious effort to restore the bishopric to the “bishop’s stool” of Mellitus.

Authentic history, however, does not begin till the time of King Alfred. Even here we cannot be certain of the name of the bishop for whom the King built or rebuilt the cathedral church, but it was probably Heathstan, or Ethelstan, who died in 898. It is not even certain that the old site was retained. When Alfred came to London he saw its capabilities as a bulwark against the Danes: but the Roman wall was empty. For thirty years, we read, London had lain desolate. Alfred repaired the wall. He probably built the church. He revived as much as he could the ancient memories. The two land gates were placed nearly, though not exactly, on the Roman sites—one, Bishopsgate, opening on the two great northern roads, and the other, Westgate, on the Watling Street. It is possible that he repaired the bridge. The church was placed in the triangular space cut off by the course of the Watling Street from the bridge through the City, and when the wards were divided this corner became the _Warda Episcopi_.

The bishop figures as an alderman in the first list of the wards which has come down to us. It must have been drawn up about forty years after the Norman Conquest, and is now preserved in the cathedral library. It is a list of the City lands which belonged to St. Paul’s, arranged in wards, of which twenty are enumerated. The first is the bishop’s. The bishop, at this time always a Norman, or Frenchman, as he was called, was probably but little acquainted with English, and his jurisdiction was exercised by a deputy, called in Latin _prepositus_, that is provost. A provost was the abbot’s deputy at Bury St. Edmund’s, and the title was later also assumed by other laymen who acted for ecclesiastical personages, as the provost of the Alderman of Portsoken, who was the Prior of Aldgate.

When William the Conqueror granted to the citizens the brief charter which is still at Guildhall, he addressed the bishop and the portreeve. The King, that is, wrote to the alderman who had charge of the ecclesiastical government, and to the alderman who had charge of the civil government:—“William, King, greets William, Bishop, and Gosfrith, Portreeve.” Bishop and Alderman William, a Norman who had been chaplain to Edward the Confessor, had succeeded Bishop Robert, also a Norman, in 1051. He was succeeded by Hugh de Orivalle, another Norman, in 1075; so we obtain approximately the date of the charter, namely, between 1066 and 1075. The date of the document in which we have mention of the Bishop’s ward was after 1108, from internal evidence, but probably before 1115.

The constitution of the cathedral was according to the system which has been aptly named “the old foundation.” This pattern was followed in other cathedrals throughout England wherever there was no monastery attached to the church; and as the municipal government of London was imitated in other cities, so the “Government Spirituell” of St. Paul’s was taken as a model at York, Chichester, Exeter, Wells, Hereford, Lincoln, and six or seven other churches where there were no monks. The services were conducted by priests, who held estates both singly and as a corporation. There were generally more canons than estates. At St. Paul’s there were thirty, and a majority of them had each a manor somewhere in the neighbourhood of London. There they lived like other lords of manors, with their wives and children, much respected, no doubt, for their “clergy,” or clerkly learning, in districts where none of their neighbours could read or write, except, perhaps, the parsons of the parish churches, who in many cases, like their patrons, had wives and children. Their chief anxieties besides those common to a country life were the fear of Danish incursions, and the chance of being able to leave their prebendal stalls to their sons. The care of the estates, both in the City and in places more distant from the church, constantly occupied the chapter. To it we owe the list of wards mentioned above. Newcourt tells us of a meeting of the canons in 1150, which was long remembered as a settlement of various important questions. It was known as the “Constitution concerning bread and beer.” Among the prebendal manors some are described in Domesday Book as being “held by the Canons for their food.” One of these is Willesden. There was a Canon of Willesden, but apart from his estate the rest of the manor was held by “villains,” their rent going towards the provision of bread and beer in the bakery and brewery at St. Paul’s. It was resolved in 1150 to break up the whole manor, in order to endow those canons who had previously depended only on “surplice fees.” Mapesbury, Brondesbury, and Brownswood may be named as being called from the first canons after this arrangement. Walter Map, in particular, is remembered still for his witty poems, in rhyming Latin, satirising the married clergy; and the name may be seen on a prebendal stall (12th on south side) in St. Paul’s.

The staff of the cathedral consisted first of the dean; next to him were four archdeacons, London, Essex, Middlesex, and Colchester, to which, at the Reformation, St. Albans was added, to be transferred with the archdeaconries of Essex and Colchester to the new See of St. Albans in 1877. It should be observed that previously Essex came next after London in dignity and before Middlesex, Colchester, and St. Albans, a little historical point on which it would be easy to enlarge. After the archdeacons came the precentor “likewise called Cantor,” whose office it was “to look after the singing-men and singing”; the treasurer, whose office does not seem to have existed till after the Conquest; and the chancellor, who was at first called “magister scholarum,” and had charge of education in the City, with the duty of appointing the master of St. Paul’s School, “not,” says Newcourt, “that long after founded by Dean Colet,” but that which was endowed by Bishop Richard Belmeis or Balmes in the reign of Henry I. After these officers came the thirty canons, of whom there are some further notes below. In 1845 the canons, generally now described as “prebendaries,” were superseded by four canons residentiary, who with the dean and the archdeacons form the present chapter. They have no prebendal estates but are called canons. A college of minor canons was formed at an early period, and incorporated by charter of Richard II. in 1394. It consists of eight members, formerly twelve, answering to the Vicars at Wells. The close stands in the parishes of St. Augustine, St. Faith, St. Mary Magdalene, and St. Gregory. The arms of the Dean and Chapter are “Gules, two swords, in saltire, proper; in chief the letter, D. or.” One sword, on a shield, is carved in many places and forms a kind of badge; the same sword, emblematic of St. Paul, appearing also in the arms of the City, where it is often mistaken for the dagger of Walworth.

It may be added here that there seems to be evidence that at first St. Paul’s was one of the three or four City parish churches; that the Dean and Chapter gradually divided the _warda episcopi_ into smaller parishes and built churches on them, while the clergy of St. Paul’s ceased to perform parochial functions. It is not now reckoned parochial, though in rare cases marriages have been performed in it by special licence, and there is a register which begins in 1697, the year of the opening of the new church.

Before the Reformation the estates of the bishop, the dean, and the canons were very extensive, and formed almost a semicircle round the City, from Stepney on the east to Willesden on the west. Other estates were in Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, and Essex, while there were isolated holdings in all the City wards. The canons at first preserved their prebendal estates with jealous care, residing on them and, as has been said, hoping to leave them to their sons. After the enforcement of the celibacy of the clergy as one of the consequences of King John’s submission to the Pope, the canons leased away their estates until there was nothing left. Thus, in 1315, Robert Baldock leased Finsbury to the mayor and commons of London at £1 a year, and the lease was only terminated by the Ecclesiastical Commission in 1867. The manor of Portpoole formed the chief estate of the Lords Grey of Ruthin, and is now Gray’s Inn. Rugmere, part of which is Bloomsbury, part St. Giles’s, Wenlakesbarn, Ealdstreet, now Old Street, Hoxton, Cantlers, Islington, and the rest, were all leased away, and are now, for the most part, the principal endowments of wealthy noblemen. Cantlers, now Kentish town, paid £80 a year to the lord of the manor, now presumably to the Commissioners. The owner of the lease is the Marquis Camden. This is one example only. As late as the middle of thirteenth century we find mention of the families of canons. A very prominent member of the chapter in 1145 was prebendary of St. Pancras, Osbert “de Auco,” who was succeeded by his son, Robert, whose son, John, does not seem to have become a priest; and Robert de Auco was succeeded at his death by Walter, the son of the bishop. Before 1138 we meet with the names of Wlured and his two sons, all canons. Gervase of Canterbury, a canon, had a son, John. Richard, a canon, was son of Archdeacon Richard. The manor of Caddington Major, now called Aston Bury in Bedfordshire, was held by Roger the Archdeacon, son of Robert the Archdeacon. A little earlier we find that Ralph Flambard, appointed Bishop of Durham in 1099, who figures in the history of the Tower of London in the reign of Henry II., and who died in 1128, was prebendary of Tatenhall. His son, Elias, was prebendary of Sneating, near Kirkeby in Essex, where he was succeeded by William, son of Archdeacon Otho, at whose death Ralph, brother of Canon Elias, a younger son of the Bishop of Durham, succeeded to the stall. Of another of the married archdeacons, Nicholas Croceman, we read that he held Oxgate, and that his son, another Nicholas, succeeded him in both archdeaconry and canonry. One of the two Bishops Balmes had two sons, Henry, prebendary of Mora, and Walter, of Newington, in the reign of Henry II. The first bishop appointed by Richard I. was his treasurer, the son of Nigel, Bishop of Ely; he was one of the most eminent of those who held the See of London in the twelfth century, and figures as Bishop Richard Fitz Neal. In short, before the beginning of the thirteenth century we may assume that most of the secular clergy were married men, and the enforcement of celibacy, no doubt, was one of the causes of the unpopularity of the Church in London before the Reformation; while it led indirectly to the alienation of the prebendal estates.

Old St. Paul’s is the name by which the building destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666 is usually distinguished. All that is left of it may be traced within the railings on the south side of the present cathedral. The original church of Alfred and his successors perished in 962, and the new building then set up was burnt in 1136. Old St. Paul’s may be said, therefore, to date from the middle of the twelfth century, but it was continually being altered and added to until 1633, when it was completed by the construction of a magnificent portico at the west end by Inigo Jones. The spire seems to have been the tallest in Christendom, rising 520 feet to the eagle and cross, which contained a portion of the true cross. It was finished in 1498, but was burnt in 1561 and never rebuilt. The nave and choir each contained twelve bays united by a wide transept. The arches of the nave and transept were Norman, of the east end pointed, a great rose window terminating the Chapel of St. Mary, and overlooking the west end of Cheap, on which it encroached. The Corinthian pillars of the portico did not look incongruous with the Romanesque nave and the similar little church of St. Gregory which stood on the south side. The western towers, one of which was described as the Lollard’s Tower, were low but massive. A bell tower was at the east end of the churchyard until Sir Miles Partridge won it “at one cast of the dice,” says Dugdale, from Henry VIII., and pulled it down. The famous Paul’s Cross, where public sermons were preached, stood on the north side of the choir, and a chapel, or charnel house, near it, “having under it a vault, wherein the bones taken out of sundry graves in that cemetery were, with great respect and care decently piled together.” This chapel had a warden and an establishment of priests. Another similar chapel was in “Pardon Church Yard,” a little to the westward, and had a cloister painted with the Dance of Death, with “English verses to explain the meaning, translated out of French by John Lydgate, a monk of St. Edmond’s Bury,” says Dugdale. Over the cloister was a library. Another cloister, of which some relics remain, was on the south side of the nave and was built in 1332, together with a chapter-house. This building occupied the site of a garden, south of which, between the church and Paul’s Wharf, was a tilt yard, used by Lord Fitzwalter for drilling the City Trained Bands. It is marked for us by Paul’s Chain and Knightrider Street. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the doctrine of masses for the dead attained a great height, and it is believed that at least one hundred mass priests attended daily at St. Paul’s. Churches were no longer built in the City but chantries multiplied everywhere, especially after the Black Death in the middle of the fourteenth century.

The church was very full of monuments. Some were shrines of legendary saints, among which may be reckoned the supposed tombs of King Sebert and Bishop Erkenwald, both held in great veneration. What Becket became at Canterbury, the canons tried to make of Erkenwald at St. Paul’s, and the shrine was covered with gold and precious stones. There were many relics, including the arm of Mellitus, and most of the oblations seem to have been preserved in the north aisle of the choir till Henry VIII. sent them in cart loads to the Jewel Tower. (More may be read on the subject in Sparrow Simpson’s _St. Paul’s and Old City Life_.) The monuments included many chantries with altars, no fewer than seventy-three being enumerated in the fourteenth century. The cost may be estimated by what Dr. R. Sharpe tells us. A bequest of twenty-five shillings secured three hundred masses. There were thirty-five of these altars at the Reformation, employing only fifty-four priests owing to a movement for uniting them, and there were fifty-four obits. The mass priests and their dissolute lives had, no doubt, much to do with the welcome accorded in London to the reforms of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. Among the finest monuments were those of John of Gaunt; Sir John Beauchamp, which was usually called Duke Humphry’s; and of many of the bishops, including Bishop William Kemp, Chishull, and others. After the Reformation many “marble hearses” of great size and magnificence were erected, among others to Dean Colet, Sir William Hewit, Sir Nicholas Bacon, Sir William Cokain, the earl and countess of Pembroke, William Aubrey, John Wolley, Sir Thomas Heneage, and especially to Sir Christopher Hatton, the largest in the church. Fragments still survive of some of them, and the curious effigy of Dean Donne (d. 1631), rising like an Arabian genie from an urn, has been repaired and stands in the south aisle of the choir.

The Fire of 1666 broke out on the 2nd September among the bakers’ shops in Pudding Lane, a thoroughfare of Eastcheap answering to Bread Street in Westcheap. It reached St. Paul’s on the 3rd, and is briefly described by Pepys on the 7th as “a miserable sight,” the roofs destroyed, “the body of the quire fallen into St. Fayth’s.” Evelyn speaks of the scaffolds which were up for the repairs as hastening the ruin, and of the melting lead running down the streets in a stream. He specially laments the loss of Inigo Jones’s portico—immense stones calcined, ornaments, columns, capitals of massy Portland stone flying off. “The lead over the altar at the east end was untouched and among the divers monuments the body of one bishop remained entire.”

Wren, after the Fire, found St. Paul’s completely ruined. The marble portico was reduced to a heap of lime; the roofs had fallen in; the choir had sunk. Nearly all the monuments had perished; and an attempt by Dean Sancroft and the canons to repair a portion at the west end only added to the general destruction. Nevertheless, it was not till June 21, 1675, that the first stone was laid of a new cathedral. Various experiments had been made in the meanwhile, but they only demonstrated the untrustworthy character of the foundations. Contrary to what we often hear about the mediæval builders, it was abundantly evident that here their moving principle had been to produce the greatest effect by the cheapest means, stability being everywhere sacrificed to show. The King, Charles II., and his brother, afterwards James II., hindered Wren’s work in many ways, design after design being rejected as not suitable for the Romanist worship they secretly hoped to re-establish. Wren at length obtained leave to proceed with his task, but one of the models he had prepared is still to be seen in the triforium. Many other causes interfered to check the work, and it was long after both the kings, as well as their successor, Queen Mary II., were dead, in 1697, that the choir was ready for use. A celebration of the Peace of Ryswick took the place of any form of consecration, such as would now be thought needful, and the building was completed in most essential particulars by 1718, when Wren was superseded by a wholly incompetent architect named Benson, chiefly remembered as building the unfortunate balustrade with which he endeavoured to dwarf Wren’s dome. Wren had already been overruled as to the decoration of the dome. Benson was dismissed in 1720. A silly story is constantly repeated as to St. Paul’s having been completed by one architect, under one bishop, and with one clerk of the works. But Bishop Henchman was in office when Wren began his work, and was succeeded by Compton in 1675, who saw the choir finished. After him, in 1713, came Robinson, who was still in office at the time of Wren’s death. It was under this bishop that Wren was dismissed and subsequently Benson, and a third architect, Robert Mylne, came in. So, too, several clerks of the works were employed, among whom we may name Thomas Strong, who died in 1681; his brother, Edward, who died in 1723; and Christopher Kempster, who seems to have been told off by Wren to build St. Stephen, Walbrook, which even more than St. Paul’s commemorates the genius of the great architect. Kempster himself was the architect of the market-house at Abingdon, often attributed to Inigo Jones; he died in 1715.

It is well, if possible, to approach St. Paul’s from the west. When it comes into sight from the end of Fleet Street, the dome is seen to advantage, rising clear of surrounding buildings on the top of a hill. In this respect it surpasses the only cathedral church in England which can be compared to it, namely Salisbury, which stands on low ground. If we compare it with Lincoln or Durham we miss the magnificent central feature. The dome competes, especially in a city, very successfully with a spire. As we approach Ludgate Hill, the tower of St. Martin, 158 feet high, offers a measure to the eye—the needlessly ugly railway viaduct interfering much less than was feared at first. From Ludgate the two western towers, supporting the double portico, are well seen, and are esteemed as among the best of Wren’s compositions. The towers, of which the southern carries the clock and the great bell, are 220 feet high. The whole west front, as seen from the entrance of St. Paul’s Churchyard, is 180 feet in height and the same in width. The lower pillars of the portico are 40 feet high. The statue in the front was sculptured by Francis Bird in 1712, mutilated by a lunatic in 1743, and restored a few years ago. Between it and the steps, an inscription, cut in the granite pavement, commemorates the fact that here the aged Queen Victoria gave public thanks for the sixty years of her reign in 1897.

The exterior of the church shows two orders, the lower Corinthian, and the upper, what Wren described as “a Composition.” In the tympanum over the portico is a relief by Bird representing the conversion of St. Paul, and on the pediment above are statues of St. Paul between St. Peter and St. James. The railing, now removed from the front, is of iron, cast at Lamberhurst in Sussex. The plan of the cathedral is cruciform, the transepts north and south ending with graceful semicircular porticoes. The east end has a semicircular apse. The cupola, which, as Gwilt says, rises from the body of the church “in great majesty,” should be seen from near the statue of Peel in Cheapside. A fountain within the rails marks the site of Paul’s Cross. From the south a fine view can be obtained from the little garden in which the foundations of the cloisters and chapter-house have been uncovered. The gilt cross is 365 feet above the pavement. The colonnade round the dome is of the composite order, consisting of 32 pillars standing on a circular pedestal 20 feet high and 112 feet in diameter. The columns are not in pairs as at St. Peter’s, but are placed at regular intervals, every fourth intercolumniation being filled with masonry. A sense of stability is thus gained without any sacrifice of lightness.

The best idea of the interior will be obtained by entering at the west end. The great central door is only opened on state occasions; but by either side door we find ourselves in a vestibule with the morning chapel on the north and the consistorial court, which has been made a chapel of the order of St. Michael and St. George, on the south. The carved oak screens should be observed. At the entrance of the nave are fine bronze candelabra. The nave consists of three bays clear, which we enter from the vestibule. There are side aisles, the full width being 102 feet. The height of the central aisle is 89 feet. Beyond the nave, which is 340 feet long, we see the area under the dome, 112 feet across. Beyond this, the choir extends eastward 140 feet. A screen is seen behind the communion table, beyond which in the apse there is a chapel. The screen, erected from the designs of Messrs. Bodley and Garner in 1888, takes the place of a baldacchino, which Wren is said to have intended. The whole length from the west door to the apse is 500 feet. The transept from the north door to the south is 250 feet long, or half the length, and this simple proportion occurs throughout the building; but the western towers are two-thirds the height of the cupola, being exactly double the height of the adjacent roofs. The windows are 12 feet wide and 24 feet high; the aisles are 19 feet in clear width by 38 feet in height. The vestibule is a square of 47 feet and 94 feet high. So, too, the space under the dome, which is 108 feet wide, is 216 feet high.

The side aisles lead to the dome and transepts by an ingenious but simple plan, which Wren is believed to have adapted from that of Ely Cathedral. The inner dome appears very high when we stand under it, but it hardly rises above the colonnade of the outer dome. A cone of brick-work which interposes between the outer and the inner dome carries at its apex the ball and cross. The ball is 6 feet 2 inches in diameter, but it is only to be attained by a long ascent from the whispering gallery, 200 feet above the pavement. A curious echo may be remarked here. Above the whispering gallery an ascent of 108 steps, some 70 feet, takes us to the stone gallery, formed by the balustrade round the external base of the dome, from which a fine view of the far-reaching City may be obtained. A winding and difficult stair leads under the outer dome to the golden gallery, about 100 feet higher, and a farther climb of 45 feet is needed before we reach the ball, within which six people may be seated. The best external view is from the golden gallery.

The same staircase by which we approach the dome takes us to the triforium over the south aisle of the nave. At the western extremity is the library, and in a room adjacent may be seen a large model which Wren made of his first design for the church. In the gallery at the west end is the collection of ancient records belonging to the Dean and Chapter—some of which are dated as early as the reigns of the Saxon kings, the immediate successors of Alfred.

A door into the south-west tower opens just beyond the library, and admits to the so-called geometrical staircase.

The organ was originally constructed by the famous “Father Schmidt.” He gave special attention to the wooden pipes. Some of his stops are still in use, but the instrument which formerly stood across the entrance to the choir and interrupted the view from the nave and the dome, has been divided and greatly improved, while some of the pipes, which were useless for want of room, are now placed in convenient spaces above the stalls and even in the triforium.

Returning to the dome we may see and admire the choir stalls, carved in wood by Grinling Gibbons. Beautiful wreaths of flowers, carved by him in stone, may be found in many places on the vaulting. The iron work in the gates, the doors of the choir and many other places well repays examination. It was chiefly designed by Tijou. A pair of bronze candelabra on the steps of the reredos are copied from an ancient pair in a Belgian church, which are said to have been taken from old St. Paul’s after the Fire.

In the south choir aisle are the altar tombs of Dean Milman and Bishops Blomfield and Jackson. A statue of Bishop Heber is at the farther end, and against a pier the (restored) monument of Dean Donne, from the old church, representing him in his shroud rising from an urn. In a modern chapel at the extreme east end is the altar tomb of Canon Liddon (d. 1890).

Very few of the monuments in St. Paul’s can be admired. Beginning at the western end the first we meet is a recumbent figure on a marble sarcophagus of Lord Leighton (d. 1896). Next is a low cenotaph to General Gordon, murdered at Khartoum, 1885. The great Wellington monument is still incomplete, but is the best example of English sculpture in the church. It was first placed in the south-west chapel or consistorial court, where it could not be seen. In 1895 Lord Leighton, at that time President of the Royal Academy, formed a committee which obtained leave to remove it to the middle arch on the north side of the nave. It is now seen to great advantage, though wanting the equestrian figure. The great Duke lies on his bier “with his martial cloak around him.” The “cartouches” at either side bear his arms, above the marble arch, which is supported over his head on composite columns. The shafts are formed of oak leaves. Two bronze groups on the arch represent Virtue trampling upon Vice, and Truth silencing Falsehood. Alfred Stevens, the sculptor, died in 1875, aged 58.

In the third bay, against the north wall, is the singular but poetical monument by Marochetti, of the brothers Lamb, successive Viscounts Melbourne. The elder, William, was Queen Victoria’s first prime minister and died in 1848. The younger, Frederick, Lord Beauvale, died five years later. An ebony door, on which the names and dates are inscribed in gold, is guarded on either side by the Angels of Death and of the Resurrection, sculptured in white marble. The design and sentiment excel the execution.

Several large monuments are in the south aisle of the nave, chiefly in very bad taste. Almost every panel in both aisles has its tablet commemorating naval or military heroes. The pulpit is a memorial of an officer, Fitzgerald; and the tombs of several other men of Indian fame, including three Napiers, are in the north transept, and compete in poverty of design and sculpture with Bacon’s absurd figure of Dr. Johnson, who was buried at Westminster, and his John Howard (d. 1790), the first statue set up in the church. Somewhat better than its neighbours is Rossi’s monument, in the north transept, of Lord Rodney between figures supposed to represent Fame and the Historic Muse. Nelson and Cornwallis face each other across the south transept, each surrounded by allegorical groups, wholly inappropriate to the place. There are also monuments of Sir John Moore, Sir Ralph Abercromby, Lord Heathfield, Lord Howe, Sir Henry Lawrence, and many more of which it may safely be said that not one is worthy either of the situation or of the personage commemorated. Mr. Birch quotes the opinion that at St. Paul’s the apostles are placed outside and the heathen divinities within. Much more satisfactory is the brief inscription over the inner portico of the north door which speaks of the career of Sir Christopher Wren “who lived not for his own good but for that of the public,” and ends with the words—“Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice”; to which we may add Wren’s own saying, “Building is for eternity.”

The roof of the choir and of the apse beyond it now glow, as Wren desired they should, with colour and gold. The designs by Sir William Richmond, K.C.B., R.A., have been carried out under his personal superintendence in English mosaic, which should be viewed with a strong opera-glass. The faces of the principal figures represented will repay a little trouble. The central figure at the east end is above life-size but carefully adapted to the general proportions, already mentioned, of the building. Each panel is a picture, and the scheme is worked out in the stained glass of the windows, while the harmony of colour, form, and proportion produces an effect upon the mind comparable only with that of the best music. Unfortunately, the designs for the figures of prophets and evangelists, under the dome, seem to have been made in ignorance or defiance of the conditions by which Sir William Richmond has been guided; while they are dull, heavy, and dark in colour. They were produced some fifty years ago, and have a highly discordant effect.

Sir William Richmond’s work has been carried out in conformity with a settled plan, based upon the proportions of the whole building. At the east end, the roof of the apse shows the figure of Our Lord seated, with uplifted hands. In the adjoining panels right and left are Recording Angels, attended by winged cherubim. The lower rectangular spaces are filled with figures of the Virtues and such scenes as the sacrifice of Noah and the blessing of Abraham. Many other allusive and allegorical subjects fill the panels of the vaulting as far as the entrance of the choir, supplemented by abundant gilding and by marble inlay, all carefully harmonised and subdued so as to produce a gorgeous but not a garish effect. The stained-glass windows are similarly subdued to the general scheme of colour, and the result gives great encouragement to those who would see the dome similarly treated if not the nave and transepts also—a work of such magnitude that few of us can hope ever to see it accomplished.

* * * * *

A door in the south transept admits the visitor to the crypt, a very interesting part of the church. It appeals to the architect and scientific builder as well as to the historical student and the sightseer. We can study Wren’s methods of construction here much more readily than above, and can, moreover, see where he was eventually forced to alter the plans with which he commenced operations, and which were in his mind in the preparative work here apparent. First at the foot of the steps we reach “the Artists’ Corner.” At the eastern end, just where it is believed the high altar of Old St. Paul’s was placed, is the grave of the great architect himself. It is inscribed with the memorable sentence already quoted as over the northern entrance. Close by are the graves of Reynolds, Turner, Landseer, and other great painters including Lord Leighton and Sir J. E. Millais. Some eminent architects are near—Mylne, who succeeded as surveyor of St. Paul’s, and Cockerell who came after him. Goss, part of whose funeral ode on Wellington is inscribed on his tombstone, and Boyce represent music. In the crypt too were laid the scanty remains found in the Arabian desert of Palmer and his companions, murdered in 1882. Sir Bartle Frere and another great colonial statesman, Dalley, are both laid here. But to most visitors no tombs or memorials are so interesting as those of Nelson and Wellington. In a kind of chapel marked by its own candelabra, and situated just under the choir, the lofty sarcophagus which contains the body of the great Duke forms a conspicuous object in the view. It is formed of a large block of red porphyry from Cornwall, standing on a pedestal of the same stone, and a base of grey granite—all studiously plain. The funeral took place in 1852, three months after Wellington’s death; even then the sepulchre was not ready and the coffin rested for some weeks on the Nelson tomb farther east. Beside the Duke are the remains of Sir Thomas Picton, his comrade and lieutenant at Waterloo. Picton was killed in the battle, and his body was brought home to his house in Edwardes Street, now Seymour Street, Portman Square. Thence it was removed to the vaults of the chapel of St. George, now altered, in the Uxbridge Road, where it rested till 1859, when, nearly seven years after Wellington’s funeral, it was brought here. The tomb of Nelson is under the dome. He died on October 21, 1805, at the great victory of Trafalgar, and his body was brought home and buried here. It had been intended that his coffin should be enclosed in a black marble sarcophagus which, lying unused in Wolsey’s Chapel at Windsor, was presented by the King for the purpose. It had been sculptured by a Florentine named Bernardo da Rovezzano, for Cardinal Wolsey, and remained in the chapel. The wooden coffin, made of the mast of _L’Orient_, blown up at the battle of the Nile, which had been presented to Nelson by his friend Hallowell, of the _Swiftsure_, was too large to go into the marble sarcophagus, which is still empty. It stands on a fine base of black and white marble, and Nelson’s body is in the masonry below. Beside Nelson sleep Collingwood (d. 1810), the second, and Northesk (d. 1831), the third in command at Trafalgar.

To the west of Nelson’s tomb is preserved the funeral car or hearse made for the burial of the Duke of Wellington—a monumental work in itself. It was cast from cannon taken in the Duke’s victories, from designs by Redgrave, and is so fine as to have led many critics to attribute it to Stevens—wrongly, however, as Redgrave’s drawings are still extant.

Quite apart from the tombs here to be seen and the names of great men on every side, this crypt is well worth a visit. We observe in it, the care and attention to details which Wren bestowed upon every part of his great design. He altered the axis of the new church, the east end of which is slightly to the northward of that of old St. Paul’s. By this means he obtained fresh ground for the more important parts of his foundations. The great piers which support the dome do not stand where those which supported the old central tower stood. At one place, said to be near the north-east corner, he found that a gravel pit had been made and “the hard pot earth,” on which he depended, had been removed. He sunk a pit to where, at the very foot of the hill on which St. Paul’s stands, he found a firm foundation, and laid upon it a mass of masonry, 10 feet square, on which he could rely. It was not his intention to interrupt the view of the central aisle by placing the organ over the entrance to the choir, but, in the crypt, we see that when he had to comply with the taste of the time, he built “a row of columns and arches to strengthen the floor for the extra weight it was called upon to carry.”

The modest _Guide_, by Mr. Gilbertson, which is to be had at the ticket office at the foot of the stairs to the dome, contains by far the best account of the church. It is supplemented by a description of the mosaics, mentioned above. For a magnificent series of views a volume by the late Mr. Birch on the _City Churches_ may be named. There is no modern history of the cathedral which can be recommended to the student as, so far, the great collection of records preserved in the library has not been used by historians. Milman and Longman do not seem to have been aware of its existence. The late Dr. Sparrow Simpson, whose delightful but desultory volumes have already been mentioned, made many extracts from these manuscripts, but his example has hardly been followed.

The manuscripts were well catalogued in 1883, by Sir H. Maxwell Lyte, for the Historical Manuscripts Commission.

=St. Faith= was situated under the choir of old St. Paul’s. In 1549, Jesus Chapel in the cathedral being suppressed by Edward VI., the parishioners of St. Faith’s were allowed to remove from their crypt to this chapel. It continued so till St. Paul’s was burnt down, when the parish was annexed to St. Augustine’s by Act of Parliament (1670). The earliest date of an incumbent is 1277.

The patronage of this church has always been in the hands of: The Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s—as far back as 1148; and in 1277 Robert le Seneschal was rector.

Houseling people in 1548 were 400.

A considerable number of monuments are recorded by Stow, but none are of much note. The most interesting is that of Katherine, third daughter of Edward, Lord Neville.

There was a table in the south aisle of the church with the names of the benefactors, amongst whom were: John Sanderson, donor of £150, and Elizabeth Underwood, donor of £70.

Richard Layton (d. 1544), Dean of York, was rector here.

=St. Gregory by St. Paul’s= was situated on the south side of St. Paul’s, near the west end, in the ward of Castle Baynard. The date of its foundation is not known, but it is said that the body of Edmund, King of the East Angles, who was put to death by the Danes in 870, rested here for three years. It was burnt down by the Great Fire and not rebuilt, its parish being annexed to that of St. Mary Magdalene, Old Fish Street. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1181.

It was a Rectory in the gift of the Prebendary of St. Pancras and formed part of the manor of that prebendary. It was appropriated in 1445 to the minor canons of St. Paul’s, and so continued until the church was annexed to St. Mary Magdalene, Old Fish Street, in 1666.

Houseling people in 1548 were 600.

A chantry was founded here by Robert Rosamonde, whose endowment fetched £13 : 18s. in 1548, when Peter Jacksonne was priest, aged thirty-nine years, “a teacher for children, and hath, for that he was a religious person, a pension of £5 : 6 : 8 over and besides this his stipend of £6 : 13 : 4.”

No monuments of any special note are recorded in this church by Stow.

There was a school in this parish for thirty boys and twenty girls, purchased at the expense of Alderman Barber; and one almshouse, upon Lambeth Hill.

John Hewitt, tried by Cromwell’s High Court of Justice and beheaded in 1658, was rector here, and was buried in this church.

In =St. Paul’s Churchyard= the chapter-house first attracts our attention, a square, plain, red-brick building, with a modern office for the cathedral architect on one side; the top story was added in the last twenty years of the nineteenth century. These additions are not so noticeable as might be supposed, but are wonderfully harmonised by smoke and weather already. The building is finished with Portland stone, and the two semicircular projecting pediments over the two front doorways are of the same material. In each of these there is a curious niche or recess, which was evidently designed to receive a coat-of-arms, but no coat-of-arms has ever been placed there. The age of the chapter-house is indefinite. Mr. Penrose, the cathedral architect, judges it to have been built shortly after the year 1700. There is negative evidence to show that it did not exist before that date, for in a design of Wren’s, showing the limits of old St. Paul’s, the frontage of houses to the street is incompatible with the position of the chapter-house, and the buildings are also marked as ordinary dwelling-houses. But this plan is not altogether trustworthy, for it does not give the cathedral foundations correctly, and may therefore be inaccurate in other particulars. It is supposed, on account of this inaccuracy, to have been one of the later plans, probably made about 1700, when the old foundations had been built over and forgotten. It bears no date, and the evidence must be taken for what it is worth. Knight, in his _London_, gives a print dated 1701, and says that Wren repaired and restored the chapter-house after the Fire, which is obviously incorrect.

Within the chapter-house all is simple and solid. A square wainscotted hall, paved with plain white marble slabs, deep-set doors and windows in the thickness of the walls, and a fine, wide, shallow-stepped staircase with well-worked iron supports to the handrail. The character of the balustrade changes above the first floor, and the handrail is supported by spiral wooden balusters. The walls of the finely proportioned chapter-room are all wainscotted, otherwise there is nothing to remark upon. This room is occasionally lent to ecclesiastical conferences. In one of the other rooms are eight panels, 2 feet 6 by 1 foot 9 inches, enclosed in small gilt frames. These hang rather high up round the walls. They are monotint, and are Sir James Thornhill’s original designs for the frescoes in the dome of the cathedral. These designs are excellently clear, and show what the now faded frescoes must have been.

The archdeacon of the cathedral has a suite of rooms in the chapter-house, and the remainder of the house is carried out in the same plain domestic style.

The north side of the churchyard consists of a row of dingy brick buildings of various heights and ages. One or two are showing signs of decrepid old age, others still flourishing, with the names of their tradesmen occupants in mighty gilt letters across their smoky fronts. The irregular roofs of tiles or slates, with fantastic little iron railings high up, or windows peeping over the parapets, are sufficiently original to be interesting. Every class of goods seems to find representatives here—we see confectioners, milliners, bootmakers, photographers, etc. The Religious Tract Society has one entrance in the churchyard. On the east side we find all the houses modern, in the modern style, with stone facings; they are chiefly occupied by manufacturers.

We turn next to =Paternoster Row=.

In every large town on the Continent, wherever a cathedral has been erected, there are streets occupied by shops where all kinds of ecclesiastical things are made and sold, such as beads, crucifixes, wax tapers, service books, meditations, and such like. Paternoster Row served this purpose for St. Paul’s in the first instance, and, as there is only one other street so called, namely, the lane of Paternoster in the Riole, one may reasonably conclude that, with this other street, it supplied all the churches and all the faithful of the City with these things. We read of “Paternoster” meaning rosaries, and of a “Paternostrer” or one whose trade it was to make rosaries, etc. There are frequent references to both Paternoster “Street” of St. Michael le Querne, and Paternoster Lane, or Paternoster Church Lane of St. Michael, Paternoster Royal. Of the first, for instance, there are houses and rents spoken of in wills of 1312 and 1321.

This is, in fact, one of the most ancient, as well as one of the most interesting of the City Streets.

We can catch glimpses here and there of the actual residents of this street, the place where they made the rosaries. They should have been a quiet and God-fearing folk; but they were not. In 1381 one Godfrey de Belstred was assaulted by three “Paternostrers” of this parish, whether for purposes of robbery or in a quarrel does not appear; he was picked up wounded, and carried off to die. In the same century we find persons owning houses in this street; one, William de Ravenstone, Almoner of St. Paul’s, leaves by will a house in Paternoster Row. Did his functions permit him to live outside the precinct which sheltered such a goodly company of ecclesiastics? About the same time William Russell—surely the earliest mention of that illustrious name—bequeaths his house in the Row; Garter King-at-arms has a house there; John de Pykenham, Paternostrer, leaves various tenements to his wife, who claims as one of them a house in the Row. William le Marbler, a vintner, has a house there; the name shows that a man might by this time leave the trade of his father, and take to another without changing his surname, just as the name of Chaucer, who never belonged to the “gentle craft,” means shoemaker. There are other instances of “Paternostrers,” all of whom belong to the Parish, if not to the Row, which formed the most important part of it.

The street, in fact, belonged to two parishes; one of these was the parish of St. Faith under Paul’s (see p. 340). St. Faith’s parish includes Paternoster Square, the Row, and Ivy Lane, with little fringes or strips, on the north and south. The east end of the Row is in the parish of St. Michael le Querne (see p. 326). This little parish, whose church is now St. Vedast’s, Foster Lane, included no more than 250 feet of the Row, with that part of Chepe west of Foster Lane, and the buildings on the north-west of the cathedral precinct. If you stand now on the site of the church, you will find it difficult to understand how there could be room for a parish church and a graveyard on the little space between the Row and the west end of Cheapside. By measurement, however, you will ascertain that a line drawn from the shop at the end of the Row to the corner of Cheapside is 130 feet in length, while a line drawn perpendicular to the buildings is 110 feet. Now the mediæval builders were ingenious in cramming churches and halls into small areas. I have laid down the church as it might have been, and I put the present statue of Peel at the crossing of the transepts if it was a cruciform church. I do not think, however, that it was cruciform, but that it consisted of a nave and chancel only, with a small burial-ground on the north, and a tower on the east side. The Fire of 1666 left it rootless, broke its windows, melted its glass, calcined its marbles, and destroyed its woodwork. It also burned up the coffins with their contents in the vaults. The parish was poor and small; the “Paternostrers” existed no longer; the parishioners decided not to rebuild the church; they amalgamated their parish with another; they widened the way that led from Newgate Street into Cheapside; and the bones of the dead, which were now so much grey powder, were trampled in the mud and dust of the street.

When the Reformation came, the trade of the street was annihilated. Fortunately for the poor “Paternostrers” the work of destruction was not sudden; it took time for the old services and the old ceremonies, which required their handiwork, to be abolished. What they did when the accession of the Protestant party to power closed their shops; how they got rid of their unsold stock, their piles of rosaries, beads, crucifixes, candlesticks; what new trades they learned; what bankruptcies and disasters fell upon them, no one knows. There is no chronicle to tell of the immediate effects of the Reformation on the trade and the common life of the City. It is, however, certain that the Paternostrers had to try something else.

They vanish; the historian hears no more of them; they rejoiced, we may be very sure, when Queen Mary brought back the ancient things; they trembled when Queen Elizabeth showed herself as independent and as masterful as her father.

But the place is central; it is a quiet and convenient place, retired from the noisy market; it is essentially a street for business of a quiet kind. Therefore the people who had formerly occupied the stalls of Broken Cross, the Standard, and the Great Cross, changed their quarters and took the small shops of the Paternostrers, where they sold paper, parchment, ink, pens, and the like—being the forerunners of the booksellers.

But the day of the booksellers was not yet. Paternoster Row was too large for the stationers; the mercers, silkmen, and lacemen found out the place and began to crowd out the stationers. It became the principal place for the sale of these fashionable goods; in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries all the great ladies went to Paternoster Row for their fineries; latterly the lane was thronged with carriages.

Then came the Fire.

After the Fire, according to Strype, the mercers migrated to Covent Garden, Henrietta Street, and King Street. According to Defoe, the Row was rebuilt after the Fire, for the convenience of these trades; “the spacious shops, back warehouses, skylights, and other conveniences made on purpose for their trade are still to be seen.” He goes on to say that the other traders were then dependent on the more important shops: lacemen were in Ivy Lane, button shops at the Cheapside end, shops for crewels and fringe in Blowbladder Street. He says that this continued for twenty years after the Fire, and that the mercers began then to migrate to Covent Garden, where, however, they did not remain many years. They then returned to the City and established themselves on Ludgate Hill.

But all the mercers and silkmen did not desert the Row. In 1720 there were still some “with many tirewomen.” It is at this period that we first hear of booksellers in the Row. Their previous quarters, before the Fire, had been St. Paul’s Churchyard not far off. After the Fire, some of them went to the upper end of Paternoster Row, where there were built “large warehouses for booksellers well situated for learned and studious men’s access thither, being more retired and private” (Strype). Others retreated, their stocks destroyed by the Fire, in an impoverished condition, to the cheaper street of Little Britain, where they continued for eighty years, when they began to flock into Paternoster Row.

“From the manufacture of paternosters to the publication and sale of books is a long step. The Row, however, gradually lost all its mercers, lacemen, and silkmen, and became the home of books, old and new. Other booksellers there were in other parts, but not many—Dodsley, for instance, in Pall Mall, Murray in Fleet Street, Newbery in St. Paul’s; but the greater number had their shops, being booksellers as well as publishers, in the Row. No longer did the coaches rumble along the narrow street; posts placed across forbade the passage of coach or cart; it became the most quiet street in all London. Gradually another change fell upon the place: the booksellers’ shops disappeared, and with them the throng of scholars who had been wont to meet and talk among the books. The Row became a wholesale place, whither the ‘trade’ came to buy; printers, bookbinders, and papermakers came for orders; and needy authors came, hat in hand, in the hope of picking up a guinea.

“There is a book called _Travels in Town_, written in the year 1839. The author, speaking of the output of books, boldly states that they had all to pass through Paternoster Row—certainly an exaggeration, but by far the greater number had to do so. The busiest day in the month was Magazine day, when the new magazines were sold to the trade. About 400,000 copies left the Row that morning. When we consider the nature of these magazines—the _Gentleman_, _Tait’s_, the _New Monthly_, the _Metropolitan_, _Blackwood’s_, _Fraser’s_—there can be no doubt that among the better class of readers the magazine occupied a much more important place then than it does at present.

“The Row kept up its character as the headquarters of the book trade for many years. But other changes have set in. There now are as many publishers outside the Row as in it. We find publishers about Covent Garden and Charing Cross; booksellers there are, of course, everywhere. The _Directory_ gives a list of over four hundred publishers, of whom not more than forty or fifty need be taken into account. Of the four hundred, however, the Row still numbers thirty; while of booksellers, stationers, and other persons connected with the book trade, there are another thirty in the Row. So the old literary atmosphere hangs about the place, and, though most of the greater publishers are gone, there are enough left to keep up the traditions of the past. And north of the Row, in Paternoster Square and the courts and lanes, other publishers and booksellers are found who lend their name to make the Row and its vicinity still the headquarters of new books.

“As for the social side of the Row. It once boasted two places of resort where men could meet and dine, or sit and talk. The first of them was Dolly’s Chop House. This house was built in the time of Queen Anne for a certain cook named Dolly. It is said to have stood on the site of an ordinary kept by Tarleton the Elizabethan mime. If this is true, there was probably, according to the conservative habits of our people, a tavern kept up on the spot continuously. It was not the custom, in the early years of the eighteenth century, to create a new tavern, but to carry on an old one. However, Dolly’s remained a place of great resort for more than a hundred years. It seems to have been famous for its beefsteaks.

“The other, a more important place, was the Chapter Coffee House. This place was in the eighteenth century the resort of the booksellers; here they met for the sale, among themselves, of copyrights, and for the sharing of any new enterprise in new books. Here also met many of the wits and writers during the last half of that century—Goldsmith, Johnson, Lloyd, Churchill, and many others came here to sup and to talk. Chatterton found his way here, sitting in a corner and thinking himself already admitted among the acknowledged poets of the day. In the early part of this century the coffee house was frequented by a knot of writers of some importance in their own day. There was Alexander Stevens, Dr. Buchan, the Rev. W. Murray, the Rev. Dr. Berdmore, Walker ‘the rhetorician,’ Dr. Towers, Dr. Fordyce, Johnson, called in his day ‘king of the booksellers,’ Phillips, editor of the _Monthly Magazine_, Alexander Chalmers, Macfarlane, and others whose names are well-nigh forgotten, who yet thought themselves no mean citizens, and formed a group which came here every night and talked. Sad it is to think that to these circles, as well as to that of the Chapter Coffee House, Time will apply the sponge and efface their names and their sayings from the memory of the world.” (_Paper on Paternoster Row._)

=Ave Maria Lane= was “so called” (Stow) “because of stationers and text writers who wrote and sold there all sorts of books then in use, namely, A.B.C. with the Pater Noster, Ave, Creed, the Graces, etc.”

On the east side of Ave Maria Lane was the “Vicarage” of the Vicars Choral of St. Paul’s, “bounded on the east by the Penitentiarie’s house; on the west by Ave Maria Lane; on the south by the highway leading through St. Paul’s churchyard; and on the north by the Bishop’s Palace.”

The Garden of the Bishop of London’s Palace on the west was divided from Ave Maria Lane by a great brick wall reaching to an old house in Paternoster Row, the Three White Lyons.

The site of the Bishop’s Palace was in London House Yard. The Palace was pulled down in 1650 and tenements built upon its site.

Here has been demolished the old tavern, No. 8, distinguished by its sign of the Goose and the Gridiron. The tavern stood, perhaps, on the site of the Mitre, where, in 1642-44, was exhibited a collection of curiosities which, according to their Catalogue, must have consisted mainly of rarities similar in kind to those of “Tradeskins Ark” at Lambeth, or of the Royal Society when lodged at Gresham College. The Catalogue says they are “daily to be seen at the place called the Music House at the Mitre near the west end of St. Paul’s Church.” The sign may have been designed in burlesque of that of the Swan and Harp in Cheapside, as cited in _Little London Directory_ of 1677. It formed the meeting-place of the St. Paul’s Masonic Lodge, to which Wren belonged for many years. He presented to the sodality of the Lodge, the mallet and trowel that had been used in laying the first stone of St. Paul’s (_Midd. and Herts. Notes and Queries_, vol. ii. p. 179).

=Amen Corner= is chiefly modern, but the two brick houses next the gate which shuts in Amen Court are both ancient, one of them being restored. Through great claret-painted wooden gates we pass to Amen Court where there is an unbroken line of old seventeenth-century houses facing the back of Stationers’ Hall. These are all of brick, creeper-covered, with iron lamp-holders arching over the doorways, and link sockets attached. One or two have quaint old iron scrapers. They were built by Sir C. Wren. The court is the ecclesiastical residence for many of the dignitaries connected with St. Paul’s. A gravelled walk leads round the corner by a buttressed wall to the more modern part. Quite a large garden space lies before the houses. The later row, built in 1876, are in a modern Queen Anne style, and the material used is glowing red brick.

The lodge or entrance to this side from the lane stands back behind picturesque iron gates with red brick piers surmounted by great urns. Over the foot entry is a Latin inscription, and in the street on a stone slab set in the brickwork under a projecting cornice are the words:

Pro omnibus mortus christus ut et qui vivunt jam non sibi vivant sed ei qui pro ipsis mortuus est et resurrexit.

In Ave Maria Lane are the ordinary business houses.

Amen Corner formerly ran from Ave Maria Lane as far as the wall. The present court has been constructed on part of the ground formerly occupied by the Oxford Arms Inn. Stationers’ Hall (see p. 199) was also built against the wall; its small garden is the old burial-ground of St. Martin, Ludgate Hill.

St. Martin’s Lane had St. Martin-le-Grand on the east side. This was a house for Augustine canons, and William of Wykeham was one of its deans. It formed a precinct with its own liberty, which survived the Dissolution. In the sanctuary Forrest, the murderer of the little princes in the Tower, died (see _Mediæval London_, vol. ii. p. 234). Stow tells the story of the famous action in which the City challenged the claims of sanctuary set up by St. Martin’s in the year 1442.

“This college claimed great privileges of sanctuary and otherwise, as appeareth in a book, written by a notary of that house, about the year 1442, 19 Henry VI., wherein, amongst other things, is set down and declared, that on the 1st of September, in the year aforesaid, a soldier, prisoner in Newgate, as he was led by an officer towards the Guildhall of London, there came out of Panyer Alley five of his fellowship, and took him from the officer, brought him into sanctuary at the west door of St. Martin’s church, and took grithe of that place; but the same day Philip Malpas and Robert Marshall, then sheriffs of London, with many others, entered the said church, and forcibly took out with them the said five men thither fled, led them fettered to the Compter, and from thence, chained by the necks, to Newgate; of which violent taking the dean and chapter in large manner complained to the king, and required him, as their patron, to defend their privileges, like as his predecessors had done, etc. All which complaint and suit the citizens by their counsel, Markham, sergeant at the law, John Carpenter, late common clerk of the city, and other, learnedly answered, offering to prove that the said place of St. Martin had no such immunity or liberty as was pretended; namely, Carpenter offered to lose his livelihood, if that church had more immunity than the least church in London. Notwithstanding, after long debating of this controversy, by the king’s commandment, and assent of his council in the starred chamber, the chancellor and treasurer sent a writ unto the sheriffs of London, charging them to bring the said five persons with the cause of their taking and withholding afore the king in his Chancery, on the vigil of Allhallows. On which day the said sheriffs, with the recorder and counsel of the City, brought and delivered them accordingly, afore the said lords; whereas the chancellor, after he had declared the king’s commandment, sent them to St. Martin’s, there to abide freely, as in a place having franchises, whiles them liked, etc.” (Stow). The whole of the district is now being gradually covered by the mighty buildings of the General Post Office, which has inherited the name of its predecessor, and is known as St. Martin-le-Grand. For the history see _London in the Nineteenth Century_, p. 307.

=Aldersgate=, formerly called Aldrechegate and Aldresgate, was built during the Saxon occupation. It is named in the laws of Ethelred. It is also mentioned in the _Calendar of Wills_, but not very early. Riley contains some interesting notices of the gate and the ward.

Thus in 1277 an inquest is held on the unlucky Matilda, wife of Henry le Coffeur, who fell down, being drunk, broke her right arm, and soon after died, and was laid in the house of the said Henry in the ward of Anketin de Auvergne, _i.e._ Aldersgate. In 1339 the Chamberlain of Guildhall expended 20s. 4d. on the pavement of the gate of Aldersgate, the pavement being one of cobbled stones laid close and rammed down. The first pavements were those laid down in much frequented places such as the City gates and markets, where otherwise the feet of the passers-by would make pools of mud. In 1346 a certain Simon is hanged for robbery in the ward of Aldersgate—observe that the name of the alderman is no longer given to the ward. In 1350 mention is made of shops within Aldersgate. In 1375, there are ordinances, already referred to, concerning “foreign” poulterers. In 1379 there are ordinances respecting the cattle-market of Smithfield without Aldersgate. In 1391 a scrivener stands in pillory without Aldersgate for forgery.

Aldersgate was not thrown open as a highway. Bishopsgate received the traffic from the north; Aldgate from the east; Newgate from the west; and Bridge Gate from the south. Aldersgate simply opened upon the moor beyond which was the great forest. It became necessary to have this gate for access to Smithfield, when that place began to be used as a market for horses and cattle; as the City playground, and as the site of races, wrestling matches, and archery practice. It was also, later, used as a place of execution; and it was partly occupied by religious houses.

Stow’s derivation from the “Elder” or “Older” gate is too far-fetched. It is named probably from one Ealdered, its earliest name being “Aldredesgate.” It is mentioned in a deed witnessed by Henry of London Stone, Mayor of London. In 1274 John Blackthorn is alderman of this ward, but in 1115 there is found in the documents of St. Paul’s a Warda Brickmarii Montlarii, Ward of Brickman, the Moneyer, which is probably Aldersgate.

Stow says of it:

“This is the fourth principal gate and hath at sundry times been increased with buildings, namely, on the south, or inner side, a great frame of timber hath been added, and set up, containing divers large rooms and lodgings; also on the east side is the addition of one great building of timber, with one large floor, paved with stone or tile, and a well therein curbed with stone, of a great depth, and rising into the said room, two stories high from the ground; which well is the only peculiar note belonging to that gate, for I have not seen the like in all this City to be raised so high” (Stow).

“The gate described by Stow was taken down in 1617, and rebuilt the same year from a design by Gerard Christmas, the architect, as Vertue thought, of old Northumberland House. On the outer front was a figure in high relief of James I. on horseback, with the prophets Jeremiah and Samuel in niches on each side; on the inner or City front an effigy of the King in his chair of state. King James, on his way to take possession of his new dominions, entered London by the old gate; the new gate referred to this circumstance, with suitable quotations from Jeremiah and Samuel placed beneath the figures of the two prophets. The heads of several of the regicides were set on this gate, which suffered by the Great Fire, but was soon after repaired and ‘beautified.’ The whole fabric was sold on the 22nd of April, 1761, and immediately taken down. I may add that it is written Aldrichgate in the London Chronicle of Edward IV.’s time, printed by Sir Harris Nicholas; and that John Day, the printer of Queen Elizabeth’s time, dwelt ‘over Aldersgate,’ much in the same manner as Cave subsequently did at St. John’s” (Cunningham).

Milton took a “pretty garden-house” in Aldersgate Street on his return from his foreign tour.

ST. BOTOLPH, ALDERSGATE

This church is opposite the General Post Office, at the corner of Little Britain. The building was repaired in 1627, but was damaged by the Great Fire. It was pulled down in 1754, when the present church was erected. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1333.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Dean of St. Martin-le-Grand, as a Rectory, 1333; the Dean and Canons of St. Martin-le-Grand, as a Donative or Curacy, united to St. Martin’s December 18, 1399; the Abbot and Convent of Westminster; the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, who are still the patrons.

Houseling people in 1548 were 1100.

The present church is divided into a nave and side aisles by Corinthian columns, and contains galleries on the north, south, and west sides respectively. The building is of brick. The tower rises at the west, crowned by a turret. There is a façade of four Ionic columns on the east side, constructed in 1831. The churchyard is of considerable size and extends to the south and west of the church; it is open to the public and is well laid out.

Chantries were founded here: For Thomas de Lilsington and Lucy his wife; by John Bothe. Here was the Brotherhood of Holy Trinity at that altar in the south part of the which, and for which the King granted a licence to Lady Johanna Asteley, Robert Cawode, and Thomas Smythe, sen., July 9, 1446.

The oldest monument remaining is that of Dame Anne Packington, a benefactress to the parish, who died in 1563. There are also monuments to Sir John Micklethwait, President of the College of Physicians, and Dr. Bernard, also a medical practitioner of the seventeenth century; to Richard Chiswell, principal bookseller of his time, who died in 1711; and to Daniel Wray, F.R.S., F.S.A., one of the original Trustees of the British Museum and friend of the poets Dyer and Akenside.

The charitable gifts belonging to this parish recorded by Stow are very numerous. Richard Chiswell, bookseller, was the donor of £50 to the schools at his death; Mrs. Hannah Jones of £60 in all during her life and at her death.

Fifty boys and fifty girls were clothed and educated by subscription.

The churchyard has been converted into a pleasant garden with smooth grass plots and irregularly growing trees, and is locally known as the Postmen’s Park. In the _Daily Chronicle_ of April 16, 1896, a condensation of a speech by Mr. Norman, senior, churchwarden of St. Botolph Without, appeared, part of which was as follows:

“The land in question had been let by the Charity Commissioners for building in spite of the protests of the parishioners. It was in digging for foundations that an enormous quantity of human remains came to light, and the workmen at last became disgusted and refused to remove any more the masses of bones disturbed. The building lessees, however, determined to go on and legal proceedings were taken. The result was a declaration by the judge that although about one half of the site was a portion of the churchyard, technically, the whole site had now been dealt with in such a way as to enable the central governing body to build upon it.

“Many tons of human remains were still unexcavated, while a vast quantity piled pell-mell against the church tower—preparatory to the intended removal—had been covered with a few inches of earth. It seemed impossible that the central governing body should now treat the ground as a building site, especially as one of their principal duties was the preservation of open spaces where they were most wanted, viz. in the heart of the City, besides which they had now vested in them the whole of the parish property of the value of about £100,000. He had every hope that they would see their way to foregoing the small profit derivable from letting the site for building purposes, and he believed there was now a probability of the ground being secured for the public, in which event the churchyard garden would not only be preserved, but enlarged and greatly improved.”

On the west side of St. Martin’s Lane, Aldersgate, near Blowbladder Street stood a great house called Northumberland House, which at one time belonged to the Percies. Henry IV. gave it to the Queen and it was called her wardrobe; in Stow’s time it was a printing house.

In Bull and Mouth Street stood the Bull and Mouth Inn. It became one of the famous coaching inns of London.

The principal towns served from the Bull and Mouth were: Holyhead, Oxford, Birmingham, Shrewsbury, Kidderminster, Worcester, Leominster, Ludlow, Hereford, Kendal, Glasgow, Leeds, Halifax, Sheffield, Nottingham, and Northampton. Coaches started from these places daily, three times, or twice a week. The traffic appears strangely divided; this, however, was due to the competition of other coaches. Thus, a coach started twice a day for Birmingham, and also twice a day for Kendal.

Twenty-one coaches ran out of the Bull and Mouth every Monday. The same number came in. Other days were quite as busy. Besides, there were the wagons, of which twelve went out every week. The offices of the Post Office are now built over the site of this inn.

Farther north to the west of Aldersgate is the district ravaged by the fire of 1897, which burned down blocks of houses and streets. Jewin Crescent and Australian Avenue were the centre of the conflagration, but both have risen from their ashes. In Jewin Street Milton lived before his third marriage.

=Little Britain= was in the reigns of the Stuarts the centre of the bookselling trade, as Paternoster Row was later. Here lived Richard Chiswell (d. 1711), “the Metropolitan bookseller”; also Samuel Buckler, publisher of the _Spectator_; and Benjamin Franklin lodged for a time in “Little Britain.” But the association which confers the greatest distinction upon the street is that it was for a short time the residence of Milton when he lodged with the bookseller Millington about 1670.

The street at present is lined on one side by the uniform row of the buildings in the hospital precincts; these are of dingy brick with stuccoed ground-floor. On the east, there are a few modern buildings mingled with one or two older ones, which give the street a quaint aspect. No. 37 and the two numbers to the south of it are decidedly picturesque.

A full account of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital and Priory has been given in _Mediæval London_, vol. ii. p. 251.

The Priory on its suppression was granted to Sir Richard, afterwards 1st Baron, Rich, with the exception of the choir and south transept of the church, which were given to the parishioners, and it is this beautiful fragment that now forms the church of St. Bartholomew the Great.

ST. BARTHOLOMEW THE GREAT

The date of the first prior, Rahere, was 1123, that of the first rector 1544.

When the Priory was suppressed, the patronage was given by Henry VIII. to Sir Richard Rich, who granted it to Queen Mary. It was inherited by Queen Elizabeth, who regranted it to Sir Richard (then Lord) Rich, in whose family it remained until it was purchased by William Phillips early in the nineteenth century, in whose descendants it now remains.

From West Smithfield, the entrance to the church is through an Early English arch with the dogtooth ornament. The length of the church is over 130 feet, the breadth 57 feet; the Lady Chapel, built early in the fourteenth century, is about 60 feet long by 26 feet wide. The style of the building is mainly Norman, and was executed by Rahere (1123-1144) and his successor Thomas of St. Osyth (1144-1174); during the next half-century the Early English nave was added. The clerestory, in the Perpendicular style (1405), is in marked contrast with the Norman Triforium beneath it: the ambulatory passes behind the altar. The most striking innovation early in the fifteenth century was the pulling down of the Norman apse and the erection of an east wall, rendering the eastern portion of the church square instead of semicircular; a new apse was built, however, by Aston Webb, to whom also is due the flat oak ceiling of the tower, erected in 1886, and the north transept, and the north and west porches, in 1893. A bone crypt is situated beneath the eastern part of the Lady Chapel, and was vaulted by arches of a single span of 22 feet; it was restored in 1895. Three bays of the east walk of the cloister exist, and were restored in 1905. The tower, built in 1628, contains five of the oldest bells in London, dating from before 1510.

Many chantries were founded here, but went with the suppression in 1539.

This church contains a number of interesting monuments. The most notable is that of the founder, Rahere, placed on the north side of the church within the communion rails. In the south aisle there is the tomb of Sir Walter Mildmay (d. 1589), one of Queen Elizabeth’s ablest statesmen, and founder of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. On the south wall there is a monument to Edward Cooke, a physician of repute who died in 1652; this is composed of a soft kind of marble, known as “weeping marble,” because in a damp atmosphere it breaks out into moisture. The renovation of the church has caused it to weep no more. Thomas Roycroft, the printer of the Polyglot Bible (d. 1677), has a memorial by the Lady Chapel screen, erected by his son Samuel. On the north wall of the choir a tablet records the death of John Whiting, who, on his death in 1704, left the parish a sum of money for educational purposes, which is still applied in accordance with his wishes. Sir John Deane, the first rector here and founder of the Witton Grammar School, Northwich, in 1557, is commemorated by a brass opposite the founder’s tomb. The font in the south transept is that in which the painter Hogarth was baptized in 1697; he was created a life-governor of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in acknowledgment of his gift of staircase paintings when the Hospital was rebuilt.

There were many charities attached to this parish after Stow’s time (1605), but they were all swept away under Bryce’s Act except John Whiting’s schools.

Thirty boys and twenty girls were maintained by subscription and John Whiting’s gift.

Perhaps the most notable rector was Thomas Westfield (1605-1644), Bishop of Bristol.

ST. BARTHOLOMEW THE LESS

This church served as the Hospital chapel in monastic times, and has been used as a parish church for those within the Hospital precincts since the dissolution of the priory. In 1789 the interior of the tower was remodelled by the younger Dance, but in 1823 the church was practically rebuilt by Thomas Hardwick. It has since been restored, and the only trace of the old work is to be found in the vestibule beneath the tower. The date of the first custodian was 1223. The date of the first vicar was 1532.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Priors of St. Bartholomew, Smithfield, up to 1532; the Governors of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital.

The interior was remodelled on an octagonal plan by Dance in 1789; this shape is obtained by means of clustered columns and arches although the area enclosed by the walls is almost square. Above the arches there is a clerestory pierced by windows. The ceiling is groined.

No chantries are recorded to have been founded here.

The old church contained a large number of monuments and a few have been preserved. The most ancient is one in memory of William Markeley, who died in 1439. There is a tablet erected by Sir Thomas Bodley, founder of the Bodleian Library at Oxford, to his wife Anne. Sir Ralph Winwood, James I.’s ambassador to Holland and Secretary of State, was buried here; also James Heath, author. In 1573 Inigo Jones was baptized in this church. His father was a clothworker living in or near Cloth Fair.

No charitable gifts or bequests are recorded by Stow.

=Bartholomew Close= is a curious place with many ramifications. Beginning at the south end, in the bit adjoining Westmoreland Buildings, there is nothing of especial interest. The old house at the end facing westward is used for offices, the remainder containing printing, publishing, and manufacturing premises. The great wide space, Bartholomew Close proper, has been to a very great extent rebuilt. On the east there are plain substantial business houses. At the corner of the entrance from Little Britain there is a large eighteenth-century house in excellent repair. This has a line of no less than nine windows across its breadth and is four stories in height. It has evidently been at one time a single dwelling-house. It is now cut up into three numbers, and contains many offices. On the north side of the Close there is a row of houses of the Georgian period which occupy the site of the Frater of the Monastery. These stand back a little from the line of the street. One has a small garden, and the others covered entries or one-storied offices before them.

The next arm of the Close, running up to the passage to the church, contains also a long line of old houses on the west. Many of these have small shops on the ground-floor; some possess the slightly bowed windows in fashion at the time they were built.

THE BUTCHERS COMPANY

As early as the year 1180 the fraternity or guild of Butchers of the City, then and long after called “bochers,” was in existence.

This Company was incorporated in the year 1606, having existed without a charter from time immemorial. I venture to advance the theory that one reason why the Butchers did not seek corporation before this date was the authority which the City claimed and exercised in all matters connected with food, and especially with meat, fish, and bread; and that which every alderman exercised in his own ward. Thus it was the duty of the alderman to be notified as to the names of every person in the ward exercising any trade connected with food; and the mayor’s regulations as to the trade of butcher (see _Liber Albus, passim_) seem to leave little need for the scrutiny of a Master.

The principal seat of the butchers was in Newgate Street, then called St. Nicholas Shambles. The spot was chosen as a place near the principal communications of the City with the north and west respectively. Animals brought in to be slaughtered had not far to go within the City. Moreover, it was not a crowded part of London, and was removed from the principal place of trade and from the port. The butchers had also a market at the “Stocks,” and another at East Chepe. There was, however, a very great dislike to living near the Shambles or to keeping shops and stalls near those of the butchers.

Thus Riley (_Memorials_) quotes a complaint against the butchers that they carried their offal through the streets to a jetty called Butchers’ Bridge. The way, I suppose, was down Warwick Lane, Creed Lane, and St. Andrew’s Hill to Puddle Dock or near it. The carriage of this stuff, often stinking and always dripping blood along the street, caused great complaints. Thus orders were issued one after the other in 1368, 1369, and 1371, commanding the butchers to find a place outside the City for a slaughter-house. The law was never obeyed: probably the butchers made some kind of compromise or were more careful in the carriage of the offal. They had already a place on the banks of the Fleet to which they were allowed to cart their refuse, on condition that it was thrown in at the turn of the tide.

The livery of the Company is 159; their trust and charitable Income amounts to £831 a year.

Daniel Defoe, son of James Foe, citizen and butcher, was a member of this Company by patrimony; admitted January 12, 1687.

The first glimpse of =Cloth Fair= from the Smithfield end is full of interest and attraction. It abounds in very old houses with projecting stories and gable ends. Many of these have the bowed curve of old age resembling the curving back of an old man. In others door-lintels and window-frames have slipped out of their horizontal lines. Barley Mow Passage is dull; it contains only plain warehouse-like buildings. In Cloth Fair, Nos. 6 to 4 are covered with rough stucco and have bayed windows and gable ends. These are the fronts of those seen over the churchyard. In New Court are buildings of a similar nature. There are interspersed with these quaint remnants of old domestic architecture business houses of no particular style. No. 13 on the north side, and the next one or two following it, are really old, and then we come to the corner of Kinghorn Street, where one of the oldest taverns remaining in London stands. This is the Dick Whittington. The corner is rounded off, and each story projects a little farther than the lower one. There is an ornamental cornice and gable end; the whole is covered with rough stucco.

=Smithfield.=—Stow says: “Then is Smithfield Pond, which of old times in recordes was called Horse Poole, for that men watered horses there, and was a great water. In the 6th of Henry the fifth a new building was made in this west part of Smithfielde betwixt the said Pool and the River of the Wels or Turnemill Brooke in a place (then called the Elmes, for that there grew many Elme trees), and this had been the place of execution for offenders, since the which time the building there hath been so increased that now remaineth not one tree growing.”

The Elms here mentioned was the place of public execution until the middle of the thirteenth century; an honour transferred to St. Giles-in-the-Fields, and later to the more notorious Tyburn. Among the best known of those who suffered execution at Smithfield is William Wallace. Jack Straw, the rebel, was hanged at Smithfield, and here took place the picturesque scene, when the beautiful boy-king, Richard II., met Wat Tyler, and showed courage such as won admiration for the promise of his future, a promise destined to remain unfulfilled. Then and later Smithfield was the great jousting field and playground of London. Many were the brilliant tourneys held here, when knights met in chivalrous contest, and all the flower of England’s manhood drew together to try prowess at arms.

Smithfield, however, will be always best remembered by the blood of the martyrs which watered the ground. The spot where these cruelties took place is probably somewhere near the gate of St. Bartholomew’s. Between 1555 and 1611, many were the sufferings endured at Smithfield. Timbs says that of the 277 martyrs in Mary’s reign the greater number suffered here.

In Henry VIII.’s reign poisoners were boiled to death at Smithfield. A place more closely associated with the life of London than this could hardly be imagined, yet nowadays who associates Smithfield with anything but markets!

In the centre of the open space is an inclined plane winding downward with a corkscrew turn until it passes into the basement of the Meat Market. Northward is the huge building erected by Act of Parliament in 1860, the year preceding the dismarketing of Newgate, which was closed at its opening seven years later. Sir Horace Jones was the architect, and the style is that generally known as Italian. The chief points of architectural effect are the four towers, the frontispieces or façades of the public roadway, which passes through the market from north to south, and the pedimented gateways to the east and west fronts. The plan or interior arrangement of the ground-floor is exceedingly simple. A great central roadway runs through from north to south. This was a compromise or concession to existing interests. It is from 50 to 60 feet wide, and the gateways at the entrances are very fine.

That on the south is ornamented by emblematical figures representing London and Edinburgh, and that on the north by similar figures symbolic of Dublin and Liverpool.

The central roadway is bisected by an east and west avenue 25 feet in width. The entrance gates at the ends of this are somewhat similar to those of the larger roadway. Six smaller avenues run parallel to the central roadway, cutting this secondary avenue at right angles. The blocks between the avenues contain the shops. These average about 36 feet by 15, and have offices and accommodation rooms above. The four corner blocks formerly contained taverns, but only two of these now remain. The roof is an adaption of the Mansard principle, and is filled in with glass louvres. A peculiar feature of the market is the great underground basement which is hollowed out to a depth of 22 feet, and extends even some distance beyond the limits of the building. This is supported by iron girders measuring roughly about five miles, and containing about 3000 tons of wrought iron. This is intersected by railway lines. Over the northern half the Metropolitan Railway has running powers; the southern forms a depot of the Great Western Railway. There are here two hydraulic hoists, and the meat brought by the Great Western lines is hoisted straight into the market. The circular depression mentioned as being in the centre of West Smithfield is in connection with this depot. All other meat is brought in vans and unloaded in the usual way. From 1 o’clock in the middle of the night for three mornings in the week, and from 2 o’clock the other two mornings the market is open, and closes alternately at 1 o’clock and 2 o’clock in the daytime.

From very early times Smithfield has been a market in addition to its manifold other uses. Stow says:

“There be the pens or folds, so called of sheep there parted, and penned up to be sold on market days.”

The Poultry Market adjoining was opened December 1, 1875. It covers an area of rather less than 1½ acres. It is similar generally in exterior treatment to the market already described but differs in small particulars. It is also on a different plan internally from the Meat Market, having a square of shops round the outer edge and four intersecting avenues which cut it up into central blocks. Here every shop has its cellar beneath, and the vaults which run beneath the avenues are occupied by a cold-air storage company, to whom belongs the great ventilating shaft in the triangular bit of land facing King Street. The London, Chatham, and Dover line also cuts diagonally beneath the market, but though the tunnelling is raised a little above the level of the flooring it still leaves room for vaults where it passes. There is one tavern in the Poultry Market.

The General Market is more expensive to the holder than either of the above, for it is let by tender to the highest bidder, whereas the others, by Act of Parliament, cannot claim a higher rental than a penny per square foot, and something extra for office space, etc.

This market was built to supersede the old Farringdon Market, and was at first meant for vegetables. At the time (1883) there was a movement towards a new Fish Market, and so the building was devoted to that purpose. The fish business, however, was not successful, and in December 1889 the market was transformed into a general market supplementary to the meat and poultry. It is now fully occupied, and brings in a very good rental.

The Fish Market on Snow Hill was opened in 1888. It is of triangular shape, and contains an inner triangle also. This is managed on much the same plan as the rest, but does not seem to be very successful; for some reason the fish trade does not flourish at Smithfield.

For a full account of Bartholomew Fair, so popular while it lasted, see _London in the Eighteenth Century_, p. 465.

GROUP VII

FLEET STREET AND ADJACENT STREETS

On the south side, Fleet Street presents a long line of historical associations—Bridewell, the Carmelites or Whitefriars, the Fleet Prison, Alsatia, and Sanctuary. These are all described in other parts of this work (see _London in the Eighteenth Century_). On the north side are the courts and streets of later origin. These, with the houses and shops of that side, present memories chiefly of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Roman remains have been found all along the river on the west of the City. In the year 1800 was discovered a sepulchral monument, now in the Guildhall Museum; a tessellated pavement was found in 1681, near St. Andrew’s, Holborn; in 1595, a stone pavement supported on piles was found near Chancery Lane, the piles proving the marshy character of the ground; the “old Roman bath” is in Strand Lane; in 1722, in digging for the foundations of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, an arch, a stone sarcophagus, and other Roman relics were found; and on Thorney Island itself numerous Roman remains have been discovered. In other words, there were Roman villas and residences all along the river from Ludgate to Westminster inclusive.

Fleet Street began to be settled before the thirteenth century; in 1228, one Henry le Buke slew another in Fleet Street and took sanctuary in St. Mary Overies, Southwark. In 1311, certain servants of the King’s household were arrested for a burglary in Fleet Street; at the same time complaints were made that the way from “La Barre du Novel Temple” and the Palace of Westminster was choked with bushes and thickets. One of the residents of Fleet Street supplied Edward II. with boots and tassels of silk in 1321. Shortly after, the houses from the Temple Church northwards were erected by the Templars.

The history of Fleet Street from the sixteenth century is much more detailed than can be given here; the reader must be referred to the special histories of the street and the locality. It suffered greatly in the Plague of 1625, when over 500 of the parishioners of St. Dunstan’s were carried off.

The Fire of London terminated on this side in the third house, east of St. Dunstan’s Church. The plan of the ruins drawn up by Wren and Hooke shows that Fleet Street was 37 feet in width west of Fetter Lane; at Water Lane it was 70 feet; at St. Bride’s Court 63 feet; thence to Bride Lane 32 feet; and to Fleet Bridge only 23 feet. Shoe Lane was only 9 feet wide at the south end; Water Lane 11 feet at the north, and 26 at the south; Salisbury Court 23 feet at the north end. After the Fire parts of Fleet Street were set back, and the street made more convenient for the increasing traffic.

Fleet Street is especially remarkable for its taverns, its booksellers, and its banking-houses. In a valuable paper contributed by Mr. Hilton Price to the _Archæological Journal_, December 1895, may be found a list as complete as can be hoped for of all the houses in Fleet Street with their signs. The learned writer has collected 315 signs, and has been able to fix 250 of them.

Among the taverns we may notice:

(1) The _Devil_, called also _St. Dunstan’s_, or the _Old Devil_, sacred to the memory of Ben Jonson. Here was the _Apollo_, a room in which all kinds of clubs and societies met and entertainments were held. Ben Jonson’s “Rules” are well known. They are painted in letters of gold on a black board still preserved in Childs’ Bank:

Welcome all who lead or follow To the oracle of Apollo— Here he speaks out of his pottle, Or the tripos, his Tower bottle; All his answers are divine, Truth itself doth flow in wine. Hang up all the poor hop drinkers, Cries old Sim, the King of Skinkers; He who the half of life abuses, That sits watering with the Muses, Those dull girls no good can mean us; Wine it is the milk of Venus, And the poets’ horse accounted: Ply it and you all are mounted. ’Tis the true Phoebian liquor; Cheers the brain, makes wit the quicker, Pays all debts, cures all diseases, And at once three senses pleases. Welcome all who lead or follow To the oracle of Apollo.

PRICE, _Signs of Old Fleet Street_.

(2) The _Rainbow_, opened in 1657 as a coffee-house by one James Farre, barber surgeon. It was the second coffee-house in London.

(3) The _Mitre_, where the Society of Antiquaries dined from 1728 to 1775 on St. George’s Day. Here also the Royal Society held its meetings for some years.

(4) The _Bolt in Tun_, an ancient tavern of the fifteenth century. The _Daily News_ now occupies its site.

(5) The _Cock_. Everybody knows Tennyson’s lines. The tavern has been taken down and the site built over.

Mr. Hilton Price enumerates nearly fifty more.

If the street was full of taverns, it was equally the favourite place of business for printers and booksellers. Again referring to Mr. Price’s paper we can compile the following list, omitting names of no importance in the commercial history of literature.

Richard Pynson (1493). At Temple Bar.

William How (1571-90). Printer over Temple Bar.

Ward and Mundee. Booksellers over Temple Bar (1578).

John Starkey (1660-81). At the _Mitre_, between the Temple gates. Publisher of Shadwell’s Plays.

Richard Tottell (1553-97). Printer between the Temple gates.

Abel Roper } John Martyn } The _Sun_, next the _Rainbow_. Publishers (1652-75) of H. Herringman } Dugdale’s _Baronage_.

Bernard Lintot, No. 16. The _Cross Keys and Cushion_ (1704-28). Publisher for Pope, Colley Cibber, and Gray.

Arthur Collins (1709-14). Publisher of the _Peerage_.

William Sandby (1786). Bookseller, afterwards partner in Snow & Co., Strand.

William Griffin (1556-71).

John MacMurray, afterwards John Murray, who succeeded William Sandby (1760-1812).

John Pemberton (1709- ), No. 53, at the _Golden Buck_. Published (1716) _The Cries of London_.

Jacob Tonson. At the _Judge’s Head_ (1682-98). Published Dryden’s works, and was secretary to the Kit Kat Club.

Edmund Curll. At the _Bible and Dial_ (1709).

Richard Banks. At the _White Hart_ (1539). Printer.

Thomas Fisher. At the _White Hart_ (1600). Published first edition of _Midsummer Night’s Dream_.

Roger Warde. At the _Castle_, opposite the Conduit (1593). Printer.

Wynkyn de Worde. At the _Sun_, over against the Conduit (1502-34).

Thomas Berthelet. At the _Lucrece_, near the Conduit. King’s Printer (1528-55).

Thomas Marsh. At the _Prince’s Arms_ (1556-87). Printer of Stow’s _Chronicle_.

Richard Pynson, at the _George_, near Clifford’s Inn. Printer (1493-1527).

William Middleton (1525-47) } Robert Redman (1529-40) } Eliz. Pickering (1540) } at the same house. Printers. William Redman (1556) }

Robert Copland, an assistant of Caxton (1508-47).

William Copland (1553-69). Printer of Juliana Berner’s _Book of Hawking_, etc.

In addition to this long list, Mr. Hilton Price gives the names of 702 booksellers and printers. It is true that their names cover two centuries at least, but they show conclusively that the real home of the book trade from the sixteenth century to the end of the eighteenth was Fleet Street. As we have seen, there were booksellers in St. Paul’s Churchyard, in Paternoster Row, in Little Britain at different times, but Fleet Street contained by far the greater number of those in the “trade.”

A third point of interest in Mr. Price’s list is that of the banking-houses and goldsmiths who kept “running cashes.” Among these are the names of Blanchard and Child, afterwards Child; James Chambers (1680), from whom are descended Messrs. Gosling and Sharpe; John Mawson & Co. (1677), the forerunners of Messrs. Hoare & Co.; James Heriot, brother of George Heriot of Edinburgh; and others of less note.

We must not forget to notice the residence of Izaak Walton. Mr. Price places it at the third house in the south-west corner of Chancery Lane. At the corner was the King’s Head Tavern; next, on the west side, the sign of the Harrow; the next house, sometimes called the Harrow and Crown, was Izaak Walton’s.

It is apparent from the preceding that Fleet Street, from the fourteenth century at least, has always been a place of great resort. The large number of taverns was chiefly due, without doubt, to the Inns of Court and the lawyers. Suitors from all parts of the kingdom had to come to Fleet Street; in its courts they found lodgings and in its taverns they found refreshment and feasting. The place was convenient also for the Court end of town, and for the people of the great nobles living in the Strand; there were no merchants in the street; the trade was all of the retail character, such as bookselling; when banks began to be established Fleet Street was much more convenient for the country gentlemen and nobles than Lombard Street; its coffee-houses were more easy of access to the lawyers, poets, wits, and actors who lived in the Inns of Court and about Covent Garden, than those of the City or Charing Cross.

The preceding lists do not exhaust the well-known names connected with Fleet Street. In addition, to mention only a few, are those of Cowley, the poet; Drayton; many of the early printers, successors of Caxton; many booksellers of note; Milton, Dr. Johnson, Goldsmith, Samuel Richardson, Tompion the watchmaker, Alderman Waithman, William Hone, Douglas Jerrold, the many distinguished writers who have created the _Daily Telegraph_, the _Daily Chronicle_, the _Daily News_, the _Standard_, and the host of papers and journals whose offices are in the street. In the burial-ground of St. Andrew’s, Shoe Lane, lie the remains of Thomas Chatterton; in Fetter Lane Wesley and Whitefield preached; in this street was published Abbott’s _Weekly Register_; we may also enumerate Sedley the poet, Jacob Tonson, John Hoole, Crockford of gambling fame, Sir Symonds D’Ewes, antiquary, Henry Woodfall, Printer “without Temple Bar,” and Charles Knight. It may, indeed, be fairly stated that, during the whole of the eighteenth and a large part of the nineteenth century, Fleet Street was the haunt of all the literary men of the time, and that at the present moment it is the most important centre of journalism. On the east of Ludgate is the office of _The Times_; all the other London dailies, and a great number of provincial and colonial journals, have their offices in Fleet Street. But poets, novelists, dramatists, and scholars are no longer found in this street; they belong to West End Clubs and no longer congregate in taverns and coffee-houses.

Bell Yard, Temple Bar, one side of which is now occupied by the High Courts of Justice, is called by Pope in 1736 a “filthy old place.”

=Shire Lane=, now built over by the Courts, was known also as Rogers Lane; it was also called Sheer Lane; this lane, in spite of an evil name, possessed many associations. Here, at an inn called the Trumpet, Isaac Bickerstaffe was supposed to receive his friends, and was fabled to have his residence. In this lane was founded the Kit Kat Club, a society of gentlemen devoted to the Protestant interest; here lived Elias Ashmole, the antiquary; here Sir Charles Sedley, the dramatic poet, was born; and here in a spunging-house Theodore Hook made the acquaintance of Dr. Maginn.

On the south side of Fleet Street, Wynkyn de Worde, the printer, lived in Falcon Court; in Mitre Court was the Mitre, where Dr. Johnson and Boswell met to drink port. The Royal Society used to dine at the Mitre (1743-80). Sarah Malcolm, whose portrait was taken by Hogarth, was hanged opposite Mitre Court for the murder of Lydia Duncombe, Elizabeth Harrison, and Anne Price. Ram Alley, now Hare Court, opposite Fetter Lane, was one of the later places of sanctuary; that is to say, a place where bailiffs and writs were not admitted. It had a passage into the Temple and another into Serjeant’s Inn, and was, as might be expected, a place of evil reputation.

The date of the first building of St. Dunstan’s Church is not known, but it was before the thirteenth century. It narrowly escaped the Fire, and was extensively repaired in 1701. The church, which was taken down in 1829-30, was a later edifice; it occupied part of the present street, and had a row of shops along its south side. It was famous for its “Saints,” a couple of figures which struck the hours. They were purchased by the Marquis of Hertford and set up at St. Dunstan’s Villa, Regent’s Park. The statue of Queen Elizabeth, originally on the west front of Ludgate, was happily preserved, and still stands over the vestry of the new church.

ST. DUNSTAN IN THE WEST

This church stands on the north side of Fleet Street, between Fetter Lane and Chancery Lane, in the ward of Farringdon Without. It escaped the Great Fire, but very narrowly. It was extensively repaired in 1701, and towards the close of 1829 taken down; the new building, the work of John Shaw, was set back 30 feet from the former site, and consecrated in 1833. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1318.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Abbot and Convent of Westminster as a Rectory, who gave it to Henry III. about 1272, when he founded the Domus Conversorum, then the Custos Domus Conversorum; Edward II. and his successors; the Abbot and Convent of Alnwick, October 29, 1386—a vicarage was ordained here in 1437, in the same patronage, and so continued up to 1540; Henry VIII.; William James, 1556; Lord Dudley, by grant of Edward VI.; Sir Richard Sackvill, Knt.; George Rivers; Simeon Trustees since 1834.

Houseling people in 1548 were 110.

The interior of the present church is octagonal in shape, containing seven recesses, separated from each other by clustered columns and pointed arches, with a clerestory above. The roof is groined and is formed by eight beams of iron, united at the centre. The tower, which rises at the south, contains three stories, and is surmounted by an octagonal lantern; the whole is terminated by a high open parapet. At each angle of the tower there are large pinnacles. The total height of the steeple is 130 feet. The body of the church is chiefly composed of brick, but the tower is of yellow freestone.

Chantries were founded here: For Richard Bardelby, Prebendary of Dunnington in York, who died in 1316, at the altar of St. Michael; by Robert Hez, whose endowment fetched £10 : 19 : 8 in 1548, but there hath been no priest found for twenty years before that time, and so the money is employed in repairs of the church; for Nicholas Coningstow, John Knape at the Altar of St. Katherine; by John Burrel de Askham, for himself and for John de Langeton and Simon Flemyng, for which the King granted his licence, May 8, 1375. Here was founded the Brotherhood of Our Lady and St. Dunstan, wherein was the Guild of St. Anne, endowed by William Chapman, valued at £11 in 1548, when Randall Smith was chaplain; within the same Guild was a Chantry, founded by William Marshall, whose endowment fetched £22 in 1548, when William Neale was chaplain; and yet another Chantry was endowed in the same Brotherhood by William Westwood, and for which the King granted his licence July 22, 1440, at the Altar of St. Mary in the south part of the church.

A large number of monuments belonging to the old church are affixed to the walls, commemorating Gerard Legh, a member of the Inner Temple, who died 1563; Cuthbert Fetherstone, the King’s doorkeeper, who died 1615; Alexander Layton, a famed swordsman, who died 1679, and others. Among later monuments are those of two Sir Richard Hoares, both Lord Mayors, in 1712 and 1745, whose descendants were liberal benefactors of the new church. Ralph Bane, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, and Oglethorpe, Bishop of Carlisle, were buried here in 1559, also Dr. Thomas White, founder of Sion College. Here, too, were baptized the great Earl of Strafford in 1593, and Bulstrode Whitelocke in 1605, author of the _Memorials of English Affairs_. William Tyndale was a frequent preacher in this church, and in more recent times William Romaine was appointed Lecturer (1749). In 1895 a stained-glass window at the north-west was erected in memory of Izaak Walton.

A considerable number of gift sermons are recorded by Stow: Dr. White gave £18; Mr. Adams gave £2. The total of the smaller contributions was £5 : 6 : 8.

There were two charity schools, one for fifty boys, four of whom were taught navigation; the other for forty girls, who were fitted for service. These were established in 1708, and an infants’ school was founded shortly after in Fetter Lane. The three still exist as “fee-paying” church schools.

Among the clergy of the church have been William Tyndale (d. 1536); Dr. Thomas White (d. 1624), founder of Sion College; Dr. John Donne (1573-1631), Dean of St. Paul’s; the silver-tongued Dr. William Bates, ejected in 1660; Richard Baxter (1615-91); and William Romaine (1714-95).

THE TEMPLE

By W. J. LOFTIE

The Temple is situated on the left bank of the Thames, partly within the City of London and partly within the ancient county of Middlesex. It consisted originally of the Inner, Middle, and Outer Temples, of which the first and second were in what was described in the thirteenth century as “the suburb of London,” and afterwards as the ward of Farringdon Without. This former suburb had many descriptions and designations, owing to its geographical situation between two tributary brooks or bournes and the tidal waters of the Thames. The brooks have now disappeared under ground, but the Fleet, along the City wall, and the Millbrook, where Mill Ford Lane is now, formed the east and west boundaries of a green slope between Fleet Street and the river. Strictly speaking, this whole region, as far as the wall, was in Westminster, but Henry III. and the citizens divided it between them when the London boundaries were pushed out to “The Bar of the New Temple,” and when Peter of Savoy built his palace on the open strand beyond it. After the Conquest the only access to the City was by a lane which followed a ridge of higher ground from the Roman landing-place at the Millbrook, and it entered the City walls at Newgate. When Ludgate, a postern, as its name denotes, was opened and a bridge crossed the Fleet, all was changed, and the easy way from Westminster by land no longer led up Show-well-lane (now Shoe Lane) to Newgate, but through Fleet Street to Ludgate. Then a church was built at St. Bride’s Well, the Whitefriars or Carmelites settled beside it in 1241, and the Templars, an order of military monks, bought the lands called after them the Inner and Middle Temples, with, outside the City bar, the fields known as the Coney Garth, Fickett’s Field, and the Outer Temple as tilting and exercising grounds. Fetter Lane recalls the existence of armourers who made fetters, that is, lance rests, for the knights, and the City still pays an annual rent to the Crown for the forge, where, no doubt, weapons were mended and war-horses shod. The Templars had lived at first at the Holborn end of Chancery Lane, where Southampton Buildings are now, and after they migrated here in 1184 their house was called the New Temple.

It was situated on the eastern part of the site, and the circular church was built in the year following, namely 1185, the choir being added in 1240. As long as the Templars remained here it seems probable that their buildings did not extend any farther west. The local names, such as Fountain Court, Garden Court, Elm Court, are all in the Middle Temple, and seem to contain reminiscences of the time when it was still part of the gardens. The names in the Inner Temple, Cloister Court, King’s Bench Walk, Crown Office Row, have an appearance of greater antiquity; but Fig Tree Court is in the same division, and Brick Court in the Middle Temple, so it will not do to press the argument very far.

In December 1307 the Temple was seized by the Sheriffs of London in obedience to a writ issued by King Edward II., and the order was soon after formally suppressed. The Templars had long been remarkable for their wealth and pride; their campaigns in the Holy Land were ineffective, chiefly on account of their quarrels with the Hospitallers, and in most European kingdoms they were suspected of sorcery, heresy, and other crimes. Their suppression was attended with greater cruelty abroad than in England, and though some thirty members of the order were sent to the Tower, most of them were subsequently released, and a pension was granted to some. The “New Temple” was given by the King as a residence to his cousin, Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke. He died in 1324, but had left the Temple long before, having in 1314 transferred it to Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, with the King’s consent. The grant includes Fickett’s Field, and as Lancaster’s wife was the heiress of Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, he came into possession, by a curious coincidence, of the future sites of Lincoln’s Inn, the two Temples, and the new Law Courts, as well as of the Savoy. Lancaster was beheaded at Pontefract in 1322, but was esteemed a saint and martyr by the people on account of his long opposition, first to Gaveston, and later to the Despencers, the unworthy favourites of Edward II. Meanwhile the Hospitallers or Knights of St. John at Clerkenwell obtained a papal decree that they were to succeed to the property of the Templars, and in 1324 they were allowed to take possession. The Pope made it a condition that the Temple was not to be put to profane uses, and the new owners in promptly letting it to the lawyers—who were in those days almost all in holy orders, clergy, that is, able to read and write—may have supposed they were fulfilling the papal injunction.

A survey was made about this time, and from it and other indications we may form some idea of what the house was like when the Templars lost it. The chapel of St. Mary stood where it still is, and beside it the smaller chapel of St. Anne. There were already two gates. The Master’s house was eastward of the church, but nearer than the present house, and formed, with the treasury and the hall, a quadrangle round the chapel. This treasury was occasionally used by King John and King Henry before the regalia was lodged in the Tower. John was here himself in 1212; Henry III. in 1232, when he seized the money of Hubert de Burgh, deposited in the treasury; and Edward I. in 1283. The library probably occupies the site. The treasurer’s house adjoined, as it does still; and there was a cloister, as there is still. Notwithstanding the number of years between the expulsion of the Templars and the organisation of the lawyers, the old names were preserved. The chaplain was the Master, the treasurer was the chief of the lawyers. It would seem as if the old titles of the officials were kept alive by the buildings.

We obtain a glimpse of the daily life of these new Templars from Chaucer. If he lived in the Savoy, as he seems to have done, before he went to Westminster, he had the lawyers close at hand, and in one of his _Canterbury Tales_ he tell us that the Manciple belonged to the Temple, where he had thirty masters, for whom he was caterer. From which we may conclude that the number of lawyers had reached thirty in 1380, unless, indeed, there were several houses full. The servants of the Templars, the _servientes_ or serjeants, survived the expulsion of their masters, and after they died out their place was taken by the common law practitioners, who formed themselves into a society or inn, which adjoined the Temple on the northeast as early as 1333; while in 1337 we begin to hear of two halls, and in the reign of Henry VI. the Templars consisted of two separate bodies, which professed absolute equality. The Inner, however, is very much richer than the Middle Temple and has more members. Every year the benchers of one dine with the benchers of the other; and when James I. granted the site without any rents or restrictions, such as had survived till then, his charter is addressed to the members of both societies.

Meanwhile, the Outer Temple had been leased to the Bishops of Exeter, and the land between Fickett’s Field and Lincoln’s Inn to the Bishop of Chichester. Another bishop had lodgings actually within the Temple. On the east side of Inner Temple Lane, north of the porch of the Round Church, was Ely House, with its chapel of St. Thomas of Canterbury.

The Great Fire of 1666 made the Temple its western terminus. The Master’s house was burned, but the chapel was spared, the flames ceasing within a very few feet of the chancel. Wren built the new gate facing Chancery Lane and the Master’s house, removing it to where it still stands. His style, if not his hand, may also be seen in other buildings, such as the doorways in King’s Bench Walk. The archway of the Inner Temple Gate dates from 1607, but the front of the house above it in Fleet Street has been refaced lately in a suitable style.

It may be well to note here that the other round churches in England were not built by the Templars; there are three—St. Sepulchre at Cambridge, St. Sepulchre at Northampton, and St. John of Jerusalem at Little Maplestead, in Essex. The last named was probably built by the Hospitallers. There is also a round chapel in Ludlow Castle.

The visitor will probably go first to the chapel. It is usual to mark its importance and size by calling it “the Temple Church.” It was built by the Templars, the round part, Norman in style, being consecrated in 1185 by Heraclius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, who happened to be in England on a begging tour. With its porch, it has been rebuilt, repaired, improved, and “restored,” until very little of the original masonry, if any, remains. The choir was added in 1240 and was a very pure and beautiful example of the “Early English” or first pointed style. It has been ever since very obnoxious to ignorant builders, and a mere list of the alterations would perhaps produce an impression that nothing is left worth seeing. This is not the case; but it is true that after an ornamental reparation in 1685, another after a fire ten years later, and again after forty years, it must have seemed very venerable and still in parts very picturesque even after a general repair in 1811. The monuments, some very magnificent, others historically interesting, were still undisturbed, and, from the recumbent effigies in the Norman round nave to the judges in their robes and collars in the chancel, formed an unequalled series of curious and sometimes fine works of art. The exquisite carving of the Corinthian reredos behind the communion table sufficed to bring the various inconsistent styles together. But the first notions of those who began to study old English architecture led to an attack on this incongruity in 1824. The Norman carvings were all replaced by modern work and some additions. The arcade, with its grotesque heads, was set up in 1827, and though it is out of place and, moreover, deceptive, will certainly be admired. Various ancient buildings, one of them the chapel of St. Anne, were removed. But it was not until 1830 that the great restoration was begun. During the progress of these disastrous operations the circular church was vaulted in stucco and painted; the flooring was lowered, the tombs and effigies of the knights removed and their bones cast out; the chancel was gutted, the monuments taken down, much injured in the process, and finally “as far as possible” set up again in the triforium, a few being hidden away under the bellows of the organ; the beautiful reredos was taken away, the whole chancel repaved, revaulted, and painted; the church filled with tiers of pews, hiding any Gothic memorials which were allowed to remain; and finally, all the windows were reglazed, in a style supposed to be Early English and, at all events, no worse than what would be put in at the present day to judge by some neighbouring examples. All this work of destruction went on for ten years and cost more than £70,000.

On entering the church now, the visitor is surprised that so much remains to be admired. A semicircular arch, in the Norman style of 1824, admits us to the Round Church, where the arches are pointed. The effigies of the knights have been replaced on the floor in neat groups, and labelled, but somewhat conjecturally, with the names of certain Earls of Pembroke and others who are recorded to have been buried here. The diameter of this part of the church, which is now the nave, is 58 feet, the choir beyond being 58 feet in width and 82 feet in length. The central part of the nave is the same in width as the middle aisle of the three in the choir, namely 23½ feet, while the circular aisle and each of the side aisles are 15½ feet. The three aisles are 37 feet high and the modern roof of the nave 60 feet. The seats are of dark oak and rise in tiers on each side. Two modern doors open on the north side, and a stair, winding and very narrow, conducts the visitor to the triforium of the Round Church. Here, in a very unsuitable situation, are most of the monuments removed from the chancel.

The monuments comprise an interesting series of all periods from the Reformation down, and some fragments of sculpture removed, with the complete tombs at the time of the “restoration,” in 1830. One of the oldest represents Edward Plowden who died in 1584. The brasses were formerly very numerous but have all disappeared, together with a great many tablets, such as Pepys describes in 1666 when he says he looked “with pleasure on the monuments and epitaphs.” Plowden adhered to Romanism, but his epitaph contains a quotation from the Book of Common Prayer. There is a monument to Oliver Goldsmith erected in 1837. In the church is a bust of the “Judicious” Hooker (d. 1600); a tablet to John Selden (d. 1654); and at the south-east end, partly hidden by the pews, an effigy supposed to represent Silvester Everden, Bishop of Carlisle, killed by a fall in 1254. At the entrance to the triforium is the only one left of many small chambers which formerly adjoined the church; it is labelled by the vergers the Penitential Cell, I do not know why.

North of the chapel is the little plot of ground in which Oliver Goldsmith was buried in 1774. It is so small that, when a gravestone was laid down in 1860, there was little choice as to the exact place, which, however, is really unknown.

The arms of both Temples may be seen in many places in the church. Those of the Middle Temple consist of a red cross on a white ground, with a figure of the Pascal Lamb in the centre, being the arms of the Templars. The arms of the other society are, strictly speaking, not heraldry, being, on a blue ground, a representation of the Greek mythical Pegasus, in white. It is said to be derived from an ancient device or badge representing two knights of the Temple on one horse, and was adopted in 1503.

Though the Inner Temple must be considered older than the Middle Temple, there is less to be seen in it. The Hall is not beautiful externally. It was built in 1869 by Sidney Smirke, and the exterior gives one no idea that the interior is worth a visit. However, the fine open timber roof and a very handsome screen will be admired, as well as the heraldry in the windows. The Library is spacious within and convenient, but suffers without, like the Hall, from a want of proportion.

The eminent inhabitants have been very numerous. A mere list would occupy many pages. In the Master’s house have lived Sherlock, Dean of St. Paul’s; his son, the Bishop of London; Vaughan, Dean of Llandaff; and Alfred Ainger. Charles Lamb was born in 1775 at No. 4 Inner Temple Lane—now rebuilt. Thackeray had chambers at 10 Crown Office Row. William Cowper lived in the Inner Temple in 1755. Dr. Johnson was living at 1 Inner Temple Lane in 1763. The house has been pulled down to make way for Johnson’s Buildings. Among the great lawyers were Lyttleton, as well as Coke, who wrote upon him; Sir Julius Cæsar; Finch, Earl of Nottingham; Thurlow; Tenterden; Daines Barrington, the correspondent of White of Selborne; Thesiger, Lord Chelmsford; but perhaps the greatest of them all was Murray, Earl of Mansfield, whose chambers were at 5 King’s Bench Walk.

The principal feature of the Middle Temple is the ancient Hall, and the greatest glory of the Hall is that a play by William Shakespeare was acted in it in February 1602. This was _Twelfth Night_, which had not then been printed, and is supposed to have only just been written. John Manningham, a student then in the Temple, describes it in his Diary, now in the British Museum. The Christmas and Candlemas festivities in the Hall, of which the play formed part, are described at great length by Dugdale.

The Hall was built in 1572, the screen in 1574, so that the local legend which says the wood of some ships of the Spanish Armada was used cannot be true. The heraldry is copious and interesting, both in the windows and on the panelling and roof, some of it being as old as the Hall. The whole building is of great interest architecturally. The windows are strictly Gothic, while everything else is Elizabethan or later in form. The screen has Tuscan columns and round arches, and is exquisitely carved from a bold design. The internal length is 100 feet, the width 42, and the height 47. The roof is extremely fine but simple in construction.

The Library is an imposing but modern building south of the Hall and garden near the Embankment. It is in an early style of Gothic, the principal room being 86 feet long, 42 wide, and 63 high, designed by H. R. Abraham in 1861. A couple of stories of offices and an external staircase are rather picturesque, and the whole building is by far the best erected in either Temple during the last fifty years. A gateway near, leading to the Embankment, can only be described as an eyesore.

Returning through the gardens to Fountain Court we note several sundials near the Hall, in Pump Court and Brick Court, one in particular near the exit to the Outer Temple—_Vestigia nulla retrorsum_—which seems to convey a warning to those who seek the lawyers. The largest sundial is, however, in the Inner Temple, the famous “Blackamoor,” removed thither when Clement’s Inn was pulled down. It is of lead, and replaces one mentioned by Lamb which bore the uncivil motto, “Begone about your business.” In Brick Court, near the fountain, with the Middle Temple Hall on one side, memories of three if not four great authors seem to meet. Goldsmith bought the chambers at 2 Brick Court, looking on the fountain and the Hall, about 1765, and lived here till his death in 1774. Here he wrote _The Deserted Village_ and _The Traveller_, and described in _Animated Nature_ the doings of a rookery in the old trees on which his windows opened. The place is also connected with Thackeray, who describes the chambers in his _English Humourists_. We have already named Shakespeare and the performance of _Twelfth Night_ in the Hall, but there is direct mention of the gardens and their roses in the First Part of _Henry VI._ But to most of us it is Dickens who is most clearly remembered when we stand by the fountain. In _Martin Chuzzlewit_ he brings Ruth Pinch here to meet John Westlock. “The Temple fountain might have leaped up twenty feet to greet the spring of hopeful maidenhood that in her person stole on, sparkling through the dry and dusty channels of the Law.” With Shakespeare, Goldsmith, Dickens and Thackeray we might close the list of eminent inhabitants, but the Middle Temple has been very fortunate in this respect. Edmund Burke was here before 1750. Tom Moore was a student in 1799, and Sheridan some twenty years earlier. Among the eminent lawyers may be named the Norths, Rowden, Clarendon, Somers, Cowper, Blackstone, Eldon, Stowell, and Talfourd—a goodly list, though far from complete.

Chancery Lane will be found in the succeeding volume under Holborn, but the liberty of the Rolls is dealt with here.

THE ROLLS AND THE RECORD OFFICE

A fine new building in Chancery Lane, extending to Fetter Lane, stands on the site occupied by an ancient institution called The Rolls. The early history of the Rolls has yet to be written. It is intimately connected from the first with that of the Jewish Colony which came to England from Rouen with William I. At that time the canon law forbade Christians to take usury. The Jews were the licensed usurers of the King. A masterly essay, prefixed to the _Catalogue_ of the Jewish Exhibition in 1887, explains the situation in a few words: “the exchequer treated the money of the Jews as held at the pleasure of the King.” Special Justices were appointed to preside in the Jews’ Exchequer; all deeds, contracts, bonds, and other documents relating to monetary transactions had to be registered and placed in charge of the Rolls Court or Record Office at the King’s palace at Westminster. The Hebrew word _Shetár_, which means a legal document, gave its name to the Star Chamber, and long after the Jews had left England the court held there retained the old name. We may assume that the chief of the justices of this Rolls Court was the principal controller of the whole colony, and that, when Henry III. opened the House for Converts, it fell naturally under the same jurisdiction. Accordingly we find from the first that the Master of the Rolls was also connected with the House of Converts. A similar house was founded at Oxford, but this one in London owed its continued existence to the fact that the Master of the Rolls lived in it. When the law was relaxed and the Jews ceased to be the only usurers, the Master’s jurisdiction extended to the Lombards and Italian bankers, and when, sixty years after the foundation of the house, the Jews were expelled, the double office continued to exist and in the same place. Converts were still received there till the reign of Charles II. Meanwhile, under the Commonwealth, the laws of 1290 against the Jews had been in great part rescinded; but the Master of the Rolls continued to be called “Keeper of the House of Converts” down to 1873, when Sir George Jessel, himself a Jew, was appointed Master of the Rolls but not Keeper of the House.

The history of the house has been detailed by Mr. W. J. Hardy. It became ruinous early in the eighteenth century, and a new building of good proportions was erected by Colin Campbell in 1717. This, in its turn, was pulled down to make way for the Record Office. With it also perished the chapel, usually called “The Rolls Chapel,” of which Sir Henry Maxwell Lyte, who holds the office of Deputy Keeper, instituted in 1837, has written an account, appended to the Fifty-Seventh Annual Report in 1896.

The first Master of the Rolls who is known to have also been Keeper of the House of Converts was Adam de Osgodeby, appointed in 1307. The next Master was William Ayremyne, who also held both offices, but they were not formally united till 1378. The house stood in Chancery Lane, a little to the north of the present principal entrance of the Record Office. Henry III. endowed it with 700 marks a year, calling it “the house in New Street in the suburbs of London which he had founded for converts from Judaism.” It was rebuilt by William Burstall, Master in 1372, together with the chapel. Here, and in the subsequent house, the successive Masters held their court and also lived. At the opening of the new law courts all the space was surrendered to the Records, the house disappeared, and, though a strong effort was made to save it, the chapel too, except the monuments. The present great building, begun in 1856, from designs by Pennethorne, in a very stiff style of Gothic, was completed in 1897. The Rolls and other documents have gradually been housed in it, comprising all those which were previously in the Tower, the Chapter House, Westminster, Carlton Ride, St. James’s, and the State Paper Office, including the paybooks of the Navy, the registers of the Duchy of Lancaster, and many other sets of manuscripts. The final designs were made by Sir John Taylor of the office of Works, and though the Chancery Lane front harmonises very well with Pennethorne’s work it is a good deal less stiff. Two statues on the inner face of the entrance tower represent Henry III. and Edward III., and the removal was effected in October 1895. All the floors are now fireproof, and the cases to contain the Rolls are of steel with slate shelves. The Chancery Lane front is 225 feet long and 84 feet high. There are two great public reading-rooms where both legal and historical researches are daily carried on, with the learned assistance of a large staff of clerks, trained to decipher the most crabbed writing and to translate mediæval Latin and law French, as well as to calendar thousands of documents bearing on the ancient official correspondence here preserved—such subjects as Chancery and Exchequer proceedings, court rolls, colonial letters and despatches, domestic state papers, accounts, and a hundred other kinds of affairs of public and private interest and importance.

The most interesting part of the Record Office used to be the Rolls Chapel. An arch of the fourteenth century, probably of Burstall’s building, has been set up in the garden against an east wall. The site of the destroyed chapel is on the left as we pass through the principal entrance from Chancery Lane. Here a handsome hall, with five fine windows in the Perpendicular style, has been built for a museum. On the north side very nearly as they stood in the chapel are two most interesting monuments, and a third which was formerly on the opposite side. The rest of the space is taken up with the desks and cases described below. The museum is open free every afternoon.

The monuments comprise those of Masters of the Rolls and of members of their families whose graves were underneath the flooring of the chapel. The most ancient is that of John Yong, Master from January 22, 1508. Three converts, we are told, one man and two women, were received during his keepership of the house, which lasted till his death. Yong was Dean of York, and an eminent diplomatist under Henry VIII. He was a friend of Erasmus, who dedicated a book to him of Colet and the other early reformers. He died of the “sweating sickness” on April 25, 1516, the day on which he had made his will, enjoining upon his executors that he should be buried in the Rolls Chapel. The monument is by Pietro Torregiano, who was employed at Westminster at the time on the effigy of Henry VII. Yong is represented recumbent in a long red gown with tippet and hood and a square cap, such as we see in Holbein’s portraits. Behind the figure are the heads of Christ and two cherubs, all of which show traces of colour and gilding as well as the sarcophagus below, and Yong’s arms, Lozenge vert and argent, on a chevron, azure, 3 annulets, or, on a chief of the second, a goat’s head erased between two scallop shells, gules. This motto is on the sarcophagus: “Dominus firmamentum meum.” In his report (1896) Sir H. Maxwell Lyte proves that the whole monument was removed probably from the chancel of the chapel when it was pulled down in the seventeenth century. The cherubs’ heads he considers later than the rest of the sculpture. A brief inscription mentions the date of Yong’s death and adds that “his faithful executors” placed this monument in 1516, the year of his death. It is curious to observe that there were living in 1516 three men of the same name, John Yong, all scholars of Winchester, all fellows of New College, Oxford, and a fourth who was Norroy King of Arms. Of them one, who was suffragan to Fitzjames, the Bishop of London, who had become blind, and Bishop of Gallipoli, _in partibus_, is usually confused with his namesake the Dean of York, who was Master of the Rolls; indeed, Sir H. Maxwell Lyte remarks that neither the tomb nor the epitaph gives any indication that “he was titular bishop of Gallipoli.” Bishop Yong, who does not seem to have shared his namesake’s reforming views, survived him for ten years. Two other fine monuments with effigies are to Richard Alington, who died in 1561, and to Edward Bruce, Lord Bruce of Kinloss, who died in 1611. There are several tablets, a statue of George I., and a bust of Lord Romilly.

The cases contain typical manuscripts, many of them finely illuminated. Among them are examples of royal charters, (A); letters patent, (B); volumes like the “Black Book of the Exchequer,” (C); Rolls with pictures, (D); and on the centre table the two volumes which contain the celebrated “Domesday Survey,” completed in 1086. In case E is the great book which contains the agreement between Henry VII. and the Abbot of Westminster concerning the masses to be celebrated “for ever” in the King’s chapel. Some very fine illuminations are in the treaty of peace with Francis I. (Case F). Letters and despatches of interest will be found in the remaining cases, such as the account of Nelson’s death (Case I); Great Seal for Virginia and for New York, and a letter of George Washington to George III. (Case M); besides boxes and coffers made for the preservation of important books or documents.

* * * * *

Of =Fetter Lane= Stow says: “There is Fewter Lane which stretches south into Fleet Street, by the east end of St. Dunstan’s Church and is so-called of fewters (or idle people) lying there as in a way leading to gardens; but the same is now of latter years on both sides built through with many fair houses.”

Others derived the name from the fetters of criminals or the fetters or rests on the breastplates of the knights riding through to forays in Fickett’s Field (Lincoln’s Inn Fields) adjoining (see p. 370). Tom Payne, who wrote _The Rights of Man_, lived at No. 77, and it is said that Dryden lived at No. 16, now demolished.

=Crane Court= is lined by rows of old buildings mingled with some warehouses of more modern date. The tiled roofs and projecting parapets, with rows of little windows peeping out under the roof, are in contrast with the new red brick of the building belonging to the Scottish Corporation erected in 1880. This is at the north end of the court, facing the entry, and is on the site of the building temporarily occupied by the Royal Society. The earlier building was built by Sir C. Wren, and contained a fine hall with richly stuccoed ceiling; the walls were hung with pictures by Sir Godfrey Kneller, Wilkie, etc., but unfortunately it was destroyed by fire, November 1877, together with all relics. The Scottish Corporation originated in a Society formed shortly after the accession of James I. for relieving the unfortunate poor among those of the Scottish nation who had followed their king to England.

In 1782 the premises in Crane Court were bought from the Royal Society for £1000. The fire which destroyed the hall destroyed almost all records. On July 21, 1880, the present hall was opened by the Duke of Argyll. On the ground-floor is a spacious chapel in which are held the monthly religious services, and where the pensioners are accommodated on pay days; above are the offices and the hall for the meeting of the governors. Professor T. L. Donaldson was the architect, and he has tried to infuse as much of the national sentiment as possible into the design.

In Johnson’s Court Dr. Johnson lived (1766-76) at No. 7. The Court, however, is not named after him. The Society of Arts was founded in this court.

In Bolt Court are several old stucco buildings. One at the north end contains the London County Council Technical Education Board. Another on the east has a curious old doorway with “The Medical Society of London” in well-worn letters running round the upper part of a bas-relief. The house belonged to Dr. Lettsom, who was the founder of the Medical Society. Johnson lived in Bolt Court at No. 8, but the house was burned down in 1849. The present technical schools are on the site.

As already stated, Johnson’s Court was not named after the learned doctor, though he lived here, in No. 7, from 1766 to 1776. James Ferguson the astronomer died at No. 4 in 1776. William Cobbett also lived in Bolt Court.

=Gough Square= is also associated with the name of the great lexicographer. The Society of Arts have placed a circular tablet on the wall of the house, No. 17, which faces eastward. Johnson lived here from 1741 to 1758. The house is an old eighteenth-century brick one, not very large, and not remarkable in any way. A printer and a publisher share the ground-floor, and above is a reading club. The doorway is slightly decorative, and the heavy woodwork of the door itself and the massive chain remain as they were in Johnson’s time. The Club was founded by a Mr. Campbell in 1887 for the recreation and assistance of working lads and girls in the district. There are now one hundred members. The remainder of the Square varies in character. On the south side, and at the east end, there are old eighteenth-century brick houses of the usual pattern. One or two of the doorways have carved brackets, and one fluted pilasters. Over the entry from Goldsmith Street is another house similar in character, but the rest of the north side is of obtrusively new brick buildings. The Square continuing southward contains some warehouses and a few old houses.

The name of =Water Lane= was changed to Whitefriars Street. Thomas Tompion (d. 1713), the “father of English watch-making,” lived at the corner.

=Salisbury Square= occupies the site of the courtyard of Salisbury House, the residence of the Bishops of Salisbury, afterwards called Dorset House. In Dorset Gardens beside the river was the Duke’s Theatre. Betterton, Harris, Underhill, and Sandford, actors, lived in this court. Here also lived for a time John Dryden, Shadwell, and Lady Davenant, widow of Sir William Davenant. But the chief glory of Salisbury Court or Square is its memory of Richardson, novelist and printer. His house was in the north-west angle, his printing offices on the east side; here he wrote _Pamela_; here, for a time, Goldsmith was his press corrector. The theatre called the Salisbury Court Theatre was constructed in 1629 out of the barn or granary at the lower end of the court. It was the seventeenth theatre opened in London within a period of sixty years. The house was pulled down in 1649: rebuilt in 1660, and occupied by the Duke’s Company until their new theatre in Lincoln’s Inn Fields was ready for them. It was destroyed in the Great Fire. The Duke’s Theatre in Dorset Gardens, opened on November 9, 1671, stood facing the river on a different site. In Salisbury Square is the headquarters of the Church Missionary Society.

ST. BRIDE

St. Bride’s or St. Bridget’s is another Fleet Street church. It derives its name from St. Bridget, a saint of the seventh century. No mention of the church has been discovered earlier than 1222. It was destroyed by the Great Fire and rebuilt in 1680 by Wren; the steeple, one of his greatest achievements, was added in 1701. This has been struck several times by lightning, and in 1764 part of it was taken down and lowered by 8 feet. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1306.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Abbot and Convent of Westminster as a rectory from 1306 up to 1507, when a vicarage was ordained in the same patronage; Dean and Chapter of Westminster, in whose successors it continues, since 1573.

Houseling people in 1548 were 1400.

The interior of this church is considered to be one of the best specimens of Wren’s work. It is entered by a porch within the tower, and is divided into a nave and aisles by an arcade of doubled columns on both sides. The length of the church is 111 feet, its breadth 57 feet, and its height, to the roof of the nave, 41 feet. The height of the tower to the top of the parapet is 120 feet, above which the spire rises in four octagonal stories, surmounted by an obelisk and vane. There are vases at the corners of the parapet, introduced to soften the transitions. St. Bride’s Avenue, designed by J. B. Papworth in 1825, affords an open view of this steeple, before obstructed by intervening houses.

The only relics of the old church which now survive are a font in the west part of the middle aisle, and outside, on the north, the entry stone to the vault of the Holdens, dated 1657.

Chantries were founded here: For William de Evesham, John de Uggeley and Lettice his wife, at the Altar of St. Katharine, of which Thomas de Weston was chaplain in 1564—the endowment fetched £6 : 10s. in 1548; by Nicholas Sporinge, citizen of London, for himself and for Thomas Bryx and Elene his wife at the Altar of St. John Baptist, of which Ralph Archer was chaplain (d. 1383); for John de Merlawe in 1315; by John Ulstrape, whose endowment fetched £10 : 13 : 4 in 1549, when Robert Walker was chaplain; by John Wigan and John Hill whose endowments yielded £15 : 14 : 8 in 1548; by Simon atte Nax, whose endowment fetched £15 : 14 : 4 in 1548 when John Matthew and Philip Dey were chaplains. Richard Beauchamp, Bishop of Sarum, Walter Devereux, Miles, Lord of Ferrers, and Master Alexander Leigh had licence to found a guild here, May 26, 1475.

This church contains many interesting monuments, and is especially rich in memories of the poets. The Rev. John Pridden, a zealous antiquary, who died in 1825, is commemorated by a tablet on the north wall; here, too, a brass plate has been placed to the memory of John Nichols, author of _The History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester_ and other works. Wynkyn de Worde, the sixteenth-century printer, was buried in this church; also Sir Richard Baker, author of the _Chronicle of the Kings of England_; and also, perhaps, Richard Lovelace, the cavalier poet. Samuel Richardson, the novelist, who died in 1761, was interred in the middle aisle. In the vestry-room there is a portrait of the Rev. Thomas Dale, a former vicar (see below). Milton is recorded to have taken up his abode for a short time in lodgings in St. Bride’s Churchyard on his return from his travels.

Only two benefactors’ names are recorded by Stow—Robert Lewis, who gave £30 per annum for coals for the poor, and Robert Dove, £50 for a bell to warn prisoners of their approaching death.

There was one charity school for fifty boys and fifty girls, who were clothed, taught, and apprenticed by voluntary subscriptions, added to a yearly collection at the church door.

John Taylor or Cardmaker was vicar here; he was burnt at Smithfield for heresy, May 30, 1555. Also Richard Bundy, D.D. (d. 1739), Prebendary of Westminster; John Thomas (1712-93), Bishop of Rochester; Thomas Dale (1797-1870), Dean of Rochester.

The =Fleet River=, which gave its name to all this district, was anciently known as Turnmill Brooke or the River of Wells, under which name Stow speaks of it. He says that in 1307, at a parliament held at Carlisle, Henry Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, complained of the “decay” of this river, for “whereas in times past the course of water running at London, under Oldbourne Bridge, and Fleet Bridge into the Thames had been of such breadth and depth that 10 or 12 ships, navies, at once with merchandizes, were wont to come to the foresaid Bridge of Fleet, and some of them to Oldbourne Bridge, now the same course by filth of the tanners and such others, was sore decayed.” He also complained of the diversion of the water by mills of the Templars at Baynard’s Castle. After this the river was cleansed and the mills removed, but the old depth was never restored so that the river became a mere brook and was called Turnmill Brook. The Fleet Bridge, connecting Fleet Street with Ludgate Hill, was destroyed in the Great Fire and another built which was removed in 1765.

Fleet Ditch became very dirty and proved a nuisance; it is several times referred to in no complimentary terms in the _Trivia_ and the _Dunciad_. Part of it was arched over and the Fleet Market held here. In 1765, the Thames end was arched over at the building of Blackfriars Bridge. Since 1841, the whole has been covered in and now runs underground as a sewer; its course is marked by Farringdon Street and New Bridge Street.

THE ANCIENT SCHOOLS IN THE CITY OF LONDON

By A. F. LEACH.

The history of schools in London, like the history of schools in England and mediæval Europe at large, necessarily begins with the history of its great churches. Throughout England until the Reformation, and, in theory at all events, until the Revolution, schools were ecclesiastical institutions, and education was a matter of purely ecclesiastical cognizance. The Ordinary, that is, the judge of the Ecclesiastical Court of first instance, had everywhere cognizance of all matters in dispute which concerned schools and scholars, their internal discipline and their relations to the external world. It could and did settle the question of school supply, how many schools there should be, and where.

If we want to know, therefore, what were the earliest and chief schools of London, we have only to ask, What were the earliest and chief churches of London? When we say churches, we must be careful to remember that the word churches for such purpose means churches of the secular clergy; that is, college and parish churches, not those of monasteries and religious orders. We must be careful not to confuse the two, and not to talk of St. Paul’s Cathedral Church as conventual, or of St. Martin’s-le-Grand Collegiate Church as a monastery. To do so is precisely like confusing New College, Oxford, with a Jesuit seminary, or Trinity, Cambridge, with a Salvation Army barracks.

The chief secular churches of London were, first and foremost, St. Paul’s Cathedral; next, the great Collegiate Church of St. Martin’s-le-Grand, now, alas! swallowed up by the General Post Office; and third, the Church of St. Mary-le-Bow, the London church of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the seat of his supreme ecclesiastical court, which has given its name to the Court of Arches, and was his “peculiar” property, exempt from the jurisdiction of the Ordinary, the Bishop of London.

In these three churches, some of the earliest extant documents of St. Paul’s reveal the existence of grammar schools, which were already old in the year 1138. These three schools, and they alone, constituted the whole of the public provision for education in London until the year 1441, when another grammar school was established in St. Antony’s Hospital. Some other schools were afterwards founded in connection with other churches before the Reformation. But while its earlier and its later pre-Reformation rivals have all disappeared, the earliest and greatest of all, the grammar school of the Cathedral Church of St. Paul’s, London, commonly called St. Paul’s School, with its unbroken pedigree of 800 years and upwards still ranks among the chief schools of the country, and holds as marked a position of pre-eminence in the greater London of 1900 as it did in the old narrow city of London in 1100.

The story of London schools should, then, be simplicity itself; the more so as it suffers from a lack of material. Yet it has been so obscured and complicated by successive writers that it has been converted into a tangled and twisted texture of guesses and fables, which we must endeavour to unravel.

It ought not to have been so. For, earlier probably than any other city in Europe, except York, London found its _vates sacer_, who for the admiration of his own and the information of later ages, sung the glories of its schools and scholars, their studies and their sports. Alcuin’s ninth-century poem[38] in Latin hexameters “On the Archbishops and Saints of the Church of York,” giving a vivid account of St. Peter’s School there, of which he was himself master in the third quarter of the eighth century, is the earliest account we have of any English school. The picture, drawn in poetic Latin prose of the twelfth century by “the son of Stephen,” of London schools and scholars, as they were during the boyhood of Becket, is not less full or vivid. One almost suspects from the way in which quotations from Latin poets are lugged in “by the hairs” that Fitzstephen was himself at one time a schoolmaster, before he became Becket’s chancellor and ended as a judge. At all events, he took a keen interest in schools and schoolboys, and devoted a good third of his famous description of London to the games and sports of the London schoolboy.

“In London,”[39] he says, “the three principal churches have famous schools privileged and of ancient pre-eminence, though sometimes through personal favour to some one noted as a philosopher more schools are allowed. On feast days the masters celebrate assemblies at the churches, arrayed in festive garb. The scholars hold disputations, some augmentatively, others by way of question and answer. These roll out enthymemes, those use the forms of perfect syllogisms. Some dispute merely for show, as they do at collections;[40] others for the truth which is the grace of perfection. The sophists and pretenders are pronounced happy because of the mass and volume of their words; others play upon words. The rhetoricians with rhetorical speeches speak to the point with a view to persuasion, being careful to observe the precepts of their art, and to leave out nothing that belongs to it.

“The boys of the different schools hold contests in verse, or pose each other on the principles of grammar or the rules of preterites and supines. Others in epigrams, rhymes and metres use the old street eloquence, with Fescinnine licence scourging their schoolfellows, without mentioning names; hurling abusive epithets and scoffs at them: with Socratic salt girding at the failings of their fellows, or perhaps of their elders; and in bold dithyrambics biting them with the sharp tooth of Theon. The audience

ready to laugh With crincled noses redouble their shrill guffaws.”

The beginning of this passage states as plainly as can be that there were schools attached to the three principal churches, that they were ancient even then, and privileged. By privileged is meant, not as Lord Lyttelton[41] in his _Henry II._ interprets it, that “by particular privilege was taught not only grammar, but poetry, rhetorick and logick”; but, as the context shows, that these schools were the only schools allowed at all, though occasionally a special schoolmaster was allowed on sufferance and by personal favour. Stow, who was the first to quote this passage, went on[42] to identify the three schools. The first, he supposed rightly, was St. Paul’s. But for the second he puts “S. Peter’s at Westminster,” and supports it by a quotation from Ingulphus’ _Chronicle_, now admitted on all hands to be a fifteenth-century forgery. The third, says Stow, “seemeth to have been in the monastery of St. Saviour at Bermondsey in Southwark. For other priories, as of St. John by Smithfield, St. Bartholomew in Smithfield, St. Mary Overies in Southwark, and that of the Holy Trinity in Aldgate, were all of later foundation.”

This is a curious conglomeration of errors: which has unfortunately been blindly adopted by subsequent writers. Even if there had been a grammar school at Westminster, it could not possibly be described in the twelfth century as being in London, since Fitzstephen himself speaks of Westminster as being two miles off. The placing of a London school at St. Saviour’s, Bermondsey, is even more open to the same objection of not being in London.

It is an interesting question from what MS. of Fitzstephen Stow derived his knowledge of this passage about schools. Out of four ancient MSS. now extant, only one, and that the latest, contains the passage. These MSS. are: (i.) MS. Lambeth 138 (wrongly referred to as 1168 in the Rolls edition of Fitzstephen). This is of the thirteenth century and has not the Description of London at all. (ii.) MS. Douce 289 at the Bodleian. This is also of the thirteenth century. It has the Description of London, but having lost its first leaf has only the last few words about schools, (iii.) MS. Cotton, Julius, A, xi., at the British Museum. This is of the early fourteenth century and has not got the Description at all. (iv.) Lansdowne MS. 398, late in the fifteenth century. This is the only MS. which has the Description of London and its schools in full, and it does not mention the churches which kept them. On the other hand, the Description of London, apart from the Life, is written at the beginning of the _Liber Custumarum_ of the City of London, now in the Guildhall, a MS. of the first half of the fourteenth century. It contains the passage about the schools and after the word churches inserts “viz. the Bishop’s see, the church of St. Paul’s, the church of Holy Trinity and the church of St. Martin.” Mr. Riley, in his edition of the _Liber Custumarum_, thinks that Stow had this book before him. But the omission by Stow of the names of the three churches, and his bad guess as to what the churches were, seem to show conclusively that the Guildhall MS. was unknown to him, unless he garbled it for the sake of avoiding a difficulty.

As we have seen, Stow says that Trinity Priory was not founded till after the time of which Fitzstephen was writing. In this he was mistaken. The Priory purports in its chartulary[43] to have been founded by “good Queen Mold,” the wife of Henry I., in 1108, and its most interesting endowment, the Portsoken, the land of the English Knights’ Gild outside Aldgate, in virtue of which the Prior of Christchurch, or Creechurch, as it was nicknamed, was _ex officio_ an Alderman of the City of London, was given in 1125. There does not, however, seem to be any mention of a school in connection with the church before or after the foundation of the Priory either in its chartulary, or elsewhere.[44]

On the other hand, we have testimony contemporary with the time of which Fitzstephen was writing, and many subsequent references, extending up to the time of Henry VIII., which show conclusively that the three churches with schools were St. Paul’s, St. Martin’s-le-Grand, and St. Mary-le-Bow, and that they preserved their monopoly till the middle of the fifteenth century. There was therefore no room for any recognised school in, or connected with, Trinity Church. Three explanations appear to be possible. (i.) There was a school in Trinity Church while it was a secular church, belonging to the College Church of the Holy Cross, Waltham, which ceased on its being converted into a Priory. (ii.) There was an adulterine or unlicensed school there, put down by the very document which conveys the contemporary testimony as to what the legitimate and privileged schools were. But more probably (iii.) the words are an interpolation due to a gloss by some badly-informed commentator.

The curious thing is that in the very passage quoted, Stow cites, though inaccurately, a patent of Henry VI. by which, as we shall see, authority was given for the erection of certain schools, besides those at St. Paul’s, at St. Martin’s-le-Grand, and St. Mary-le-Bow in Cheap. It is rather strange that Stow did not know of the famous document at St. Paul’s, which tells us plainly what these three ancient and famous schools were. But then he had not the advantage we enjoy of Sir Henry Maxwell-Lyte’s admirable Calendar of the St. Paul’s Muniments.[45] The one in question runs thus:

Henry, by the Grace of God, minister of the church of Winchester, to the Chapter of St. Paul’s and William, Archdeacon, and their officers, greeting.

I command you by your obedience that after three summonses, you launch the sentence of excommunication against those who, without a license from Henry, the Schoolmaster, presume to teach (anywhere) in the whole city of London; except those who teach the schools of St. Mary of the Arch and St. Martin’s the Great. Witness, Hilarius, at Winchester.

It is at first sight mysterious that Henry of Blois, Bishop of Winchester, should, even though he was King Stephen’s brother, thus interfere in the affairs of another diocese. The explanation is that he was in fact acting as Bishop of London at that time, holding the See during its vacancy _in commendam_, or in charge. This fact enables us to fix the date. It must lie between 1138, when, according to the chronicler, Ralph de Diceto,[46] who was Dean of St. Paul’s, “the Pope with the King’s consent, committed the care of the church of London to Henry, Bishop of Winchester,” and 1140, when “the Empress (Matilda) was received by the Londoners for their lady, and she made Robert of the Seal, bishop of London.” Rival schoolmasters had no doubt taken advantage of the relaxation of discipline during the prolonged vacancy of the See, consequent on the Pope’s setting aside the election of the Abbot of St. Edmund’s Bury to it, to set up “adulterine” or unlicensed schools. When the See was placed under a strong guardian, the arm of the church was stretched out to defend the monopoly of its children.

But the injunction against rival schools was not, as has been represented by Dugdale,[47] any special favour to Henry the schoolmaster of St. Paul’s. It was merely in accordance with the common law of the church. We find precisely the same kind of proceeding going on at Winchester itself[48] at about the same time, and again as late as 1629; while copious instances of its use are to be found at Canterbury in the fourteenth, and at York and Beverley[49] in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

Master Henry had been appointed schoolmaster by Richard Belmeis, Bishop of London, and his appointment is still extant among the archives of St. Paul’s, not only in a chartulary copy but in the actual original itself. As it is probably the oldest instrument of its kind in England, it is given in full.

COLLATION OF THE SCHOOL[50]

Richard, by the Grace of God, Bishop of London, to William, Dean, and the whole assembly of his brethren, and to William of Oschendon his steward, and all his men, Greeting and blessing in Christ.

I make known to you, my beloved, that I have granted to Henry, my canon, the pupil of Master Hugh, the school of St. Paul’s, as honourably as the church in best and most honourable wise ever held it, and the land of the court (_atrio_) which the aforesaid Hugh enclosed there to house himself in; and the meadow which I had granted to the same Hugh in Fulham, 4 acres; namely, the whole land from the ditch to the Thames (he paying) 12d. a year by way of acknowledgment at Michaelmas; and, in alms, the tithes of Ealing and the tithes of Madeley.

Witnesses, William of Winchester, William of Occhenden, steward, and Hugh de Cancerisio.

On the strength of this and a previous document, Bishop Stubbs speaks[51] of Bishop Richard de Belmeis, de Bello Manso (or Fairhouse), as having “founded” the “schools” (_sic_) “of St. Paul’s.” The previous document is only preserved in a copy in the early chartulary called Liber A. It is addressed to W. Dean and the whole assembly of canons (_fratrum conventui_) and informs the bishop’s “best beloved sons” that he has “confirmed (_stabilisse_) to Hugh the Schoolmaster, _ex officio_ as Master, and to his successors in that dignity, the place of Mr. Durand in the corner of the Tower, where Dean William placed him by my orders between Robert de Auco and Odo.” The Bishop then proceeds, “I grant to him and to the privilege of the school the custody of all the books of my church,” and orders the dean to have a list of the books made out in an indenture, one part of which is to be placed in the treasury, the other to be kept by the schoolmaster, who is to be given seisin of the books; while any books that have been lent out, whether theological (_divinorum_) or of secular learning, are to be returned, on pain of excommunication. Hugh was also “to have the keys of the cupboards” (_armariorum_, aumbreys as they are now somewhat affectedly called) “which I ordered to be made for the purpose.”

As no witnesses are recorded, the date of this cannot be fixed, except as being between 1111, when William became Dean, and 1127, when Bishop Richard died. It must, of course, be before the document appointing Henry as schoolmaster in succession to this same Hugh.

Neither of the two documents supports Bishop Stubbs’ statement that Bishop Richard “founded” the “schools” of St. Paul’s. It is odd that the Bishop should have fallen into this mistake, as Dugdale[52] described the documents quite accurately, as grants to the Schoolmaster of St. Paul’s. Both of the grants imply that the schoolmaster’s office or “dignity” was in existence before. The later document is, of course, as it is called, merely a collation; an appointment of a new master, Henry, who had himself been a scholar in the school, to succeed a deceased master, Hugh. The earlier one merely confirms, not grants, to an existing officer or dignitary of the cathedral the residence he already enjoyed, at the same time annexing that particular residence to the office, while giving him the apparently[53] new duty of taking care of the books belonging to the church. The title of Master applied to Durand suggests that he too had been schoolmaster before Hugh, and lived in the same house as Hugh did, but that the house, then only an ordinary prebendal house, was now definitely made the schoolmaster’s official residence.

It is particularly unfortunate that Bishop Stubbs should also have been misled by the plural form used in the original for a school into misunderstanding the mention of the school of St. Paul’s for a reference to schools, meaning more than one. There has been no more prolific source of misrepresentation as to the whole status and history of mediæval schools than this misunderstanding. Yet it is beyond doubt that until the middle of the fifteenth century the word school was habitually not _scola_ but _scolæ_.[54] The official title of a grammar schoolmaster was not _Magister Scole Gramatices_ or _Gramaticalis_ but _Magister Scolarum Gramaticalium_. He was schoolsmaster not schoolmaster. This was the style almost universally used in official and formal documents up to the reign of Edward VI. In less formal documents, such as Account Rolls and the like, the singular form began to oust the plural as nearly as possible in the year 1450. Before that time, though there are occasional uses of the word in the singular, the normal use was in the plural. A few references to original documents will be enough to show the identity of meaning of the singular and plural forms. Thus, in an inquiry as to St. Cross Hospital near Winchester in 1373,[55] when evidence was given that among the 100 poor fed every day in the Hundredmen’s Hall, there were 13 poor scholars sent from the Grammar School of Winchester; some witnesses call them “poorer scholars of the grammar school (_scole gramaticalis_) of the city of Winchester,” and others, “poor scholars from the grammar school (_scolis gramaticalibus_) there,” the school being called indifferently the grammar school and the high school of the city of Winchester. Again in the Winchester College Account Roll for 1394, the head-master of the college grammar school, which was not the same as the City grammar school, is called both _Magister Scolis_ and _Magister Scole_. This evidence is the more clinching as it is rare at that date to find the word school in the singular at all. Indeed, except at Winchester and London, as will be seen presently, where there seems to have been a higher standard of classical accuracy, I do not know of another instance of the word school in the singular in the fourteenth century.

The clearing up of this point is important, as the plural use has made people[56] search for two or more schools, and in consequence has led them to confound two entirely different schools, the Grammar School for the world at large, and the Song School chiefly, if not exclusively, for the choristers; and, in consequence, to maintain that the mediæval grammar schools were poor starved things, where a dozen choristers at most stumbled through their declensions and their psalter.

The documents of Richard de Belmeis then are not the foundation of St. Paul’s School. On the contrary, they point to it as previously existing, and to the schoolmaster as already one of the dignitaries or principal persons of the chapter. The true date of foundation and the real founder of St. Paul’s School must be sought in the foundation and founder of St. Paul’s Cathedral Church itself. The first foundation was in 604, when[57]

Augustine, Archbishop of the Britains, ordained two Bishops, Mellitus and Justus: Mellitus to preach to the province of Essex, separated from Kent by the river Thames, and close to the Eastern sea, whose metropolis is London city placed on the banks of the said river, an emporium for many nations, coming by land and sea; whose king then was Saberet (or Sebert) nephew of Ethelbert by his sister Ricula, though placed under the power of Ethelbert, who then ruled all the English race up to the Humber. When the province received the word of truth on the preaching of Mellitus, King Ethelbert made in the city of London the church of St. Paul the Apostle, in which he and his successors had their bishop’s See.

After Ethelbert and Sebert died in 616[58] there was a reaction to the old religion, and Mellitus fled abroad. When he tried to return, after the conversion of Ethelbert’s successor in Kent, London would not have him. It remained heathen till Oswi, King of the Northumbrians, converted Sigebert, a refugee prince, who, on returning home, made Cedd bishop of the East Saxons. But no mention is made of London as his See, and Tilbury[59] rather appears to have been his principal church. He died of the plague in 664. Wine,[60] expelled from Winchester, bought the See of London from Wulfhere, King of the Mercians, somewhere about 666. Thenceforward the history of the See and church is unbroken. It is only therefore from this last date that we can reckon the continuous history of St. Paul’s Cathedral or its school. There is no direct reference to the school in Bede, as there is to that of Canterbury, when the King of the East Angles got schoolmasters thence in 631. But the place[61] where lived the learned Nothelm, Bede’s principal informant as to the history of southern England, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, and Erkenwald or Earconwald, bishop from 675 to 692, whose name and fame in later ages, as the local saint of London, completely eclipsed that of St. Paul himself, much as St. Swithin did that of St. Peter at Winchester, can hardly have failed to maintain a school, any more than Canterbury or York or Winchester.

The original statutes of St. Paul’s Cathedral have not survived. The earliest statute affecting the school appears in a collection made during the deanery of Henry of Cornhill,[62] 1243 to 1254, who had been Chancellor of St. Paul’s from 1217 till he became Dean. It is a statute relating to the duties of the Chancellor. When present, it is said,

the Chancellor makes out the table (_tabulam_) of lessons, masses, Epistles, Gospels, acolytes, and performers of the service in course for a week (_ebdomadariis_) and hears the lessons [_i.e._ the reader has to read them over to him beforehand to see that he reads them correctly]. On feast days he hears the Bishop read, hands him the book to be read from at the beginning of mattins; and, clothed in a silk cope, holds the book for the Bishop to read at the last of the [nine] lessons. [The Chancellor himself, a later statute informs us, read the 6th lesson.] He introduces the clerks of lower grade to be ordained, and after examining them in school presents them to the Bishop for ordination, and administers justice to every one who makes any complaint as to their conduct. All scholars living in the city are under him, except those of a school of the Arches, and a school in the Basilica of St. Martin’s the Great, who claim that they are privileged in these and other matters. The Chancellor also keeps the chest with the school books in it.

The reference to a school (_unam scolam_) in St. Mary-le-Bow and St. Martin’s respectively, may be compared with the plural for the same schools in the writ of Bishop Henry of Blois.

In the digest of the statutes of St. Paul’s made during the deanery of Ralph of Baldock, 1294-1304, the words as to the Chancellor’s supremacy over the schools are repeated almost verbatim; but the plural form _scolarum_ is used instead of the singular for the single schools at St. Martin’s and St. Mary-le-Bow respectively. This is pretty conclusive testimony of the identity in meaning of plural and singular for a single school. In this latter digest we find further details about the chancellor and a special statute, headed, “of the appointment of an M.A. to the Grammar School (_scolæ grammaticæ_).” The body of the statute is part of the statute as to the chancellor. It says:

The Chancellor appoints a master of arts to the Grammar School (_scolis_) and is bound to keep the school itself (_scolas ipsas_) in repair. He composes the letters and deeds of the Chapter. He reads whatever has to be read in Chapter. He is the chief keeper of the seal, and receives a pound of pepper for every deed that is sealed or renewed, the Chapter receiving 3s.

“If the Dean has to be ordained”—we may remember that William of Wykeham was Dean of St. Martin’s-le-Grand when still only an acolyte, and Reginald Pole, though a cardinal and an ex-dean, was not a priest till the day before he became Archbishop of Canterbury—“the Chancellor calls him by the title of St. Paul’s.”

The chancellor is

the chief keeper of the school books in the chest, and ought to show them once a year to the Dean and others appointed for the purpose, and a copy of the list of them is to be kept by the Dean, the Chancellor and a third brother [_i.e._ canon] appointed for the purpose.

It is possible, of course, though not perhaps very probable, that there were no written statutes of St. Paul’s affecting the school earlier than those quoted. Whether there were written statutes or not, the writs of Bishop Richard prove the schoolmaster’s office to have been in existence at least 150 years before this earliest written statute. But we might have positively asserted that there was such an officer if those writs had not existed, because the maintenance of a schoolmaster was part of the customary constitution of cathedral churches. Alcuin’s description[63] of the duties of himself and his predecessor, Ethelbert or Albert, afterwards archbishop, as schoolmaster at York in the eighth century, shows a schoolmaster fulfilling precisely the same mixture of legal, clerkly, and educational duties which appear in the famous Institution of St. Osmund at Salisbury in the eleventh and the statutes of St. Paul’s in the thirteenth century. As early as 832 a definite conciliar decree embodied in the written canon law the obligation, already crystallised into custom, that every cathedral church should maintain a school.

When Earl Harold[64] founded, or rather augmented, in 1060 the collegiate church of secular canons of the Holy Cross of Waltham with a dean and twelve canons, the principal person next to the provost or dean, as he is indifferently called, was the schoolmaster. The history of the foundation was written for us by one who was made a canon before 1144, having been “from tender years brought up in the church and taught Latin in its bosom.”[65] He was one of those who were turned out in 1177, when, with vicarious liberality, Henry II. converted the college into a priory of regular or Augustinian canons, in satisfaction of his vow to found a monastery in expiation of Becket’s death. This canon tells us[66] how Harold having heard that the Dutch was the best model, imported Master Athelard, a native of Liege, who had been educated at Utrecht, to assist Wulfwin the Dean in settling the constitution of the church. Our author himself, who does not give his name, says that his master[67] was “Master Peter, son of Master Athelard.” For the secular canons were, like their modern successors, allowed to marry, and this was the real reason why the favourers of monkery charged them with evil living. He tells us how

a copious stream of learning flowed from this Peter after the fashion of the Dutch (_Teutonicorum_) and yet the lessons and classics and verse composition in no way lessened the practice of singing in the churches. So far from boyish habits were they, that they walked in procession, stood, read and sang, with as much gravity as if they had been monks; and chanted and sang by heart solos or in duets or trios, without book whatever had to be sung at the steps of the choir or in the choir itself.... As they came in procession, like canons getting up to mid-night matins, from school to choir, so when leaving choir they go to school.

Here, then, we see that a school, a grammar school, was regarded as an integral and necessary, and a most important part of the foundation of a collegiate church before the Conquest.

Similar evidence comes from another collegiate church of pre-Conquest foundation, that of St. Mary, Warwick. This church, situate in the middle of the town, is recorded in Domesday Book as possessing a hide of land. There was also a collegiate church of All Saints, a kind of garrison chapel, in the castle, the stronghold founded by Ethelfled, the Lady of the Mercians, against the Danes in 916, but which after the date of Domesday Book passed into the hands of one of the Norman invaders. Forty years after Domesday Book, in 1123, disputes having arisen between the two churches, the second Norman lord, Roger de Beaumont, confirmed to these two churches all their respective property as they held it in his father’s time. Then by a separate deed he confirmed “in alms,” _i.e._ in perpetuity free from feudal service, “to the church of St. Mary of Warwick the school (_scolas_) of the said church, that the service of God in the same may be improved by the attendance of scholars.” By a similar deed he must have confirmed All Saints in its school, as a writ of King Henry I. addressed to this Earl Roger and the ecclesiastical lords, the Bishops of Worcester and Chester, directs “that the Church of All Saints, Warwick, shall have all its customs and judgments of iron and water (_i.e._ the right of administering the ordeal) as they did in the time of Edward, and in like manner shall have its school (_scolas_).” A few years later the two collegiate churches were consolidated, the canons of All Saints being transferred from the castle, their residence there “being inconvenient,” and the property of the united church of St. Mary and All Saints was confirmed to it first by the Earl, then by the Bishop, including “the school of Warwick and trial of iron, water and duel.” So here again the school, and the right to keep it, is regarded as one of the most important attributes of a pre-Conquest collegiate church.

The statutes made on the new foundation of Salisbury Cathedral within twenty-five years of the Norman Conquest are preserved. They are not indeed in a contemporary document, but written in a thirteenth-century hand in a new version of these statutes made on the removal of the cathedral from Old Sarum to the present Salisbury in 1220. There seems no reason to doubt their authenticity.

These are the dignities and customs of the church of Salisbury which I, Osmund, bishop of the same church, in the name of the Holy Trinity, in the year 1091, have instituted and granted to the persons and canons of the same, with the advice of the Archbishop and the assent of King William.

The Dean and Chanter (Precentor), Chancellor and Treasurer shall be always resident in the church of Salisbury, without any kind of excuse....

The chanter ought to teach the choir as to singing and can raise or lower the chant.

The Treasurer is chief in the custody of the treasures and ornaments and the giving out of lights.

In like manner the Chancellor (_cancellarius_) (is chief) in teaching school and correcting the books.

Dean and Chapter, Treasurer and Chancellor have double commons, the rest of the Canons single commons.

The Sub-Dean holds under the Dean the archdeaconry of the city and suburbs, the Succentor under the Precentor that which belongs to the choir (_cantariam_).

If the Dean fails, the Sub-Dean fills his place, so the Succentor has the Precentor’s.

The Schoolmaster (_archischola_) ought to hear the lessons and determine on them, carry the seal of the church, compose letters and deeds, and mark readers on the list, and the Precentor in like manner the singers.

Here, then, we find four principal persons, of whom one, the chancellor, is also called schoolmaster. He is the legal and educational, while the chanter or precentor is the musical officer of the chapter. In the fourteenth century copy of the statutes of York Minster it is said of the chancellor that he “was anciently called Schoolmaster”; and the twelfth-century historian of the Minster, a contemporary of Bishop Richard of Belmeis, describes how Thomas of Bayeux, the first Norman archbishop there, had just established or (as we may infer) re-established a provost and schoolmaster; but afterwards, about 1090, established that which afterwards became the regular cathedral “foursquare” constitution of dean (instead of provost), precentor, treasurer, and chancellor.

In the oft-quoted Liber A at St. Paul’s, written in the thirteenth century, the copies of the writs of Bishop Richard of Belmeis and Henry of Blois, with some later documents, are headed “Of the Schoolmaster (_De Magistro Scolarum_) and Chancellor, seven letters”: and a marginal note to a later document of Bishop Richard Fitz Neal (1189-99), increasing the endowment of the schoolmaster, runs, “Note—the tithes given to the Schoolmaster of St. Paul’s, now the Chancellor.”

The analogy, therefore, of other cathedral and collegiate churches, corroborated as they are by the records of St. Paul’s itself, the knowledge that we have of the existence of schools, not only at great capitals like Canterbury, Winchester, and York, but even at small places like Warwick and Waltham, amply justify us in asserting confidently that the schoolmaster and school of St. Paul’s existed not merely before the days of Bishop Richard de Belmeis, but before the Conquest, and in all reasonable probability from the days of Bishops Wine and Earconwald.

What were these London schools? What did they teach? Lord Lyttelton[68] in his History of Henry II. spoke of them as “schools or rather colleges,” meaning university colleges, and Sir George Buck in 1631 described them as the _Third Universitie of England_.[69] This was because of the mention of logic, and the statement that, not indeed as Lyttelton says, “many” but other “schools” were occasionally opened “by persons of note in philosophy,” by special favour.

But to infer from this a University of London in the twelfth century is to transfer to it the ideas of the eighteenth century. The _Trivium_, the “trivial task” of the twelfth century school-boy, included rhetoric and dialectic as well as grammar. Grammar meant not only grammar strictly speaking, but the general study of classical literature. Rhetoric included not only the art of persuasion, the rules of oratory, but generally Latin composition, prose, and verse,[70] and declamation or recitation. Rhetoric was naturally incomplete without dialectic or logic, the art of argument. So powerful during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries did dialectic become, that not only did theology become almost a branch of logic but grammar itself was taught and practised “dialectically.” The “rostrum,” on which dialectic and rhetoric were practised, was to be found in the school of Winchester College as late as 1650.

The distinction drawn by Fitzstephen between the boys who capped verses and the other scholars who held debates in rhetoric and logic was not coincident with that between a grammar school and a university college. The word “boy” was used strictly, as it still was as late as the Elizabethan statutes of grammar schools, for those under fourteen years of age, who were carefully distinguished on the one hand from children or infants under seven, and from youths (_juvenes_) of fourteen to twenty-one. Then, as now, youths of eighteen and upwards were found in the grammar schools, and William of Wykeham, and the advisers of Henry VI. in the foundation of Eton, all Wykehamists, were no innovators raising the age of schoolboys when they prescribed nineteen as the leaving age for the scholars of Winchester and Eton.

There is therefore no necessary ground for the inference that the schools of London in the first half of the twelfth century bore any different character from that which they had in the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries, when the same schools are described simply as grammar schools.

On the other hand, the period of which Fitzstephen wrote was that of the origin of universities. It saw the birth of Bologna, of Paris, and of Oxford. At Paris, the university grew out of the extension and the rivalry of the schools, the grammar schools, of the cathedral church of Notre Dame and the collegiate church, as it then was, of St. Geneviéve. At Oxford there is every reason to believe that the university developed in like manner from the schools of the collegiate churches, as they then were, of St. Frideswide and St. George in the Castle.[71] The “University” side of the schools finally emancipated itself, at an earlier period even than at Paris, from ordinary ecclesiastical control, through the conversion of these two collegiate churches into houses of regulars, and the extinction therewith of their control of secular scholars, while the Chancellor of Lincoln was too remote to exercise any effective government such as was exercised by the Chancellor of Paris.

It was quite within the bounds of probability then that London also would develop a university out of the three ancient schools, and the permitted rivalry, by special favour, of the schools of other “doctors of philosophy.” But it was not to be. London even then was too great a commercial emporium, the prizes of successful trade were too attractive, business was too absorbing, the hum of markets and wharves was too loud for the voice of learning to make itself heard, or for schools, whether of theology or arts, to attract the pick of the intellect of the City. Paris, though the political capital, was not also the commercial capital of France, where Rouen, the independent capital of a rival power, occupied, to it, the position which the Port of London bore to London. The King’s Court and the King’s Chancery were the main avenues to success for clerks, and even so late as the reign of Henry III. the Castle of Winchester and Beaumont House at Oxford, or the Manor of Windsor, rather than the Tower of London, or even Westminster Hall, were the favourite resorts of the King’s Court, and the residence of the royal treasury and the royal chancery. Hence London never developed an Abelard and a mainly theological university like Paris. The settlement at Westminster of the royal courts, and the superior importance in England of the common law to the civil law for somewhat similar reasons, prevented London from producing an Irnerius or a Gratian and giving rise to a legal university such as that of Bologna. Indeed the greater fame of Paris and Bologna universities themselves was in the cosmopolitan spirit which, under the centralising influence of the Roman Church, made learned Europe almost a single nation, a potent obstacle to the development of a university of London.

No exact definition of a university has yet been given, nor is capable of being given, and it may be doubted whether there is any university now in existence which really corresponds to the mediæval university. But one salient mark of a university, a number of teachers and a number of adult students in the higher faculties, in theology and law, or philosophy, certainly existed at Paris in the days of Abelard, and to some extent in Oxford, but did not seemingly exist in London, or if it did exist was quenched by Henry of Blois’ mandate.

If the London schools formed a university in 1138, _a fortiori_ did the School of York form one in 735. In Alcuin’s description of the School of York as it flourished under Archbishops Egbert and Albert, an even greater multiplicity of subjects was taught than in the three schools of London in Fitzstephen’s day. Albert, its master,[72] “moistened thirsty hearts with diverse streams of teaching and varied dews of learning, giving to some the science of the art of grammar, pouring on others the rivers of the tongues of orators; these he polished on the whetstone of law, those he taught to sing together in Æolian chant, making others play on the flute of Castaly, and run with the feet of lyric poets over the hills of Parnassus.” Here we get the Grammar, Song, and Rhetoric of later days. Song had in London in 1130 already been relegated to a separate school. At York there was taught also arithmetic and geometry, and the method of calculating the ecclesiastical calendar, the music of the spheres, astronomy, physiography, “the rising and falling of the wind, the movements of the sea, the earth’s quake,” and natural history, “the nature of men, cattle, birds, and beasts.” Above all, Albert taught theology. This curriculum is considerably more extensive than that of the London schools, embracing many of what we should now regard as university subjects. York afterwards branched off into three schools—the Chancellor’s Theological School; the Grammar School under the Chancellor’s deputy, who became the Schoolmaster par excellence; and the Song School under the precentor. Yet as we should not call York School under Albert or Alcuin a university merely because many subjects were taught in it, neither can we dub the London schools of the twelfth century a university.

We must therefore negative the claims of London to the possession of a university in the first half of the twelfth century. But we can at least claim that St. Paul’s School occupied the same position then as now, as the chief day-school for the sons of middle-class citizens. Becket’s biographer tells us what his education was: “Thomas spent the years of infancy, boyhood, and youth quietly in his father’s house, and in passing through the City school (_scolis urbis_); but when he became a young man he went to study at Paris (_Parisius studuit_). As soon as he came back, he was taken into public life in London, being made a clerk and accountant in the Sheriff’s office.” The true translation of _scolis urbis_ is the city school; and the city school meant the school of the cathedral church of the City, the School of London. To this school Becket, whose father had at one time been sheriff of London, was sent. After leaving school, Becket went, in modern parlance, to Paris University before entering on professional life. He was born in 1118, so, as he may be presumed to have gone to Paris at about eighteen or nineteen years of age, he must have gone there about 1137, the time when John of Salisbury, the greatest writer of the age, was also there, sitting at the feet of Abelard, then lecturing in the College of St. Geneviéve. Mr. Rashdall, laying down a somewhat arbitrary definition, maintains that Paris was not then, strictly speaking, a university, though he admits it was such probably by the middle of the century.

However that may be, it is clear that in Becket’s case, as in John of Salisbury’s, the schools of Paris, not the schools of London, were regarded as giving “university” training. Fifty years later Becket would have gone to Oxford and the “martyrdom” would never have occurred. As it was, after his English and Pauline training, he was, with disastrous results, inoculated with the “fool fury of the Seine.” Still, St. Paul’s School may claim in him one of the earliest and most famous known Paulines, Henry the schoolmaster being the earliest.

It has to be confessed that from Becket’s time onwards to Colet’s we know scarcely anything of St. Paul’s School beyond the bare fact evidenced by the statutes already quoted of 1243-54 and 1294-1304, and certain fourteenth- and fifteenth-century documents to be presently quoted, that it was pursuing the even tenor of its way. While there are documents at Canterbury containing very full evidence of the great position occupied by the Grammar School of the Archbishop and the Grammar schoolmaster there in the first half of the fourteenth century, while an unbroken series of the Acts of the Chapters of York and Lincoln preserve continual notices of the grammar schools of York and Lincoln, there is an absolute dearth of such records at St. Paul’s. One solitary Chapter Act Book of the Canons of St. Paul’s remains, and that is one of the last quarter of the fifteenth century. It is singularly uninteresting, being almost entirely concerned with continual renewals of leave of absence granted to the canons who were called Residentiary because, unlike the other canons, they were supposed to be always resident; with renewals of leases and the division of the spoil among the residentiary canons, and the “correction” of vicars—choral and minor canons—for devotion to the forbidden sex. All we know is that the Grammar School went on and that it was not the Song School or a choristers’ school, because we have conclusive evidence that this Song School was a different institution. Two statutes[73] in terms corresponding to those about the chancellor and the Grammar schoolmaster deal with the precentor (_cantor_) and the Song schoolmaster. “It is the Precentor’s duty to rule [or teach, _regere_] the choir in the raising and lowering of the chant, and in singing the psalms. It is his duty through the Song Schoolmaster to place the singers’ names on the table, to stir up the lazy to sing, and gently rebuke those who run about the choir in a disorderly fashion. On the greater feasts, if he is in choir and instructed as a singer, he begins the antiphons after the Benedictus and Magnificat and the processional chants and sequences. He examines the boys to be brought into the choir and given a title as choristers.” A statute as to those choristers made during the deanery of Ralph de Diceto, the historian, between 1180 and 1200,[74] shows that they were already then boarded in the Almonry. “As the boys of the Almonry ought to live on Alms” (or, as we might say, “as charity boys ought to live as such”) “they are to sit on the ground in the canons’ houses, not with the vicars at table, lest they become uppish and drunken and perhaps too pampered, and so unfit for the service of the church. Besides they sometimes go too early without saying goodbye to their host; and sometimes when they return to the Almonry from the feast, they despise the living there and spread evil reports of their Master.” The statute refers to the custom under which the residentiary canons had to give three meals daily to two minor canons, two chaplains, four vicars choral, two Almonry boys; the vergers and bell-ringers. The Master referred to was not the Grammar schoolmaster, as has been rashly assumed by some, but the Almoner, the master of the almshouse. To the early cathedral churches a hospital or almshouse was as essential an appendage as a choir and a Grammar School. Some of them still survive. The Dean of Hereford is still _ex officio_ Master of St. Ethelbert’s Hospital, attached to St. Ethelbert’s Cathedral. York had its St. Peter’s Hospital, the ruins of the chapel of which, afterwards called St. Leonard’s Hospital, may still be seen. St. Paul’s, therefore, had its almonry, a Norman-French word for almshouse, and its almoner. In statutes made in 1263 the almoner is enjoined to distribute alms according to the method ordained by those who gave endowments for the purpose; poor people and beggars who die in or near the churchyard he is to bury gratis without delay. “He is to have, moreover, daily with him 8 boys fit for the service of the church, whom he is to have instructed either by himself or by another master in matters pertaining to the service of the church and in literature [_i.e._ grammar] and good behaviour; taking no payment for the same.”

An Almoner’s Register begun in 1345 is fortunately extant,[75] which records the statutes, charters, and customs of the office. In it, the almoner records against himself that “if the Almoner does not keep a cleric to teach the choristers grammar, the schoolmaster of St. Paul’s claims 5s. a year for teaching them, though he ought to demand nothing for them because he keeps the school for them, as the Treasurer of St. Paul’s once alleged before the Dean and Chapter is to be found in ancient deeds.” The allegation that the Grammar School was kept for the choristers is historically untrue, though it is probably true that the choristers ought to have been admitted free to it. At least, the question was solemnly raised at Beverley in 1312,[76] when the Grammar schoolmaster wished to make all choristers beyond the original number attending the Grammar School pay fees; but the succentor, the Song schoolmaster, contended that he was bound to teach all the choristers free, and after inquiry by the Chapter into the “ancient customs” of the church it was decided that he was so bound, only the succentor was not to defraud him by admitting boys to the choir merely for the sake of getting free education in the Grammar School. Whatever may have been the choristers’ rights in the matter, the fact that the Grammar schoolmaster claimed and received payment for them shows with absolute conclusiveness that the Grammar School was not a choir school or a choir-boys’ school.

Yet Mr. Lupton, late Surmaster of St. Paul’s School, in his _Life of Colet_ actually cites[77] the will of one of the almoners, William of Tolleshunt, made in 1329, as proof that the Cathedral school, which he confuses with the Almonry school, “not only existed and flourished, but contained within itself the germs of a University.” Yet what are the facts? The Almoner says:[78] “I bequeath a shilling to each senior and 6d. to each junior of the boys of the church whom I educated in the Almonry. Also I give them my best Hugocio and the big and little Priscian, bound in one volume, Isidore’s Etymology, and all my grammar books, except those which my clerk Ralph has, and all the volumes of sermons which the Boy-Bishops used to preach in my time, to remain in the Almonry for ever for the use of the boys living in it, and never to be lent outside, or given away or sold.” The will goes on, “I bequeath also my books of the art of Dialectic (of which John of Stoneground has the old and new Logic), with the books of Natural History and other books of that art, in order that these books may be lent to boys apt for learning (_ad scolatizandum_) when they leave the Almonry; due security being taken for their return, to prevent their being alienated. The books of physic also, of which I have several about medicines; and also the books of the civil law, viz. the Institutes, Code, Digest, and Authentics, and these legal works I give to the use of the boys in the manner above written.”

Says Mr. Lupton: “There were works on Logic, on Physic, on Medicine, on Civil Law ... all were expressly bequeathed to the use of the boys.” Yes, but while the grammar books were for the use of the boys in the Almonry, these other books were, by the express terms of the will, to be lent to boys who had left the Almonry, when they went on to university studies, so that the very words cited to show that this school was something more than a grammar school prove the exact opposite; and this very case cited to show that the school in question was the St. Paul’s Cathedral Grammar School shows that it was a district foundation and intended only for the eight boys in the Almonry. That these eight boys, afterwards increased to ten, were the choir-boys, is shown by the will of Bishop Richard of Newport,[79] in 1315, giving to this very William of Tolleshunt, Almoner, one of his executors, and to the Almoner for the time being a house near St. Paul’s the rents of which, after paying £1 to the maintenance of the Lady Chapel, were to be applied “to the support of one or two of the Almonry boys for two years after they have changed their voices.” Again, among the earlier statutes of the Almonry it is ordered that “the boys after entering the choir are not to leave it except when their duty requires it.” William of Tolleshunt himself, too, bequeaths by his will a trust estate bequeathed to him some six years before “for the Almonry boys serving the choir, for their shoes.”

In 1348 Sir John Pulteney,[80] knight, gave 20s. a year to the almoner to provide the choristers with summer clothes.[81] In return for the shoes the boys had to sing _De Profundis_, with the usual Pater Noster, Ave Maria and collects, every morning on getting up and every evening on going to bed; and for the summer clothes to sing an anthem after complin with prayers for the dead in the Pulteney Chapel. In 1358 William of Ravenstone,[82] Almoner, gave a tenement called the Stonehouse in Paternoster Row “for the support of an additional chorister or two.” That the choristers when clever were meant to go on to the universities is clear from a payment out of the chantry of Bishop Ralph (Baldock) who died in 1313. He gave 3s. “to poor students being sometyme choristers of the said cathedral church towards ther exhibicion yearly,” while a later benefactor Thomas Ever, in the reign of Henry IV., gave a like sum specifically “to the poore choristers of Paules towards their exhibicion in the University.”

There is no question, therefore, that, while there was a grammar school maintained for the benefit of the choristers, it was quite distinct from the choir school for teaching them singing, and from the Cathedral Grammar School open to all boys. Or perhaps it would be more correct to say that the choir-boys, being lodged and boarded in the Almonry, had a tutor provided for them to see that they learnt grammar. For one can hardly call the teaching of eight or ten choristers a school.

There would not have been any need to insist on this school so much at length if the whole matter had not been thrown into confusion through the labours of a certain Miss Hackett who devoted herself in the first quarter of the 19th century to the interests of the choir-boys of St. Paul’s, who were then left without any proper schooling or care. She, with great energy, routed out all she could find in the records of St. Paul’s or elsewhere, relating to the choir-boys, and published it in a pamphlet misnamed _Correspondence and Evidences respecting the Ancient Collegiate School attached to St. Paul’s Cathedral_.[83] She succeeded in establishing in Chancery the claim of the choir-boys on the revenues of the Almonry. But her zeal outran her discretion, as whenever she saw in any of the records of St. Paul’s anything about a school or school-boys, she at once attributed it to the choir school and choirboys, and attacked the Chancellor, as well as the Almoner, on the ground that the St. Paul’s Grammar School was for the choir-boys. In this she failed. But she did a great deal of harm to the Cathedral Grammar Schools in general by imbuing people with the notion that they were mere choir-schools. Mr. Lupton makes the Grammar School to have been in Sharmoveres (now Sermon) Lane. Sharmoveres is a name of naught. It is simply a misreading of “Sarmoners,” _i.e._ Sermoners’ Lane, from a house which is said in a document of Edward I.’s reign to have belonged to “Adam le sermoner.” Sermon Lane is the modern shortening. This was not the Grammar School nor even the Almonry school, but a house bequeathed to the Almonry. Sermon Lane is at the west end of St. Paul’s, some little way from the church. The Grammar School was at the opposite or east end, in the churchyard, and quite close to the church.

Having thus cleared away the confusion between the Grammar School and the choristers’ boarding-house we must leave the history of the Almonry without following it further, and for a little while turn from the history of St. Paul’s School to that of its two mediæval rivals.

ST. MARY-LE-BOW GRAMMAR SCHOOL

The history of the school of St. Mary-le-Bow is unfortunately soon exhausted. The only references to it, apart from the various mentions of it in connection with the two other privileged schools, which I have been able to find, are in the Archbishop’s Register at Lambeth. The first of these is an order from Archbishop Robert Winchelsea,[84] September 25, 1309, settling a dispute as to the right of appointment of the schoolmaster. It is addressed “To our official,” _i.e._ the Official Principal or Judge of the Archbishop’s Consistory Court. The archbishop says that he had received a petition from “Mr. John, rector of the Grammar School (_scolarum gramaticalium_) of the Church of the Blessed Mary le Bow (_de arcubus_) London,” showing that he had been appointed master of the school by the Dean of the church (the Dean of the Arches, as he is now called), to whom “by ancient and hitherto peacefully observed custom the order and government and appointment of Master is well known to belong.” But “after he had quietly taught (_rexerit_) the school,” the Official, “wishing to change this custom,” had appointed one Mr. Robert Cotoun and removed Mr. John. The Archbishop informed the Official that, if the facts were as stated, he was to let Mr. John enjoy the teaching of the said school freely.

The fact that the patronage of the school was vested in the Dean of Arches explains why we do not find appointments of the master in the Archbishop’s Registers as we do in the case of the Canterbury Grammar School. On March 23, 1382/3, however, an entry in Archbishop Courtney’s Register shows him committing to “his beloved son, William Poklyngton, clerk, the teaching and governance of the Grammar School of the deanery of our Church of Blessed Mary of the Arches now vacant and to our disposition belonging,” and appointing him master of the same school. The peculiar form of the appointment suggests that it was made by the Archbishop either because the deanery was vacant, or because the appointment had lapsed to him in default of the Dean. For some reason unknown this entry is cancelled in the original MS.

On October 4, 1399, Archbishop Arundel[85] “at his manor of Lambeth”—it is never called a palace in ancient documents; his “palace” was at Canterbury—in like manner “committed the teaching and governance of the Grammar School of the Arches of London with all its rights and appurtenances in the Deanery of the Arches” to “Mr. Thomas Barym, master in grammar.”

The school was clearly still in existence in 1446, when it is mentioned among the five grammar schools authorised by the ordinance of the ecclesiastical authorities, confirmed by Henry VI. Letters Patent of that year to be discussed later. These Letters Patent were interpreted by Stow[86] into a creation of the school of St. Mary-le-Bow. “In this parish,” he says, “was a Grammar-School by commandment of Henry VI., which school was of old time kept in a house for that purpose prepared in the churchyard, but that school being decayed, as others about the city, the school house was let out for rent, in the reign of King Henry the 8th for 4s. a year, a cellar for 2s. a year, and two vaults underneath the church for 15s. both.” It is probable, however, from the terms of the Letters Patent, that the school was held actually in the church, since St. Paul’s School is expressly described as being in the churchyard, while this school is, with equal exactness, described as being in the church.

THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL OF ST. MARTIN’S-LE-GRAND

Of the third ancient school, that of St. Martin’s-le-Grand, there seems to be no history recoverable. Presumably when Henry VII. annexed the college to Westminster Abbey the documents were transferred too. But only one small Register of St. Martin’s, written in the fifteenth century, remains in the Westminster Chapter Muniments, and there is no mention in it of the school. There is, however, one reference to the schoolmaster in the City Letter Books.[87] “On Thursday before 24 August, 26 Edward I., 1298, John, the cap, hat, or hood-maker (cappeler) of Fleet Street entered into a recognizance to Master Hugh of Whittington (Wytington), schoolmaster (_Magistro scolarum_) of St. Martin’s-le-Grand for payment of £8 at Michaelmas year. Afterwards Master John of Whittington, brother and executor of the said Hugh, came and acknowledged that he had been satisfied of such sum. Therefore it was cancelled.” The entry is enough to show that the school was going on and that the master was a man of substance, being able to lend the then considerable sum of £8.

* * * * *

The latter half of the fourteenth century was signalised by considerable activity in the foundation of new, or changes in old, grammar schools. This was due to two conflicting forces. On the one hand, it was due, as it was expressed in Wykeham’s foundation deed of New College, Oxford, to “the general disease of the clerical army, which through the want of clergy, caused by pestilence, wars, and other miseries of the world, we have seen greviously wounded,” or, as it was more shortly put in changing the appointment of a master of St. Peter’s School, York, in 1369, from a five-years’ appointment to a life tenure, to “the late Death and the rarity of M.A.s.” The demand for clergy to fill the ranks thinned by the Black Death of 1349 and its subsequent outbreaks, caused a demand for grammar schools. On the other hand, the incipient revolt of the townspeople against clerical domination which manifested itself in the substitution of lay for clerical ministers in the field of politics, and by the open propagation of Lollard opinions against image worship, transubstantiation, confession, and the celibacy of the clergy, and so forth, in the field of religion, created a demand for learning and for schools. The conflict of the two opposing forces is shown in the petition presented to Richard II. in 1394 (the very year, it may be noted, of the transfer of Winchester College, founded in 1382, to its present buildings) by the ecclesiastical authorities of London, who claimed the monopoly of education in “the three ancient and privileged schools.” “The King’s devout chaplains and orators, William,[88] Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, the Dean of your frank chapel of St. Martin’s-le-Grand and the Chancellor of the Church of St. Paul in London,” set out how to them, “as well by the law spiritual as by customary prescription in that behalf, the order, management, and examination of the masters of certain schools of the faculty of grammar in London and the suburbs, belonged, belong, or ought to belong, to them, with the advice of the Bishop of London, from time immemorial.” “Yet” they complained, “lately certain strangers, feigning themselves Masters of grammar, having no sufficient learning in that faculty, without the assent, or knowledge, and against the will of the petitioners, wilfully usurped their jurisdiction, and kept General Grammar Schools in the City in deceit and fraud of the children, to the great prejudice of the King’s lieges, and the jurisdiction of Holy Church. But when the three Masters of the schools of St. Paul’s, the Arches, and St. Martin’s for the care and profit of the king’s subjects, had gone to law against the foreign masters in Court Christian, according to ecclesiastical law, their adversaries had sued them in the secular courts to make them abandon their pleas.” The petitioners, therefore, asked the King, both because of his interest in his free chapel of St. Martin, and of the prejudice done to the petitioners, to direct letters to issue under the Privy Seal to the mayor and aldermen “to attempt nothing whereby the jurisdiction of Holy Church, or the process between the parties in Court Christian might be disturbed.”

Whether the Privy Seal asked for was issued does not appear. Parliament was then supporting the Lollards.[89] But next year Richard was fetched back from his Irish War to put them down, and the leading Lollards had to recant on pain of death. Certain it is that the three church schools retained their monopoly for nearly half a century more. It was then attacked and broken up by assailants from within the pale of the church itself and by orthodox churchmen. The first breach of it, apparently for purely educational reasons, was made by the establishment of a grammar school in St. Anthony’s Hospital in Threadneedle Street.

ST. ANTHONY’S HOSPITAL AND SCHOOL

This hospital was so interesting an institution in itself, and the erection and career of its school have been so much misrepresented, that its history is worth telling at some length. Stow’s[90] account of this hospital is rather long but not very correct. It “was sometime a cell to St. Anthonies of Vienne. For I read that King Henry III. granted to the brotherhood of St. Anthony of Vienne, a place among the Jews, which was sometime their synagogue, and had been builded by them about the year 1231; but the Christians obtained of the King that it should be dedicated to our blessed Lady, and since, an hospital being there builded, was called St. Anthonies in London. It was founded in the parish of St. Bennett Fynke ‘for a mayster, two priestes, one scholemayster and 12 poore men.’” “Moreover, king Henry VI. in the twentieth of his reign gave unto John Carpenter, D.D., master of St. Anthonies Hospital and to his brethren and their successors for ever his manor of Ponington, with the appurtenances” and other property “towards the maintenance of 5 scholars in the University of Oxford to be brought up in the faculty of arts, after the rate of 10d. a week for every scholar, so that the said scholars before their going to Oxford, be first instructed in the rudiments of grammar at the College of Eton, founded by the same king. In the year 1474 Edward IV. granted to William Say, B.D., master of the hospital of St. Anthony’s to have priests, clerks, scholars, poor men, and brethren of the same, clerks or lay men, quoristers, proctors, messengers, servants in household and other things whatsoever, the like as the Prior and Convent of St. Anthony’s of Vienne. This Hospital was united, annexed and appropriated unto the Collegiate Church of St. George in Windsor about the year 1485. This goodly foundation, having a free school and almshouses for poor men, builded of hard stone, adjoining to the west end of the church, was of old time confirmed by Henry VI. in the year 1447.” Such is his account of the origin of the foundation. He then deals with its latter end. “One Johnson (a schoolmaster there) became a prebendary of Windsor and then by little and little followed the spoil of this hospital. He first dissolved the choir, conveyed the plate and ornaments, then the bells, and lastly put out the Almsmen from their houses, appointing them portions of 12d. a week to each (but now I hear of no such matter), their houses with other be now letten out for rent, and the Church is a preaching-place for the French nation. The school-house was commanded in the reign of Henry VI., and sithence also, above other; but now it is decayed and come to nothing, by taking from it what thereunto belonged.”

The Hospital was at first a cell of the Hospital of St. Anthony at Vienne, a hospital famous throughout the world. There is no mention of any local habitation of the brethren of St. Anthony in England before 1249. Then in a document at Windsor, dated 1253, a grant to the hospital of the earlier date is mentioned, when the Church of All Saints, Hereford, was bestowed upon it by Henry III., and in 1253 a letter from Pope Alexander IV. congratulates the same king on having granted to the Master and Brethren of St. Anthony’s “a place in London among the Jews.” For further on this subject see _Mediæval London_, vol. ii. p. 268.

Later writers have for the most part followed Stow. Thus Mr. Lupton in his _Life of Dean Colet_ repeats[91] the story that the original foundation included a schoolmaster; and says that Edward IV. “augmented it. The school continued into the reign of Elizabeth, the rest of the property was not left to wait for the inquisition of Henry VIII.,” and then repeats, as typical, Stow’s story of the plunder by Prebendary Johnson. Again, Dr. Sharpe says,[92] “The Hospital appears to have always supported a Schoolmaster from its foundation.”

As a matter of fact, the school was no part of the original foundation of the hospital, and only made its appearance when the main institution had undergone a complete revolution. The hospital existed for at least 100 years longer, and the school began at least 200 years later, and continued for nearly 100 years more than Stow leads us to believe. The life of the hospital lasted for as nearly as possible four centuries. It began about 1249; it ended in 1666. For the first 150 years of its existence it was in tutelage to a foreign and monastic parent. A brief period of independence followed under native English clerical (not monastic) rulers, for some three-quarters of a century; and the era of its complete and formal release from tutelage was signalised by the foundation of the Grammar School in it, which enjoyed the highest reputation for about 100 years. The institution was then again placed under an external master. But the school continued to flourish, and, instead of being destroyed in the reign of Elizabeth, lasted into the reign of Charles II., under whom both school and hospital perished, never to be revived, in the Great Fire of London.

In 1434 John Carpenter became master or warden of the hospital, and he must be regarded as the second founder of the hospital and the actual founder of its school. He was a very considerable person in his day, being a great promoter of education and supporter of the secular clergy as against the regulars, the monks, black canons, and friars. His fine tomb, restored out of all antiquity by the ill-directed gratitude of Oriel College, is still to be seen in the ancient collegiate church of Westbury-on-Trym near Bristol. He was anxious to establish the secular canons of that church as his episcopal chapter instead of, or at least in addition to, the monks of Worcester. Indeed he actually called himself Bishop of Westbury and Worcester. He became Provost of Oriel in 1425, and Master of the hospital at least seven years later.

Carpenter was mixed up with the foundation of Eton as well as with that of St. Anthony’s School. When he was made Bishop of Worcester, he was consecrated in the collegiate church of Eton, and it was as a trustee of Eton and Oriel, and only nominally in his capacity as Master of St. Anthony’s, that the grants, mentioned by Stow,[93] of the manor of Ponington, and quit-rents from several places in Hampshire, were made to him and the brethren of the hospital. What became of this grant it seems impossible to find out. No mention of it occurs in the accounts of the hospital, nor do the authorities of St. George’s, Windsor, Eton, or Oriel know anything of the property. Probably it was one of the Lancastrian grants for the benefit of Eton on which Edward IV.’s Act of Resumption operated, and so passed away from Eton and Oriel for ever.

In 1441 the revolution in the constitution of the hospital was consummated. A Bull of Pope Eugenius IV. released the brethren of the hospital from the obligation to use a common dormitory and refectory, which by the Augustinian rule they were bound to use (though it is stated that there was no such dormitory or refectory), and enabled the clerks who served it to live in any decent place, until a dormitory and refectory were provided—a politic way of completely authorising its conversion into a house of seculars. At the same time, by the licence of Robert (Gilbert), Bishop of London, the church of St. Benet Finck was entirely appropriated to the hospital, and converted from a rectory into a vicarage. This was in order that the revenues of the rectory, worth sixteen marks a year, might be applied to the maintenance of “a master or fit Informer in the faculty of grammar,” “to keep a grammar school (_regere scolas gramaticales_) in the precinct of the hospital or some fit house close by, to teach, instruct, and inform gratis all boys and others whatsoever wishing to learn and become scholars (_scolatizare_).”

Its foundation was only one of a long series of school foundations which marked the period of the reign of Henry VI., who, far more than Edward VI., is entitled to the credit of being the patron king of school-boys. Eton, Newport, Shropshire, Newland, Wye (now the Wye Agricultural College, Kent), Alnwick, Towcester, are some among the grammar schools still existing which were founded in the ten years 1440-50; while there were many more which are no longer existing or have been degraded into elementary schools, or converted into exhibition funds. The movement was the first breath of the Renaissance stirring the dry bones of the schools. It was the outcome of a beginning of reaction against the excessive cult of scholastic logic, and a desire to return to the humanities of the “artists” as opposed to the sophistry of the theologians. Considering the conspicuous part taken in the new movement by men like Beckington, Waynflete, and Say, all Wykehamists, we may attribute a considerable share of it at least to the influence of Wykeham’s foundation at Winchester.

The most striking manifestation of the new spirit is seen in the Letters Patent granted in 1439, giving leave to William Byngham, rector of St. John Zachary in London, to found the College of God’s House in Cambridge, at first an annex to Clare Hall, and afterwards incorporated with Christ’s College. In his petition for the licence Bingham said that he had found all over the country grammar schools, formerly flourishing, now fallen into abeyance for lack of proper teachers. He therefore asked for leave to found a college of a master and twenty-four scholars for the training of Grammar schoolmasters, who were to issue thence to teach school all over the country. This, then, is the first Training College on record. In its statutes the importance of the classics was insisted on, not merely, as in the days of Wykeham and the foundation of Winchester, because grammar was the key which unlocked the Holy Scriptures, and was the gate to the liberal sciences “and theology, the mistress of all,” but because “it was necessary in dealing with law and other difficult matters of State and also the means of mutual communication and conversation between us and strangers and foreigners.” Here spoke the citizen of London and the man of the modern world. In much the same way Waynflete, himself ex-Headmaster of Winchester and first Headmaster of Eton, in his foundation of Magdalen College School, carried on by him from 1448 though not finally endowed and settled till 1480, provided by his statutes for the demyes being trained in grammar “that they might go out and teach others,” and he particularly ordered that they were not prematurely to be made sophisters.[94]

In 1443 Walter Lyhert, who succeeded Carpenter on his promotion to the See of Worcester, in the provostship of Oriel, also succeeded him as Warden (Custos), as he was now called, of St. Anthony’s. He in turn became a bishop, being promoted to Norwich in 1445. He was succeeded in the Mastership of St. Anthony’s by William Say, a Wykehamist of some fame, afterwards Dean of St. Paul’s. Under his rule the new constitution was completed. By Bull of January 28, 1446, the Pope granted, on the request of Henry VI. as patron, power to make new statutes for the hospital and its inmates to the Bishop of Worcester (Carpenter), the Bishop of Norwich (Lyhert), William Waynflete, then Provost of Eton, and William Say, then master of the hospital. The school, like that of Eton, was thus inaugurated on the model and under the guidance of members of the College of William of Wykeham, which Henry VI. dearly loved and deeply studied, and to which he paid the sincere homage of exact imitation. The statutes made by Carpenter and the rest are not forthcoming, but considering the auspices under which they were made, we may safely conclude that they followed their model as closely as did those of Eton, so far as what was presumably mainly a day-school could follow the statutes of what was mainly a boarding-school. There are indeed not wanting minor indications that some scholars at least boarded in the hospital. We know at all events that in two things in which Eton departed from the Winchester model, St. Anthony’s followed suit, namely, the raising of the stipend of the master from £10 to £16, and the direction that the school should be a free school to all who chose to come. We also know that, as at Winchester and Eton, a singing master was established and a Song School; for in 1440, David Fythian, who was rector of St. Bennet Finck, and John Grene, clerks, at the request of John Carpenter (and we may be sure at his expense and in consideration of a payment by him) had granted a rent of ten marks issuing out of “the Cowpe on the Hoope” in All Saints parish, London Wall, with power of distraint on it and another brew-house called the Dolphin and a tavern called the Bell in Southwark, to pay “John Bennet of London, clerk, yearly 8 marks, and 4 yards of new cloth of gentlemens’ suit” for teaching singing “to the boys, who are and shall be in the church of the said hospital.” This meant, of course, the choristers. In 1449 the brewery called the Cup on the Hoop was definitely devised by will, which, when enrolled in the Hustings Court, at once operated as a conveyance and dispensed with the necessity of a licence in mortmain, to William Say, then Master, and the Brethren of St. Anthony’s, “for maintenance of a clerk to teach assiduously all the boys of the house chanting with the organ (_cantico organico_) and plain song,” but while John Benatt (_sic_) remained, the Master was not bound to find another teacher. The hospital was to enjoy the residue after providing for the Song schoolmaster.

There is a series of documents connected with the hospital, the exact purport of which it is a little difficult to make out, but they seem to suggest some intention on the part of John Carpenter to benefit alike St. Anthony’s School and Oriel College, Oxford, by exhibitions at the university; bringing the school, though in a much modified degree, into the same sort of relationship with that college which Winchester bore to New College, or Eton to King’s, or Westminster afterwards to Christ Church and Trinity, Cambridge.

Oriel College,[95] Oxford, possesses a conveyance, June 27, 1424, to John Carpenter and Henry Sampson, both fellows and afterwards provosts, and others of land at Dagenham in Essex. Nine years later, the manor or manors of Valence Gallants and lands at Frystelings and Copped Hall were conveyed to a similar body of feoffees. In 1442 the manor of Easthall was acquired. By deed of June 27, 1447, all these properties were conveyed to Carpenter and Sampson, and in 1451 by Carpenter, then Bishop of Worcester, to Oriel College, on condition of their granting them to St. Anthony’s, reserving a pension “for the exhibition of certain poor scholars in St. Mary’s Hall, Oxford,” a dependency of the College. By deed of 14th November in the same year, the college granted the lands to the hospital, reserving a rent-charge of twenty-five marks, and by deed of 20th November,[96] William Say, “Master or Warden of the house or hospital of St. Anthony and the brethren of the same” granted an annual rent of £20 to the Provost and fellows “of the Royal College, commonly called Oreall,” payable in St. Mary’s Church, Oxford, “for the exhibition and maintenance of scholars to study there according to the form and effect of certain provisions or ordinances to be made by John, Bishop of Worcester.” By another deed of the same day, the Bishop, John Carpenter, declared the conditions of the exhibitions, but, alas! only in general terms; and whether any ordinances were actually made by Carpenter, and if so, what has become of them, is unknown.

When the exhibitions were established seems rather obscure. The earliest extant accounts, now at Windsor, of the hospital are for 1478-79 and 1494-95, and contain no mention of the Essex property or of scholars at Oxford. But in 1501-2, the rental includes the manors of Valence and Easthall and lands called Frystelyng’s lands in Essex let for £13 a year; and among the expenses is the item “The skolers of Oxford stypents, £10 : 18s.” The first entry in the Oriel College accounts of any money received for scholars is December 6, 1504, when, £10 : 6 : 8 was received by the College “for Mr. Tretyng” and paid over to him. In 1521-22, the St. Anthony’s account, which is for expenses only, includes “for the exhibicion of the scolers of Oxford in Seynt Mary Haule £10 : 7s.” St. Mary’s Hall was originally the rectory house of St. Mary’s Church, which was appropriated to Oriel College, who still appoint the vicar; and was probably the original home of the college and always remained a dependency of it.

Hardly had the hospital and school thus been put upon a sound basis than the Wars of the Roses substituted the Yorkists for the Lancastrians on the throne. The Yorkist accession and the Restoration of Charles II. are the only epochs in English history since the Norman Conquest in which the successful party have not been content with the enjoyment of power and the prospect of having things all their own way for the future, but have set themselves _more Gallico_ to destroy the good deeds of the opposite party and root out their remembrance, if possible, from the land. All the foundations of Henry VI. were threatened with destruction. For the purpose apparently of proving himself the true heir of the Plantagenet Edwards, Edward IV. professed the most extreme devotion to the collegiate church of Windsor. He showed his devotion in the vicarious way common in those days, by endowing it with the plunder of other places. An Act of Parliament on Edward’s accession in 1460 declared all the grants of the three Lancastrian Henries void. Part of the possessions of Eton was granted to other places; while the whole institution was by a Bull of Union in November 1463 annexed to St. George’s, Windsor. Whether, as has been represented,[97] it was intended that the school should cease to exist, is very doubtful. When St. James’s Hospital, Westminster, was granted to Eton itself as St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, Oxford, had been to Oriel College, and St. Julian’s Hospital, Southampton, to Queen’s College, Oxford, those colleges only took the net surplus after keeping up the hospitals. Windsor in like manner was probably only intended to get the surplus after keeping up Eton school. However, the Bull was strongly opposed by William Westbury, the provost and ex-headmaster. In 1467 a large part of the Eton estates was restored to it, and in 1470 King Edward IV. himself asked for the revocation of the Bull of Union and obtained a commission from the Pope for the purpose, and a final decree revoking it was pronounced by Cardinal-Archbishop Bouchier on August 30, 1476. It was, one can hardly doubt, by way of compensation to Windsor for the loss of Eton College that St. Anthony’s Hospital was, in 1475, annexed and appropriated to it in the same way as Eton had been. The terms of the annexation were absolute.[98] The King granted to “the Warden of Dean of the College of the Blessed Mary, St. George and Edward the Confessor in his castle of Windsor and to the chapter of the same college the Wardenship, advowson, parsonage, donation, collation, presentation, and free bestowal of the house, hospital or free chapel of St. Anthony, London, by whatever name it might be called, and the house hospital, or free chapel itself, with all its liberties, franchises, privileges, immunities, lands, tenements, rents, services,” etc., etc., belonging thereto, “to hold in pure and perpetual alms to their own use whenever it next became vacant by death, resignation, or otherwise”; and with power to take possession without any further process. On June 2, 1475, Dean and Chapter appointed Richard Beauchamp, Bishop of Salisbury, and others their attorneys to take possession of the hospital, they having got Peter Courtney, then master of the hospital, to resign in consideration of a pension of 100 marks or £66 : 13 : 4 a year. As in 1478 he became himself Dean of Windsor, he did not suffer much by the transaction.

Nor, indeed, did the hospital or school, which went on for at least 200 years more. Absolute as the terms of annexation were they seem to have been interpreted not as an abolition of the hospital, but only as a transfer to the dean and chapter of the right to the surplus, formerly taken by the master for his own use, estimated in the pension arrangement at 100 marks.

This comes out clearly in one of the earliest Account Rolls of the hospital after the transfer, which is fortunately preserved at Windsor, and gives an exact picture of the way the hospital was managed. It is for the year 1478-79 when David Hopton, Canon of Windsor, acted as Master of the hospital. The total income was the very large sum of £539 : 19s. or about £10,800 a year of our money. Of this only £18 : 2 : 4 was derived from rents or property, and that rental was subject to outgoings in the way of quit-rents of £7 : 6 : 8 and repairs to the extent of £9 : 5s.; so that the endowment was really a minus quantity.

The whole of the rest of the revenue was derived from voluntary subscriptions, which are called in the accounts “procurations,” being collected by procurators or proctors, exactly on the same principle that collections on Church Briefs were made after the Reformation. Indeed these and other like accounts make it clear[99] that the system of Church Briefs,[100] only abolished in 1828, was not of post-Reformation origin, but was extremely ancient. The right of collecting in a particular district was farmed out to different people who paid a fixed rent for the privilege for a term of years, and pocketed in return for the expenditure of their time and trouble whatever they managed to extract from the pockets of the faithful beyond the stipulated rent. Some specimens of St. Anthony’s Hospital leases to these farmers are preserved. There is one for the year 1479. It’s an Indenture made between the Dean or Warden of St. George’s College, the Master of St. Anthony’s, London, or in England, and the Canons of Windsor of the one part, and Thomas Morton of Worcester of the other part. In the same form as in a lease of land the Dean and Canons transfer, grant, and let to the aforesaid Thomas “all goods, profits, and commodities for any reason given, or to be given, assigned, or to be assigned, bequeathed, or to be bequeathed to and for the Hospital of St. Anthony in and throughout the whole bishopric of Hereford and archdeaconry of Oxford in places exempt [from the ordinary’s authority] as well as not exempt; with all pigs and other animals in the places aforesaid”; and constitute the said Thomas their lawful proctor and receiver in the premises, with full power of appointing substitutes, and without rendering any account. The term was ten years and the rent reserved £30 a year, payable in two half-yearly payments at Michaelmas and St. Philip and St. James’s Day. If the rent was in arrear the Dean and Canons were at liberty to dismiss the said Thomas and appoint another proctor in his place. The total rents of the Hospital shown in the account for 1478-79 derived in this fashion were:

Bishoprics of Salisbury and Ely, and archdeaconries of Lincoln, Stow, Huntingdon, and Leicester, and Deanery of Rutland (3 proctors in one lease) £128 13 4 Archdeaconries of Northampton, Bedford, Bucks, and the jurisdiction of St. Alban’s (1 proctor) 40 0 0 Bishoprics of Exeter and Bath and Wells (3 proctors) 44 0 0 Bishopric of Rochester, and Deaneries of Shoreham and Croydon, with church of Criff 4 0 0[101] Archdeaconries of Derby, Stafford, Coventry, and Shrewsbury (2 proctors) 22 0 0 Archdeaconries of Chester and Lancaster 11 0 0 Bishopric of London 22 0 0 Bishopric of Winchester 26 10 0 Bishopric of Chichester 8 0 0[102] Province of York and Isle of Man (2 proctors) 76 13 4[103] Bishopric of Winchester 28 13 4 Bishopric of Hereford and Archdeaconry of Oxford 29 6 8[104] Archdeaconry of Canterbury 26 13 4 Bishopric of Norwich 44 0 0 Bishoprics of St. David’s and Llandaff 8 0 0[105] Bishoprics of Bangor and Asaph 4 16 8 £523 16 8

The rentals are interesting as showing approximately the relative wealth and population of the various districts of England at the time. The superior wealth of the south over the north and the eastern over the western parts stands out clearly. The total receipts, equal in value to over £10,000 a year of our money, show an astounding liberality on the part of the givers of the voluntary donations and subscriptions by which the Hospital was maintained.

The expenditure is only given under a few different headings in gross, the reader being referred for details to a “paper book” which is not forthcoming. The wages of ministers, “priests, clerks, other ministers and servants” came to £45 : 12 : 8; the “robes of the said priests, clerks, scholars, poor, and other ministers and servants” cost £10 : 13 : 9. Bread made by Hobald, a baker of London, £21 : 18 : 7; beer bought from divers brewers at 1-1/2d. and 1d. a gallon, £35 : 11 : 8; other purchases (_cati_) £70 : 14s. “Foreign” expenses totalled £40 : 5 : 11-1/2d. The Sacrist of the Chapel received £4 : 0 : 9 for general expenses; a general obit, 8s. 8d., and Thomas Sainge’s obit, 6s. 8d. The clothes of the poor of the Hospital consisted of ten shirts and eight pairs of drawers of fustian at 3-1/2d. a yard; ten pairs of shoes at 2s. 5d. each; and ten pairs of stockings (caligis) of wool at 8d. a yard, and cost 19s. 11-1/2d. A new vestry at All Saints’, Hereford, was erected for £10 : 17 : 11. Repairs on the Hospital and the Swan next door came to £82 : 12 : 2-1/2d. So that the “arrears” (_arregaia_, meaning in mediæval accounts, not money due, but the clear surplus), amounting to £98, were handed over to the Treasurer of St. George’s, Windsor, “for the wages of 7 clerks and 7 choristers there.” In this amount, unfortunately, the salaries of the schoolmasters are not given separately, nor the number of “the children” or boys attending the school. Indeed, beyond the bare fact of its existence we know little of the history of St. Anthony’s School up to this time. It comes to light incidentally in a letter[106] from William Selling, Prior of Canterbury, to Thomas Bourchier, Cardinal-Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1472. “Please it your good fatherhood to have in knowledge that, according to your commandment, I have provided for a Schoolmaster for your ‘Gramerscole’ in Canterbury, the which hath lately taught grammar at Winchester and St. Anthony’s in London, that as I trust to God shall so guide him that it shall be worship and pleasure to your lordship and profit and increase to them that he shall have in governance.” As Archbishop Bourchier’s own nephew, the heir to the earldom of Essex, was a commoner at Winchester College,[107] this reference to the master of St, Anthony’s as having been also a master at Winchester, probably usher or second master there, shows that St. Anthony’s School already stood high in reputation.

There is a much more detailed account than that above given in English for the year 10 Henry VII., 1494-95, which gives the expenses of the Hospital for the Michaelmas quarter, day by day, being in fact one of the “paper books” referred to in the Latin account. It is extremely interesting by reason of its details, telling us exactly what the Master and “the Hall,” _i.e._ clergy and schoolmaster on the one hand, and “the Hospital,” _i.e._ almsfolk and “children,” had for dinner every day. The account begins on Michaelmas Day, when two of the traditional geese[108] were given to the Hall “at dener” at a cost of 18d., while “the Hospital and chyldryn” were put off with two loins of veal at 8d. The Master, a Canon of Windsor, is the only one who is debited with anything for breakfast, but that was a substantial one, consisting of a neck of mutton and chicken. The others presumably only had the commons of bread and beer. At “soper,” “the Hall” enjoyed ten chickens for 15d, while “the Hospital and children” had two quarters of mutton for 7d., with a halfpenny for “erbis,” or vegetables, and 5d. for “potage fleich”; the day’s diet cost 4s. 9d. Next day all fared well with seven ribs of roast beef and stewed veal at dinner; and three-quarters of mutton at supper. The 1st of October there was “potage fleich” and loins of mutton for dinner; mutton and two “coneys” or rabbits for supper. On the 2nd of the month there was again “pottage flesh,” and pork for dinner, “for all the house”; ten chickens for supper for “the Hall”; mutton for the rest. Friday, October 3, though it was the feast of the dedication of the church, was no-flesh day. There was a “sewe” for 4d.; twenty plaice for all the house, twenty small pike, a quarter and a half of roach, and fresh herrings. The total cost was 9s. 5-1/2d. Presumably there were strangers. Saturday was again a no-flesh day. There was milk, 3d., and butter, 7d., for dinner, in the form of frumenty probably; salt salmon for “the Hall” and stockfish for “the Hospital” at dinner; five barbels for “the Hall,” and 100 eggs for “all the house” at supper, while the Master had, all to himself, oysters at 1d.

The next week began with “half a beeff to lay in powdyr for the weke, 6s. 8d.,” while the Sunday dinner consisted of roast pork for dinner and mutton for supper. Pork, veal, beef, and mutton, varied with conies and soup, and for “the Hall” chickens; meat twice a day, and never the same at dinner and supper, show that our ancestors lived on a very much more generous and wholesomely varied diet than is commonly supposed. The two fast days only represented a pleasing change of diet: “Lamprons” or lampreys “for sew,” bream, fresh herrings and salt salmon on Friday; milk and butter “for dinner,” haddocks and whitings, 100 eggs on Saturday, were really not unsatisfying. The varieties of the fish menu were very extensive; it comprised sturgeon, cod, stockfish, fresh salmon, haddock, halibut, roach with shrimps (for sauce apparently), trout, carp, turbot, plaice, mackerel, thornbacks, gudgeons, guinards, flounders, smelts, sprats, mussels, crayfish, crabs, lobsters, eels, and conger eels, besides those already mentioned. On All Saints’ Day, which fell on a non-fast day, there was a warden-pie for all the house, the wardens, or pears, which cost 6d., while the flour cost 7d., and the “serypp” or sirop, 4d. On St. Nicholas’ Day, December 6, there was “fruit for them that ete no fish,” and 2 lb. of almonds. Among birds, besides cocks and fowls, geese frequently appear, with mallards, plovers, woodcocks, and larks, the latter for the Master’s table only. Beer as usual flowed in streams. The “good man” of the Swan—the brewery next door belonging to the Hospital—supplied for one quarter eighteen barrels of “threehalpenny ale,” and ten barrels of penny ale (a penny a gallon), while another brewer at the Checker supplied fifteen barrels of 1-1/2d., and ten barrels of 1d. beer. Beer, of course, served for breakfast and tea as well as dinner and supper. Still the quantity used was enormous. At St. Cross Hospital, Winchester, every poor man had a gallon a day, and at St. Anthony’s the provision must have been on the same scale. Wine was only drunk at the Master’s table, and that only on feast days.

On Christmas Day everybody had mutton for breakfast. There was a filet of pork for “force gruel,” six geese and fourteen fowls for all the house at dinner, while “the Hall” had eight conies besides. There were eight plovers, six cocks, and three dozen larks for the Master’s dinner and supper; and mallards or wild duck for “the Hall,” at supper; a gallon of cream for the Master’s custard, a gallon of milk for curd. Two and a half gallons of red wine and “claryet” were drunk. There was dessert: 4 lb. of “raysons” and currants at 5d.; 2 lb. of great raisins, 2d.; 4 lb. prunes, 8d.; ½ lb. ginger, 10d.; 3 lb. dates, 7-1/2d.; 1 quarter of cloves and mace, 8d.; ½ lb. “saundre,” 7d.; ½ oz. saffron, 8d.; comfits, “counfeits,” 1 lb., 5d.; 4 lb. of almonds, 8d. On Boxing Day, the Hall had a “pottle of Malmsey to their brawn, 6d.,” and another gallon and half of wine. On New Year’s Day the Master had, among other things, half a lamb; curd for tart, and oranges, which, with butter, cost 2d. On Twelfth Day, the Epiphany, the whole house enjoyed mutton and frumenty, made of milk and wheat, for breakfast. Dinner included four fillets of pork in mortrews, bake-meats and tarts. But the great event was a “wassayle.” To this there went 3 gallons of red wine at 2s.; 3 lb. sugar, 12s.; 2 gallons of “strok” (what was that?); a curd, powder of cinnamon, ginger and other spices, and pears. It was a mighty brew, and must have been almost as trying as a Winchester “egg-flip” on Founder’s Commemoration.

The staff of the Hospital (besides the Master, who was one of the Canons appointed for a year, who only resided at intervals) consisted first and foremost of “Master Nicholas,” the Grammar schoolmaster, at 50s. a quarter, or £10 a year—being at the same rate of pay as that of the headmasters of Winchester and Eton. Then there were four priests, of whom the senior, Sir John Galaway, received £4 : 13 : 4 a year, as against £5 a year given to a Fellow of Winchester for performing much the same functions, while the three others got £4 a year. A clerk (not called Sir), John Marche, “Maister of the children of the Song-School,” also got £4 a year. Then came six clerkes at £2 : 13 : 4 a year each. The poor usher, or “oysshur,” of the Grammar School only got 6s. 8d. a quarter, or £1 : 6 : 8 a year, a sad contrast to the £6 : 13 : 4 of the usher of Winchester College. It was less than the wages of the cook of St. Anthony’s, who got £2 a year, and the same as those of the butler or buttery man. Even his name is not given. Probably the explanation is that John Goreham, one of the priests, or one of the clerks acted also as usher. Of course, as was the case at Winchester and Eton, and all the College and Hospital schools, these salaries were in addition to board, lodging, and “liveries,” or broad cloth for their gowns.

In the next extant account, 17 Henry VII., 1502-3, Mr. David was “skolemaister,” but received only 20s. a quarter, the same as R. Hall “the maister of Queresters”—a term which the Wykehamist will recognise as a living word. It looks as if this reduction of the schoolmaster’s salary was due to greed on the part of the Dean and Chapter of Windsor, who wished to have a larger surplus to put in their own pockets. Rogers was the usher, and received 6s. 8d. The livery of the schoolmaster and priests consisted of 4 yards of cloth at 3s. 4d. a yard, while that of the “clerks,” including the Master of the children, was only 3¼ yards, and the usher’s livery was the same as that of the clerks, sexton, and butler, 3 yards at 3s. The 12 “chylder” had 2½ yards at 2s. 4d. It is a little difficult to understand who the twelve children were. In a subsequent account for Michaelmas to Christmas 1521, twelve whose names are given had cloth for gowns; but then comes a heading “For the chylthern of the Songe Scole,” under which six only out of the twelve received hose and shoes, and had them repaired as well. Are the other six to be regarded as scholars in the Grammar School, or, as is perhaps more probable, choristers on probation?

The next extant account is for 1521-22, when Mr. Ball was the schoolmaster and Richard-a-Lee the Song schoolmaster. The latter was succeeded in 1522 by William Johnson, who, although he got £5 a year as against the Grammar schoolmasters’ £4, was still reckoned on a lower grade among the clerks, while the schoolmaster was always ranked with the priests. There had apparently been a considerable curtailment in expenditure as the surplus handed over to Windsor this year was no less than £210, or more than double the sum they derived from it in their first year.

The next schoolmaster whose name is known was Edmund Johnson. This was the “one Johnson,” of Stow’s account of “the spoil of the Hospital,” which is nothing more than a baseless libel. Edmund Johnson, or Jonson, was admitted a scholar of Winchester, at the age of eleven, in 1514, and became a Fellow of New College in 1522, remaining such for two years, and is described in the New College Register as having become “a schoolmaster.” Whether he was appointed to St. Anthony’s then, there are no means of knowing. Edmund Johnson was a “clerk” in the Hospital in 1522, and perhaps acted as usher, as no usher’s name is given. He can hardly be the same man. At all events he is described as “Scolemaster of the Grammar Schole in the said Hospitall” in a lease of November 16, 35 Henry VIII., _i.e._ 1543, by the Dean and Chapter to him of a house fronting “Saint Anthonies yarde,” being, perhaps, the house which had been usually occupied by the Master of the Hospital. The lease contained a reservation “for the use of the Scolemaister for the time then being,” of “the scolle house and the rome over yt, with the chambre next adioyning to the same schole.”

In 1546, the first of the Acts for the dissolution of colleges and chantries was passed, and commissioners were appointed under it to certify the chantries and their value. They included St. Anthony’s Hospital under the heading of Berkshire, it being treated as part of Windsor in that county.[109] They reported, on the authority of “Sir Anthonye Baker, clerk, Master of the Hospital,” that in the parish of St. Benedict Fink, London, was “one hospytall of St. Anthony, founded to fynde one master, 2 prestes, one scolemaster, and 12 pore men there, perpetually to serve and saye the devyne service and to praye for the soules of there founders.” This is the statement which misled Stow and the other historians into thinking that the school was part of the original foundation. The correct description of the foundation of Henry VI.’s time was misread as a description of the original foundation under Henry III., to which it was wholly inapplicable.

The value of the lands and possessions of the Hospital is put in the chantry certificate at £55 : 6 : 8 gross, with deductions of £4 : 1s., bringing it down to £51 : 5 : 8. The stipends of the two priests were £8 each; of the curate of Seynt Benet Fynkes, £8; and of “the clerk that keepeth our Lady’s mass,” £9. These four make up the four priests we find in the Hospital accounts. The steward received £5, while the poor cost £31 : 17s.; the “sexten” had £2. The schoolmaster’s stipend was £16; so that so far from the school being plundered at this time, the Master was far better paid than several of his predecessors, and received more than the Masters of Winchester or Eton.

The total expenses came to £95 odd. “And so lacketh for the proportion of the same house £40 : 11 : 11, which ys borne by the Dean and Cannons of Wyndsore, whereunto this Hospytalle is annexede [and] unytide.” This is a somewhat slim way of putting the fact that the surplus expenses of the Hospital were met by subscriptions from the public to such an amount, that instead of the Dean and Chapter of Windsor defraying the deficit out of their own revenues, a sum three or four times as large as the whole revenue from endowment of the Hospital found its way into their pockets.

The Chantries Dissolution Act of Henry was only permissive, giving the King, during his life, power to take possession of any chantries or colleges he chose; and advantage was taken of it to enter on barely half a dozen colleges, of which Windsor was not one. In 1547, a new Act of dissolution of colleges and chantries was passed in Edward VI.’s first Parliament; but Windsor was, alone among colleges that were not educational, specially exempted from its provisions. There is, however, a certificate, by the Chantry Commissioners of London and Middlesex, for the parish of St. Benet Finck, in which, while certifying a chantry in the parish church, they say complainingly (the certificates were in fact drawn up by the church wardens) that the Dean and Chapter of Windsor “is parson,” and the value of the same £16, “and but one priest by them found to serve the same, which priest is very unhable to serve the same.” They add that “within the said parish is a Grammar Scole by the name of a Fre Scole, called Saynt Anthonies, the Scolemaister whereof is nowe Maister Edmond Johnson, and his wages paid by the Stewarde of Seynt Anthonyes, and how muche is not knowen.”

Now Stow is said to have been born about 1525. He tells us in a passage which is a _locus classicus_ in the history of London schools as much as the famous “Description” of Fitzstephen himself, that in his youth, which, for this purpose, we may take to be from 1535 to 1545, the arguing of the schoolboys as to the principles of grammar of which Fitzstephen wrote, was still continued.[110]

For I myself in my youth have yearly seen on the eve of St. Bartholomew the Apostle, the scholars of divers grammar schools repair unto the churchyard of St. Bartholomew, the Priory in Smithfield, where, upon a bank, boarded about under a tree, some one scholar hath stepped up, and there hath opposed and answered, till he were by some better scholar overcome and put down, and then the overcomer, taking the place, did like as the first, and in the end the best opposers and answerers had rewards; which I observed not but it made both good schoolmasters and also good scholars diligently against such times to prepare themselves for the obtaining of this garland. I remember there repaired to these exercises amongst others the Masters and scholars of the free schools of St. Paul’s of London, of St. Peter’s of Westminster, of St. Thomas Acon’s Hospital and of St. Anthony’s Hospital; whereof the last named commonly presented the best scholars and had the prize in those days.

It is very doubtful, for reasons which will appear when we come to deal with Westminster and St. Thomas Acon’s, whether Stow’s memory was accurate when he brought scholars from Westminster and the Mercers’ School to St. Bartholomew’s before its dissolution. However that may be, Stow goes on:

This Priory of St. Bartholomew being surrendered to Henry VIII. those disputations of scholars in that place surceased; and was again, only for a year or twain, in the reign of Edward VI., renewed in the cloister of Christ’s Hospital, when the best scholars then still of St. Anthony’s school, howsoever the same be now fallen both in number and estimation, were rewarded with bows and arrows of silver given to them by Sir Martin Bowes, goldsmith.

Now, as Christ’s Hospital was only founded on June 26, 1552, and then, as we shall see, as a mere Foundlings’ Hospital, and Edward VI. died in the following January, there was not time for these renewed contests in his reign and Stow’s memory must have been at fault. The resuscitation of the contests is more likely to have taken place in the reign of Mary when the “old learning” and boy-bishops and the like revived with the “old religion.” However that may be, the school continued to flourish under Elizabeth, on Stow’s own showing.[111]

Nevertheless, however, the encouragement failed. The schollers of Paules meeting with them of St. Anthonies, would call them “Anthonie pigs” and they againe would call the other “Pigeons of Paules,” because many pigeons were bred in Paules church, and Saint Anthonie was always figured with a pig following him, and, mindfull of the former usage, did for a long season disorderly in the open streete provoke one another with “Salve tu quoque! placet tibi mecum disputare?” “Placet.” And so proceeding from this to questions in grammar, they usually fell from wordes to blows, with their satchels full of bookes, many times in great heaps, that they troubled the streets and passengers; so that finally they were restrained, with the decay of St. Anthonies schoole.

Strype,[112] in his edition of Stow a century later, gives further evidence:

This school kept equal credit with that of Paul’s; both which had the greatest reputation in the city in former times. I meet[113] with a merry retainer at Queen Elizabeth’s Court, giving an account of the great entertainment she had in her progress, anno 1575, at Kenilworth Castle by the Earl of Leicester: “I went to school forsooth both at Polles and also at St. Antoniez! In the 5th form past Æsop’s fables, I wiz; read Terence, ‘Vos, isthœc intro auferte,’ and began with my Virgil ‘Tityre tu patulae.’ I could [_i.e._ knew] my Rules: and could construe and pars with the best of them.”

Strype tells us also how this school used at a certain time of the year to go in procession. “Thus I find in the year 1562 on the 15th day of September there set out from Mile End 200 children of this St. Anthonies School, all well be-seen, and so along through Algate down Cornhill to the Stocks and so to the Freer Austins, with streamers and flags and drums beating. And after, every child went home to their fathers and friends.” This September outing was an old custom in schools. It was for a nut gathering. It appears in the accounts of St. Anthony’s on September 3, 1510, when “a sporting day in the cuntre” cost “the Hospital” 18d., the almsmen and choristers being entertained at home for 7d. William Malim mentions it as one of the Eton holidays in 1560; indeed, the drums and flags strongly suggest the Eton “montem.” Payments for such an outing occur frequently in the accounts of Winchester College. It forms the subject of a “theme” at Winchester by Christopher Johnson, Headmaster in 1560-70. As late as 1711[114] “nutting-money” was one of the regular payments exacted from Winchester scholars.

Stow’s story of the suppression of the street-shows of the scholars is borne out by the curious injunction issued by the Lord Mayor on August 20, 1561.[115]

Item, yt was agreyd that precepts shall forthewith be made to every one of my maisters the Aldermen for the stayinge of all skolemaysters and teacher of youthe within this cytye from makynge of eny more musters or commen and open shewes of theyr skollers, within the said cyttye or without, in ryche apparrell or otherwyse, eyther on horseback or on foote, upon payne of imprysonment.

Edmund Johnson above mentioned became a Canon of Windsor in 1560 and apparently died in 1562.[116] So that the school was in fact at the height of its fame and success under the very man whom Stow accuses of having ruined it. Its fame and greatness outlived its so-called spoiler. Edmund Johnson, so far from being considered a spoiler of school, ought to be enrolled among the many great schoolmasters whom Winchester produced, along with Christopher Johnson, the witty Latin poet, who ruled over Winchester itself at the same time (1558-68) and was perhaps a relation.

Among the archives of St. Paul’s Cathedral is a stray account of St. Anthony’s Hospital for the year 1564, and it shows both almshouse and school going on; the twelve almspeople duly receiving their shilling a week and the “Instructor of the school (scolarum) in grammar” his due stipend of £16 a year.

After Johnson’s departure a fall may have taken place in the character of the school, but if so, that was not his fault. Strype indeed goes out of his way to correct Stow, and carefully tells us[117] that “it was in being in Elizabeth’s time when one Hilton a great and good man was master.” He must have succeeded Johnson. In 1584 another master, Thomas Browne, was schoolmaster and receiver of the Hospital, as one of his accounts[118] remaining shows. He duly paid twelve almsfolk 7s. a week and his own wages £16, besides £1 for himself as receiver.

Even as to its then state and the state of the Hospital itself, there is reason to believe that Stow’s information was wrong and was probably derived from a tainted source. For in 1590 a determined attack on the Hospital was made by one of the band of informers who infested the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. It was a favourite device for some speculative attorney or money-lender to hunt up old monastic or chantry lands, allege that they had been confiscated to the Crown under the Acts for the dissolution of monasteries or of chantries, as the case might be, but had been concealed from it by the tenants, or other holders; and to obtain a grant from the Crown of such concealed lands by letters patent. Sometimes these patents were in the form of roving commissions for concealed lands over whole counties, sometimes for all the possessions of specific monasteries or chantries, sometimes for specific lands belonging to such foundations. The Crown in any case gained the cash paid down for the grant. The informer, if he recovered the whole property, made an enormous gain. More often he only levied blackmail on the proprietor, who was glad for a moderate payment to escape the trouble and vexation of a law suit, with the Crown as nominal plaintiff. The practice went on as late as 1620, when a too determined attack on the chantry lands of the City Livery Companies induced the Companies to combine and pay the Crown a sum down for quiet possession of the lands and for an Act of Parliament which stopped all further proceedings for concealed lands. The facts of the St. Anthony’s case are these:—

In 1589 Edward Wymarke and John Leake obtained from Queen Elizabeth a grant by letters patent of all the lands of St. Anthony’s Hospital, as lands which had properly passed to the Crown, but had been “concealed” by the Dean and Chapter of Windsor.

They then brought an action for ejectment in the Queen’s Bench against Timothy Lucy, gentleman, and Thomas Cooper, farmers of the manors of Valence Galant and Easthall and other lands in Essex. The Dean and Chapter took counter action by a Bill on the Equity side of the Court of Exchequer to restrain further proceedings in the ejectment. Leake alleged that the Dean and Chapter “compounded with the poor and put them out of their houses, and others that would not remain in a corner there until their end.” The church was shut up and “so remained until it was appointed to the French nation, long in Her Majesty’s time.” “The School was no more a Free School; but the Master had £16 per annum allowed him, and compounded with the parents of the children to be taught there, at his pleasure; and now of late the curate of the parish church is farmer of the parsonage and master of the school and a preacher abroad, and by reason of his other calling there are now very few scholars, the master not employed, a bad room to dwell in and a school in name, but not free or of credit.”

The patentees, however, generously offered that if the Lord Treasurer should think “that in passing the patent Her Majesty was hardly dealt with in it, or your zeal for the school to be maintained which is no Free School, so your Honour would procure from Her Majesty a foundation and take the patronage. I can be content there go a better maintenance to the Master, viz. £30 per annum or more, or to do any act your Honour should think conscionable.”

The Dean and Chapter in their answer did not deny that they had diminished the number of priests, clerks, choristers, and scholars in the Hospital, but urged that they no longer got £323 a year as they used to do “by begging,” but now spent more on the Hospital by twenty nobles a year at least than they received. As to the School they said “the Schoolmaster teacheth as many freely as his grant bindeth him unto, for it was never free for all that come thither, but only for the poorer sort.” The schoolmaster himself, Mr. Brown, put in a separate answer. He alleged that “the School was never free to all comers, but only for the choristers of the house and all such other destitute children; as may be gathered by sundry ancient accompts. The Schoolmaster is bound by the words of his patent to entertain 40 poor scholars, whose friends are not able to pay for their teaching, if so many come, and offer their children to be taught freely.” He said that he had never refused any who claimed to be free. As for compounding, that was granted him, in regard that the revenues of the house will neither allow him an usher, nor his diet, as his predecessors had, among the priests. He denied that he was curate of the church as well as schoolmaster, though he acknowledged that having “the lease of the appropriation come into his hands he thought himself bound to do some duty in the church as well as in the school, and therefore entered the ministry the sooner.” “Neither,” he remarked, “is it so strange or odious a matter for a schoolmaster to be a preacher as it seemeth in Mr. Leake’s eyes,” though in this we may fairly say that Mr. Leake’s eyes were more far-seeing than the parson-schoolmaster’s. Then he pays a tribute to his predecessor. “This place prospered well enough under a schoolmaster who was also a preacher, Mr. Edmund Johnson. But then there was some hope that learning and religion might be rewarded; but the daily decreasing and falling away of which reward, as by other sinister means so most apparently by concealments” (this was a side blow at Mr. Leake), “hath discouraged parents to bring up their sons at their book, but even in the Universities also at this day, more is the pity.” He then utters the complaint which the unsuccessful schoolmaster, like the unsuccessful in all professions, has always made, and makes, that there is too much competition. “If there be fewer scholars in S. Anthony’s than have been heretofore, the true cause thereof has to be imputed to the multitude of teachers in every corner both of the city and country, and to the wonted reward of learning, and not to the want of diligence in the schoolmaster there.” Finally, he challenges the facts. “If trial be made it may be that both the number and the learning of his scholars may fall out better than Mr. Leake would have it.”

The end of the whole matter was that it was referred to Her Majesty’s General Attorney, Sir John Pepham, and the Solicitor General, Thomas Gerton. They certified that as the grant of Edward IV., confirmed by Innocent the Pope, had made the Hospital unconditionally a possession of St. George’s College, the purchasers from Her Majesty ought not to molest the Dean and Canons or any of their Governors in the said lands. So Mr. Leake and his friends took nothing by their pains.

Not many years later, however, the Chapter, on the ground that the Hospital cost more than they got from it, tried to withhold payment of the scholarship fund from Oriel College. This roused Oriel to look up the documents, and they counterclaimed not merely the customary £10 : 8s. but the whole twenty-five marks of the original grants and threatened to enter on the Essex lands if it was not paid. Thereon the Windsor Chapter filed a Bill in chancery. Lord Keeper Bacon’s decree, November 17, 1617, founded on an award of Sir Henry Savile, T. Frith, a canon of Windsor, and Joshua Sanders, confirmed the right of Oriel to some payment; but in the absence of any proof from Oriel that they had ever received more, and the presence of proof on the part of Windsor that since they became possessed of St. Anthony’s they had never paid more, the decree was for £10 : 8s. a year only. Windsor paid £30 for costs. The sum of £10 : 8s. a year is still paid to Oriel College by Windsor College, though it is to be feared that not many scholars are now maintained by the payment.

In 1600 St. Anthony’s School must have been in very low water. A curious compact was made by Mr. Thomas Smith, the schoolmaster in that year, with Mr. Thomas Bradshaw. The latter was to come to the school with “a dozen of his own scholars at the least” and to teach all the poor children in the parish of St. Benet Finck “being offered and brought unto him according to the limitation of the patent,” and hold the office of teacher or master conjointly with Mr. T. Smith, taking all the profits of his own pupils, while Mr. Smith was to take the profit on those brought in by him. Neither was to interfere with the teaching or management of the other’s scholars, except in case one of them was ill or absent, when the other was to teach the whole school. The scholars belonging to either were to be placed equally on both sides of the school. Finally, on payment at any time of £10 by Bradshaw, he was to have an assignment of Smith’s patent and place. The Chapter do not seem to have relished this bargain, as there are some notes attached to this agreement as to the terms of the original grant to Smith, which included a condition to appoint a deputy, and to teach free as many children as were brought thither up to forty; and to keep a register of such free scholars, to be exhibited to the Dean whenever required, and it is remarked that the arrangement with Bradshaw was a breach of these conditions. A draft surrender of the mastership by Smith, May 1, 43 Elizabeth (1601), is with this paper. It was not, however, executed by him, as ten years afterwards he is found still keeping the Hospital accounts as receiver and paying himself “pro informatione scholarium.” In 1622-23 William Walker acted in the same capacity as receiver and schoolmaster, and duly paid himself and twelve almsmen and women their stipends. In 1661-62, the latest account preserved shows him still acting in the double capacity, but receiving the augmented salary of £25 a year.

In 1666 St. Anthony’s was burnt with the rest of London. The church was rebuilt after the Fire for the French Church, and still continues. But the school seems never to have been rebuilt, and when Strype published his edition of _Stow_ in 1720 it no longer existed. So ended this once famous school.

* * * * *

We must now return from the later history of St. Anthony’s School to its beginning. It was founded, as we have seen, in 1441. Five years afterwards there is a series of documents which are evidence of some struggle going on in regard to education in London, the exact purport and the result of which are equally obscure. All we know is that on May 3, 24 Henry VI., _i.e._ 1446, a writ of Privy Seal was sent to the Chancellor directing him to issue letters patent, which was duly done on May 6, dealing with schools in London. The letters patent are of course in Latin, in which language they long remained, but the Privy Seal, which is verbatim to the same effect, was in English. It begins by a recital which is almost an echo of the Petition to Parliament in 1394. The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London “considered the great ‘abusions’ that have been of long time in London, that many and divers persons not sufficiently instructed in grammar presumed to hold common grammar schools in great deceit of their scholars, as also of the friends that find them to school,” and so they had “in their great wisdom” devised a remedy. They had ordained 5 schools of grammar and “no moo” within the said city; “one within the churchyard of St. Paul; another within the collegiate church of St. Martin; the third in Bow Church (Beate Marie de Arcubus, in the Letters Patent); the fourth in the church of St. Dunstan in the East; the 5th in our hospital of St. Anthony within our said city.” This they had openly declared by their letters patent thereupon made. The King, therefore, ordered his letters patent to be made confirming the letters of the bishops, and commanding “all our subjittes of our said citee “that they, nor none of them, trouble nor impeach the masters of the said schools in any wise in this “partie,” but rather help and assist them inasmuch as in them is. The letters patent were duly issued on the day the writ of Privy Seal was delivered, as the Act of Parliament required. This patent was misinterpreted by Stow[119] as creating schools “besides St. Paul’s” in the places named, only he puts St. Dunstan on the West for St. Dunstan in the East. He repeats this error[120] apropos of Bow Church, which he says was a grammar school by commandment of Henry VI., whereas, as we have seen, it existed before the reign of Henry II. Stow then goes on: “And in the next year, to wit 1394 (_sic_), the said King ordained by Parliament that four other Grammar schools should be created.” It is curious that in all the editions till Strype’s this extraordinary error of making 1394 the next year to 1446 was repeated. No doubt Stow had become acquainted with the ordinance of Richard II. and mixed it up with that of Henry VI. and never noticed the confusion. It is the case that in February 1446/7 an ordinance was made in Parliament about London schools. It was founded upon a very remarkable petition. The full wise and discreet Commons were asked “to consider the great number of Grammar Schools that sometime were in divers parts of the realm, beside those that were in London and how few ‘ben in these days.’ This,” they say, “causes great hurt not only in the spiritual part of the church, where often times it appears too openly in some persons with great shame”—we feel inclined to call Name, name!—“but also in temporal part, to whom it is full expedient to have competent congruity for many causes”—whatever that may mean. The petitioners go on to point out how London is “the common concourse of this land,” not only for Londoners born, but for others who come up, “some for lack of schoolmasters in their own country, and some for the great alms of Lords, Merchants and others,” so that many poor creatures would never have gained the “virtue and cunning” they have without such alms. Therefore they say it is desirable to have in London “a sufficient number of Schools and good Informers of Grammar” (the headmaster of Winchester’s title is _Magister Informator_), “and not for the singular avail of 2 or 3 persons, grievously to hurt the multitude of young people of all this London.” “For where,” they sententiously observe, “there is a great number of learners and few teachers, and all the learners be compelled to go to the same few teachers, and to no other, the Masters wax rich in money, and the learners poor in cunning, as experience openly shows, against all virtue and order of weal public.”

Four parsons, Mr. William Lichfield of All Hallows the Great, Thames Street; Mr. Gilbert (Worthington) of St. Andrew’s in Holborn, suburb of the City; Mr. John Cole of St. Peter’s, Cornhill; and John Neell of St. Mary Abchurch, and Master of St. Thomas Acon’s Hospital, were, they say, stirred to devotion and pity by such considerations, and therefore asked that the rectors and their successors in their respective parishes may “ordain, create, establish and set a person sufficiently learned in grammar, and there to teach to all that will learn” with power of removal and new appointment in the rectors. The answer was “The King wills that it be do as it is desired, so that it be done by the advice of the Ordinary, or else of the Archbishop of Canterbury for the time being.”

It has been assumed that these schools were set up accordingly. Stow states it for a fact as to St. Peter’s, Cornhill,[121] St. Andrew’s, Holborn,[122] and St. Thomas of Acon’s Hospital,[123] and has been followed by other writers. It is doubtful if a single one of these schools was ever established, except that in St. Thomas of Acon’s Hospital. The very unusual form of the King’s answer to the petition at once raises suspicion. The first clause of it is the common formula for consent to a “private” bill, “Le roi fait comme il est desiré.” But it is followed by the very significant condition “so that it be by the advice of the Ordinary, the Bishop of London, or the Archbishop.” A veto was thus given to the very two officials who, doubtless under much the same pressure, had, only the year before, limited the schools in London to five: of which three were immemorial, that of St. Anthony’s Hospital in an exempt place of the Crown’s patronage was already established with the consent of the Bishop, and the fifth St. Dunstan’s was, like St. Mary-le-Bow, a “peculiar” of the Archbishop of Canterbury. It is not very likely, therefore, that the Archbishop and Bishop would be eager to assist in almost doubling the number of authorised schools in London. As regards St. Andrew’s and All Hallows the Great it is practically certain that no school was ever established. The two petitioning parsons of these churches both died very soon afterwards. The will of Gilbert Worthington of St. Andrew’s, Holborn, is given in Strype’s edition of _Stow_.[124] It was made July 28, 1447, and was proved on August 12 following. The only reference to schools or education in it is a bequest of five marks to his brother Walter to put him to school, and 40s. to the poor scholars of God’s House in Cambridge, just founded by Bingham. The inscription on his tomb, also preserved,[125] makes no mention of any school foundation. Neither Stow nor any one else states that there was any evidence of a school at St. Andrew’s. The date of the death of the parson of All Hallows, William Lichfield, is not given by Newcourt in the _Repertorium_, but as it there appears that Thomas Westleigh, S.T.B., was appointed to the rectory, vacant on the death of Lichfield, on November 1448, he must have died some time before that date. No proof of any grammar school having been kept here has yet been produced.

Whether a school was established in St. Thomas’s Hospital is also doubtful. There is no trace of such a school in the documents published by Sir John Watney in his account of the Hospital, privately printed by the Mercers Company in 1592. The Hospital was surrendered to King Henry VIII., October 20, 1538. The Mercers Company, whose hall was next door and who had used its church for their purposes, almost immediately, December 18, 1538, opened negotiations with the King to buy it. On April 21, 1541, the King sold it to them for £969 : 17 : 6, an enormous sum, equivalent to some £20,000 of our money, subject to the conditions that they should keep three chaplains to pray for his soul, and also a Free Grammar School with a sufficient master to teach 25 children and scholars freely for ever. This was the origin of the Mercers’ School, and this alone is the reason for supposing that there had been a grammar school in the Hospital before. Until the Mercers allow their records to be ransacked by some expert with an eye open to the evidence as to schools, it is impossible to assert that there was or was not a school in the Hospital. It is strange, if there was, that no evidence has yet been forthcoming of its existence. The verdict must be, for the present at least, that its existence is not proven.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX I

THE CITY COMPANIES

On August 14, 1880, the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the City Companies issued a circular addressed to all the Companies. This circular sought information on the various points as follows: