Chapter 15

_Cursitors' Inn_, also in Chancery Lane, was sometimes known as Bacon's Inn, having been founded, in 1574, by Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. In 1478 it was known as _the Bores hedde_, and then consisted of one tenement and a large garden, about two and a half acres in extent, bounded on the north by the grounds of the Old Temple and of Staple Inn; on the east by that property of the Convent of Malmesbury which had formerly been known as "Lyncolnesynne"; and on the south by a lane now known as Cursitor Street. The rent was then being paid to the Corporation of the City of London, who were probably feoffees of the bishopric of Lincoln; but in 1561 they purchased it of Edward VI., into whose hands it had come at the dissolution of chantries and chapels; and they, in 1574, granted it to Sir Nicholas Bacon,[149] who there housed the cursitor clerks. There were twenty-four cursitor clerks--_i.e._, Clerks of the Course--whose business was to draw up the writs. The Cursitor Baron administered the oaths to the sheriffs, bailiffs, and officers of the Customs, etc. Cursitor Street perpetuates the name of the Inn.

_Clifford's Inn_, adjacent to, and south of, the House of Converts, came into the hands of Edward I. in 1298, for the debts of Malcolm de Harley, Escheator on this side Trent. The Earl of Richmond was placed in custody of it, but in 1310 Edward II. gave it to Robert de Clifford, a customs' officer of the Wool Staple, and Marshal of England.[150] When he died in 1316 a third of it only was granted to his widow. During the nonage of the heir in 1345, Edward III. put his clerk, David de Wollore, who was also Keeper of the Rolls of Chancery, in charge of the property.[151] It is said to have possessed its society at this period. It passed from the Clifford family in June, 1468, when a grant was made to "John Kendale, Esq., and his heirs male, of Clifford Inne, late of John Clifford, knight, late Lord Clifford, by reason of forfeiture."[152] The Society of Clifford's Inn was the last of the Inns of Chancery to dissolve.

Clement's Inn, an Inn of Chancery attached to the Inner Temple, was divided within recent years from New Inn, which belonged to the Middle Temple, only by iron railings with a gate. Its origin is unknown, but its name connects it either with St. Clement's Church, or St. Clement's Well. It was certainly in existence before the time of Henry VII.

_Lyon's Inn_ is said to have been an Inn of Chancery in the time of Henry V., but the evidence on this point is uncertain. It was situated in Newcastle Street, Strand, and was attached to the Inner Temple, who bought it in 1581. The Aldwych improvements have wiped out the Globe Theatre which had succeeded it.

Besides the Inns of Court and Chancery, there existed also Inns for Judges and Serjeants, of which the most important were Scrope's Inn, opposite to St. Andrew's Church, in Holborn, and the two Serjeants' Inns in Chancery Lane and Fleet Street, which, however, cannot be treated of here.

Documents of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries make it quite clear that Staple Inn, Furnival's Inn, Brooke House, and, of course, the old Inn of the Earl of Lincoln, in Shoe Lane, were all within the city boundaries. It was not until December, 1645, that the House of Lords passed a resolution that the Inns of Court were to form a province by themselves,[153] and the resolution was interpreted to cover also their Inns of Chancery dependencies, so that Furnival's Inn and Staple Inn became cut off from the city, and all the Inns became extra-parochial.

It will have been noticed that the properties of the Inns of Court, and most of the Inns of Chancery, came to be held directly of the King. The legal artifice of feoffment to "uses" was adopted in regard to most of these properties; but though the feoffees were chiefly legal persons, they did not apparently always represent the societies; nor is it quite clear whom they did represent; but the societies had no security of tenure until they purchased their respective properties.

It has been shown that the deep hollow, at the bottom of which flowed the stream of Holborn, formed a natural barrier between the walled city and its suburb. It also divided the guilds and trade associations of London from that plexus of schools of laws which at first radiated from Holborn Bars. The guilds recognised the leading of the Mayor and Commonalty; the schools of law looked for direction chiefly to the law officers of the Crown. In Florence, and other cities of the Middle Ages, the associations of judges, attorneys, and wool-merchant lawyers were as much a part of civic and communal life as any other guild; the different conditions which existed in England led to different consequences.

But the hold which the King's officers obtained, both over the machinery of the Courts and over the voluntary societies of law students, was the cause, no doubt, of the attempts which were made during the Tudor and early Stuart periods to organise all the Inns of Court and Chancery into a University of Law. Those attempts failed; chiefly through the lack of wisdom displayed in issuing arbitrary and meddlesome Orders in Council, instead of allowing unification to mature on those natural and voluntary lines which had already been laid down.

Now the Inns of Chancery have practically vanished, leaving the Inns of Court to monopolise all the glory of the great future which undoubtedly still lies before them.

FOOTNOTES:

[75] _Inq. ad quod damnum_, 46 Hen. III., file ii., No. 47.

[76] _Duchy of Lancaster, Ancient Deeds_, L. 132-140.

[77] _Close Rolls_, 14 Ed. I., m. 2d.

[78] _Court of Hustings Wills_, R. R. Sharpe.

[79] _Survey of London_, pp. 32, 33. John Stow, reprint, 1876.

[80] _Patent Rolls_, 16 Ed. II., pt. i., m. 31.

[81] _Inq. p.m. Chan._, 20 Ed. IV., 99.

[82] _Feet of Fines_, London Trin., 44 Eliz.

[83] _Ancient Deeds_, B. 2191.

[84] _Placita Parl._, 35 Edw. I.

[85] _Memorials of London_, p. 357. H. T. Riley, 1868.

[86] _Historical Charters_, W. De Gray Birch.

[87] _The Commune of London_, J. H. Round.

[88] _Charter Rolls_, 19 Hen. III., m. ii.

[89] _Pat. Rolls_, 1 Ed. VI., pt. vi., m. 37.

[90] _Rot. Parl._, vol. i., p. 84, No. 22.

[91] _Chart. Convent of Malmesbury, Cotton MS._ Faust., B. viii., f. 158.

[92] _Ibid._, ff. 245, 245b.

[93] _Ibid._, f. 248.

[94] _Chart. Convent of Malmesbury, Cotton MS._ Faust., B. viii., f. 265.

[95] _Ibid._, ff. 239, 239b, 195b, 192.

[96] _Ibid._, f. 157b.

[97] _Ancient Deeds_, B. 2264.

[98] _Pat. Rolls_, 24 Ed. I., m. 17.

[99] _Cotton MS._, Faust., B. viii., f. 159.

[100] _Ibid._, f. 160b.

[101] _Ibid._, f. 161.

[102] _Ibid._, f. 162b.

[103] _Cotton MS._, Faust., B. viii., ff. 164b, 163b.

[104] _Ibid._, f. 165.

[105] _Ibid._, f. 168b.

[106] _Ibid._, f. 265b.

[107] _Augmentation Office Grants_, 36 Hen. VIII., No. 105.

[108] _Cotton MS._, Faust., B. viii., f. 253b.

[109] _Inq. p.m._; 1 Edw. II., 54, m. 11.

[110] _Inq. ad quod dam._, 8 Ed. II., 169.

[111] _Inq. p. m._, 44 Ed. III., 30, m. 16.

[112] _Close Rolls_, 22 Hen. VII., pt. ii.

[113] _Home Counties Mag._, Jan., 1904.

[114] _Gray's Inn_, p. 18. W. R. Douthwaite.

[115] _Close Rolls_, 5 Ed. II., m. 2.

[116] _Pat. Rolls_, 12 Ed. III., pt. i., m. 34.

[117] _Pat. Rolls_, 6 Ed. III., pt. iii., m. 9.

[118] _Ibid._, 9 Ed. III., pt. ii., m. 27.

[119] _Patent Rolls_, 13 Ed. III., pt. ii., m. 29.

[120] _Inner Temple Records_. F. A. Inderwick.

[121] _Close Rolls_, 165i, pt. x., No. 35.

[122] _Ibid._, 25 Chas. II., 5, m. 14, and 28 Chas. II., 6, m. 31.

[123] _Close Rolls_, Hen. III., 58, m. 15.

[124] _Harl. MS._, No. 4015, f. 198 vo.

[125] _Inq. p. m. Chan._, 8 Eliz., pt. i., No. 85.

[126] _Inq. p. m._, 6 Rich. II., No. 41.

[127] _Fines_, 1 Ed. VI., Hil.

[128] _P.C.C._ Humphry Cade, 21 Nodes.

[129] _Ibid._, John Devereux, 47, Alen.

[130] _Notes and Queries_, ser. vii., vol. ii.

[131] _Inq. ad quod dam._, 32 Hen. VI., file 451, No. 37.

[132] _Inq. p. m. Chan._, Series i., 9 Hen. VI., 54.

[133] _Inq. p. m._, 20 Ed. IV., No. 65.

[134] _Court of Hustings Wills._ R. R. Sharpe.

[135] _Cotton MS._, Faust., B. viii., ff. 247, 247b, 248.

[136] _Inq. ad quod dam._, 247, No. 14.

[137] _Cotton MS._, Faust., B. viii., f. 248.

[138] _Pat. Rolls_, 17 Ed. III., pt. i., m. 25d.

[139] _Close Rolls_, 23 Ed. III., m. 20d.

[140] _Pat. Rolls_, 6 Ed. II., pt. ii., m. 5.

[141] _Stat. of Realm_, 27 Ed. III., ii., c. i.

[142] _Rolls of Parl._, xxxiii., 28 Ed. III.

[143] _Selden Soc._, vol. x., 53.

[144] _Gray's Inn Pension Book_, p. 247. R. J. Fletcher.

[145] _Court of Hustings Wills._ R. R. Sharpe.

[146] _Ibid._

[147] _Memorials of London._ H. T. Riley.

[148] _Inq. ad quod dam. Chan._, f. 451, No. 36.

[149] _Add. MS._ 25,590.

[150] _Pat. Rolls_, 3 Ed. II., mm. 19, 8.

[151] _Ibid._, 19 Ed. III., part iii., mm. 3, 11; 20 Ed. III., part i., m. 25.

[152] _Ibid._, 8 Ed. IV., part i., m. 12.

[153] _Lords' Journals_, viii., p. 50.

THE GUILDHALL

BY CHARLES WELCH, F.S.A.

Guildhall, the home of civic government and the battle-ground of many a hard-won fight for civil and religious liberty, was built anew by the self-denying efforts of a generation of London citizens just five hundred years ago. This great work took ten years and more in building, and, like its sister edifices of still earlier days, the Tower of London, London Bridge, and Westminster Hall, tested to the utmost the energy and resources of the Londoners of those times. We learn from Fabyan, the alderman chronicler, that the building was begun in the year 1411 by Thomas Knowles, then mayor, and his brethren the aldermen. He tells us:--

"The same was made of a little cottage a large and great house as now it standeth, towards the charges whereof the companies gave large benevolences; also offences of men were pardoned for sums of money church for the maintenance of a chaplain to celebrate fines, amercements, and other things employed."

King Henry V., in 1415--the year of his famous victory at Agincourt--granted the City free passage for four boats by water, and as many carts by land, to bring lime, ragstone, and freestone for the work at Guildhall. Private citizens also came forward with contributions. The executors of Sir Richard Whittington, in 1422-3, gave two sums of £60 and £15 for paving the hall with Purbeck stone, and glazed some of the windows, placing in each the arms of Whittington. The rest of the windows in the hall and many of those in its various courts were glazed by various aldermen. So much of this ancient glass as survived the iconoclasm of the Commonwealth period was swept away by the Great Fire. The two handsome louvres which formed such conspicuous objects on the roof of the building were given by Alderman Sir William Hariot during his mayoralty in 1481. The mayor's chamber, council chamber, and several rooms above were built in 1425-6. An important part of the building was still wanting, for the mayors could not keep their feasts at the Guildhall until the time of Sir John Shaa. Under his leadership, and by the help of the Fellowships of the City, wealthy widows, and other well-disposed persons, the kitchens and other necessary offices were completed for use at his mayoralty feast in 1501. Since that year these famous banquets, which had till then been held in Merchant Taylors' Hall, or Grocers' Hall, have regularly taken place at the Guildhall.

On Tuesday, 4th September, 1666, in the course of the Great Fire, the Guildhall was ablaze, and its oak roof entirely destroyed. Vincent describes its appearance in his little book, _God's Terrible Voice to the City_:

"That night the sight of Guildhall was a fearfull spectacle, which stood the whole body of it for several hours together, after the fire had taken it without flames (I suppose because the timber was such solid oake) in a bright shining coale as if it had been a palace of gold or a great building of burnished brass."

After the Fire the original open roof was not rebuilt, but the walls were raised an additional storey, the ceiling covering this being flat and square panelled; eight circular windows on each side were added. This poor substitute for a roof was built, as Elmes states, "in haste and for immediate use, and evidently a temporary covering." It lasted, nevertheless, nearly two hundred years, until in 1861 the plans for a new open roof corresponding with the original design of the Guildhall were approved by the Corporation. The dimensions of this magnificent building are 152 feet in length, 49 feet 6 inches in width, and 89 feet in height, from the pavement to the ridge of the roof.

In the angles at the west end of the hall, on lofty pedestals, are the celebrated figures of the giants Gog and Magog. They have been believed by some to be Gogmagog and Corinæus, two mystical personages who were said to have fought together in some of those imaginary conflicts between the Trojans and the early inhabitants of Britain, which are recorded by monkish chroniclers of the Middle Ages. These figures were made by Captain Richard Saunders, a noted carver in King Street, Cheapside, and were put up about the year 1708. They took the place of two old wicker-work giants, which it had formerly been the custom to carry in procession at the mayoralty pageants.

The basement of the Guildhall consists of two crypts, which extend beneath the full length of the hall above. The eastern crypt is entirely vaulted and divided into three aisles by two rows of clustered columns of Purbeck marble, the intersections of the vaulting being covered with a most curious series of carved bosses representing flowers, heads, and shields. This crypt, which, fortunately, escaped the Great Fire, is the finest and most extensive undercroft remaining in London, and for excellence of design and sound preservation may be considered a unique example of its kind. For many years it was neglected and choked with rubbish, which covered its floors to the depth of several feet. In 1851 it was restored to its original condition, and was used as a supper-room for H.M. Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort on the 9th July, when the Corporation entertained the leading persons associated with the Great Exhibition held in that year. On that occasion it was fitted up as a baronial hall, the valuable plate lent by the City Companies being displayed upon an oak sideboard. Around each of the columns stood men clad in armour brought from the Tower of London, each holding a torch of gas for lighting the crypt. A charming feature of the decoration was the treatment of the passage in the western crypt--this was filled with trees and flowers of various kinds, and hundreds of singing birds were let free, thus giving the appearance of a forest glade in summer-time. There is no evidence that this crypt was appropriated to any special use in former times, but to-day it serves the useful, if unromantic, purpose of a kitchen for preparing the mayoralty banquet on the historic ninth of November.

The western crypt, which is separated from that just described by a massive wall of contemporary date, has a roof of arched brickwork dating, probably, from the period of the Great Fire. It is doubtful whether it ever formed an open chamber, and it is now, with the exception of its central passage, entirely devoted to cellarage. In one of its deeply-recessed windows were discovered, in 1902, together with some mediæval stone coffin-lids, some portions of the famous Cheapside cross, which was pulled down by order of the Long Parliament in 1643. These fragments, which were removed to the Guildhall Museum, bear the sculptured arms and badges of King Edward I. and his consort Queen Eleanor. The cross was taken down at the request of the Corporation, and, doubtless, by their officials, the mutilated fragments being removed to Guildhall, where these two pieces evidently lay for over 250 years.

On the south side of the Guildhall, and providing an entrance to it from Guildhall Yard, is a large Gothic porch, or archway. This last addition to the hall, erected in 1425, was one of its most beautiful features, and has been preserved, practically uninjured, to the present day. The porch consists of two bays of groined vaulting, the walls having deeply-recessed moulded and traceried panelling, and being provided with a convenient seat throughout their length on either side. The front of the porch was materially altered in the reign either of Elizabeth or James I., so that we cannot form a complete idea of its magnificent appearance. It was ornamented with seven finely sculptured statues, representing at the top our Saviour, a little below Law and Learning, and lower still, flanking the doorway on either side, Discipline, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance. The statue of our Saviour disappeared at an early date, but the other six figures may still be in existence, for they were presented by the Corporation, in 1794, to Banks the sculptor, at whose death, in 1809, they were purchased for £100 by Henry Bankes, M.P. for Corfe Castle. The present front of the Guildhall, of which the east wing was removed in 1873, was built by George Dance, the City Architect, in 1789.

Guildhall Chapel, or College, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalen and All Saints, stood in the north-east corner of Guildhall Yard, immediately adjoining the Guildhall. The chapel is said to have been built at the end of the thirteenth century, when Adam Franceys and Peter Faulore obtained licence from Edward III. to convey a piece of land for the erection of houses for the custos and chaplains of this college. The original building became in course of time too small for the requirements of the citizens, and in 1429, when the new Guildhall was nearing completion, a new chapel was built. This beautiful building, though injured and defaced, was not destroyed in the Great Fire of London, and continued to be used as a chapel until the latter part of the eighteenth century, when its religious services were discontinued. The chapel was then devoted to secular use, and became the Court of Requests until its final demolition in 1822 to make room for the new Law Courts. The great charm of this building was its beautiful western front, which faced the Guildhall Yard. This was adorned with three canopied niches containing statues of Edward VI., Elizabeth, and Charles I. (now preserved in the Guildhall Library), and with a glorious west window of seven lights, a perfect example of the Perpendicular style. Adjoining the chapel on the south was Blackwell Hall, which was for so many centuries the great Cloth Mart of the city.

Among the religious services which formed so bright a feature in ancient civic life those of the Guildhall Chapel held an important place. Besides their attendances at the Cathedral, at Paul's Cross, and at the 'Spital, the Lord Mayor and his brethren, with the City officers, attended Divine service at this chapel on Michaelmas Day before the election of a new Lord Mayor, and on many other occasions throughout the year. The sermons preached on these occasions were printed, and form quite a large body of civic homiletics, many of the preachers being men of great fame and reputation. The practice of attending the Mass of the Holy Spirit (for which a celebration of Holy Communion with sermon is now substituted) was revived, if not originated, by the celebrated Sir Richard Whittington on the day of his own election as Lord Mayor in 1406.

Another of the good deeds of this worthy mayor was the foundation, through his executor, of a library to be attached to the Guildhall College, under the custody of one of its chaplains. This was duly carried out in 1425 by the erection of a separate building of two floors, well supplied with books "for the profit of the students there, and those discoursing to the common people." This public library, which appears to have been the first of its kind in England, had, unfortunately, but a brief existence, _all_ of its books having been "borrowed" in 1550 by the Duke of Somerset, Lord Protector, by whom, as we learn from Stow the historian, they were never returned. The loss has since been, to some extent, supplied by the present library, founded at Guildhall in 1824, and rebuilt in 1873.

In the reign of Henry VI., after the completion of the great hall, other apartments, such as "the mayor's chamber, the council chamber, with other rooms above the stairs," were built. Of these no trace at present remains, and two Common Council chambers have since been erected. The first of these was a picturesque apartment, its walls being covered with statuary and paintings, the latter being chiefly presented to the Corporation by Alderman John Boydell. A new council chamber, of handsome and commodious design, was erected by the Corporation in 1884, from the designs of Sir Horace Jones, City Architect. The Court of Aldermen's present chamber was built in the latter half of the seventeenth century, and is a small but handsome room. The ceiling is painted with allegorical figures of the City of London--Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Fortitude--executed by Sir James Thornhill, who was presented by the Corporation with a gold cup of £225 7s. in value. Around the walls and in the windows are shields containing the arms of most of the Lord Mayors of the last 127 years.

The artistic decoration of the Guildhall and its various apartments includes monuments, busts, and portraits of men whom the City has delighted to honour. In the great hall are the monuments to Admiral Lord Nelson, by J. Smith; to the "Iron Duke," by J. Bell; to the Earl of Chatham, by Bacon, with inscription by Burke; to the younger Pitt, by Bubb, with Canning's inscription; and to Alderman Beckford, by Moore. On Beckford's monument is inscribed, in letters of gold, the speech which that famous citizen addressed, or is said to have addressed, as Lord Mayor, to King George IV. on his throne. Around the hall were formerly hung portraits of twenty-two judges who assisted in the special Court of Judicature appointed to decide the disputes which arose as to sites of property in the City after the Great Fire. These portraits, which are now hung in the old Common Council chamber, were painted at the Corporation's expense by Michael Wright, Sir Peter Lely having declined the commission because the judges refused to wait upon him at his house for the necessary sittings. In the vestibule of the council chambers are a series of portrait-busts of statesmen, philanthropists, warriors, and men of high eminence in the general estimation of their fellow-countrymen. The decoration of the outer lobby was executed as a memorial of his shrievalty in 1889-90 by the late Alderman Sir Stuart Knill, Bart., and exhibits the Corporation and the City Livery Companies in a very pleasing symbolical design.

At the west end of the great hall are two law courts, where the City judges, the Recorder, and the Common Sergeant administer justice in the Mayor's Court. The aldermen sit in rotation as magistrates in the Police Court in the Guildhall Yard, and in Guildhall Buildings is the City of London Court (anciently the Sheriff's Court), over which two judges preside for the Poultry and Giltspur Street Compters respectively.