Part 14

The choir, in all probability aisleless, measured 90 feet from east to west, making six bays. The great cloister (110 feet square) lay to the south of the Church, and, unlike the general practice among the friars, its walks were roofed and not built over. The description in _Pierce the Ploughman’s Creed_ is borne out by the surveys at Loseley, and there is little doubt that the poet’s admiration was well founded. Some curious particulars of burials in the cloister are preserved. In the will of Sir Robert Southwell, Knight, dated 1514, is a desire to be buried “in the Cloister of the Friars Preachers in the city of London, under or near the Lavatory there nigh to the picture of the holy Crucifix there set.” In his further directions he says: “I will that that friar of the same place, appointed daily for the work to say there the mass of the Trinity, by the space of xx years next after my decease say every day a special collect in his mass for my soul, also de profundis with a pater and ave and crede for my said soul ... at the said lavatory immediately when the convent of the same place or the most part of them shall go to dinner. Item I will that that friar being a priest that first happen to come any day during the said xx years, in the morning first to the said lavatory to wash his hands and then and there to say de profundis for the souls before said, have for his so doing 1d.” Besides this, he desires the prior and sub-prior to say “God have mercy on my soul every day after dinner,” and awards them 13s. 4d. a year for the purpose.

Another curious legacy is that of William Stalworth, a citizen and merchant-tailor, who was also buried in the Cloister, and in his will, dated 1519, says: “I will that there shall be distributed to the Friars Preachers every Lent for ten years a barrel of white herrings, and to the young friars of the same house for the same time a frayle of fygges.”

The extensive buildings of the Friary lay round the Great Cloister, and considerably to the south and east. The Chapter House stood in the centre of the eastern range, and over its vestibule and various rooms on the ground floor stretched the dorter (or dormitory), which is described as having a stairway down into the Church. Behind the northern part of the dorter was the Prior’s lodging,[39] and leading eastwards from its southern part was a second or south dorter, built over a vaulted undercroft, remains of which were discovered in 1900. This last-named appears to have been the Provincial’s lodging, and the whole building formed the northern range of the Infirmary or Inner Cloister. The infirmary on the west, the upper and lower libraries on the east, and the bakehouse and brewhouse on the south completed the enclosure.

[39] To the prior’s lodging belonged two gardens, described as adjacent to the lodging called the priory lodging on the east side, and above the great royal garde-robe, vulgarly called “the King’s great Wardrobe on the west side thereof, containing by estimation one acre of land.” These gardens are of considerable interest, as it was in this neighbourhood that Shakespeare’s house in Blackfriars formerly stood.—_Archæologia_, vol. LXIII.

Of the Great Cloister the southern range was occupied by the Frater (or dining hall), and on the east was the Guest House, which, even before the Dissolution, was let out to tenants. This was the lodging prepared for Charles V. in 1522, and the porter’s lodge behind marks the point at which commenced the gallery built by Henry VIII. for the Emperor’s convenience, between the Guest House and Bridewell. A window appears to have been formed between the nave of the Church and the Guest rooms, occupying much the same position as that to be seen at Westminster Abbey. South of this range and communicating with the Frater were the Buttery and Kitchen. The Guest House ultimately passed into the hands of the Apothecaries’ Company (1632), who rebuilt it after the Great Fire. In size and position, therefore, the present building follows precisely that which gave shelter to the Emperor Charles V. To the south of the Kitchen and Buttery was the Chapel of St. Anne, which, though not a parish church, was no doubt erected for the benefit of the various lay inhabitants of the precinct. Its site is now occupied by _The Times_ printing office, and considerable remains came to light in the course of rebuilding in 1872.

Regarding the “Upper Frater,” which stands still farther south, I will quote from my contribution to _Archæologia_ (vol. lxiii.):—“The only buildings now remaining to be noticed formed a block of considerable size lying to the south-west of the cloister, and quite separate from the ranges flanking it. The main structure of the group was a building of such unusual size and obscure designation that it will be necessary to consider it at some length. Hugh Losse describes it as ‘One house called the upper frater containeth in length 107 ft. by 52 ft., abutting south and east to the Lady Kingston’s house and garden, north to a hall where the King’s revels lieth at this present and west toward the Duchy chamber and Mr. Portinary’s house. A void room being an entry towards the little kitchen and a coal house containing in length 30 ft. and in breadth 17 ft. One chamber called the Duchy chamber, with a dark lodging thereunder containing in length 50 ft. and in breadth 16 ft., abutting against the north end of the said frater and abutting west upon Mr. Portinary’s parlour.’

“The mention of Mr. Portinary’s parlour fixes the position of the whole block, and shows that the Duchy chamber flanked the kitchen yard (mentioned above) on the south side, for the same parlour is mentioned as the southern boundary of the yard.

“Setting it out on these lines we find that the eastern wall of the upper frater must have been the western building line of Printing House Square, while its southern end is represented approximately by Huish Court.

“A second description of this building is to be found in a rather unexpected quarter. In 1597 Sir William More, of Loseley, as executor to Sir T. Cawarden, sold to James Burbidge a certain great building with yards and subsidiary structures adjoining, of which the description in the deed of sale leaves no doubt that it was the upper frater and its adjoining buildings of the earlier survey.[40] If any further proof were needed beyond the similarity in description it is found in the fact that the upper frater is the only available building once belonging to Sir Thomas Cawarden that his executor could have sold. The description in the deed is too lengthy and involved to be quoted in full, but it describes a building three storeys high, the top floor being formerly one great room with staircases leading up to it, bounded on the north by the Pipe office and its yard (formerly the kitchen yard). This was the structure that James Burbidge transformed into the celebrated Blackfriars Theatre, and a document recently discovered by Dr. Wallace gives its internal dimensions as 66 ft. by 46 ft.[41] It will be at once seen that the width 46 ft. internal agrees admirably with the external width of the upper frater, 52 ft., allowing some 3 ft. for each side wall. The difference in length is accounted for by the fact that Burbidge did not make use of the whole building, but divided off the northern part into ante-rooms and apartments for the children of the chapel, &c., leaving 66 ft. out of 107 ft. for the theatre itself.[42]

[40] Printed in full in Halliwell-Phillipps’s _Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare_, Vol. II., p. 299.

[41] Dr. Wallace, _The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars_, p. 39.

[42] A drawing in the Gardner Collection, supposed to represent the front of the theatre, is reproduced in G. P. Baker’s _The Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist_. It indicates a classic building with an open colonnaded portico, but the ascription is doubtful.

“With regard to the monastic use of this building it was obviously not the common frater of the friars, which here flanked the cloister. There is, however, one mediæval building, of the existence of which there is documentary evidence—‘the Parliament Chamber’—which in all probability is the structure in question. It was the great apartment used for the sittings of two parliaments of Henry VIII., and which also witnessed the trial for the divorce of Catherine of Arragon and Henry VIII. before Cardinals Campeggio and Wolsey.

“The writ of summons for this trial describes it as the ‘Parliament Chamber near the Friars Preachers.’ The fact that this name is used is sufficient proof that the great frater of the priory is not referred to, while the term ‘near’ implies that it was not one of the main block of the priory buildings grouped round the cloister, but lay somewhere within the precinct.

“The upper frater will be found to satisfy all the conditions required. It was the largest hall in the precinct, and a large apartment would be essential both for the ceremonial of the trial and for the sittings of Parliament. Secondly, it was situated on the outskirts of the priory buildings, suiting admirably the description. Thirdly, there is no record of the existence of any other hall of sufficient dimensions in a similar situation; and lastly, the small structure adjoining it was called the Duchy chamber, which argues an official use at some time of these apartments.

“All things considered, then, there is every likelihood of the identity of the ‘Parliament Chamber’ with the house called the upper frater and the Blackfriars Theatre of later times, and we may conclude that when Shakespeare’s _Henry VIII._ was played at Blackfriars the celebrated trial scene was acted within the actual walls that witnessed the real drama that ruined the fortunes of the great cardinal and put an unhappy termination to Queen Catherine’s married life.”

WHITEFRIARS, LONDON.

The London house of the Carmelites or the White Friars lay between Fleet Street and the River Thames, their precinct being bounded on the west by the Inner Temple—the present houses of King’s Bench Walk—and on the east, roughly by the present Whitefriars Street. Bouverie Street runs across the nave of their Church and traverses the site of the west walk of the cloister.

Although little has been hitherto known concerning the buildings, it is possible, with the assistance of a plan of seventeenth century date, of documentary evidence of the period of the Suppression, and of the evidence of remains discovered on the site, to present a very fair idea of the general arrangements of the Priory of Our Lady of Mount Carmel before its destruction.

The house of the White Friars in London was founded by Sir Ralph Gray in 1241, and Stow tells us that in the fourteenth century their Church was rebuilt by Hugh Courtenay, Earl of Devon, whose house adjoined the precinct. Various additions were made to their property about this time. Courtenay was succeeded as patron by Sir Robert Knolles, and the choir, presbytery, and steeple were rebuilt by Robert Marshall, Bishop of Hereford, in 1404–16. The precinct was extended to the Thames by the year 1396.

The position of the cloister is accurately shown on the seventeenth century plan already referred to. The Church lay to the north of it, and the north-east angle of the nave was discovered incorporated in some old buildings in Bouverie Street. It was a massive structure of fourteenth or fifteenth century date, built of chalk and ragstone with quoins of Godstone stone. The wall returned at right angles at the east end of the yard at the back of the house, and apparently continued westward right under Bouverie Street, the south having been the internal face. Within the angle was a vault containing the remains perhaps of Sir John Paston, who in his will, dated 1477, bequeaths “my body if I die in the city of London [to the church] of our Lady in the White Friars there, at the north-east corner of the body of the Church, and there to be made an oratory ... to the value of xx ls.”

The height of the wall makes it almost certain that the aisle was lighted by lofty windows similar to those to be seen at Austin Friars, and that the clerestory was omitted, as indeed is distinctly shown on Wyngaerde’s view of London. If this were so, it would have been necessary to leave an open court between the cloister and the Church to light the south aisle precisely as was done at the Grey Friars. The nave would thus be some 80 ft. wide and apparently some 150 ft. or 9 bays long.

From the list of burials and other sources we learn that there was the usual “walk between the choir and the church,” or passage way beneath the steeple. The fifteenth century choir was almost certainly aisleless, and to the south of it, separated by an open space, was the “old quire” of Sir Ralph Gray’s thirteenth century building, which had been left standing while the new church was in process of construction.

From particulars of the grants made at the Dissolution, and with the help of the sixteenth century plan in the Print Room of the British Museum, it is possible to extract the following information. The cloister measured 97 ft. 6 in. from east to west and 91 ft. from north to south, including the walks which were built over in accordance with the general practice of the friars. The eastern range held the dorter on the first floor and the southern range the frater, while the western buildings perhaps contained the library (which is mentioned in connection with the cloister), since the Guest Hall must almost certainly be assigned to a long building shown on the plan extending westwards from this side parallel with the nave of the Church. The Chapter House was built out from the eastern range, and south of it was the prior’s lodging, probably on the spot where still lies a small vaulted crypt beneath the pavement of Britton’s Court—the sole remaining relic of the Carmelite Priory. This vault, some 12 ft. 6 in. square, has a small door at the north end of the west wall, and is of a curious domed form with diagonal and intermediate ribs meeting at a carved boss in the centre, which apparently represents a full-length figure within a large Tudor rose.

Beyond this our information is uncertain; it is impossible to locate the infirmary, and such names as “the Court Place,” “the Brewhouse,” and the “Mill House” can only be approximately referred to any given locality. It is to be feared that little further information is likely to come to light unless some extensive rebuilding takes place upon the site. With the means at our disposal, however, the main buildings have been identified, although the little vaulted cellar under the prior’s house and the nameless grave in the nave now filled with concrete are the only existing relics of the great convent that stood for three hundred years upon the Strand of the Thames between Temple Garden and St. Bride’s Church.

—A. W. C.

QUEENBOROUGH CASTLE

XVI.

QUEENBOROUGH CASTLE AND ITS BUILDER, WILLIAM OF WYKEHAM.

The existing architectural works of William of Wykeham are sufficient, both in extent and magnificence, to place him in the foremost rank amongst the great building prelates of the Middle Ages. His own cathedral of Winchester bears ample marks of his munificence, but the twin educational establishments of Winchester and New Colleges are perhaps a finer monument of the foresight that warned him that the days of monasticism were numbered, and that the founding of a college was a more enduring work than the rearing of a minster.

The precise amount of personal control and guidance exercised by the building prelates over the works that they initiated must always remain a moot point, and modern criticism seems inclined to divest them of all credit save that of patrons of the arts. Nevertheless, it is nowise inconsistent with the extraordinary versatility of the mediæval mind that the great statesman and ecclesiastic should also be an adept at architecture, and this is more than likely in the case of William of Wykeham, whose earlier years were spent in supervising the Royal works.

Born in 1324, he became surveyor, at the age of thirty-two, to the works at Henley and Easthampstead (a Royal hunting-box on the skirts of Windsor Park), and later was entrusted with the more important operations at Windsor Castle. Alterations to Leedes (Kent), Dover, and Hadleigh castles came in turn under his care, and in 1361–7 he superintended the building of the entirely new castle of Queenborough.

In those days prolonged and valued service to the Crown was commonly rewarded by ecclesiastical preferment, a form of recompense agreeable alike to both parties; for, while it cost the donor nothing, it provided a lucrative sinecure for the recipient. Thus Wykeham became a noted pluralist, holding as many as a dozen prebends, besides numerous other offices. He was for some years Dean of St. Martin-le-Grand in London, and in 1366 became Bishop of Winchester, a position he occupied for nearly forty years.

His ecclesiastical works at Winchester and Oxford have long received their due meed of admiration, and it is not with them that we are now concerned, but rather with the remarkable castle of Queenborough, the erection of which he supervised.

The Island of Sheppey, on which it stood, is a dreary tract of country, separated by a sluggish waterway from the mainland of Kent, and rising on the north side in the low hills of Minster. Since the destruction of the castle, its sole claims to architectural interest are centred in the priory church of Minster and the fine parish church at Eastchurch. The Castle of Queenborough, of which only the earthworks now remain, was begun by Edward III. about the year 1361, and took about six years to build; but from that time little is heard of it till it entered into the extensive schemes of Henry VIII. for the defences of the southern coast, when the building was repaired and brought up to date. On the triumph of the Parliament, Queenborough, in 1650, was surveyed by their orders, with the other Crown lands, with a view to its sale. In this survey it is described as “lying within the common belonging to the town of Queenborough and containing about twelve rooms of one range of building below stairs, and about forty rooms from the first storey upward, being circular and built of stone with six towers and certain out-offices, all the roof being covered with lead. Within the circumference of the castle was one little round court paved with stone, and in the middle one great well, and without the castle was one great court surrounding it, both court and castle being surrounded with a great stone wall, and the outside of that moated round.” The Commissioners speak of it somewhat contemptuously as having been built in the time of bows and arrows, and it was almost immediately sold and pulled down. Fortunately a careful ground plan, here reproduced, is preserved amongst the Hatfield papers, and a drawing by Hollar taken shortly before its demolition gives some indication of the remarkable form and unusual appearance it formerly presented.

In the history of English military architecture the Castle of Queenborough occupies an isolated position. It was almost the earliest example of the fort, in the modern sense, as opposed to the fortified dwelling-house, and was the immediate precursor of the “castles,” so called, of Henry VIII. Castle-building under Edward I., as exemplified in the great structures reared by that sovereign in Wales, is but little altered in general form from the larger fortifications of the Norman and Angevin kings, the rectangular keep and mound, however, being abandoned. Conway, Carnarvon, and Beaumaris are familiar examples of this period, which was followed by a rapid transition. The tendency became all for compactness and centralisation, the result being a great square block, with towers at the angles and a central courtyard. Numerous buildings of this class, such as Bolton-in-Wensleydale, Wressle, and Sheriff Hutton, were erected towards the close of the fourteenth century, and form almost the latest type of domestic combined with genuine military architecture which this country produced. Queenborough, as we have said, stands quite apart from either class. It provides no domestic accommodation worthy of the name, and its fifty-odd rooms, while imposing in number, were insignificant in size, being placed one above the other in the six lofty circular towers that surrounded the central courtyard. The perfect symmetry of the design is another unusual feature, in which the value of the circular plan, in the defensive warfare of those days, is fully appreciated.

The building which approaches it most nearly in form is the castle of Camber, built by Henry VIII. nearly two hundred years later, in the flat saltmarsh on the seaward side of Rye. Here, however, we have a circular keep in the centre, and the flanking towers are transferred to the perimeter of the polygonal outer curtain; and, furthermore, the danger of lofty towers in the face of artillery has reduced the whole structure to a low, squat form, far different from the aspiring turrets of Queenborough.

Attempts have been made, notably in the Winchester volume of the _Archæological Journal_, to recover the plan of Queenborough, but the drawing here reproduced for the first time sets at rest all question as to its form, and provides another interesting landmark in the history of architectural development.

—A. W. C.

INDEX.

A.

Abbot Archbishop, 219, 230, 234

Abbot’s Hospital, Guildford, 215–237

Abingdon, Christ’s Hospital, 236

Abingdon, Tompkins’ Almshouses, 236

Adam, Robert, 194

Alcazar, Palace of, 3

Allen, Edward, 17, 18, 21

Aldgate Priory, 84

Almshouses, 215–237

Alnwick Abbey, 110 Castle, 194

Anne of Denmark, 190

Apothecaries Hall, 36 Company, 260

Archer, William, 15, 23, 24

Architects, Elizabethan, &c. _See under_ Chrismas, Jansen, John of Padua, Hawthorne, Needham, Osborne, Smithson, Spicer, Symonds, Thorpe, Torrington, Toto del’ Nunziata

Architecture, Domestic, 3, 7, 69–75, 124, 127, 128, 131, 132 Military. _See_ Castles Mediæval Planning, 31

Arundel House, Strand, 182 Street, 182 Earl of, 5, 182

Ashby-de-la-Zouche, Castle, 73

Atheny Friary, 246

Audley End, 190

Aubrey, 80, 92, 99, 101

Augustinian, Canons, 110

Austin Friars. _See_ Friars

Austin Friars (Church), London, 243, 244, 250, 265

B.

Bankside, 17–18

Banquet House, 10, 11, 12

Baptist’s Head Tavern, 177

Barber’s Hall, 36

Barking Abbey, 197–214

Barley, Dorothy, 200

Barnstaple, Penrose Almshouses, 230

Bayham Abbey, 108

Beamsley Hospital, Yorks, 221, 228

Beaufort House. _See_ Chelsea Henry, Duke of, 96, 99 Cardinal, 225

Beaulieu, 4

Beaumaris Castle, 274

Bede, 199

Bee, Anthony Bishop of Durham, 52, 64

Bedford House, 182 Earl of, 182

Belvoir Priory, 110

Benedictines, The, 70, 110, 242

Beowulf, 69

Bear Garden, The, 16

Berkhampstead Castle, 141, 142

Berlin, 31

Bishop Auckland, 73

Blackfriars. _See_ Friars

Blackfriars, London, 255–263

Blackfriars Theatre, 262, 263

Blackheath, Morden College, 236

Blois, Bishop Henry of, 70

Blomfield, Professor, 6

Blount (Tomb), 42

Bolton-in-Wensleydale, 274

Bradford-on-Avon, Halls Almshouses, 236

Bramshill, 185

Bray, Jesus Hospital, 225

Braun and Hohenberg, 5

Brenan, Gerald, 188

Brickbarn Close, 94

Brickwork, 10, 79

Bridewell, 4

Brinkburn Abbey, 211

Britain’s Burse. _See_ New Exchange

Bromley-by-Bow, Tudor House, 195

Bromley College, 236