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CORNELL .
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

 

 

 

 

 
ornell University Library

History of London
HISTORY OF LONDON
 
HISTORY OF LONDON

BY

HELEN DOUGLAS-IRVINE

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK
JAMES POTT & COMPANY

1912
CONTENTS

 

CHAPTER

I,

II,

Ill.

Iv.

VI.

VIL.

VIII.

IX.

XI.

XII,

XIII.

XIV.

XV.

XVI.

XVII.

XVIII.

XIX.

XX.

XXI.

LONDON BEFORE THE CONQUEST . . . .
UNDER THE NORMAN KINGS . . . . .
THE GRANTING OF THE COMMUNE . a . .
THE RISE OF THE CRAFTS AND THE BARONS’ WAR .
THE VICTORY OF THE CRAFTS, . . . .
THE CHURCH IN MEDIAEVAL LONDON . Bs .
THE PERIOD OF SOCIAL REVOLUTION 7 . .
SOCIAL CONDITIONS IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY
THE LIVERY COMPANIES AND LANCASTER AND YORK

SOCIAL AND ARCHITECTURAL LONDON IN THE
FIFTEENTH CENTURY . . ‘ . .

THE CHURCH BEFORE THE REFORMATION
MERCHANT ADVENTURERS AND CHURCH REFORM .
ELIZABETHAN LONDON

PURITAN LONDON . 7 . ‘. .
REVOLUTION IN LONDON . . . .

THE WEST END UNTIL THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
THE CITY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

WEST LONDON IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
LONDON SOCIETY UNDER ANNE AND THE GEORGES .
MODERN LONDON . ; . : ‘ .

THE COUNTY OF LONDON é . ‘ : .

PAGE

13
24
38
51

77
g2
109

129
147
158
177
203
226
247
266
288
307
321

339
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

.

LONDON IN 1658 (FROM FAITHORNE’S MAP) : . Frontispiece

 

EFFIGY OF GEOFFREY DE MANDEVILLE IN THE

TEMPLE CHURCH . : ‘ : : . To face page 21
DISCOMFITURE OF REBELS BY RICHARD II. . : a 7; 86
RICHARD II, GOING DOWN THE THAMES IN HIS

BARGE 4 ; ; 2 : ‘ 2 i 5 88
THE CRYPT OF GERRARD’S HALL ; ; ‘ : i 94
PROCLAMATION OF TOURNAMENT AT SMITHFIELD

IN 1390 (FROM A CONTEMPORARY MANU-

SCRIPT) j : : } ; : : x Wg. IOs,

FUNERAL OF RICHARD II. (FROM A CONTEMPORARY

MANUSCRIPT) : : : : 3 : a » 10
A FIFTEENTH CENTURY HOUSE IN LONDON . : : 240
INTERIOR OF CROSBY HALL : ; ; ‘ m « 12ae

CHAPEL OF ST. MARY MAGDALEN AND ALL SAINTS,

GUILDHALL Z yy: ESS
CORONATION PROCESSION OF EDWARD VI. . ; 5 » 174
AN ELIZABETHAN HOUSE IN LONDON . : ‘ 3 » 186
THE BELLE SAUVAGE . : : s : : 45 »  I92
THE GLOBE THEATRE . é : ; : E - 7 196
THE ROYAL EXCHANGE : : d : : a » 200
PREACHING AT ST. PAUL’S CROSS : : : . » 204

A SEVENTEENTH CENTURY HOUSE IN LONDON . ” ” 222
 

Vill LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

 

BURYING THE DEAD IN 1665 _ . : ‘ . To face page 236
THE GREAT FIRE (FROM THE CONTEMPORARY

PAINTING BY OLD GRIFFIER, IN THE POSSES-

SION OF ROBERT COLDEN, ESQ.) . ; . 35 » 240
DURHAM HOUSE, SALISBURY HOUSE, AND WORCES-

TER HOUSE . : : : : Z : - » 254
SOME SEVENTEENTH CENTURY SIGNS . - ; ” » 282

ST. JAMES’S SQUARE IN 1741 (FROM AN ENGRAV-

ING BY SUTTON NICHOLLS) . : : : * 3. 2204
ITALIAN OPERA HOUSE, HAYMARKET . : : . a Er
VAUXHALL GARDENS . : Z : : : — nS

ST. JAMES’S STREET IN 1735 (FROM AN ENGRAV-
ING BY HOGARTH) ‘ ‘ : ; : a - 16

FIVE POUND NOTE OFFICE, BANK OF ENGLAND 9 ” 322

THE QUADRANT ABOUT 1840 : : : . re
CHAPTER I

LONDON BEFORE THE CONQUEST

 

N the history of a town the first fact is its site. Our
knowledge of the situation of the city is what we
know of the earliest Londoners, the men of the dim
ancient ages who made their settlement on the road-

way of the Thames.

The Thames valley stretches between the hills of Hert-
fordshire on the north and the North Downs on the south.
The channel of the river must once have been both broader
and straighter than it is at present; and it flowed through a
marsh which at high tide was flooded. Oneither side it had
tributary streams. The Westbourne, from the slopes north
of Hyde Park, followed a path suggested by the Serpentine,
and reached the Thames by way of the district now Belgravia.
The course of the Tyburn is indicated by the pond in St.
James’s Park, and near its mouth it formed the island of
Thorney, the site of Westminster Abbey. The Fleet or
the Holburn had its source in the slopes of Hampstead and
Highgate, and crossed modern Fleet Street and Holborn:
in the twelfth century it was navigable at least as far as
Fleet Street. Walbrook cut the city in two, roughly along
the line of the street which has its name; and the river Lea
flowed on the outskirts of the site of greater London.

On the left bank of the Thames the ground forms a terrace,

H.L. B
 

2 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

some two miles broad, which consists of flint gravel, more
or less sandy, and which rests on London clay. Its level
was broken chiefly by the Fleet, eastwards of which the land
sloped upwards in what is now Ludgate Hill. It was on
this gravel terrace to the east of the Fleet that the first
Londoners settled: there, by sinking shallow wells, they
could obtain a water supply; there they escaped the
malarial vapours of the swamps of Essex and Kent; _ no hill
was near to provide a vantage point for their enemies; and
the Thames connected them with the rest of the world.
Geoffrey of Monmouth, who wrote an account of the
origin of London, in the twelfth century, recognised the
importance of its site. He told that Brutus, after he had
named his kingdom of Britain, ‘‘ entered upon a design of
building a city, and in order to it, travelled through the land
to find out a convenient situation; and coming to the river
Thames, he walked along the shore, and at last pitched upon
a place very fit for his purpose. Here, therefore, he built a
city which he called New Troy, under which name it con-
tinued a long time after, till at last by corruption of the
original word it came to be called Trinovantum.” Subse-
quently King Belinus made in the city a gate “of wonderful
structure, which the citizens call after his name Belingsgate
to this day. Over it he built a prodigious large tower, and
under it a haven or quay for ships. . . . When he had
finished his days his body was burnt and the ashes put up
in a golden urn, which they placed at Trinovantum with
wonderful art at the top of the tower above-mentioned.”
And finally King Lud, who was famous for the building of
cities, rebuilt the walls of Trinovantum and surrounded them
with innumerable towers. ‘‘ He likewise commanded the
citizens to build houses, and all other kinds of structures in
 

LONDON BEFORE THE CONQUEST 3

 

it, so that no cities in all the foreign countries to a great
distance could show more beautiful palaces. He was withal
a warlike man, and very magnificent in his feasts and public
entertainments. And though he had many other cities, yet
he loved this above them all, and resided in it the greater
part of the year, for which reason it was afterwards called
Kaerlud, and, by corruption of the word, Caerlondon; and
again, by change of languages in process of time, London;
as also by foreigners who arrived here and reduced this
country under their subjection, Londres. At last he dying,
his body was buried by the gate which is to this time called
after his name Porthlud, and in the Saxon Ludesgata.”

This is the story which the men of old London believed
of their city, and which has historic value to the extent of
its effect on their imagination. Mr. Lethaby holds that the
legend of New Troy is the explanation by medizval etymolo-
gists of the memory of the Trinobantes, that tribe of Essex
and Middlesex whom Cesar found to be “the strongest
state of those regions.” There is in the myth evidence of
the extreme traditional antiquity of the walls of London.

Geoffrey is probably right in concluding from the city’s
name that it had a pre-Roman origin. But when he assigns
to so early a date the beginning of London’s greatness he is
guided only by the chronicler’s desire to exalt the honour of
his subject. All knowledge of London previous to the
Roman occupation is conjectural ; and warranted conjecture
cannot even base itself on a certainty of the permanent
occupation of the site in the first century before the Christian
era. It is remarkable that Julius Czsar, who, during his
second attempt on Britain, was in the neighbourhood of the
Lower Thames, does not mention London. Therefore it

cannot have been in his time an important town. Possibly
B2
 

4 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

the impenetrable nature of the surrounding country had
prevented it from becoming anything but an occasional
camping ground for the Trinobantes or other tribes.

In A.D. 62 occurs, in the pages of Tacitus, the first
mention of the city. The Roman General Suetonius was
quelling the rebellion of the eastern Britons under Queen
Boadicea. He marched along the Watling Street and
entered Londinium, ‘‘ uncertain whether he should choose it
as a seat of war.” It was still a place of comparative
insignificance, and evidently unwalled, but as a trading port
it had risen to some importance; “though not distinguished
_by the name of colony, it was much frequented by a number
of merchants and trading vessels.” The inhabitants were
sympathetic to the Romans; but Suetonius “as he looked
round on his scanty force of soldiers, resolved to save the
province at the cost of a single town. Nor did the tears
and weeping of the people, as they implored his aid, deter
him from giving the signal of departure and receiving into
his army all who would go with him. Those who were
chained to the spot by the weakness of their sex or the
infirmity of age or the attractions of the place were cut off
by the enemy,” who had for booty all the riches possessed
by this early London.

In the two succeeding centuries the city arose again, and
appears to have enjoyed peace and prosperity. It would
seem to have consisted of houses which stood in gardens
and orchards and were irregularly disposed. Because it
was conveniently situated on the Thames the Romans made
it the chief centre of their road system, a circumstance which
was to give it an unrivalled place in the medizval kingdom.

From the Kentish ports the Watling Street, not to be
confused with the city street of that name, led by Greenwich,
 

LONDON BEFORE THE CONQUEST 5

 

Deptford and St. George’s Fields, across the river at
Westminster, and then to the south end of Park Lane, where
it made an angle, and subsequently followed the line of the
Edgware Road, to lead to Verulam and Chester. From
Colchester another road crossed the Lea at Old Ford,
passed to the north of the city, and, keeping roughly along
the line of Oxford Street, intersected with the Watling
Street near Marble Arch, and thence, by way of Brentford
and Hounslow, led to the west, crossing the Thames near
Staines. Ermine Street, the road from Chichester, actually
traversed the city; it crossed the Thames to the east of
modern London Bridge, and passed northwards near the line
of Bridge Street, Gracechurch Street, and Bishopsgate, and
thence by a straight road, of which parts are now Kingsland
Road, High Street and Stoke Newington Road, on to Lincoln.
Another Roman highway seems to have branched off from
the western road near the site of Brentford, and thence,
keeping to the north bank of the Thames, to have crossed
the Watling Street at the angle near Hyde Park Corner,
and thence to have led to Ludgate; and yet another and
a shorter way, of which Newgate formed part, connected the
river bank of the city with Watling Street.

In the year 297 London was held by a company of
Franks who had been in the service of Allectus, the usurper
of the imperial throne. They were ejected when part of the
fleet of Constantine arrived in the river.

The fact that the city had at this time become an object
to invading barbarians goes to justify those who hold that
the wall around it was built at the close of the third or the
beginning of the fourth century. According, however, to
another and an ably supported theory its origin is no later
than the middle of the second century. It was this Roman
 

6 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

wall, frequently heightened and repaired, which mainly
guarded London throughout the middle ages, which had
eventually the gates of Aldgate, Bishopsgate, Moorgate,
Cripplegate, Aldersgate, Newgate and Ludgate, and which
was demolished only in 1766. A portion of it was removed
in the reign of Richard I. in order to allow the construction
of Tower Ditch; and in 1297 Edward I. gave permission
for its rebuilding from Ludgate to the river in such manner
as should include the precincts of Blackfriars monastery.

In 367 a mixed force of Franks, Picts and Scots, and
Saxons attacked London, but were driven away by
Theodosius, then in command of the forces of Valentinian I.,
and afterwards emperor. To the late Roman period, when
there was constant danger of barbarian incursions into the
Thames, the construction of a wall of the city along the
river bank has been ascribed.

The fact that Roman London unmistakably aroused the
cupidity of invading hosts is a proof of its wealth. Such
is otherwise attested by evidences of the culture and luxury
of its inhabitants which excavators have discovered. While
it would seem never to have been an eminent place in the
military system, it was probably a very important trading
town. Its dignity was such that it received the title of
Augusta, apparently in the period of Constantine the Great,
the early fourth century.

The Roman protection was withdrawn from London about
the year 410, and then a dark period supervened in the
history of thecity. Probably trade and population dwindled
almost or quite to nothing. There may have been many
attempts, successful and otherwise, on the part of one or
another force to hold or to acquire the walled town which
commanded the Thames. A hint of sucha course of events
 

LONDON BEFORE THE GONQUEST 7

is given by the record that in 457 the Britons fled from Kent
to London. There is indeed a theory that the history of
London has been exceptionally continuous from Roman
until modern times; but this presupposes in the Londoners
after the departure of the Romans very unusual and unat-
tested strength and organisation. The hypothesis is more-
over unnecessary to the explanation of later conditions.
There is no absolute proof that the Romans influenced the
medizval and modern city except in so far as they had made
the wall and the roads. The gap in knowledge was in a less
critical age filled by Arthurian legends.

In the beginning of the seventh century London is, through
the writings of the Venerable Bede, rediscovered. As in 62
its commercial importance is emphasised : it is described as
an emporium of many peoples to which men travelled by
land and by sea. It was also the metropolis of the East
Saxons, and one of the two archiepiscopal sees instituted in
601 by Pope Gregory. St. Augustine in 604 ordained Mellitus
bishop of the East Saxons, and their king, Ethelbert, made
on the site near the west gate of his chief city the church of
St. Paul, for the bishop and his successors. Thus Saxon
London, a city built of wood within the area which the
Romans had enclosed, and partly along the lines of their
streets, was a centre of trade, the capital of a kingdom, and
a cathedral town. Its life probably centred in the cathedral
precincts, for there, where until the sixteenth century stood
the city belfry, was the meeting-place of the folkmoot. This
institution was called in later medieval times a thing of
ancient custom, and it is so Saxon in character that there is
little hardihood in asserting its existence when London was
the capital of Essex. Under the pious King Ethelbert a
bell must have rung to bring the people together outside the
8 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

cathedral; and there they must have assembled in arms,
shaken their spears in dissent, or clashed their shields in
applause, and responded with cries of approval or con-
demnation, as the proposals of their rulers were laid before
them.

After the death of Ethelbert in 616 London relapsed into
heathendom, but was again converted in the second half of
the century.

There are fairly continuous records of the part played by
London, from the ninth century onwards, in the struggle
with the Danes. From the reign of Alfred the increasing
independence and importance of the city is apparent; it
acted as a unit, and as one which wielded much influence in
English politics. It played moreover a very gallant part.
From all this follows that it possessed an efficient form of
government and was inhabited by an intelligent people.

But in the first part of the ninth century the history of
the city is sad and chaotic. The war of defence was being
waged in the Thames valley: in 839 a great slaughter occurred
in London; in 851 the town was sacked by a host of pagans
who brought three hundred and fifty ships to the mouth of
the Thames. Then came a time of confusion, ‘‘ down and
up, and up and down, and dreadful.” In the winter of
872-3 the Danish army wintered in London. At last in
885 the partition of the country between Alfred and Gruthrum
gave the city to the English king; and he restored it, and
committed the “ burh”’ to the keeping of his son-in-law,
Ethelred ealdorman of Mercia.

Thus security and order returned in some degree to the
Londoners. ‘There has been discussion as to the king’s
exact measures: by some he is held to have built a citadel,
perhaps on Tower Hill; by others only to have restored the
 

LONDON BEFORE THE CONQUEST 9

 

wall. At all events, when in 893 the Danes again attacked
the city, Ethelred led out the Londoners and they obtained
a victory outside the walls. In 897 the men of London
seized on certain Danish ships in the river, and such as were
stalwart they brought up to their city.

In g12 Edward the Elder took possession, apparently
without violence, of London. This must mean either that
he secured the immediate rule delegated by his father to
Ethelred, or that the city had fallen away from the English
supremacy. In 982 there occurred the first of the many
fires of London on record; the chronicler does not state
whether the town was burnt by accident or by the Danes.
A reference in the description of the event is to a suburb
which was evidently situated along the Strand. That street
was probably a Roman way, and it is likely that the settle-
ment which at this date existed on it was that one of the
Danes which caused it afterwards to be called ‘‘ Vicus
Dacorum,” and which named the church of St. Clement
Danes. In gg2 the Londoners saw a fine sight on their
river, for all the ships that were of any worth were gathered
together beside the city by decree of Ethelred the Unready
and his witan. Two years later, on the 8th of September,
ninety-four ships of the Northmen were brought to London
by Olaf, King of Norway, and Sweyn, King of Denmark, who
would have set the city on fire. ‘But they there sustained
more harm and evil than they ever weened that any towns-
men could do to them. For the Holy Mother of God, on
that day, manifested her mercy to the townsmenand delivered
them from their foes.” Again, under the year 1009, the
chronicler states that the Danes “often fought against
London, but to God be praise that it yet stands sound; and
they there ever fared ill;” and in the winter of that year the
 

10 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

Danes avoided the city because they heard that a force was
there gathered against them.

In 1013 the city yielded to the Danes. King Sweyn had
received the submission of Oxford and of Winchester, and he
marched to London. As he crossed the Thames many of
his force were drowned, apparently because they tried to
swim their horses across the river. King Ethelred was in the
city, and this is given asa reason for the determined resistance
offered by the townsmen. They withstood King Sweyn in
battle until he abandoned his attack and marched westwards.
In the course of the year all the nation acknowledged him as
king, and then the Londoners realised that by further
obstinacy they would doom themselves. They tendered
their submission to Sweyn and gave him hostages, and
Ethelred took refuge with the fleet on the Thames, whence
at midwinter he passed to the Isle of Wight on his way to
Normandy.

A contemporary poem tells how Holy Olaf, King of
Norway, broke down London Bridge about the year 1014
in an attack on the Danes made in the interest of Ethelred,
evidently after the death of Sweyn. As the result Ethelred
was restored to the city, and in 1016 he lay there sick unto
death. He died on the 23rd of April, and then the townsmen
and all of the Witan who were in London assembled, and
chose Edmund for their king. This was to give remarkable
prominence to the city.

In the same year another event had illustrated the high
place held by the citizens. Edmund, as the king’s son, had
summoned the Mercian fyrd, but they had told him that
“it did not please them to go forth unless the king were

with them, and they had the support of the burgesses of
London.”
 

LONDON BEFORE THE CONQUEST 11

 

The struggle between Edmund and Cnut, King of Denmark,
centred round London. In May the Danish ships came up
the Thames, and by means of a great ditch dug on the
Southwark side they dragged their ships from London Bridge
to the part of the river above it. Evidently therefore the
bridge had been rebuilt. Then by ditches the Danes pre-
vented any passage in or out of the city; and they repeatedly
engaged in fights with the townsmen, but were boldly with-
stood. Edmund raised the siege and drove the Northmen
back to their ships. But later in the year they returned to
London, “‘and beset the city around, and obstinately fought
against it both by water and land. But almighty God saved
it,’ and the Danish army departed. After Cnut’s great
victory at Assendune the country was divided between
the kings: Wessex fell to Edmund, and Mercia with London
to Cnut. And then the Londoners bought peace from the
Danes, and the Danish army took up their winter quarters
in the city. ‘‘ Ever since the hard fight was fought,” wrote
a Danish poet, “‘ we sit merrily in fair London.’”’ The whole
kingdom accrued to Cnut after the death of Edmund on
St. Andrew’s day.

On Cnut’s death in 1035 London again had a voice in the
selection of a successor to the throne. At an assembly of
the Witan held in London, Harold Harefoot was chosen
king by “‘ Earl Leofric and nearly all the thegns north of
the Thames and the sailors of London.” London must
therefore, as in Roman times, have been distinguished by
merchantmen who travelled over seas.

Again, at the death of Harthacnut in 1042, the citizens of
London joined with others of the Witan who were able to be
present, and chose Edward the Confessor king.

On the 15th of September, 1052, a great assembly of the
 

12 HISTORY OF LONDON

English people met in the open air outside the walls of
London. The king was reconciled with Earl Godwin,
Gytha his wife, and his four valiant sons, Harold, Tostig,
Gyrth, and Leofwine, and afterwards the king and the earl
walked unarmed down to the palace of Westminster.

The palace made first by King Cnut had been burnt, but
it had been built again by Edward the Confessor. In the
half century which preceded the Conquest it was the prin-
cipal residence of kings, and its proximity to the city caused
Witanagemots frequently to be held in London. Under
Harold son of Godwin Westminster was a more constant
dwelling-place of the court than ever it had been before, and
concurrently London became in some degree the capital of
England.

It is most probable that many of the parish churches of
London were founded not long before the Conquest ; some
must have an earlier origin. The population in the eleventh
century, as afterwards, had a cosmopolitan element, due to
the power of commerce, the church, and the court. The
men of Rouen and the abbey of St. Peter at Ghent owned
property in the city; the Flemings, the French, and the
emperor’s men were free to come to the port of London ;
many ecclesiastics had French or Norman names. It is
natural that the continental influences which Edward the
Confessor brought to bear upon England should have had
much effect in his principal town.
CHAPTER II
UNDER THE NORMAN KINGS

 

Gc ILLIAM the king friendly salutes William
the bishop, and Godfrey the portreeve,
and all the burgesses within London, both
French and English. And I declare that

I grant you to be all law-worthy, as you were in the days of

King Edward; and I grant that every child shall be his

father’s heir after his father’s days; and I will not suffer any

person to do you wrong. God keep you.”

This charter, by which William I. sealed his peace with
the Londoners, followed on stirring events.

In 1066 some fugitives brought to the city the news of the
Conqueror’s victory and Harold’s death at Senlac. Then the
Witan met in London to choose a king; and the citizens
are especially mentioned among the electors of Edgar Athel-
ing. Preparations for another battle, for which the Londoners
in particular were desirous, followed. But it appears that
William did not march on London; he aimed rather at
isolating it.

The defence was commanded by Staller Esegar, sheriff of
Middlesex, who had been wounded at Senlac, and is said to
have been carried about the city on a litter. He, according
toa later chronicler, finally summoned an assembly of the
‘‘ elders” of London, and these sent a messenger to carrya
feigned peace to William. But the envoy brought back so
14 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

rich gifts and promises that they decided indeed to desert
Edgar and to submit to the Conqueror. The fact of such a
decision is certain, and some men of London were among
those who offered the English crown to William at Berk-
hampstead.

Before he came to the city he sent before him to make
preparations suitable to his “‘ royal magnificence,’ and to
build a fortress. This, probably a hasty wooden structure,
was the beginning of the Tower of London. William’s
coronation took place at Westminster on Christmas Day.
It is recorded that in the second year of his reign he solemnly
entered the city, and that he then granted the charter at the
instance of William, the Norman bishop of London.

The true significance of the Conquest for London seems to
be that its progress towards independence was checked, that
it was relegated to a fitter place in a country which had a
strong central government. Henceforth, except during
periods of disorder, this city which had chosen kings, which
had constantly exercised initiative, the action of which had
in times of war done much to decide the course of general
events, was a political force of a less eminent rank. So
strong a city was like the over-independent barons and the
over-catholic church an element of disintegration which the
Norman kings strove to bring into bounds. In this process
the building of the Tower was the first step, and the grant-
ing of the charter, which rested the claims of Londoners to
law-worthiness on the king’s grace, was the second.

The charter makes clear that a portreeve was a leading
official of London, and a very probable theory identifies him
with the shire reeve or sheriff. The part borne by the sheriff
of Middlesex in the defence of the city seems to prove that
the later connection between city and shire, when the sheriffs
 

UNDER THE NORMAN KINGS 15

 

of London were the financial officers of both London and
Middlesex, dates from Anglo-Saxon times; and it may be
that Godfrey the portreeve succeeded Staller Esegar the
sheriff.

The men of London were in 1069 part of a force led by
Bishop Geoffrey de Coutances against the insurgents of Dorset
and Somerset. In the later years of the reign of William I.,
and in those of his sons, London suffered from calamities of
the class known as visitations. On the 15th of August, 1078,
it was burnt, more extensively, it is said, than ever before;
in 1087, another fire destroyed the cathedral and much of the
city; in rogi, on the 17th of October, a storm blew down
seven churches and more than six hundred houses as well as
the wooden roof of Bow Church; in the following March
the greater part of the city was burnt once more; in 1114
the Thames for a time ran dry; and again in 1132 a fire
destroyed London to a large extent.

But these disasters were counterbalanced by the skill of
the builders whom the Normans brought to England. Under
William II. some great works were undertaken: a wall was
built round the Tower, and a London Bridge of stone was
made in place of the old wooden structure. Maurice, Bishop
of London from 1086 to 1107, began that church of St. Paul
which, enlarged and beautified by succeeding generations,
stood until 1666. Moreover at Westminster Rufus built the
famous hall which, as the meeting-place of parliament, was so
greatly to affect London’s position. In the modern city
Norman work still survives in two buildings: in the chancel,
now a parish church, of the marvellous church of the canons
of St. Bartholomew’s Smithfield, and in the nave of the
parish church of All Hallows Barking.

William Rufus is responsible for another event of many
 

16 HISTORY OF LONDON

consequences, the foundation of Jewry in London; for the
Jews of Rouen followed him to his English capital.

From Henry I. the city received the second of its great
charters. It was customary for the kings to compound for the
royal dues in the several shires, to let for a yearly rent all that
was payable to them in a shire to the official called sheriff, and
he, at the court of the exchequer, annually accounted for this
farm or rent. Any disbursements he had made on the king’s
behalf were set to his credit. As the burghs grew in import-
ance they strove to obtain exemptions from the sphere of the
sheriff, to compound themselves with the king for his dues,
and separately to pay a farm. But in London, because the
town was greater than the shire, a different thing happened:
the sheriff of Middlesex was the sheriff or sheriffs of London.
Henry I. granted to the city the county of Middlesex to hold at
farm: in other words the sheriffs of London collected the
royal dues of town and county, and paid in return a yearly
sum to the royal exchequer. In all the counties of England
the sheriff was appointed by the king: he represented the
element of the crown in local government. But in London
Henry I. gave to the citizens the right of themselves electing
to their shrievalty.

He empowered them also to choose from their own number
a justiciar who should hold the pleas of the crown. This
office was probably created by Henry I.

Moreover the Londoners were declared in this charter not
liable to the Danegeld nor to certain other payments, and
they received a privilege very favourable to their trade, free
passage for them and their goods throughout England and
the seaports. Their tenure of all their possessions in the
city and without it was confirmed. And they acquired for
their property a valuable immunity. The rights exercised by
 

UNDER THE NORMAN KINGS 17

 

kings and other magnates of quartering themselves or their
retainers on householders were very burdensome: it was
decreed that none might henceforward exact hospitality from
the Londoners by force.

Besides such privileges and rights of property the charter
was concerned with jurisdictions. It conferred on the city
jurisdictory independence, exemption from the sphere of
external jurisdictions and the acknowledged validity of its
own law. All existing jurisdictions of churches, barons and
citizens were confirmed ; the hustings court was empowered
to meet every Monday, and injustice was forbidden in that
court and in the folkmoot. Lesser benefits conceded were
exemption from the unpopular Norman custom of trial by
battle, and the confirmation to the Londoners of the chases
their ancestors had held in the Chilterns, Middlesex and
Surrey.

The charter should be read rather as confirming and
defining a state of affairs than as innovating it. It probably
legalised old claims of the citizens which the centralising
measures of Norman kings had tended to override. It
discovers to us a city of which the constitution resembles
that of a shire. There has been much discussion as to the
origin of the wards into which London is divided: Portsoken,
Tower, Aldgate, Limestreet, Bishopsgate, Broad Street,
Cornhill, Langbourn, Billingsgate, Bridge, Candlewick
Street, Walbrook and Dowgate to the east of the course
of the Walbrook; and on its west side Vintry, Cordwainer,
Cheap, Colman Street, Bassishaw, Cripplegate, Aldersgate,
Farringdon, Bread Street, Queenhithe and Castle Baynard.
It has been surmised though not proved that as geographical
areas some or all of them are of Roman origin. But
in their political aspect they had, in the twelfth century,

H.L. Cc
18 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

approximated to the hundreds which are subdivisions of
counties.

An alderman presided over each ward and over the assembly
of its inhabitants, the wardmoot; and within each ward,
though seldom with conterminous boundaries, were parishes.
The general assemblies of citizens, the folkmoot and the
court of husting, corresponded roughly to the shiremoot held
in each county. In this period the folkmoot met at Michael-
mas to hear who was sheriff and receive his orders, at
Christmastide to arrange for the special watch kept during
that holiday, and at Midsummer for the guarding of the city
from fire. Much business had passed to the less unwieldy
court of husting, generally believed to have had a Danish
origin. And side by side with all these popular courts,
limiting their sphere to some extent, were private franchises,
the courts of religious houses and of individuals. A like
confusion of principles was reproduced throughout England.
No essentially municipal forms of government, such as
obtained on the continent, had as yet been introduced into
London.

It has been surmised that the king’s charter was given to
obtain the support of the Londoners for the succession to the
throne of the Empress Matilda. At London, in 1126, Henry
summoned a council; and there he made the great men
swear that if he left no son to be his heir they would receive
his daughter Matilda as their lady. The archbishop of
Canterbury first took the oath, then the other bishops and
then the abbots; and of the laity the first to bind himself
was David, King of Scotland, and there followed Stephen,
Count of Mortain and Boulogne, and after him Robert, Earl
of Gloucester, the king’s natural son. But Stephen and
Robert had disputed as to which of them should swear first.
 

UNDER THE NORMAN KINGS 19

 

Stephen’s reign is often described as a period of reaction.
During it all those disintegrating forces which the Conqueror
and his sons had kept in check revived, not only because the
central government lacked strength to curb them, but also
because it was insecure, and therefore suppressed no force
but sought rather to make use of all available means of
support. Stephen and Matilda in turn recognised the claims
of Londoners in order to enhance the value of the aid which
the Londoners afforded them. Thus the city returned to a
position something like that which it had occupied before the
Conquest. But there was a new element in the situation:
each claimant to the throne strove to procure not only the
adhesion of the citizens but also the military command of
London, the command of the Tower.

In December 1135, after the death of Henry I., Stephen
hurried to England, and he directed himself first to London.
The citizens had endured the miseries of a period of anarchy,
and were probably eager to welcome a ruler: they met him
with rejoicing. Then they summoned a council at which
they swore to maintain him with their wealth and guard him
with their strength ; and he took oath to pacify the realm.
The conception of government by contract has seldom been
more accurately realised. The compact made, the citizens
chose Stephen for their king; and at the same time they
specifically claimed a right to elect successors to the throne.
He was crowned at Westminster on the 22nd of December.
He held several courts at Westminster; and in 1138 he
advanced from London to the siege of Bristol.

The hereditary wardenship of the Tower of London was
held by a famous adventurer, Geoffrey de Mandeville. Pro-
bably in the Spring of 1140 Constance of France, the bride

of the king’s son and heir Eustace, was in London with her
c 2
 

20 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

mother-in-law, Queen Matilda; she was kidnapped by
Geoffrey and imprisoned in the Tower. It is said that for
this outrage the king ever afterwards owed Geoffrey a grudge,
but its immediate effect was that which its perpetrator must
have intended. Stephen appears to have seen the necessity
of coming to terms with the keeper of the Tower. He kept
Whitsuntide of 1140 at that fortress, and in a charter
assigned by Mr. Round to the latter half of the year he
granted the earldom of Essex to Geoffrey.

Stephen in February 1141 became the captive of Robert
of Gloucester. On the 7th and 8th of April the empress
was chosen queen by an assembly at Winchester; and on
the oth a deputation summoned from London was informed
of the fact. This may have been a second acknowledgment
of the city’s claim to participate in elections of a sovereign.
But London would not at once accept the empress; there
was a period of tumult and bloodshed, during which the
opposing parties, of Stephen and of Matilda, must have
been in conflict. Eventually, however, the citizens sent to
St. Albans certain of their number who made a treaty with
Matilda, and she entered London by way of Westminster
shortly before Midsummer, and was received with all honour.
One of her first acts was to regrant to Geoffrey de Mandeville
the custody of the Tower and the earldom of Essex, and to
bestow on him also lands and offices which made her gifts
much more magnificent than the previous one by Stephen.
Her stay in London was a matter only of a few days. The
citizens had hoped by receiving her to regain their lost
prosperity with peace. But she demanded from them a
great sum of money; and when they urged their impoverish-
ment by the dissensions of the realm she taunted them with
reminders of the many subsidies they had granted to Stephen.
“HOMDH) ATMANKAL AHL NI AITIAYAINYIY ad ADAAAOAL) AO ADIAAT

ee —

 
 

UNDER THE NORMAN KINGS 21

 

The chronicles are full of allusions to her pride, her intoler-
able anger and her lack of all womanly gentleness. Mean-
while Stephen’s queen arrived with her army on the Surrey
side of the river, and sent her men to ravage “‘ with rape
and fire, violence and sword,” the neighbourhood of London.
And the citizens saw their country thus laid bare, when they
had lost all hope in their new lady who, in the very beginning
of her rule, had so transgressed bounds, and they judged it
wise to enter into a peace and compact with the queen, and
to conspire with her to release Stephen. The empress was
tranquilly awaiting the answer to her demands; she was
about to seat herself at table, when all the bells of the city
rang out together to call to arms, and the citizens issued
from their doors like bees that swarmed froma hive. She
heard the tumult, and a secret warning of treachery was
conveyed to her, and at once she betook herself to flight.
She and her suite had hardly mounted their horses and
ridden past the.buildings before the walls, when the citizens
entered and plundered the houses they had left. In panic
the followers of the empress fled in different directions; she
with Gloucester and a few others reached Oxford. The
king’s party in London, who had of late been depressed,
regained ascendancy, and the queen was received into the
city, where it is said that she bore herself manfully and
virtuously. To command the Tower was a necessary mean
to the security of her position; and Mr. Round has proved
that by another and a lost charter to Geoffrey de Mandeville
she procured his adherence. The empress had betaken
herself to Winchester and was besieging the episcopal
palace; the queen marched southwards to besiege the
empress, in her turn, and a contingent of well-armed
Londoners, a thousand strong, reinforced the queen’s army.
 

22 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

When Winchester had fallen the Londoners were con-
spicuous among the pillagers.

At Christmastide, 1141, King Stephen was no longer
captive, and he granted a charter to the custodian of the
Tower which must have confirmed or increased the benefits
his queen had conferred, and in which he competed in
liberality with the empress. He once more bestowed the
earldom of Essex and the constabulary of the Tower, and
moreover the justiciarship and shrievalty of London and
Middlesex, to be held for a yearly farm. Further he con-
ceded lands and offices greater in value than those which
Geoffrey had received previously.

But next year the empress made a yet higher bid for the
earl’s support. She conferred again all that Stephen had
given, she made yet more extravagant assignments of lands
and offices, she promised that neither she nor the Count
of Anjou, her lord, nor her son, should make peace or con-
cord with the burgesses of London, the mortal enemies of
Geoffrey, without his consent, and she gave extravagant
guarantees for the performance of her promises. This
charter proves that the natural antipathy existed between
the keeper of the Tower, the military adventurer with all
the lawlessness of unbridled feudalism, and the townsmen
of London. It displays a new policy: the empress was
seeking to make her profit of the antipathy ; she had aban-
doned the citizens as hopelessly sympathetic to Stephen.

But the move failed to win for her London, although
the king did not again compete for Geoffrey’s adherence.
Geoffrey’s last act of treachery had been committed against
the party of rising fortunes, and in 1143 the king caused
his arrest and brought him to London. And then the earl,
when confronted with the alternative of the gallows, ordered
 

UNDER THE NORMAN KINGS 23

his garrison at the Tower to surrender to Stephen. Deprived
of all his commands, he turned freebooter, and was slain
unshriven in the following year. Some Knights Templars
brought his body to their house in Holborn; but a sentence
of excommunication forbade ‘this Christian burial until the
removal of the ban some twenty years later.

In the Temple Church his stone effigy lies to this day
among the other Crusaders. Bold and pitiless, too bold and
eager to be held in check by a law weak and confused,
guided only by the rule of his own advantage, quick to
perceive and to lay hold of the opportunities which disorder
gave to the man of concentrated purpose, like all the single-
minded a strong commander, he is typical of many heroes
of his day. It was an age barren of ideals; Geoffrey’s high
qualities could serve only his cunning; his religion, since he
had not been born a mystic, could be little more than super-
stition.

The last years of Stephen were not eventful in London.
There was another fire during the reign which burnt the

city from London Bridge to the church of St. Clement
Danes.
CHAPTER III
THE GRANTING OF THE COMMUNE

 

ENRY II., before 1161, granted a charter to the
citizens which was mainly a confirmation of
that of his grandfather, but which lacked
several clauses of the earlier instrument. It

had no reference to the justiciarship of London, which appears
at this time to have become extinct. It did not grant again
the right of election to the shrievalty; that office had been
given by Stephen and Matilda to Geoffrey de Mandeville, and
appointments to it continued under Henry IJ.and Richard I.
to be by the Crown. Both these omissions tended to
increase the power of the king to the detriment of civic
independence. A third difference must have been a result
of changed conditions. The charter of Henry II. has no
mention of the private jurisdictions within the city of
churches, barons and citizens, for these, while in the
country they still were important, had, owing to a greater
intensity of public life, become comparatively negligible in
London.

While their independence was thus to some extent
impaired, Londoners during the reigns of the early Angevin
kings were struggling to acquire greater facilities for cor-
porate action than were afforded by the loose machinery of
shire government. On the continent the period is that in
which communes were granted to towns, in which, in other
 

THE GRANTING OF THE COMMUNE 25

 

words, townsmen were permitted to form sworn associations,
organised under officials and capable of independent action ;
and the trade of London brought it into close connection
with continental places. It was especially liable to influence
from Rouen, which city received a commune probably from
Henry II. But a chronicler states that neither that king
nor Richard I. would, even for a million marks, allow a
sworn union of the citizens of London. They learnt abroad
the danger of independent municipalities.

Their government however maintained loyalty. It is
related that when the bishop of Winchester, in 1174, brought
to Henry in Normandy the news of the Scottish invasion
and the attendant rebellion, ‘‘‘ Fair lord,’ said the king,
‘tell me the truth. How are the brave men of my city of
London acting?’ And the bishop replied, ‘So may the
Lord God who rules in Trinity help me, they are the most
loyal people of all your kingdom. There is no one in the
town of an age to bear arms who is not well-armed. You
would wrongly believe any evil of them.’”

At the coronation feast of Richard I. the office of the
butlery was performed by the citizens of London. In 1188 a
tenth of their property was exacted from the two hundred
richest Londoners for the furtherance of the Crusade. Nor
was it only with their wealth that the townsmen upheld the
wars of the Cross. In September 1189 men of London
were among those who besieged the Saracen city of Silvia
in Spain. A ship of the Londoners, in which were more
than eighty well-armed youths, was overtaken by a storm in
the Bay of Biscay; but St. Thomas of Canterbury appeared
to three persons on board and assured them that he, St.
Edmund the Martyr, and St. Nicholas the Confessor had
especial charge of the king’s fleet. The tempest ceased, and
 

26 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

the ship arrived at Silvia, where it was hospitably received
by the bishop, clergy and people. It carried William
FitzOsbert.

Meanwhile events prepared for the citizens at home an
opportunity to gain constitutional independence. King
Richard, before his departure for the East, had granted the
Tower of London, no longer held by hereditary keepers, to
his chancellor William Longchamp, who in the next year
surrounded it with a moat. In October 1191, when his
struggle with John had paralysed the administration, Long-
champ shut himself up in the Tower. On the 7th of the
month John arrived in London. Once more, as in 1135 and
in 1141, the support of the citizens might turn the scales
that were balanced between the rival parties, and therefore
London could again name her price. A meeting was held at
St. Paul’s on the 8th. The Chancellor was deposed, and a
commune was conceded to London, which all the magnates
of the kingdom and bishops of the provinces swore to
maintain. Immediately afterwards Longchamp agreed to
surrender the Tower to John.

Mr. Round has discovered the oath which, as a conse-
quence of the grant of the commune, became obligatory for
citizens. They swore loyalty to the king, faithfulness to the
commune, obedience to the mayor, his eschevins and the other
honest men who should be with him, and incorruptibility by
bribes.

Thus we know the import of the concession of 1191. In
the first place it bound the citizens together with the force
and the distinction of a common obligation, and thus gave
them a collective personality. Secondly it endowed them
with a new machinery of government, continental and essen-
tially municipal in character. Henceforth their presiding
 

THE GRANTING OF THE COMMUNE 27

official was the mayor, who, from the time when particulars
of his election are known, was chosen from the number of the
aldermen, and who eventually held his place for one year
only. The word eschevin has in old French the significance
of a holder of municipal office, and is often used in connec-
tion with mayor; sometimes the personality of a town is
expressed in the term “li maire, li escheviz, et li commune.”
From the form of the oath it appears that by the charter of
I1gi authority in London was given to the mayor, his
eschevins and the honest men who should be with him; and
it seems likely that this phrase corresponds to that later one
which was the usual official style of the city, ‘‘the mayor,
aldermen and commonalty.” If it be supposed that the
aldermen were the eschevins, it may be concluded that the
honest men were the commonalty, and that they had acquired
some governing power. Thence may be deduced that
already there was in existence a germ of the Common
Council, that the city was ruled by the mayor and aldermen
in conjunction with some of the commons.

The new institutions did not supersede the older ones; the
folkmoot, the hustings court, the wardmoots and the
parochial constitutions, the ancient officials of the city,
subsisted, but in varying degrees they lost importance.

In 1193 the mayor of London was appointed one of the
five keepers of the king’s ransom. Richard, after his release
from captivity, entered London on the 16th of March, 1194.
He was received “ with greatest pomp of rejoicing,” and the
whole city was decorated in honour of his advent. On the
23rd of April he granted a charter to the citizens which was
mainly a confirmation of that of his father.

Certain events of importance occurred in 1196. It is
related that the people of London had suffered by the
 

28 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

imposition of taxes for the levy of the king’s ransom, and
that these fell more heavily on the poor than the rich
classes. The iniquities of the civic administration thus
became apparent, and a certain William FitzOsbert or
Longbeard, probably identical with the crusader, constituted
himself champion of the oppressed. He originated a sworn
association against the richer classes in which fifty-two
thousand poorer citizens are said to have been enrolled.
Their methods were doubtless those common to rioters; but
there is special mention of their collection of instruments for
the breaking down of houses. FitzOsbert, “‘ Saviour of the
Poor,” harangued like any popular orator. He crossed the
Channel to obtain the king’s support, and on his return
acted as one who enjoyed royal favour. To procure peace
the Justiciar, Hubert Walter, exacted hostages, and this
may explain the fact that at Stamford Fair, which was held
in Mid-Lent, he caused the arrest of certain of the poorer
London merchants. FitzOsbert was summoned to the
courts of justice, but appeared in the company of a mob,
and when two citizens with an armed band were sent to
capture him, he and a few followers took refuge in Bow
Church. Eventually, in despite of all privileges of sanctuary,
the Justiciar ordered him to be smoked out of the building.
He was taken to the Tower, condemned to be hanged, and
then dragged through the streets to the gallows, where the
sentence was executed on him and eight associates.

It is impossible to disconnect this sedition of the poorer
Londoners, which was evidently important and general, from
the grant of the commune five years previously. That event
had conferred great powers on the aldermanic ciass; this
rising must have been on the part of those who had received
from it no benefits. It evidently was not a movement of the
 

THE GRANTING OF THE COMMUNE 29

 

unpropertied rabble, for its professed cause was the unequal
distribution of burdens. The discontented were taxable;
some of them are called merchants; their leader is said to
have held an office in the city’s government. Clearly there
was already a middle class within the city, a cleavage between
the greatest and the less wealthy citizens. The conclusion
is that the concession of the commune had in practice
confirmed the arrogation to themselves of all power by the
richest class: it had favoured a civic oligarchy.

The questionable right of John to succeed his brother to
the throne was favourable to the liberty of London. In
June 1199, some three weeks after his coronation, the king
regranted the rights conferred by Richard and by Henry II.
On the 5th of July a far more important charter restored to
the citizens the concession of Henry I., the right to
hold Middlesex at farm and themselves to elect to the
shrievalty.

The great fire of 1212, which was very destructive to
London, arose at the church of St. Mary Southwark, on the
site of St. Saviour’s cathedral. Londoners in great numbers
set out to watch its progress and to help in its extinction,
and at a moment when London Bridge was crowded the
fire broke out on the north bank and caught the bridge itself,
so that many persons were entrapped between two flames,
and were burnt or drowned.

In 1215 Londoners were on the side of the barons; but
the king’s forces held the Tower. John, on the gth of May,
sought to conciliate the citizens by a charter which confirmed
to them the right to choose annually a mayor who must take
an oath of allegiance to the king, and might hold office for
a year or longer at the pleasure of his electors. Yet on
the 17th of the month the barons entered the city, and
 

30 HISTORY OF LONDON

subsequently they besieged the Tower. On the 15th of June
the mayor of London was a signatory of Magna Carta. In
accordance with its provisions the king surrendered the
Tower; its hereditary custody was claimed by Geoffrey de
Mandeville, a descendant of the notorious keeper, but it was
temporarily delivered to Stephen Langton. The barons
returned to London after the signing of the charter. In
September the ban of excommunication was incurred by the
citizens together with the other opposers of the king. On
the 26th of October the barons issued from London in a
vain attempt to relieve Rochester, whence they returned to
the city. It received many fugitives after the fall of
Rochester before John’s forces. Before Christmas the
marshal of France and a garrison occupied London on behalf
of the dauphin Louis, and in the ensuing spring the city
was the chief place of refuge for those who fled before John’s
army. Louis was received in London with much rejoicing,
on the 2nd of June, and the barons and the mayor there did
him homage. He left soon afterwards to pursue his
campaign, and the allegiance of London was, like that of
the barons, continued to him little longer than the period of
John’s life.

It is possible to visualise to some extent the London in
which these men lived. The houses were almost all of them
made of wood; but after the fire of Stephen’s reign, and
again after that which occurred in 1212, the administrators
encouraged building in stone. At the same time they tried
to procure the substitution of tiled for thatched roofs: in
1212 it was ordered that the roofs should be covered not
with reeds, rushes, straw or stubble, but with tiles, shingles,
boards, or lead. Many of the buildings were only one storey
high; but some of them had an upper chamber, called a
 

THE GRANTING OF THE COMMUNE #31

 

solar. This in some cases overhung the streets, when it was
required that its height should allow a man to ride underneath
it. Buildings were often or usually whitewashed as a pre-
caution against fire. The slightness of the structures is
vividly illustrated by the fact that each alderman was obliged
to have a crook or a cord, evidently for the demolition of
houses which transgressed the rules laid down for building.
The shops were stalls attached to the houses, and might
not exceed two and a half feet in breadth. Signposts
marked the taverns. The rearing of swine, oxen, and cows
within houses was forbidden, and pigs and cows might not
be kept at all to the annoyance of the neighbours. Doubtless
these regulations were necessary because pigs and cattle
were suffered too freely to roam in the narrow streets.
Scavengers appointed in each ward kept the roads clean ;
and the deposit of dirt and refuse in public ways was
forbidden.

A citizen of the time, William FitzStephen, has described
London as it appeared to him. He speaks of the thirteen
teligious houses and the hundred and twenty-six parish
churches, the Tower and its walls, the great river full of fish,
Westminster Palace on the west side of the city, and the
spacious gardens, planted with trees, of the citizens who
lived in the suburbs. He brings before us a picture of a city
bounded by massive walls and by a river as yet unpolluted,
in which many towers rose high above a mean level of
whitewashed gabled houses. He does not mention another
fortress of London, Castle Baynard, which stood on the river
bank near St. Paul’s and was held by Robert FitzWalter,
who in 1212 plotted against the king and forfeited his castle
to the crown.

The city contained at this time three schools, the school
22 HISTORY OF LONDON

of St. Mary-le-Bow, and two schools attached to religious
houses, those of St. Paul’s and St. Martin’s le Grand, and
the pupils sometimes held public disputations. By the
riverside, not far from the present site of Southwark Bridge,
were cook shops in which a meal might at any time be
obtained. Ships “of every nation under the sun” brought
traders up the Thames to London.

On the outside of the town were fields, grazing lands, and
a great plain of meadow-land watered by streams which
turned the wheels of mills; and near it was a forest in which
were deer, boars and bulls. To the north were excellent
wells, Holywell, Clerkenwell and St. Clement’s Well. Near
Smithfield, also outside the wall, a horse fair took place, and
earls, barons, knights and citizens came thither to buy noble
steeds and to witness their trials.

The citizens are described as warlike, virtuous and well-
dressed ; and their amusements certainly testify to tastes in
keeping with the bold part which London played in politics.
They show too how the medizval towndweller, whom only
a wall separated from the country, shared many of the pur-
suits of the rural population. The schoolboys of the city on
Shrove Tuesday held cockfights and games of ball which
were watched by the older inhabitants. After supper on
Sundays in Lent the youths, armed with lances and shields
or with spears, engaged in tilting matches the courtiers, the
members of the bishop’s household, or the nobles, in knightly
sports which are a token of rank. In the Easter holidays
the young men tilted from boats at a shield hung above the
river; and in summer they exercised themselves in archery,
running, leaping, stone-throwing and the hurling of other
missiles, while the maidens danced until the moon came up.
In winter, when the great marsh to the north of the city was
 

THE GRANTING OF THE COMMUNE 33

 

frozen, there were many games. Some made slides, others
were drawn on sledges, and yet others skated. They “tie
bones to their feet and under their heels,” says FitzStephen,
‘and, shoving themselves by a little picked staff, do slide as
a bird flieth in the air, or an arrow out of a cross bow.”

But most of all the citizens loved to hunt with their hounds
or their hawks in the woods; and they had hunting rights in
Middlesex, Hertfordshire, the Chiltern Hills, and Kent as far
as the Cray.

Their amusements, other than athletic, were supplied by
the pageants which accompanied state ceremonials, municipal
usage, and the rites of the church. Moreover there were
already not only dramatic representations of ‘‘ miracles
which holy martyrs have wrought” and of ‘torments
wherein the constancy of martyrs appeared,” but also other
“shows upon theatres”’ described as “comical pastimes.”

The biographers of Thomas 4 Becket give a vivid glimpse
of a Londoner’s life. They relate that after the Norman
Conquest many natives of Rouen and Caen emigrated to
London, attracted by its commercial advantages. Of their
number was Gilbert, surnamed Becket, a citizen of Rouen,
distinguished by his industry and his powers. He came of
an honourable but a burgher family, and was a man diligent
in business, who ruled his household in a manner appropriate
to his station in life. He lived without quarrel among his
neighbours and all spoke well of him. His wife, Roesia,
was a native of Caen, of a burgher family, in body seemly
and in conduct even more praiseworthy. She was well
placed over her house, and, under the fear of God, was
faithfully subject to her husband. Gilbert is known to have
been a portreeve of the city,and to have founded a chantry

H.L. D
 

34 HISTORY OF LONDON

at St. Paul’s. His house stood in Cheapside, on the site
now occupied by the Mercers’ Hall. After the birth of
Thomas his mother, that she might have leisure for prayer
and works of piety, had the assistance of a nurse.

The child was dedicated in infancy to the service of the
church, and was sent for his education to the canons of
Merton. His parents, who were impoverished by the
frequent fires of the city, died within a short time of each
other while he was yet young. There is record of his friend-
ship with the “‘rich and noble” Richard de l’Aigle, in whose
company he made riding and hawking expeditions.

Gilbert Becket is an instance of a Norman who attained
to full citizenship of London, even to a magistracy. The
population of the city was indeed largely cosmopolitan. In
the twelfth century the leading families were the Bucuintes,
and the Bokerels from whom Bucklersbury was named.
Both were probably of Italian origin, and bore names
corrupted from “ Bucca Uncta,” or ‘‘ oily mouth” and from
Bokerelli. The accession of Henry II. brought London
into connection with his dominions in southern France.
Especially Gascon wine merchants came in large numbers
to the city and were many of them absorbed in its popula-
tion. The town of La Réole in Gascony gave its name
to the church of St. Michael Paternoster Royal and to
Tower Royal in Vintry ward.

The church bound together these men of varied nation-
alities who became the citizens of London. St. Martin was
the patron of the vintners of Bordeaux as of those who had
vineyards in Essex, and was worshipped by all alike in the
church of St. Martin Vintry in Thames Street. But there
lived also in London members of another and a truly alien
people.
 

THE GRANTING OF THE COMMUNE 35

 

Jewry in London was to the north of Cheapside and
bounded, roughly, by Wood Street on the west and Old
Jewry on the east. The Jews lived around Gresham Street,
then Catteaton Street, and in Wood Street, Milk Street, St.
Lawrence Lane, Ironmonger Lane, and Old Jewry. They
were outside all the ordinary arrangements of state and city
because they were the king’s chattels, whose every right
depended on his grace. Their very tenure of their property
was by his sufferance; they were subjected to frequent,
heavy and unregulated taxations for his convenience. In
London, as elsewhere, they observed the ritual of their faith,
but the existence of synagogues recurrently presented itself
to the citizens as a scandal. A chief rabbi was appointed
by the crown. Socially Jews and Christians were entirely
separate; their intermarriage, the employment by Christians
of Jewish servants, were forbidden. The two races were held
apart moreover by a different outlook on life, different culture,
different customs, dress and food. Therefore the race of
the Londoners acquired no Jewish element. The one im-
portant relation between the members of the two faiths
was financial; the business of money lending was practised
by the Jews to such an extent that they were able to under-
mine the property rights of very many citizens. Resentment
of the yoke thus incurred by the Christian Londoner did
much to fan the ardour of his religious zeal against the
unbelievers.

On the occasion of the coronation of Richard I. the feeling
against the Jews broke the bounds of restraint. An excuse
was provided by a rumour that the king had ordered the
extermination of the race; and ‘then the Jewish citizens,
of whom a multitude is known to dwell in London, together
with those who had flocked together from all parts, withdrew

D2
 

36 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

into their own houses. These were surrounded bya clamour-
ing multitude and stoutly besieged from nine o’clock until
sunset. As, owing to their stout build, an entrance could
not be forced into the houses, and the madmen had no tools,
fire was thrown on the thatched roofs, and there arose quickly
a terrible conflagration, fatal to the Jews as they strove to
extinguish it, and a light to the raging Christians at their
night work. And the fire kindled against the Jews did not
hurt them alone, but caught hold likewise of the neighbouring
houses of Christians. But the Jews were either roasted in
their houses or, if they came out of them, were received with
swords. Much blood was shed in a short space. But soon
avarice got the better of cruelty. Thereupon they left their
butchery, and their greedy rage betook itself to stripping the
houses and snatching their riches. But this in turn made
Christians oppose Christians . . . and they forgot all
natural ties and spared neither friend nor comrade.” It is
said that almost all the citizens, as well as nearly the whole
number of the nobles who had attended the coronation and
were not present at the royal banquet, took part in this
massacre and plundering. Its history shows the superior
culture of the Jews, who appear to have dwelt in stone
houses, and whose treasures evoked such ungovernable
rapacity.

The Romance tongue, Norman French, was probably
spoken by medieval Londoners as commonly as English;
and there is evidence that it was the language of the Jews.

From Richard of Devizes we have an account of London
in the twelfth century which mitigates the rosy impression
conveyed by FitzStephen. A Jew is represented as advising
a French serving lad to seek his fortune in wealthy England.
“‘When thou enterest England,” he says, “if thou come
 

THE GRANTING OF THE COMMUNE 37

 

to London thou wilt quickly pass through it, for that metro-
polis displeaseth me much. All kinds of men flow into it
from every nation under the sky. Every nation brings its
own vices and its own customs into the city. None lives
in it free from crime, not a citizen that does not abound in
sad obscenities; a man is there to be reckoned the better,
the deeper he is in crime. I know whom I am talking to;
thou hast beyond thy age a fervid intellect and a cold
memory, things contrary to one another, and a temperate
reason. I have no fears for thee unless thou dwell with evil
livers, for manners are formed by communication. Well,
well, thou wilt come to London. So I forewarn thee that
whatever ill or malice is in all and each part of the world
thou shalt find in that single city. Avoid the band of pimps,
mix not with the crowd of gamesters, avoid the dice and the
gaming table, the theatre and the tavern. Thou wilt come
across more bullies than are in all France; the number of
parasites is infinite. Actors, buffoons, eunuchs, garamanters,
flatterers, pages, cowards, effeminates, dancing girls, apothe-
caries, favourites, witches, vultures, owls, magicians, mimes,
mendicants, dancers and other such fill every house. There-
fore, unless thou wilt live with the wicked thou shalt not
inhabit London. I am not speaking against the learned,
whether clergy or Jews, although from their communion
with the wicked I should think them less perfect there than

elsewhere.”
CHAPTER IV

THE RISE OF THE CRAFTS AND
THE BARONS’ WAR

 

HERE is in all the history of London no more
important period than that covered by the
reigns of Henry III. and the Edwards. Under
Henry II. and his sons London acquired con-

stitutional machinery; under their immediate successors
motive forces were adjusted.

It has been seen that the rising of FitzOsbert had causes
economic and social, those which indeed exist inevitably in
a growing community. Ruling power was retained exclu-
sively by men established in the foremost place after others
had come to share the capacity to wield it. The governors
of London were an official class, few in number, wealthy,
not only merchants but also holders of landed property
within and without the walls. They were connected by the
closest of all the ties which can bind together a caste, that
of kinship, for they consisted of several families who
frequently intermarried, and who, in view of London’s small
population, must have lived in much intimacy. But the
trade and the industry of the city, more than ever an
“emporium of many peoples,” could not be appropriated
to the advantage of any narrow oligarchy. A middle class
had all the intelligence and the independence of the
 

CRAFTS AND THE BARONS’ WAR 39

 

prosperous, and, as ever, they did not lack the oppression
of their superiors to excite them to action.

They were moreover no disorganised body. It is a fact
in universal history that when important classes have had
no means of necessarily influencing their governors, they
have formed voluntary associations capable of great con-
sistency and strength. This is the significance of gilds
and fraternities and companies: they have covered ground
as yet unreached by the government. In the thirteenth
century the middle class of London were the members of
the crafts or mysteries, the tradesmen distributed in groups
of those who followed the same calling. Some of their
trades were those also of the aldermanic class, who were
especially goldsmiths, mercers, fishmongers and vintners,
but who were apt to pursue composite avocations, to be
interested in more trades than one.

The crafts have left an abiding mark on London place
names, for they came to be associated with certain localities.
Their organisation was helped by the circumstance that
members of one craft usually lived near to each other. In
the thirteenth century the streets of London followed much
their present lines. If in a modern map of the city King
Street and Queen Street and Queen Victoria Street be
blotted out, if the courses of the Fleet and of the Walbrook
be traced, if the lesser streets be multiplied, and if it be
remembered that some of them were as yet private ways,
while others were in the transitionary stage between private
and public ownership, a fairly accurate representation of
London in the reign of Henry III. is obtained. The mercers
lived in Cheap, near their existing hall; the ironmongers
and cutlers, as well as some of the armourers and members
of other allied trades, in and near Ironmonger Lane; the
 

40 HISTORY OF LONDON

pepperers, afterwards the grocers, were in Soper Lane, which
has been included in Queen Street; the vintners named
Vintry, the cordwainers, Cordwainer Ward. Pancras Lane
was Needlers Lane; Goldsmith Row was at the west end
of Cheap; the fishmongers were in Old Fish Street, now a
part of Knightrider Street; the drapers were to the east of
Walbrook, near Cannon, then Candlewick Street. The
saddlery was at the west end of Cheap, close to the present
Saddlers’ Hall. There were bakers, brewers, fleshers,
tailors, fripperers or vendors of old clothes, haberdashers,
girdlers, weavers, fullers, dyers, tapicers, carpenters, pew-
terers, braziers, bowyers, lorimers, chandlers, hatters,
cofferers and others. The list gives some notion of the state
of civilisation.

It was these men who, in the reign of Henry III., formed
an opposition to the class who held sway in the city. The
parties in London and the parties in England sought mutually
to derive power from their respective divisions; king and
barons attempted to attach to themselves the oligarchy or
the craftsmen.

The king, on his accession, could not be crowned at West-
minster, for that place, like the city, was held for the dauphin.
And when, in 1217, Louis left for France, the Londoners
gave him 5,000 silver marks. It would appear that after he
had made his peace with the English king there was still a
French party in the city, and it was evidently in order to
suppress it that in 1222 a great persecution was undertaken
by Walter Bukerel. Of this the culminating act was the
hanging, without a trial, of Constantine FitzAlulf, who
must have led the French faction. It may be that on this,
as on later occasions, the aldermanic class supported the
crown, while the discontented craftsmen naturally adhered to
 

CRAFTS AND THE BARONS’ WAR 41

 

Louis as one who would introduce a new order. The
Bukerels were indeed a leading family of the oligarchy,
but, on the other hand, Constantine himself and others of
his surname had held the office of sheriff.

The king when, in 1227, he attained his majority, made
the Londoners’ farewell gift to Louis an excuse for his
exaction from the city, as from the remainder of his realm,
of one-fifteenth of all movables. There followed a royal
grant of several charters by which the citizens received once
more the shrievalty of London and Middlesex to be held
for a rent, together with the power of themselves choosing
sheriffs, and the right annually to elect a mayor, who must
be presented to the king or justices and swear fealty to the
king. The liberties bestowed by Henry II. were regranted,
and a new benefit was a prohibition against all wears in the
Thames and Medway, presumably because they interfered
with trade.

Since the grant of the Conqueror’s charter the principle
of the dependence of civic liberties on the crown had become
well established. By each regrant the privileges of the city
were better established, yet the king retained the right of
suspending their exercise. Such a suspension had been the
omission in the charter of Henry II. of the right to elect
sheriffs; and such power was the weapon of Henry III. in
his dealings with the city.

In 1233 a certain Simon FitzMary was superseded in the
shrievalty by the citizens because he had misspent the public
money. He, in 1239, obtained royal letters which ordered
that he should again be admitted to the office; and the
citizens considered that their liberties had been infringed
and refused to comply. For this disobedience the mayor
was deposed, and for some time his office was vacant. In
 

42 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

1240 Gerard Bat was elected mayor, but when he went to
Westminster to be presented to the king he offended by his
freedom of speech. Henry swore an oath on St. Stephen’s
altar, ‘‘ Thou shalt not be mayor this year, and for a little
I would say that thou shouldst never be mayor. Go now.”
Gerard was frightened into resignation, and one Reginald
de Bungaye filled his place.

In this instance Henry would appear to have acted against
the whole body of the citizens. Yet he was sensible no less
than his predecessors of their importance. In 1246, before
he went to Gascony, he summoned all the Londoners to the
cross in St. Paul’s churchyard, and asked their leave for his
expedition.

From the morrow of the feast of Holy Trinity in 1243,
until St. Luke’s day in the next year, the city was in the
king’s hands and without mayor or sheriffs. On a slight
pretext he had committed its custody to his nominees. His
real motive appears in 1244, when he received from the
citizens £1,000 as the price of their restored independence.

In this year a further development in the situation can be
perceived: the king had become allied to the oligarchy;
Simon FitzMary was still a royal favourite, but he was now
supported by the magnates of London. In the week before
Michaelmas the citizens were gathered at the Guildhall for
the business of electing the sheriffs. There wasa proposition
to choose for another year an existing holder of the office,
Nicholas Bat, and to this continued tenure Simon FitzMary
objected. He declared, with truth, that it would transgress
a former resolution of the aldermen, made with the assent
of all the citizens. Yet on Michaelmas eve Nicholas was
elected sheriff by the mayor, Michael Tovy, and certain
described as ‘‘ men of the crowd”; and the aldermen, after
 

CRAFTS AND THE BARONS’ WAR 43

 

they had obtained the other sheriff’s place for Adam de
Benetleye, goldsmith, left the Guildhall protesting. The
king however ordered the deposition of Nicholas, and on
the presentation to him of Michael Tovy, refused to admit
him to the mayoralty, because he had assented to the
election. Two men of ancient magisterial families filled
the vacant places, and in 1246 Simon FitzMary was one
of the sheriffs.

The craftsmen had undergone a reverse but one that was
only temporary. An appeal on the question of the legality
of a will gave the king an occasion to take the city into his
own hands in 1246. His action was probably a mere exhibi-
tion of power, for he rendered their functions very soon to
the mayor and sheriffs, yet its unpopularity would appear
again to have given ascendancy to the more democratic
party. In 1247 Michael Tovy was once more elected mayor,
and he deprived Simon FitzMary of his aldermanry, on the
plea that as sheriff he had acted against the interests of the
city in the matter of the appeal.

There are other like indications of two parties in civic
politics, balanced against each other and allowing to the
king the profit of one who could turn the scales. The city
was again in royal custody in 1254 and 1255, and was subject
to more royal exactions. In 1252, before Henry went to
Gascony, he once more summoned all the citizens to St.
Paul’s churchyard, and there they swore fealty to Prince
Edward. .

In 1257 the king was giving his support to the craftsmen.
The story goes that before the feast of Purification a roll,
sealed with green wax, was found in the royal wardrobe at
Westminster. None knew who had placed it there, but it
contained accusations against the mayor, Ralph Hardel, a
 

44 HISTORY OF LONDON

wealthy and influential wine merchant who had held office
for three consecutive years. He and his advisers were stated
in the roll to have levied the tallage unfairly and otherwise
to have acted oppressively. Thereupon, on a Sunday late
in January, Henry caused the folkmoot to be summoned ;
and John Mansel, the Earl of Gloucester, and others of the
royal council, informed the assembled people that the king
would not suffer his city to be oppressed, that the burden of
paying tallage would not be allowed to fall heavily on the
poor while the rich escaped from it. An enquiry was
ordered to be made on the morrow in each ward into the
alleged injustice, and in every ward accordingly the citizens,
in the absence of the aldermen, chose to represent them
thirty-six of their number who had paid tallage, and sent
them to report to the king’s councillors. But a difficulty
arose because an enquiry on oath was projected, and by
their laws the citizens might not swear in any inquisition
in which life or limb was not at stake, and which did not
concern the ownership of land. The oath of fealty which
all had taken to the king, and the faith which bound to
God and to the sovereign, were declared to be sufficient
guarantees of the true report of the representatives of
wards. A meeting in the bishop’s hall, and another in the
Guildhall, were entirely occupied by altercations on this
point.

On Wednesday before the feast of Purification the king
was on the road to Westminster, and, according to their
custom, the mayor and citizens set out to meet him at
Knightsbridge, and there to salute him. But he sent an
esquire to forbid them to come into his sight, and they were
obliged to ride home again, sensible that they had incurred
his wrath. It is evident that the point of the illegality of
 

CRAFTS AND THE BARONS’ WAR 45

 

the enquiry by oath had been brought forward by the alder-
manic class, who always were jealous guardians of civic
usages, and who had, in this instance, a motive for obstructing
business. Now the king had indicated to them that in further
persistence they must reckon withhim. There was acrowded
meeting at the Guildhall on the morrow, and thither Henry
sent the champion of the craftsmen, Michael Tovy, with
Adam de Basing. They brought a royal message: the king
wished all liberties of the city to be conserved inviolate, but
he desired also that an enquiry on oath should be made into
the grievances. None but offenders would be punished, and
the commune would suffer no loss. These words were con-
firmed by John Mansel and other royal councillors, who
added to them, according to the aldermanic chronicler,
alluring promises to the populace. And then the proposal
to hold an inquisition by sworn witnesses was carried by
popular acclamation; the people, in the ancient English
manner, responded to it by shouts of “‘ Ya, ya.” John Mansel,
in the king’s name, removed the mayor and sheriffs, the king’s
chamberlain, and the constable of the Tower, and one of
the new sheriffs who were appointed was Michael Tovy.

A prolonged enquiry into the alleged oppressions ensued,
and resulted in the temporary degradation of a number of
aldermen. These had again sought protection from the
customs of the city, and to defeat such plea the folkmoot
was, at a certain point in the proceedings, summoned to the
cross in St. Paul’s churchyard. John Mansel and other
royal emissaries then asked the Londoners whether it were
indeed their law that an officer accused of bringing evil on
city and on citizens should be quit, if he defended himself
as the accused aldermen had succeeded in doing. And the
people replied by shouts of “ Nay, nay, nay.”
 

46 HISTORY OF LONDON

In the contemporary account of these incidents they are
described as an attempt to bring ina neworder. Previously
great questions had been determined by a conference of the
‘discreet men of the city”; now the decision was by the
voice of men of various birth, some born without the walls,
some of lowly estate. It does indeed seem that for a time,
and to suit the purpose of Henry III., there was a reign of
the mob. But in this mob the leading element, and that
which found expression, was constituted by the men of the
middle class, the craftsmen.

The Provisions of Oxford received the assent of the mayor
and aldermen and other chief citizens. In 1261 the king
again assembled the Londoners beneath St. Paul’s cross in
order to obtain their leave to cross the sea to France, and
at Mid-Lent in the next year they repeated their oath of
fealty to Prince Edward.

These appeals to the citizens, which were made by Henry
in the weakness of his position, combined with the events
of 1257 to revive the importance of the folkmoot. And
the king was to regret that he had helped in such revival. _

In 1262, the year of the outbreak of war, he was with the
queen, his brother Richard, and Prince Edward, at the
Tower. The aldermanic party were not revolutionary ;
they consented to unite with the barons for the maintenance
of laws only when they had protected by a saving clause
their fidelity to the king, and they refused to allow within
their walls any fighting men. But the barons entered
London; the royal party were forced to remove to West-
minster, and the Tower was occupied by the rebels.

It is at this moment that the craftsmen became supreme.
The mayor was their champion and leader, a certain Thomas
FitzThomas, who acted on the maxim that the first voice
 

CRAFTS AND THE BARONS’ WAR 47

belonged to the people, that they were the commune. He
sought for his measures not the authority of the aldermen,
but the sanction conveyed by the “ Ya, ya,” of the folkmoot.

The time was one of many events. It is evident that the
craftsmen were actuated by strong feeling; they took the
attitude so frequent among oppressed classes, that of men
robbed of their birthright. The commune was theirs, it
had been stolen from them by the aldermen. In the narrow
streets of the city men led stirring and dangerous lives. The
aldermen were intriguing with the court party outside the
walls, but the craftsmen were strong in the support of the
barons who held the Tower, and who assured them that
they would extract from the king the restoration of all their
rights. Some members of magisterial families became their
leaders. Thus Stephen Bukerel was chosen marshal, and
he led the people, when St. Paul’s bell had summoned them,
to attack Richard Plantagenet’s manor at Isleworth. They
were joined by Hugh le Despenser, who kept the Tower,
and Richard’s property was burnt, plundered, and laid waste.
The obstruction for their own convenience of certain public
ways had been an offence of the richest citizens, and these
lanes were now forcibly cleared by the Londoners.

There is one among their revolutionary acts which stands
out because it was an outcome of real tendencies and there-
fore anticipated later conditions. At a certain meeting of
all the citizens Thomas FitzThomas told thém “ that the men
of each craft should make such provisions as would be useful
to them, and he himself would cause these to be proclaimed
in the city and firmly observed.” This was to incorporate
the crafts in the constitution, to give them as well as influence

direct political power.
The rule of the craftsmen, their constitutional power, and
 

48 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

the mayoralty of Thomas FitzThomas ended alike with the
defeat of Simon de Montfort in 1265. After that event the
Londoners found, in the words of a chronicler, that “‘ it is
evil to fall into the hands of a king.” Henry threatened
to besiege the city, and there were some determined men
who wished to hold out against him. But his success in the
field had given the ascendancy to the court party. Messengers
were sent to implore his forgiveness, and he was received
within the walls. Already he had imprisoned Thomas
FitzThomas, Michael Tovy, Stephen Bukerel, and two
others. These he presented to Prince Edward ; there were
further imprisonments ; more than six hundred citizens were
forfeited; and the city was given into the keeping of royal
nominees. At last by a fine of 20,000 marks the Londoners
bought forgiveness: it is said that to pay it a quarter of all
the rents due to clerics and laymen for one year were
collected. Liberties were restored which included the right
of electing sheriffs but not a mayor, and all prisoners except
those given to Prince Edward were set free.

But the apparent submission of London was in fact no
more than another party victory. The craftsmen were not
subdued. When an election of sheriffs was held in 1266 the
poorer citizens protested against it. ‘‘ We will have no
mayor but Thomas FitzThomas,” they cried, ‘and we
will that he and his fellows be set free from prison.” The
king, in fear of a rising, sent a company of men-at-arms
who made more than twenty arrests. When the earl of
Gloucester again raised the banner of revolt the lesser
citizens once more proclaimed themselves the commune,
and assumed the ruling place. The London :rs were included
in the peace made between the king and the earl. There
was in 1267 a dispute between the goldsmiths and the
 

CRAFTS AND THE BARONS’ WAR $49

 

tailors which caused a battle to be waged for three nights
in the streets, and which was punished by many executions,
and the chronicler who gives an account of the affair com-
ments on the powerlessness of repeated precepts of the king
to prevent the sworn associations of the people, the redoubt-
able crafts.

At the very end of the reign the craftsmen renewed their
old claims. It was only in 1269 that Londoners received
back from the king their right to elect a mayor, and two
years later a determined struggle was made to secure the
office for the new leader of the popular party, Walter Hervey.
FitzThomas, although released from prison in 1268, had been
banished from the city.

The citizens were gathered at the Guildhall to elect a
mayor for the ensuing year. The choice of the aldermen
fell on Philip le Tayllur, one of the wealthiest of their
number, but the crowd who filled the hall cried out “ Nay,
nay, nay, we will have no mayor but Walter Hervey,” and
the aldermanic party could not prevail against their numbers
and their energy. They betook themselves to the king at
Westminster, and thither Walter Hervey followed them at
the head of a mob to whom he had promised a lightening of
burdens and an improvement in the conduct of civic finance.

The royal council heard from the aldermen of the manner
in which the election had been impeded, and were besought
to prevent such disaster as had followed on the supremacy
of the people under Thomas FitzThomas. But the people
meanwhile had penetrated into the royal hall, and their
noise could be heard even by the old king as he lay dying
in his bed. They were crying, “‘We are the commune of
the city, and to us belongs the election of the mayor of the
city, and we will that Walter Hervey be our elected mayor.”

H.L. E
 

5° HISTORY OF LONDON

The council were unwilling to affront either party, and
the king was ill and must not be disturbed. The representa-
tives of both sides were asked to return on the morrow, and
Walter was told to bring with him no more than ten ora
dozen men.

He came again however at the head of all his adherents,
an innumerable company on horse and on foot, who again
entered the royal hall and repeated their tumultous demand
that he should be their mayor; and they came thus day
after day, from the feast of St. Simon and St. Jude until
Martinmas. The aldermen also visited Westminster daily.

At last the council announced its decision ; the city was
taken into royal custody until the citizens could agree upon
amayor. Some fruitless negotiations occupied the end of
Henry’s reign. After his death the Earl of Gloucester
caused the folkmoot to be convened in St. Paul’s churchyard.
In the chapter house of the cathedral the aldermen were
won over by Gloucester and other magnates of the realm,
and then the assembled people heard it proclaimed that
Walter should be mayor.
CHAPTER V
THE VICTORY OF THE CRAFTS

 

T is with a victory of the craftsmen that the reign of
Edward I. opens in London ; they wrung from their
opponents assent to the election of a popular mayor.
But while the opposition to them included a majority

of the aldermen their success could not be permanent.
They were the constituents of Walter Hervey; but it was
only by high-handed action that he could carry measures
favourable to their desires.

In his time of office he granted charters to some of the
crafts. In 1274 certain men appeared at the Guildhall and
demanded from a mayor of the more usual type and from
the sheriffs the enforcement of regulations contained in these
charters, and Walter, now a mere alderman, acknowledged
and defended the rights he had bestowed. Then Gregory
de Roquesle, another and a leading alderman, repudiated
the charters as conferred without the consent of the alder-
men and the more discreet citizens. He added an accusation
which was new: the grant had aimed, he said, at the
advantage of the richer men of the crafts and the exclusion
from their numbers of the poor. There was in the presence
of the assembled people a wordy and a recriminative dispute
between Gregory and Walter. Walter went from the hall
to the church of St. Peter Westcheap, and there convened
the craftsmen who had benefited by his charters, and told

E2
 

52 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

them that only by adhering firmly to him they could prevent
the mayor and his friends from depriving them of their newly
acquired rights. He intended evidently to overwhelm the
aldermanic class. All that day and the next, in the streets
and the open spaces of the city, he harangued the people on
the iniquities of the mayor and his supporters.

His defeat was however easy. His opponents obtained
a royal brief which condemned his charters, as well as the
“congregations and sworn associations ”’ of citizens permitted
in his mayoralty. He was committed for trial; the charters
were surrendered to the mayor and declared invalid ; and it
was proclaimed throughout the city that men of all crafts
might sell when and where they would, so long only as
their wares were good and conformed to legal standards.

Thus an insight is gained into the ambitions of the crafts-
men. Their object in fighting for political power was to
secure trade monopolies defended by the civic authorities.
They were a democratic party only in so far as they were much
more numerous than the men they would have dispossessed.

Their reverse in this instance was complete. Walter was
condemned, chiefly on charges of taking bribes, and deprived
of his aldermanry. Next year one of their older champions,
Michael Tovy, was convicted of treason and hanged.

There followed some years during which the aldermanic
class held sway, apparently years of strife. In 1284,a certain
Laurence Duket, goldsmith, wounded in Westcheap a clerk
named Ralph Crepyn. He was pursued, evidently by
Ralph’s friends, and he took refuge in Bow Church. Thence
for four days he was not suffered to escape. After the fifth
night he was found dead, having, it was alleged, hanged
himself, and his enemies dragged his body as far as St.
Paul’s. But the authorities ordered an enquiry into the
 

THE VICTORY OF THE CRAFTS 53

 

matter and took a fierce vengeance on those accused of
complicity. Ralph himself, a clerk of Bow Church, and
one of the sheriffs were imprisoned in the Tower; Ralph’s
mistress was burned; and some dozen others who included
his servant and his nephew were hanged.

It was probably such sanguinary and disorderly events
which provoked the king to take the city into his custody
in 1285. Robert Fabyan states that Edward’s action was
ascribed to the fact that Gregory de Roquesle, then mayor,
had been bribed by the bakers to allow bread to be sold
underweight; but he adds justly, ‘‘to me it seemeth no
convenient cause to cease the liberties of the city for the
offence of one man.”

A knight, Ralph de Sandwich, was made royal keeper of
London; and for sixteen years no more is heard of party
strife in the city. Sheriffs were elected as usual in 1287 and
subsequently.

It was soon after this date that by the action of Edward I.
an important section of the population of the city was
eliminated.

For two centuries the Jews of London had lived with the
other inhabitants, side by side with them and yet always
apart. The barrier which prevented social community
between them and Christians was strengthened by regulations
of church and of state. Archbishop Stephen Langton in
the reign of Henry III. ordered that all Jews should wear
a badge of linen, two inches broad and four fingers long. It
was at first white and afterwards yellow, and was attached
to the upper garment.

Inferior as the Jews were in warlike qualities to the people
among whom they lived, and superior to them in culture
and in intellect, that attitude of false humility which has
 

54 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

come to be associated with them was an employment of their
only weapon: to meet force they had guile. Yet before the
reign of Henry III. it was not the familiar cringing Jew who
was to be met in the streetsof London. In John’s reign and
previously the Jew was so strong in the king’s support that
he was feared far more than he was despised. Cceur de Lion
was roused to much anger by the massacre which took place
at his coronation, for the king would have his Jews plundered
by none but himself. He guarded them jealously as lucrative
possessions; and they had an established position defended
by their own judicial and financial courts and officers. When
citizens congregated they could be moved to uneasiness, some
of them were probably induced to flee, if Jews walked boldly
into their midst in search of creditors.

The crusading spirit added to the virulence with which
Jews were hated, and economic causes contributed to produce
a changed attitude to them. Henry III. squandered their
wealth as recklessly as his other resources; in his reign they
were mortgaged wholesale first to Richard Plantagenet, then
to Prince Edward, and finally to the Caturensian merchants.
With the same lack of foresight the king protected them less
than his predecessors had done from the greed and the
prejudice of his subjects. The Jews of London complained
much of poverty; and it is probable that their losses made
them the bitterer masters. Usury had rendered them
masters indeed of many of the citizens, but in their manners
nothing masterly was left. They walked as men who ever
expect a blow, and yet they never were beaten from their
chosen path. They must have been animated by extra-
ordinary contempt for their persecutors or by a dominant
obstinacy, for while they cringed beneath persecution it never
made them change their pursuits.
 

THE VICTORY OF THE CRAFTS 55

 

They had in their capacity as moneylenders come to be
lords of manors, and thus to have power over tenants and
obligations to the state. The position was scandalous to
the moral sense of the time, and it was moreover politically
inexpedient, for Jews had neither patriotism to England nor
any of the other qualities which made up the medieval
ideal of citizenship. The history of England would have
been changed had many English manors remained in the
tenure of Jewish financiers in London and the rest of the
towns which had a Jewry. In London and other centres of
commerce the Jews were able more and more to direct trade
and absorb its profits.

It is these political and economic conditions which justify
the expulsion of 1290. By their contemporaries the Jews
were held guilty on narrower charges of coinclipping, and
forestalling trade, of the less attested crimes of circumcising
Christians and practising crucifixion, and of their old sins,
usury which Holy Church had forbidden, blasphemy, and
the rejection of Christianity.

Their banishment was final and complete. The graveyard
in Red Cross Street, granted to them by Henry II., became
‘“‘fair garden plots and summer houses for pleasure,” known
in the sixteenth century as the Jews’ Garden. It has named
Jewin Street and Jewin Crescent. There was in 1271 a
synagogue in Coleman Street; but the neighbouring Friars
Sack complained to the king that they were disturbed by the
howlings which took place during Jewish services, and they
were suffered to annex it and add it to their house. Other
synagogues were in the same part of London. In 1232
Henry III. founded in Chancery Lane, then New Street,
a hospital for converted Jews known as the House of the
Converts. It had at one time some hundred inmates, but
 

56 HISTORY OF LONDON

they naturally dwindled in number after the expulsion. The
house was appropriated to the Master of the Rolls and its
site is now occupied by the Public Record Office, but down
to 1873 the official style of the Master of the Rolls was
Keeper of the House of Converts.

In these years of the suspension of the mayoralty the crafts
were gradually winning their way to power. The wealth
of the craftsmen increased, and they came to share the place
of leading men of the city with the class which had engrossed
magisterial office. An oligarchy of the old type was not
fitted to the newer economic conditions, for there was an
irresistible tendency to specialisation in trade and to
monopolies. In 1299, when the king was in Scotland, the
Londoners garnished their streets with hangings of tapestry
and cloth of arras and “other clothes of sylke and of richesse
in most goodly wyse,” and then some six hundred of them,
clad in livery of red and white, rode four miles out from the
city to meet the queen and to escort her to Westminister.
Each bore upon his sleeve the emblem of his craft.

In 1301 the citizens were again allowed to elect a mayor.
But the strong rule of Edward I. was still able to keep order;
and until the end of his reign London has little internal
history. Some events of wider interest were connected with
the city. The divisions of the Hundred Years’ War were
felt within its walls, for on Monday after Trinity Sunday, in
1304, a royal order, proclaimed in the court of husting, passed
sentence of banishment on all Flemings. William Wallace
was brought to London for trial in 1305, and after his
execution his head was exposed on London Bridge. On the
22nd of May, 1306, Prince Edward was knighted at West-
minster by his father. There were great festivities at the
palace during the week, which were attended by the patriarch
 

THE VICTORY OF THE CRAFTS 57

 

of Jerusalem, as well as all Englishmen prominent in church
and state. More than three hundred knights were dubbed,
and among them was John le Blund, mayor of London.

In February, 1308, Edward II. was received in his capital
city. We are told that in his honour cloth of gold was laid
in the streets. The town, says the chronicler, seemed to be
not London but New Jerusalem. The mayor and aldermen,
clothed in samite and in silk, were present at the coronation
at Westminster and performed at it their accustomed service
of the butlery.

The reign which opened thus pompously was fitly signifi-
cant. Of the two struggling parties the newer one, that of
the craftsmen, was now actually the stronger, and it needed
but the rule of a weak king to allow a corresponding adjust-
ment of constitutional power.

A certain Richer de Refham, a mercer, had at one time
been deprived of his aldermanry; but in 1302, the year after
the recovery of the mayoralty, he was restored to office and
made alderman of Bassishaw. He it was who became the
next popular mayor; his election occurred in 1310.

The ground which the craftsmen had gained since the days
of Walter Hervey appears at once if Walter’s measures be
compared with those of his successor. Richer did not find
himself supported only by the unprivileged. He made the
inevitable appeal to the better times that had passed, but he
addressed himself first of all to the magnates of the city. He
caused all the ancient customs to be collected from the rolls
and the books of the chamber, and then he summoned, to
hear them read, not the folkmoot, but the “wiser and more
powerful” citizens and the aldermen. To these he made
a speech: ‘‘My very dear fellow citizens, these are our
ancient customs and liberties; but they have fallen into
 

58 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

disuse through the frequent removal of mayors and sheriffs
and through the negligence of those officers. Is it not your
will that for the future they be all firmly kept?’ And his
audience with one voice answered, ‘‘ It is indeed.”

Then Richer obtained a royal writ, and he caused the
neglected customs, thus authorised, to be promulgated about
the city and to be strictly guarded. It is evident that the
old grievance of trespasses on public property was con-
spicuous among the rights which had been violated. With
the aldermen, in solemn procession, Richer perambulated
the city ; and then and there, with staves, such buildings as
encroached on the streets were demolished. The mayor
moreover administered justice with austerity and equity.

Like all reformers he made enemies, and he was deposed
from mayoralty and aldermanry. But it is apparent from
his career that an alderman who sympathised with the
middle-classes was no longer ostracised by his fellows, but
could gain the support of asectionof them. Some aldermen
were now drawn from the numbers of the craftsmen, and
therefore the attainment of the ambition of crafts, their
admission to political power, could not long be delayed.

Their victory was gained in a time of confusion: as ever,
dissensions in the central government favoured the demands
of the citizens, and his weakness made Edward II. ready to
pay a high price for the city’s support.

The Black Friars were throughout the reign chief sup-
porters of the king, and it was in their house that in 1312 he
met the Londoners. He obtained from them an undertaking
to guard the city in his cause; in September he sent his
officers to the Guildhall to ask a renewal of the assurance,
and then the citizens took the opportunity to bring forward
certain grievances, and redress was promised to them.
 

THE VICTORY OF THE CRAFTS — 59

The promise did not however give satisfaction, for immedi-
ately afterwards one of the wrongs of which complaint had
been made, an illegal enclosure of land outside the Tower,
was removed by a mob. The mayor and aldermen went
next day to Westminster to disclaim responsibility, yet they
were blamed by the council and an enquiry was ordered.

The year 1315 was one of constitutional importance.
Then in an assembly which included the mayor, Stephen de
Abingdon, many aldermen and the commonalty, it was
agreed to ask the king for a confirmation of the charters of
the city and for a grant of certain new articles, alleged to
embody some ancient and neglected rights. The mayor and
aldermen sought Lancaster and other members of the royal
council, then assembled at St. Paul’s, and offered to pay to
the king 500 marks for the confirmation and £500 for the
new grant; but nothing was done for the moment.

It was a period when the disorder of the realm was
heightened by a great scarcity of provisions. London was
affected like the rest of the kingdom, and several sumptuary
enactments by Edward II. did little to alleviate the distress.
“There followed this famine” says Stowe, ‘‘a grievous
mortality of people, so that the quick might unneath bury
the dead. The beasts and cattle also, by the corrupt grass
whereof they fed, died, whereby it came to pass that the eat-
ing of flesh was suspected of all men, for flesh of beasts not
corrupted was hard to find. Horseflesh was counted great
delicates ; the poor stole fat dogs to eat; some as was said,
compelled through famine, in hid places did eat the flesh of
their own children, and some stole others which they
devoured. ‘Thieves that were in prison did pluck in pieces
those that were newly brought amongst them, and greedily
devoured them half alive.”
 

60 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

In this hideous time the objects of the craftsmen were not
forgotten. The dearth ended about the year 1317. In 1318,
when John de Wengrave was mayor, “‘ there arose a great
discord between the commune and him” because he
wished not to sanction certain of the articles formulated in
1315. John again became mayor in 1319, not by the will of
the citizens, but by force of letters which he had procured
from the king and “the assent of certain persons.” He is
accused of having done much harm to the commune, yet in
this year the new charter was actually bought from the king.
Perhaps by the influence of John it was less advantageous to
the craftsmen or more expensive than it otherwise would
have been. At all events his career indicates that there were
still two parties among the aldermen.

He did not seriously damage the victory of the craftsmen,
the great victory obtained when at York, on the 8th of June,
1319, the king signed the articles which formed the city’s new
charter. It contained many clauses designed to preserve
liberties and justice, but in two a principle new to the con-
stitution of the city was adopted. In the seventh article it
was provided “that no inhabitant, and especially English
merchant, of any mystery or trade, be admitted into the
freedom of the city, unless by surety of six honest and
sufficient men of the mystery or trade that he shall be of; ”’
and the fourteenth article enacted that merchants not of the
freedom of the'city might not ‘sell by retail wines or other
wares within the city or suburbs.” Thus all traders were
forced to become freemen of London, and the road to such
estate was by the crafts. The craft system had been incor-
porated in the constitution. Next year we are told that
many tradesmen in London were clothed in silk and did
much business.
 

THE VICTORY OF THE CRAFTS 61

 

During the eight years which remained of the reign of
Edward II., a fishmonger, Hamo de Chigwell, was six times
mayor. He evidently favoured the king’s party, yet he
endeavoured to maintain as far as possible the neutrality of
London. He is in fact atype of the law abiding citizen, and
his administration was able. Certain negotiations with the
rebel lords in 1321 resulted in the decision of the city not to
oppose their designs but to maintain their own defences.
Nevertheless, in October, a contingent of five hundred foot
from London assisted the king in the siege of Leeds Castle
in Kent. At the close of the year Edward granted to the
citizens that the aid they had afforded to him by contributions
of armed men should not be drawn into a precedent.

In the autumn of 1322 Hamo de Chigwell was elected
mayor for the third time at the king’s desire. But during
his tenure of office occurred the death of the popular
Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, with whom the Londoners
showed unwise sympathy. Miracles were performed, to the
admiration of many, before a tablet which the earl had
erected in St. Paul’s in memory of the passing of the
Ordinances ; and a hymn was sung by the canons in honour
of him “ who when he saw the common people shipwrecked
and in travail did not spurn to die for the right.”

This hero worship was probably the cause of the removal
of Hamo from the mayoralty by the king in April, 1323, and
the appointment of another in his place “‘ neither by present-
ation nor election.” The new mayor does not appear to
have maintained order, for there was while he held office a
serious quarrel between the goldsmiths and the weavers.
Men fought in Cheap with bows and with slings, and many
met their death. Hamo became mayor again in 1324.

In 1326 his efforts to keep the city out of the strife of the
 

62 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

kingdom broke down. On Michaelmas day a letter from the
queen and her son was fixed on the cross in Cheapside, and
copies of it were posted on various windows; it invited the
Londoners to take part in the destruction of the enemies of
the land, especially Hugh le Despenser. Then the common-
alty set at nought the authority of mayor and of aldermen.
They gathered beside the convent of the Black Friars,
perhaps because they thought to manifest their sympathies
by an attack on the house of those staunch friends of the
king. The mayor saw that they could no longer be resisted ;
and “crying mercv, with joined hands” he “went to the
Guildhall and granted to the commons their demand, and
the cry was made in Cheap that the enemies of the king,
queen, and their son should at once quit the city or stay at
their peril.” Walter Stapleton, bishop of Exeter, who in the
previous year had been the king’s treasurer, was seized that
day by the citizens as he was riding to his London house, and
beheaded with two of his squires. ‘Women and the
wretchedly poor took the body, which was naked except that
a woman gave an old cloth to cover the belly ; and burned it
in a deserted place without making any hole in the earth,
and the squire’s body beside quite naked, without the office
of priest or clerk.”

Anarchy followed : houses were plundered ; prisoners in the
Tower and great men were put to death. Hamo was deposed
at the end of the year by the queen’s command, and new
officers appointed. But from the day of Bishop Stapleton’s
death the magistrates were helpless before the ruthless
lawlessness of the less reputable citizens. They inspired
such fear that men dared hold neither church nor secular
courts. The word “‘riffleres’’ was invented to describe the
robbers. Finally, “on Sunday before the feast of St. Sebastian
 

THE VICTORY OF THE CRAFTS 63

 

and St. Fabian, it was cried in Cheap that all who owed
service at the coronation of the king, or who had clearly
service to render, should go to the coronation of the new
king, Sir Edward, Duke of Guienne, on Sunday, Candlemas
Eve.”

Thus the reign in which the craftsmen secured the leading
place in the city’s government ended at a time when govern-
ment in the city had ceased to exist.
CHAPTER VI

THE CHURCH IN MEDIAEVAL
LONDON

 

T is almost impossible to exaggerate the importance
of the church in medieval London.

The chroniclers of the middle-ages are often tedious
because they present events not as consequent but
merely as sequent on each other; there is little perspective,
all is depicted with like emphasis; there is hardly any
attempt to analyse facts into causes and results, they are
merely catalogued. This is because there was conceived to
be for all and single events one cause only, the will of God.
The idea of a system was practically absent. Men did
indeed seek at times to penetrate into the import of happen-
ings and of phenomena; but this was only because they
believed them to be the terms of a language in which God
gave forewarning of his will. They sought for the key to the
cypher in which he had written his purpose on the heavens,

in the working of the elements, in the incidents of history.
Naturally therefore religion was the supreme fact in the
life of the medizval citizen. And he believed, with the
implicitness of a mind educated by a view of the universe so
little inquisitive, that religion could be obtained only by the
means of Holy Church. Until the fourteenth century very
little is heard of heresy in London. For his every act the
 

CHURCH IN MEDIAEVAL LONDON 65

Londoner sought the sanction of God and the church: he
called upon God to witness his contracts; the formalities of
civic usage included stately visits to churches, a stately
securing of ecclesiastical confirmation; the upkeep of roads
and bridges was regarded as a religious duty; the crafts had
a religious aspect as guilds responsible in certain churches for
certain duties, often the upkeep of a priest, an altar, ora light.

But beyond this the church exercised power fcr political
and economic reasons.

As the metropolitan town of a diocese London was unique
in England in that it was also a great commercial city. In
this respect it approximated to the continental seats of
bishoprics; and it cannot be doubted that it was like them
also in the part played by the bishop to secure its indepen-
dence and its strength. William the bishop was one of those
who received from the Conqueror the city’s charter; and it
was traditionally he who had obtained for London the king’s
grace. Hence arose the custom which until the Reformation
obliged each mayor to go to St. Paul’s Cathedral on the day
after his election, and to pray for the soul of Bishop William.

The bishop of London held a dignified position. Lanfranc
decided in 1075 that in church councils he should as first
suffragan bishop sit on the left hand of the archbishop of
Canterbury, on whose right was the seat of the archbishop
of York.

The history of St. Paul’s seems to show that from the
church of the diocese it became that of the city, from the
bishop’s church it became the church of the dean and
canons. Such development corresponds to that overshadow-
ing of the diocesan and parochial system by the religious
houses which began in London soon after the Norman
Conquest.

H.L.
 

66 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

When William I. came to London he found St. Paul’s on
Ludgate Hill; and the Benedictine abbey of St. Peter had
already been for several centuries at Westminster. Probably
he found the city divided into almost all of the numerous
parishes which continued throughout the middle-ages. Parish
churches, small and simple buildings, often of wood, which
possessed few books, ornaments, or vestments, were built in
the eleventh and twelfth centuries where they had not existed
previously.

But after the coming of the Norman kings numbers of
religious communities settled in the city, and they did not
only modify the ecclesiastical system; they also influenced
largely social and economic conditions.

St. Martin’s le Grand, a house of secular canons, was
founded by the Conqueror’s grant in 1067, not far from the
precincts of St. Paul’s. Under Henry I. the Austin canons
came to London. They had three monasteries: that of
St. Mary Overy in Southwark, where their later church
became St. Saviour’s Cathedral; that of St. Bartholomew in
Smithfield outside the wall, where they built the beautiful
church of St. Bartholomew the Great; and that of Holy
Trinity Aldgate.

The institution of the last is an episode of one of the most
interesting passages in the history of the city. It was
recorded in the archives of Holy Trinity that in the days of
King Cnut or King Edgar there were “thirteen knights
greatly loved of the king and the kingdom, who begged of
the king a piece of land in the eastern part of the city,
forsaken by the inhabitants because of the great service with
which it was burdened. This land the knights sued to hold,
with leave to have on it a perpetual gild. And the king
granted it to them freely on condition that each of them
 

CHURCH IN MEDIAEVAL LONDON 67

 

victoriously fought a battle on the earth, above it, and on
water; and moreover that on a certain day they fought with
spears in the field now called East Smithfield against all
comers; and these things were done gloriously. Then on
the same day the king named the knights his Cnihtengild.
He fixed the limits of their territory from the gate called
Aldgate to the place where now bars extend eastward on either
side of the street ; and towards the gate known as Bishopsgate
up to the house of William the priest . ..; and thence
southward into the Thames as far as a horseman riding in
the stream at low tide can throw a spear into the water. So
that all East Smithfield with the right hand of the street
from Doddyng’s pond to the Thames, and the hospital of
St. Katherine with the walls. . ., and the outer stone wall,
and the new ditch of the Tower are included in that fee.”
Such is the legendary account of the foundation of the
Cnihtengild,! a body whose place in the constitutional history
of the city has caused much controversy, but who undoubtedly
were for long the holders of the territory comprised in
Portsoken ward. Within it the priory of Holy Trinity was
founded, and by the canons of that house ‘‘ the multitude of
those who praised God by day and by night was so increased
that all the city had delight in their sight.” Therefore, in
1125, the members of the Cnihtengild gathered in the church
of the canons and surrendered to them all their lands and
their rights; and subsequently, until the dissolution of his
house, the prior of Holy Trinity was alderman of Portsoken.

1 The Cnihtengild was certainly in existence in the late tenth
century. As to its significance the most probable theory is that the
grant of Portsoken, the land outside Aldgate, carried with it, at what-
ever period it was made to the Cnihten or knights, the obligation to
defend the eastern entrance to the city. Such a duty had in 1125
become obsolete.

F2
 

68 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

The Austin canons did a great service to the community,
for they established in London hospitals for the sick. The
hospital of St. Bartholemew was for a short time identical
with the monastery. That of St. James in Westminster
existed in the reign of Henry II. and was subject to the
Austin rule. That of St. Mary without Bishopsgate was
founded on the east side of Bishopsgate Street in the end of
the twelfth century, by certain two pious citizens, William
Brown and Rose his wife. The religious duties of the house
were discharged by Austin canons, but there were lay brothers
and sisters to tend the sick. A leper hospital in Kent
Street within the borough of Southwark was known as the
Lok, and is believed also to date from the twelfth century;
but its history is obscure. Matilda, the queen of Stephen,
founded the hospital of St. Katherine by the Tower, not for
the sick, but as an asylum for thirteen poor persons over
whom a master and brethren and sisters presided. She
bought the site from the canons of Holy Trinity, and to
them the custody of the hospital wasentrusted. A refounda-
tion by Queen Eleanor in 1273 increased the number of
beneficiaries. The canons of St. Mary Overy appropriated
a building within their precints to the use of the sick and the
poor, on the initiative, it is said, of St. Thomas of Canterbury,
and such house was superseded early in the thirteenth
century by the hospital of St. Thomas Southwark.

It is difficult to pass judgment on the management of
these hospitals, but on the whole they appear to have been
very useful. The inmates were subject to more or less
monastic discipline and compelled to fulfil religious duties.

Almost at the same time as the Austin canons the military
orders of monks, those products of the crusades, came first
to London.
 

CHURCH IN MEDIAEVAL LONDON 69

 

Hugh de Payens, master of the knights Templars, visited
England in 1128 to collect money and obtain recruits for his
order. At this time, apparently, the house outside Holborn
Bars, of which other English settlements of the order were
cells, was founded. It had the characteristic round church,
and in its graveyard Geoffrey de Mandeville was buried. In
1184 the house was removed to Fleet Street, and was after-
wards known as the New Temple. The church, which still
exists, was dedicated to God and the Virgin by Heraclius,
patriarch of Jerusalem, in 1185.

In the New Temple all the English revenues of the order
were deposited, and many gifts and bequests made the
Templars wealthy. They were nosimple sons of the Church,
but of all the members of the clerical estate the proudest and
the most worldly wise. Their relics were of a dazzling
sanctity ; in their church were the tombs of the greatest in
the land; and their house was the lodging of King John
while he treated with the barons before he granted Magna
Carta; of the archbishop of York in the same reign; of a
papal agent and of ambassadors of the king of Castille in
that of Henry III. Moreover the Templars were in intimate
relation to the Crown. From Henry II. to Henry III. the
kings entrusted to them diplomatic, financial and adminis-
trative business. By John and his son the Temple was used
as a bank, a place where royal treasure was deposited and
whence large sums were borrowed.

When interest in the Crusades declined and when the
friars had come to England men grew less liberal to the
Templars. The friars superseded them moreover as servants
of the king, and as his bankers their place was taken by the
Italian merchants who under Edward I. became numerous
in London. In that reign the Templars did not occupy their
 

70 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

previous high position. Under Edward II. they were
disowned by the pope, and from October, 1309, until the
following March they underwent trial in London on charges
epitomised under the heads of “ blasphemy, apostasy, idolatry
and heresy.”” The community appear to have been guilty of
some secularity and of the exercise of much power. In 1312
their order was suppressed.

Two less important settlements were made by military
orders in medieval London. The house in West Cheap in
which Thomas 4 Becket was born, of which the site is
occupied by the Mercers’ Hall, was granted by the sister
of the murdered archbishop, Agnes wife of Thomas
FitzTheobald de Helles, to be a hospital for a master and
brethren of the order of St. Thomas the Martyr. It was
dedicated to St. Mary and St. Thomas of Canterbury ; and
thus by an act of family piety the hospital known as that of
St. Thomas of Acon was founded. In 1247 Simon FitzMary,
the prominent sheriff, gave his land on the west side of
Bishopsgate Street and outside the wall to Godfrey, bishop
of Bethlehem, as the site of a priory of canons, brethren and
sisters of the order of St. Mary of Bethlehem. This house
was subject to the bishop of Bethlehem; and in it he and
his canons and messengers had a right of lodging when they
came to London. Its members wore the Dominican habit;
but, by the provision of the founder, they bore on their copes
and mantles the sign of their order, a red star with a centre
of blue.

In complete contrast to the military orders were the last
class of religious who came to London, the friars who in the
thirteenth century introduced a new element into the society
of towns.

The ideal of the Knights Templars and the other orders
 

CHURCH IN MEDIAEVAL LONDON 71

of their class was the sanctification of the business of war
and state: they expressed the conceptions of the Crusaders
who served God by fighting. The more modern friars
revived the old article of Christianity that nothing was too
lowly to be godlike. Hitherto the monks had been aristocrats,
but the friars made a virtue of poverty. ‘The highe dignitie
of most profounde and highe povertee ” was enjoined on the
Grey Friars in the rule of St. Francis. In their ministry
they looked not for dignity but for need, and therefore they
served the most miserable of men, the lepers who in every
medizval town testified to ignorance and to filth, the squalid
beggars and the mean labourers. There was an opportunity
for the new orders in such towns as London, because the
parochial clergy occupied in the ecclesiastical system a low
and a subordinate place, and were no efficient pastors. They
suffered from the superior status of the monks, from the
practice of farming parochial cures, and from theattractiveness
of monastic churches to worshippers and their offerings.
And as the friars neglected convention in their pastoral work
they forsook it also in their preaching. They appealed not
to authority but to reason, and had for their theme not
doctrine but conduct. Their sermons were in homely and
living language, concerned with the life of every day and
illustrated by its incidents. A new force was imparted to
religion, and it was felt in every class; the supporters of the
friars were, as well as the poor townsfolk, some of the
wealthiest of the land.

The first of them to arrive in London were the least demo-
cratic, the Dominican or Black Friars, sometimes called
Friars Preachers, who settled in Holborn near the Old
Temple in 1221. In 1272 they obtained from the mayor and
commonalty a site within the city, adjacent to the wall near
72 HISTORY OF LONDON

Ludgate, and on the banks of the Thames. It is that which
has since borne their name. They were associated with the
court and with persons highly placed.

They do not appear to have greatly identified themselves
with the life of the citizens. But the Grey Friars, otherwise
the Franciscans or Friars Minor, who first landed in England
in 1224 and came to London soon afterwards, better
expressed the idea which had caused the foundation of these
orders. They settled near Newgate, on the site which was
afterwards that of Christ’s Hospital. Its nature when they
chose it may be inferred from the names which described it,
for it was in the parish of St. Nicholas Shambles and
included part of Stinking Lane. In this, one of the least
agreeable places in all the crowded and unsavoury city, the
friars kept strictly the rules which bound their order to
simplicity and frugality ; and at the same time, by the estab-
lishment of schools, they avoided a danger to which those
who exalt simplicity are prone. London was aroused to
enthusiasm. The leading citizens built for the Grey Friars
their chapel, the nave of their first church, their chapter
house and their dormitory, and gave them furniture and a
water supply; and the poor generously contributed their
alms.

Another important house of Friars was that of the
Carmelites or White Friars, founded in Fleet Street in 1241
by Sir Richard Gray, knight. A house of Austin Friars or
Friars Hermits was established in Broad Street, near the
church of St. Peter le Poor, in 1253 by Humphrey de Bohun,
Earl of Hereford and Essex and constable of England. In
1257 some Friars of the Sack, otherwise of the Penance of
Jesus Christ, came to London, and it was they who settled
in Coleman Street near a Jewish synagogue. Their house
 

CHURCH IN MEDIAEVAL LONDON 73

 

survived only until 1305. A house of Crossed Friars or
Friars of the Cross was founded in Hart Street in the end of
the thirteenth century. In Westminster, in 1267, a priory
for Friars of the order of St. Mary de Areno was instituted,
but existed only for fifty years; and there was a community
of Pied Friars or Friars de Pica in London in 1300, which
probably was even more shortlived. In 1293 Edmund, Earl
of Lancaster, the king’s brother, founded outside Aldgate, in
the parish of St. Botolph, a house of Minoresses or of nuns of
the order of St. Clare, who named the Minories. The rule
prescribed for them was that of the nunnery of the Humility
of the Blessed Mary at St. Cloud.

Early in this century a Benedictine nunnery, St. Helen’s
Bishopsgate, of which the church remains, had been instituted
by a goldsmith, William son of William. Two hospitals
were established in London and Westminster in the reign of
Henry III. by foreign communities. The hospital of St.
Anthony in the parish of St. Benet Fink, which received a
master, two priests, a schoolmaster, and twelve poor men,
was held by the brothers of St. Anthony of Vienne ; and that
of St. Mary Rouncivall near Charing Cross was a cell of the
priory of St. Mary at Rouncivall in Navarre.

It is obvious that, if only by force of numbers, ecclesiastics
must have formed a very important part of the population of
London in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In addition
to the members of religious houses there were the parish
priests; and although the great age of the foundation of
chantries was not yet, a considerable number of chantry
priests already held benefices in the churches. Certain
citizens and great men had moreover private chapels served
by chaplains ; and there were in the city, Westminster, and
Southwark many houses of bishops, whose suites were to a
 

74 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

great extent composed of those in clerical orders. In the
streets of the city men who wore the habit of monk or friar,
secular priest or deacon, must have been seen almost as
frequently as the merchants and the craftsmen and their
families; and the ecclesiastical element must strongly have
affected all social relations.

The monks and the nuns, the friars and the secular canons,
were on the whole patriotic Londoners who shared the
interests of their lay neighbours. There was no cleavage
between the clerical and the lay estates, and the ecclesiastics
identified themselves with the fortunes of the city and played
often a spirited part in resistance to kingly aggression. The
inevitable disputes as to boundaries and other property rights
had none of the bitterness which indicates class hatred. The
religious communities appear moreover to have been fair
landlords, and there is never evidence that their tenure was
regarded as that of aliens.

In lay society there were two movements in which the
conflicting tendencies of the religious spirit of the day were
manifested. The first was that which formed gilds or
fraternities; it was indeed identical with the movement of
the crafts which, as has been said, were but religious brother-
hoods in one of their secular aspects. , The religious
fraternities, when first their constitution is known, were con-
nected with particular churches in which they were respon-
sible for the discharge of services. The brothers and sisters
were bound moreover to perform for each other such rites as
the offering of prayers after death. Each member paid asum
yearly into the common box of his gild, and thus insured
himself against the miseries of sickness, impoverishment or
imprisonment, for the common fund was devoted to the
needs of unfortunate sisters and brethren. The fraternities
 

CHURCH IN MEDIAEVAL LONDON 75

 

were organised under the direction of masters or wardens,
and were bound together by certain obligatory functions,
such as an annual dinner and church services held on fixed
dates. Their history belongs to that of the principle of
voluntary association, which has been so mighty a forerunner
of the control of government.

Until the middle of the thirteenth century our knowledge
of these gilds in London is only fragmentary, but it is
enough to certify that they were no new phenomenon. The
work which they had done in advance of the powers of church
and state can only be surmised ; one probable theory is that
they helped to form parishes and to build parish churches.
As is usual with men when they conform to universal
tendencies, the Londoners assigned narrow reasons for their
membership of gilds. The immediate uses of association
were evident, and moreover the text which ascribes virtue
to the gathering of ‘‘two or three” was interpreted in its
most literal sense to give merit and power to all societies.

In direct contrast to the brotherhoods were the hermits
and anchorites. The two classes are distinct: while a
hermit may move about freely, an anchorite is bound to the
place of his settlement. Both are connected usually with the
lonely places of the world, yet both were to be found in
London. There was a hermit at Cripplegate in John’s reign
and long afterwards, and another under Henry III. in the
parish of St. Clement Danes. Katharine, wife of William
Hardel, built for herself an ankerhold beside the chapel of
St. Bartholomew’s hospital in 1227, and in the same period
Idonia de Boclaund had an ankerhold behind the chapel of
St. Peter at Tower, and an anchorite named John lived in a
cell within a turret of the city wall near Aldgate. Doubtless
there were others who followed the same solitary profession.
 

76 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

Of all aspects of the medizval church the spectacular is
that which needs least emphasis. No one forgets the
pageantry of the Church. There can have been of all its
great ceremonies few more impressive than that which took
place on St. Edward’s day in 1247. Among the treasures of
St. Paul’s was a vase said to contain the blood of Christ, and
the king transferred it to a more royal resting-place. He
ordered all the priests and clerks of London to assemble in
the cathedral in their most ceremonious vestments. With
highest honour and reverence and fear he there received
before them the sacred vase, and then in solemn order they
walked down Ludgate Hill, through the gate, and on to West-
minster. The king came last of all, on foot like the others, and
in the habit of a poor man. He held the vase above his head,
and always he looked at it or at the sky. It was deposited in
the abbey. But sometimes the citizens saw the power of the
Church less gorgeously displayed ; as when, in 1303, Jocelyn
and Thomas Atwell, officers of the city, did penance by order
of the archbishop for their violation of a sanctuary. They
had dragged a robber out of the church of St. Michael
Crooked Lane, and therefore they walked, barefooted, clad
only in their shirts and carrying torches, from Bow church to
Newgate, and thence back to the place of their sin.
CHAPTER VII

THE PERIOD OF SOCIAL
REVOLUTION

 

ROM 1319 onwards there were three roads to
citizenship of London: a man might inherit the
status as his patrimony; he might acquire it by
serving a fixed term of apprenticeship to a master,

who afterwards bore witness to his fitness for it ; or he might
attain to it by payment of a fine of varied amount to the civic
funds and by his presentment to the mayor, aldermen, and
chamberlain by the men of his mystery or craft. The person
thus presented and the discharged apprentice entered into
the freedom alike by way of the crafts; only the freeborn
citizens were not necessarily members of that organisation.
Their membership became however a practical necessity,
and there was even a tendency to cause them also to submit
to the formalities which enfranchised their fellows, that they
might thus be brought to swear the oath of allegiance to the
city.

The result was a very complete organisation of all the
citizens. An attempt yet further to elaborate it by the limita-
tion of the retail trade of every citizen to that in the goods
which belonged to his mystery was not successful, but
miscellaneous traders appear to have been exceptional. And
in each craft there was an individual organisation which from
this time derived from the constitution ofthe city. In 1328 the
 

78 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

names of those elected and sworn to govern and instruct the
divers mysteries were enrolled in the records of the corpora-
tion, the names of the wardens of the Fishmongers, Cheese-
mongers, Butchers, Goldsmiths, Drapers, Mercers, Girdlers,
Haberdashers, Tailors and Linen Armourers, Hosiers, Beaders,
Woolmongers, Vintners, Grocers, Ironmongers, Cutlers,
Cofferers, Sadlers, Cordwainers, Skinners, Cappers, Corders,
Joiners, and Painters.

On the wardens devolved the duties of the maintenance
of a legal standard among the goods of the craft they
ruled, and of guarding other ordinances compulsory in it.
These, when not concerned with the standard of worth,
laid down the conditions of apprenticeship, limited member-
ship of the craft to freemen, regulated conditions of work,
and sometimes forbade any but retail sale to those not free-
men, or gave a control of export trade.

Jurisdictory power remained with the officers of the city.
Thus the warden of the Hatters had power to make search
for defective hats, but must take such as he found before
the mayor and aldermen. The mayor however, when appeal
was made to him by a craft, usually decided by the verdict
of a jury chosen from the interested body, and thus the craft
organisation was strengthened, and there was even a tendency
to craft autonomy.

Such became the relation between the government of the
city and that of the crafts: the former absorbed the latter.
Mr. George Unwin, in his Gilds and Companies of London,
has indicated what might have been a different development.
In the twelfth and the thirteenth centuries the Bakers, the
Fishmongers, and the Weavers had secured autonomy at the
expense of the central government of the city, in the same
way as the boroughs of England acquired it at the expense
 

THE PERIOD OF SOCIAL REVOLUTION 79

 

of the shire government. They obtained the right to tax
themselves, and it is possible that, had the course of history
allowed other crafts to gain such privileges, the commune of
London, that form of the city’s person which culminated in
the mayor, would have been superseded.

In the reign of Edward III. certain crafts of London
advanced rapidly in wealth and power, and there came to be
a distinction between the greater and the lesser mysteries.
It was that which eventually gave their position to the twelve
great livery companies of London; but the membership of
this superior class was for long not exactly determined. In
1351, by an exceptional arrangement, the members of the
common council were elected not by the wards, but by the
thirteen chief mysteries. The Grocers, the Fishmongers, and
the Mercers chose each of them six members; the Drapers,
Goldsmiths, Woolmongers, Vintners, Skinners, Saddlers, Cord-
wainers, Tailors, and Butchers four; and the Ironmongers
two. These were at this date the leading mysteries.

Meanwhile lesser crafts obtained acknowledgment and a
confirmation of their ordinances from the civic authorities.
In addition to those which existed in 1328 at least thirty-five
were recognised in the reign of Edward III. Most of them
were distributed roughly in groups. Thus while the Skinners,
Saddlers and Cordwainers continued to be the leading crafts
among leather-merchants and leather-workers, there were
added to them Pouchmakers, Whittawyers, Glovers, and
Leathersellers; and the crafts interested in iron came to
include not only, as in 1328, Ironmongers, Cutlers and
Cofferers, but also Armourers, Spurriers, Pinners, Black-
smiths, Sheathers and Founders.

If the relations of the crafts be examined it will be found
that those in which the element of handicraft predominated
 

80 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

were apt to be less important than such as were chiefly
engaged in mercantile business. The rapid increase of the
power of the latter was largely due to the opportunities
afforded by the new regulation of foreign trade in the
fourteenth century by the system of staples. There tended
to be several crafts of which the members were handicraftsmen
grouped around and dependent on the great mysteries. And
it is incontestable that below the level of the humbler crafts,
and forming part of the groups, must have been many
associations of workmen and traders who failed to obtain
public recognition.

Some crafts were distinguished by their acquisition of
charters, which confirmed their ordinances and monopolies.
These were granted by Edward III. to the Goldsmiths,
Skinners, Tailors, and Girdlers in 1327; and to the Drapers,
Skinners, Vintners and Fishmongers in 1363-4.

The increasing importance of the merchant and the
capitalist made more difficult the lot of the small master
workman. Towards the end of the reign of Edward III.
the citizens showed a tendency to exclusiveness. There was
in 1368-9 an attempt to impede the enfranchisement of
apprentices and thus to limit the number of master workmen.
The mayor and aldermen were petitioned to rule that no
apprentice might obtain the freedom, even when he had
served his full term of seven years, unless he paid a fine of 60s.
or more. The desired ordinance was not passed; but there
were nevertheless very numerous Londoners without capital,
unenfranchised apprentices and journeymen workmen, who
never attained to full membership of a recognised craft or
citizenship.

In this century the conflict between the citizens and the
foreign settlers in London became important. Recruits to
 

THE PERIOD OF SOCIAL REVOLUTION 81

the ranks of freemen were admitted not unwillingly, at least
in the first half of the fourteenth century; but animosity was
shown repeatedly against those who shared the profits of
citizens, and, because they were not enfranchised, could not
be called upon to participate in burdens. In this matter the
Londoners were in opposition to Edward III., who had an
almost imperial conception of his position as ruler of
dominions on either side of the Channel. In 1337 Parliament
decreed that Flemings might freely inhabit England; and
ordinances were made for the alien weavers in London in
1362, for the weavers Flemings in 1366, and to adjust the
relations between the latter and their rivals, the weavers of
Brabant, in 1370. Economically the protection of the
foreigner was justified because he was a much more skilled
workman than the Englishman.

The foreigners served the king in another and a time-
honoured capacity as financiers. Jews and Templars had
been expelled in turn; but their place had been taken by the
Lombards, and, under Edward III., by the Florentine
companies of the Bardi and the Peruzzi. But in the reign
of Edward III. the citizens repeatedly made to the king
the loans necessary to his great wars. They became the
rivals of the Italians. They had acquired financial knowledge
and financial power which they had previously lacked.

Moreover in the fourteenth century the organisation of
foreign trade and concurrently of the customs revenue made
this the most important of the sources of the income of the
crown. In1311—12 all offices in connection with the customs
were by Act of parliament closed to aliens, and in many
cases citizens of London filled the vacant places. Thus
they superseded the Italians as financial officers, as distinct
from bankers.

H.L. G
 

82 HISTORY OF LONDON

In the Good Parliament three aldermen of London were
charged with dishonest use of the opportunities of public
finance, and were involved in the disgrace of the party of
John of Gaunt.

In their third capacity, that of merchants, the foreigners
were again the subject of conflict between Edward III. and
the citizens. In London there were many traders from
countries over the sea. Among the merchants who in 1303
received from Edward I. the Carta Mercatoria men of
Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Navarre, Lombardy,
Tuscany, Catalonia, Aquitaine, Toulouse, Caturtunium or
Quercy, Flanders, and Brabant were specified. All these
were probably represented in London, but conspicuous
among them were the vintners of Gascony, the merchants of
the Steelyard or the Hanseatic League, who had their
headquarters in Dowgate Ward, and whom Edward I.
incorporated, and the Italians. The German Steelyard
merchants traded chiefly in the products of northern Europe,
tar and salt fish and the furs so generally worn, and the
Italians brought to London the spoils of the Mediterranean
traffic, the spices of Arabia, very important to medieval
economy, the wines of Candia and the silks of North Africa.

It was the object of the citizens in the reign of Edward III.
to buy wholesale all the wares, not only of foreign merchants
but also of country dealers, and solely to distribute them in
the retail market. The most important export trade was
still in raw produce; the majority of leading merchants were
as yet neither manufacturers nor the middlemen of manu-
facturers, and therefore it was not their interest to encourage
‘. the import of food and of the materials of manufacture. The
great victualling crafts, the Fishmongers, the Grocers, and
the Vintners, were predominant. Usually they succeeded
 

THE PERIOD OF SOCIAL REVOLUTION 83

 

in buying exemption from the statutes which enacted free
trade.

But gradually the manufacturing crafts, especially the
textile, leather and metal workers, advanced in skill and in
importance, and it was their natural aim to secure the free
import of raw produce and of food-stuffs. By the end of the
reign of Edward III. there had come to be two parties among
the great crafts of London, that of the'victuallers and that
of the manufacturers, and either wished to control the civic
government in order to advance their own interests. It is
their struggle which gives significance to the reign of
Richard II. in London.

The circumstance that the manufacturers opposed the
food monopolies of their rivals, and were moreover employers
of labour, caused them to take up a comparatively democratic
position which had little to do with their opinions. Of their
leader, John de Northampton, a draper, it is said that “he
was a man of unflinching purpose and great astuteness, elated
by his wealth, and so proud that he could neither get on
with his inferiors nor be deterred by the suggestions or
warnings of his superiors from striving to follow to the bitter
end his drastic ideas.”

In the Good Parliament the victuallers suffered the first
great blow to their power, when the party of John de
Northampton procured two reforms which aimed at destroying
the exclusive enjoyment of civic office by members of a few
crafts. The observance of a neglected article of 1319, which
had directed the annual election of aldermen, was ordered;
and it was enacted that the Common Council should consist
of representatives not of the wards but of the several
mysteries.

In 1376 or early in 1377 the court party brought forward

G2
 

84 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

a bill which would have granted jurisdictory power to the
constable and marshal to the detriment of the civic
authorities. It was therefore a menace to the victuallers’
command of trade, and from this time is apparent the
animosity of the victualling crafts against John of Gaunt.
By a coincidence fortunate for them the proposal was equally
calculated to arouse the patriotic opposition of undiscerning
Londoners.

The city mob crowded into the nave of St. Paul’s in 1377
to hear the trial of Wycliffe, and the hated marshal, Henry
Percy, had forcibly to clear the aisle for the passage of those
ill-assorted friends, Wycliffe and John of Gaunt. The
Londoners were excited and sensitive, almost eager to show
resentment, and a dispute between Lancaster and their
bishop gave them a pretext. They engaged the duke’s guard
in a brawl, and the assembly had an unpremeditated end
amid the highest confusion. Next day the mob of the city
violently set free a man imprisoned in the house of the
marshal, and then passed on to the Savoy in search of their
enemies, Lancaster and Percy.

But they found neither, for both were dining with one
John of Ypres at his inn in Vintry ward, near the church of
St. Thomas Apostle. A knight “came in great haste to the
place where the duke was, and after that he had knocked
and could not be let in, he said to Haveland, the porter, ‘ If
thou love my lord and thy life, open the gate.’ With which
words he got entry; and with great fear he tells the duke
that without the gate were infinite numbers of armed men,
and unless he took great heed that day would be his last.
With which words the duke leapt so hastily from his oysters
that he hurt both his legs against the form. Wine was
offered, but he could not drink for haste; and so fled with
 

THE PERIOD OF SOCIAL REVOLUTION 85

 

his fellow Henry Percy out at a back gate, and entering upon
the Thames never stayed rowing until they came to a house
near the manor of Kennington.” At Kennington the fugitives
were received by the widow of the Black Prince and her son
Richard, the heir to the throne. And there was no further
mention of the bill against the liberties of the city. The
Savoy had been saved from destruction by the intervention
of the bishop.

The victuallers were now supported by a full tide of
civic patriotism; they were the successful resisters to
kingly aggression. An election of aldermen in March,
1377, secured office for eight fishmongers. The mayor
was removed by royal writ and replaced by Nicholas
Brembre, grocer and leader of the victuallers’ party, and a
few months later the five chief supporters of John de
Northampton were expelled from the Common Council.
Thenceforward until 1381 the party of the victuallers was
supreme. The foreign merchants were subjected to all
manner of restrictions.

But the party of the discontented were strong. The un-
privileged men of London, the apprentices and the journeymen
workmen, the unpropertied classes, were the natural adherents
of John de Northampton, whose policy of free trade would
inaugurate low prices. Certain of the party in power appear
to have become sensible that they were in need ofa force
with which to depress their rivals, and to this must be ascribed
the curious fact that the aldermen who gave a more or less
concealed support to the rebels of 1381 were victuallers.

On the 12th of June, 1381, peasants from Surrey, Sussex,
and Kent, led by Wat Tyler and by John Ball, were gathered
on Blackheath under two great banners of St. George, a vast
and needy mob, hungry for the supplies of London, with
 

86 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

leaders equally anxious to enter the city and join their
fellows, the rebels of Essex, on its north side.

Walworth the mayor supported law and order. He sent
to bid the peasants come no nearer the city, and determined
to guard the bridge. But one alderman openly took their
part, and others after some show of reluctance yielded to the
strength of popular feeling. London Bridge was opened to
the men on Blackheath, and Aldgate to the rebels of Essex.
“Great merchants broached the burgundy in their cellars for
throats accustomed to the upland ale of the village breweries.
Hobb and Straw, Piers and Gamelyn, stared at sights which
neither they nor their fathers nor grandfathers before them
had beheld, the mighty city of red tiled roofs, the endless
labyrinths of narrow lanes and winding alleys, the innumer-
able churches, the wharves where strange seafaring folk spoke
tongues they had never heard, and used gestures they had
never seen.” !

For three days the peasants were in possession of London,
and were continually reinforced by arrivals from the counties.
They had allies in the city mob. Their first object was to
wreak vengeance on Lancaster, the enemy of the victuallers
as of the people, and his wonderful Savoy Palace was per-
manently destroyed. On the 14th occurred their famed
conference with the boy king at Mile End, in which he
conceded all their demands. After it however they broke
into the Tower and slew Sudbury, archbishop and chancellor,
and Hales the treasurer ; and there were many other murders
and atrocities. The Londoners took advantage of the con-
fusion to slaughter the Flemish weavers. Finally the king
met the rebels at Smithfield, and disarmed them by proclaim-
ing himself their leader, and, after Wat Tyler had been slain

1 Trevelyan. Age of Wycliffe.
 

 

 

DISCOMFITURE OF RERELS BY RICHARD IT.
 

THE PERIOD OF SOCIAL REVOLUTION 87

and the more orderly citizens had armed against them,
they were induced to surrender and disperse.

By such help as they had given to the peasants the party
of the victuallers had taken vengeance on John of Gaunt;
but otherwise they had defeated their own ends. They had |
suffered anarchy and confusion, and in the ensuing autumn
their chief opponent, John de Northampton, was elected
mayor. He, when later he had fallen from power and was
brought to trial, was accused of having already prepared for
himself a place in which to rule unopposed. His enemies
declared that during Brembre’s mayoralty he had ‘on
several occasions caused a meeting, at the tavern of John
Willingham in the Bow,” of one or two men of each of some
lesser manufacturing crafts, ‘“‘the mysteries of the Armourers,
Girdlers, Lorrimers, Pinners, Wiredrawers, Cardmakers,
Curriers, Horners, Tilers, Smiths, Dyers, Fullers, Shearmen,
Haberdashers and Cordwainers and other small mysteries,”
and there had laid plans for securing a majority on the
‘ ymmon Council, for causing the removal of existing
permanent officials, and finally for destroying the power of
the victuallers.

At midsummer, 1382, the great blow was dealt: a set of
ord nances was passed by the Common Council which ended
the whole monopoly of the Fishmongers. The practice of
forestalling, of buying fish before it reached London in order
to sell it again, was forbidden; vendors of salt fish from
abroad or from outside London were commanded for three
days to offer their wares directly to the king’s buyers and
the consumers before they dealt with Fishmongers ; those who
brought fresh sea-fish to London might sell it freely in their
boats, in Cornhill and in West Cheap; Fishmongers might
sell only between eleven and one o'clock; and fre...-water
 

88 HISTORY OF LONDON

fish might not pass through their hands at all, but must be
sold by the fishermen, ‘‘ themselves, their wives and servants,
in the streets before named.”

There followed a struggle of the powerful Fishmongers to
regain their lost and valuable privileges. The matter was
brought into parliament, and there, after John de Northamp-
ton had given evidence, a statute was passed which confirmed
to foreign victuallers the right of retail sale in the city, and
another also which forbade victuallers to hold judicial offices
in cities and towns if these could be filled by other fit persons.
It was the attempt to deprive them of judicial power which
had so enraged the victuallers against John of Gaunt. In
the autumn of 1382 John de Northampton was re-elected
mayor.

Nicholas de Extone had been the champion of the Fish-
mongers in parliament. There is record of a conversation
which, late in this year, took place between several of this
trade in a house in the parish of St. Mary Somerset. A
certain John Filiol, fishmonger, accused the mayor of having
“falsely and maliciously deprived the fishmongers of their
bread,” to which Richard Fiffyde replied that ‘‘he and all
the other fishmongers of London were bound to put their
hands beneath the very feet of Nicholas de Extone for his
good deeds and words on behalf of the trade.” Upon this
Nicholas Maynarde remarked that “ for a whole house full
of gold he would not have been in the place of the said
Nicholas de Extone at the Common Council last past’; and
the more valiant John Filiol retorted that ‘‘for half the
house full of gold he would have asserted the mayor to be a
false scoundrel, and he would like to have a fight with him
as to the same on Horsey Down.”

The mayor’s action towards the Fishmongers, and the
 

 

yy.

77 *
DS eer Lt

 

RICHARD II GOING DOWN THE THAMES IN HIS BARGE.
 

THE PERIOD OF SOCIAL REVOLUTION 89

 

consequent cheapness of the principal article of medizval
diet, were however naturally popular with all who were
not sufferers. But from the Fishmongers John turned to
correct with like severity the monopolies, the selfish
expedients and the frauds of other crafts, and he soon lost
his supporters, who after all were not the unenfranchised
and hungry populace but the manufacturing crafts. At the
end of 1383 his chief opponent, Nicholas Brembre, was
elected mayor.

John did not however resign himself to defeat. He had
again resort to the means by which during Brembre’s pre-
vious term of office an opposition had been organised.
Meetings were held at the house of John More, at St. Paul’s,
at the houses of the Grey and Austin Friars. The dispossessed
party were formidable because they could command the
adherence of the unenfranchised classes, now suffering from
the withdrawal of a cheap food supply. They held the
instrument of riot, and they made use of it when finally
John was arrested by the mayor. But the mayor quelled the
disturbance, and John and two others were tried and
condemned to death, a sentence which was eventually
commuted.

Brembre’s mayoralty was otherwise remarkable for two
measures. The ordinances which had destroyed the mono-
poly of the Fishmongers were repealed, and a new charter
was granted to the city by which the whole retail trade was
again limited to freemen, and merchant strangers were, as
had previously been the case, forbidden to lodge in London
for more than forty days. Further the right of sending
representatives to the Common Council was taken from the
mysteries and restored to the wards. The limitation of
aldermen to one year of office continued until 1394, when an
 

go HISTORY OF LONDON

 

Act of parliament decreed that they should retain their
places for life unless they were justly dismissed for a specific
cause.

The victuallers’ party secured another election of Brembre
as mayor in 1384 and a third in 1385. In 1386 he was
succeeded by Nicholasde Extone. His party identified them-
selves more and more with the fortunes of the young king;
and meanwhile Lancaster constantly intrigued to obtain the
restoration of Northampton and his associates. At Christ-
mastide, 1387, the Lords Appellant came to London to make
a bid for the city’s support. In January they offered at the
Guildhall to arbitrate between the crafts, but their advances
were rejected. Already in the previous November Nicholas
Brembre, “the false knight of London,” had been charged
with treason as one of the king’s “‘false advisers.” He was
brought before Parliament for trial on February 17th,
and offered vainly to prove his innocence by wager of battle.
He was condemned to death and hanged at Tyburn.

Thus Northampton and Brembre had both been removed
from the stage of city politics; but the old party strife
between the victualling and the manufacturing crafts con-
tinued, and the former were still identified with the king,
the other with his opponents in the state. When in 1392 a
draper occupied the mayoralty the city incurred the royal
displeasure, and was obliged to buy back forfeited liberties
for £10,000. A new mayor, William Stondon, grocer, was
chosen at the same time, and thenceforward until 1396
the victuallers predominated in the city. But in the last
three years of Richard’s reign their rivals again held the
first place: the mayors were Adam Bamme, a goldsmith,
the famed Richard Whittington, mercer, and Drew Baren-
tyne, goldsmith; and under such guidance the Londoners
 

THE PERIOD OF SOCIAL REVOLUTION 91

were among the bitterest of the king’s enemies and important
allies of Bolingbroke.

The deposition of Richard was so evidently popular in the
city as to leave no doubt that the manufacturers’ party, who
were instrumental in bringing it about, most truly represented
the citizens. They, largely by accident, stood for freedom
and the people, and had the strength which belongs to the
champions of progress. And London was a force with which
to reckon in the State. ‘‘ Behold the opinion of common
people when they be up against their prince or lord,
and specially in England. Among them there is no remedy,
for they are the periloust people of the world and most
outrageoust, if they be up, and specially the Londoners:
and indeed they be rich and of great number; there was
well in London a twenty-four thousand men in harness
complete and a thirty thousand archers, and they were
hardy and high of courage, the more blood they saw shed,
the less they were abashed.”

Thus the Londoners impressed Froissart. They had taken
an important part in the wars of Edward III. Until the
Peace of Brétigny in 1360, the city not only supplied the
king frequently with money, but also furnished him with
contingents of archers and men-at-arms and with ships.
La Jonette of London ai:d La Cogge of All Hallows were
fitted out for him in 1336, and four ships and four light
vessels three years later. In 1348 the sheriffs were ordered
to forbid jousts and tournaments, and to command the
citizens instead to exercise themselves in arms.
CHAPTER VIII

SOCIAL CONDITIONS IN THE
FOURTEENTH CENTURY

 

N London a stability of property rights has always
stood in the way of ideal town planners. The streets
of the fourteenth century followed their course of two
hundred years before, very much that which they

still retain. But in two hundred years the more liberal
desires and the greater wealth of Londoners had made them
more exacting to their architects.

The houses contained two or three storeys, and their high-
pitched pointed gables, sometimes crow-stepped, faced the
narrow streets and lanes. The windows were important
features in the buildings, large and comparatively numerous,
distinguished sometimes by the Gothic arches and tracery of
the period. They had small lattice panes, and in the reign
of Edward III. glazing was already so common that there
was a mystery of Verrers or glaziers. Doors were arched
like the windows, always or usually, and often were sur-
mounted by a more or less elaborate wooden porch. Over-
hanging upper storeys or overhanging chambers, supported
by corbels, were frequent. Chimneys were already common
in 1300, and they had decorative value when, as was some-
times the case, they were built externally. It is known that
carpenters, masons, tilers and daubers were employed on the
houses under Edward I. The buildings were sometimes of
 

SOCIAL CONDITIONS 93

 

stone, sometimes of wood, sometimes of both, and sometimes
wholly or partly of brick, for tilers made bricks as well as tiles.

The shops were still wooden stalls, which projected from
the houses into the streets. That some buildings, presumably
wooden, were coloured appears from such names as “ Black
Hall,” “Red Bakehouse,” ‘‘ Painted Tavern Lane,” and from
mentions of a “‘ painted ” seld or warehouse, and of “‘ painted”
solars. Colour was found otherwise in the red tiles of the
roofs, and in this as in later periods many houses as well as
taverns were distinguished by the carved and painted signs
which hung above their doors, “The Boar’s Head,”’ ‘‘ The
Swan o’ the Hoop,” “‘ The Castel atte Hoop,” “The Flour-
de-lys,” ‘‘ The Cardinal’s Hat,’ ‘‘ The Sarazinshead,” and
“The Catifithell” or ‘“‘The Cat and the Fiddle.” The
crowded irregularity of the streets and their variety and
beauty of detail must have produced a very rich effect.

Until 1852 there was standing in London a portion of the
house or inn of a great fourteenth century merchant.
Gerrard’s Hall, more correctly Gisors’ Hall, in Basing Lane,
which led out of the east side of Bread Street, near St. Mildred’s
Church, was a possession of the prominent vintner family of
Gisors. It was held by John Gisors, alderman of Vintry and
frequently mayor, at his death in 1350, and passed from
him to the husband of his grand-daughter Margaret, Henry
Picard. A model of its beautiful crypt is preserved in the
hall of the Grocers’ Company, and shows the arches supported
by slender and rounded pillars, with moulded capitals and
bases of early decorated work. The crypt had neither hearth
nor fireplace and was probably a warehouse. The remains
of the hall which stood over it, and which was apparently of
wood with stone gable ends, could still be seen in 1857.
Stow in the sixteenth century describes “ one great house of
 

94 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

old time built upon arched vaults, and with arched gates of
stone brought from Caen in Normandy, . . . commonly and
corruptly called Gerrard’s Hall, of a giant said to have dwelt
there,” and still retaining a “‘ high roofed hall.”

In his hall Henry Picard sumptuously feasted, on one day,
King Edward, John, king of France, who was the English
king’s prisoner at the Savoy, King David of Scotland, and
the king of Cyprus, with many others of high degree. After
dinner he “ kept his hall against all comers whatsoever that
were willing to play at dice and hazard. In like manner the
Lady Margaret his wife did also keep her chamber to the
same extent. The king of Cyprus playing with Henry Picard
in his hall did win of him fifty marks, but Henry, being very
skilful in that art, altering his hand, did after win of the same
king the same fifty marks and fifty marks more, which when |
the same king did take in ill part, although he dissembled
the same, Henry said unto him, “ My lord and king, be not
aggrieved. I covet not your gold but your play, for I have
not bid you hither that I might grieve you, but that amongst
other things I might try your play,” and gave him his
money again, plentifully bestowing of his own amongst the
retinue; besides he gave many rich gifts to the king and
other nobles and knights which dined with him, to the great
glory of the citizens of London in those days.”

The plan of building houses on vaults or crypts, after the
manner of Gerrard’s Hall, was apparently common in that
period. A house which stood in the parish of St. Michael
Paternoster Royal in 1355 consisted of a “large cellar” on
which stood a hall, and of a parlour, a chamber with a
chimney which was probably a kitchen, and a bedchamber.
In allusion to other houses there are references to larders,
garrets, and stables. As regards furniture, mention is made
 

THE CRYPT OF GERRARD’S HALL.
 

SOCIAL CONDITIONS 95

 

of beds, feather beds, chests and particularly a Flemish
chest, coffers, tables, benches covered with tapestry called
“banqueres,”’ fire-dogs, hangings of tapestry for walls, and
curtains. In the house of Richard Brangwayn was a
“‘dorser”” or tapestry hanging which represented King
Richard I. and Hector of Troy, and a bed on which white
and red roses were depicted. In humbler dwellings use was
made of chequered cloth.

Other household goods included a treasured supply of
napery, which figures prominently in wills, table-cloths, towels,
napkins, and sheets; and there were warm coverings of the
cloth called ‘‘chalons,” and counterpanes. Silver spoons
and cups of silver and of copper gilt were frequently possessed
by the wealthier citizens, and were sometimes richly decorated.
There is record of silver spoons ornamented by gold acorns ;
of a cup which enclosed a representation of St. John the
Evangelist, and had a silver lid and a stand formed by three
lions; and of a cup on which the arms of England were
enamelled. Equally ornate cups were of mazer or maple wood,
and for commoner use there were pots, plates, bowls, basins
and ewers of brass and iron. Of the less durable earthenware
articles, which doubtless were in constant employ, there is
little mention in records. On the other hand there are not
infrequent references to jewellery, silver girdles ‘‘ of richesse,”
a girdle fastened with two silver shillings, a gold ring with
a stone on which a lion was engraved, a rosary of amber and
silver, a brooch “harnessed with silver,” a large seal which
bore an engraved shield and from which hung a cross, a
coronal, a garland of pearls with silken streamers. Mentions
of armour and arms are strangely rare, and more rarely still
occur references to books, missals, books of decretals, and

“books of colour.”
 

96 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

Such were some of the contents of the dwellings of four-
teenth century citizens. Side by side with the houses were
the many parish churches, of which a great number were
rebuilt at this time in the decorative style of the day. To
this end wealthy citizens made donations and bequests.
The building of some churches of religious houses was how-
ever a more national undertaking. The church of the Grey
Friars was completed in an unusually short time between
1306 and 1330, and the queens of the three Edwards,
Margaret, the second wife of Edward I., Queen Isabella
and Queen Philippa, bore part of the cost, with others of the
greatest in the land. Some like John, Earl of Richmond,
gave jewels and ornaments; and Gilbert de Clare, Earl of
Gloucester, contributed twenty great beams out of his forest
of Tunbridge. Many throughout the kingdom subscribed
also to the New Work of St. Paul’s, a Gothic part of the
cathedral begun in the middle of the thirteenth century.

The pious citizen of the fourteenth century sought to
secure his eternal welfare even more by the foundation of
chantries than by the building of churches. He endowed a
priest who should in some church perpetually celebrate the
mass for the benefit of his soul and the souls of his relatives,
ancestors and descendants, perhaps also for the souls of the
king, of the city magistrates, or of his fellow-craftsmen and
gild brethren. It has been computed that by bequests an
average of twenty-eight permanent chantries were instituted
in London every ten years from 1300 to 1402. The effect
was, in the first place, to multiply the altars and chapels,
and thus to elaborate the ritual of conventual and parish
churches; to increase also their treasure of relics, books,
ornaments, and vestments; and to provide further attraction
to the offerings of the faithful. Secondly there grew up in
 

SOCIAL CONDITIONS 97

 

the city a large body of chantry priests, priests whose duties
did not suffice adequately to employ them, who held a less
responsible position than any other clergy. Their benefices,
at a time when values were changing rapidly, came, in many
cases, to be insufficient for their maintenance, and the
circumstance did not render themselves the more reputable.
A chantry in London became the goal of the ambition of an
idle and an untrue priest.

‘“ Parsons and parish priests plaineth to their bishops
That their parish hath been poor sith the pestilence time,
And asketh leave and license at London to dwell
To sing there for simony, for silver is sweet,”

is a reproach made by the author of “ Piers the Ploughman.”
And Chaucer is of the same opinion, for he says of the good
parson :
“ He sette not his benefice to hire
And lefte his sheep accombred in the mire,

And ran to London, unto Seint Poules,
To seken him a chaunterie for soules.”’

The streets of fourteenth century London were paved
with stone. The duty of keeping a pavement before his
door was incumbent on a householder, and contributions to
the expense of paving were exacted from all who drove carts
into the city. Kennels appear to have run on either side of
the greater streets, and to have been separated from the
houses by footpaths, very much after the modern fashion.
There were regulations to prevent the deposit of dirt and
rubbish in the streets, or the practice of throwing refuse
from the windows, and householders were bound to keep
clean the space before their doors. Evidently the old
enactment against the rearing of swine, cows and oxen

H.L, H
 

98 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

within the houses of the city had been disregarded, for it
was repeated in this century. It was forbidden also that
dogs other than ‘‘ gentilz chiens,” those owned by high-born
persons, should be suffered to wander about the streets.

The markets held in Cheapside were things of a custom
more ancient than history: they are known to have taken
place in Saxon times; they named the street and the ward
of Cheap. In the fourteenth century two markets called
“evechepynges”’ were held on every feast day in Cheapside
and on Cornhill. The market people had their fixed stands,
prescribed to them according to the nature of their wares;
and they named Wood Street, Milk Street, Honey Lane,
Bread Street, Poultry, Coneyhope Lane, now Grocers’ Hall
Court, where stood sellers of rabbits, and Cornhill itself. An
important section of the market was that at the “ Carfukes”
or Carfax of Leadenhall, the point of junction of Grace-
church Street and Leadenhall Street, where poultry and
rabbits were exposed for sale. Meat on flesh days and fish
on lean days were sold by butchers and fishmongers
respectively at the Stocks Market on the site of the
Mansion House. Salesmen included freemen of the city,
unenfranchised Londoners, and countrymen who brought
their produce along the roads to the city gates or up the
Thames. All were forbidden to interfere with trade by
setting up their stalls too near the shops. One hour before
and half an hour after sunset bells were rung, and at the
sound of the second the market people were compelled to
leave their places and carry with them all their goods, or
these were forfeit to the chamber of the Guildhall. Cattle
markets were held in Smithfield.

The way by Cheapside, Cornhill, Leadenhall and Aldgate
Street, which led to Aldgate from the junction of the roads
 

SOCIAL CONDITIONS 99

 

from Ludgate and Newgate, was, as it is even now although
Queen Victoria Street has cut ruthlessly through the very heart
of the city, the busiest thoroughfare in London. There were
in it in the fourteenth century several monuments. Near the
north door of St. Paul’s was the Broken Cross, erected by the
earl of Gloucester under Henry III., and removed in 1390.
Further west was the great cross of Cheap, said to have been
one of those built by Edward I. to mark the places where
his queen’s body rested on its way to burial at Westminster.
The Standard stood in the middle of the street beside the
opening of Honey Lane. It was the place of public execu-
tions; and the place also in which, in 1326, the London
mob lynched Walter Stapleton, and the peasants, in 1381,
put to death certain hated citizens. The Great Conduit,
the chief of the several fountains which supplied the city
with water, stood at the east end of West Cheap or
Cheapside.

As a thoroughfare West Cheap and the streets which
continued it had a rival in the river, the easiest way from
the city to the court at Westminster and the roadway for
trading ships.

Along the river bank were many quays and wharves, held
in a private ownership, complicated, as were all rights of
property in London, by sub-letting, mortgages, the im-
position of duties to religious foundations, the bequest of
rights, of every degree of incompleteness, for life and in
reversion, the creation of rights of way and of ingress and
egress for goods. The most important landing places were
Dowgate Wharf, where the ships of the Steelyard merchants
found anchorage, Three Cranes Wharf to which the vintners
came, Queenhithe where the fishmongers predominated, and
Castle Baynard Wharf.

H2
 

100 HISTORY OF LONDON

The deposit of refuse in the Thames was forbidden, and
the water would appear to have been fairly pure: it certainly
was still stocked with fish. It was used for the washing of
clothes; and the laundrymen and women gathered especially
at Lavendersbrigge, a jetty which projected from Timber-
hithe in Queenhithe. To this place came also the water
porters, who afterwards sold water in the streets of the city.

The convenience of an easy access to Westminster made
the river bank the favourite place for the London houses of
the great men of the land. Along the Strand there were, as
well as the Savoy palace, the inns of the bishops of Exeter,
Llandaff, Chester, Worcester, Carlisle and others; and on
the Surrey side, in Southwark, stood houses of the bishop of
Winchester, of the abbots of St. Augustine in Canterbury,
Battle and Hyde, and of the prior of Lewes. The borough
is described in the thirteenth century as “a great cheaping
town.”

The river was still crossed only by London Bridge, built
anew between 1176 and 1205. It consisted of a platform
which rested on nineteen round arches supported by massive
piers; and it contained a drawbridge. The bridge was for
several centuries in constant need of repair. Already in
1289 it was said to be unsafe; and it has been surmised that
the recurrence of this condition gave rise to the old ditty :

‘* London Bridge is broken down,
Dance o’er my Lady Lee;
London Bridge is broken down,
With a gay lady.

How shall we build it up again ?
Dance o’er my Lady Lee;

How shall we build it up again?
With a gay lady.
 

SOCIAL CONDITIONS 101

Build it up with stone so strong,
Dance o’er my Lady Lee ;

Huzza! ’twill last for ages long,
With a gay lady.”

But the lines seem to have come down from an older age
when the safety of bridges was secured by human sacrifice.
At all events the maintenance or repair of London Bridge
was a frequent object of the charity of citizens. A chapel
which stood on the bridge and faced Bridge Street had been
built at the same time as itself; and its existence helped to
hallow the act of those whose riches maintained the passage
from the city to the Surrey side of the river.

From the beginning, apparently, the bridge was fanked
by close rows of houses and shops. Cutlers, pouchmakers,
glovers, goldsmiths and bowyers dwelt there in the fourteenth
century ; and probably found, when men passed backwards
and forwards between the city and Southwark, or set out to
travel southwards, like Chaucer’s pilgrims, along the Old
Kent Road, that they had secured a good place in which to
drive their trades.

Henry Picard was a type of the merchant prince of the
fourteenth century. On lower grades of the social scale
were less magnificent traders, master manufacturers of very
various wealth, apprentices and journeymen workmen, and
finally the wretchedly poor. The last were, of all others,
most subject to the ravages of epidemics, which in medieval
towns were so hardly checked.

The Black Death is said to have reached London in
November, 1348. Stow relates that the mortality was so
great that a new burial ground was enclosed in East
Smithfield, on the site which was afterwards that of the
Charterhouse. In 1350 the mayor, aldermen and commonalty
 

102 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

petitioned Clement VI. to suffer his chaplain, Brother John
de Worthing, or another of the Friars Preachers, to grant
absolution in London, since pestilence and war prevented
the citizens from visiting Rome. ‘There were later outbreaks
of the plague in London in the reign of Edward III.

There is record of some great occasions of merry-making.
In 1312 the queen wrote to the city: “ Isabel, by the grace
of God, Queen of England, Lady of Ireland, and Duchess of
Aquitaine, to our well-beloved, the Mayor, Aldermen, and
the Commonalty of London, greeting. Forasmuch as we
believe that you would willingly hear good tidings of us, we
do make known unto you that our Lord, of his grace, has
delivered us of a son on the 13th day of November, with
safety to ourselves and to thechild. May our Lord preserve
you. Given at Wynedsore on the day above named.”

*‘ Of this letter the bearer was John de Falaise, tailor to the
queen; and he came on the Tuesday next after the feast of
St. Martin, in the sixth year of the reign of King Edward
son of King Edward. But as the news had been brought by
Robert Oliver on the Monday before, the mayor and alder-
men and great part of the commonalty assembled in the
Guildhall at time of vespers, and carolled and shewed great
joy thereat ; and so passed through the city with great glare
of torches and with trumpets and other minstrelsies.

“And on the Tuesday next, early in the morning, cry was
made throughout all the city to the effect that there was to
be no work, labour, or business in shop on that day; but
that everyone was to apparel himself in the most becoming
manner that he could, and come to the Guildhall at the hour
of prime, ready to go with the mayor, together with the
other good folks, to St. Paul’s, there to make praise and
offering, to the honour of God who had shewn them such
 

SOCIAL CONDITIONS 103

favour on earth, and to shew respect for this child that had
been born. And after this they were to return all together
to the Guildhall to do whatever might be enjoined.

“And the mayor and the aldermen assembled at the Guild-
hall together with the good folks of the commonalty; and from
thence they went to St. Paul’s, where the bishop on the same
day chanted mass with great solemnity, and there they made
their offering. And after mass they led carols in the church
of St. Paul to the sound of trumpets, and then returned each
to his house.

“Onthe Wednesday following the mayor, by assent of the
aldermen and of others of the commonalty, gave to the said
John de Falaise, bearer of the letter aforesaid, £10 sterling
and a cup of silver, four marks (32 ounces) in weight. And
on the morrow this same John de Falaise sent back the
present aforesaid because it seemed to him to be too little.

““Onthe Monday following the mayor was richly costumed
and the aldermen arrayed in like suits of robes, and the
Drapers, Mercers, and Vintners were in costume; and they
rode on horseback from thence to Westminster and there
made offering, and then returned to the Guildhall which was
excellently well tapestried and dressed out, and there they
dined. And after dinner they went carolling throughout the
city all the rest of the day and great part of the night. And
the same day the conduit in Cheap ran with nothing but
wine for all those who chose to drink there. And at the
cross just by the church of St. Michael in Cheap (the Broken
Cross) there was a pavilion extended in the middle of the
street, in which was set a tun of wine for all passers-by to
drink of who might wish for any.

“Onthe Sunday next afterCandlemas. . . the Fishmongers
of London were costumed very richly ; and they caused a
 

104 HISTORY OF LONDON

boat to be fitted out in the guise of a great ship, with all
manner of tackle that belongs toa ship; and it sailed through
Cheap as far as Westminster, where the Fishmongers came,
well mounted, and presented the same ship unto the queen.
And on the same day the queen took her route for Canterbire,
on pilgrimage thither; whereupon the Fishmongers, all thus
costumed, escorted her through the city.”

The king sometimes held tournaments in the very busiest
part of the city, undeterred by the impediment to trade which
he must have caused. Such injury may however have had
its compensation in the attraction to the city of courtiers
and men of high degree with their suites. Cheapside, between
Soper Lane, now Queen Street, and the great Cross, was the
place of a tournament in September, 1331. ‘In the middle
of the city of London in a street called Cheap, the stone
pavement being covered with sand that the horse might not
slide when they strongly set their feet to the ground, the
king held a tournament three days together with the nobility,
valiant men of the land, and other strange knights. And to
the end the beholders might with the better ease see the
same, there was a wooden scaffold erected across the street
like unto a tower, wherein Queen Philippa and many other
ladies, richly attired and assembled from all parts of the
realm, did stand to behold the jousts. But the higher frame
in which the ladies were placed brake in sunder; whereby
they were, with some shame, forced to fall down. By reason
whereof the knights and such as were underneath were
grievously hurt. Wherefore the queen took great care to
save the carpenters from punishment; and through her
prayers which she made upon her knees, pacified the king
and council and thereby purchased great love of the people.
After which time the king caused a shed to be strongly made
‘06S1 NI G(UAIAHLING LY LNANVNYNOL AO NOLLVINWTOONT

 
 

SOCIAL CONDITIONS 105

 

of stone for himself, the queen and other states to stand on;
and there to behold the joustings and other shows at their
pleasure, by the church of St. Mary Bow.”

At Michaelmastide, 1390, there was an extraordinarily
brilliant gathering at Smithfield, the more usual place for
tournaments. King Richard wished to emulate the splendid
feasts and entertainments which had honoured Queen
Isabella’s public entry into Paris. He sent heralds to
proclaim a tournament throughout England, Scotland,
Hainault, Germany, Flanders and France.

“This Sunday, according to the proclamation, being the
next to Michaelmas Day, was the beginning of the tiltings
and called the feast of the challengers. About three o’clock
there paraded out from the Tower of London... sixty barded
coursers ornamented for the tournament, on each was
mounted a squire of honour that advanced only at a foot’s
pace; then came sixty ladies of rank, mounted on palfreys,
most elegantly and richly dressed, following each other, every
one leading a knight with a silver chain completely armed
for tilting; and in this procession they moved on through
the streets of London, attended by numbers of minstrels and
trumpets, to Smithfield. The queen of England with her
ladies and damsels were already arrived and placed in
chambers handsomely decorated.

** The king was with the queen. When the ladies who led
the knights arrived in the square their servants were ready
to assist them to dismount from their palfreys, and to conduct
them to the apartments prepared for them.

“ The knights remained until their squires of honour had
dismounted and brought them their coursers, which having
mounted they had their helmets laced on, and prepared
themselves in all points for the tilt.
 

106 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

“The count de Saint Pol now advanced with his com-
panions handsomely armed for the occasion, and the tourna-
ment began. Every foreign knight who pleased tilted, or had
time for so doing, before the evening set in. The tiltings
were well and long continued, until night forced them to
break off. The lords and ladies then retired where they had
made appointments. The queen was lodged in the bishop of
London’s palace near St. Paul’s church, where the banquet
was held.

“‘ Towards evening the count d’Ostrevant arrived and was
kindly received by King Richard and his lords. The prize
for the opponents was adjudged to the count de St. Pol, as
the best knight at this tournament, and that for the tenants
to the earl of Huntingdon.

“The dancings were at the queen’s residence, in the
presence of the king, his uncles, and the barons of England.
The ladies and damsels continued their amusements before
and after supper until it was time to retire, when all went to
their lodgings, except such as were attached to the king or
queen, who, during the tournament, lived at the palace
of the bishop of London.

‘“‘ You would have seen on the ensuing morning squires and
varlets busily employed in many parts of London, furbishing
and making ready armour and horses for their masters who
were to engage in the jousts. In the afternoon King Richard
entered Smithfield, magnificently accompanied by dukes,
lords and knights, for he was chief of the tenants of the lists.
The queen took her station as on the preceding day, with
her ladies, in the apartments that had been prepared for her.
The count d’Ostrevant came next, with a large company of
knights and squires fully armed for tilting; then the count
de Saint Pol and the knights from France.
 

SOCIAL CONDITIONS 107

 

“ The tournament now began, and everyone exerted himself
to the utmost to excel: many were unhorsed and more lost
their helmets. The jousting continued with great courage
and perseverance until night put an end to it. The company
now retired to their lodgings or their homes; and when the
hour for supper was near the lords and ladies attended it,
which was splendid and well served. The prize for the
opponents was adjudged by the ladies, lords and heralds to
the count d’Ostrevant, who far eclipsed all who had tilted
that day; that for the tenants was given to a gallant knight
of England called Sir Hugh Spenser.

‘* On the morrow, Tuesday, the tournament was renewed
by the squires, who tilted in the presence of the king, queen
and all the nobles until night, when all retired as on the
preceding day. The supper was as magnificent as before, at
the palace of the bishop where the king and queen lodged ;
and the dancing lasted until daybreak, when the company
broke up.

“The tournament was continued on Wednesday by all
knights and squires, indiscriminately, who were inclined to
joust. It lasted until night, and the supper and dancings
were as the preceding day.

‘On Thursday the king entertained at supper all the foreign
knights and squires, and the queen their ladies and damsels.
The duke of Lancaster gave a grand dinner to them on the
Friday. On Saturday the king and his court left London
for Windsor; whither the count d’Ostrevant, the count de
Saint Pol and the foreign knights who had been present at
the feasts were invited.”

The account of these festivities is taken from Froissart, a
cosmopolitan observer of pageants unlikely to exaggerate
their splendour. In the fourteenth century the citizens of
 

108 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

London, themselves wealthy and liberal, were familiar with
all the pomp of European chivalry. They did not lack
means to gratify that taste for rich and elaborate spectacular
effect which characterised the later middle ages. And there
is every indication that, to the extent of their power, they
reproduced what they saw, in their homes and in their
functions, whether social, of church or of the city.
CHAPTER IX

THE LIVERY COMPANIES AND
LANCASTER AND YORK

 

ONDON was the chief scene of the triumph of
the house of Lancaster. Two days before his
coronation Henry of Bolingbroke rode from
Westminster to the Tower and there passed

one night. Then he returned to Westminster, conveyed
through the streets by the lords and their liveried retinues
and by “all the burgesses and Lombard merchants in
London, and every craft with their livery and device.”
Tapestry hung from the windows of the houses, and the
conduits ran with red and white wine. And at the corona-
tion feast a table was reserved for the “valiant men of
London.”

In the next year “ King Richard dead was laid in a litter
and set in a chare covered with black baudkin, and four
horses all black in the chare, and two men in black leading
the chare, and four knights all in black following. Thus
the chare departed from the Tower of London and was
brought along through London fair and softly, till they came
into Cheapside, whereas the chief assembly of London was,
and there the chare rested the space of two hours. Thither
came in and out more than twenty thousand persons, men
and women, to see him whereas he lay, his head on a black
 

TIO HISTORY OF LONDON

cushion and his visage open. Some had on him pity and
some none, but said he had long deserved death.

Then they drave the chare forward; and when the four
knights that followed the chare afoot were without London,
they leapt then on their horses, which were there ready for
them, and so they rode till they came to a village called
Langley, a thirty mile from London, and there this King
Richard was buried. God have mercy on his soul!”

The crisis involved the final defeat of the victuallers. In
the first year of Henry IV. it was enacted in parliament
that, in spite of the privileges granted by Richard II. to the
Fishmongers, foreigners of the king’s amity who brought
fish and other victuals to London and the lesser towns, were
permitted to retail their wares, and were under the king’s
special protection.

But this did not mean that power had devolved on the
middle class, on the craftsmen who formed the smaller
mysteries. The mayoralty in the eighty-four years which
followed on the accession of Henry IV. was held sixty times by
Grocers, Drapers, and Mercers, and they shared the tenure
of the office almost equally. These were the richest citizens
and the men who ruled the city, the wholesale importers of
food stuffs, and the merchants interested in the import of
wool and of silk who controlled the textile industries. That
the Fishmongers had lost their leading place and could not
adequately support the Grocers gave a predominance to the
two great manufacturing crafts, and averted the danger of
the limitation of import trade by monopolists.

There was naturally opposition to the ruling class on the
part of those excluded from a guiding part in the city’s
government, and it had acquired a new character from an
added political force,
 

FUNERAL OF RicHarD II.
From a contemporary manuscript.
 

THE LIVERY COMPANIES III

In 1389 occurred the great inquiry of Richard II. into
gilds and fraternities, in the course of which the crafts of
London were compelled to declare their rules and their
charters. More than a hundred years before the Statute of
Moytmain had rendered illegal the acquisition of land
without special licence by any who were not liable to render
for it due services. The enactment had aimed principally at
the religious, who could not perform the obligations to the
state with which medizval land tenure was inseparably
connected, and who, therefore, while their potential land-
holdership was not limited, were a danger to the political
system. This statute was in 1391 interpreted to apply to
gilds and fraternities, and at once it became the object of the
crafts to buy from the king charters of incorporation, which
would allow them to acquire land up to a certain value.
In the city they were already extensive landholders; their
power depended in a great degree on their wealth, and they
could not passively suffer it to depart from them. Therefore
they acquired charters, and thus the great crafts became
the livery companies.

The Skinners, the Goldsmiths, the Mercers and the Saddlers
were incorporated by Richard II. in the last decade of his
reign ; the Tailors by Henry IV.; the Cutlers by Henry V.;
and the victualling crafts, the Grocers, Fishmongers, Vintners
and Brewers, as well as the Drapers, Cordwainers, Leather-
sellers, Haberdashers and Armourers by Henry VI.

The chartered companies, like the crafts, had religious and
social functions, the maintenance of priest or service, the
celebration of an annual feast, the care of unfortunate
brethren. But they differed from the crafts in their posses-
sion of a corporate personality: they held a common seal ;
they could sue and be sued; they were able to own property.
 

112 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

Moreover each livery company had a court for the settlement
of trade disputes in which erring members could be fined
and imprisoned. Unlike the ancient courts of the Weavers
and the Fishmongers, those now established were subject to
the mayor, and thus did not constitute an exempted sphere
which limited the rights of the civic authorities.

But in practice the livery companies were a danger to the
central government of the city, because their status was
independent of civic institutions. It was derived from the
kingly power. The class drawn from a few companies, who
in the fifteenth century held the place of rulers in London,
were threatened as much by companies who used autono-
mous rights, as by such attacks of the excluded classes as
their predecessors had had to withstand. An Act of 1437
embodies the result of one of their victories. It states that

“companies corporate . .. oftentimes by colour of rule
and governance and other terms in general words to them
granted ... by charters . . . of divers kings, made among

themselves many unlawful and unreasonable ordinances as
well in prices of wares and other things for their own singular
profit’; and directs that such companies bring their charters
to be registered by the chief governors of the boroughs, cities
and towns in which they exist.

Sometimes the old situation, the attempt of a class not in
power to procure the mayoralty for one of their number,
recurred. In 1441, out of two candidates for that office,
Robert Clapton, draper, and Ralph Holande, tailor, Robert
was chosen. The tailors who were present at the election
in the Guildhall protested, crying, “ Nay, nay, not this, but
Ralph Holande”’; and they incited “ other of the low fellow-
ships of the city” to join inthe uproar. The retiring mayor
attempted to overawe them by a parade of dignity.
 

THE LIVERY ‘COMPANIES Lis

 

‘“‘Astonied,” he stood still upon the stair and commanded
silence ; then walked gravely to the east end of the Guildhall
and took his place among the aldermen. When the rioters
were unimpressed he would have harangued them into order;
but it was in vain that his serjeant-at-arms shouted, “ Oyez!
Oyez! Oyez!”; and finally the sheriffs were sent into the
crowd, and a dozen or more of the chief offenders were
arrested. They were punished by fines and by long terms of
imprisonment.

There was another cause of dissension in London in the
conflict, bitterer than ever before, between citizen and
foreigner. The population of the city was not now, as it
had been in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, recruited to
any great extent from the mercantile and seafaring classes
of the continent. The civic magistrates belonged, some of
them, to such old London families of foreign origin as the
Frowyks and the Fraunceyses ; but most of them had names
which prove their English race. The story of Richard
Whittington is substantially true: antiquaries have denied
his humble origin and his early trials, but those of them who
are not prejudiced have left to him his most precious posses-
sion, his cat. To the student of economic history it is even
more important that he was indeed a country lad, although
of gentle descent, who came to London to seek his fortune,
who became an apprentice that he might be a citizen. He
was a type of many born of the poorer landowning classes,
younger sons, who in the great city rose to wealth and power;
and to this day his legendary story embodies the conception
of London as the place where the adventurous, the ambitious
and the needy of the English country may attain their
desires.

It was men with such antecedents as Whittington who

H.L. I
 

II4 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

chiefly reinforced the upper class of citizens. Sometimes
when they had grown rich by trade they retired again to the
country, as did Thomas Knolles, grocer, mayor in 1399-1400
and 1410-1411, who in 1428 “ purchased . . . with a part of
his goods duly gotten by merchandise” the manor of North
Mimms in Hertfordshire.

These were citizens to resent bitterly the rivalry of
foreigners, and alien merchants depended, as previously,
chiefly on the protection of the king. But this was afforded
rather to their trade as importers of raw produce than to
their industries; and as importers they were already sup-
ported to a great extent by the identity of their interests
with those of the manufacturing crafts. The industries they
had established in London were less secure owing to the
increased skill of English workmen. In the fourteenth
century the Flemish weavers had been objects of fierce
hatred ; in the fifteenth the Lombard silkworkers, a numerous
and a wealthy body, were the natural enemies of the Lon-
don Mercers, perhaps the most powerful of all the livery
companies.

The great position enjoyed by the merchants of Lombardy
is proved by the fact that they formed part of the escort of
Henry IV. on his first triumphal progress through the city.
In 1424-5 it was enacted in parliament that no Lombard nor
other stranger or denizen might bring as merchandise from
over seas to any port or place of the realm wrought silk,
turned ribbons and chains, girdles of silk or anything else,
except girdles of Genoa, which belonged to the mystery of
Silkwomen. But the blow thus dealt to the Lombards was
not severe: they still took from the mercers “great living by
utterance of cloth of gold, and silk, to the estates and the
lords of the realm.” In 1456 a young mercer, on his way to
 

THE LIVERY COMPANIES 115

 

prison for an assault on an Italian, was rescued from the
sheriffs by journeymen, apprentices and servants of the
Mercery. The incident was the occasion of a riot in which
the usual city mob took part, and in course of which there
was some bloodshed. Florentines, Luccans and Venetians,
as well as Lombards, were despoiled, and houses were
plundered. The mayor and aldermen with some difficulty
quelled the disturbance and made various arrests. An
inquiry into the matter was ordered by the king, and his
command almost gave rise to another disturbance. Even-
tually three men were hanged at Tyburn.

The master mercers had not appeared openly in this affair
and their part in it cannot be ascertained. But that it had
not been a mere outbreak of the mob, severely condemned
by the responsible classes, seems evident from the fact that
after it many Lombards felt themselves no longer safe in
London, and removed to Southampton and Winchester.

Besides the class who absorbed civic office, the companies
hardly represented in the city’s government but possessed of
some autonomy, and the foreigners, there were in the society
of London other important elements: the crafts whose
members were full freemen of the city, but who had not
acquired charters of incorporation, and the unenfranchised
people.

In 1422 there were one hundred and twelve crafts in London,
and of them only sixteen were incorporated as livery companies
before the accession of Edward IV. For the acquisition of
a charter wealth was necessary, and it could not be possessed
by such humble persons as the Piemakers, the Brothmakers,
the Fourbours or Furbishers, the Cheesemongers, the Basket-
makers, the Soapmakers, and the Stationers, so called
because they sold at stalls or stations about the crosses in

12
 

116 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

Cheap. Some crafts of the period were new: the Pater-
nosters, the Bookbinders, the Writers of Texts, the Writers of
Court Letters, the Clockmakers, the Galochemakers.

Of the populace most knowledge is probably gained from
the history of the church and of heresy, which is treated
in another chapter. A statute of 1405-6, which applied to
the whole country, made less free the road to citizenship.
It was enacted that no man might apprentice his son or
daughter in any city or borough of the realm unless he had
lands or rents of the yearly value of 20s. But in 1429-30
another act restored in London the ancient usage, according
to which any freeborn man might place his child as
apprentice with any freeman of the city.

The Lancastrian kings were much in London, and the
two earlier of them were popular with the citizens. In the
civic records there are reflections of the wars of Henry V.
The king before he went to France in 1415 announced his
intention at the Tower to the mayor, aldermen, and more
substantial commoners ; and at a council held subsequently, to
consider a loan for the expenses of war, the mayor was held
worthy to occupy the place of honour, and to have on his
right hand the archbishop of Canterbury and Henry Beau-
fort, bishop of Winchester, and on his left the dukes of
Bedford, Gloucester and York, Such was the politic
flattery accorded to the representative of the wealthy city.
After Agincourt, the civic magistrates went in procession to
give thanks at Westminster Abbey. In the following year,
in May, preparations were in course for the relief of Harfleur,
and in the streets of London criers summoned the citizens to
help their king. ‘‘ All manere of man, merchaunts, artificers,
or others of what estat, degre, or condicioun that evere they
be, that willen foward our lige lorde the kyng, being at
 

THE LIVERY COMPANIES 117

 

Harflewe in the costes of Normandye, that God him spede,
with corne, brede, mele or floure, wyne, ale or biere, fysshe,
flesshe or any other viteille, clothe, lynnen, wollene or any
merchaundise, shetys, breches, doublettis, hosene, shone, or
eny other manere ware of armure, artilrye, or of othere
stuffe ; lette him appareille and make redy betwene this and
to day sevenyght their bodyes, goodes, merchaundises, ware,
stoffure, viteilles, what that ever it be; and in the mene while
come to the mair, and he shall dispose and assigne them redy
shyppyng and passage unto the aforesaid costes.” Henry
brought his queen, Katherine, the French king’s daughter, to
London in 1420. ‘For length of time,” says Fabyan, “I
will pass over the great and curious ordinance provided by
the citizens for the receiving of the king and queen, as well
of their ordinate meeting with them upon horseback, as of
the sumptuous and honourable devices prepared within the
city to the king’s and queen’s great rejoicing.”

Under Henry VI. the peace between the city and the
central government of the kingdom was broken. Gloucester
was extraordinarily beloved in London; as the “ good duke
Humphrey” he was placed among the heroes of the city.
Beaufort’s correspondent unpopularity may have been due to
the favour he accorded to foreign merchants, for he is accused
of having broken the condition under which a grant of
tonnage and poundage was made in parliament in 1425, that
which limited the stay of aliens in English ports. In the
autumn of 1426 the duke summoned the mayor from the
dinner with which he was celebrating his recent election, and
commanded him strictly not to suffer Beaufort’s entrance
into the town. Consequently, when next morning some of
the bishop’s servants arrived at London Bridge, they found
their way barred by armed men. With shot and with arrows
 

118 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

they made an assault, but the news of a scuffle had spread
meanwhile throughout the city, and the citizens shut up their
shops and hurried in great numbers to the relief of the
defenders. There would have been a sanguinary battle had
not the mayor and other officers arrived on the scene, and
induced either side to disperse. In January of next year,
when Bedford had temporarily settled the quarrel between
his brother and his uncle, he accompanied the latter through
the city, under the escort of the mayor and citizens. But
when in March the mayor presented to him a pair of silver
gilt basins in which were one thousand marks of gold he gave
small thanks. Such was the anger against the citizens with
which his uncle had inspired him.

Shakespeare has immortalised the scene when, fourteen
years later, the Londoners saw the shame of Humphrey’s
duchess, who openly did penance in the city streets for the
arts she had practised against the king.

Queen Margaret, when she came to London in 1445,
received a welcome from the mayor and aldermen, who, on
horseback and clad in blue embroidered gowns and red hoods,
convoyed her to the Tower ; and on the morrow the crafts in
their best array formed her escort to Westminster. But that
London was no longer faithful to the house of Lancaster is
proved by the history of Jack Cade’s rising in 1450. The
mysterious death of Gloucester, the extravagance of the
court, the injuries dealt in France to the prestige of England,
had been enough to alienate the citizens.

On the ist of June, 1450, Jack Cade,who called himself Mor-
timer, and his rebels encamped on Blackheath. To the lords
sent toask the reason of the assembly, he replied that they
were there for the weal of the realm, and for the destruction
of the traitors about the king. On the 6th Henry reached
 

THE LIVERY COMPANIES 119

the city, and on the 1oth proclamation was made that all his
liegemen should depart from Blackheath field. With a great
company in battle array he next day marched from Clerken-
well through the city to Blackheath, to find that the rebels
had retreated. The vanguard of the royal force, under Sir
Humphrey Stafford, pursued them to Sevenoaks, but were
there cut to pieces. And mutiny broke out in the rest of the
king’s army; he found himself deserted.

At this point the mayor and citizens offered to stand by
him. They told him that if he would remain in London they
would pay the costs of his household for half a year and
would “live and die with him.” But Henry refused: he
preferred to retire to Kenilworth; and thus he lost the
opportunity of gaining the support of London as a balance
to the power of the disaffected nobility, and the city missed
a chance of once more acting as the weight which might
turn the scales of fortune. Cade returned to Blackheath on
the rst of July; on the morrow he brought his great host to
Southwark and spent the night at the sign of the White
Hart; and on the 3rd he cut the ropes which bound the
drawbridge of London Bridge and led his men into the
city.

Some sort of a scuffle took place on the bridge, but it does
not appear that the entrance of the rebels was seriously
opposed. Fabyan, who very probably was a boy and in
London at the time, and who certainly must often have
heard the story of the event from eye-witnesses, implies that
the responsible citizens at first stood by while Cade marched
triumphantly through their streets, although they did not
actually adhere to him.

At several places the rebel captain halted to make pro-
clamation that, on pain of death, no man should do any
 

120 HISTORY OF LONDON

robbery, but should justly pay for anything he took from the
people. When he reached London Stone he struck it with
his sword, and said ‘‘ Now is Mortimer lord of this city.”

To John Mortimer, cousin of the duke of York and
possible introducer of a new dynasty, the Londoners were
not disinclined, did he prove himself worthy, to give a
welcome. But there were only the mob, the worthless and
the miserable, to support Jack Cade, the robber captain. It
was the latter character which the leader most successfully
sustained, because he had indeed no political ability, or
because he could not keep in hand his army of peasants.
There might be political excuse for his execution, at Mile End
and at the Standard in Cheap, of the sheriff of Kent and of
Lord Say, the hated treasurer; but there could be none for
his plundering of the houses of wealthy citizens. The
“honest and thrifty commons” were turned against him,
and after a hasty council, over which the mayor and alder-
men presided, Lord Scales and Matthew Gough, then in
command of the garrison at the Tower, were summoned to
their aid.

At ten o’clock on the night of the 6th all the city rose
against the rebels, and a battle was fought on London
Bridge which lasted until eight o’clock in the morning, and
in course of which many were slain and thrown into the
Thames. Cade’s men broke into the King’s Bench and
the Marshalsea prisons in Southwark and set free the
prisoners, and about midnight they fired the bridge. In the
morning Archbishop Kemp of York, chancellor, arrived with
Beaufort and the archbishop of York, and offered sealed
pardons to the rebels. They accepted and dispersed; but in
the counties they continued their acts of rapine and of
violence, and Cade a week later was proclaimed a traitor.
 

THE LIVERY COMPANIES 121

 

He was captured, beheaded and quartered, and then his
mangled remains were drawn on a hurdle through South-
wark, and through the city from the bridge to Newgate, and
his head set afterwards upon the bridge.

The adventures of Cade indicate what was to be the recep-
tion in London of a true representative of the House of
York. He found, as the grandfather of the reigning king
had done half a century before, that the city was an impor-
tant part of his strength.

In June, 1460, Edward, Earl of March, son and heir to the
duke of York, and Salisbury and Warwick landed at Sand-
wich ; and thence with a host of Kentish men they marched
to London, and were welcomed by certain aldermen and
commoners. Scales, who was true to King Henry, was
obliged to shut himself up in the Tower with the lords Vesey,
Lovell and de Ja Warr.

From London the Yorkist lords, except Salisbury whom
they left in the city as governor, marched to Northampton ;
and there on the roth of July they defeated and captured the
king. Meanwhile the citizens besieged the Tower and kept
throughout London a rigorous watch. The Tower yielded
when the victorious lords returned, bringing with them their
royal prisoner; and there were various prosecutions for
treason, in which the civic officers and the Yorkist leaders
acted in perfect accord.

After the second battle of St. Albans had, in February
1461, restored the king to liberty, when the royal forces were
near the city and threatened to march on it, the mayor would
have sent food and money to the queen’s army; but the
people of London, when they knew the destination of the
carts which held the provisions, raided them and shared their
contents. On the 28th Edward and Warwick entered the city,
 

12 HISTORY OF LONDON

and on the 1st of March Neville, the chancellor, summoned
a general assembly of citizens to Clerkenwell Green, and
explained to them the title of Edward, now Duke of York,
to the throne, and the Londoners, with applause, proclaimed
him king. They said to each other, according toa chronicler,
‘“* Let us walk in a new vineyard and let us make a gay garden
in the month of March with this fair white rose and herb,
the Earl of March.” All England was not yet subject to
Edward IV., but in London he was undisputed king.

King Henry, after he had been captured in 1465, was
brought a prisoner to the Tower. He regained his liberty
and his crown in 1470; but he and Neville attempted in vain
to secure the adhesion of London. The citizens remained
Yorkists; and in April, 1471, they opened their gates to
Edward. He marched from the city to Barnet, where he
defeated the Lancastrian army, and from the field of victory
he sent to St. Paul’s the corpses of his enemies, once his
friends, Warwick and Montagu, and they lay naked in their
coffins that all men might behold them. Edward arrived at
the cathedral on the same day, to offer thanks for his success,
and passed from the city to Westminster Palace. And soon
afterwards King Henry, on horseback and clad in a long
gown of blue velvet, was brought through London, along
Cheap and to Westminster, and thence to the Tower, where
for the rest of his life he was a prisoner.

In May occurred the attempt of Warwick’s cousin, Thomas
Neville, called the Bastard of Fauconberg. He, with his men
of Essex and Kent, made on the r4th a simultaneous attack
on Bishopsgate, Aldgate, London Bridge, and the waterside.
At Aldgate an entrance was won; but the citizens under
Robert Bassett, alderman, fought so manfully that the in-
vaders were expelled, and were pursued with much slaughter
 

THE LIVERY COMPANIES 123

as far as Stratford. Then those who elsewhere were making
assaults fled also; some of them were chased to Deptford.
A week later Edward, at the head of thirty thousand men,
entered London in triumph, and on the same night King
Henry died in the Tower. He lay in state at St. Paul’s and
at Blackfriars.

It remains to examine the policy by which Edward IV.
secured so successfully the loyalty of his capital city, for his
friendship with the Londoners was unbroken until the end of
his reign. Probably his most effective measure was his
attachment to himself of the middle class. In 1462, the
year after he had been proclaimed king, he incorporated the
Tallow-chandlers and the Barbers, and in the subsequent years
of his reign the Ironmongers, the Pewterers, the Dyers, the
Musicians, the Parish Clerks, the Carpenters, the Fullers and
the Cooks. This was greatly to enlarge the aristocracy of
London, the livery companies. Moreover in the first parlia-
ment of Edward IV. the statute against the importation of
articles which belonged to the mystery of silkwomen was
confirmed ; and in the fourth year of his reign an act forbade
the importation to London or other place in the realm of a
long list of articles made of wool, silk and thread, leather,
iron, steel and other metals, as well as such accessories to
civilisation as dice, tennis balls, playing cards, and painted
ware. Such legislation must have deprived the manufactur-
ing crafts of the city of all serious foreign competition, and
at the same time have protected the humbler labourers whom
they employed. The statute was enough in itself to account
for the Yorkist politics of London.

With the measures of Edward IV. which raised the
position of the middle class, were others which tended
ultimately to render less popular the government of the city.
 

124 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

They were the outcome of a movement towards definition
expressed also in the incorporation of the companies.

In 1404, at an election of sheriffs, so great a multitude of
apprentices and serving men assembled in the Guildhall, and
so clamorous were they, that the order of the proceedings
was disturbed ; and it was ordained subsequently by the
mayor, aldermen and Common Council that none might take
part in or be present at the election of any officer of the city
unless he had received a summons from the serjeants of the
mayor, the sheriffs, or the chamberlain. In 1467-8 the elec-
tors were further limited to the members of the Common
Council. This was, it is true, a body composed of the
popularly elected representatives of wards; yet to render it
the sole electorate of magistrates was to depart from that
most ideally democratic type of government which derives
its authority from a free assembly of citizens. It must be
remembered, however, that such governments, except in very
small or in peculiarly constituted states, are defenceless
against the tyranny of the noisiest, or of any who, by form-
ing a clique, have taken to themselves the advantage of
organisation; and their freedom is apt to be rather
theoretical than real.

In 1475-6 another ordinance permitted the Common
Council to associate with themselves as electors the ‘‘ honest
men of their mysteries.” The innovation, in view of the
efficiency and the independent rights of the incorporated
crafts, is not surprising; but it opened a way for the undue
arrogation to themselves of governing power by the livery
companies.

The spirit of definition was again expressed in the
incorporation of the city itself in 1478, when a charter of
Edward IV. permitted the mayor and commonalty to
 

THE LIVERY COMPANIES 125

acquire and hold property. As always definition was the
enemy of liberty. Henceforth the constitution of London
lacked elasticity: it could not readily adapt itself to new
conditions, and the class in power had the support of all
that almost irresistible force, which belongs to whatever is
part of codified laws.

The part of the citizens in the fortunes of Edward IV.
made their support more than ever an object for any who
wished to seize the throne. When in the spring of 1483 the
news reached London that Richard of Gloucester and
Buckingham had taken the young king, Edward V., from
the keeping of his mother’s relatives, the queen mother with
her younger son took sanctuary at Westminster, and all the
city was thrown into on uproar. On every side men were
arming themselves, in fear of the designs of Richard. But
the Lord Chamberlain Hastings, who credited Richard with
a loyalty like his own, went into the city, and in an address
he assured the Londoners of the good faith of the dukes and
their desire to hasten Edward’s coronation. And the truth
of his words seemed to be proved when, on the 4th of May,
the mayor and aldermen in scarlet robes, and the commons of
the city clad in violet, rode to Hornsey Park to meet the
young king, whom his uncle, Richard of Gloucester, escorted
with fit humility.

Soon afterwards Richard obtained the custody of the little
duke of York as well as that of the king, and both brothers
were placed first in the palace of the bishop of London, and
then in the Tower. The lords who were making arrange-
ments for the coronation held councils at Baynard’s Castle,
but the cabal who favoured the plans of Richard met in
Crosby Place.

The execution of the loyal Hastings was the beginning of
 

126 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

Richard’s overt acts of treachery. He appreciated the force
which London could wield; but he could not acquire, as
other kings and aspirants to the throne had done, the sup-
port of a reputable party among the citizens. Instead, he
sought for traitors among the great Londoners, and the
mayor, Sir Edmund Shaw, goldsmith, was won over.

On Sunday, the roth of June, Ralph Shaw, brother to the
mayor, preached at Paul’s Cross a sermon in which he
endeavoured to prove the illegitimacy of Edward V. and his
brother. The effect on the assembled crowd is said to have
been disappointing; but on the following Tuesday Bucking-
ham made to the mayor, aldermen and commons at the
Guildhall an address in which he not only laboured the
same point, but further recalled exactions and acts of
tyranny of the late king, in the hope of incensing the citizens
against him and his line. ‘‘The which process,” says
Fabyan, who may have been present, “was in so eloquent
wise shewed and uttered, without any impediment of spitting
or other countenance, and that of a long while, with so good
sugared words of exhortation and according sentence, that
many a wise man that day marvelled, and commended him
for the good ordering of his words; but not for the intent
and purpose the which that thereupon ensued.”

So much eloquence had a paralysing effect. The duke,
when his speech was over, looked round the hall and
expected the people, duly inspired by their mayor, to have
set up the cry of “King Richard, King Richard!” But
instead they were ‘“ hushed and mute.” He held a whispered
consultation with the mayor, and afterwards, even more
emphatically and skilfully, he again rehearsed his arguments,
yet his audience remained ‘“‘still as the midnight.” Then
the recorder, “‘a sad man and an honest,” at the mayor’s
 

THE LIVERY COMPANIES 127

bidding unwillingly repeated the duke’s tale, but still in all
the hall no man made response; and finally Bucking-
ham spoke again, and with flattering words besought the
Londoners to show their minds for Richard or against him.
There arose the confused sound of much whispering; but at
the back of the hall were some servants of the duke and
other partizans, who suddenly threw up their caps, and
called out, as loudly as they could, “ King Richard, King
Richard!”’ And the cry was taken up by ’prentices and
boys in the crowd, while the citizens listened as men
amazed. But Buckingham declared that Richard had been
proclaimed king by the citizens. And on the morrow the
mayor, the aldermen and the chief of the commoners of
London were actors in that farce in which Richard was
persuaded to accept the crown of England.

This account of the manner in which the citizens, deserted
by their mayor, puzzled and taken by surprise, were induced
to accept Richard III. as king, is taken chiefly from Sir
Thomas More. That writer as a staunch friend to the
Tudors was antipathetic to Richard, but the details which
he gives agree in their outline and spirit with the record
made by Robert Fabyan. The Londoners who had been so
instrumental in the overthrow first of Richard II. and then
of Henry VI., can have cared little for the sacredness of direct
descent and primogeniture; but, on the other hand, they had
been undoubtedly and with reason attached to Edward IV.
They may indeed have feared the evils of a disorderly
minority. Otherwise their deliberate aversion from Edward V.
could be explained only by a taste for experimental politics,
by a gambling spirit, which even in that unstable age is not
likely to have characterised the prosperous citizens.

Any who did so gamble were unfortunate in their venture,
 

128 HISTORY OF LONDON

for Richard in his relation to the city was chiefly a
borrower.

On the 28th of August, 1485, the mayor, aldermen and
commons of London put on again their robes of scarlet and
violet, and again, as they had done two years before, rode out
to Hornsey Park to meet a king. This time it was Henry
Tudor, lately proclaimed Henry VII.
CHAPTER X

SOCIAL AND ARCHITECTURAL
LONDON IN THE FIFTEENTH
CENTURY

 

cc HE beauty of this island is confined to

London; which, although sixty miles distant

from the sea, possesses all the advantages to

be desired in a maritime town ; being situated
on the river Thames, which is very much affected by the tide
for many miles—I do not know the exact number—above
it; and London is so much benefited by this ebb and flow
of the river that vessels of 100 tons burden can come up
to the city, and ships of any size to within five miles of it;
yet the water in this river is fresh for twenty miles below
London. Although this city has no buildings in the Italian
style, but of timber or brick like the French, the Londoners
live comfortably, and it appears to me that there are not
fewer inhabitants than at Florence or Rome. It abounds
with every article of luxury, as well as with the necessaries
of life; but the most remarkable thing in London is the
wonderful quantity of wrought silver. I do not allude to
that in private houses, though the landlord of the house in
which the Milanese ambassador lived had plate to the
amount of one hundred crowns, but to the shops of London.
In one single street named the Strand, leading to St. Paul’s,

H.L. K
 

130 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

there are fifty-two goldsmiths’ shops, so rich and full of silver
vessels, great and small, that in all the shops in Milan,
Rome, Venice and Florence, put together, I do not think
there would be found so many of magnificence as are to be
seen in London. And these vessels are all either salt cellars
or drinking cups or basins to hold water for the hands; for
they eat off that fine tin (pewter ?) which is little inferior to
silver. These great riches of London are not occasioned by
its inhabitants being noblemen or gentlemen; being all
on the contrary persons of low degree and artificers, who
have congregated there from all parts of the world, and from
Flanders and from every other place. No one can be mayor
or alderman of London who has not been an apprentice in
his youth. . . Still the citizens of London are thought quite
as highly of there as the Venetian gentlemen are at Venice,
as I think your Magnificence may have perceived.

“, .. The mayor... isin no less estimation with the
Londoners than the person of our most serene lord (the
Doge) is with us, or than the Gonfaloniero at Florence; and
the day on which he enters upon his office he is obliged to
give a sumptuous entertainment to all the principal people
in London, as well as to foreigners of distinction; and I,
being one of the guests together with your Magnificence,
carefully observed every room and hall and the court where
the company were all seated, and was of opinion that there
must have been 1,000 or more persons at tabie. This
dinner lasted four hours or more, but it is true that the
dishes were not served with that assiduity and frequency
which is the custom with us in Italy: there being long
pauses between the courses, the company conversing the
while.

“A no less magnificent banquet is given when two other
 

LONDON IN FIFTEENTH CENTURY 13!

 

officers, named sheriffs, are appointed; to which I went,
being anxious to see everything well. Your Magnificence
also was invited, but did not go in consequence of the invita-
tion having come from the Lord Privy Seal. At this feast I
observed the infinite profusion of victuals, and of plate which
was for the most part gilt, and amongst other things I
noticed how punctiliously they sat in their order, and the
extraordinary silence of everyone, insomuch that I could have
imagined it one of those public repasts of the Lacedemonians
that I have read of.”

Thus wrote at the close of the fifteenth century a Venetian
traveller to England. The London which he described was
larger than that over which the Edwards had ruled. Already
in the fourteenth century there were houses outside the
northern and eastern gates, in the district which formed the
wards of Cripplegate Without, Aldgate Without, Bishopsgate
Without, and Portsoken. They were the dwellings of poor
labourers whose means did not allow them to benefit by the
protection of the wall, and who must have been defenceless
against the incursions of the peasants in 1381 and 1450, and
that of the Bastard of Fauconberg in 1471. But outside
Ludgate there was a suburb of a very different character.

There were two reasons which, even at this early date,
made in London a West End. The narrow streets and the
crowded houses within the walls had, in a period when men
had liberal tastes and a considerable knowledge of the arts,
rendered inevitable the existence of more spacious quarters
for the residence of the fashionable, and their situation was
determined first by that of Westminster, and secondly by the
course of the river. Merchants of Fleet Street had as con-
venient an access to the trading ships of the Thames as those
who lived in Thames Street; and courtiers and great men

K2
 

132 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

who dwelt on the road between Ludgate and Newgate and
Westminster were within easy reach of the king and the
Parliament. In 1393 the buildings outside these gates had
become so numerous that the new ward of Farringdon
Without, which is conterminous on the west with the modern
city, was instituted.

In the district outside the wall on the west side of the city
there was a colony of law students. Young men, or rather
boys, who wished to become clerks of chancery dwelt in the
Inns of Chancery, together with others who studied the
elements of the law and were eventually received into the
Inns of Court. In the latter those who intended to follow
the legal profession in its higher branches did “not only
study the laws to serve the courts of justice and profit their
country, but did further learn to dance, to sing, to play on
instruments, on the ferial days, and to study divinity on the
festival, using such exercises as they did who were brought
up in the king’s court.” The youth of gentle birth could
receive no more courtly education. Oxford and Cambridge
were still a field for poor scholars who were supported by the
endowments of the colleges, but in the Inns of Court a student
could live for no less sum than twenty marks a year, and if,
as was generally the case, he had a servant, his expenses
were naturally increased. ‘‘I myself have seen,” says Ferne,
‘a calendar of all those which were together in the society
of one of the same houses, about the last year of King
Henry V., with the arms of their house and family,
marshalled by their name; and I assure you the selfsame
monument doth approve them all to be gentlemen of perfect
descents.”

Of all the Inns of Court the most famous are those of the
Temple. In 1347, the buildings once held by the Templars
 

LONDON IN FIFTEENTH CENTURY 133

 

were leased to the lawyers by the Knights Hospitallers.
They were plundered by Wat Tyler’s rebels ; but the students
continued to prosper, and soon afterwards were so numerous
that they were divided into the societies of the Inner and the
Middle Temple. These shared, as their chapel, the ancient
Temple church. The Inner Temple hall is said to have been
built in the reign of Edward III.; but it has been altered,
burnt, rebuilt and restored. In the Temple garden, a green
terrace on the banks of the Thames, Shakespeare places his
famous scene of the adoption of their emblems by the parties
of Lancaster and York. The lords have adjourned for dis-
cussion from the Temple hall to the garden, but none will
definitely declare his allegiance. Then Richard Plantagenet
plucks a white rose:

«Since you are tongue-tied and so loth to speak,
In dumb significants proclaim your thoughts :
Let him that is a trueborn gentleman,

And stands upon the honour of his birth,
If he suppose that I have pleaded truth,
From off this brier pluck a white rose with me.”

And Somerset retorts :

“ Let him that is no coward nor no flatterer,
But dare maintain the party of the truth,
Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me,”

When all have chosen Warwick speaks noteworthy words:

‘This brawl to-day
Grown to this faction, in the Temple Garden,
Shall send, between the red rose and the white,
A thousand souls to death and deadly night.”

To the Inner Temple several Inns of Chancery were
attached. Clifford’s Inn in Fleet Street was let to the stu-

dents of the law or “apprentices of the bench” by Isabel,
widow of Robert Clifford, in 1345-6. Lyon’s Inn, once
 

134 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

between Holywell Street and Wych Street, which both have
disappeared, dates as an Inn of Chancery at least from the
reign of Henry V., and Clement’s Inn from that of Edward
IV. To the Middle Temple belonged an inn situated near
the back of the Old Bailey, and another called Chester’s Inn
or Strand Inn, on part of the site of Somerset House. The
inmates of both eventually removed to the New Inn, almost
opposite Lyon’s Inn, and on a site now at the corner of
Houghton Street and Aldwych.

The Inns of Court, other than the Temple, are outside the
liberties of the city. Lincoln’s Inn occupies part of the site
of the first house of the Black Friars, and it is said to have
acquired its name in the reign of Edward I. from Henry
Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, who assigned it to the lawyers for
their residence. Of the Inns of Chancery which were con-
nected with it, Thaive’s Inn owed its name to its owner
under Edward III., John Thaive or Tavie, whose tenants in
it were certain ‘“‘apprentices to the law.” In the reign of
Edward IV. it became the property of the benchers of
Lincoln’s Inn by the gift of Gregory Nicholls, mercer, and
they constituted it one of their Inns of Chancery. It was
burnt about the beginning of the nineteenth century. Fur-
nival’s Inn, which named Furnival Street, was so called after
the lords Furnival, once its proprietors, and was occupied by
students of the law under Henry IV. It was bought by the
society of Lincoln’s Inn under Edward IV.

Gray’s Inn, the fourth Inn of Court, appears already to
have been established as such in 1311. Its name commem-
orates the fact that in this and the succeeding century it was
held on lease from the family of Gray de Wilton. Two Inns
of Chancery are known to have been attached to it. Staple
Inn, opposite Gray’s Inn lane on the south side of Holborn,
 

LONDON IN FIFTEENTH CENTURY 128

 

was an Inn of Chancery under Henry V., and is said to have
belonged previously to the merchants of the staple. Bar-
nard’s Inn, once called Mackworth’s Inn, between Staple
Inn and Fetter Lane, was inhabited by students of law in the
reign of Henry VI.

Besides the Inns of Court and of Chancery there were in
the same part of London certain houses appropriated in the
fifteenth century to more dignified members of the legal
profession, judges of the King’s Bench and Common Pleas,
barons of the exchequer and serjeants at law. They were the
Serjeants’ Inns in Chancery Lane, Fleet Street, and Holborn,
of which the last, called Scroope’s Inn, was destroyed at an
early date.

There is evidence that the citizens did not always live at
peace with the law students about their gates. In August,
1442, one whole night was occupied by a brawl between the
members of the Inns of Court and Chancery and the
inhabitants of Fleet Street. Considerable slaughter took
place on either side; many people of the city gathered to the
scene, and the mayor and sheriffs made peace with difficulty.
It is this or another riot to which Stow refers in his Annals,
and which he assigns to the year 1462. It caused, he states,
the imprisonment in Hertford Castle of the principals of
Clifford’s Inn, Furnival’s Inn and Barnard’s Inn.

Many of the Inns can still be seen in London, although
their buildings date, almost all of them, from a date later
than the fifteenth century. The Inns of Court, the two
Temples, Lincoln’s Inn and Gray’s Inn, remain, and belong
still to the lawyers. Their present use has evolved naturally
from that to which they were assigned five or six centuries
ago. Of the Inns of Chancery, Staple Inn, Clement’s Inn
and Clifford’s Inn still stand, although Clifford’s Inn is on
 

136 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

sale for a building site. A lucky chance has caused Barnard’s
Inn to fall into the hands of the Mercer’s School, who have
preserved its hall. But Furnival’s Inn has been swallowed
up completely by the ugly buildings of the Prudential
Assurance Company in Holborn; Lyon’s Inn disappeared in
the course of those changes which made Aldwych and the
Kingsway, and asa part of which New Inn is even now under-
going demolition. The place of Thaivie’s Inn is marked by a
blind alley which leads from St. Andrew’s Street, Holborn,
and is flanked by uninteresting buildings.

Serjeant’s Inn in Fleet Street remains; but Serjeant’s Inn
in Chancery Lane, on the south side of the Public Record
Office, has lately been demolished.

In the fifteenth century all these Inns were centres of life
in a district beyond the turmoil of London. They were set
among fields and gardens, near the city but withdrawn from
it. And they are still, such of them as have not perished,
withdrawn from the life of London. It has spread out far
around them on every side, but it has never invaded their
precincts. To turn from the noise and glare and confusion
of Holborn into Gray’s Jnn, or into the small fresh courtyard
and garden of Staple Inn; to leave Fleet Street for the green
and the shadows and the ancient buildings of the Temple or
Clifford’s Inn, is dramatic. There are no places more restful
and secluded, where the grass and trees seem greener and
the shadows of the buildings more deep and quiet, than these
precincts of the Inns which are so intensely contrasted with
all that is around them.

In the fifteenth century the city architects found new scope
in the buildings of the halls of the livery companies. While
only the Goldsmiths and the Tailors are known with certainty
to have owned halls before the later years of the fourteenth
 

LONDON IN FIFTEENTH CENTURY 137

 

century, in the reign of Richard II. at least twenty-eight
companies had acquired them, and others were busy with the
work of building. The halls, many of which were magnifi-
cent and very spacious, added to the stateliness of London.
Some of them were, like the Inns of the lawyers, adapted
from the great private houses, in which magnates and rich
merchants had dwelt under the Edwards and Richard II.
The Mercers acquired for their hall the hospital of St. Thomas
of Acon.

There are records of the building of the Grocers’ Hall on
its present site near Cheapside. ‘The members of the
company, by means of subscriptions from sixty-three of their
number, bought from the Lord Fitzwalter the old monastery
of the Friars Sack which once had been a Jewish synagogue.
On the 8th of May, 1427, “was the furste stoon leyd of the
grocers’ place in Conyhoope Lane, in the warde of Chepe,
there being present our worshipful Alderman, Thomas
Knolles, William Cambridge, John de Wellys, Rogere Otleye
and many others ; and fro’ the seide viii. day of May to the v.
day of Juyn next following was maade the foundement of the
west gablyhende of the hall.’”” In the ensuing June the whole
foundation had been completed; the walls had been practi-
cally built ; and the doors and certain windows and chimneys
had been made. In addition to the hall itself the new
premises included the friary chapel, a parlour, a chamber, a
vault, a buttery, a pantry, a kitchen and privies; and,
eventually, the residence of a clerk, and, in the front yard,
almshouses for poor brethren and sisters. On the 5th of
February, 1429, the first dinner was “imade in the parlour
to our aldermen and other many worthy men of the felliship.”
For two centuries afterwards the hall had only an earthen
floor strewn with rushes, and the tables were boards on
 

138 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

trestles. In a garden, which probably had belonged to Fitz-
walter’s house, were vines which grew up to the parlour
windows, and an arbour and “alleys, hedgerows, and a
bowling alley, with an ancient tower of stone and brick at
the north west corner.”

The original hall of the Drapers was an important building
in St. Swithin’s Lane, Cannon Street. Their dining hall,
partly hung with blue “ buckram,” could receive from two
to three hundred persons; they had parlours hung with
tapestry and furnished with cushions, a chequer room,
probably so called from the pattern of its hangings, which
was carpeted with mats, and a ladies’ room. The kitchen
had three fireplaces.

The Goldsmiths in the fifteenth century built a new hall
on the site in Foster’s Lane which they have owned since
the reign of Edward III., and the furniture was of a luxury
accordant with the traditions of their trade. In 1467 they
bought “v. benches of tapestry-werke, wt Goldsmyth
armes; and vii. custhons (cushions) of the same, for cushons
and banches for the hall,” at a cost of £6 gs. 6d., as well as
two pieces of red worsted for the chapel and the chamber,
linen cloth and tassels, and dye for the hangings of the
chapel and hall; and they paved the hall. Twenty years
later Elizabeth Philip, daughter to John Wolke, or Walsh,
goldsmith, gave to the company, to buy their more frequent
prayers for the souls of John Walsh and of all Christians, a
pall which weighed 26lb. 40z., a great pair of balances, and
five fine cushions of tapestry which represented a woodland
scene, and on which were wrought the goldsmiths’ arms,
and, in red and white letters, her father’s name.

The period in which the halls of companies were building
was a favourable one: it was that in which the perpen-
 

LONDON IN FIFTEENTH CENTURY 139

 

dicular style in architecture became established. It was
characterised, to quote Mr. J. E. Price in his Descriptive
Account of the Guildhall (p. 49), by “the use of battlements
upon churches and other buildings, flower and fan tracery,
so constantly to be seen on both porch and cloister, fine
open timber roofs, cornices and canopies enriched and
elegant, together with a highly tasteful treatment in the
disposition of panelling upon walls and ceiling.” In the
Guildhall there is an existing example of the hall archi-
tecture of the century. ‘‘In this yere also,’’ wrote Robert
Fabyan, under the date 1411, “‘was the Guylde halle of
London begon to be newe edyfied, and of an olde and lytell
cotage made into a fayre and goodly house as it nowe
apperyth.”

The most interesting parts of the existing Guildhall are
the entrance, through a Norman arch, the great hall, and
the crypt; and these all date from the fifteenth century.
The hall was indeed much restored after the fire. Its upper
part, including the higher portions of the groups of clustered
pillars which divide it into bays, was renewed; the walls
were raised to the extent of two-thirds of their original
height. The open timber roof was replaced by a flat wooden
ceiling; but in 1864 a new roof, similar in general design to
that which must have existed before 1666, was made. The
Guildhall of the fifteenth century was a far less lofty struc-
ture than the present building, but its interior gave an
impression of wide spaciousness which has since been lost.

The lower range of windows in the hall and the details of
ornament have all that richness of fancy, that spontaneous
life, which makes so gorgeous medizval architecture. They
show a restraint which distinguishes them from the more
luxuriant work of craftsmen of the preceding age.
 

140 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

The eastern crypt is pure and very fine perpendicular
work. It is remarkable for the beautiful carved bosses at
the intersections and points of the ribs of the roof. The
western crypt is said to be the only remaining portion of
*‘the olde and lytell cottage” in which the life of London
centred before 1411; but the removal of the vaulting,
probably after 1666, and the repairs then speedily executed,
have made almost impossible the determination of its
original form.

The entrance to the Guildhall was robbed of some of its
state when, in the late eighteenth century, the erection above
it, surmounted by the city’s motto and arms, and the build-
ings to the left were introduced. But the simple Norman
arch, and the vaulted passage with groined roof which leads
beyond it to the great hall, are still remarkable for their
dignity and their grace.

From the Venetian traveller it can be gathered that
citizens still dwelt, as a rule, in houses made not of stone
but of timber or brick and timber. There is extant a build-
ing contract of the year 1410 which gives a detailed descrip-
tion of some dwelling-houses of the period. By it a certain
John More, timbermonger, and John Gerard, carpenter,
undertook to erect in Friday Street three shops; it is to be
concluded that they were entirely wooden. Beneath all
three was a single cellar; each had on the ground floor a
stall and a passage, on the first floor a hall, a pantry and
a kitchen, and on the second a principal chamber and a
drawing or withdrawing room. Mention is made of the
ceilings of this uppermost storey. For each house there
were two staircases and a drain. The height of the lower
storey was ten-and-a-half feet, that of the first nine feet, and
that of the third eight feet. Each house had a gable looking
 

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A FIFTEENTH CENTURY HousE IN LONDON.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

LONDON IN FIFTEENTH CENTURY 141

 

to the east, made according to a design drawn on paper, and
shutters and windows of wood. More and Gerard supplied
benches and ‘‘speres”’ for the halls.

Some years earlier a certain Hugh Hayward agreed to
repair “Le Blake Hors on the Hope” in Fleet Street in a
manner which must have given it accommodation very like
that of the houses in Friday Street. He contracted to build
within two years a new chamber of new timber on the site
of the old hall, a good hall of timber on the site of the old
kitchen, to mend with old and new timber three chambers
and a certain old chamber, to make three chimneys, a
kitchen, a wooden wall next to the neighbouring house and
an aisle or entry beside it, and to supply, wherever neces-
sary, new joists and tables in the chambers, and repair
windows, doors and stairs.

From these contracts an idea of the typical dwelling house
of the merchant of the period can be deduced. Ina base-
ment was a cellar, certainly vaulted, which served as a
warehouse. The shop was level with the street, and some-
times had an open front, after the manner of the poorer fruit
shops of modern London, and on one side of it a passage
gave access to a staircase. On the first floor was the hall,
the principal living room of the family, conveniently situated
near the kitchen and offices, and bedrooms and other
private rooms were on the third floor.

In Crosby Hall, so lately removed from its original site in
Bishopsgate Street, there was a fine example of the hall and
some adjoining rooms of the house of one of the wealthiest
city merchants.

It was built by Sir John Crosby, alderman and at one
time sheriff, whom Edward IV. knighted in 1471. It was
the residence of Richard of Gloucester while he acted as
 

142 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

protector when his nephew, Edward V., was king; and in it
certain scenes of Shakespeare’s “‘ Richard ITI.” are laid.

The lofty and spacious hall, which measured sixty-nine by
twenty-seven feet and had an oriel window, was one of the
best specimens of domestic architecture in the perpendicular
period. It hada timber roof. The windows and the archi-
tectural design of the whole had a beauty which was not
without a severe element; yet there was wealth in the
carving, both of wood and of stone, which produced the
ornament of details. Sir John Crosby built for himself a
house, magnificent, yet a fit abode for the responsible
magnate of a city.

From their wills it seems that the household goods of
citizens were much those which they had possessed in the
previous century. They had come, perhaps, to own more
plate and jewellery ; and among records of such articles the
occasional legacy of silver powder-boxes indicates the adop-
tion of a new custom. The goldsmiths sometimes used
their art to ornament wood, as to make a tablet of cypress
garnished with gold. Beds were bequeathed with much
detail; there is a description of an ‘‘ entire bed” as consist-
ing of three curtains and a canopy of blue silk, a coverlet
and a tester of green, a pair of sheets, two blankets and
a quilt. In 1460 a citizen disposed of an iron-bound chest
in which to keep title deeds, with the iron instrument over
it ‘called bolt.”

The existing churches in London which date mainly from
the fifteenth century are those of St. Ethelburga, St. Helen
Bishopsgate, and St. Olave Hart Street, together with the
chancel and outer walls of All Hallows’ Barking.

The little church of St. Ethelburga in Bishopsgate Street
has suffered much deformation. The windows in the north
 

 

INTERIOR OF CrosBy HALL.
 

LONDON IN FIFTEENTH CENTURY 143

 

and south aisles have been built up; the roof and the east
window are modern. Since the sixteenth century the church
porch has been let as the site of shops, and, as a consequence,
the west front is partly concealed. But there remain, to give
distinction to the small and gloomy interior, the tracery of
the west window and the graceful pillars of the south aisle
with the arches they support.

The church of St. Helen Bishopsgate served a double
purpose, that of a parish church and that of a chapel for the
adjoining nunnery of St. Helen, and it is to this circumstance
that it owes its curious plan. The nuns’ choir, which is
parallel with the nave and chancel and almost equally wide,
has, by the removal of a screen, been thrown into the body
of the church. It is separated from it by clustered pillars
which bear arches. Of these the second arch from the east
end, as well as the remains of the lancet windows in the north
wall, date from the thirteenth, and the eastern chapels from
the fourteenth century, but the rest of the church belongs to
the later period.

St. Olave’s Hart Street is the most complete example of
a perpendicular church which is left in London. The nave
is separated from the north and from the south aisle by
arcades supported by clustered.columns. Above these there
is a clerestory. The windows show, for the most part,
fifteenth century work, but the tracery of the east window is
modern. ‘The roof dates from 1632.

Not far from St. Olave’s and very near the precincts of the
Tower is the beautiful church of All Hallows’ Barking. In
the fifteenth century the Norman nave of this church was
surmounted by a perpendicular clerestory, and was sur-
rounded by perpendicular side aisles, a perpendicular chancel,
and perpendicular chapels to the north and south of the
 

144 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

chancel. The ceiling and the tracery of the east window
are modern.

The most impressive quality of all these fifteenth century
churches of the city, small as they usually are, is a certain
spaciousness. It is produced partly by the ground plans,
which approximate to a parallelogram, combined with the
low-pitched roofs, and partly by the lightness of the
architecture. And this lightness is not a matter of pro-
portion only; it is the effect also of some austerity, of a
simplicity which suffers the most delicate lines to have their
full effect.

There is not much evidence as to the amusements of the
citizens of London in the fifteenth century. In 1409 a
proclamation forbade money to be levied, on occasions of
marriages, for the games called ‘“foteballe” and ‘‘ cok-
thresshyng.” Londoners seem therefore to have retained
the taste for sport observed in them in the days of Becket ;
but it would appear that they had thus early allowed some
professionalism to contaminate their games.

There are few records in this period of dramatic repre-
sentations in the city, other than those which formed part
of the pageantry for the reception of personages into the city.
As in an earlier age, when the king or another potentate
made an entry in state, all the city was decorated in his
honour, and at suitable points, such as London Bridge, the
tun in Cornhill, the conduit and the cross in Cheap, and the
conduit by St. Paul’s, he was greeted by figures, singly or in
groups, who represented classical personages, virtues and
vices, sciences, arts, and other abstractions, and who made
to him fitting metrical speeches. There were pageants of
this kind when Henry V. returned to London after Agincourt,
and in 1432, when Henry VI. first entered the city after his
 

LONDON IN FIFTEENTH CENTURY 145

 

coronation in Paris. But there was little leisure for them
during the stress of the Wars of the Roses.

The same may be said of the tournaments at Smithfield.
In 1409 the seneschal of Hainault, with a goodly company
of his countrymen and others, came to England ‘for to do
and perfourme certayne faytes of armys agayn dyverse
noblemen and gentylmen of this lande. . . For executynge
of whiche disporte the place of Smythfelde by the Kynge was
appoynted, and barryd and fensyd for the same entent.”
And in 1467, in the month of June, “‘ were certayne actes
and feates of warre doone in Smythfelde, atwene Sir Antony
Wydevile, called lord Scalys, upon that one partye, and the
Bastard of Burgoyne, chalengour, on that other partye; of
whiche the lord Scalys wanne the honour.”

The high place which the citizens and their magistrates
occupied both in their own estimation and that of others
impressed the Venetian traveller. And it is indeed remark-
able. In 1464 the mayor was invited to be present at a feast
of the court; but when he arrived with his officers he found,
‘in time of washing,” that the Earl of Worcester had been
given precedence over him. Therefore, “as his dignity
required of the city,” he went home again with his brethren
the aldermen, and in a marvellously short time he himself
served for them a feast, of which cygnets and many other
delicacies formed part. The court officials took fright when
they realised that the representatives of the wealthy and
powerful city had thus departed in a huff, and they sent after
them a gift of meat, bread and wine, and “divers subtleties.”
But he who brought the present found all the dainties he
could supply already set out on the mayor’s table. He was
however a man of tact who obtained “love and thanks for
his message and a great reward withal.” ‘And thus,” says

Eisley L
 

146 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

Fabyan, “the worship of the city was kept, and not lost for
hym. And I trust that never it shall, by the grace of God.”
Edward IV. was prodigal of attentions to the city. In
July, 1482, ‘‘the King rode on huntynge into the forest of
Waltham, whether he commanded the mayer with a certayne
of his brethren to come, and to gyve attendance upon hym
with certayne commoners of the cytie; where, when they
were commyn, the Kynge caused the game to be brought
before them, so that they sawe course after course, and many
a dere, both rede and falowe, to be slayn before them. And
after that goodly disport was passyd, the Kynge commaunded
his offycers to brynge the mayer and his company unto a
pleasant lodge made all of grene bowys, and garnisshed with
tables and other things necessary, where they were set at
dyner, and servyd with many deyntie dysshes, and of dyverse
wynes good plentie, as white, red, and claret, and caused
them to be sette to dyner or he were servyd of his owne ; and
over that caused the lord chamberlayne, with other lordes to
hym assygned, to chere the sayd mayer and his company
sondry tymes whyle they were at dyner, and at theyr
departynge gave unto theym of venyson great plentie.”’

And in the following August King Edward sent to the
mayoress and the aldermen’s wives two harts and six bucks
and a tun of wine; and the mayor and aldermen and their
ladies, with some commoners invited to the feast, partook of
the royal gifts in the Drapers’ Hall. William Marryat, mayor
in this year, was a draper, and Fabyan holds him in part
responsible for the king’s marked affability. ‘The mayer
was a marchaunt of wonderous adventures, into many and
sondry contres, by reason whereof the Kynge had yerely of
hym notable summes of money for his customes, besyde
other pleasures that he shewyd to the kynge before tymes.”
CHAPTER XI

THE CHURCH BEFORE THE
REFORMATION

 

HE two centuries which followed the Norman
invasion were the period in which most
religious houses in London had their beginning ;
then to help the settlement of a religious com-

munity, or to contribute to its endowment, was the favourite
expression of the impulse to piety. It has been seen that
in the fourteenth century the same feeling frequently led to
the rebuilding of churches and to the institution of chantries.
But in this latter period there were still a few foundations of
religious houses.

The settlement of the Knights Hospitallers in London can
hardly be described as a new foundation. By a bull of
Clement V., they were made the heirs of the Templars and
an act of 1324 established them in possession of the property
of that order. But they are interesting in the city rather as
landlords of the lawyers of the Temple than as a religious
community.

Two foundations were due to the initiative of Edward III.
That king in 1348 instituted a house of secular canons in
connection with the famed chapel of St. Stephen, Westminster,
afterwards the Parliament House, which is said to have been
first made by King Stephen and which had lately been
rebuilt ; and in 1350 he founded in the parish of St. Botolph

L2
 

148 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

without Aldgate the Cistercian Abbey of St. Mary of Graces,
as a thank offering for Mary’s care of him in his adventures
by land and by sea.

This was the only Cistercian community in London. The
Carthusians had not any house in the city, Westminster or
Southwark; but in Smithfield outside the walls, Sir Walter
Manny, knight, founded, on the place where the victims of
the Black Death had hurriedly been buried, first a chapel,
and then, in 1371, the famous Charterhouse.

The Charterhouse schoolboys and almsmen have survived
the Carthusian monks; and this is fitting, for they represent
the modern element in the spirit which led men to found
religious houses. The impulse to asceticism was in the
fourteenth century nearly exhausted, but the impulse to
charity is an essential, not a passing, characteristic of society.
Therefore hospitals were instituted then and in the fifteenth
century as they were after the Reformation, and as they are
still in modern times.

In 133r William Elsyng, mercer, was moved by his
compassion for the blind beggars who wandered homeless
about the city, to found near Cripplegate the hospital
variously known as that of St. Mary within Cripplegate and
Elsingspital. It was intended for the accommodation of
a hundred men and women, and blind or paralysed priests
were received in it in preference to others. In its beginning
it was governed by the clergy of St. Paul’s, but after 1340 it
was served, like many hospitals, by the Austin canons.

The executors of Richard Whittington founded in 1424
a house for thirteen poor citizens, preferably mercers, on the
east side of the church of St. Michael Paternoster Royal.
These had each his room, but they took their meals together.
They were bound to perform certain religious duties, especially
 

CHURCH BEFORE REFORMATION 149

 

in the eternal interests of Whittington and Alice, his wife;
each one received a weekly allowance of fourteen pence, and
all were clad in seemly dark-coloured clothes. One of their
number ruled and administered the house, which was under
the supervision of the mayor and the wardens of the Mercers.

Soon afterwards, in 1442, the miseries of old and infirm
priests, on whom Elsyng also had had compassion, caused
three chaplains to found a hospital in the parish of All
Hallows, London Wall. The chapel of St. Augustine Pappey
and an adjoining house and garden were acquired, and there
shelter, food and firing were provided for a number of
women, and of men who must all be priests. The hospital
was Called after the chapel.

A foundation of a different type was that of the Savoy
Hospital, which occupied the site of John of Gaunt’s palace.
It was instituted by Henry VII. in 1505 and Henry VIII. in
1512, and was held by a corporation which consisted of a
master, and of four chaplains who were the seneschal, the
sacristan, the confessor and the hospitaller. There were
other officials, men and women, and all wore a uniform of
blue adorned by a Tudor rose of red and gold, embroidered
on the breast. Every evening, one hour before sunset, the
vice matrons and others stood at the great door of the
hospital on the south side of the Strand, and admitted any
poor who desired shelter for the night. The guests went
first to the chapel, where they prayed for the soul of
Henry VII., and then beds were allotted to them in the
dormitory. Baths were prepared for them and their clothing
cleansed. Only the sick were allowed to remain longer than
one night, and were tended by the doctor, the surgeon and

the sisters.
Near Fenchurch Street and the house of the Crossed or
 

150 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

Crutched Friars, Sir John Milbourne, once Mayor, built in
1535 almshouses for thirteen poor members of the Drapers’
company and their wives.

Such were, from the fourteenth century to the Reformation,
the chief additions to the ecclesiastical society of London.
The hospitals may all be described as religious houses, for
all approximated in their organisation to the monastic type,
and in all the inmates were compelled to perform religious
duties.

But it is clear that the purely monastic ideal was not part
of the highest aspirations of the age, and inevitably therefore
men of the best type were not found, as a rule, within the
walls of convents, which sheltered rather the commonplace
among mankind. And in monasteries and nunneries alike
there was secularity and self seeking, ignorance, superstition
and bigotry, sloth and self indulgence, and immorality. The
religious profession would seem, at this date, to have been
regarded not as a sacred vocation, but merely as a means of
livelihood, and Chaucer’s genteel prioress, his sporting monk,
and his merry and careless friar were average types who did
not offend the moral sense of ordinary men.

At the same time the position of the religious communities
as great landlords in the city made them increasingly wealthy.
It is significant that while in early civic struggles they played
an active and important part, in the fifteenth century they
mingled little in politics. They no longer constituted one of
the forces which exercised initiative; they stood with the
vulgar herd, ready to range themselves on the winning side,
and dynastic changes passed over them, leaving them
scatheless.

It is perhaps for lack of knowledge of the special ideals
of earlier foundations in London that the moral failure of
 

CHURCH BEFORE REFORMATION 151

the friars seems to have so much tragedy. For these simple
brothers, who set out to minister in singleness of mind to the
humblest of townsfolk, came to be distinguished chiefly for a
courtly talent. The friars were not behind the monks in the
struggle to acquire wealth; when the neglected ideals which
they preached had revived the spirit of religion and attracted
to them the greatest in the land, they used their opportunity
to make worldly profit of the great. They came to be known
above all as the staunch friends of kings. They were
often in conflict with the other clergy, but the disputes were
no longer the outcome of truly different theories as to the
religious profession, but merely those natural to two parties
both striving by different methods to attain to worldly
success. In 1465 they waged a hot battle to prove that alms
rather than benefices were fit means for the support of priests;
but the defence of poverty which they therefore advanced was
a mere convention of their order, academic and interested.

It was impossible that the parish churches of London
should constitute an independent source of spiritual life,
because in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries a large
number of them came to be appropriated to the religious
houses, and therefore to be entirely in their management, to
be served by their nominees and to reflect their standards.

The chantries so numerously founded are among the most
lifeless of all the forms in which faith has been manifested.
The number of the citizens who thought to help their souls
by endowing a chantry priest, to have none but routine duties,
almost necessarily mechanical because inevitably monotonous,
to follow the many unedifying examples of his fellows, is in
itself proof of the deadness in this period of conventional
belief.

In considering contemporary strictures on church and
 

152 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

churchmen it should be remembered that this was a critical
age. The instability of the central government of the state
united with the whole trend of thought in Europe, to cause
men to be judged by standards derived not only from authority
but also from principles of morality. As usual there were
two classes of reformers, those who sought to improve existing
institutions and those who wished to supersede them.

The first were found both within and without the ecclesi-
astical hierarchy, the men who had for the clerical profession
a high ideal of holiness and of efficiency. Wyclif denounced
the employment of clergy on secular business to the detriment
of their spiritual duties, and the abuse of excommunication
for purposes of gain, and on these points he probably
was not far in advance of the enlightened conscience of his
day. In 1382 an ordinance of the Court of Common Council
ordered unchaste priests to be taken to the prison called the
Tun, with minstrels playing to make public their disgrace;
and the Londoners defended such usurpation of functions of
the ecclesiastical courts on the ground that “ they detested
not only the negligence of the clergy but also their avarice,
shown in allowing the guilty who bribed them to go un-
punished.” The traffic in benefices, generally effected by
means of exchanges, was a frequent offence against public
standards, and Archbishop Courtenay, in 1391, stated that
most of the ‘‘ choppe churches ”’ dwelt in London. Robert
Braybrook, bishop of London from 1382 to 1404, was a
distinguished reformer. He was the first who attempted to
end the practice of using St. Paul’s cathedral as a place of
business and pleasure, and he sought to restore the feasts
of St. Paul and St. Earconwald to their honourable place
among church festivals. He would also have prevented the
desecration of Sundays and other holy days, but he was
 

ALL SAINTS, GUILDHALL.

AND

CHAPEL OF ST. MARY MAGDALEN
 

CHURCH BEFORE REFORMATION 153

 

most original in the support he gave to the movement for
the formation of colleges. When lay society had been
permeated by the principle of the gild, when it fashioned or
modified almost all the institutions of the city, it was not
unnatural to attach peculiar virtue to a communal life.

In the latter end of the fourteenth century, when it was
desired to reform the chantry priests and minor canons of St.
Paul’s, they were organized into gilds, bound by prescribed
rules and compelled to partake of common meals. Between
1327 and 1459 colleges were founded in the churches of St.
Laurence Pountney, St. Peter in the Tower, the Guildhall
Chapel, Walworth’s Chapel, the churches of St. Michael
Paternoster Royal, and All Hallows Barking, and Leadenhall
Chapel. Probably by force of their regularity and because
they brought better men to serve the churches, the colleges
were a real power for good.

Especially in the latter half of the fourteenth century a
parallel movement led to the institution of many gilds of lay-
men in connection with parish churches and religious houses.

Another manifestation of religious feeling in this period is
modern. Citizens in the fourteenth century began to listen
eagerly to sermons, and their taste was fostered by the best
churchmen. The pulpit at Paul’s Cross came to be a centre
of life, but of a life rather of the intellect than of faith. The
fifteenth century Londoners who gathered to hear arguments
on points of doctrine and practice, and strictures on the
morals and manners of the day, had left the middle ages
behind them.

The heretics of London were found among those who thus
listened at the cross. There is some difficulty in discovering
the extent to which the old doctrines had lost their authority,
because Lollardism found adherents chiefly in the lower
 

154 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

classes of the population. The rich citizens continued in the
fifteenth century to endow by their wills the institutions of
Holy Church; they provided for the celebration of their
obits, for the maintenance of a light or an altar, for the
foundation of a chantry, and, above all, they made bequests
for the enlargement or rebuilding and the enrichment of their
parish churches. That they were affected by the wave of
criticism which was passing over society is shown by such
actions as the passing of the ordinance of the Common
Council, already cited, for the correction of immoral priests.
But it does not appear that they were advocates of heretical
doctrine, nor that they cavilled greatly at that which above
all excited the resentment of the Lollards, the vast wealth of
the church. As members of the companies, and thereby
holders of property in mortmain, they occupied, indeed, a
parallel position to the religious bodies. They had, however,
a special grievance against the rectors of parishes which had
its origin in the demand made by these for tithes. There
was in London an old quarrel between the church and the
citizens on the subject of tithes, and one which attained to
final settlement only in the nineteenth century. Differences
as to the proportion of rents due as tithes, and the claim to
exact tithes on the profits of trade as well as on rent, were
fruitful causes of dispute. The recurring friction tended to
the unpopularity of parochial clergy.

But a resistance to claims for tithes might be based on a
transgression of the limits sanctioned by the church; it might
be consistent with strict orthodoxy. When the ultimate and
revolutionary conclusions of Lollardist principles came to be
understood, there seems to have been, among the propertied
and mainly conservative classes in London, a certain reaction
against the critical attitude. It had indeed come to be less
 

CHURCH BEFORE REFORMATION 155

justified, for the reforming efforts of the late fourteenth and
the early fifteenth century bore fruit, and there was an
amelioration in the manners and the administration of the
church.

Yet London was a centre of Lollardism. The citizens
were described by the monkish chronicles of St. Albans as
‘extremely proud and avaricious, unbelievers in God and the
ancient traditions, maintainers of the Lollards, slanderers of
religious persons, detainers of tithes, and impoverishers of
the common people.” The friars had once before found it
easy to prove to the multitude of the city that the treasure of
the church was not of this world, and the hold which the
religious houses had obtained on property in the city could
be added, with familiar scriptural authority, to the other
economic grievances of the unenfranchised. But further,
there is evidence that in this age there was in the mass of
Londoners an inclination to theological speculation. From
criticism of the monks and the priests it was, for practical
people, easy to pass to criticism of their teachings; and
reforms of the clergy could not bring back the old implicit-
ness of faith.

The history of Wyclif as a teacher in London is obscured
by the fact that, owing to the support given to him by John
of Gaunt, his followers were identified with a certain party
in civic politics. In 1382, when a popular preacher was
being tried by the archbishop for heretical views on the
subject of transubstantiation, the proceedings were inter-
rupted by the city mob; but this action may be explained by
the received opinion that the accused man was innocent.
But a few years later it became clear beyond doubt how
shaken was the allegiance of Londoners to the old faith and

the hierarchy.
 

156 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

And the pulpits were the centre of disaffection. The fact
was apparent to the governors of the church: the bishop in
1386 was empowered to imprison all maintainers and preachers
of unsound doctrine ; Braybrook forbade any but Franciscans
to preach without a licence from himself; and in 1400 a royal
proclamation was made against unauthorised preachers.
The Austin friars were denounced in a sermon in 1381, and
in consequence a turbulent attack was made on their house.
Naturally preaching was an instrument of the defenders
of the old opinions as of the advocates of the new.

Otherwise the Lollards propagated their doctrine by indict-
ments of the church, the churchmen and the faith, posted
especially on the doors of St. Paul’s. Heretical literature
was in circulation, for in 1413 a number of tracts, condemned
by Convocation, were burnt at Paul’s Cross. In 1392 the
king forbade craftsmen and others to hold secret conventions
for the discussion of Holy Scripture in an heretical way.
The prohibition relates these Londoners in their intellectual
unrest, their confused and rebellious activity, to many peoples
who in many ages have striven for unauthorized ideals.

The statute “De Heretico Comburendo” was passed in
the parliament of 1401, and during the fifteenth century
many men and women were burnt for heresy in Smithfield
or on Tower Hill, while a correspondent number abjured
heretical opinions at Paul’s Cross. Most of them were humble
people, and not a few were priests. When Richard Wyche,
vicar of Deptford, was, with his servant, burnt at Tower Hill
in June 1440, vast crowds of Londoners made pilgrimages to
the place of his death, until the civic magistrates, the
wardens of livery companies, and even the king, interposed
their authority, and a watch was kept on the hill by day and
by night for the space of two months.
 

CHURCH BEFORE REFORMATION 1557

 

This incident proves how numerous were the Lollards and
their sympathizers in the city. The fact was indicated at an
earlier date on the occasion of Oldcastle’s rising. He, in
1413, when he had been imprisoned in the Tower, was helped
to escape by a parchment maker of London. On the roth
of December he was cursed, with all his supporters, by the
archbishop at Paul’s Cross, an action which goes to prove
the contemporary report that he had in the city many
followers. They were said to consist chiefly of serving men
and apprentices. He assembled his forces in St. Giles’s
Fields on the 12th of January, but the king, by closing the

city gates, prevented his friends in London from joining him.
Some citizens were subsequently executed or pardoned for
their share in the conspiracy.

On the whole there is matter for wonder that the Lollards
of London were so successfully kept in check.
CHAPTER XII

MERCHANT ADVENTURERS AND
CHURCH REFORM

 

N the Tudor Period English local history ceased to
have capital interest. It was at this date that the
centralizing process, which forms so critical an epoch
in the history of great nations, took place in England.

It occurred in Spain in much the same period; its effects
have been witnessed, in comparatively recent times, in
Germany and in Italy. In France it produced in the
eighteenth century all the disaster which has often attended
the very theoretical political genius of the French people.

But in England centralizing efforts were fortunate. The
Wars of the Roses had brought home to the Tudor kings the
dangers of local independence, and at the same time had
weakened local sources of strength. In the case of London
it has been seen that in the fifteenth century the powers of
the city had been closely defined by charters, and thus had
lost capacity for growth, and moreover all of the formidable
which belongs to the vague. And there was further a great
economic reason for the decline of local institutions.

“T knew the time” says a writer of the midddle of the
sixteenth century, ‘‘ when men were contented with cappes,
hattes, girdeles, and poyntes, and all manner of garmentes
made in the townes next adjoininge, whereby the townes then
weare well occupied and set aworke ; and yet the money paid
 

MERCHANT ADVENTURERS 159

for the same stuff remayned in the countrie. Nowe the
poorest yonge man in a countrey cann not be contented
either with a lether girdle or lether pointes, gloves, knives or
daggers made nigh home. And specially no gentleman can
be content to have eyther cappe, coat, doublet, hose or shirt
made in his countrey, but they must have their geare from
London ; and yet many things thereof are not theare made,
but beyond the sea whereby the artificers of our townes are
idle.”

It has often been pointed out that the first stage in
economic development is the self-sufficing household ; until
very lately it was exemplified in the Shetland Islands.
Beyond it lies the village, district or town, which can supply
its own needs; and in the sixteenth century this had, in
England, definitely been passed, and the unit was the
kingdom. This too has become obsolete, and British
people now hesitate before two ideals, a self-sufficing empire,
and a world in which goods circulate freely on unimpeded
trade routes.

The fact that the economic unit had become the kingdom
explains and justifies the many Acts of parliament, which,
from the reign of Henry VII., were passed to regulate trade
and manufactures, and which entrenched on the sphere
once occupied almost solely by the wardens of crafts and
local governing bodies. And this nationalizing of trade was
necessarily accompanied by a change in sentiment; men
came to be Englishmen first and Londoners afterwards.
Because narrow local patriotism is an emotion more easily
understood, more commonly and intensely felt, than that
which involves loyalty to a whole country, the result was in
many cases a weakening of the social instinct, a tendency to

individualism.
 

160 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

Therefore in the sixteenth century civic office was
frequently refused, and therefore the city’s government
was prudently servile to the strong king. For his part the
lawless years of war had obscured for him the medieval
conception of private and local customs and rights which
limited sovereign power; when Henry VIII. dissolved the
religious houses many long established institutions must have
trembled for their future.

At the meeting for the election of the mayor in 1535 the
king’s serjeant appeared in the Guildhall, and read a letter
which declared the royal pleasure that the office should be
given to Sir John Allen, mercer, a member of the privy
council. The electors were compliant ; but Allen, according
to a chronicler, received most unwillingly the mark of favour,
and had indeed spent large sums on bribes in the hope of
escape from it.

Next year Henry again interfered in order to prevent the
election as mayor of a certain William Holles; and in 1537
he sent to the Guildhall to secure the office for Sir Richard
Gresham, father to Thomas, “‘ albeit the commons grudged.”
In 1541 John Godsalve served the mayor and aldermen with
a royal patent which conferred on himself the metership of
cloth of gold, velvet, silks and linen cloth, hitherto always in
the mayor’s gift and probably a lucrative post. An exhibition
of lawless independence on the part of the civic officers was
easily but firmly crushed in 1542. George Ferris, a gentle-
man of the king’s household and a burgess of parliament,
was arrested in the city for debt, and parliament ineffectively
sent a serjeant-at-arms to demand his release. Thereupon
the sheriff and certain serjeants were committed to the
Tower and were set free only on the humble petition of the
mayor and aldermen. A few days later the mayor was sum-
 

MERCHANT ADVENTURERS 161

 

moned to parliament and informed that in future he should
not have a sword borne before him, nor be preceded by a
gentleman, when he had passed Charing Cross on his way to
Westminster. This was to end an ancient custom, and it
was typical of the limitation set from this time on the power
of the representatives of the city. They were great within
London, but in England they occupied a subordinate place.

Kingly interference with their functions continued. In the
same year Henry ordered Sir William Denham to be dis-
charged from obligation to be mayor; and it was only after
much soliciting of the royal council that the existing mayor
and the aldermen obtained that he should pay the usual fine.
In 1545, when the citizens assembled in the Guildhall for the
election of a member of parliament, a royal writ was read
which forbade the continuing as their representative of Sir
William Roche, “ for causes done to king and crown.”

An instance of resistance occurred in 1525. Wolsey had
asked the city to grant a benevolence, and in the different
wards the people had refused to comply, when moved thereto
by their aldermen, on the plea that they had already given
enough. The cardinal wished to enforce his demand and
threatened himself to examine the citizens as to their capacity
to pay; but the mayor replied that such action would be
illegal, that he would not consent to it, and that it would be
withstood by the commons of the city, even were it sanctioned
by himself and the aldermen. Wolsey appears then, with
the discretion characteristic of the Tudor tyranny, no longer
to have adhered to the form of his plan; but the mayor,
anxious for compromise, directed next day in the Common
Council that each citizen should go to the cardinal and make
a voluntary and personal grant. He evidently considered it
highly expedient that no absolute refusal should be sent to

H.L. M
 

162 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

the king, but he was met by an uproar in the council against
which his “gentle” explanations and his “exhortations”
were powerless. A cry was raised for the expulsion of
Richard Gresham and two others, regarded as traitors to
independence, and eventually the meeting dispersed without
having made any answer to the requisition for money.

This incident was exceptional. Henry VIII. exacted
money in London as extravagantly as elsewhere, and was
met, as a rule, by a grudging compliance. It was evidently
in the interests of his exchequer that he interfered with
elections to the mayoralty, for otherwise the citizens gave in
this period little cause for anxiety as to their political
attitude. The onus of the royal cupidity fell on Wolsey, who
was very unpopular in the city. But for this his pompous
and luxurious way of life at a time when many had to
economize, and his haughty demeanour to the sensitive
citizens, were in part responsible, and moreover he was held
to typify that worldly and greedy element in the church which
in London was so much criticized.

Economic conditions had altered, and their change was
one to make the distributor the most important factor in the
world of commerce. In primitive communities he is almost
unknown, for the producer deals directly with the consumer.
But the delocalization of trade had made very important the
work of distribution, and the more so because outside
England the sphere of commerce had widened. In the dis-
coveries and the consequent enterprise of the late fifteenth
and the early sixteenth century the English had no direct
part, but they benefited by the wealth which, from new
sources, was added to the markets of the world; they were
affected by the altered trade routes, by the new markets, by
the decline or the transformation of old markets.
 

MERCHANT ADVENTURERS 163

 

It was, in fact, the day not of manufacturers but of
merchants, and when merchants began to prosper greatly,
it was inevitable that those engaged only in manufacture
should decline. For they were in a dependent position; to
the merchants belonged necessarily controlling power.

In London the effects of this relation had already been
illustrated in the superiority acquired naturally by the crafts
in which the mercantile element predominated, over those
which consisted mainly of producers. This tendency was
further emphasized, and certain lesser crafts which had
not acquired charters were, in their struggle for existence,
absorbed by companies with allied interests. The Leather-
workers came to include the Glovers, the Pursers, the Sawyers,
and the Pouchmakers; the Armourers the Bladesmiths and
the Brasiers; and the Haberdashers the Hatters and the
Cappers.

Within the companies there was development on
aristocratic lines. Enjoyment of their full rights came to be
possible only for a small section of their members; beyond
these were the yeomanry of the company who could never
attain to the places in which directing power was wielded.
The yeomen of the great companies and the full members of
the lesser crafts, incorporated or otherwise, belonged to the
class of small masters, and their position tended to approxi-
mate, as their dependence on the merchants became more and
more regular, to that of journeymen workmen.

And a new class of companies was springing up in London.
In the reign of Henry VII., the Merchant Adventurers, an
offshoot of the Mercers, came into existence, and in 1504 the
company of Tailors, who had absorbed the Linen Armourers,
sought and obtained from the king that they should be known
thenceforward as the Merchant Tailors. These companies

M 2
 

164 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

of a new type, professedly mercantile only, represented the
economic tendencies of the period.

The merchants were brought into conflict with the Tudor
kings. Dr. Cunningham has analysed the aims of the Tudor
commercial policy as the maintenance of an efficient popula-
tion, the provision of a navy, and the accumulation of bullion.

For the first of these an adequate food supply was necessary,
and therefore it was only in spite of the policy of the central
government that merchants could, in times of scarcity, sell
at high prices wheat, meat, fish, and other necessaries.
Similarly the central government attempted to prevent the
evil effects of bad times from falling on the producing classes.
In 1527 and 1528 the war with the emperor had closed to
England the Spanish market, and the clothiers of the shires
found that they were unable to dispose of their broadcloths,
kerseys and cottons to the city merchants at Blackwell Hall.
Consequently, throughout the country, many spinners,
carders, tuckers and other clothworkers, were thrown out of
work. Then complaint was made to the king’s council; and
Wolsey sent for a large number of merchants, and thus
addressed them: “ Sirs, the king is informed that you use
not yourselves like merchants but like graziers and artificers:
for when the clothiers do daily bring cloths to your market
for your ease, to their great cost, and there be ready to sell
them, you of your wilfulness will not buy them, as you have
been accustomed to do. What manner of men be you? I
tell you that the king straitly commandeth you to buy their
cloths, as before you have been accustomed to do, upon pain
of his high displeasure.” This was to set a high standard of
patriotism for the merchants. They pleaded the cessation of
the export trade, and were threatened, in reply, with the
transference of the cloth market to Whitehall, where the king
 

MERCHANT ADVENTURERS 165

 

would be, in their place, the purchaser. Such high-handed
interference could impede their operations, but could not
modify permanently or really the condition of the market.
The clothiers hopefully raised their prices, but were “at
length fain to abate their price and seek of the merchantmen,
for all the cardinal’s saying.” To foster the middle classes,
to give a balance to the power of the wealthiest merchants,
more companies were incorporated. The Waxchandlers, the
Plasterers, the Coopers, the Poulterers, the Bakers and the
Innholders received charters between 1484 and 1509. The
exclusiveness of the great companies was attacked by statutes
of 1531 and 1536, which forbade the exaction of inordinate
entrance fees.

The tyranny of the wealthy mercantile class caused a
statute to be passed in 1487-8. The Common Council had
forbidden all freemen and citizens of London to carry their
wares to any fairs and markets outside the city, a prohibition
which must have weighed heavily on the manufacturing crafts.
It was injurious also to fairs in other towns, notably in
Salisbury, Bristol, Oxford, Cambridge, Nottingham, Ely and
Coventry, and therefore the ordinance of the council was
repealed by Act of parliament.

In 1496-7 the monopolizing tendencies of London
merchants again received a check. The confederacy of
“mercers and other merchants and adventurers in the city,”
in whom the London Merchant Adventurers must be
identified, claimed to exclude from trade with the Netherlands
all English merchants outside their own number who did not
compound with them. The old religious element was present
in their gild. They were the fraternity of St. Thomas, and
“by colour of such feigned holiness,” they exacted a fine
from all who first began trade in the Low Countries. In
 

166 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

amount it had risen from half a noble to £20. Probably the
technical position of the London merchants was that of a
company who held a monopoly and whose entrance fee was
exorbitant. They took forfeit the goods of any who traded
independently of them. The sum they might exact was
reduced by statute to ten marks.

That there might be a navy the kings discouraged all
foreign shipping; they would have had the whole of the
import and export trade of the country conducted by means
of English ships. In pursuance of this ideal they placed
many obstacles in the path of merchants.

But they limited their operations most consistently and
most successfully by the measures which were directed to the
accumulation of treasure, the opposition to the employment
of English capital outside the kingdom.

The industrial classes had to struggle against the com-
petition of articles of foreign manufacture, against the
tyranny of the mercantile companies, and against the com-
petition of alien labour at home. In each of these respects
the policy of the crown was favourable to them, but that
policy could be counteracted or modified by the wealth and
the power of the merchants.

Their desire for greater freedom led many of them to settle
immediately outside the city, in the industrial suburbs with-
out the northand east limits. The foreign artificers also and
for the same reason ‘“‘compassed the city round about.”
They lived in Southwark and Westminster, outside Temple
Bar, in Holborn, the liberty of St. Martin-le-Grand, outside
the bar of West Smithfield, on Tower Hill and around the
Tower, and outside Aldgate.

The strife between the English and the foreign handicrafts-
men was in the reigns of the early Tudors, very bitter. In
 

MERCHANT ADVENTURERS 167

1494 the support given by the king of the Romans and the
archduke of Burgundy to Perkin Warbeck had caused a
cessation of trade between England and the Empire. The
merchants found their export trade greatly lessened, and
master workmen, especially mercers, haberdashers and cloth-
workers, turned off many apprentices and covenant servants,
and reduced the pay of such as they retained. But mean-
while the merchants of the Steelyard still imported the goods
in which they usually dealt. And one day their settlement
in Dowgate ward was raided by a mob, whom they expelled
only with great difficulty. They closed their gates, and set
up barricades with the help of some smiths and carpenters
who came over the river from Southwark. They were able
to hold their own until the news that the mayor and the
officers of the city were on their way to the scene of
disturbance, caused the rioters to flee ‘‘ like a flock of sheep.”
An enquiry was held subsequently, and more than eighty
servants and apprentices were found to be guilty of the
attempt, but not a single householder. It is remarkable that
the convicted are described as ‘‘ confederate together,” a
proof of the organization which existed among the unenfran-
chised populace. Some ringleaders underwent long imprison-
ment in the Tower.

In 1516 there was another and a more serious disturbance.
The feeling against the foreigner had become very strong.
It was said that alien merchants brought into the country
silk, cloth of gold, wine, oil, iron and other goods in such
great quantities, and exported English wool, tin and lead so
largely, that no custom was left to native traders. Dutchmen
were particularly accused of importing manufactured articles
made of iron, wood and leather. But the most violent com-
plaints proceeded not from the merchants but from the
 

168 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

common artificers, who considered themselves injured by all
foreign trade which absorbed English capital, and therefore
hindered their employment, by all the goods made abroad
which were brought into the country, and by all the foreign
craftsmen whose competition limited the enterprise of English
master-workmen. ‘The foreigners resident in London were
very numerous. ‘On a Sunday this Lent,” writes Hall, the
chronicler, ‘‘I saw six hundred strangers shooting at the
popinjay with crossbows.” They were strongly organised in
gilds whose common boxes were well filled.

A sermon was preached against them. Then on the 28th
of April some of them were attacked in the streets, and
presently a rumour was about, a whisper of grim import
which was heard everywhere, which gathered intensity, which
was almost a message as it passed from mouth to mouth
among the people, that on May day the city would rise and
massacre the foreigners.

There is no evidence that the propertied classes had part
in such a plan, and to any who may have been implicated the
wisdom of retractation was madeclear. The talk reached the
ears of the King’s Council, and Wolsey sent for and examined
the mayor and others of the Common Council, who protested
that the city was perfectly quiet. Yet the mayor hurried
back to the Guildhall and summoned together the aldermen.
They met at seven o’clock in the evening, and they carried
back severally to their wards the mandate that no man
should stir from his house after nine.

The order had barely come to be generally known, and it
was hardly nine o’clock, when in Cheap an alderman found
two young men playing at bucklers and a number watching
them. He commanded a dispersal, and seized the arm of a
youth who questioned his right. At once he found himself the
 

MERCHANT ADVENTURERS 169

 

centre of a general scuffle. Thecry “’Prentices and Clubs!”
was raised, and “clubs and weapons came out at every
door.” The alderman fled ignominiously, while people,
“serving men, watermen, courtiers,” hurried from every side
to join the mob. At eleven o’clock six or seven hundred
persons had gathered in Cheap. They were met by a band
of about half their size, who had collected independently in
the west of the city and came from St. Paul’s churchyard.
The united forces made for the prisons, the two sheriff’s
counters and Newgate, and set free some men convicted of
assaulting foreigners a few days before. Then they turned
towards the alien quarters.

But at the gate of the precinct of St. Martin’s-le-Grand
they were met by Sir Thomas More, who reasoned with
them, and who seemed on the point of prevailing when his
serjeant-at-arms, who had been hurt by bricks and hot water
thrown out from the crowd, in angry pain raised the cry of
“Down with them!” It was enough to reawaken the
passions of the mob. They swept on relentlessly, ‘‘ misruled
persons,” and the houses of foreigners were raided and
spoiled so that hardly one escaped. In Cornhill and in
Blanchapelton other buildings of aliens were rifled, and until
four in the morning the rioters could not be made to disperse.
Sir Richard Cholmely, lieutenant of the Tower, “in frantic
fury,” but harmlessly, fired certain cannon into the city.

In the early morning the officials of the city took some
three hundred prisoners, for the most part poor ’prentice lads,
for many watermen, priests and serving men had made their
escape, and at five o’clock, when peace had been entirely
restored, Shrewsbury and Somerset brought into the city all
the strength they could muster, including some gentlemen
recruits, ‘‘ divers noblemen” and members of the Inns of
 

 

170 HISTORY OF LONDON

Court. The streets of London were lined with armed men
“‘who spoke many opprobrious words to the city which
grieved them sore ... but like true subjects they suffered
patiently.”

Their spirit was indeed broken. The prisoners, bound
with ropes, were led through the city, priests, countrymen,
full-grown Londoners, and many lads, even children only
thirteen years old, and ‘‘ there was a great mourning of
fathers and friends.” The matter was serious because it had
involved a breaking of the peace with subjects of princes
with whom the king was in amity, and thirteen pairs of
gallows were set up in conspicuous places.

Eventually almost all the prisoners were pardoned after an
alarming parade of severity. Eleven women and three
hundred men, “ poor younglings and old false knaves,” clad
in shirts and bearing halters about their necks, came before
the king on the 22nd of May. Their offence was blamed, they
prayed forgiveness, intercession was made for them duly, and
then the king gave a general pardon. “All the prisoners
shouted at once, and all together cast up their halters unto
the hall roof, so that the king might perceive they were none
of the discreetest sort.”

Thus the working classes attempted to suppress their
foreign competitors, and thus their attempt was punished,
with due regard both for the sensibilities of neighbouring
princes and for the value of the labouring population of
London. The crown had no wish to support the alien
craftsmen further than decency demanded, and some years
later the companies of London were able to gain a legitimate
triumph over them.

In the parliament of 1522-3 and 1523-4 it was enacted
that all stranger handicraftsmen who dwelt in Westminster,
 

MERCHANT ADVENTURERS 171

in the parishes of St. Martin le Grand, St. Mary le Strand,
St. Clement Danes, St. Giles in the Fields, St. Botolph without
Aldgate and St. Andrew Holborn, in Southwark, Shore-
ditch, Whitechapel, St. John’s Street, without the bar of
West Smithfield, Clerkenwell, Bermondsey Street, and about
the Tower, and within two miles of these places or of the city,
should be subject to the jurisdiction of the wardens of those
companies whose trade they followed. Only the precinct of
St. Martin’s le Grand was exempted from the scope of the
statute. This was to destroy entirely the independence of
the foreign artificers whose settlements encompassed the city,
and it was also to extend the controlling power over trade of
the London livery companies. The regulation was repeated
by a decree of the Star Chamher in 1529 and by an Act of
the ensuing parliament. Simultaneously the foreigners were
restricted in other ways. They were forbidden to take as
apprentices any but the king’s subjects, to employ more than
two stranger journeymen or servants, or to pursue their trade
in any house, shop, or chamber unless they were denizens.
As householders they were rendered liable to the same
charges as Englishmen. Above all they were prohibited
from assembling in any halls or conventicles of their own,
but ordered to meet in the common halls of those English
subjects who occupied their crafts, and there to swear
allegiance to the king of England.

Thus ended one stage in the Jong quarrel between the
native and the alien craftsmen of London; the latter were
forbidden to combine, and rendered dependent on the same
masters as their English fellow-workmen. The victory over
the foreigners was enhanced in 1551 when the liberties of the
Steelyard were seized by the crown.

The economic conditions which have been described were
 

172 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

not productive of prosperity ; again and again London was
visited by disease and dearth. In 1486-7 many died of the
sweating sickness; in 1500, 1513 and 1518 London was
visited by the plague; and in 1521-2 by famine and pesti-
lence. In the winter of 1525 the plague brought a great
dearth to London, and in that of 1527 a bad season had
caused such a lack of bread that the “‘ gentle” merchants of
the Steelyard acquired popularity by importing wheat. The
sweating sickness came again in the following spring. The
most miserable year was probably 1543, when floods had
rendered it very difficult to bring wood and coal to the city,
so that fuel was scant, when a disease among cattle had sent
up the price of meat, and when a hard winter had made
salted fish and meat very expensive. The aldermen passed
sumptuary laws: the dinners and suppers of the mayor and
sheriffs were to consist of one course only; the mayor might
not dine off more than seven dishes, and for lesser officials
proportionate limits were fixed. For a whole year the mayor
and aldermen were forbidden to eat cranes, swans and
bustards. Yet in the summer famine had done its work;
men were dying in such numbers in the city and suburbs
that a proclamation forbade any Londoner to come, for fear
of infection, within seven miles of the king. Next year there
was complaint of the high price of wheat.

The year 1546 was also one of great scarcity. The mayor
however attempted to meet the emergency by importing
corn, and the king assigned to the city certain wheat pro-
vided for the army which was paid for by a contribution
from the companies. All the mills within seven miles of
London were set to grind it. That year the mayor’s feast
consisted only of one course ; “it was plentifully served and
well commended, but if my lord mayor had not sticked hard
 

MERCHANT ADVENTURERS 173

 

to it the aldermen and sheriffs would have put it down for
ever.” However the mayor forewent the other banquet
customarily held on Twelfth Night, and thereby saved the
sum of £40. In 1548, 1551 and 1556 there were other
visitations of the plague and the sweating sickness.

These unfortunate years were the result partly of a succes-
sion of bad seasons, partly of the extravagant government of
Henry VIII. In some degree too they must be ascribed to
the alterations in trade to which general conditions had not
yet been adjusted. The proportion of misery for which the
measures which accompanied the Reformation can be held
accountable is uncertain. There is no doubt that Londoners
as a whole derived no benefit from the dispersal, at the
dissolution of religious houses, of all the property at which
they had looked so long with envious eyes. It was not
seized on grounds of abstract right, nor was it utilised for
the public good. When however the place of the religious
as the chief landlords of the city was left vacant, the livery
companies were in many cases able to succeed them, and to
acquire possessions which became an increasing source of
wealth.

Doubtless the nuns and the monks and the friars had been,
even at their worst, ministers to the poor, and as such they
were inevitably missed. But the dissolution of religious
houses and the subsequent dissolution of gilds and chantries
did not deprive London entirely of charitable institutions.
Some hospitals, notably those of St. Bartholomew and
St. Thomas, and some schools, continued and even enlarged
their spheres ; and some new schools, in particular St. Paul’s,
and Christ’s Hospital, then an asylum for destitute children,
were founded.

The dissolution of gilds was an injury to a class which, in
 

174 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

the sixteenth century, had little influence on public opinion,
the poor who with difficulty kept from pauperism. The
gilds, especially the parochial gilds, had been benefit societies,
and must often have stood alone between their members and
destitution. From the scope of the Act which dissolved
gilds and colleges the London livery companies were a
notable exception.

It is unnecessary to dwell on the well-worn theme of the
main events of the Reformation. In London society suffered a
great change by the disappearance of all the regular clergy
and all the chantry priests. The streets were no longer made
gorgeous by the pageants of the church, but the receptions
accorded to princes and the civic festivals appear to have been
as decorative as ever. The working population were affected
by the loss from the calendar of many holy days, on which
they once had enjoyed their ease. They had a spectacle,
provided with a new frequency, in the burnings of martyrs,
sometimes of the old, sometimes of the new faith, at Smith-
field. This matter, it is pleasant to see, had a place in the
public conscience. In 1556 it was ordered throughout
London that no young person should attend the forthcoming
burning of five men and two women.

That the feeling of the city was on the whole Protestant is
made clear by the history of Wyatt’s rebellion.

On the 25th of January, 1554, when Wyatt was known to
be near Maidstone, a watch of armed men, to be kept strictly
at all the city gates, was appointed by the mayor. Two
days later the lord treasurer asked and obtained at the
Guildhall that 500 armed footmen of London should go
against Wyatt.

They marched forth on the morrow, but when they had
reached Rochester, their captain, Brett by name, addressed
 
 

MERCHANT ADVENTURERS 175

them, and Stow has reported his speech: ‘“ Masters, we go
about to fight our native countrymen of England and our
friends, in a quarrel unrightful and partly wicked; for they,
considering the great miseries which are likely to fall upon
us, if we shall be under the rule of the proud Spaniards or
strangers, are here assembled to make resistance of their
coming for the avoiding of so great inconveniences. . . .
Wherefore I think no English heart ought to say against
them, much less by fighting to withstand them. Wherefore
I and others will spend our blood in the quarrel of this
worthy captain, master Wyatt, and other gentlemen here
assembled.” When he had spoken these words or the like
the cry “A Wyatt! a Wyatt!” was raised among the
Londoners, and all of them joined the rebel ranks.

On the 1st of February, when Wyatt was at Deptford, a
royal pardon, which included all of his forces who should
make submission, except himself and three others, was pro-
claimed in London. On the eve of Candlemas day the
commons of the city assembled in the Guildhall in their
liveries; and thither the queen came herself to assure them
that she would marry only as her council desired. But still
she knew that she could not count upon their loyalty, for she
understood how many of them favoured Wyatt, and she
appointed Lord William Howard lieutenant of the city.

On the 3rd Wyatt marched along the Old Kent Road and
Bermondsey Street to Southwark. In the city the mayor
and sheriffs commanded all shops and windows to be closed
and the drawbridge of London Bridge to be cut down.
Wyatt meanwhile was hospitably received by the inhabi-
tants of Southwark and reinforced by more recruits. Unable
to enter the city directly, he retreated on the 6th to
Kingston, and thence he marched on Westminster.
 

176 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

In London drums called to arms. Pembroke, in com-
mand of the defence, posted horsemen on the hill which
commands St. James’s Palace, and two battalions of footmen
at Charing Cross, and Wyatt mounted ordnance on the
rising ground near Hyde Park Corner. In a scuffle near
the palace the rebels were victorious, and within the palace
there was a panic, ‘running and crying out of ladies and
gentlemen, shutting of doors and windows, and such a shriek
and noise as was wonderful to hear.”

But it was Wyatt’s purpose to gain London. He led his
men, in disordered ranks, to Temple Bar, and thence along
Fleet Street to the sign of the Belle Sauvage near Ludgate.
And the armed men who were ranged along either side of the
way watched him passively.

At Ludgate he called for admittance, and, according to one
account, he might have entered, had it been possible to let
his passage seem an accident; the gate remained closed only
because a certain citizen braved unpopularity and identified
him openly. Stow relates, however, that Lord William
Howard was present to bar the way. At all events he failed
to pass through Ludgate; and meanwhile Pembroke had
come up with the rear-guard, and a retreat to Charing Cross
was impossible. At Temple Bar Wyatt was taken prisoner,
and in April he was beheaded at the Tower.

Since, therefore, only an absence of a practical alternative
kept London faithful to Mary’s reactionary rule, it is not
surprising that the accession of Elizabeth was welcomed by
the citizens.
CHAPTER XIII
ELIZABETHAN LONDON

 

HE government of Queen Elizabeth was, even
more than that of the earlier Tudors, charac-
terised by a disregard, in the interest of the
crown, of local rights and customs.

The reign began a new period of incorporation of com-
panies in London, and these grants of charters gave rise to
considerable friction. The action of the crown originated
both in the policy of fostering the middle classes, and in the
obvious attraction of the sums of money for which incor-
porating charters were bought. In two ways it caused
jealousy. A new company frequently encroached on the
interests of one which already existed, as when, in 1581,
the White Bakers were suffered to become incorporate with
the Brown Bakers who desired no such union; or when the
Glovers acquired a charter which separated them from the
Leathersellers. And secondly the city’s government was
opposed to the independence of the companies.

The authorities of the city entered into a struggle in which
they persistently endeavoured to assert a control over the
foundation of companies. In the early seventeenth century
they gained their point: they established that no company
might sue for a charter without their permission. Moreover
they acquired gradually the habit of directing all the com-
panies, by means of precepts issued by the mayor which.

H.L. N
178 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

practically had binding power. As a disintegrating force
within the city the companies were thus placed out of court,
but their spontaneous life was proportionately weakened.

In this period new companies received authority over a
district more conform to what had come to be really
London than the area of the actual city: in some cases
they were given supervision of their trade within five miles
of the city and suburbs. The older companies, on the other
hand, were frequently in rivalry with suburban traders and
traders of Westminster.

Beyond the granting of corporations the crown entrenched
on the sphere of the city by conferring certain powers on
individuals by means of letters patent. By these such rights
as those of search for defective goods, and of receiving the
fines incurred for defect, were frequently alienated. The
practice was much resented, but its obvious convenience for
the crown caused it to continue throughout the Stewart
period. The other royal practice of bestowing monopolies
of trade in certain articles was analogous.

In an important respect the trading practice of the city
differed from that of the rest of England. A statute passed
in 1562-3 forbade, for the kingdom at large, that any should
follow a trade to which he had not been apprenticed ; but by
the custom of London any freeman of the city might pursue
in it any calling. The reverse tendency had indeed operated
in the city from time to time: the various crafts had
endeavoured to secure for themselves monopolies within
their trades and had had some practical success, but their
victory had never been complete nor formal. Now certain
companies made attempts to interpret the statute as over-
riding the custom, but they were resisted and foiled by the
government of the city. The anomaly by which a bookbinder
 

ELIZABETHAN LONDON 179

 

\

enjoyed his privileges as a freeman of the Fishmongers’ com-
pany was established, and it still subsists.

In the reign of Elizabeth the process of the delocalization
of trade continued ; its effects were indeed so conspicious as
to be a matter of frequent comment, to raise a cry of ‘‘ Back
tothe Land.” ‘TI have shortly to answer,” Stow says, ‘‘ the
accusation of those men which charge London with the loss
and decay of many or most of the ancient cities, corporate
towns and markets within this realm, by drawing from them
to herself alone, say they, both all trade of traffic by sea, and
the retailing of wares, and exercise of manualartsalso.” Such
allegations were exaggerated, for there were still provincial
industries and provincial trades of importance; yet un-
doubtedly, as commerce became national, London secured
a position as its centre which, until the rise of the northern
towns, was remarkably isolated. Stow mentions some causes
contributory to such a state of affairs, the decay of the staple,
and the dissolution of religious houses ‘‘ by whose wealth and
haunt” many provincial towns had been “ chiefly fed and
nourished.” He remarks that shipping flourished only or
principally at London.

And at the same time London had come to hold its modern
position as the social capital of the kingdom. The court
was now almost always resident in the neighbourhood of the
city. The better means of communication and the nationali-
zation of interests and of sentiment made it possible for the
city to enjoy a monopoly of fashion, and the beginnings of
that noted institution, the London season, can be traced. In
the country the landlords could already be divided into two
classes; those who stayed at home “ playing the farmers
graziers, brewers or such like, more than gentlemen were wont
to do,” and those who had become used, for a good part of

N 2
 

180 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

the year, from “all shires ” to “ fly and flock to this city, the
younger sort of them to see and show vanity, and the
elder to save the cost and charge of hospitality and house-
keeping.” To the pleasure seeker Elizabethan London was
a place of attractions. Peace and prosperity, a knowledge
of the arts and an extensive trade, had brought together all
means of luxurious living. The life of the fashionable was
splendid and varied ; its material circumstances, the buildings,
the furniture and the household goods, the articles of clothing
and of food, were rich and curious, and the amusements and
interests were numerous and multiform.

The coincidence in London of the leaders of fashion and
of trade brought thither naturally a large proportion of the
manufacturing population and retail tradesmen. ‘“ Retailers
and artificers, at the least of such things as pertain to the
back or belly, do leave the country towns where there is no
vent, and do fly to London where they be sure to find ready
and quick market.”

As regards the permanent inhabitants of the city, apart
from the politicians, the courtiers and the followers of fashion,
Stow describes them as largely not of citizen descent, but
drawn from all parts of the kingdom; there seems indeed
never to have been a period when Londoners constituted a
race. They were under Elizabeth ‘‘a part of the commons
of this realm, by birth for the most part a mixture of all
countries of the same; by blood gentlemen, yeomen and of
the basest sort, without distinction ; and by profession busy
bees and travailers for their living in this hive of the common-
wealth.” He divides them into three classes: “In wealth
merchants and some of the chief retailers have the first place,
the most part of retailers and all artificers the second or
mean place, and hirelings the lowest room; but in number
 

ELIZABETHAN LONDON 181

 

they of the middle place be first and do far exceed both the
rest, hirelings be next, and merchants be the last.”

Thus the economic situation of which the origins have
already been traced was established. The distributing class
had secured the control of trade and a major share of its
profits.

There is considerable information as to the merchant
princes of London in the days of Elizabeth. The best known
of them all is Sir Thomas Gresham who like Whittington
has gained a place among the heroes of the city. Unlike
Whittington he was of citizen origin, the son and the nephew
of magnates of London. He dwelt in a house of brick and
timber, the most spacious of those ‘“‘ for men of worship”’ in
Bishopsgate Street, and he was buried in 1579 in the church
of St. Helen Bishopsgate.

Gresham amassed his large fortune as a trader, as an
owner of inherited land, and, above all, asa financier. He
was largely employed by the government in money trans-
actions, and his gains were due to unscrupulous cunning as
well as to skill, for he even deigned to falsify his accounts.
He was a hard usurer, and the practice of usury was still a
sin to men of strict consciences. Probably the fact that mer-
chants of the day by exacting usury fell below contemporary
standards, debarred them from an ideal of rectitude: to pilfer
and cheat seemed no more sinful than to receive interest.
Gresham was again a man of his day in that he was a
monopolist. His career makes obvious how impossible it
was for the companies, any more than the governing body
of the city, to maintain an independent attitude in national
politics, when the leading members of either had interests so
connected with the crown as were his. Withal he was a
man of public spirit, although one eminently practical, who
 

182 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

was no maintainer of principles or of the rights of weak
parties. English and foreign merchants had hitherto met
“for their general making of bargains, contracts, and
commerce,” in the open air in Lombard Street. The citizens
however ‘bought divers times houses and many small
tenements in Cornhill, and pulled them down and made the
ground fair and plain to build upon, the charge whereof cost
them above five thousand pound ; and then the city gave that
ground unto Sir Thomas Gresham, to the end he should
build a Burse or fair place for the assembly of merchants
like to that of Antwerp. And the said Sir Thomas Gresham
laid the first stone thereof the seventh of June and the
whole work was fully finished in November the next
year, 1567. And then the merchants held their general
meetings at this Burse, for it was generally so called until
the queen came thither, which was the three and twentieth
of January following, and then by her own mouth came it to
be proclaimed that it should for ever be called the Royal
Exchange. And the next year following Lombard Street
was quite forsaken.”

Moreover in his will Gresham endowed lecturers in divinity,
astronomy, music, geometry, law, physic and rhetoric, who
should read in his house in Bishopsgate Street; and thus
founded Gresham College.

In a book published in 1607, ‘“‘ The Pleasant Conceites of
Old Hobson the Merry Londoner ” (reprinted for the Percy
Society, 1843), there are details as to one who was also a
member of the upper class of citizens. William Hobson, “a
haberdasher of smale wares,’ who died in 1582, owned a
dwelling-house and two adjacent shopsin Poultry, on the site
of the suppressed chapel of Corpus Christi, at the corner of
modern Grocers’ Hall Court. ‘‘ He was a homely, plain man,
 

ELIZABETHAN LONDON 183

 

most commonly wearing a buttoned cap close to his eares, a
short gowne girt hard about his midle, and a paire of slippers
upon his feete of an ancient fashion ; as for his wealth, it was
answerable to the better sort of our citizens.” We learn
that he had a factor in France who dealt for him in
merchandise, and to whom, when he suspected him of
negligence, he paid a surprise visit ; that he was in the habit
of sending chapmen to Bristol fair, who there sold, among
other goods, matches supplied by the French factor ; that he
furnished pedlars with articles for their packs. For the sale
of the matches which he imported from France he obtained a
patent of monopoly from Queen Elizabeth. He sometimes
visited fairs in person, riding to Bristol or Stourbridge and
walking to Southwark ; and he made journeys on horseback
for the collection of his debts. He had apprentices, and his
servants appear to have been numerous. Of one servant it
is related that he acquired the freedom of the city, and then,
after further years of service, unsuccessfully besought his
master to enable him to trade on his own account. Of the
’prentices it is recorded that they “wold ether bee at the
taverne, filling their heads with wine, or at the Dagger in
Cheapeside cramming their bellies with minced pyes; but
above al other times it was their common costome, as London
prentises use, to follow their maisters upon Sundays to the
Church doreand then to leave them, and hie unto the taverne,”’
a habit for which they were duly put to shame. There is a
tale too of their neglect, on a day when the shop was full
of customers, to note the name or the dwelling-place of a
Kentish pedlar who was credited with ten pounds’ worth of
goods. Of Hobson’s wife it is told that she carried ‘“ some-
thing a stately mind”; and delighted in “ brave apparell’»
to such a degree that she wore, to the envy of her neighbours,
 

184 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

silk stockings. ‘‘ Upon a time having business to Cheapside
market amongst many others of her neighbors, the more to
shew her haughty stomack, she desired of her husband that
she might have her men to attend her.’”’ He, to ridicule the
request, appointed two of his lustiest men, “in armor with
two browne-bills on their neck,” the one to proceed and the
other to follow her; and “she in a nicenes, tooke such
displeasure hereatt, that for a mounth after she lay sicke in her
bed, and would eate nothing but caudles made of muskadine.”
She was however a housewife who ‘‘in Christmas holy-dayes
had many pyes in the oven.”

Beggars and musicians came to Hobson’s door; he met a
beggar as he walked in Moorfields. A poet dedicated to
him, in the vain hope of recompense, “a booke contayning
forty sheets of paper, which was halfe a yeare in writing.”
When he wished to entertain the livery of his company he
made provision in the greatest tavern in the town.

It is easy to picture Hobson; and if Gresham be taken as
an example of the great master of commerce, daring and
unscrupulous, in whom the speculative spirit was highly
developed, and who was redeemed by a certain liberality and
patriotism very characteristic of the day, Hobson may typify
the less ambitious merchant, the tradesman who had got on.
He was shrewd and yet simple, hard on occasion but kindly
when his interests were not imperilled, whimsical. His way
of life showed a mixture of the frugal and ofthe profuse. He
seems to have been without strong religious feeling.

As to his business, he acted in relation to pedlars and stall-
keepers at fairs, perhaps to small retail tradesmen, as a
wholesale dealer. Probably he also prosecuted a retail trade.
There is no proof that he was a manufacturing haberdasher :
his apprentices would appear to have learnt a trade and not
 

ELIZABETHAN LONDON 185

 

a craft. His dealings in French matches are characteristic
of the miscellaneous business of London merchants of the
period, protected by the custom of their city.

Stow, in his classification of the population of London,
evidently includes in his middle classe all who had a settled
and adequate means of livelihood with little or no marginal
wealth, without, in his own words, ‘‘ much to spare.” In this
large division he places all the manufacturers. But it must
be remembered that there were still under Elizabeth
merchants whom Stow would never have described as
artificers, and who yet manufactured some of the goods
which were the material of their own trade.

They were however a diminishing class). The manufac-
tures of London were largely in the hands of small master
workmen, the artificers of Stow, who constituted the
yeomanry of the great companies. Frequently their
material was supplied by the merchants for whom they
worked, but sometimes their capital sufficed them to provide
the necessaries of their craft. Of such as belonged to the
Clothworkers’ company under Queen Elizabeth it is said
that, when employment failed, they would ‘““buy a cloth or
more to set their people on worke and sell the same again

. unto drapers and merchants.” An interesting example
of prevalent conditions is derived from an account of the
stationers or booksellers and the printers in 1583. The cost
of their materials for some time obliged the printers to sell
their work to the booksellers before they undertook it, until
“the Booksellers, having growne the greater and wealthier
number, have nowe the best copies, and keepe no printinge
howse neither beare any charge of letter or other furniture,
but onely pay for the workmanship; . . . the artificer printer
growing every day more and more unable to provide letters
 

186 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

and other furniture requisite for the execution of any good
work.”

The industries of London received a strong impetus from
the immigration of Protestant refugees. Inpediments intro-
duced by legislation, hostile action on the part of the city
companies, and the jealous hatred of native workmen, could
not cancel the activities of these foreign craftsmen. They
settled, as their forerunners had done, chiefly on the sites of
religious houses which formed within the city places exempt
from the civic jurisdiction, or in the suburbs. The majority
were Netherlanders, but there were also many French
Huguenots and some Italians and Spaniards. Under
Edward VI. the church of the Austin Friars was granted to
a Dutch congregation, and that of St. Anthony’s Hospital, in
Threadneedle Street, to the Huguenots. In 1566 an Italian
congregation was established in the Mercers’ Chapel in
Cheapside.

French cooks and bakers had already attained in English
society to a position of high esteem, and the brewing industry
was almost engrossed by Netherlanders. The foreigners led
the way in the more artistic crafts: the better bookbinders
were Low Countrymen ; there were Flemish tapestrymakers,
French embroiderers, French fanmakers, carvers from the
Low Countries, goldsmiths from the Low Countries and
France, who inhabited the precincts of Blackfriars and the
liberty of St. Katherine. There were dyers from the Nether-
lands, France, and Italy; French tailors; foreign makers of
felt and straw hats ; a strong body of foreign leatherworkers
who were constantly attacked by the Cordwainers’ company ;
and French, Dutch and Italian gunmakers. As weavers the
foreigners were especially important. The prominence of
weavers from the Netherlands was indeed no new thing in
 

W|DRALER IN FOREIGN SPIRITOOUS LAUHOR 6)

3
NE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AN ELIZABETHAN HousE IN LONDON.
 

ELIZABETHAN LONDON 187

 

London, but at this time there were added to them numerous
and skilled silk weavers both from the Netherlands and from
France. Under Elizabeth there was a colony of Dutch and
Walloon silk weavers in the ward of Cripplegate Without.
New fashions in dress arose to provide a market for silk,
which in the preceding period had been comparatively little
used. “Untill the tenth or twelfe yeare of Queene Elizabeth,”
says a writer in 1615, ‘“‘ there were but few silke shoppes in
London, and those fewe were only kept by women and maide
servantes, and not by men, so now they are. At which time
all the silke shoppes in London had not so much nor so many
sorts of silke, gold, or silver thread, nor sorts of silke lace, and
gold and silver lace, as is at this day in divers particular
shopps in Cheapeside and other places.”

Stow includes with the hirelings of his third-class labourers
of the category of porters, watermen and carmen; it was a
body which consisted of journeymen workmen and unskilled
labourers, and as to their wealth he states that they had
‘“‘neede that it were given unto them.” Some apprentices,
who, although they had served their legal terms, had not
capital nor opportunity to become master workmen or
traders, were absorbed into it. Another constituent of the
lowest estate in the city is disregarded by Stow, the men
who swelled that “great and mighty army of beggars”
who attended the fair of St. James at Westminster in 1560,
the numerous vagrants and the many “begging poor” who
occupied the attention of civic officials and were objects of
the poor laws of Elizabeth.

In this connection the frequent complaints as to the
increase of the population of the city and its overcrowding
are noteworthy. Many single houses had come to be let to
several families, although they had previously served one
 

188 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

only, and conditions had resulted which recall those in
modern slums, and which must in some respects have been
much more disagreeable. In 1580 a royal proclamation
ineffectively forbade the building of new houses within three
miles of London, and the inhabitation of any house by more
than one family.

It is not surprising to hear of plague years, 1563, 1569
1581, 1582, 1592. It has been suggested that this frequency
of disease was due in part to a change of diet among the
poor. The substitution in the English country of pasture
for arable land, and the freedom from the ecclesiastical
laws for fasts, had caused bread and fish to be superseded
by coarse meat as the principal article of food, and the ale
brewed by the Dutchmen was cheap and plentiful and
strong. Some measures were taken to prevent the spread
of infection. A set of regulations framed in 1580 sought to
deal especially with the evils of overcrowding. They for-
bade the reception of inmates or lodgers in houses which
claimed to be situated in places exempt from the city’s
jurisdiction, the conversion of great houses into small
habitations by foreigners, and the crowding of exempt
places by strangers and foreign artificers. No strangers who
did not belong to a church were to be suffered in or about
London. Further it was forbidden to build more small
tenements, to add to the buildings within exempt places,
or outside the limits of the city about Charterhouse and
Mile End Field, or at St. Katherine’s by the Tower. On
other principles the resort to performances of plays outside
the liberties, and the slaughter of cattle in or near the city,
were forbidden.

As regards the serious intellectual pursuits of the London
people, the Merchant Taylors founded their school, as a
 

ELIZABETHAN LONDON 189

free grammar school, in Candlewick or Cannon Street in
1561. Beyond Gresham’s lectures, a lectureship in surgery, in
the College of Physicians in Knightrider Street, was endowed
in 1584; and at much the same time a mathematical
lectureship, held first in Leadenhall chapel and afterwards
in a house in Grass Street or Gracechurch Street. The
Inns of Court and of Chancery still fulfilled their educational
functions. In the churches a class of learned clergy could
be heard, and the citizens had not lost their taste for sermons.
Books were increasingly plentiful, especially since the foreign
immigrants had advanced the art of printing.

As in all ages, the Londoner found amusement in the
streets of his city. It is unnecessary to dwell on the
elaborate splendour of Elizabethan pageants; they were
held in London to honour royalties or personages who
made an entry into the town. There were more frequent
spectacular effects on less important occasions when the
stately courtiers, in all the extravagance of their dress, their
escort, and the trappings of their horses, passed through the
streets. The river often presented a gay scene, and some-
times, after dark, it was lit up by the illuminated barges
which passed along it. At eight o’clock on an evening in
June, some months after she had succeeded to the throne,
“the Queen’s grace took her barge at Whitehall and many
more barges, and rode along by the Bankside by my lord
of Winchester’s place, and so to Pepper Alley, and so crossed
over to London side, with drums and trumpets playing hard
beside, and so to Whitehall again, to her palace.” Sir
Christopher Hatton, in November, 1583, when the queen was
about to move from Hampton Court to St. James’s, notified
the mayor, ‘‘in case the citizens should desire the comfort
of beholding her royal person.”
 

190 HISTORY OF LONDON

The citizens themselves provided fine sights for the gazers
in the streets. Their weddings, their funerals attended by
all members of the livery company of the dead man, their
baptisms, their civic ceremonial, were highly decorative. It
was impressive, if not agreeable, to witness a hanging at
Tyburn, to see a man whipped through the streets or set up
on the pillory. Stow remarks that maying and the like
amusements had fallen somewhat into disuse, but in 1559
Machyn, the diarist, described a May game which took place
on June 24th. It would perhaps have been more correctly
called a midsummer celebration. There figured in it a very
medley troupe, “St. John Zacharys with a giant, and drums
and guns, and the nine worthies (muses) with speeches, and
a goodly pageant with a queen, . . . and divers others
with speeches, and then St. George and the dragon, the
morris dance, and after Robin Hood and Little John and
Maid Marion and Friar Tuck, and they had speeches about
London.” The performance was repeated before the queen
at Greenwich on the following day. Machyn’s diary makes
very clear how large a part the shows of the streets played
in the life of the average Londoner.

He still enjoyed some games of skill. Archery had become
almost obsolete, and official encouragement failed to revive
it. Shooting with guns was however practised to some
extent. On at least one occasion a match in “shooting of
the standard for the best gun” took place in Finsbury before
the mayor, the aldermen, and other great men. Wrestling
matches were sometimes held. ‘‘ The ball,” according to
Stow, “was used by noblemen and gentlemen in tennis
courts, and people of the meaner sort in the open fields and
streets.” Stow laments that since they had abandoned the
exercise of the long bow, the citizens would “creep into
 

ELIZABETHAN LONDON 1g!

 

bowling alleys and ordinary dicing rooms . . . where they
have room enough to hazard their money at unlawful games.”’

The richer of them had still opportunity for field sports ;
‘in hawking and hunting many grave citizens at this
present have great delight, and do rather want leisure than
good will to follow it.” In September, 1562, an inspection
of the water conduits took place. “ My lord mayor, and my
masters the aldermen and wardens of the twelve companies,
rode to the conduit heads for to see them, after the old
custom. And afore dinner they hunted the hare and killed ;
and so to dinner to the head of the conduit (the great
conduit in Cheapside), for there was a number, and had
great cheer of the chamberlain. And after dinner to hunting
of the fox, and there was a good cry for a mile, and after the
hounds killed the fox at the end of St. Giles (the parish of
St. Giles in the Fields), and there was a great cry at the
death and blowing of horns. And so rode through London
my lord mayor, with all his company, home to his own place
in Lombard Street.”

But the citizens had other amusements of a less lawful
description. They did not only gamble at dice and at bowls ;
there is also the record “cocks of the game are cherished by
divers men for their pleasures, much money being laid on
their heads when they fight in pits, whereof some be costly
made for that purpose.” And the baiting of bulls and bears
was practised in rings built for the purpose in Paris Garden
on the Southwark side of the river, and attracted many
spectators. But above all the reign of Elizabeth saw the
rise to prominence of the professional actor, the professional
stage as the favourite place of amusement of citizens at large,
and as an unfailing object of invective to the magistrates and
the preachers of the city.
 

192 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

In the forty years which followed the dissolution of reli-
gious houses the taste of the people of London for dramatic
representation had grown enormously. It was a critical and
enlightened age, no longer satisfied with such rude entertain-
ment as the May game described by Machyn, or the
occasional productions of trading companies and gilds of
craftsmen, the performers who are ridiculed in the persons
of Bottom’s celebrated company. More ordered dramatic
representations were given in places of education by the
schoolboys of St. Paul’s and by the students of the Inns of
Court: a play was acted at Gray’s Inn in 1556. But beyond
these, companies of strolling players gave performances in
the courtyards of inns, and they acted with such frequency
in certain of the principal inns of London, notably the Cross
Keys in Grass Street, the Bull in Bishopsgate Street, and
the Belle Sauvage on Ludgate Hill, that these almost took
rank as permanent theatres.

The construction of inns of the period had a notable
influence on the architecture of the permanent Elizabethan
theatres. The usual inn was a building with balconies which
surrounded a quadrangular courtyard. The actors built out
their rough wooden stage from one of its sides, and the other
three were occupied by spectators. The overhanging balcony
was used when it was desired that an actor should speak
from above, and sometimes drapery ‘was hung from it in
order to curtain off a part of the stage.

The frequency with which plays were produced is suffi-
cient evidence of their popularity among the Londoners at
large, but the enmity of the civic government was persistent.
Finally the actors were formally expelled from the city by
the mayor and corporation in 1575. It is to this event that
Shakespeare must allude in “‘ Hamlet.”
‘qoVAOVS DI19Ig FHL

 

 

 

 

 
 

ELIZABETHAN LONDON 193

Hamlet: . . . What players are they?

Rosencrantz : Even those you were wont to take such delight in, the
tragedians of the city.

Hamlet: How chances it they travel? Their residence, both in
reputation and profit, was better both ways.
Rosencrantz: I think their inhibition comes by the means of the

late innovation.

But the mayor and corporation could not oblige the actors
to abandon so excellent a market for their wares as London
had been proved to be. They had been driven from the
actual city, but they remained on its outskirts, where indeed
they could enjoy an unfettered freedom impossible within
the liberties. Moreover they had the protection of great
men, lords of the Privy Council, and of the queen; for drama
was popular at the court as well as in the streets. The most
serious restriction which actors suffered was one which
limited their number to certain companies directly patronised
by particular lords of the council, and to the two companies
of ‘‘ The Children of the Chapel Royal” and the ‘“ Children
of St. Paul’s.” The measure did not prevent the formation
of new companies, nor did it revive the old close connection
between a great man and the players who were his servants.
Its practical effect was to suppress unlicensed troupes of actors.
That the schoolboys whom it countenanced were objects of
jealousy is proved by some other lines in Hamlet.

Rosencrantz: ... There is, sir, an eyrie of children, little eyases,
that cry out on the top of question, and are most tyrannically
clapped for’t: these are now the fashion; and so berattle the
common stages,—so they call them,—that many wearing
rapiers are afraid of goose-quills and dare scarce come thither.

Hamlet: What, are they children? Who maintains em? How
are they escoted? Will they pursue the quality no longer
than they can sing? Will they not say afterwards, if they
should grow themselves to common players,—as it is most like,
if their means are no better,—their writers do them wrong, to
make them exclaim against their own succession ?

CL: o
 

194 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

On the outskirts of the city there were no convenient inns
for the performance of plays. In 1576 James Burbage, of
the Earl of Leicester’s company, leased a plot of ground in
Finsbury Fields, near the former site of Holywell Priory.
There he built a high wooden wall around a circular space ;
he made no roof. This, the first permanent theatre of
London, was called the Theatre. The Londoners to
reach it passed out by Moorgate or Cripplegate, and then
had a pleasant walk or ride of about a mile through Moor-
fields and Finsbury Fields. Not only plays but also
exhibitions of tumbling, ropedancing, vaulting, wrestling,
fencing and dancing found place on its stage. Marlowe’s
Doctor Faustus was there produced.

The Curtain was built soon after the Theatre and very
near it, and was the place in which Henry V., and
perhaps also Romeo and Juliet and Ben Jonson’s Every
Man in lis Humour, were first produced. The prologue to
Henry V. has the lines:

But pardon, gentles all,
The flat unraised spirits that have dared
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object: can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt ?

As a member of the Chamberlain’s Company Shakespeare
probably acted both at the Theatre and the Curtain.

On the Surrey side of the river, on Bankside, Henslowe
built the Rose Theatre, for the performances of a company
protected by Lord Strange, who included Marlowe, Greene,
Peele, Nash, Edward Alleyn and William Shakespeare.
Apparently it was not used as a theatre after 1603, but it
continued for some years to be employed for displays of
 

ELIZABETHAN LONDON 195

 

fighting and sword-play and for puppet shows. Its name
survives in Rose Alley. There were performances in a
theatre in Newington in 1594.

Meanwhile the actors were still a scandal to the godly,
whose attitude was sometimes justified by the occurrence of
disorder, by the pickpockets and the roughs who formed part
of the audiences. In 1578 John Stockwood attacked the
players in a sermon preached at Paul’s Cross.

“‘ Have we not houses of purpose, built with great charges
for the maintenance of them; and that without the liberties,
as who shall say, ‘ There, let them say what they will, we
will play. I know not how I might, with the godly learned
especially, more discommend the gorgeous playing place
erected in the fields, than term it, as they please to have it
called, a Theatre. . . Will not a filthy play with the blast of
a trumpet sooner call thither a thousand, than an hour’s
tolling of the bell bring to the sermon a hundred—nay, even
here in the city, without it be at this place and some other
certain ordinary audience, where shall you find a reasonable
company ?—whereas if you resort to the Theatre, the Cur-
tain, and other places of players in the city, you shall on the
Lord’s Day have these places, with many others that I can
name, so full as possibly they can throng.”

In 1580 the mayor complained to the chancellor that
players and tumblers and their like were ‘‘ a very superflous
sort of men,” hinderers of God’s service, corruptors of youth,
and providers of frays and other disorders. The council in
the same year requested that, in view of the queen’s occa-
sional delight in plays, they might be permitted within the
city after evening service, on holidays other than Sundays;
but the mayor replied that actors were in the habit of gather-

ing audiences during the whole of an afternoon, and therefore
0 2
 

196 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

prevented attendance at church, and if they were restrained
in such practice their plays would take place at an hour so
late as to be very inconvenient, especially for servants and
children. In 1592 the court of aldermen complained to the
archbishop of Canterbury of the disorders of playhouses
and their evil influence. Lord Hunsdon in 1594 asked the
mayor to grant an exceptional permission for a company of
players to perform at the Cross Keys. In 1595 the mayor
petitioned the lords of council for the suppression of plays
on Bankside, and two years later for their prohibition there,
at the Theatre and the Curtain, and elsewhere about the city.

In this year these efforts of the magistracy were at last
successful, in spite of the dramatic taste of the great men.
An order of the Privy Council stated that the queen had been
informed “ of very great disorders committed in the common
playhouses, both by lewd matters . . . handled on the stages,
and by resort and confluence of bad people”; and therefore
she commanded that the Curtain and the Theatre, and any
other common playhouse, should be “ plucke down quite,
the stages, galleries, and rooms that are made for people to
stand in.” The owners did their best to resist the order and
it was never fully executed, but it sufficed to compel them to
demolish the Theatre. Its materials were tranported to the
Surrey side of the river, where they were used to construct
the Globe.

If to these many acts of persecution be added the fact that
the civic authorities never lost an opportunity of suspending
the performances at theatres, whenever a fear of infection of
the plague gave them an excuse, their unpopularity with
actors and playwrights is not surprising. The ignominious
part played by the mayor of London is emphasized in
Richard III. In the opening scene of Beaumont’s and
 

THE GLOBE THEATRE.
 

ELIZABETHAN LONDON 197

 

Fletcher’s The Knight of the Burning Pestle the speaker
of the prologue announces a play of which the scene is laid
in the city. Thereupon a citizen leaps upon the stage:

Citizen: Hold your peace, goodman boy?
Speaker of the Prologue: What do you mean, sir?

Citizen: That you have no good meaning: this seven years there
hath been plays at this house, I have observed it, you have still
girds at citizens; and now you call your play ‘‘ The London
Merchant.” Down with your title, boy! down with your title.

However, for all the mayor and aldermen could do, the
Globe was erected near the Rose in Southwark, and it hada
glorious history as the theatre in which all Shakespeare’s
great tragedies were first produced, and in which he very
frequently played minor parts. Moreover, in 1601 a theatre
called the Fortune was built outside Cripplegate, between
Golding, now Golden Lane, and Whitecross Street.

These theatres were on the outside round or hexagonal ;
their inside plan was invariably round, and was the direct
outcome of the conditions in which plays had been produced
in halls and in courtyards. At one enda low stage projected
into the arena, and above it a gallery of less depth corre-
sponded to the inn balcony and was supported by two pillars.
Beneath the gallery, at the back of the stage, there were two
entrances, often draped, as in the halls of great houses and
public bodies there had been two doors. A canopy, called
the shadow, projected above the gallery over about two-thirds
of the stage, and gave the actors some protection against
the weather. Places for spectators were arranged in tiers
around all of the surrounding wall of the arena which was
not occupied by the stage, and were divided into rooms which
sometimes contained seats. The remaining floor-space
 

198 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

formed the pit, the accommodation for the “ groundlings.”
The gallants of the court sat on stools upon the stage, or, if
stools ran short, they lay upon the rushes.

Blackfriars Theatre, the most select of the playhouses,
which was situated in the precinct of Blackfriars, now
occupied by Playhouse Yard, near the “ Times ”’ office, was
exceptional in that it consisted of a remodelled private house.
It was used until 1581 by the St. Paul’s boys, but these
afterwards played in the singing school of St. Paul’s, and
they were succeeded at Blackfriars by the choristers of the
Chapel Royal.

Some theatres, Elizabethan in type, were opened after the
close of the queen’s reign. The Globe was burnt during
a performance of Henry VIII. in 1613, but was again
erected, octagonal in shape. The bear-baiting ring on
Bankside was rebuilt about the year 1606, and was then
furnished with a movable stage, in order that it might serve
for “‘stage Playes on Mundayes, Wednesdayes, Fridayes and
Saterdayes; and for the Baiting of the Beares on Tuesdayes
and Thursdayes.” It was called sometimes the Hope,
sometimes the Bear Garden, and probably was not used for
plays at all after 1616. The Swan had a site near modern
Blackfriars Road and plays were acted in it between 1611
and 1613. There were also, in the Stewart period, a play-
house called the Red Bull in Clerkenwell, another in the
precinct of the White Friars, and a third, known as the
Cockpit, in Drury Lane.

In the years of the Civil War the city magistrates finally
succeeded in suppressing all the theatres around London, and
so ended the history of Elizabethan playhouses.

The architecture of the sixteenth century was inferior to
that of the preceding age. Two city churches remain
 

ELIZABETHAN LONDON 199

which date mainly from the period, St. Giles’s Cripplegate,
and St. Andrew’s Undershaft, both of them built before the
accession of Elizabeth. They are roomy churches in the
late perpendicular style, less interesting than those of an
earlier date.

A print of the Royal Exchange survives to provide an
example of the public buildings of the period. It was a
pseudo-classical structure which surrounded a quadrangular
courtyard. Around the inner side of this was a colonnade,
within which were two rows of shops, the one above the other.
The pillars supported arches, and above these an upper storey
had a facade decorated by statues of the sovereigns of Eng-
land, contained in niches. A higher storey had dormer
windows in the slanting roof. Outside the north entrance
stood a tall Corinthian column, which was topped by a grass-
hopper, the crest of the Greshams. Such architecture has a
self-consciousness which marks the fact that the middle ages
had been left behind. The hall of Gray’s Inn is an example
of the dignified and beautiful buildings of its type which
were erected in the period. It is a structure of red brick, of
which the side walls are divided by buttresses, between which
are windows in the prevalent domestic style. The gables
have a curious battlement of brick. In the interior the fine
oaken roof is remarkable and characteristic.

Such houses as were newly built in the city in the reign of
Elizabeth were still, for the most part, of brick and timber,
of the type exemplified in those buildings of Staple’s Inn
which face on Holborn. The casement windows of London
were a prominent feature. A traveller in England in the
year 1558 remarked on the ‘‘ many glass windows, as well
below as above in the chambers, for in the chambers there
are many glazed casements, and that in all the tradesmen’s
 

200 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

houses in almost every town.” The chaplain of a Venetian
embassy complained, however, early in the next century, that
the windows of London had no shutters and had casements
too narrow to permit a view; and he quotes the exclamation
of a Genoese gentleman, ‘“‘O! wretched windowes, which
cannot open by day nor close by night!” He states, more-
over, that timber houses without foundations were cold and
damp, that staircases were spiral and inconvenient, and
chambers “sorry and ill-connected.”

Yet this Venetian found London “ very noble, with hand-
some thoroughfares and well-supplied shops, each distin-
guished by its sign like so many inns, and plenty of beautiful
stone fountains, especially in the heart of the city.” He was
impressed by its size; a succession of houses almost united
it to Westminster; and on the opposite side of the river,
‘“‘ connected by a noble stone bridge, which on each side has
a handsome row of shops,”’ were “‘ some good habitations,
but fewer in number.”

On the other hand, the Venetian considered London very
dirty ; its streets were covered with black and offensive mud,
which provided the mob with a ready missile, and the water
of the Thames was “hard, turbid and foul.” And the city
was infested by “the great devils and the little devils.”
“ By the great ones I mean the waggons, which, when they
meet the coaches of the gentry, refuse to give way and yield
as due. The little devils are the apprentices, alias shop-boys,
who on two days of the year, . . . Shrove Tuesday and the
first of May, are so riotous and outrageous, that in a body,
three or four thousand strong, they go committing excesses
in every direction, killing human beings and demolishing
houses.’ The visitor was in other particulars impressed by
the popular constitution of London society, by the manner
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ELIZABETHAN LONDON 201

 

in which the rough play of the crowd was often taken in
good part.

On the failure to regulate carriage traffic Stow also com-
ments. ‘‘ The coachman rides behind the horse tails, lasheth
them, and looketh not behind. The drayman sitteth and
sleepeth on his dray, and letteth his horse lead him home.
I know that by the good laws and customs of this city shod
carts [carts with wheels bound with iron] are forbidden to
enter the same, except upon reasonable causes, as service of
the prince or such like, they be tolerated; also that the fore
horse of every carriage should be led by the hand; but these
good orders are not observed.

“Of old time coaches were not known in this island, but
chariots or whirlicotes, then so called, and they only used of
princes or great estates, such as had their footmen about
them. ... And so was the riding in whirlicotes and
chariots forsaken, except at coronations and such like
spectacles. But now of late years the use of coaches brought
out of Germany is taken up, and made so common as there
is neither distinction of time, nor difference of persons
observed; for the world runs on wheels with many whose
parents were glad to go on foot.”

Another peculiarity noted by the Venetian traveller was
the show of instruments of punishment in the streets. ‘‘ There
are pillories for the neck and hands, stocks for the feet, and
chains for the streets themselves, to stop them in case of
need. In the suburbs there are oak cages for nocturnal
offenders, and pounds for mischievous animals.”

No great variety of costume was to be observed, for the
foreigners, knowing themselves unpopular, discreetly adopted
English fashions or the French fashion which prevailed at
court. The ever-conservative Spaniards were an exception
 

202 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

and disdained to wear any but their native dress. "When the
Venetian from a goldsmith’s shop in Cheapside viewed the
lord mayor’s show he saw houses which were ‘‘all windows,”
and each window “ was filled with beautiful faces, decked
with every variety of head-tire like so many pictures,” save
one only in which there were two Spanish women, “ yellow,
livid, hollow-eyed, ill-dressed,” ‘‘ perfect hobgoblins.”’
CHAPTER XIV
PURITAN LONDON

 

N the seventeenth century London again, as in
medizval times, took part in a struggle in which the
fortunes of the nation were at stake. But the city
played a véle very different from that assigned to her

in earlier days. Then she had been one among other forces
of the country, a unit, almost in the position of an indepen-
dent city state for whose support rival combatants treated.
Now she was the leader of the more progressive section of the
whole nation ; her interests had been identified with those of
the country.

This was the result, in London, of the Tudor period in
history. Under the Tudors the citizens had learnt that they
were Englishmen first and Londoners afterwards. At the
same time, the education provided by the Renascence and
the Reformation, and by all the liberal circumstances of the
sixteenth century, had taught them to think not in accordance
with accidental facts but on principles. Therefore their new
patriotism was not based essentially on loyalty to a sovereign.
In 1627 Goring wrote to inform Buckingham of the difficulty
of borrowing in the city. ‘No man,” he said, “ will lend
upon any security if they think it go the way of the court,
which now is made diverse from the state.”

As to the leading position assumed by London, it was the
result of no generous recognition on the part of the rest of
 

204 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

the country of the qualities of the city. In the parliament
of 1604 a bill to throw open foreign trade to the nation at
large passed the House of Commons; for commerce with
foreign countries was practically engrossed by the merchant
companies, and these consisted almost entirely of Londoners.
The rapid growth of London in proportion to other towns,
and the fact that in one year the customs and impositions
there had amounted to £110,000, while throughout the rest
of the kingdom their sum was only £17,000, were arguments
adduced in support of the measure. The bill was dropped
by the lords, but its history shows what jealousy of the city
existed, especially in other seaports. Butno prejudice could
hinder the predominance of the city. Such was assured by
her wealth and her size, by the centralization in her of trade ©
and of fashion, by her proximity to Westminster, and to the
royal palaces.

It is more remarkable that she was able in this period to
show so united a front. The examination of Elizabethan
London has proved that the city contained very diverse
elements; and moreover that in Elizabethan London there
was indeed little unity, a lack of motives which influenced
alike the divergent classes of the population. But in the
reigns of the first two Stewart kings of England certain
characteristics came to be shared by all Londoners except a
negligible minority: the citizens became very Puritan, and
they became staunch advocates of popular rights.

It is not to be denied that the force wielded by Puritanism
was of the first magnitude. Puritan theories were narrow
and clear and were based on determinate principles, and
therefore they were fitted to be popular. The principles at
the root of them were idealistic, and led to strong and
definite action; and therefore their devotees could be
 

PREACHING AT ST. PAUL’s Cross
 

PURITAN LONDON 205

enthusiasts. In conflict with them the liberal and the
artistic tendencies of the Elizabethan age could not but be
overborne. Shakespeare’s London was swamped by the city
of the preachers.

The middle class and the self-supporting poor evinced that
intellectual activity which has always distinguished London ;
they were keenly interested in sermons, books and politics.
They showed too the unfailing characteristic of an urban
population, the disposition to reflect almost unanimously the
strongest of prevalent modes of feeling and thought. More-
over the Protestant refugees, so numerous among them, could
not but be missionaries of Calvinistic religion and of the
rights of subjects as opposed to princes.

The poorest Londoners were a growing class, and their
miseries had not been alleviated. London, in the isolation
of greatness in which she stood in England, had, more than
ever, attractions for ambitious and discontented countrymen ;
and that section of them who did not find their fortunes but
increased the number of the very poor was proportionately
large. Others whom the civic magistrates classed as beggars
and vagabonds had been dependent, or had hoped to
depend, on the politicians and the courtiers who thronged
to the capital. Yet others were workmen who, in the new
conditions of the organization of labour, which tended
increasingly to its complete control by the few very rich,
had not been able to find places. This large class of
Londoners were losers by the lesser place which, in the
reformed religion, was given to the duty to the impotent and
the suffering. Every circumstance which increased their
numbers and their misfortunes made them more irresponsible,
rendered them more completely the typical city mob, a force
at the disposal of the stronger party.
 

206 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

It might have been expected that the richest citizens
would be conservative in their politics and easy in their
creed. They were, it is true, in the course of their business,
in frequent contact with extreme Protestants and revolted
subjects; yet such intercourse alone would probably not
have affected their political attitude. There was no greater
fault in the Stewart government than the course by which
the great merchants of London were directly alienated from
the crown.

In 1617 the city was persuaded to lend £100,000 to the
king; but the collection of the money, which was spent
within the year, was difficult, and the demand was resisted
by individuals. In 1620 the king asked the aldermen to
raise a voluntary contribution for the defence of the Palati-
nate. They did not refuse, but protested against a renewal
of the system of benevolences and suggested the summons of
a parliament. James replied that a parliament would
certainly not be called; whereupon they gave way, and by
means of a house-to-house collection and a record kept for
the names of all who refused to pay, they were able to pro-
duce the money. When however, in 1626, Charles I. asked
for a loan of £100,000, on the security of the crown jewels,
the citizens met him with a positive refusal. Strong pressure
which he brought to bear on the aldermen, prevailed upon
them to undertake personally to grant one fifth of the sum.
In the same year the citizens protested that the requisition
to them to provide twenty ships for purposes of war was, as
compared with earlier assessments, excessive. The Privy
Council retorted that precedents favoured obedience and
the punishment of disobedience, and the citizens yielded,
but in a grudging spirit, which caused Pennington to com-
plain late in the year that the ships in his command supplied
 

PURITAN LONDON 207

 

by the Londoners were ‘‘ very mean things,” undermanned
chiefly by landsmen and boys. Such as they were, these
crews mutinied directly the three months for which they had
been engaged were over.

In September 1628, the city again refused to lend money
to the government. It wasin November 1627, when the
needs of the besiegers of La Rhé were pressing, that Goring
wrote to Buckingham as to the new conception of patriotism
in London, very inconvenient to the government since there
only money could be raised.

But the most unforgivable offence of all was committed
in 1635. The livery companies had received a grant of the
county of Derry. In 1635 they were summoned before the
court of the Star Chamber, and were accused of having failed
in their public duties as colonizers; they had not built
enough houses, nor sent out enough Englishmen as settlers,
nor converted the Irish to Protestantism, and they had
admitted Irish tenants. They were sentenced to a fine of
£70,000 and a forfeiture of their Irish lands. An irrecover-
able blow was dealt at the confidence of the wealthy citizens
in the government, and bitter resentment, recurrently
expressed, was aroused.

When the writ of ship-money was issued in 1637 only
London, out of all the towns and counties, made a direct
protest, a denial of the legality of the demand, based, indeed,
not on the law of the country but on the particular liberties
of the city. On the the city one-fifth of the whole burden
had been laid. The lord mayor was told that his arguments
had been refuted by the lawyers, and the city lawyers received
a warning. There was a stormy meeting of the Common
Council, but the upshot was submission.

In February 1639, the city was asked to make a free
 

208 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

contribution to the expenses of the government. In March
less than £5,000 had been raised, and a fresh appeal was
issued. It produced only £200, and the whole amount was
contemptuously refused.

The demands of the crown became more and more
pressing. In June the Privy Council summoned the mayor
and aldermen in order to negotiate a loan. So few aldermen
appeared that the lord mayor was sent back to the city to fetch
more of them. Then the king asked for £100,000, and the
mayor and aldermen, hating the Scottish war which impeded
trade, and still resenting the affair of Derry, answered that he
demanded impossibilities. Cottington told them that they
ought to have sold their chains before they made such a
reply, and they were dismissed and allowed a week to con-
sider their final answer. They refused definitely to lend the
money in April of the following year, two days before the
meeting of the Short Parliament. In May they were again
called before the council, and informed that the king
expected a loan of £200,000, “ or he would have £300,000 of
the city.” They were instructed to produce by a certain
date lists of the persons in their several wards who were able to
contribute, but on the appointed day they arrived without
lists in the presence of the council. Then an attempt was
made to browbeat them. Strafford said to the king, “ Sir,
you will never do good to those citizens of London till you
have made examples of some of the aldermen. Unless you
hang up some of them you will do no good with them.”
Charles demanded from the mayor his sword and collar of
office, and restored them only at the petition of the
bystanders. Four leading aldermen, Soames, Rainton,
Greene and Adkins, were committed to prison. ‘‘I was
held an honest man,” said Soames to the king, “ whilst I
 

PURITAN LONDON 209

 

was a commoner, and I would continue so now I am an
alderman.” The remaining aldermen however at this point
professed readiness, in the name of the wealthier Londoners,
to give, but they refused to rate their fellow citizens accord-
ing to their means. A list of those able to pay was sent to
the council, but that body had become aware of the need
for discretion, and tacitly abandoned the policy of forcing a
loan.

But in May the mayor was asked why he had not collected
the ship money. He replied that he had done his best ; and
when the king wished to know why he had not distrained
the goods of the recalcitrant, he pleaded the case of a pre-
decessor who had been sued in the court of the King’s Bench
for his conduct in collecting ship money. ‘‘ No man,”
Charles answered, “shall suffer for obeying my commands.”
The mayor and sheriffs went from house to house to demand
the money, but only one man in the city was found com-
pliant. The sheriffs, when the mayor bade them distrain
the goods of refusers, retorted that it was “‘ his business, not
theirs.’ When, thereupon, he entered a draper’s shop and
seized a piece of linen, the owner asked leave to measure it,
in order that he might charge it to his lordship’s account.

In June the Common Council considered a demand that
they should furnish 4000 men to the army, together with
coat and conduct money. They separated without a direct
answer, an action which was practically a refusal.

The king, in July, took advantage of an alarm that the
Scots, by seizing Newcastle, would stop the coal supply of
London; and Vane in the Common Council again asked for
the loan of £200,000. He held out the bribe that the
debasement of the coinage would cease. But the council
answered only that they could not dispose of the money of

H.L. P
 

210 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

the citizens. Before the end of August London was twice
more requested to lend, but refused on either occasion, once
on the plea that the plantation of Derry had ‘‘ consumed
their stocks.”

On the 2nd of October parliament had been declared, and
therefore, at an informal meeting of the Common Councillors
and richer citizens, the mayor was invited to request the
livery companies to lend £200,000 to the government on the
security of the peers. On the 28th the companies replied
that they would advance only a quarter of the sum before the
meeting of parliament.

In this manner by persistent attempts to borrow and by
breaches of faith, offences the more exasperating for their
monotony, the government alienated the great majority of
the wealthy citizens. There was a foolish disregard of their
real claims to consideration, a refusal to count as serious
factors their inclinations and temper, even their interests.
Yet the greater part of the mercantile capital of the country
was in the possession of the merchants of London; such was
the force which, in the years which preceded the great
struggle, the kings turned against themselves. The mistake
was perceived by Clarendon. He remarks that the city
‘“was looked upon too much as a common stock not easy to
be exhausted, and as a body not to be grieved by ordinary
acts of injustice.” It was “thought reasonable upon any
specious pretences to avoid the security that was at any time
given for money . . . borrowed”’ of the citizens. There was
inevitably in London a remnant of sentimental loyalists, but
they were few in number, and in sucha centre of life had
little influence.

Some conflict between the crown and the wealthy citizens
was on grounds other than financial. In London, as else-
 

PURITAN LONDON 211

 

where, the sentiment of personal loyalty to the sovereign was
weaker after the accession of the Stewarts; and there, as in
the rest of their country, the Stewarts met exhibitions of
independence with haughty indiscretion. In 1618 some
aldermen determined to vindicate their right of election to
the office of recorder of the city, which lately had invariably
been bestowed on the king’s recommendation, and James,
on the other hand, resolved that no recorder who had not
Buckingham’s protection should be appointed.

The candidate of the aldermen was Whitelocke, who had
distinguished himself on the popular side in debates on
impositions; that of Buckingham was a certain Shute noted
for having fifteen times suffered outlawry. Thus the cam-
paign of the aldermen was somewhat facilitated. When, on
the day of election, Shute appeared with a letter of recom-
mendation from the king, he was told that as a former outlaw
he was disqualified for the office, and that the king had
undertaken to write no more such letters.

At this juncture Bacon undertook the management of the
aldermen. He told the king that they were acting merely
out of factious opposition, disconnected with the qualities of
Shute, and sent for them. But they refused to answer the
questions of any but the king, and a deputation of their
number sought royal audience.

James received the aldermen in the presenceof Buckingham.
He listened to their representations as to the disqualifications
of Shute, and held a whispered conference with the duke.
Then he turned to them and told them he had no wish to
transgress their privileges, but would esteem it a personal
favour if they would consider his recommendation. Since
they objected to Shute he asked them to elect Robert Heath
In reply they asked for a free election; but to this, and to

P2
 

212 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

repetitions of the request, he answered only that no com-
pulsion would be used but that they would be expected to
vote for Heath.

The new nominee was a lawyer of good character, but a
follower of Buckingham and a supporter of the prerogative.
The aldermen responded to the move by another. Whitelocke,
as having made himself particularly obnoxious to the court,
withdrew his candidature, and was succeeded, very unwil-
lingly, by a less marked man, a distinguished lawyer Walter.
The declaration of the poll showed that Heath had secured
thirteen votes and Walter eleven, a victory so bare that it
was tantamount to a defeat for the king.

The great body of Londoners, the people of the city,
showed more clearly their political attitude. In 1614 the
proclamation in the city of the treaty with Spain was received
in a sullen silence, broken only, here and there, by the
cry, ‘‘God preserve our good neighbours in Holland and
Zealand.” Thanks were given in almost every London
pulpit for the capture of Ostend by the Dutch. A few days
before the Spanish ambassador, Gondomar, departed for his
country in 1618, carrying the promise of Raleigh’s punish-
ment, a member of his suite rode over a little boy in Chancery
Lane. The child was not much hurt, but in a few minutes
a mob which numbered from four to five thousand was
- moving towards the Spanish embassy in Barbican. The
ambassador himself was absent, but his attendants were
presently waiting in expectation of death, while the windows
of the embassy crashed, doors splintered, and the crowd
yelled for the unfortunate horsemen. They fell into quiet
when Chief Justice Montague and the lord mayor arrived
upon the scene, and Montague hastily appeased them by a
promise that the offending Spaniard should be punished.
 

PURITAN LONDON 213

 

The man was brought from the embassy, and the people
opened up their ranks to allow his passage to prison.

This incident led to some diplomatic business. The
offending horseman returned to the embassy when the rioters
had dispersed to their houses, and James sent Buckingham
to apologise to Gondomar. But the ambassador, although
he declared his personal forgiveness, hinted doubts as to his
master’s probable attitude. Then the mayor was ordered to
apologise, and was instructed to punish the rioters unless he
would have the king deal with them. Gondomar thereupon
declared himself satisfied, and asked for leniency for the
offenders. James discovered that the magistrates were
sympathetic to the accused men, and issued a special com-
mission for their trial. In the event seven of them were
condemned to imprisonment for six months and a fine of
£500 each, but the sentence was remitted within a month
at the instance of Gondomar’s secretary. The imposition of
so heavy a fine and the attitude of the civic authorities would
seem to prove that some men of substance were concerned
in the riot.

In 1628 the extraordinary unpopularity of Buckingham in
the city was illustrated. As a creature of the favourite, an
astrologer and quack doctor named Lambe, left the Fortune
Theatre on the evening of the 13th of June, he was sur-
rounded by a crowd of apprentices who hooted him as “ the
duke’s devil,” He paid some sailors to guard him to a tavern
in Moorgate Street where he supped.

When he left the place later in the evening some lads were
still hanging about the door. He was no coward, and he
threatened them, telling them ‘‘ he would make them dance
naked,” but an increasing company followed him as he pur-
sued his way. In Old Jewry he turned on them with his
 

214 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

sailors and drove them off. The anger of the crowd suddenly
sprang into activity and they made a rush at him. He took
refuge in the Windmill tavern; a furious mob surrounded
the house, flinging stones and howling for their victim. The
landlord would not keep him; he would do no more than
help him to a disguise. And this did little service; Lambe
was soon recognised, and fled for his life with the mob at his
heels. He again escaped into a house, and again the master
would not suffer him to remain, but provided for him this time
four constables as a guard. They were useless against such
a multitude. They were soon thrown aside, and Lambe was
on the ground, exposed to blind and senseless brutality. He
was beaten, stoned and inhumanly mutilated, and at the last
no man could be found to receive his unconscious body. He
was taken to the Counter, where he died next morning.

His murderers were heard to say that his master would
have received worse treatment at their hands; they would
have minced the duke’s flesh and had each of them a morsel.

The outbreak made the king very angry. He summoned
the mayor and aldermen and commanded them to find the
guilty persons, and because they failed to do so he imposed
a heavy fine on the city.

His other advisers were little better liked in London than
Buckingham. In 1629 papers were passed from hand to
hand which contained attacks on Weston and on Laud.
‘** Laud, look to thyself,” ran one of them; “‘ be assured thy
life is sought.’ London, the centre of the bishop’s diocese,
was a stronghold of Puritanism, and the conflict between
ritualism and extreme Protestantism was nowhere more
direct and bitter, Laud, moreover, revived the old quarrel
between Londoners and the church as to tithes. He urged
on the Privy Council that the land of the city should be
 

PURITAN LONDON 215

 

revalued, because tithes were paid on a basis not correspondent
to modern values, and the citizens, while they were not
illiberal in providing preachers and lecturers who supported
their own doctrines, were very unwilling to contribute more
largely to funds by which the ecclesiastical policy of their
bishop might be advanced.

In 1640 all the feeling against the king’s government came
toa head. In August copies of the Scottish manifesto were
circulated in London. The citizens were in a state of high
excitement, agitated by every passing rumour, “in such dis-
traction as if the day of judgment were hourly expected.”
The petition of the twelve peers was in circulation among
them in September. ‘They heard of the Scottish progress as
of a national triumph, and received the news of Conway’s
rout with demonstrations of joy. The Scots promised that
their coal supply would not be hindered. A petition of
citizens, not unlike that of the twelve peers, was organised
and received many signatures, and a companion to it was
prepared by the clergy of the city. The Privy Council
ineffectively ordered the mayor and aldermen to end such a
scandal. The petitions were presented in September, and
an idea, at first entertained, of punishing their inspirers, was
abandoned. When the time of the mayoral election drew
near the electors proclaimed with shouts that none should
be chosen who had opposed the petition. The alderman
highest on the list was set aside, and votes were divided
between the now distinguished Soames, and Geare, a sup-
porter of the petition.

Already placards had called upon the apprentices to rise
for the reformation, “‘ which in plain English is the defacing”
of the churches, and the mayor and aldermen had interfered
to prevent disturbance. Late in September there were riots
 

216 HISTORY OF LONDON

in two city churches. In one of them when the bishop’s
chancellor, Dr. Duck, summoned the churchwardens to take
the usual oath for the presentment of offenders against the
ecclesiastical law, he was answered by cries of ‘‘ No Oath!
No Oath!” An apparitor contemptuously called the inter-
ruptors ‘‘a company of Puritan dogs.’”’ He was hustled and
beaten, and a sheriff, summoned to restore order, carried him
off to prison.

On the 22nd of November, as the High Commission Court
were about to sentence a Separatist, their room was invaded
by the city mob. Benches were broken, books seized, furni-
ture thrown from the windows. Laud demanded the
punishment of the rioters from the Star Chamber, but that
court merely indicted them before the mayor and some
aldermen sitting on a commission of oyer and terminer, who
inflicted no punishment because the jury could not agree to
find a true bill. The mob therefore, uncorrected, entered
St. Paul’s on the following Sunday, and destroyed a number
of papers believing them to be records of the High Commis-
sion Court.

On the 5th of November the citizens transgressed pre-
cedent by refusing to send the recorder to parliament. He
was a strong loyalist, Sir Thomas Gardiner, whom Charles
had designed to make speaker. They chose for their
representatives in the Long Parliament four staunch
Puritans.

One of these, Cradock, in the beginning of the session of
that assembly, cast suspicion on the intentions of the king
with regard to the garrison at the Tower. There was, he
said, a rumour that ‘‘the city should shortly be about the
citizens’ ears.” Londoners followed with eager encouragement
the proceedings against Strafford. Five days after his
 

PURITAN LONDON 217

 

impeachment they agreed to lend £25,000 to the government,
on condition the Derry lands were restored, the garrison
appointed by the king removed from the Tower, and the
ordnance dismounted from its walls. Later they promised a
loan of £60,000, but in February, 1641, when £21,000 of
this sum had been delivered, they stopped payment on
account of the delay of Strafford’s trial. On the 24th of
April twenty thousand citizens signed a petition for his
execution and the redress of grievances, as measures which
alone could lead to the revival of trade.

The city supported also all reforms connected with the
church. There were many in London whose opinions were
those of Independents and Presbyterians and who wished to
overthrow the whole ecclesiastical polity. Their zeal was
increased when, in 1640, the Scottish commissioners arrived
in the city to treat for peace with the parliament, a move
which Clarendon describes as “‘ the last and most confound-
ing error’ of the king’s government. The commissioners
were lodged in the heart of the city, in a house which had a
passage leading into the gallery of St. Antholin’s church.
This church was assigned to them for their religious exercises,
and in it one of their number, frequently Alexander Hender-
son, preached. “To hear those sermons,” Clarendon relates,
‘there was so great a conflux and resort, by the citizens out
of humour and faction, by others of all quality out of curiosity,
and by some that they might the better justify the contempt
they had of them, that from the first appearance of day in
the morning on every Sunday, to the shutting in of the light,
the church was never empty. They, especially the women,
who had the happiness to get into the church in the morning
—they who could not hung upon or about the windows to be
auditors or spectators—keeping their places till the afternoon’s
 

218 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

exercise was finished.” In December, 1640, a violent petition
for church reform and the abolition of episcopacy, signed by
fifteen thousand citizens, was carried to Westminster by a
numerous and enthusiastic company. The city declared for
Pym during the debate on the Grand Remonstrance. When
the bill for the removal of bishops from the House of Lords
was under discussion, in December 1641, a mob of Londoners
gathered around Westminster Hall. There were shouts of
“No Bishops! No Bishops! No Popish Lords!” Lists
were compiled of ‘‘ disaffected members of the House of
Commons” and of ‘false, evil and rotten-hearted lords”;
and were read out to the crowd among threats of violence.
The citizens petitioned against the retention of Catholic peers
and bishops in the upper house, as the chief obstacle to the
passing of good laws. Such a petition, with twenty thousand
signatures, was brought to the house on the 11th of December
by four hundred well-to-do merchants and tradesmen driven
in coaches.

Another petition was for the removal of a private grievance
of the city, very serious during a long session of parliament,
for relief from the custom by which servants of members of
parliament, who had obtained protections from their masters,
were immune from creditors.

However the king’s party in the city gained strength from
the disorders of their opponents, the offence given to all law-
abiding men by the rabble at Whitehall and Westminster
who sought by violence to enforce their will, and the rioters
who threatened and molested reputed malignants in the city,
and invaded the churches to remove any furniture or orna-
ments which were not to their taste. The numbers of the
lawless were swelled by disbanded soldiers from the army
which had opposed the Scots. Moreover the eccentrics who
 

PURITAN LONDON 219

 

appeared as the old barriers to religious faith and practice
were passed and forgotten, members of strange small sects,
often offended the decency, the common sense and the pre-
judices of average citizens. The notorious Praise God
Barebones, who at this time, near the corner of Fleet Street
and Fetter Lane, sold leather and preached to a small com-
munion, was on Sunday, the rgth of December, so vociferous
that he exasperated even a section of the mob, and his house
was stormed. There were more dependable conservatives
among the wealthy. Sir Richard Gurney, a decided Royalist,
was elected mayor in 1641; and on the 25th of November,
the king, on his return from Scotland, was received in London
with much demonstration of loyalty, and feasted at the
Guildhall. He had been told that to gain the city was to
dethrone King Pym, and he made liberal promises, yielding,
among other things, on the vexed question of the Derry lands.
But the very conditional nature of the loyalty of by far the
greater number of London citizens became clear when the
elections to the Common Council on the 21st of December
gave seats to a large majority of Puritans. On the 26th
Gurney told the king that, unless the lieutenant of the Tower
were dismissed, he could not answer for the peace of the city ;
the apprentices would storm the Tower. Charles gave way.

The history of the first ten days of January, 1642, is very
familiar. On the 5th Charles drove to the Guildhall and
demanded from the Common Council that the five members
whom he had sought to arrest, and who had taken refuge
with the citizens, should be given up to him. His request
was followed by a silence; then shouts were heard, “ Parlia-
ment! Privileges of Parliament!’’ There were some who
cried, less loudly “ God bless the King!”” Charles asked that
any who had aught to say would speak, whereupon a voice
 

220 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

announced, “It is the vote of this court that your majesty
hear the advice of parliament,’”’ and another retorted, “ It is
not the vote of this court; it is your own vote.” ‘Who is
it,” said Charles, “that says I do not take the advice of my
parliament? I do take their advice; but I must distinguish
between the parliament and some traitors in it. These I
would bring to a legal trial.” A man leapt upon a bench and
raised again the cry, “‘ Privileges of parliament!” ‘I have
and will observe all privileges of parliament,” the king said,
‘but no privileges can protect a traitor from a legal trial.”
It was evident, however, that he made no real impression on
the Common Council, and that they had no intention of
relinquishing the five members. He left defeated, and as he
drove through the streets of the city men shouted “ Privileges
of Parliament!” on all sides. Someone threw into his
carriage a paper on which were the words “To your tents,
O Israel !,’’ an allusion to the deposition of Rehoboam.

His presence removed, the small Royalist party in the
Common Council became quite ineffective. A petition to
the king was prepared in which it was assumed that the five
members were in the right.

On the 6th a committee of the House of Commons met in
the Guildhall. They were welcomed by a committee of the
Common Council who assured them of protection, and
announced that they would hold sessions concurrent with
theirs, in order to supply any of their needs. That night
there was a panic in the city, and the mayor was asked to
call out the trained bands. When he refused, forty thousand
men, completely armed, and one hundred thousand more
having halberts, swords and clubs, appeared to defend their
homes. ‘They realised, however, that their alarm was ground-
less, and the mayor persuaded them to disperse.
 

PURITAN LONDON 221

 

On the 7th the king ordered the mayor to repeat in the
city the proclamation, already made before Whitehall, stigma-
tizing Lord Kimbolton and the five members as traitors, but
even the royalist Gurney was obliged to reply that his
obedience would be illegal.

On the 8th the Common Council received from the king a
haughty and angry answer as to their petition with regard to
the five members. The committees of the Commons and of
the Lords severally asked the city to provide for them a
guard, and on the roth of January Philip Skippon, captain
of the Artillery Garden, was appointed Sergeant Major
General to command the trained bands, and was ordered to
raise a guard for offence and defence. The seamen and
mariners of the Thames volunteered their services for offensive
purposes, and met with acceptance.

On the roth of January, also, Charles left Whitehall, and
on the next day, in triumph, the members of the House of
Commons travelled back to Westminster from the city by
water, the five members who were the heroes of the day in
their midst. The trained bands guarded their progress from
the banks of the river.

War was very near and London had very definitely chosen
aside. On the roth of May the trained bands, 8,000 strong,
were reviewed in Finsbury Fields, before both houses of
Parliament.

Clarendon states that in the reign of Charles I., London
was “by the incredible increase of trade, which the distractions |
of other countries and the peace of this brought, and by the
great license of resort thither . . . inriches,in people, in build-
ings, marvellously increased, insomuch as the suburbs were
almost equal to the city.” ‘“‘ Little,” he adds, ‘‘ was applied to
prevent so growing a disease”’ ; for as a disease the extension
 

222 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

of the area of London was regarded. The attractions of the
capital were said to interfere with local administration in the
provinces, to cause a lack of gentlemen to preside over
musters, suppress rebellions, perform the duties of justices of
the peace and supply an element in the composition of juries.
The absentees were censured in 1632. ‘‘ Themselves go from
ordinaries to dicing rooms and from thence to playhouses.
Their wives dress themselves in the morning, visit in the
afternoon and perhaps make a journey to Hyde Park, and
so home again.” All country gentlemen were ordered in this
year to return to their homes, and one who was disobedient
was fined £1,000 by the Star Chamber.

But the more usual course taken to prevent the growth of
the city was to forbid the erection of new buildings outside
the walls, and this did not prevent, “the great license of
resort thither,’’ but instead intensified the evils of over-
crowding. The civic authorities were throughout the first
half of the seventeenth century much pre-occupied by the
existence of divided houses and houses in which lodgers were
received, yet a return of all such dwellings in the city, made
in 1637, shows that their reforming efforts had had little
success. A population, largely dependent on the rates, was
living, especially in the riverside district and near the walls,
in conditions extraordinarily insanitary and very miserable.
There were many complaints too of the numerous rogues,
vagabonds and beggars, some of them Irish and foreign, the
loose livers, the unlicensed pedlars and chapmen, and the
increased number of alehouses. Sewers and ditches were
not cleansed, refuse was suffered to collect in ponds, streets
were ill swept, lay stalls were in close proximity to dwelling-
houses, graveyards were over-full, unfit corn, meat and fish
were sold to the poor. Elizabeth, James I., and Charles I.,
 

A SEVENTEENTH CENTURY Housk IN LONDON.
 

PURITAN LONDON 223

 

attempted to enforce political fasts, chiefly with the object of
fostering the fishing industry, but any salutary results on the
health of the people were not felt by the Londoners ; for it
was stated in 1630 that, while the fasts were observed in the
king’s palace, the houses of nobles and the Inns of Court,
in taverns and places of amusement more meat was eaten on
fasting than on other nights.

Inevitably the city was frequently a prey to epidemics;
1603, 1625, 1630, 1636, 1637, and 1638, were noted plague
years, and the plague of 1603 lingered, with lessening force,
for eight years. Each great visitation had as forerunners
other diseases, smallpox, dysentery, spotted fever, measles.
The largest number of deaths occurred in the poor parishes
outside the walls of London.

Defoe made vivid the horrors of the last great plague year,
1665 ; and it is not to be supposed that he described novelties.
‘‘The Wonderful Yeare,” an account of the plague of 1603
written by one who had witnessed it, tells of the like night-
mare of gloom, wretchedness, and panic. There was panic in
the city when men fled from infected houses to leave the
sick to die untended, when they turned their servants out of
doors to die in hovels and at street corners, when they took
to their beds, resigned to death, so soon as they felt them-
selves unwell. All who could fled from the city in panic, and
in panic the country people sometimes refused to receive
them, and sometimes left them to die in the fields. All the
ordinary machinery of life broke down; nurses, doctors, and
physic were lacking, dead bodies were hastily shovelled into
the ground. Trade and industry were interrupted.

Among precautions taken to prevent the plague were some
efforts to secure more sanitary conditions. A proclamation
in 1630 forbade the building of rooms below a certain height
 

224 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

and of houses which had an overhanging upper storey.
There were attempts to secure greater cleanliness in the
streets. During the outbreak of 1630, the Privy Council
ordered that all infected houses should be shut up, and that
either the inmates should be removed to the pest house or
the doors should be guarded, and should be marked by a red
cross or by the inscription ‘‘ Lord, have mercy upon us!”
These closed houses with theirsinister emblem werea common
sight of the streets in the plague years. All resort to
plays, cock-fights, bull and bear-baitings, shows of tumbling
and rope-dancing, and close bowling-alleys were prohibited.
The mayor and aldermen in 1630 made a report to the lords
of council as to the measures by which they had fought the
disease. Ancient women, reputed to be honest and skilful,
had been appointed for the visited houses and appeared to
have discharged their duties faithfully. Persons who died
of the plague had been buried late at night, and threats or
other means had almost always sufficed to prevent any from
following them to the grave. Certain who had removed
inscriptions from infected houses had been punished. In
1635-6 the Privy Council directed that infected houses should
be cleansed, especially as regarded household stuffs and
bedding.

As to the regulation of traffic in this period, an interesting
petition, which shows perhaps some Puritan bias, was
rendered to the mayor and aldermen in 1618-9 by the
inhabitants and officers of the precinct of Blackfriars. It
was stated that numbers of people and coaches, some of them
hackney coaches in which all manner of persons travelled,
resorted daily to the house in Blackfriars which had been
converted into a playhouse, and “clogged up”’ Ludgate Hill,
impeded traffic and trade, broke down the stalls in the
 

PURITAN LONDON 225

 

street, and were a source of danger to passengers. They
came even in Lent, from one to five o’clock in the afternoon,
and in these, the most usual hours for christenings, burials and
afternoon services, made it impossible for the inhabitants to
gotochurch. The grievance subsisted until 1633, when the
court ofthe Star Chamber, ‘‘ remembering that there is an
easy passage by water into that playhouse,” ordered that
coaches should leave so soon as they had set down their
passengers, and not return until the play was over, and then
go no further than the west entrance to St. Paul’s church-
yard or the Fleet conduit.

In 1634 the history of the London cab had its beginning.
Some enterprising persons placed hackney coaches for hire on
the streets, and a chorus of objections was raised. There
was the inevitable scare of effeminacy, and it was proposed to
forbid the use of the coaches for journeys of less than three
miles, and by unmarried gentlemen not accompanied by their
parents. Other opposition was from the watermen of the
Thames who dreaded competition. In 1636 the hire of
hackney coaches for a distance under three miles was actually
prohibited, on the ground that too general a use of them
would block the streets, break the pavements, and raise the
price of hay. In 1637 however, fifty hackney coaches were
licensed.
CHAPTER XV
REVOLUTION IN LONDON

 

N the game which was played in England from 1642

to 1660 London was a card of the first importance.

To either side to hold the city meant access to great

wealth. The trained bands were a military force

not to be despised; and the city mob, while it was some-

times an uncertain and embarrassing ally, was always a

dreaded enemy. The position of London as a maker of

public opinion was almost equal to her place in the finance

of the kingdom. The sermons, the pamphlets, the talk in

the city could reach all the leaders of the nation, and
constituted a very significant factor in the struggle.

It has been seen that at the outbreak of war the force of
London, as a whole, was ranged on the side of the oppo-
nents of the king. It was never actually lost to them until
1660. But there were many fluctuations of feeling in the
city. The Royalist party in London was a nucleus for dis-
contented citizens, and from time to time its strength was
such as to raise high the hopes of the Royalist agents
who nursed it. There is little doubt that had London ever
seceded to Charles I. the government of the king would have
been restored without the events which intervened between
1649 and 1660.

The chief interest in the Civil War in London, and the
key to its history, is the difference between the opinions of
 

REVOLUTION IN LONDON 227

 

the average Puritan citizen and those of the great Puritan
leaders. The opinions of average men are never entirely
logical, and the politician who neglects their complications
courts disaster. The majority of Londoners were strong
parliamentarians; they hated bitterly the absolutism of a
king, but they had the ultimate sentimental conservatism of
average men which was shocked by the execution of
Charles. I. and by extreme innovations. Their Roundhead
politics were, in part, the result of kingly exactions, and
therefore, naturally, they did not open their purses un-
stintingly to the king’s enemies, but hoped rather for
protection for their possessions. As years passed they lost
some of their ardour of rebellion, and remembered their
private interests and the inconveniences of disorderly times.
The trained bands objected to expeditions which took them
far from their homes. The traders desired peace.

The attitude of the city with regard to ecclesiastical
affairs was more peculiar. The exceptional Puritanism of
Londoners, their bitter opposition to ritualism and to an
episcopal church, have already been noted. In this period
the governing class in the city definitely adhered to one
particular form of Puritan religion, the Presbyterianism of
Scotland. They were the converts of the Scottish preachers
in St. Antholin’s church. The Presbyterian polity is
peculiarly suited to an urban population, the existence of a
large class of prosperous and intelligent laymen, and the
activity of interest in church affairs generated by the number
and proximity of congregations. The self government of
Presbyterian churches accorded with the ancient traditions
of independence in the city ; and in its aristocratic principles,
in the fact that it was governed by elected officials, the
Presbyterian system was like the city’s own constitution.

Q2
 

228 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

Moreover, as was remarked by Professor Gardiner, the intro-
duction of Presbyterianism into London actually gave eccle-
siastical power to those who had previously administered the
secular government; the elders were the men who had
exercised civic control.

In one respect London fell short of the Scottish model.
The censorship of morals assumed by the Presbyterian church
was never seriously adopted in the city, perhaps because
it was really antipathetic to the English temperament.

The middle and lower classes in London were, many of
them, inclined to churches more democratic or more anar-
chical than the Presbyterian. In the latter years of the war
the enmity between Presbyterians and Independents in the
city was almost as bitter as that between Cavaliers and
Roundheads. It was a handicap to Cromwell that he found
his warmest citizen supporters among the poorer men.

This was the city which had to be brought to support
the war and to acquiesce in the Commonwealth and the
Protectorate.

In the first months of hostilities enthusiasm was high, and
contributions of money and men were made loyally. But in
December, 1642, both the Committee of both Houses for the
Advance of Money and the Common Council were beseiged
by a mob who clamoured for peace, and the latter body
received a numerously signed petition to the same end. It
was rejected, yet the council itself drew up a petition to the
king and another to the parliament to ask for peace on
reasonable terms. In May, 1643, a Royalist plot in the city
was discovered and confounded. On the 7th of August the
Common Council in a petition urged the rejection of peace,
and they were supported by the preachers in the city and by
a vociferous mob in Palace Yard. But on the morrow
 

REVOLUTION IN LONDON 229

 

another mob, of women, gathered before the Houses to
clamour for the opposite course. “Give us those traitors
that were against the peace,” they cried, “that we may tear
them to pieces! Give us that dog, Pym!” In November
the London trained bands deserted Waller at Basing House.
The magistrates took up their cause, and were asking in the
end of the year that the three regiments under Essex might
be recalled and the others paid. Another Royalist plot was
suppressed.

In 1644 and 1645 parliament received fairly consistent
support from the city. As, however, the question of the
establishment of Presbyterianism became vital, the diver-
gence between the zeal in this matter of London and the
merely politic attitude of the House of Commons appeared.
In November, 1645, the Common Council petitioned both
houses for Presbyterianism; in the following January they
petitioned the Commons against the toleration of the private
meetings for religious worship frequently held in the city ;
in March they rendered another petition against the clause
in the ordinance for the establishment of Presbyterianism
which gave the right of excommunication to the civil power.
In June and July the Presbyterian system was actually
established in London. In December the city made a peti-
tion unfavourable to the Independents, and in March asked
in another that the king might take the Covenant and the
army be disbanded.

At this time there was a design, in which the Presbyterians
of the city and certain members of parliament co-operated,
to use the London trained bands as a makeweight to the
army. The city petitioned in March that its militia might
be placed under the control of a new committee of its own
choosing, instead of the existing one which was nominated
 

230 HISTORY OP LONDON

 

by parliament. The desired permission was given, and in
May an ordinance of parliament, passed in the absence of
Cromwell, conferred authority on the committee which had
been accordingly formed. The city was further authorized
to raise cavalry for its own defence.

But the warlike spirit which could make these measures
effective was lacking. When the army, who now held the
king, issued from Royston a summons to the city, the
Common Council drew up a temporising answer which
repudiated all intention of resisting the just demands of the
soldiers, but requested them to remain at a distance of thirty
miles, lest they should: raise the price of provisions. The
trained bands were called out, but responded tardily and
without enthusiasm. Finally, on the 13th of June, the
deputation of citizens who had carried the reply of the
Common Council to Fairfax came to terms with the soldiers.

With the imminence of the danger, as Fairfax drew nearer
to the city, there was however a recrudescence of Presby-
terian zeal. Many persons signed, on the azst of July, a
Solemn Engagement to maintain the Covenant and procure
the restoration of the king, conditionally on his abandon-
ment for a term of years of episcopacy and the command of
the militia. But parliament was less resolute. On the 22nd
the Commons, in a thin house, agreed to give back the
control of the trained bands to the parliamentary committee,
and their action was next day confirmed by the Lords. On
the 24th both houses denounced the Solemn Engagement.

At this point the mob intervened. The Common Council
on the 26th petitioned parliament for a new transference to
the city of the command of the civic militia, and the rabble
at Westminster clamoured so fiercely for a favourable answer
that the Lords were intimidated into consent. The Commons
 

REVOLUTION IN LONDON 231

 

were not so easily persuaded. For six hours they persisted in
a refusal, although the mob invaded the lobby of the House,
and interrupted their deliberations with threatening cries of
“Vote! Vote!’ They hustled the servants of officers of the
army on whom they could lay hands. Repeated messages
from the Commons at last brought a sheriff of the city on
the scene, but he arrived with only forty halberdiers, a force
powerless to reduce to order such a multitude. The rioters
could despise his authority. As he appeared they entered
the House itself, and announced to the members that none of
them should stir until the obnoxious ordinance had been
repealed. At eight o'clock in the evening their will was
done.

There was no organization behind these violent acts and
they could have no permanent success. They served princi-
pally the better to excuse the army for marching on the city.
The Common Council wrote indeed to Fairfax, on the 28th,
to urge him to advance no further, and to intimate that
defensive preparations were in course. The trained bands
were sent to the walls, and all able men were ordered to be
levied for purposes of fighting. But in fact the force in the
city was that of anarchy, and its rule was repugnant and
wearisome to the responsible citizens. The Independents
dared again to make themselves heard, and rendered a
petition at the Guildhall, on the and of August, for an accom-
modation with the soldiers. The redoubtable army was
coming nearer and nearer, and in London men were irresolute
and confused. On the 3rd the city announced to Fairfax its
surrender, and on the 7th the soldiers marched through the
streets.

But it was only for fear of worse disasters that they had
been admitted. The predominating class in London had
 

232 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

embraced the ideal of a Presbyterian monarchy, and had
moreover, a sensitive jealousy, born of long traditions, of all
attemptstocoercethem. The election of a compliant mayor
was procured when soldiers had been placed as guards along
the approaches to the Guildhall; but the citizens, with sullen
stubborness, refused to pay the amounts at which they were
assessed by those who had assumed ruling power. It became
apparent that there were still Episcopalians in London; at
Christmastide churches and other public places were
decorated, and the Presbyterians looked on in sullen passivity.

Royalist pamphlets and newspapers were in circulation.
On the 27th of March, 1648, the anniversary of the accession
of the king, there were bonfires in the city, and those who
drove along the streets in coaches were compelled to drink
loyal healths. Inevitably, when in April the Scots invaded
England to support that policy which London had adopted,
there were important sympathetic risings in the city.

In its official person London pursued a similar although a
more guarded and orderly course. In May, June and July
the Common Council petitioned for negotiations with the
king on the basis of his obligation by the Covenant, for his
liberation, for the cessation of arms. Fears were entertained
that the trained bands would secede to the Royalists. When
Prince Charles appeared in the Downs he strengthened for
a time his cause in the city; but as he lingered for more than a
month, blockading the Thames, there was dissatisfaction with
the interruption to trade. This feeling contributed to the
reaction against Royalism which followed on the defeat of
the Scots at Preston on the 17th of August and the surrender
of Colchester on the 28th. London gave up for the moment
the dream of a covenanting king under whom she should
enjoy her old secular and her new ecclesiastical independence.
 

REVOLUTION IN LONDON 223

On the 2nd of December Fairfax was at Whitehall, and the
city was at the mercy of the army. On the 18th a parlia-
mentary ordinance ruled that none who had abetted the
king’s cause or the Scottish invasion might hold a place of
trust in the city or vote at civic elections, and the removal of
the posts and chains in the street, by which a cavalry charge
could be prevented, was directed; and on the 21st a new
Common Council, as completely packed as the House of
Commons, came into existence.

Cromwell’s government of London was a matter of
constant difficulty ; he never secured the co-operation of any
important section of the citizens. The Presbyterians, of
whom the aldermanic class were the leaders, became from
the date of the king’s execution more and more Royalist in
feeling. On the roth of January the mayor refused even to
hear the petition which the packed Common Council wished
to send to the House of Commons in support of the proceed-
ings against Charles; and it was carried, most irregularly,
only after he and the only two aldermen at the meeting had
left the room, and a member of the council, unqualified by
aldermanic office, had been placed in the chair. The House
of Commons pursued repressive measures. They authorised
the council in future to elect a chairman, in accordance with
this disorderly precedent, in the absence of the mayor or his
representative. They made an oath of fidelity to the Com-
monwealth a condition of all future admissions to the
franchise of the city. The mayor refused to proclaim the
act which abolished kingship, and at the bar of the House
he was deprived of his office and sentenced to a fine of £2,000
and imprisonment in the Tower. His successor was elected
by a packed constituency. On the 7th of April five aldermen
were discharged from their places and declared incapable of
 

234 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

office by an ordinance of parliament, and on the 31st of May
two others, one of them the famous Soames, were also
discharged because they had absented themselves, when at
last, on the 30th, the new mayor had gathered courage to
proclaim the abolition of the monarchy. There was difficulty
in finding suitable persons to hold the seven aldermanries
thus vacated. In 1648 an explicit act of parliament disabled
for office in the city and for voting at civic elections all
Presbyterians and Cavalier Royalists. A Royalist conspiracy,
which had depended for funds on London merchants, was
discovered in March, 1651.

There was naturally some approximation in religious
opinions between the two sections of the Royalist party.
The Prayer Book was used in many London churches ona
Sunday in September, 1649. The presbytery of the city was
no longer strong. In 1652 the difficulty of finding suitable
elders was noticeable. The Royalists were offended in
common by the vagaries of the Sectarians.

In the introduction of the government by major generals
into London Cromwell exercised discretion. The controlling
office was at first given to the popular Skippon, but he,
from infirmity or disinclination, did not exercise his powers,
and the major general for Middlesex outside the city was
appointed to act as his substitute. Yet it was not until the
discovery had been made that London was a place of refuge
for Royalists of other districts that the system was enforced
in the capital Then, on the 5th of March, 1656, the
Protector summoned to Whitehall the mayor and aldermen
and other citizens, and announced to them that thenceforth
their city would be governed as was the rest of the country,
and this for the ‘‘sole end” of ‘‘ the security of the peace of
the nation, the suppressing of vice, and the encouragment of
 

REVOLUTION IN LONDON 235

 

virtue.” No militia men other than those raised by civic
ordinance were however to be quartered on the citizens.

The more extreme Puritans also gave some trouble to the
government. In 1657 two petitions tothe Protector opposed
his acceptance of the crown, the one from “ many thousand
religious and well disposed people living in London and parts
adjoining,” who protested against the ‘‘ endeavour to intro-
duce the old demolished fabric of government in its essential
parts,’ the other from nineteen Anabaptist ministers of
London. The Fifth Monarchy Men had considerable
importance in the city, and had there two chief meeting
places. They formed a conspiracy against the government,
which was discovered and suppressed in April, 1657.

Royalism gathered strength in the last years of the Pro-
tectorate. The excise duties on ale and beer and the new
rates of customs were very unpopular among London
merchants. A Royalist insurrection, in which many citizens
were implicated, was planned to take place in May, 1658.
It was anticipated, and seven citizens were, as a result,
condemned to death. Three of them were executed in
Tower Street, Cornhill and Cheapside, but the others were
pardoned because ‘“‘all men appeared so nauseated with
blood and so tired with these abominable spectacles.” When
Charles II. entered London, on the zgth of May, 1660, he
received an enthusiastic welcome marred by no dissentient
voices, though his progress must have been watched by
Sectarians and Republicans, whose thoughts were other than
loyal.

The early years of the Restoration were marked for London
by the great plague of 1665. There had been a minor
outbreak of the epidemic between 1646 and 1648: its
comparative unimportance is attested by an entry made by
 

236 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

Pepys in his diary on the 7th of June, 1665; ‘‘ This day,
much against my will, I did in Drury Lane see two or three
houses marked with a red cross upon the doors, and ‘ Lord
have mercy upon us’ writ there; which was a sad sight to
me, being the first of the kind that to my remembrance I
ever saw.” The plague had come with the warm weather,
and, as usual, it began on the outskirts of the town. On the
roth of June, however, Pepys noted that it had entered the
actual city. On the 23rd he observed that the use of hackney
coaches had become very dangerous, and at Whitehall, on
the 28th, he saw the courtyard filled with waggons and
people who prepared to flee from infection. The number of
deaths increased week by week, and the 12th of July was
appointed as a solemn fast day. Church bells tolled per-
petually for the dead. In August the mortality was such
that the rule to have burials only by night, in order to lessen
chances of infection, had to be transgressed. ‘To the
Exchange,” wrote Pepys on the 16th, ‘‘ where I have not
been a great while. But, Lord! how sad a sight it is to see
the streets empty of people, and very few upon the ’change.
Jealous of every door that one sees shut up, lest it should be
the plague; and about us two shops in three, if not more,
generally shut up.” “But, Lord!” hesays a fortnight later,
“‘how everybody looks, and discourse in the street is of
death and nothing else, and few people going up and down,
that the town is like a place distressed and forsaken.” He
had already remarked, on the occasion of an expedition to
the country, the general dread in which Londoners were held.
“In what fear all the people here do live! How they are
afraid of us that come to them, insomuch that I am troubled
at it and wish myself away.” In September the mayor
ordered that great bonfires should be kept burning in the
 
 

REVOLUTION IN LONDON 237

 

streets in order to purify the air, and they could be seen
blazing on either side of the Thames. The precaution of
shutting up infected houses came to be observed less carefully.
‘To Lambeth,” wrote Pepys on the 2oth of September.
“« , . . Whata sad time it is to see no boats upon the River ;
and grass grows all up and down Whitehall Court, and
nobody but poor wretches in the streets!’’ Illness decreased
as autumn advanced, but when Pepys walked to the Tower
on the 16th of October he found the town empty and
melancholy, ‘‘so many poor sick people in the streets full of
sores, and so many sad stories overheard as I walk.” Ten
days later, however, he observed “the ’change pretty full,
and the town begins to be lively again, though the streets
very empty, and most shops shut;"’ and on the 30th of
November he noted, “‘ my father writes as great news of joy
that he saw York’s waggon go again this week to London, and
full of passengers.” At the end of the year the plague was
“ abated almost to nothing,” and in the middle of January the
city was almost as full of people as ever. Pepys however did
not venture to go to church until the 30th of the month. The
king returned to Whitehall on the 2nd of February, but
throughout the spring the disease lingered, in weakening
force, about the town. Some hundred thousand citizens met
their death by the pestilence in the latter half of 1665. It
was by far the most deadly outbreak of the century.

From the consideration of the horrors of the plague it is
almost a relief to turn to the records of the great fire, which
broke out at 10 o’clock on the night of the 2nd of September,
and in three days consumed the whole overcrowded and insani-
tary city. ‘All the sky,” says Evelyn, “was ofa fiery aspect,
like the top of a burning oven, and the light seen above
forty miles round about for many nights, God grant mine
 

238 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

eyes may never behold the like, who now saw above ten
thousand houses all in one flame ; the noise and crackling and
thunder of the impetuous flames, the shrieking of women and
children, the hurry of people, the fall of Towers, Houses and
Churches, was like an hideous storme, and the air all about
so hot and inflamed that at the last one was not able to approch
it, so that they were forced to stand still and let the flames
burn on, which they did for near two miles in length and
one in breadth. The clouds also of smoke were dismal and
reached upon computation near fifty-six miles in length. . .
London was, but is no more!” The flames were checked
when the wind had abated and the people had to some
extent recovered from their panic. Churches which survived
the fire mark the limits of its devastating course; on the
west those of the Temple, St. Dunstan in the West,
St. Andrew Holborn, and St. Sepulchre; on the north
west St. Bartholomew’s the Less and St. Bartholomew’s
the Great; on the north those of St. Giles Cripple-
gate, St. Alphege and All Hallows London Wall, and
St. Botolph without Bishopsgate; on the east the churches
of St. Ethelburga, St. Helen Bishopsgate, St. Martin Outwich
and St. Peter le Poor, St. Andrew Undershaft, St. Katherine
Cree, All Hallows Steyning, St. James Mitre Square,
St. Katherine Coleman, St. Botolph Aldgate, St. Olave
Hart Street, and All Hallows Barking. To the south the
fire was barred only by the river. On the 5th of September,
Evelyn saw the inhabitants of London “dispers’d about
St. George’s Fields, and Moorfields as faras Highgate, and
several miles in circle, some under tents, some under miserable
huts and hovels, many without a rag or any necessary
utensils, bed or board, who from delicateness riches, and
easy accommodations in stately and well furnished houses,
 

REVOLUTION IN LONDON 239

were now reduced to extremest misery and poverty...
The people who now walked about the ruines appeared like
men in some dismal desart.”

The rebuilding of the city was undertaken immediately.
Sir Christopher Wren would have made it on new lines
according to a beautiful and symmetrical plan, but the
complicated rights of landownership were such that his design
was set aside. The city was rebuilt along the medizval
streets, with the single exception of the construction of the
new way of King Street and Queen Street, to form a straight
road from the Guildhall to the waterside. Even this involved
considerable difficulty in dealing with the rights of those
over whose property it ran. Some streets, notably Fleet
Street and part of Cheapside, were however widened, and
Thames Street was raised three feet above its former level.
Parliament took some care that the new city should be more
solid and regular and less extraordinarily unhealthy than
that which it replaced. Houses were confined by statute
to four classes : those in by-lanes which must be two storeys
high; those in more important streets which must have
three storeys ; those in the principal ways of the city, which
must have four, and the large mansions which did not front
on streets, and which must not exceed four storeys in height.
Thus there was an end to the tumble-down cottages, set at
every angle, which in old London had been numerous. All
the new houses were ordered to be of brick or stone, with
fittings of oak, and to have foundations, and a necessary
thickness for party and other walls was fixed. The drainage
and the paving of the new city were entrusted to a body of
commissioners to be appointed by the Common Council.

Coal duties were assigned to meet the expense of erecting
St. Paul’s and the other public buildings. As to the losses
 

240 HISTORY OF LONDON

of private individuals, they were very heavy, in spite of the
fact that a considerable amount of goods was rescued.
According to Pepys the sites of houses were commonly
computed to be worth one-third of the former value of site
and house together: the city landlords must therefore have
lost, roughly, two-thirds of their property. The merchants
were further impoverished by the burning of the contents of
warehouses, especially numerous on the river-bank. The
fact that London so soon recovered from the disaster of the
fire is proof of the wide and well established nature of her
trade, and of the security of the credit of the citizens. The
Act for the rebuilding laid down that any sites on which the
owners had not built within three years from 1670 might,
after due warning and a further interval of nine months, be
sold by the mayor, aldermen, and Common Council.

Thirty-three parish churches which had been burnt were
not rebuilt. The many churches of London had been
founded in a day when it was considered well to multiply the
houses of God without regard to the accommodation required
by worshippers; and even the greatly increased population
of the city could be served by a less number. Unions of
parishes therefore took place. Fifty-one parish churches
were built again by Sir Christopher Wren, and the interiors
of many of them were decorated by the carving of Grinling
Gibbons. Of those which had escaped the fire that of St..
Katherine Cree, which is still standing, dates also from the
seventeenth century, and that of St. Andrew Holborn was
re-erected in 1687.

These churches, admirable and interesting as is their
construction, lack naturally the rich individuality of the old
buildings which had so crowded London with beauty. They
express a religion shorn of many elements of grace and
 

 

THE GREAT FIRE.

er, in the possession of Robert Colden, Esq.

Mi

reef

by Old €

2g

From the contentporary paintii
 

REVOLUTION IN LONDON 241

 

humanity, and seem to be rather preaching places than
houses of prayer. They would have been indeed in place,
and would have had all the distinction of perfect appropriate-
ness, had they stood in the finely planned city which was
Wren’s dream.

The two last Stewart kings took effective means to rid
themselves of the allegiance of the citizens. In December
1681 a writ guo warranto was issued for an enquiry into the
liberties of the city of London. The scheme had been
conceived by the duke of York and he was not satisfied to
await the due course of legal procedure. Both sheriffs were
at this time elective officers, but, by an obsolete custom, one
of them had been nominated by the mayor at the Bridge
House feast. The duke procured that a certain Dudley North,
a Turkey merchant, should in such manner be chosen to hold
the shrievalty, and expected the formal confirmation of the
appointment at the election. But the liverymen were largely
Whig and determined to elect freely two sheriffs, and they
were supported by the lawyers; the Tory mayor was upheld
by the Privy Council. There were some disorderly attempts
to hold a poll, but at last the court party carried the day
against an obvious majority of liverymen and North was
sworn sheriff. In September 1682 there was no Lord
Mayor’s banquet, because, ‘‘ since the city was come under
a military government,” it was thought to be “no proper
time for feasting.” In that year, however, the superior Tory
organization procured the election of another mayor of their
own party.

On the 12th of June, 1683, the city’s charter was declared
forfeit by the court of the King’s Bench. The judgment was
not at once placed formally on record, that the city might have
an opportunity for some voluntary submission. On the

H.L. R
 

242 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

18th the citizens humbly petitioned the king, and the lord
keeper replied that their charter would be restored to them
if they suffered their election of mayor, sheriffs and other
officials to be subject to a royal veto. The exercise of the
veto would necessitate a new election, and if the person
thereby appointed were still displeasing to the king, the
vacant office would be filled by royal nomination. These
terms were refused by a majority of eighteen of the Common
Council, and the decision of the King’s Bench was therefore
put in force. The city passed under kingly control. It
retained its framework of government but all its elected
officers became royal nominees.

Anti-papal riots in 1685 and 1688 were an indication of the
unpopularity of the government of JamesII. The restoration
of the charter of London was one of the hasty concessions
made by the king in 1688, when he realized how insecure was
his throne, but the gratitude of the citizens naturally was
rendered to William of Orange. The city magistrates sent
to that prince an invitation to advance to their defence,
and it is noteworthy that he considered this call as a weighty
factor in the legalization of his entry into England.

Mr. and Mrs. Webb state justly, in their ‘ Local
Government,” that the accession of William and Mary began
for London “a new era, characterised by persistent non-
intervention on the part of the National Executive.” It is
therefore fitting to review the constitution at this date of the
city’s government.

In the first place it is notable how wide was the franchise
of the city: almost all the resident householders were
freemen, although a comparatively small number of them
held the higher rank which admitted to government of the
livery companies.
 

REVOLUTION IN LONDON 243

 

The smallest sub-divisions of the city area for secular
purposes were the precints, of which several existed in each
ward and each of which included some hundred houses.
Each precinct held a meeting which had for its business the
nomination of a Common Councilman, a constable, a
scavenger, a questman, and sometimes a collector of rates.
The ancient court of the whole ward, the wardmote, was
still important, and was open to every ratepayer, whether or
not he held the city’s freedom. At it were elected the clerk
and the beadle of the ward; and the nominees of the
precincts for the constabularies and for places on the inquest
or jury of the ward received or were denied confirmation.
This inquest, formed of the several questmen, annually
perambulated the ward in order to “inspect the weights and
measures, survey the pavements, detect any non-freeman
who presumed to carry on business in the ward” and
execute other like duties. Another authority for the whole
ward was its Common Council, constituted by the four to
sixteen Common Councilmen, usually returned by the
precincts, who represented it on the Common Council of
London. Mr. and Mrs. Webb surmise that they assumed
power to meet within the several wards early in the
seventeenth century, after the inquest had suffered degener-
ation. They had for presidents the aldermen of the
respective wards and they held frequent meetings for the
transaction of executive business connected with paving,
lighting, sanitation, and the watches. The machinery of the
wards provided the city with “twenty-six complicated little
police forces . . . , unpaid constables, or hireling substitutes,
beadles or bellmen, street-keepers, or watchmen.”

The Common Council of the city had definitely emerged
as its principal governing body. Consisting, as it did, of the

R2
 

244 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

mayor and the twenty-five other aldermen, and of the couple
of hundred commoners elected, as has been seen, within the
precincts, it tended to have a democratic majority. That
majority had acquired supremacy under the Commonwealth,
and had been set aside in the Restoration period.

The aristocratic section, the mayor and aldermen, them-
selves constituted a court, that of the aldermen. They were
the second chamber in the city’s constitution, and exercised
certain rights of control over the more popular assembly, as
that of presiding over its deliberations, which was overridden
in 1649. They claimed ability to veto elections to the
aldermanries, and conferred or refused the franchise of the
city. The aldermen were, moreover, the justices of peace
of the city.

The courts of the Common Council and of the mayor and
aldermen were developments of the ancient institutions of
the city, but another court was the outcome of the later
element introduced by the accession to political power of the
trading companies. The Common Hail had powers which
may probably be traced back to the enactment of 1475-6 by
which the Common Council were enabled to associate with
themselves, for the election of sheriffs, ‘‘ honest men of their
mysteries.” The election of the great officers of the corpor-
ation had, in the two centuries after that date, come to be
appropriated entirely by the liverymen as distinguished from
the humbler members, the mere freemen, of the companies.
The liverymen constituted the court of Common Hall, and
chose annually the lord mayor, the sheriffs, the four auditors
of the corporation accounts, and the four aleconners, and,
from time to time, the chamberlains, the bridgemasters, and
the four representatives of the city in the House of Commons.
The fact that the executive was so appointed caused the
 

REVOLUTION IN LONDON 245

 

constitution of the city to have finally an aristocratic rather
than a popular character.

The intensity and the multiple forms of the local govern-
ment of London made many citizens busy on her behalf.
To the secular was added the ecclesiastical establishment,
the vestries superseded for a time by the presbyteries. A
peculiar character, an activity of intelligence which is often
petty, a venerance for forms and a Zeal for detail, is generated
in societies by constitutions of this class) How very
numerous in the little city must have been the men of that
type so familiar in modern times, the men who love to be on
committees! How many citizens must have tried their
neighbours in the pride of a trivial office! Seventeenth
century Londoners were not without the worst character-
istics of public men, the tendency to consider themselves
fit objects for the expenditure of public funds. The meetings
of precincts, ward inquests, and the Common Councils of
wards, were often occasions for dinners and for convivial
gatherings in taverns. The habit of quarrelling acquired at
assemblies of a small governing body was strengthened by
the confirmed habit of quarrelling on matters connected with
church or creed. The conceit of the officer was increased
by his religious intolerance. At this period, when religious
and political animosity were very keen, it is likely that the
average Londoner was not an agreeable person.

In the first half of the seventeenth century the city of
London fought, with some nobility, for the maintenance of
certain principles. In the decade which preceded the
Restoration the more powerful citizens abandoned ideals of
which the pursuit would have led them further than they
were inclined to go; and when, after the Restoration, they
had again accepted the old order, the government of the
 

246 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

country dared to flout their power, and met with tame sub-
mission. In the years before the Revolution London had to
make the best of a position of degradation. All this necessity
for compromise had its natural effect. The government of
London was no exception to the conditions of other English
institutions under the last two Stewarts: there, as elsewhere,
the rule was largely cynical and materialistic ; corruption and
the use of questionable expedients were common.
CHAPTER XVI

THE WEST END UNTIL THE
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

 

T the end of the sixteenth century the man who
walked out of the city at Temple Bar found
himself in a street of gabled houses, which led
without interruption to Charing Cross. On the

site indicated by modern Essex Street, with gardens fronting
the Thames, was Essex House, in the place of the ancient
inn of the bishops of Exeter. Bishop Edmond Lacy had built
there a great hall in the reign of Henry VI.; it had passed
into lay possession and had been enlarged by William Lord
Paget, and subsequently it had been the London house of the
two famous favourites of Elizabeth, Leicester, who rebuilt
it, and Essex. Arundel Street marks the place of Arundel
House, once the inn of the bishops of Bath, but afterwards
held and largely rebuilt by Thomas Seymour, lord high
admiral under Edward VI. and brother to the Protector.
Under Elizabeth the house belonged to the earls of Arundel.
Near it was Somerset House, the magnificent palace built
for himself by the Protector Somerset, which after his death
accrued to the crown. Its site had been occupied formerly
by Strand Inn, and the inns of the bishops of Chester and
of Worcester. Elizabeth gave it into the keeping of her
kinsman, Lord Hunsdon. West of it was the Savoy
 

248 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

Hospital, and west of that Bedford House, which had once
been the inns of the bishops of Carlisle, but had passed from
them to the earls of Bedford. The Hotel Cecil and Salis-
bury Street indicate the place of “a large and stately house
of brick and timber” built by Sir Robert Cecil, second son
to Lord Burleigh. Near it to the west was Durham House,
which for many years was the town residence of the bishops
of Durham. It was acquired by the crown under Henry
VIII., and gained fame as the place of the marriage of Lady
Jane Grey, and again as the dwelling-house of Sir Walter
Raleigh, on whom it was bestowed by Elizabeth. “I well
remember,” says Aubrey, “his study, which was in a little
turret that looked into and over the Thames, and had the
prospect which is, perhaps, as pleasant as any in the world.”
York Place occupied the site of Villiers Street, Duke Street,
and Buckingham Street. Originally the inn of the bishops
of Norwich, it was acquired under Mary by the archbishops
of York.

On the north side of the Strand there were fewer great
houses. Exeter Hall and Exeter Street show the place of
Exeter House, which was built by Lord Burleigh, and
acquired its name on the succession to its ownership of his
son, the earl of Exeter. The earl of Bedford built for
himself, under Elizabeth, a new house on the site marked by
modern Bedford Street, in place of that which he held on
the river bank. As at present, the church of St. Clement
Danes stood on an island in the street, but under Elizabeth
there were crowded close around it “one large middle row
of houses and small tenements ... , partly opening to the
south, partly towards the north.”

Westwards from Holborn Bars, along Holborn and modern
Broad Street and High Street, were “many fair houses
 

WEST END—EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 249

 

builded, and lodgings for gentlemen, inns for travellers, and
such like, up almost—for it lacketh but little—to St. Giles in
the fields.” The parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields was, in the
middle ages, an isolated suburban village, and it was not until
the latter part of Elizabeth’s reign that Holborn, outside the
actual city, could be called a street of London. Stow
describes its buildings as for the most part ‘“‘ very new.” At
its east end Gray’s Inn Lane, which had, to the limit of the
Inn of Court, ‘‘ fair buildings and many tenements on both
the sides,” led “to the fields, towards Highgate and Hamp-
stead.” Southampton House, once the inn of the earl of
Southampton, stood very near the present site of Bloomsbury
Square, and was in 1591 still surrounded by fields, which
interrupted the row of houses along Holborn. Chancery
Lane led southwards to the Strand, past the domains of the
lawyers. The two great thoroughfares were otherwise joined
by Drury Lane, which had houses clustered round its
northern end, and which derived its name from Drury House
at its southern extremity, so called after the family which
held it. There were near Drury House “ divers fair buildings,
hostelries, and houses for gentlemen of honour’’; but the
lane, after it had passed these and before it had reached the
vicinity of Holborn, was a country road bordered by green
fields. Beyond St. Giles’s was an even more rural way,
St. Martin’s Lane, which led southwards to Charing Cross,
and had buildings only at its southern end, among them
the royal mews. Another country road from St. Giles’s
followed the line of Oxford Street, and yet another was
that of which the further part became Piccadilly. Charing
Cross, the origin of which is earlier than the date of Queen
Eleanor’s death, stood where is now the equestrian statue of

Charles I.
 

250 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

Along the course of Whitehall, from Charing Cross to
Westminster, the fashionable had also established themselves
recently. On either side of the street there were “ divers
fair houses” and tenements, “ lately builded.”

The chief glory of this street was “the White Hall,” that
most royal of the palaces of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen-
turies. It faced the river in the place now occupied by White-
hall Gardens, Montagu House, and the Board of Trade, and it
extended to St. James’s Park. A house on part of the site was
built by Hubert de Burgh in the reign of Henry III.; it was
bought by the archbishop of York in 1248, and for nearly three
centuries was attached to his see and known as York House.
Wolsey is said to have rebuilt it, and to him is ascribed the
‘“sumptuous magnificence,” which “ most probably has never
been equalled ’’ by ‘‘ any other English subject, or surpassed
in the palaces of many of its kings.” The house devolved on
the crown when Wolsey was disgraced, and Henry VIII.
added to it many “distinct, beautiful, costly, and pleasant
lodgings for his Grace’s singular pleasure, comfort and
commodity, to the great credit of the realm,” and ‘‘ inclosed
the premises by a wall of brick and stone for a park, with
many conveniences and decorations, fit only for the residence
and honour of so great a Prince.” In ‘ Henry VIII.” there
occur, in allusion to the palace, the lines:

“ Sir,
You must no more call it York Place; that’s past:

For since the Cardinal fell, that title’s lost ;
*Tis now the King’s and called Whitehall.”

The house was a fine specimen of Tudor architecture.
The road from Charing Cross abutted on it, but a passage
through its precincts preserved the right of way to West-
minster. This was entered by two beautiful gates, the one
 

WEST END—EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 251

 

at the end of the road from Charing Cross, the other at the
extremity of the King’s Street which led to Westminster.

Near the palace was the place afterwards known as Old
Scotland Yard. It had been the residence of Scottish kings
when they were in London, and Stow relates that as such it
was occupied by Margaret Tudor under Henry VIII. Inthe
reign of Elizabeth it had fallen into decay. On the other
side of the street, opposite St. James’s Park, there was “a
large tilt yard for noblemen and others to exercise themselves
in jousting, tourneying and fighting at barriers.”

The park had appertained to the hospital of St. James,
Westminster. When surrendered to the crown it became a
royal pleasure ground, and Henry VIII. built in it ‘a
magnificent and goodly house.” St. James’s palace is
described in the reign of Elizabeth as “of a quadrate forme,
erected of brick, the exterior shape whereof, although it
appears without any sumptous or superflous devices, yet is
the spot very princely, and the same with art contrived
within and without. It standeth from other buildings about
two furlongs, having a farm house opposite to its north gate.
But the situation is pleasant, indued with a good air and
pleasant prospects. On the east London offereth itself in
view; in the south the stately buildings of Westminster,
with the pleasant park, and the delights thereof; on the
north the green fields.” The northern entrance to the palace
was from a country road which ran along the north side of
the park to Charing Cross, and is now represented by Pall
Mall.

King Street, which made way in 1900 for government
premises, was “all replenished with buildings and inhabi-
tants.” Buildings of various descriptions were clustered
round Westminster Palace and Abbey and St. Margaret's
 

250 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

church. From the gateway of the palace Tothill Street led
into Tothill Fields, and was bordered by houses, among them
one owned by Lord Grey de Wilton, and Stourton House
built by Gregory, Lord Dacre of the South, who died in 1594.

Hyde Park, like St. James’s, owes its institution to
Henry VIII. He reserved to the crown, at the dissolution
of religious houses, certain property of Westminster Abbey
which included the manor of Hyde, and he disposed 620
acres as a park for hunting. Of this area, then situated in
the open country, part has gone to make Hyde Park Corner
and part has been included in Kensington Gardens. A royal
proclamation issued in 1536 preserved the game in the park
and its neighbourhood; it forbade any to hunt or hawk
“from the palace of Westminster to St. Giles’s in the Fields,
and from thence to Islington, to Our Lady of the Oak, to
Highgate, to Hornsey Park, and to Hampstead Heath.” In
1582 John Casimir, son to Frederick III., Elector Palatine,
“killed a barren doe with his piece in Hyde Park, from
amongst three hundred other deer;” and in the same year
“two new standings in Marylebone and Hyde Park” were
made, “for the Queen’s majesty and the noblemen of France
to see the hunting.”

Such was London west of the city liberties at the end of
the reign of Elizabeth. The district known in modern times
as the West End was little developed in the succeeding half
century. Some stately houses were built. On part of the
present site of Buckingham Palace was Goring House in
which George, Lord Goring, afterwards Earl of Norwich, was
living in 1630, and which was subsequently occupied by
Lenthall, Speaker of the House of Commons, Tart Hall,
which stood next to it, was built for Alethea, Lady Arundel,
in 1638, and inherited by her second son, the Lord Stafford
 

WEST END—EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 253

 

who was beheaded in 1680. The rest of the site of Bucking-
ham Palace was occupied by Mulberry Garden, a pleasure
garden known to Pepys. Berkshire House stood at the
corner of Pall Mall! and the road which led from St. James’s
Palace to Piccadilly. Spring Gardens were at the eastern
corner of St. James’s Park and were a great resort of fashion
in the seventeenth century. They were described in 1659 as
an “‘inclosure not disagreeable, for the solemness of the
grove is broken by the warbling of the birds, as it opens into
the spacious walks at St. James’s. . . . The thickets of the
garden seem to be contrived to all advantages of gallantry.”
Visitors were “ refreshed with the collation; which is here
seldom omitted, at a certain cabaret in the middle of this
paradise, where the forbidden fruits are certain trifling tarts,
neats’ tongues, salacious meats, and bad Rhenish; for which
the gallants pay sauce, as indeed they do at all such houses
throughout England.”

The Haymarket was a mere lane which had at its northern
end a gaming house. It was continued northwards from
Pall Mall to modern Oxford Street, then known as the way
to Tyburn or to Paddington, by a road sparsely bordered by
houses which had on its west side a windmill, and of which
part is now Windmill Street.

The real West End of the early Stewarts was the West
Central district of modern London. The Strand was still a
street of great mansions, some of which suffered changes of
ownership. The house facing the river which had belonged
to the earls of Bedford became the property of Henry, first
Marquess of Worcester, and was thereafter known as
Worcester House. Drury House was bought and rebuilt by

1 So called because the game of “ paille maille,” a species of croquet,
was played in it.
 

254 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

the Lord Craven who flourished under James I., and came
to be called Craven House. York House was acquired in
1624 by Buckingham, and was demolished and rebuilt. It
was bestowed by Cromwell on Fairfax, whose daughter
married the second duke of Buckingham. Durham House
reverted to the see which had named it at Raleigh’s imprison-
ment; and on part of the site an exchange, known as Britain’s
Burse, which consisted of various shops, was opened in 1609.
At the corner of modern Wellington Street, Wimbledon
House was built by Sir Edward Cecil, son to the first earl of
Exeter, but was burnt in 1628. Northumberland House had
a site at the top of modern Northumberland Avenue. It
was built by the earl of Northampton in 1605, and subse-
quently held by the earl of Suffolk who called it Suffolk
House, and, after 1642, by the earl of Northumberland. In
August, 1647 the Puritans demolished the beautiful Charing
Cross.

“ Undone, undone, the lawyers are ;

They wander about the towne;

Nor can find the way to Westminster
Now Charing Cross is downe.

At the end of the Strand they make a stand,
Swearing they are at a loss,

And chaffing say that’s not the way,
They must go by Charing Cross.”

Along the line of Holborn, Broad Street and High Street,
to the junction of the way to Tyburn with that now Tottenham
Court Road, there was a serried row of houses. Northwards
of Holborn there was little extension, but between 1603 and
1658 the area enclosed by Holborn, Chancery Lane, St.
Martin’s Lane and the Strand came to be covered with
buildings interrupted only by the green spaces of Lincoln’s
Inn Fields, St. Giles’s Fields and Covent Garden. Its chief
 

 

 

      

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DuRHAM HousgE, SALISBURY House AND WORCESTER HOUSE.
 

WEST END—EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 255

 

thoroughfares were, from west to east, Long Acre and Queen
Street, now Great Queen Street, and the road now New
Street and King Street, continued by Russell Street, and by
Princes Street and Duke Street, which have become Kemble
Street and Sardinia Street. From north to south Drury
Lane was still the main way. There were many smaller
streets intersecting this district, which until the construction
of Charing Cross Road, Shaftesbury Avenue and the Kings-
way, was one of the most labyrinthine in all London. The
houses were packed closely together and hardly any of them

had gardens.
_ St. Martin’s Lane abutted to the north on St. Giles’s
Fields, an area roughly rectangular of which diagonals are
now formed by Earle Street and St. Andrew Street. It had
been part of the lands of the leper hospital of St. Giles. A
commission was formed in 1618 ‘‘ to reduce Lincoln’s Inn
Fields,” hitherto a mere waste, ‘‘ into walks;” and Inigo
Jones was requisitioned to make of the place that invention
of the period, a London square. He built along its western
side the houses known as Arch Row, of which one was the
dwelling of the earl of Lindsey. The building of the other
two sides, Portugal Row and Newman’s or Holborn Row,
was delayed by the civil troubles, until in 1657 permission for
it was obtained. Covent Garden, so called because it had
been a ‘‘ convent garden,” an appurtenance of Westminster
Abbey, constituted part of the property on which the
Elizabethan earl of Bedford built his house in the Strand.
The market was laid out by the sixth earl in 1631, but had as
such little importance until the next century.

The whole district was very fashionable. In Drury Lane
dwelt Lady Jacob, wife of Christopher Brooke the poet, Sir
William Alexander, Earl of Stirling, who also was a poet, and
 

256 HISTORY OF LONDON

the celebrated marquess of Argyll of the reign of Charles I.
Oliver Cromwell lived in Long Acre in the eventful years from
1637 to 1643, and had for a near neighbour Nicholas Stone
the sculptor. In 1646 Cromwell was established in Drury
Lane. Inigo Jones about the year 1634 built an open
arcade, which enclosed a rectangular space, to the north of
Covent Garden Market. It was called the Piazza, and
houses which fronted on it were inhabited by Thomas Killi-
grew the wit from 1637 to 1642 and from 1660 to 1662, by
Denzil Holles in 1644 and after 1666, and by Sir Harry Vane
the younger in 1647. Lord Stirling in 1637 had moved
thither from Drury Lane. ‘God send you joy of your new
habitation,” wrote Howel from the Fleet prison in 1645 to the
great Lord Herbert, “for I understand your Lordship is
removed from the King’s Street to the Queen’s. It may be
with this enlargement of dwelling your Lordship may need a
recruit of servants.” In this house Herbert died three years
later. Fairfax was also living in Queen Street in 1648.
Carr, Earl of Somerset, was in 1644 an inhabitant of Russell
Street ; and in 1659 Evelyn “ tooke lodgings at the 3 I"eathers
in Russell Street, Covent Garden, for all the winter.” The
crowded building in the neighbourhood explains the occur-
rence in it of the first outbreak of the great plague.

In Leicester Fields, now part of Leicester Square, the
earl of Leicester built a house in the reign of Charles I., and
at much the same time the earl of Newport erected Newport
House of which the site is indicated by Newport Street.
These houses were situated in some isolation.

The West End of modern times was founded in the days
of the Restoration. In 1665 Henry Jermyn, Earl of St.
Albans, petitioned the king. ‘‘ Whereas the beauty of this
great town and the convenience of the Court are defective in
 

WEST END—EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 257

 

point of houses fit for the dwellings of noblemen and other
persons of quality, and that your Majesty hath thought fit
for some remedy hereof to appoint that the Place of St.
James’s Field should be built in great and good houses, it is
represented that unless your Majesty be pleased to grant the
inheritance of the ground whereon some 13 or 14 houses
that will compose the said place are to stand, it will be very
hard to attain the end proposed, for that men will not build
palaces upon any terms but that of inheritance.” The
desired grant was obtained in 1665, and St. James’s
Square was inaugurated accordingly. St. Albans built for
himself first a house at the south eastern corner of the square,
afterwards Norfolk House, then another at the western
corner of York Street, which came to be known as Ormond
House. There is in ‘‘ The History of St. James’s Square,”
by Arthur Irwin Dasent, a detailed account of these houses
and of some of the other “ palaces” of the square, of Derby
House, Ossulston House, Halifax House and Cleveland
House. Among their occupants in the seventeenth century
were Sir John Duncombe, Chancellor of the Exchequer
under Charles II.; the Frenchman Louis de Dumas, after-
wards Earl of Faversham, who commanded the royal forces
at Sedgemoor; Sunderland whom Queen Anne called “the
subtlest, workingest villian that is on the face of the earth ” ;
the twentieth earl of Oxford; the first Lord Belasyse ;
Cavendish, the zealous Protestant; the great duke of
Ormond; Lord Halifax, the Trimmer; and Arthur Capel,
earl of Essex. The district of the square was taken from
the parish of St. Martin-in-the-Fields to form a distinct
parish for which the church of St. James in Piccadilly was
founded. It had a congregation which in modishness outdid
all others in the town. Mr. Dasent quotes a dialogue from

H.L, s
 

258 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

“ Relapse, or Virtue in Danger,’’ a comedy by Vanburgh
produced at Drury Lane in 1697:

‘¢ Bervinthtia:: Pray which church does your lordship most oblige with

your presence ?

Lord Foppington: Oh! St. James’s, madam; there’s much the best
company.

Amanda: Is there good preaching too ?

Lord Foppington ; Why, faith, madam, I can’t tell. A man must have
very little to do there that can give an account of the sermon.”

Simultaneously with the square the rest of the West End
was building. It had in 1675 the streets of Piccadilly,
Jermyn Street and Pall Mall, and, to connect Pall Mall and
Piccadilly, the Haymarket and St. James’s or James Street.
York Street, Charles Street and King Street gave entrance to
St. James’s Square, and Duke Street joined King Street to
Piccadilly. From Piccadilly Swallow Street and Chip Street,
now Sackville Street, went northwards. Suffolk Street was
reached from the Haymarket, from which James Street, now
part of Orange Street, and Panton Street, led eastwards, and
Morris Street, as well as Charles Street, westwards.

In 1664 Clarendon obtained a grant of a site in Piccadilly
opposite to St. James’s Street. Here he built Clarendon
House, of which Evelyn in January, 1666, says: “I have
never seen a nobler pile... It is, without hyperboles,
the best contrived, the most useful, graceful and elegant
house in England... Here is state and use, solidity and
beauty most symmetrically combined together... When
I had seriously contemplated every room (for I went into
them all, from the cellar to the platform’ on the roof),
seen how well and judiciously the walls were erected, the
arches cut and turned, the timber braced, their scantlings
and contignations disposed, I was incredibly satisfied, and
 

WEST END—EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 259

 

do acknowledge myself to have much improved by what I
observed.” The architect was Pratt. After Clarendon’s
flight from England, in 1667, the house was inhabited by
the duke of Ormond. When the founder had died in exile
his sons, in 1674, sold it to the second duke of Albemarle,
who named it Albemarle House. In or before 1686 it was
bought by Sir Thomas Bond of Peckham and others who
founded on its site Stafford Street, Bond Street, Albemarle
Street, and Dover Street.

Berkeley House was erected in 1665, on the present site of
Devonshire House, for Sir John Berkeley of Buxton, after-
wards Lord Berkeley of Stratton. In 1684, after Lord
Berkeley’s death, his widow let a part of the gardens for the
foundation of Berkeley Street and Stratton Street. ‘‘I could
not but deplore,” says Evelyn, ‘‘ that swete place (by far the
most noble gardens, courts and accommodations, stately
porticoes, etc., anywhere about the towne) should be so much
straitened and turned into tenements.” The house was
occupied in 1695 by the Princess Anne, afterwards queen,
and in 1697 was sold to the first duke of Devonshire.
Berkeley Square was laid out on part of the gardens, and the
building of it was begun in 1698; but it was not completed
for some twenty or thirty years.

The first Burlington House, a mansion of red brick, was
built between 1664 and 1667, and was inhabited by the earl
of Burlington.

The West End of the seventeenth century did not extend
far north of Piccadilly. Pennant describes Oxford Street or
the Tyburn Road as it was in 1716. “I remember there
was a deep hollow road and full of sloughs; there was here
and there a ragged house, the lurking-place of cut-throats :
insomuch that I never was taken that way, in my hackney

s 2
 

260 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

coach, to a worthy uncle’s ... but I went in dread the
whole way.” The building of Grosvenor Square was begun
in 1695; that of Golden Square some ten years earlier.

Green Park, generally known as Upper St. James’s Park,
lay, as at present, on the southern side of further Piccadilly.
Beyond it and beyond Westminster the districts of Belgravia
and Pimlico were still entirely rural.

Goring House was bought in 1662 by Henry Bennett after-
wards Earl of Arlington, who in 1672 was able to add the
Mulberry Gardens to the property. The house was burnt
in 1674 and rebuilt as Arlington House. A more celebrated
fire was that which in 1678 consumed Whitehall. Queen
Square, Westminster, for long called Queen Anne Square,
dates probably from the last years of this century. It is
described in 1708 as ‘‘a beautiful new square of very fine
buildings.”

But fashion in the late seventeenth century did not reside
only in the West End. The district immediately west of
St. Martin’s Lane was also patronised by the quality;
in 1675 Mr. Secretary Coventry’s house stood in what camte
to be called Coventry Street, and Windmill Street existed as
such ; and in the reign of Charles II. the two great squares,
Leicester Square and Soho Square, hardly eclipsed by
St. James’s, were built.

Leicester House was still owned and occupied by the earls
of Leicester of the Sidney family, of whom Robert, the father of
Algernon Sidney, there had charge of the duke of Gloucester
and the Princess Elizabeth, while the king was a prisoner.
In 1662 the house was let by the earl to the queen of
Bohemia, who removed thither from Craven House. “I shall
think it a great happiness to me,” Leicester wrote, “if the air
of my house may contribute to the recovery of her health, or
 

WEST END—EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 261

 

that I myself may be of any service to her Majesty.” It was
probably in order to gain fresher air that the queen had left
Drury Lane, but the change availed her little for she died
in Leicester House very soon after her arrival there. The
square was completed about the year 1671. There were in it
Ailesbury House, held successively by the earl of Elgin,
created earl of Ailesbury in 1665, and by the unpopular
Peregrine Osborne, Marquess of Carmarthen, and the
houses of Dr. Lloyd, Bishop of St. Asaph, and of Lord
Chancellor Somers. Some of the neighbouring streets were
built between 1680 and 1700, notably Gerrard Street where,
on the site of number 43, Dryden lived in the last years of his
life, ‘a poor inhabitant ”’ of ‘‘ the suburbs, whose best prospect
is on the garden of Leicester House,” Numbers 34 and 35
occupy the place of Gerrard or Macclesfield House which
named the street and where lived the Gerrards, earls of
Macclesfield.

Soho Square was made some ten years after Leicester
Square, and was at first called King Square, after a certain
Gregory King who participated in the work of building it.
Its whole southern side was acquired in 1681 by Monmouth,
as a site fora house of extraordinary magnificence. ‘‘ The
principal room on the ground floor was a dining room,
the carved and gilt panels of which contained whole
length pictures. The principal room on the first floor
was lined with blue satin superbly decorated with pheasants
and other birds in gold. The chimneypiece was richly
ornamented with fruit and foliage; in the centre, within a
wreath of dark leaves, was a circular space for a bust.”
Evelyn has the following entry in his diary: “ November 27,
1690.—I went to London with my family to winter at Soho
in the great square.” Thither sometimes the ambitious city
 

262 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

merchant came to live, for in Shadwell’s play, ‘‘ The
Scourers,” printed in 1691, Sir Will says of Sir Humphrey
Maggot: “‘ That’s the coxcombly Alderman, that married my
termagant Aunt; She has this dolt under correction and has
forced him out of Mark Lane to live in Soho Square.” Between
1680 and 1700 smaller streets were built around the Square,
Dean Street, Greek Street, Frith Street, and others.

Already in 1678 the population of the neighbourhood was
such that the parish of St. Anne Soho, which includes part of
Leicester Square, was separated from that of St. Martin-in-
the-Fields. The foreign character of the lesser streets of the
Soho district was established before the end of the seven-
teenth century. In them many of the Huguenots, driven
from France by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes,
probably settled.

One other quarter of London was building in this period,
and was becoming a place for the dwelling houses of the
great and wealthy; “to such a mad intemperance,” in the
words of Evelyn, ‘‘ was the age come, of building about a
citty.””. The manor of Bloomsbury had, since the reign of
Henry VIII., been held by the Wriothesleys, Earls of
Southampton. A new Southampton House was built under
Charles II. for the earl who was the son of Shakespeare’s
patron. It was known afterwards as Bedford House, and
occupied the whole northern side of Bloomsbury Square,
then called Southampton Square, to which there is an
allusion in 1666 as ‘“‘the great square” in Bloomsbury.
In this square Lord Chesterfield was living in 1681.
“I wish,” Arlington wrote to him, “ you would give me
commission to let your house in Southampton Square and
hire you another near Whitehall, that I might, with less
trouble to you, enjoy the honour and satisfaction of a frequent
 

WEST END—EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 263

 

conversation with you.” Great Russell Street was built
about 1670, and contained a house erected for himself by
Sir Christopher Wren. Montague House, on the north side
of Great Russell Street, was built in 1678 for the Lord
Montague, whom Queen Anne made a duke. It was burnt
in 1686. Red Lion Square was begun about the year 1698,
and at much the same time Queen Square, of which the
north side ‘‘ was left for the sake of the beautiful landscape
formed by the hills of Highgate and Hampstead, together
with the adjacent fields.”

To some extent fashion abandoned the older quarters for
the new. ‘The famous mansions of the Strand fell from their
high place. Meaner buildings were in course of erection or
stood already, in 1675, on the sites of Essex House, Arundel
House, Salisbury House, and York House, as well as that of
Durham House. Drury Lane and some of its neighbour-
hood were accounted disreputable towards the end of the
century, but the Piazza, a pleasanter place, enjoyed for
longer an aristocratic character. Between 1660 and 1700 it
was inhabited by Sir Kenelm Digby, Lord Crewe, Bishop of
Durham, the last earl of Oxford, Sir Dudley North, Lady
Muskerry, and two great painters, Lely, who lived at the
north east corner from 1662 until his death in 1680, and
Knellner, who after 1680 was in a house near Covent Garden
Theatre, and had there an ‘‘ extremely curious and inviting ”
back garden. Great Queen Street also continued respectable.

The tradesmen who established themselves west of the
city naturally supplied the needs of the locality, and in 1700
a pamphleteer condemned the extension of the city because
it had attracted many countrymen to live about London as
‘“‘ maintainers of luxury.” With one exception the playhouses
of the Restoration were in this district. Immediately after
 

264 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

the king’s return some of the old actors collected and gave
performances in certain theatres which had been in use before
the Commonwealth: the Red Bull in St. John Street,
Clerkenwell, Salisbury Court or Whitefriars, and the Cockpit
in Drury Lane, and in a tennis court in Vere Street, Clare
Market, improvised for the purpose. In 1661 Davenant
engaged a company, sworn to serve the duke of York, to act
in the theatre he had erected in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and on
the 8th of April, 1663, the Theatre Royal, in which the king’s
company acted and for which Killigrew was responsible, was
opened in Drury Lane. It was burnt in 1671-2, but rebuilt,
and opened again on the 26th of March, 1674. The duke
of York’s company abandoned the house in Lincoln’s Inn
Fields in 1671, in favour of another theatre called the Dorset
Garden, on the river side of Fleet Street, which occupied
part of the site of a former house of Thomas Sackville, earl
of Dorset, the poet. In 1684 the two companies of actors
united. The Little Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre was founded
by Betterton and opened in 1695.

These theatres differed little in construction from those of
the present day. Women’s parts were played in them by
women. The stage of the Restoration was patronized rather
by courtiers than by citizens. The footmen who attended
the gallants often predominated in the galleries; the pit was
much frequented by men of fashion. The playhouses were
more remote from the lives of the people than they had been
in the days of Elizabeth.

The new London of the late seventeenth century was very
different from the irregular town of timbered and gabled
houses which had preceded it. Building and the study of
building had become a favourite hobby ; letters and diaries
show how widespread was knowledge of architecture and
 

WEST END—EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 265

 

interest in it. Great houses were not built only to allow the
satisfaction of the desires of wealthy and liberal people;
architects strove also, consciously, after an artistic ideal.
The great fire provided them, whether professionals or
amateurs, with an opportunity, but they were unable to take
full advantage of it, since in the reconstruction of the city
originality of design could be expended only on the actual
construction, not on the disposition, of the buildings. Yet
the rebuilding encouraged, in that it indulged, the taste for
architecture, and educated it by experience. In the West
End architects were unhampered: their works were robbed
of nothing by the surroundings; they built frequently for
men of large means. It wastherefore in the West End that
they most nearly attained to their ideal, an effect of ordered
magnificence, of solidity without clumsiness, rather than of
grace or richness of fancy. At its best, as it was realised by
Inigo Jones and Wren, it was distinguished, in the words of
Evelyn, by ‘“‘state and use, solidity and beauty, most
symmetrically combined.” In town planning the most
admirable innovation in London in this age was the square.
CHAPTER XVII

THE CITY IN THE EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY

 

HE year 1689 began a new era in the history of

London, regarded from other aspects than the

constitutional. It was as truly the beginning of

another epoch as was the date of the accession

of the Tudor kings. In the following century two funda-

mental changes were established : the one reorganized society

within London; the other altered the position of the capital
with regard to the rest of the world.

The medizval machinery for the control of trade and
industry, that of the companies, subsisted throughout the
seventeenth century. But its restrictions were irksome to a
growing commerce and were not adapted to the greater
London which had come into existence.

For long ages Londoners had striven jealously to reserve
to those free of their city the fruits of their labour and their
traffic. But in the eighteenth century such an ideal had
become an anachronism. The mercantilist theory which
then had been adopted in England favoured the growth at
all costs of manufactures, and to the attainment of this end
any limitation of the journeymen whom a master workman
might employ was an impediment. As such it was made
prominent by the increased supply of unenfranchised workers
 

CITY IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 267

 

available, the countrymen who settled in the growing district
outside the liberties, and the highly skilled Huguenots. The
restriction of the number of apprentices tended in like manner
to reduce productive power. From about the year 1720 the
Court of Aldermen usually connived at the employment of
more than the prescribed number of non-citizen journeymen,
and in 1750 an Act of Common Council practically legalized
their engagement whenever it was convenient. The limitation
of the number of apprentices was finally abolished in 1787.
The ancient rights of search, by which the companies had
more or less maintained a standard of worth among goods
which came upon the market, likewise became obsolete. In
the exercise of them by the London companies there was an
element of weakness, caused by the frequent divorce between
the trade actually followed by a citizen and that which his
company professed. When members of the Goldsmiths’
company were butchers, bakers, grocers, and merchant
adventurers, they had as inspectors of articles of gold and
silver lost some efficiency. The fact was patent to many;
the parliaments of the Commonwealth and the Protectorate
frequently received petitions that citizens might belong to the
particular company of which they used the trade. Acts of
the Common Council which thus confined membership of
some lesser companies were passed in the latter half of the
seventeenth and the early eighteenth century, and produced
a certain effect, for in 1837 nearly half the minor companies
had a real connection with the trades which named them.
In the greater companies, however, the ancient anomaly
continued unmodified. And about the middle of the
eighteenth century there ceased to be ground for its reform,
because the rapidly growing industry of London had passed
beyond the limits which the machinery of the companies
 

268 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

could, in any case, control. Such control, moreover, was
inconsistent with the tendency of economic thought. The
mercantilist theory was leading rapidly to what seemed its
logical conclusion; the maximum of productivity could, it
was believed, best be secured by freedom of competition.
Therefore, not only were the inspectorial rights of companies
abandoned, but there was also a cessation of the efforts of
the central government to secure worthy manufactures, of the
statutes regulating manufacture which had distinguished the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The principle of free contract was gradually adopted with
that of free competition. As the companies discontinued
their inspection of goods, their seizure of defective wares,
they ceased also to lay down rules for the employment of
labour, and parliament no longer legislated on behalf of the
employed.

The companies, it has been seen, had been originally
associations of craftsmen, and their powers had been
engrossed by a section of their own number. In the time ot
the Commonwealth and the Protectorate there was an
attempt to secure for the main body of their members repre-
sentation in their government. The movement had some
success, but of a kind only temporary. The oligarchic
constitution of the companies returned before the end of the
seventeenth century, and has never been superseded. Thus
it was that they did not in any degree resume their early
character, but lost, with their control over trade, all place in
the economic machinery. They retained only the power and
the place which belonged to liverymen as members of the
Court of Common Hall, together with those of any holders
of property.

They became mere survivals ; the whole organization of
 

CITY IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 269

 

industry collapsed, and, until the end of the eighteenth
century, little but anarchy took its place. In one section of
the population, however, an exception was constituted by a
form of that voluntary association which had so often, before
the government of London had been finally settled, preceded
the acquisition by a new class of political power.

The breakdown of the medizval system left the unen-
franchised workmen of London unprotected. At the same
time the extension of the area of London, the growth of the
population, and the increasing disabilities to which the small
master workmen were subject, had largely recruited the
dependent workman class. There arose among them asso-
ciations more effective than any of the early confederacies of
journeymen workmen, because they were numerically
stronger, because they met a more real need, and because,
as an organised force, they were in isolation. Their preva-
lence appears from a petition made in 1720 by the master
tailors of London and Westminster. ‘‘ This combination of
the Journeymen Tailors . . . is of very ill example to Journey-
men in all other trades; as is sufficiently seen in the
Journeymen Curriers, Smiths, Farriers, Sailmakers, Coach-
makers, and artificers of divers other arts and mysteries, who
have actually entered into confederacies of the like nature ;
andthe Journeymen Carpenters, Bricklayers, and Joyners have
taken some steps for that purpose, and only wait to see the
event of others.” A petition of 1745 alludes to the large
number of monthly clubs which existed among the London
handicraftsmen.

The journeymen tailors conducted, with some success, a
long struggle with their masters. An Act of parliament in
1720 rendered illegal all their combinations in London and
Westminster for the advancing of wages or the lessening of
 

270 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

hours of work. It ruled that they should work from six in
the morning until eight at night, with an interval of an hour
for dinner, and that their daily wage should be two shillings
from March to June, and one and eightpence for the rest of
the year, with an additional allowance of three half-pence
for breakfast. Master tailors who paid at a higher rate were
made liable toa fineof £5. This settlement of the matter in
the interests of the masters did not however break up the
confederacies. In 1744, 15,000 journeymen tailors and stay-
makers were said to have entered into ‘‘a very extraordinary
combination” for the raising of their wages above the
statutory rate, and in 1746 forty of them were imprisoned by
certain masters in the Wood Street Counter on a charge of
unlawful combination, but were subsequently released by the
alderman acting as justice at the Guildhall, because they
had been committed without a warrant. In 1752 a number
of master tailors and staymakers rendered a petition to
parliament, from which it appears that the journeymen of
Middlesex had succeeded in raising their daily wage to two
shillings for the winter half year, and half-a-crown for the
summer, and subsequently had demanded to be paid at the
constant rate of two-and-sixpence a day. The city journey-
men had been encouraged, thereupon, to solicit the quarter
sessions ; and they had obtained a rate of two shillings a day
for three quarters of the year and two-and-sixpence for the
remaining quarter, together with the lessening of their
working day by one hour. The Westminster journeymen
had then again raised their demands. The petitioners com-
plained that ‘‘ for some years past, at times,” they had been
“threatened and terrified and abused by the journeymen
tailors . . . in a riotous and tumultuous manner,” and they
prayed that the previous Act of parliament, which had been
 

CITY IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 271

 

proved insufficient, might be amended. The journeymen how-
ever, in 1772, again brought the matter of their wages before
the quarter sessions. Evidently they had, in the interval,
continued to seek their ends by disorderly means, for they
were congratulated on the legality of their present methods,
and they obtained an addition of sixpence a day in ordinary
seasons, and of one shilling in times of court mourning.

In 1770 the hat-dyers of Southwark violently seized a fellow
workman who had worked overtime without extra pay.
They mounted him on an ass, labelled him with a description
of his offence, and then carried him, with music playing, to
visit all the hatmakers in the borough and the city, and they
compelled the workers of all of them to go on strike. The
coalheavers of the Thames caused, in 1769, a strike of all
engaged in unloading ships. In 1787 there is mention of
a combination of bookbinders.

The problem of the opposition of the interests of employers
and employed had thus already assumed a very modern
aspect. 3

As regards the development of industry in London, the
influence of the Huguenot settlers is noteworthy. Especially
they established in Spitalfields an important colony of silk
weavers. In 1742 the foundation stone of a French church
was laid at the north-east corner of Church Street, Spital-
fields. In 1768 machine looms were substituted for hand
looms among the silk weavers and there were, in consequence,
riots at Spitalfields in that year and the next. Similar riots
occurred in 1768 at Limehouse, where the sawyers burnt.
down a sawmill into which machinery had been introduced.

In commerce, as in industry, a radical change had passed
over the methods of government. In the year 1663 an Act
of parliament permitted the exportation of bullion, This
 

a72 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

was the inauguration of the new commercial policy, which
was no longer directed to the accumulation of treasure, but
to the encouragement of the import of raw materials and the
export of manufactured articles, a system of tariffs and of
bounties. With regard to continental powers, it sought to
preserve a balance of trade which should incline favourably
to England; with regard to the Americas, the West Indies
and the far East, it endeavoured to secure for England a sole
market. The colonial expansion of the seventeenth century,
the activities of the East India Company, the plantations
in North America, Cromwell’s acquisitions in the West
Indies, rendered possible the great success of such a policy.
The treaties with Spain and with France, which followed on
wars, kept its furtherance steadily in view. ‘‘ There is no
place in the town,” wrote Addison in the Spectator, in the
early part of the eighteenth century, “which I so much
love to frequent as the Royal Exchange. It gives me a
secret satisfaction, and in some measure gratifies my vanity,
as I am an Englishman, to see so rich an assembly of
countrymen and foreigners consulting together upon the
private business of mankind, and making this metropolis a
kind of emporium for the whole earth. .. I have often been
pleased to hear disputes adjusted between an inhabitant of
Japan and an alderman of London, or to see a subject of the
great Mogul entering into league with one of the Czar of
Muscovy. I am infinitely delighted in mixing with these
several ministers of commerce, as they are distinguished by
their different walks and different languages; sometimes I
am justled among a body of Armenians; sometimes I am
lost in a crowd of Jews; and sometimes make one in a group
of Dutchmen. I am a Dane, Swede or Frenchman at
different times; or rather fancy myself like the old
 

CITY IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 273

 

philosopher, who, upon being asked what countryman he
was, replied that he was a citizen of the world.” Addison
comments also on the cosmopolitan origin of the accessories
to English civilization. ‘‘ The fruits of Portugal are corrected
by the products of Barbadoes; the infusion of a China plant
sweetened with the pith of an Indian cane. The Philippine
Islands give a flavour to our European bowls. The single
dress of a woman of quality is often the product of a hundred
climates. The muff and the fan come together from the
different ends of the earth. The scarf is sent from the torrid
zone, and the tippet from beneath the pole. The brocade
petticoat rises out of the mines of Peru, and the diamond
necklace out of the bowels of Indostan. . . . Our ships are
laden with the harvest of every climate; our tables are stored
with spices, and oils, and wines; our rooms are filled with
pyramids of China, and adorned with the workmanship of
Japan ; our morning’s draught comes to us from the remotest
corners of the earth; we repair our bodies by the drugs of
America, and repose ourselves under Indian canopies. My
friend Sir Andrew calls the vineyards of France our gardens ;
the spice islands our hotbeds; the Persians our silk-weavers ;
and the Chinese our potters... Our English merchant
converts the tin of his own country into gold, and exchanges
his wool for rubies. The Mahometans are clothed in our
British manufacture, and the inhabitants of the foreign zone
warmed with the fleeces of our sheep.”

This description, even if some allowance be made for the
hyperbole of a poet, is evidence of a very flourishing trade.
Yet it was one which had not yet reached its zenith but was
on an upward path. That part of the mercantilist policy
which aimed especially at the encouragement of industry and
the export of manufactures was begun only by Walpole

H.L. T
 

274 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

in 1721. Under his guidance England attained to a higher
degree of commercial prosperity. In 1739 it was stated bya
pamphleteer that the number of adventurers in London had
been trebled within the last twenty years. Progress con-
tinued after Walpole’s fall, aided especially by the foreign
policy of Chatham.

London was still the commercial capital of the kingdom ;
and, as England came to be the leading trading nation, the
city advanced to the position of the metropolis of the trade
of the world, and became indeed ‘‘a kind of emporium for
the whole earth.” In the early days of prosperity English
ships still carried usually mixed freights, which they collected
in the city. English woollen goods were brought to London
to form part of a cargo which included also lead and tin, and
the sugar and tobacco which had been shipped to the city
across the Atlantic. In 1718, however, Liverpool and Bristol,
both easy of access for the ships which came from America
and the West Indies, had risen to importance as ports; and
in 1739 it was stated that ‘there was not a seaport, and
scarce an inland town in England, that was without
adventurers who exported quantities of goods, and did
business directly with most of the trading companies in
Europe and America.” Nor was London any longer isolated
as regarded industrial importance. As industrial centres
Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, Norwich and Newcastle,
as well as Liverpool and Bristol, attained to prominence in
the first half of the eighteenth century. But in either sphere
London maintained a great prominence.

Her position was supported by circumstances contingent
on the presence in commerce of a new factor, and one which
alone made possible the large enterprises of the day, the
extensive use of credit.
 

CITY IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 275

 

The merchants of London had been in the habit of deposit-
ing their gold in the Mint at the Tower. Charles I. however,
in 1640, seized all the treasure which was there guarded,
and in consequence the whole business of keeping superfluous
wealth devolved upon the goldsmiths of London, who had
for some time acted as moneylenders on a small scale. In a
tract of 1660 they are described as “just in the nature of the
Bankers at Amsterdam ... some Goldsmiths in Lombard
Street keeping at this day many great Merchants’ of London
cashes and some noblemen’s cash.” A little later it became
customary for them to receive rents of country estates, and
allow on them interest while they retained them. In 1680
city men habitually made payments by bills drawn on gold-
smiths with whom they kept accounts, and the bills were in
free circulation. Finally, in 1694, by the formation of the
Bank of England, the government adopted the expedient;
they borrowed £1,200,000 from certain subscribers, who lent
on the security that they would receive eight per cent. on
their money. Thus credit became an integral part of the
national financial and commercial system; and the system of
credit centred in London. The freedom to export bullion,
the restoration of the coinage from its debased state in 1696,
and the growth of English trade, were steps on the road
which led London finally to the place of the financial capital
of the world. Before, however, such position was secure
certain obstacles had to be overcome: the imperfect under-
standing of the uses of a paper currency, which caused the
Bank of England to suspend payment in 1696, 1797 and 1818 ;
and the existence in England of a double metal standard
until 1816.1

Child’s Bank and Martin’s Bank trace their descents from

1 From 1664 to 1717 there was a pure silver standard.

T2
 

276 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

the establishments of goldsmiths in the late seventeenth
century.

The old companies of merchant adventurers had secured
for their members participation in certain trading rights and
monopolies conferred on them by the government. They
were part of the superseded system of a strictly regulated
trade. In the new conditions a new form of association for
trading purposes was evolved, that of the joint stock com-
panies, of which the Bank itself wasanexample. They were
founded upon the use of credit. That instrument is one
easily abused, and when first its employment became general
the speculative spirit carried many to adventure their fortunes
at hazards which are almost incredible. It was a gambling
age; and on the Exchange men were as reckless as at the
gaming tables. Yet, while some were ruined, others were
made. Some London merchants, greatly enriched, were the
founders of families who attained to high places. Such an
one was the retired tradesman, embarrassed by leisure, whom
Johnson represented as contributing, in 1753,a letter to the
Adventurer, and who is a very modern type.

“‘ Str,—I have been for many years a trader in London.
My beginning was narrow, and my stock small . . . I pursued
my business with incessant assiduity, ... and had upon
every annual review of my books, the satisfaction of finding
my fortune increased beyond my expectation.

“In a few years my industry and probity were fully
recompensed, my wealth was really great ; and my reputation
for wealth still greater. I had large warehouses crowded
with goods, and considerable sums in the public funds; I was
caressed upon the Exchange by the most eminent merchants ;
became the oracle of the common council; was solicited to
engage in all commercial undertakings; was flattered with
 

CITY IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 277

 

the hopes of becoming, in a short time, one of the directors
of a wealthy company; and, to complete my mercantile
honours, enjoyed the expensive happiness of fining for
sheriff.

“Riches, you know, easily produce riches; when I had
arrived to this degree of wealth, I had no longer any
obstruction or opposition to fear; new acquisitions were
hourly brought within my reach, and I continued for some
years longer to heap thousands upon thousands.

“At last I resolved to complete the circle of a citizen’s
prosperity by the purchase of an estate in the country, and
to close my life in retirement... . An estate was at length
purchased : I transferred my stock to a prudent young man
who had married my daughter, went down into the country,
and commenced lord of a spacious manor.

“Here, for some time, I found happiness equal to my
expectation. I reformed the old house according to the
advice of the best architects ; I threw down the walls of the
garden, and enclosed it with palisades; planted long avenues
of trees; filled a greenhouse with exotic plants; dug a new
canal, and threw the earth in the old moat.”

The constitutional history of the city has in this period an
interest only second to that of trade and finance. In the
Court of Common Council the aldermen, belonging, as they
did, to the class of wealthy citizens, were Whig, but the mere
councilmen, who had been chosen in the precinct meetings
from among the householders in the several wards, were often
persons of humble standing, and their politics were those of
their neighbours, the small tradesmen and master craftsmen
of the city, who were largely High Church and Tory.
Between the two sections a perpetual conflict was waged in
the first quarter of the century, and it centred around two
 

278 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

ssues, the qualifications of the electors of Common Council-
men, and the powers of supervision and revision possessed
over the council by the mayor and aldermen.

The unenfranchised ratepayers, who attended wardmotes,
repeatedly attempted to vote at the elections of Common
Councilmen, so inconsistently with the whole spirit of the
constitutional history of London that it is impossible not,
with the aldermen of the day, to regard them as presumptuous.
It was ruled by an Act of Common Council passed in 1692,
and confirmed in 1711, 1712, and 1714, that the right to elect
Common Councilmen and nominate aldermen belonged to
“The Freemen of the said City only, being Householders, pay-
ing Scot and bearing Lot.” Even however when the claims
of non-freemen were set aside, grounds of dispute remained.
“The Common Council hold,” it was stated in 1715, “ that
the payment to church and poor is a sufficient qualification
for a voter, as formerly it hath been, but the Mayor and
Aldermen have held . . . that no less than actual payment to
all taxes and rates . . . qualifies a voter.’ Moreover the
aldermen objected to a disqualification as voters of all who
had received assistance from the companies, which was
proposed by the Common Council.

The quarrel was peculiarly bitter, because the aldermanic
party denied even that their opponents could, with pertinence,
discuss the question. The first of the powers claimed by the
mayor and aldermen, as the second chamber of the city’s
constitution, was that of “‘ trying the validity of all contested
elections in the city,” and they denied, further, that the
Common Council were competent to withhold or confer a
franchise. They claimed that sole right, disregarded in 1649,
of presiding at the deliberations of the council, and hence an
ability to adjourn its meetings by vacating the chair. No
 

CITY IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 279

 

legislative power, they contended, resided in the Common
Council alone. They derived such from the concurrence
with them of the Lord Mayor and the aldermen.

So far it can hardly be disputed that their claims could be
justified by precedent, whether or not they were equitable.
But in 1717 they interpreted their powers in an extreme
manner. They then declared it to be the “ancient usage ”
that the proceedings of a meeting of the Common Council
should be submitted to them at their own subsequent
assembly, and they attempted to exercise a right of veto.
They commissioned the recorder of the city to announce their
dissent from an Act of the Common Council to that body at its
next meeting. The due conveyance of this message produced a
heated debate, and eventually it was not entered in the Journals
of the Court of Common Council, because it was found
“derogatory to the rights and privileges of the citizens.”
The aldermen in this instance claimed to revise in their
private assembly the completed acts of the whole council.

In 1725 an Act of parliament gave the victory tothem. The
right to vote for Common Councilmen was confined to free-
men of the city holding and occupying houses of the annual
value of 410, and paying as much as 30s. a year in rates;
and the assent of a majority of the mayor and aldermen was
made necessary to an enactment by the council. The
immediate result was inactivity on the part of the Common
Council ; they almost ceased to exercise their powers on the
terms, so unpopular with their great majority, which parlia-
ment had dictated. The citizens, however, continued to be
political, and directed their energies to procuring that vacant
aldermanries should be filled by persons opposed to the
aldermanic power of veto. By their successes the aldermen,
as a body, were rendered more sympathetic to the wishes of
 

280 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

the citizens at large, and a yet nearer correspondence of
opinion followed on the general Whig reaction after the
Jacobite rising of 1748. In 1746 the clause of the Act of
1725, which had rendered possible an aldermanic veto of the
acts of the council, was repealed.

This measure made way for a real change in the balance of
power within the constitution of the city. The Common
Councilmen had been a mere advisory body, subservient to
the supreme legislature, the mayor and aldermen, incapable
of independent action. They were, after 1746, gradually
transformed “ into a supreme organ of administration,” itself
wielding the whole power of government, which reduced
“the lord mayor and aldermen to a mere magistracy.” In
current opinion there was a tendency to regard the acquisition
by the Common Council of this new character as a rehabili-
tation, a return toan ancient and customary state. Thereis,
on the contrary, abundant proof that a revolution had
occurred.

The Common Council, in their new organization, dealt with
an increasing amount of administrative business. A system
of committees was formed to deal with different departments,
and it became customary to remunerate members of com-
mittees. In 1802 £4000 was annually devoted to their
payment. There were also a variety of perquisite profits
which the greedy councilman was wont to make at the
expense of the corporation; and he had opportunities for
jobbery and corruption, of which he did not fail to avail
himself. ;

The manifold activity of the councilmen was, however,
often well directed. They had business in connection with
civic buildings, the prisons and markets of the city, and its
port. The management of the property of the corporation
 

CITY IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 281

 

became, as its value was enhanced, increasingly complicated.
By the act for the rebuilding after the fire all the drainage
and all the paving of the city had been delivered temporarily
to the charge of the council, and they had been authorized
to depute the power, thus devolving, on commissioners, whom
they appointed and who were known as the Commissioners
of Sewers. An act of 1710 perpetuated such provision, and
made compulsory the payment of a rate for the maintenance
of sewers. The work of the commissioners was extended by
various Acts of parliament, which transferred to the Common
Council duties previously incumbent on individual house-
holders. In 1736 an Act for the lighting of the city and
liberties ruled that a ‘‘convenient and sufficient number of
glass lamps” should be fixed on houses and buildings, as the
council directed, and should burn from sunset to sunrise, and
that the expense should be defrayed bya rate. Hitherto the
city had depended for its lighting on an obligation, from
1416 repeatedly emphasized, which rested on every house-
holder to hang a light outside his house. In 1765 another
Act vested in the Commissioners of Sewers sole power in
connection with the paving, cleansing, and lighting of the
city and liberties. They were empowered to water the
streets, to make pumps and dust-holes. They were ordered
to remove the signs by which houses were still distinguished,
and which often were, in the narrow streets, an impediment
to traffic, and to replace them by the more practical invention
of numbers, and to inscribe the names of streets. House-
holders were still responsible for the cleanliness of footpaths.
Already, in 1759, a statute had made the deposit of refuse in
streets or common passages, Or in gutters, a penal offence.
Some particular improvements and alterations were also
made. The Stocks market at the end of Cheapside was
 

282 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

abolished, and on its site the Mansion House was founded
in 1739. London Bridge was repaired, and all houses
removed from it in obedience to an Act passed in 1757. In
1761 the gates of the city, which often caused a congestion
of traffic and had lost their military use, were taken down
and sold. In 1765 the building and site of Gresham College
were sold to the Government, and were replaced by an
excise office. The Gresham lecturers were directed to read
in rooms over the Royal Exchange. The Fleet ditch was
covered over, and Blackfriars Bridge was made, and opened
in 1769. In 1774 a much needed Act of parliament for the
improvement of the navigation of the Thames was passed.
To all these changes there was the inevitable opposition.
‘“* As fine as London upon the bridge’,”’ says a writer of 1771,
“was formerly a proverbial saying in the city, and many a
serious, sensible tradesman used to believe that heap of
enormities to be one of the seven wonders of the world, and,
next to Solomon’s Temple, the finest thing that ever art
produced. When first the reformation in the streets was
begun, from the same cause every nuisance had its advocate.
It was said to be for the ease of the houses that the midway
should be paved with huge shapeless rocks, and the footpath
with sharp pebbles for the benefit of their feet. The posts
were defended to the last, and the pulling down of the signs,
which choked up and disgraced the streets, regretted as a
barbarous invasion on the monuments of national taste; the
cat and fiddle, goose and gridiron, and the like, being
regarded as the greatest efforts of inventive genius; and
Cheapside often compared to the Medicean gallery, for its
choice collection of paintings, blue boars, green dragons, and
kings’ heads.” It is incontestable that the ‘blue boars,
black swans, and red lions, not to mention flying pigs, and
 

 

 

 

SOME SEVENTEENTH CENTURY SIGNS.
 

CITY IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 283

 

hogs in armour, with many other creatures more extraordinary
than any in the deserts of Africk,”! and the legends displayed
beside them, from which Steele complains that he learnt bad
spelling, had made a strong appeal to fancy. There are
frequent allusions to them in eighteenth century essays.

As regards the charity of the corporation, it was most
notably displayed in this century by the institution of the
Foundling Hospital, of which the first stone was laid in 1742.
The hospitality of the city still found expression, from time
to time, in munificent banquets.

As in the seventeenth century, the Court of Common
Council sought to influence the rulers of the kingdom by
petitions to parliament, and their politics were usually
‘against the government.” ‘‘ The City was proud of the fact
that, in the days when the House of Commons was anything
but a representative assembly, the Court of Common Council
furnished the most prominent platform for the expression of
the popular will.” The circumstance had weight in the
struggle against the aldermanic veto. ‘‘ Consider, gentlemen,”
said on one occasion a leader of the popular party, ‘that it
is in the power of a majority of the Court of Aldermen to
put a stop to the most vigorous efforts of your public virtue.
Not all the convictions of common sense, nor the universal
voice of mankind, nor the apparent and approaching ruin of
Liberty, can avail you to procure justice from Parliament
should a corrupted majority (among the 26 aldermen) prevail
in putting a negative upon your just complaints and remon-
strances.”’ 8
The Common Council were particularly zealous in their

1 Addison in Spectator No. 23.
2 Webb. Local Government. The Manor and the Borough, I1., 653.

8 Ibid, 654.
 

284 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

opposition to Walpole’s excise bill, to the treatment by the
government of John Wilkes, and to the war with America.
The burning of Number 45 of the “ North Briton” at the
Royal Exchange, in 1763, was an act very unpopular in the
city. Serious riots were caused, and after the public
proclamation of peace in March no congratulatory address
was offered by the Common Council. The freedom of the
city was presented to Chief Justice Pratt, who, on the
occasion of Wilke’s trial gave an opinion favourable to him.
Wilkes, in 1768, failed to secure from the liverymen election
as member for the city, but his subsequent success in the
Middlesex election provoked enormous enthusiasm among
the citizens. In 1769 he was chosen alderman of Farringdon
Within. When he was for the second and for the third time
elected to represent Middlesex in Parliament, and was refused
admission to the House, great crowds of his supporters
paraded the city streets, and certain persons who would have
demonstrated adversely to him were mobbed. It was desired
by his friends to summon a Common Hall to consider the
situation, but the Lord Mayor was unwilling. In the follow-
ing November, however, by passing over the alderman who
stood next in the order of rotation, the election of a compliant
mayor, the popular Beckford, was procured. He called a
Court of Common Hall, which adopted an address to the
king, “Since, therefore, the misdeeds of your Majesty’s
ministers,” ran its conclusion, “in violating the freedom of
election and depraving the noble constitutions of Parliament,
are notorious, as well as subversive of the fundamental laws and
liberties of this realm, and since your Majesty, both by honour
and justice, is obliged inviolably to preserve them, according
to your coronation oath, we, your remonstrants, assure
ourselves that your Majesty will restore the Constitutional
 

CITY IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 285

 

Government and quiet of your people by dissolving this
Parliament, and removing those evil Counsellors for ever
from your councils.” In May 1770 the Court of Common
Council also resolved an address of remonstrance to the king
on the violated right of election, and the lord mayor,
accompanied by two aldermen, the sheriffs, and certain
councilmen, presented it in person, and made a short speech
in defence of the city’s right of petition, and the principle in
this instance defended. Beckford died a month later, but
he was succeeded by the equally valiant Barlow Trecothick.
In 1771 the arrest of acertain printer of the city, in obedience
to an order of the House of Commons, was attempted. The
printer resisted, and was protected by the lord mayor, who,
as guardian of the city’s liberties, declined to deliver him to
the serjeant of the House sent to fetch him. The mayor,
therefore, was summoned to the bar of the Commons, and
subsequently sent to the Tower, together with an alderman
who had abetted him. Both were released at the prorogation
of parliament, but meanwhile there had been riots in the
city; the expenses at the Tower of the two magistrates had
been voted by the Common Council; they had received:
compliments from the Society of the Bill of Rights, and six
cities and towns had conferred their freedom on the mayor.
A true bill was found by the Grand Jury against the messenger
who had sought to arrest the printer.

In July 1771, the mayor, with a numerous company, pre-
sented to the king an address of remonstrance as to the late
violations of the right of election and of the city’s privileges.
Wilkes, who had figured in the resistance to the action of
the House of Commons, was this year chosen sheriff. In
January, 1772, the Common Council made presents of plate
to Trecothick, then ex-mayor, to Wilkes, and to several
 

286 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

aldermen who had distinguished themselves during the
incident ; and in May the statue of Beckford was erected in
the Guildhall. The city in 1773 again supported Wilkes’s
claim to a seat in the House of Commons, and the Common
Hall again petitioned the king for redress of grievances anda
dissolution of parliament. In 1774 Wilkes was elected
mayor, and the mob drew him through the streets in his
coach. The obelisk in his honour was set up at the foot of
Ludgate Hill in the next year. In 1777 his creditors
petitioned the Court of Common Council for payment of
the debts which he had contracted during his mayoralty ;
and the Council, in consequence, deliberated on the advisability
of allowing him £500 a year for his services to public liberty,
but decided against such liberality for fear of the precedent
which might be created. In 1779 Wilkes was elected
chamberlain of the city.

In this manner the city upheld ancient traditions. She
did not however command the respect which once had been
paid to her. Her remonstrances were received rather
peevishly and condemned as ‘ indecent.” Her attitude
produced some uneasiness and had some influence on
politicians, since it involved the disorder of a large class of
the people. But the key to power had been lost; London
could no longer force her voice upon councils of state.
Those days were past in which the English government
depended on the citizen merchants. The organization of the
finance of the kingdom had made it impossible for London
ever again to arbitrate between warring parties in the
nation. Therefore in the eighteenth century the politics of
the city had come to be matters of secondary interest.

The episode of Wilkes illustrates the extent to which the
Court of Common Hall had assumed a share in the function
 

CITY IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 287

of voicing the opinion of the city, formerly expressed only
by the Common Council. The Common Hall had arrogated
the right to themselves at first in a spirit of rivalry; but
their tenure of it was practically established after 1769. They
appear to have based their claim on the circumstance of their
election of the parliamentary representatives of the city.
They were handicapped, however, in their activity by their
dependence for a summons on the mayor; and repeated
attempts made by them in the late eighteenth century to
compel him to call them together were unsuccessful. A test
case as to whether, on the other hand, a liveryman were
obliged to obey the mayoral summons to a Common Hall
was brought forward in 1773, and the opinion of the recorder
of the city supported its binding force. Two years later,
however, this judgment was reversed, and from that date the
attendance of liverymen has been optional.
CHAPTER XVIII

WEST LONDON IN THE
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

 

i MONG these Suburbian Territories, in the way

towards Tyburn,” wrote Strype in 1720,

‘“‘there are certain new and splendid Build-

ings, called, in Honour of his present Majesty,
Hanover Square: Some finished, and some erecting; con-
sisting of many complete, noble Houses. One whereof is
taking by my Lord Cowper, late Lord High Chancellor of
England. And it is reported, that the common Place of
Execution of Malefactors at Tyburn, shall be appointed else-
where ....; for the removing any Inconveniences or
Annoyances, that might thereby be occasioned to that Square,
or the Houses thereabouts.” And Appletree in his journal
in 1725 made the entry: ‘‘ I went away towards Hyde Park,
being told of a fine avenue made to the east side of the
park, fine gates and a large Visa, or opening, from the new
squares called Hanover Square, etc..... In the town I
passed an amazing scene of new foundations, not of houses
only, but as I might say of new cities, new towns, new
squares, and fine buildings, the like of which no city, no
town, nay no place in the world can show; nor is it possible
to judge where or when they will make an end or stop of
building.”
 

WEST ENDIN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 289

 

The completion of the district between Oxford Street and
Piccadilly, the connection with Oxford Street of the recently
made Grosvenor and Golden Squares, as well as the new
Hanover Square, is thus recorded. Park Lane, still known
as Tyburn Lane in 1772, had its present name in 1795.
The last execution at Tyburn Gallows took place in 1783.

On an open space called Brookfields, bounded in 1772,
when probably its dimensions had been narrowed, by Curzon
Street on the north, Half Moon Street on the east, and
Tyburn Lane on the west, the fair called May Fair, which
once had been held by the abbot of Westminster, took place
annually during the first fortnight in May throughout most
of the century. As the town advanced it lost its ancient
rustic character. “I wish you had been at May Fair,”
wrote Brian Fairfax in 1701, “ where the rope-dancing
would have recompensed your labour. All the nobility in
town were there; and I am sure that even you, at your
years, must have had your youthful wishes to have beheld
the beauty, shape and activity of Lady Mary when she
danced. Pray ask my lord Fairfax after her, who, though
not the only lord by twenty, was every night an admirer of
her while the fair lasted. There was the city of Amsterdam,
well worth your seeing ; every street, every individual house
was carved in wood, in exact proportion one to another; the
Stadthouse was as big as your hand..... Here was a boy
to be seen that within one of his eyes hed DEUS MEUS in
capital letters, as GULIELMUS is on half-a-crown.” All
‘plays, shews, gamings, music meetings, or other dis-
orderly assemblies” were forbidden at the fair in 1709. It
is said to have been finally abolished by the instrumentality
of the Lord Coventry who died in 1809, and who, in his
house at the corner of Engine Street, now Brick Street, and

H.L. U
 

290 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

Piccadilly, found himself disturbed by the “unceasing
uproar, night and day,” during fair time.

The project of building on the north side of Oxford Street
was formed about the year 1715. In 1717 or 1718 Cavendish
Square and several adjoining streets were laid out; and
before 1730 Henrietta Street, Vere Street, Holles Street,
Margaret Street, Cavendish Street, Welbeck Street, Wimpole
Street, Princes Street, Bolsover Street, John Street, and
Market Street had come into existence. Lower Harley
Street, Wigmore Street and Mortimer Street were planned
at much the same time. A market called the Oxford Market
was opened in 1731, and had a site between Oxford Street
and Castle Street. Oxford Street was so called before 1729,
at which date the row of houses along its north side had
been completed.

There were yet green fields on the north side of that part
of Oxford Street which was still known as the Tyburn Road,
which intervened between Marylebone Lane, now Marylebone
High Street, and the present site of Marble Arch, and also
to the north of Cavendish Square, towards Marylebone
village. In 1764, however, the building of Portman Square
was begun, and was completed within about twenty years.
Portman Street, Orchard Street, and Little Duke Street, with
other streets about the square, date from the same time.
Manchester Square was building in 1773. It was at first
called Queen Anne’s Square, but was eventually named after
Manchester House, afterwards Hertford House, which was
completed in 1788. The brothers Adam, about the year 1778,
designed Portland Place, so called after the ground landlord
of this and the surrounding property. Its great width is due
to the fact that, by a clause in the lease, any interruption of
the view from the “grand house,” lately erected by Lord
 

WEST ENDIN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 291

 

Foley, which stood where is now the Langham Hotel, was
forbidden. About the year 1774 the crescent of Cumberland
Place, at first intended for a circus, was made; and Upper
Berkeley Street, Upper Seymour Street, and others in the
vicinity had been constructed before 1792. The stone-
fronted houses on the north and east sides of Fitzroy Square
were built by the Adams. The north side dates only from
1825.

The ground on which Beaumont Street, Devonshire Street
and Devonshire Place now stand was a pleasure garden, the
Marylebone Gardens, which Pepys visited in 1668 and found
‘a pretty place.” Bowling greens, fireworks, music, vocal
and instrumental, taverns, fruit tarts and other refreshments
for sale, lectures, exhibitions of sword play, and a medicinal
spring were some of the varied attractions which made the
place fashionable. As however it came to be less remote
from the town it lost its vogue, and in 1778 it was finally
suppressed. The site was let to builders, and Devonshire
Street, Devonshire Place and Weymouth Street appear on
maps of 1792. Beaumont Street was built before 1795.

In the last forty years of the eighteenth century a great
increase of buildings took place in the neighbourhood of
Tottenham Court Road, which assumed its present character
of a populous street. There is no evidence that it ever was
patronised by the quality. ‘‘ Notwithstanding Tottenham
Court Road was so infested by the lowest order,” says a
writer in 1773, ‘“who kept what they called a Gooseberry
Fair, it was famous at certain times of the year, particularly
in summer, for its booths of regular theatrical performers,
who deserted the empty benches of Drury Lane Theatre,
under the mismanagement of Mr. Fleetwood, and con-
descended to admit the audience at sixpence each.”

U2
 

292 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

Bloomsbury was still a fashionable district. Lord Eldon
lived from 1791 to 1804 at Number 42, Gower Street. ‘‘ He
could look over the fields ... as far as Hampstead and
Highgate, and had a garden with excellent vegetables, and
even peaches.”

In 1771 a rather captious critic published some observations
on the ‘‘so-much-vaunted squares” of the West End of
London.

** Let us begin with Grosvenor Square, which is generally
held out as a pattern of perfection in its kind. It is doubt-
less spacious, regular, and well-built ; but how is this
spaciousness occupied ? A clumsy rail, with lumps of brick
for piers to support it, at the distance of every two or three
yards, incloses nearly the whole area, intercepting almost
entirely the view of the sides, and leaving the passage round
it as narrow as most streets, with the additional disadvantage
at night of being totally dark on one hand. The middle is
filled up with bushes and dwarf trees, through which a statue
peeps, like a piece of gilt gingerbread in a greengrocer’s stall.

“ Cavendish Square next claims our regard: the apparent
intention here was to excite pastoral ideas in the mind; and
this is endeavoured to be effected by cooping up a few
frightened sheep within a wooden paling ;! which, were it
not for their sooty fleeces and meagre carcases, would be more
apt to give the idea of a butcher’s pen,

‘ passimque videbant
lautis balare carinis.’

To see the poor things starting at every coach, and hurrying
round and round their narrow bounds, requires a warm

1 The statue of the Duke of Cumberland replaced the sheep soon
after this date.
 

WEST ENDIN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 293

 

imagination indeed to convert the scene into that of flocks
ranging the fields, with all the concomitant ideas of innocence
and a pastoral life. . .

“As to Hanover Square, I do not know what to make
of it. It is neither open nor inclosed. Every convenience is
railed out and every nuisance railed in. Carriages have a
narrow ill-paved street to pass round it, and the middle has
the air of a cow-yard, where blackguards assemble in the
winter, to play at hussle-cap, up to the ankles in dirt. This
is the more to be regretted, as the square in question is
susceptible of improvement at a small expense. The build-
ings are neat and uniform. The street from Oxford Road
falls with a gentle descent into the middle of the upper side,
while, right opposite, George Street retires, converging to a
point, which has a very picturesque effect ; and the portico
of St. George’s church, seen in profile, enriches and beautifies
the whole.

“Red Lion Square, elegantly so called, doubtless from some
alehouse formerly at the corner, has a very different effect on
the mind. It does not make us laugh, but it makes us cry.
I am sure I never go into it without thinking of my latter
end. The rough sod that ‘heaves in many a mouldering
heap,’ the dreary length of the sides, with the four watch-
houses, like so many family vaults, at the corners, and the
naked obelisk that springs from amidst the rank grass, like
the sad monument of a disconsolate widow for the loss of
her first husband, form altogether a ‘memento mori,’ more
powerful to me than a death’s head and cross marrow
bones; and were but the parson’s bull to be seen bellowing
at the gate, the idea of a country churchyard in my mind

would be complete.”
As to St. James’s Square, however, the author is of
 

294 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

opinion that it “though far from perfect in that style, and
altogether uncompleted on one side, still strikes the mind
. with something of more ease and propriety than any
square in London. You are not confined in your space;
your eye takes in the whole compass at one glance, and the
water in the middle seems placed there for ornament and use.”
But he finds all the squares ‘‘ more or less tinctured with
the same absurdity, an awkward imitation of the country,
amid the smoke and bustle of the town.’ ‘‘ Yet,” he allows,
“‘one is almost disposed to excuse Lincoln’s Inn Square.
The vast extent of the field, still further extended by the
proximity of the gardens, the lofty trees in prospect, the noble
piece of water in the middle, all conspire to create an
illusion, and we feel ourselves as it were fairly beguiled into
the country, in the very centre of business and care. That
of which I chiefly complain is the attempt to introduce rural
ideas where there is not the least probability of attaining the
ends. The royal parks adjoining to London by no means
fall under this censure. These, with the many delightful
fields which skirt this capital, render it unrivalled in
situation; and, what is peculiar, they are all within the
reach, and open to the health and amusement, of the inhabi-
tants: a circumstance which renders the mock parks in the
middle of the town still more unnecessary and absurd.”
With this view as to the absurdity of the green squares of
Bloomsbury and the West End, later generations have not
concurred. ‘‘ Dwarf trees” have grown lofty; their refresh-
ment has been very grateful as gradually the ‘“‘ delightful
fields”” around London have receded. It has been proved
more and more how fitly trees and lawns may be impropriated
by the planner of a town. The same critic makes other
remarks on the improvements recent in his days:
“STPOYIIAT UOJING LQ SUIewvs5UI UY MOL

‘IPZI NU ANVADS Ssaw[ “LS

 

 
 

WEST ENDIN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 295

“‘ Our streets are now wide, straight and commodious; and
although neatness, more than magnificence, seems to be the
characteristic of the buildings, they do not fail on the whole
to produce a grand effect... We have in Oxford Road the
outlines of the noblest street in Europe. In length, width
and straightness, it surpasses everything of its kind, and
requires only to be adorned with ‘gorgeous palaces and
solemn temples,’ like the Corso at Rome or the Strada
Nuovo at Genoa, to eclipse them both in fame. Nor is it
arrogance to expect this: a passion for building in town
seems to arise among the nobility at present; how many
handsome structures then, may there not be erected along
those sides, where at present there are only stables and
timber-yards! The new pavement, which goes on with
rapidity, sets this street in a new point of view. Already
there is begun in it one public edifice! of bold and elegant
design.

‘On a supposition then that men of rank and fortune
should hereafter be induced to rear up their mansions in
Oxford Road, it may not be presumptuous to hint at some
errors which have been too commonly adopted in fabrics of
that sort. To such a gateway with a spacious court within
is both stately and commodious; but the front to the street
should still present something that intimates a relation to
the society in which you live; a dead wall of twenty or
thirty feet high, run up in the face of your neighbours, can
only inspire horror and dislike. I am sorry upon this subject
to instance Burlington House. How many are there, who

1 The Pantheon on the south side of Oxford Road was opened in
1772, and is described by Northouck (1772) as “a superb building...
dedicated to the nocturnal revels of the British nobility.” It was noted
for masquerades.
 

296 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

have lived half a century in London, without knowing that
so princely a fabric exists. It has generally been taken for a
jail... There is however this much to be said in excuse of
my Lord Burlington, that he built his house at a time when
Piccadilly was almost out of town. . . But what can besaid
in excuse of those architects who, coming after him, without
one spark of his genius, have servilely copied his defects.
This cannot be more strongly exemplified than in Bingley
House.’ It presents the same gloomy exterior as Burlington
House, with this advantage that its interior is correspondent
in every respect... At Paris the Hotels of the great are
indeed all constructed with Porte Cochéres and courts, at
the bottom of which the grand apartments lie; but then the
Facades to the street are gay and ornamented... Were
examples at home to be quoted, worthy the imitation of those
whose fortunes enable them to attempt that style, I should
mention Bloomsbury? and Shelburn House.? In these seem
to be united the gay, the useful and the grand.

‘‘But there is another style which has been a good deal
affected by our great men of late, and is perhaps the most
judicious for those who have no ground property in town. I
mean what is called a street house. Many a nobleman,
whose proud seat in the country is adorned with all the

1 Now Harcourt House, on the west side of Cavendish Square, the
residence of the duke of Portland. Built by Benson Lord Bingley,
in 1722, and bought by the first earl of Harcourt, whose son, the
second earl, much altered it.

2 This must be Southampton or Bedford House. It was demolished
in 1800.

8 Lansdowne House, No. 54, Berkeley Square, built between 1765
and 1767 by the brothers Adam for Lord Bute, and sold by him before
its completion to the unpopular Lord Shelburne, afterwards first
marquess of Lansdowne.
 

WEST END IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 297

 

riches of architecture, porticos and columns, ‘cornice and
frieze with bossy sculpture graved,’ is here content with a
simple dwelling, convenient within, and unornamented with-
out. This is pardonable where only a house is rented for a
winter residence, without any idea of property annexed ; but
where a family mansion is intended to be built, something
ought to be produced suitable in dignity to the name it bears.
When we hear of a Grafton House,! a Gower House,? an
Egremont House,? we expect something beyond roominess
and convenience ; the mere requisites of a packer or a sugar
baker. Would any foreigner, beholding an insipid length of
wall broken into regular rows of windows, in St. James’s
Square, ever figure from thence the residence of the first duke
of England? ‘All the blood of all the Howards’ can never
ennoble Norfolk House.

““. .. These sort of fabrics . . . are incapable of much
grandeur; but they admit of beauty in any degree. It is
therefore this last which ought principally to be aimed at.
An unity of order enriched with ornament, in fair and high
polished materials, is all that seems required. The two houses

1 The site of this house, at the south corner of Grafton Street and
Bond Street, was bought by the duke of Grafton in 1723, and was
afterwards occupied by the Clarendon Hotel.

2 Presumably a house in Gower Street occupied by the earl Gower,
who, in 1786, was created marquess of Stafford.

® No. 84 Piccadilly, said to have been the last house built in that
street. It was occupied by the second and third earls of Egremont, of
whom the latter, the patron of artists, removed thence in 1794.
Lord Cholmondeley lived in it from 1822 to 1829, and it was called
Cholmondeley House. Subsequently it was the residence of the duke
of Cambridge, youngest son of George III., who died in it in 1850, and
was known as Cambridge House. The later occupants have been Sir
Richard Sutton, owner of the freehold, until 1855, Lord Palmerston
until 1865, and the Naval and Military Club now established in it.
 

298 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

lately erected by Mr. Tuffnell in Cavendish Square, are fine
examples; as is also that of Mr. Anson, in St. James's
Square.! When once this last is completed according to the
plan the public will be more able to do justice to the classic
taste which directed it.”

The foregoing extract gives a clear idea of architectural
taste in the eighteenth century. It explains also the manner
of the growth of that which Fielding calls ‘‘the polite end
of the town.” The great men of the land were still held by
the craze for building, and vied with each other in the
erection of town houses. Architecture was almost entirely
domestic and ecclesiastical; tradesmen and merchants were
content with unassuming shops and counting-houses ; public
Offices were comparatively insignificant.

There are some other great houses of the period which
deserve notice. Arlington House passed to Isabella, the
only child of the first earl of Arlington, who by her marriage
became Duchess of Grafton. She sold it to John Sheffield,
Marquess of Normanby, afterwards Duke of Buckingham,
and he in 1703 rebuilt it.

“ A princely palace on that space does rise,
Where Sedley’s noble muse found mulberries.”

The new house stood within a courtyard, but its situation
by the park, and the fact that it was separated from it only
by railings, through which a playing fountain could be seen,
exonerated it from the censure applied to Bingley House. It
appears to have been a stately mansion worthy of its beautiful

1 Lichfield House, No. 15 St. James’s Square, rebuilt about 1766
when it was acquired by Thomas Anson, M.P. for Lichfield, and sold
in 1856 by the Anson family to the Clerical, Medical, and General Life
Assurance Society, the present possessors.
 

WEST ENDIN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 299

situation. Buckingham, in his own description of his house,
speaks of ‘‘a wilderness full of blackbirds and nightingales ”
beneath the windows of a book-closet, and ‘‘a wall, covered
with roses and jessamine, . . . . low to admit the view of a
meadow full of cattle just under it”; but he had regrets
which in his age, so contemptuous of past taste, were strange.
‘Tam oftener missing,” he says, ‘“‘a pretty gallery in the
old house I pulled down, than pleased with a salon which I
built in its stead, tho’ a thousand times better in all manner
of respects.”

Buckingham House was inherited in 1743 by John, Lord
Hervey, and, after his death in the same year, by the duke’s
natural son, Sir Charles Sheffield. From him, in 1762, it
was bought by George III., and in 1775 it was settled on
Queen Charlotte in lieu of Somerset House, which had been
granted to her in 1763. It came to be known as the Queen’s
House, and in it all the king’s children, except George IV.,
were born. The additions and demolitions through which
George IV. and William IV. replaced it by the ugly
Buckingham Palace were begun in 1825.

Marlborough House was designed by Wren in 1709-10
for the great duke of Marlborough, and had for site part of
St. James’s Park. The famous duchess lived there until
her death in 1744. The house became a crown possession
in 1817.

In 1709 Henry Boyle, Baron Carlton, received a lease of
“ parcel of the Royal Garden near St. James’s Palace, and
all that the woodland, or wilderness adjoining to the said
garden,” and on this site built Carlton House. It was
inherited by his nephew, the third earl of Burlington, in
1725, and sold in 1732 to Frederic, Prince of Wales. Until
1772 it was the residence of the dowager princess of Wales ;
 

300 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

and in 1783 it was repaired and beautified for the reception
of the prince of Wales who became George IV. It was
demolished in 1835. It stood where is now the opening
between the York Column and the lower end of Regent
Street.

Berkeley House was burnt in 1733, and replaced by Devon-
shire House. Lanesborough House, at Hyde Park Corner,
was the residence of James, Lord Lanesborough, who died
in 1724, and who inscribed over his door,

“It is my delight to be
Both in the town and country.”

It became in 1733 an infirmary, and the site is now occupied
by St. George’s Hospital. Chesterfield House, at the junc-
tion of Curzon Street and South Audley Street, was built
for the famed author of the Letterys, who lived in it after
1749, and who made Stanhope Street to connect his house
with Park Lane. It was occupied by successive earls of
Chesterfield until 1849, and bought by Mr. Magniac in 1889.
Burlington House was entirely remodelled in the early
eighteenth century ; its brick walls were coated with stone;
the great gate and the street wall were erected. At the
extinction of the Burlington earldom in 1753, it accrued to
the Cavendish family, and was sold to the crown in 1854.
Apsley House, at Hyde Park Corner, was built by the
second Lord Bathurst, Lord Chancellor, who died in 1794,
and was originally of red brick. It was settled by the nation
in 1820 on the duke of Wellington, and subsequently
underwent considerable alteration.

The Horse Guards dates from the eighteenth century, as
do some public offices, the old Treasury, which fronted on
the Horse Guards Parade, the Admiralty, “a most ugly

 
 

WEST ENDIN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 301

 

edifice, and deservedly veiled [about 1760] by Mr. Adam’s
handsome screen.”+ In 1753 the will of Sir Hans Sloane
enabled the institution of the British Museum in Montague
House in Bloomsbury. The old house was entirely removed
to give place to buildings more suitable to the new purpose
between 1840 and 1849. An important event in the topo-
graphical history of London was the building, under an act
passed in 1736, of Westminster Bridge. Hitherto only
London Bridge had connected the city and the Surrey
sides of the river. From the bridges of the eighteenth
century, unencumbered by buildings, the whole city could be
contemplated. The critic of 1772 had praise for the view,
from Blackfriars Bridge, of the amphitheatre which reaches
from Westminster to the Tower. On Westminster Bridge,
in September, 1803, Wordsworth wrote his wonderful sonnet.
“ Earth has not anything to show more fair:

Dull would he be of soul who could pass by

A sight so touching in its majesty :

This City now doth like a garment wear

The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,

Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie

Open unto the fields, and to the sky;

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Never did sun more beautifully steep

In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill ;

Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep !

The river glideth at his own sweet will;

Dear God! the very houses seem asleep ;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!”

There was much talk of embanking the river, but little was
done in this century towards the realization of the project.
The brothers Adam, early in the reign of George III., con-
structed Adelphi Terrace and the fine Adelphi Buildings, so

1 Horace Walpole.
 

302 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

called after them, which stand on the site of Durham
House. The architects are again commemorated in Adam
Street, and in the adjoining streets which bear their Christian
names, John, Robert, James and William. ‘‘The works
carrying on amid the antient ruins of Durham Yard,” wrote
the author of 1771 already quoted, ‘‘is a sample of what
may be done in that way; and from the terrace of that
stately pile we can best judge of the effect of so noble an
object as the Thames properly displayed.” But the citizens
were less appreciative, for they held that the buildings con-
stituted an encroachment on the rights of conservancy held
over the river by the corporation.
‘*<« Four Scotchmen, by the name of Adams,
Who keep their coaches and their madams,’

Quoth John, in sulky mood, to Thomas,
‘ Have stole the very river from us!’”

Garrick lived at Number 5, now Number 4, Adelphi Buildings,
from 1772 until his death in 1779.

Another beginning of embankment was made after the Act
of parliament which gave Somerset House to the queen had
been repealed in 1775. The Adams then planned the terrace
elevation on which modern Somerset House stands. The
building was at once devoted to public uses.

An Act of parliament for the paving, cleansing, and lighting
of West London, by commissioners whose expenditure should
be met by rates, was passed in 1761.

Such was at the close of the eighteenth century London
west of the city. So much of it has since been intact that,
to picture it, it is necessary only to eliminate the obvious
results of years and of modern invention. To the north and
the east of the liberties and on the Surrey side of the river
there were also extensions, less in size, made by the meaner
 

WEST END IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 303

buildings which humbler persons had founded. It is con-
venient to give an account of them in a later chapter, when
their history can be continued to the present time. But two
suburbs of London had so close a connection with the life of
the town in the eighteenth century that it is fitting to notice
them here.

South of the way to Uxbridge, now the Bayswater Road,
West London was bounded by Hyde Park. Beyond was
Kensington parish, which included the hamlets of Brompton,
Earl’s Court and the Gravel Pits, and Kensington village,
and the manors of Earl’s Court and Notting or Nutting-
barnes. Holland House was built in 1607 by Sir Walter
Cope, and inherited by his son-in-law, the Earl of Holland.
It was altered by Inigo Jones, and the internal decorations
were designed by Francis Cheyne. Campden House was
erected about 1612 by Sir Baptist Hicks, who in 1628 became
Viscount Campden. In 1691 it was let to the Princess of
Denmark, afterwards Queen Anne, who lived in it for some
years with her son, the little duke of Gloucester. After-
wards it underwent several changes of ownership, and in
1795 was “an eminent boarding school for young ladies.”
Kensington Palace was sold to William III. by the second
earl of Nottingham, and was a frequent residence of William
and Mary, Anne, George I. and George II., but was forsaken
by the royal family in the reign of George III. The palace
gardens consisted originally of only twenty-six acres, but
Queen Anne added to them other thirty, laid out by her
gardener ; and Queen Caroline, who included in them nearly
three hundred acres which had previously been part of Hyde
Park, is the real founder of the gardens as they are at
present. ‘‘ The broad walk,” wrote Lysons in 1795, “ which
extends from the palace along the south side of the
 

304 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

gardens,! is in the spring a very fashionable promenade,
especially on Sunday mornings.”

In the eighteenth century various eminent persons, including
Bernard Lens, the miniature painter, and, for a time, Swift,
lived in Kensington. But an even more popular place with
those who wished to enjoy the country, together with an
easy access to London, was Chelsea. There were in 1705
only some three hundred houses in Chelsea parish; but
within ninety years they were increased to more than a
thousand. The village in 1795 extended ‘‘ almost to Hyde
Park corner, including a considerable part of Knights-
bridge,” but it was separated from Westminster by the still
rural district of Belgravia and Pimlico.

In modern street names the ownership of Chelsea, as of
some other London properties, is chronicled. In 1712 Sir
Hans Sloane, president of the Royal Society and of the
College of Physicians, bought the manor from William, Lord
Cheyne. He bequeathed it, at his death in 1752, to his two
daughters, Elizabeth and Sarah, of whom Elizabeth married
Lord Cadogan. The subsequent extinction of the line of
Sarah caused the reversion of the whole estate to the Cadogan
family.

The house in which Sir Thomas More had once dwelt, and
which was called Beaufort House, because from 1682 until
1714 it was a residence of the family of the duke of Beaufort,
was also acquired by Sir Hans Sloane, and was demolished
by him in 1740. It stood at the north end of Beaufort Row.

Soon after the Revolution some persons of fashion settled
in Chelsea. Among them was a very modish lady in reduced
circumstances, the duchesse de Mazarin, once a famous
beauty of the court of Charles II., who felt severely the

1 Not to be confused with the present Broad Walk.
 

WEST END IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 305

 

loss of the ‘pension of £4,000 allowed to her by that king.
But her economies entailed no dulness. It is said that her
guests were wont to leave money under their plates to pay
for the entertainment she gave them. In any case her house
was “the constant resort of people of fashion, who were
attracted by her conversaziones, her basset table,” and her
concerts, at which dramatic works, written and set to music
by St. Evremond, were frequently performed. In Anne’s
reign, Felton Gerrard, last Earl of Macclesfield, John
Vaughan, last Earl of Carbery, and Edward Fowler, Bishop
of Gloucester, lived in Chelsea. But the most famous of all
inhabitants of the place is the wicked old Lady Castlewood.
When Harry Esmond came out of Newgate prison her lady-
ship’s fellow ‘‘ in the orange-tawny livery with the blue lace
and facings” was in waiting, and from the banks of the
Thames near Fleet Conduit called a pair of oars. ‘‘ They
rowed up at length to the pretty village of Chelsea, where
the nobility have many handsome country houses; and so
came to my Lady Viscountess’s house—a cheerful new
house in the row facing the river, with a handsome garden
behind it, and a pleasant look-out both towards Surrey and
Kensington.”

In 1714 or 1715 Steele was living at Chelsea. In 1722
Walpole acquired a house and garden by the riverside. He
made considerable improvements, and built in the garden, in
accordance with the latest and most approved taste, a grotto,
and also an octagonal summer-house and a large greenhouse;
in which he had a fine collection of exotics. ‘‘ One summer,
when Queen Caroline was regent during the king’s absence in
Germany, her Majesty honoured Lady Walpole with her
presence at a dinner in this greenhouse, which was elegantly
fitted up for the occasion, and hung with some of the finest

H.L. x
 

306 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

of those pictures which afterwards formed part of the
Houghton collection.”

The earl of Huntingdon, who died in 1746, built on the
river bank, near the western extremity of the parish, an
“elegant villa.” It was inhabited in 1795 by Lord Cremorne,
and was distinguished by a Jarvis window. Lord Cremorne
kept in this house his collection of Flemish and Italian
masters. His neighbour was Lady Mary Coke. Others of
the great who had houses in Chelsea in the eighteenth
century were Lord Oxford, from 1703 to 1707, Lady Bristol
in 1705, the duchesses of Buccleugh, Monmouth, and
Hamilton, the duke of Kent, from 1714 to 1715, and the
duchess of Ormond, from 1720 to 1733. In the last twenty
years of the century there was much building in the district
called Hans Town. “ The principal street,’ wrote Lysons in
1795, ‘‘ takes its name from the Sloane family, and is about
six furlongs in length ; it contains 160 houses, the buildings,
for the most part, occupying only the west side; behind
this street is a spacious and handsome square, as yet
unfinished.”
CHAPTER XIX

LONDON SOCIETY UNDER ANNE
AND THE GEORGES

 

N the eighteenth century, as gradually it was made
clear how stable was the court which was estab-
lished at St. James’s, the London season came to
figure largely in the life of the nation. The wife

and daughters of the squire, whose parents had known no
more of the world than they found in their market town,
wearied of the long winters when almost impassable roads
imprisoned them within the distance which, on fine days,
they could walk on their pattens, when the wildest dis-
sipation of their unending dimlit evenings was to “ play,
Pope Joan with the curate,” when day after day they
saw the same few faces, the same landscape, and fed on
the same fare, and year after year their interests were
confined to the circle of things domestic, agricultural and
sporting, varied only by gossip of the most local kind.
As for dress, their only models were some twenty years
behind the times. ‘‘ The rural beaus,’’ wrote Addison,
‘are not yet got out of the fashion that took place at
the time of the Revolution, but ride about the country in
red coats and laced hats, while the women are still trying
to outvie one another in the height of their head-dresses.”

Some papers and an increasing number of books, a
X 2
 

308 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

very little music, reached the country ladies, or probably
they would never have been inspired even to discontent.
Moreover many of them, owing to the growing fashion of
boarding schools, had had already direct news of the
great world, conveyed in an inaccurate but a romantic and
attractive form. And lastly they knew themselves, owing
to the greater ease of travelling which modern times had
introduced, not to \be indeed cut off from the great world.

This improvement in the conditions of travelling was
a final cause of the growth of the ‘polite end.” It
deprived countryfolk of their best excuse for never leav-
ing their homes. Already in 1669 the first ‘* flying
coach ”’ covered the road from Oxford to London in
thirteen hours ; and in 1678 a conservative pamphleteer
could ascribe various evils to the “‘late grievance’”’ of
stage coaches. Throughout the eighteenth century im-
provements of roads, an increased number of coaches
and a better organisation of their stages, was in progress.
The two first mail coaches, escorted by armed guards,
left London in 1784, and accomplished the journeys to
Bath and to Bristol, respectively, in fourteen and in six-
teen hours. All this advance benefited the ladies and
gentlemen of degree who travelled in their own carriages,
as much as the plebeian person who rode in a stage
coach. All alike enjoyed the better roads, the better inns,
where man and horse found refreshment and lodging,
and the stages where fresh horses could be procured.
The humblest class of society, still made their journeys in
the old and tedious waggons.

The families who came to London to spend a period
of pleasant leisure found new streets built and building,
and standards of luxury and behaviour equally new, and

 
 

LONDON SOCIETY 309

 

bewildering in their novelty. This was a period in which
the laws of fashion as regarded dress and manners and
all the circumstances of life were very, strict and were
followed with extreme zeal. The most courtly wits did
not disdain to punish the transgression of them with all
the ridicule at their command. The life of the fashion-
able, though idle, was carefully ordered, even complicated.

Already, however, the elaborate formality of an earlier
age had been abandoned ; society, while it abhorred what
was boorish, aimed at an artful simplicity. ‘I must
observe,’’ wrote Addison, ‘‘a very great revolution that
has happened in this article of good breeding. Several
obliging deferences, condescensions and submissions, with
many outward forms and ceremonies that accompany
them, were first of all brought up among the politer part
of mankind, who lived in courts and cities, and distin-
guished them from the rustic part of the species (who
on all occasions acted bluntly and naturally) by such a
mutual complaisance and intercourse of civilities. These
forms of conversation by degrees multiplied and grew
troublesome ; the modish world found too great a con-
straint in them, and have therefore thrown most of them
aside. Conversation, like the Romish religion, was so
encumbered with show and ceremony, that it stood in
need of a reformation to retrench its superfluities and
restore it to its natural good sense and beauty. At
present, therefore, an unconstrained carriage and a certain
openness of behaviour are the height of good breeding.
The fashionable world is grown free and easy; our
manners sit more loose upon us; nothing is so modish
as an agreeable negligence.”

The modish were, in fact, too busy to observe all the
 

310 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

forms which had regulated the duller lives led by their
ancestors. Moreover the very circumstance that in Lon-
don so many who occupied the same social station lived
much with each other deprived them of self-conscious-
ness as to their position. And finally a new element had
been added to the mental equipment of the cultured of
the day ; they possessed a sense of humour. It is the
characteristic of an age which is critical rather than creative.

But in the country the old ceremony still prevailed.
“* One may know a man that never conversed in the world,
by his excess of good breeding. A polite country squire
shall make you as many bows in half an hour, as would
serve a courtier for a week. There is infinitely more to
do about place and precedency in a Ree UnS of justices’
wives, than in an assembly of duchesses.’

In like manner country society was distinguished for
that exaggerated and affected delicacy, which has given a
derogatory sense to the word ‘“‘ genteel ’’ ; while in town
persons of fashion had adopted a freedom of speech which
often was carried to coarseness.

For long the pulpit, the stage and the books of London
had made opinion in England, and they had not lost their
influence.

The London preachers of this period did not differ
essentially from their forerunners, although on the whole
they had lost the fervour of religion. The divines had
still their differences, their low church or their high
church and Tory principles ; and towards the end of the
century the movement led by the Wesleys brought into
the church an element of vivid interest which recalls an
earlier age. Whitefield’s tabernacle in Tottenham Court
Road was opened in 1756.

 
 

 

ITALIAN OPERA HousE, HAYMARKET.
 

LONDON SOCIETY 311

 

The drama of the day, found its best expression in
light comedies of manners, fit productions of an age
which set a great value on form. They reached their
highest level in the writings of Goldsmith and Sheridan.
The playhouses continued to be in Drury Lane and Lin-
coln’s Inn Fields until 1732, when Covent Garden Theatre
was substituted for that in the Fields. Two new forms
of dramatic art arose at this time in London.

Early in the century Italian opera was introduced in a
new theatre in the Haymarket called the King’s, on the
present site of His Majesty’s Theatre and the Carlton
Hotel. It was fortunate in the patronage of the German
kings, but in many unmusical Englishmen it evoked only
ridicule. To Addison it was without merit because the
Italian libretti were not generally understood. ‘* Music
is certainly a very agreeable entertainment ; but if it
would take the entire possession of our ears, if it would
make us incapable of hearing sense, if it would exclude
arts that have a much greater tendency to the refinement
of human nature,—I must confess I would allow it no
better quarter than Plato has done, who banishes it out
of his commonwealth.”

The other and less dignified innovation was the panto-
mime. This form of entertainment was first devised by
John Rich in 1717, when he was manager of Lincoln’s
Inn Theatre, as an attempt to outdo in popularity his
rivals of Drury Lane; and it met with all the success
which still attends the spectacular. Drury Lane was
driven to copy the invention. Rich’s.pantomine consisted
of a serious and of a comic part; the former was
founded on some fable, often taken from Ovid’s ‘‘ Meta-
morphoses,” and had a splendid accompaniment of
 

ei HISTORY OF LONDON

 

scenery, dresses, dancing, music, and all available stage
effects ; and there was interwoven with it a comic story
based on the courtship of Columbine and Harlequin,
which comprised surprising adventures and transforma-
tions produced by the magic wand of Harlequin.

Dramatic art lost its essentially metropolitan character
about the year 1775, when several provincial playhouses
were in existence.

The writers of books were more numerous than ever
before, and at this time they began to form a distinct
class in the society of London. Authorship became from
the hobby of scholarly men a profession, and Grub
Street, ‘‘a street in London,’ according to Johnson,
‘“* much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries
and temporary poems,’’ was founded. So soon as authors
became professional it was inevitable that a class of
scribblers should arise, willing to undertake any work
which gave a chance of remuneration. The conditions
of their labours, especially the necessity of an arduous
quest among the great for a patron, were not easy ;
but when once the patron had been found at least the
writers were subject only to one master. Moreover com-
petition among them was infinitely less than it is at
present, in the days of books innumerable, and they were
still entirely immune from the restrictions of a social posi-
tion. The actual Grub Street was near Cripplegate, and
has since 1830 been called Milton Street.

A new art and trade, of an essentially urban character,
arose among writing men, and became at once a means
of considerable influence. English journalism originated
in London in the eighteenth century ; newspapers, maga-
zines and reviews came into existence. It appeared in
 

LONDON SOCIETY an5

 

its most artistic form in the periodicals to which the great
essayists contributed, the Tatler, the Spectator, the
Rambler, the Guardian, and the rest, and it pro-
duced also the papers which only distributed news. Its
rise was connected with the better means of travelling ;
for the coaches which brought countryfolk to London
carried letters and papers from the capital to all parts
of the kingdom. But the journals were most read in
London, and in London that famous relation between the
morning paper and the breakfast service was instituted.
““T would ... ’’ says Addison in an editorial essay in
the Spectator, ‘‘in a very particular manner, recom-
mend these my speculations to all well-regulated families,
that set apart an hour in every morning for tea and
bread and butter ; and would earnestly advise them for
their good, to order this paper to be punctually served up,
and to be looked upon as a part of the tea-equipage.”
Other arts than those of letters and the drama flourished
and were fashionable. It is unnecessary to enumerate
here the English painters of real distinction who lived
in London in the eighteenth century and who have left
to us pictures of their contemporaries. An epoch in the
history of English art was marked by the foundation, in
1768, of the Royal Academy under the presidency of Sir
Joshua Reynolds. In music Englishmen accomplished
little creative work. The Restoration period had been
distinguished by the compositions of Lock and Purcell,
but in the eighteenth century there were no native com-
posers of merit. A small musical public was, however,
created. Mention has already been made of the vogue of
the opera, but to this the old English love of the drama,
as well as the attraction of novelty, and the enterprise
 

314 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

of the management of the King’s Theatre in attempt-
ing realistic stage effects, contributed. Yet music must
always be the chief element in opera, and opera could
not have lived in a London entirely unmusical. Some
eighteenth century Londoners had undoubtedly come to
love music of a less elementary kind than the melodies
which belong to every simple people ; and the man who
chiefly gratified their taste was a German who happened
to settle in their town, Handel, whose compositions,
operatic and other, did so much to educate the English
people to an understanding of classical music. Music
however was, of all the arts, still to continue for long
an exotic thing in England, and appreciation of it was
practically confined to London. Even there music which
was classical was a ready subject for the sneers of the
average public, and was decried as a perversion. “It
was Mr. Western’s custom every afternoon,’”’ we are in-
formed in Tom Jones, ‘‘as soon as he was drunk, to
hear his daughter play on the harpsichord, for he was a
great lover of music ; and perhaps, had he lived in town,
might have passed for a connoisseur, for he always ex-
cepted against the finest compositions of Mr. Handel. He
never relished any music but what was light and airy ;
and, indeed, his most favourite tunes were ‘Old Sir
Simon,’ ‘ The King,’ ‘St. George he was for England,’
‘Bobbing Joan,’ and some others.”

Theatres in the eighteenth century were not open in
the summer. About the month of May the players divided
themselves into strolling companies, packed up their
wardrobes and the other accessories of their calling and
departed to entertain the country. In the Londoner’s
plan of life the place they had occupied was filled chiefly
 

VAUXHALL GARDENS.
 

LONDON SOCIETY 315

 

by the pleasure gardens which he enjoyed as his ancestors
of the previous century had done. In the eighteenth cen-
tury the gardens were most frequented by the modish in
the evening, and therefore great importance was attached
not only to their groves and flower beds but also to their
lights. Shady and winding walks lit by lamps, illu-
minated fountains, grand displays of fireworks, were very
popular ; and they were varied by the attractions of
booths in which picnic suppers might be eaten, and bars
whence might be obtained drinks and “thin wafer-like
slices of beef and ham, that taste of nothing but the
knife.’”? Shows of various kinds were also provided in the
pleasure gardens, and the superior of them’ supported
orchestras.

Vauxhall Gardens, and Ranelagh Gardens which were
opened in Chelsea in 1742, outdid all the others in
fashion ; but scattered over London were many cheaper
imitations of these places. ‘‘ Every skittle alley half a
mile out of town,” says a writer in the Connoisseur
in 1755, ‘‘is embellished with green arbours and shady
retreats, where the company is generally entertained with
the melodious scraping of a blind fiddler.”

Yet even Ranelagh and Vauxhall were far from ex-
clusive. Thither went ‘“‘ poor Mr. John” to see “ with
a heavy heart the profits of a whole week’s card-money.,
devoured in tarts and cheese-cakes by, Mrs. Housekeeper
or My Lady’s own Woman,” and “the substantial cit ”
who came ‘‘ from behind the counter two or three even-
ings in the summer,”’ and many less respectable persons.
Indeed the fashionable would appear to have visited the
gardens to vary pleasures enjoyed only with those whose
manners were like their own, and the unfashionable to
 

316 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

procure the excitement of mingling with genuine fol-
lowers of the mode. ‘The pleasure gardens maintained
their place down to the days when Evelina went to Vaux-
hall, but they became less and less reputable, and were
finally killed by the reaction of society to propriety which
happened in the nineteenth century. Nothing in modern
times fills their place.

Masks were naturally much used in the gardens. They
were a feature of social life in the period ; masked balls
and assemblies were often held. Card parties were
another frequent form of entertainment, for the rage for
games of hazard was stronger than ever before in English
society, and play was very high.

A new institution in this period is, in its modern form,
not unimportant to the life of London. In Anne’s reign
citizens, men of fashion, and men of letters had alike
formed the habit of meeting in certain houses of enter-
tainment to drink coffee and converse, sometimes to
transact business. Merchants went to Garraway’s or
Jonathan’s in Change Alley, or to Lloyd’s, where even-
tually the shipping interest was organised, or to the
Jerusalem coffee-house on Cornhill. Doctors resorted to
Bateson’s at the Royal Exchange ; clergymen to Child’s
in St. Paul’s Churchyard or the Chapter coffee-house in
Paternoster Row; lawyers to Nando’s and Dick’s near
Temple Bar, Serle’s in Portugal Street, the Grecian in
Devereux Court, Strand, and Squire’s in Fulwood’s
Rents, Holborn.

The coffee houses supplied a want which had existed
ever since London had ceased to be a town in which
every man knew his neighbour and could chat with whom-
soever he saw, in the street or on doorsteps. In the
 

LONDON SOCIETY 317

coffee-house Londoners could meet their fellows indepen-
dently of all the barriers introduced by a complicated
civilisation. Doubtless these places were sometimes dull
enough, as dull as the parlours of those who frequented
them. But there were some of them which gained an
everlasting fame, because in them was cultivated an art
which has flourished very, rarely in England, the art of
conversation. They were largely patronised by literary
men, and in this period the talent of writers could easily
be adapted to pleasant talk. It was the general tendency,
to examine and criticise rather than to preach ; fancy,
played with an idea, placed it in every light, decorated
it and stripped it bare. Moreover, since authors were
interested in form as much as in matter, it was congenial
to them to adapt themselves to a new means of expres-
sion, that of conversing like another.

As a mode of expression conversation is at a disadvan-
tage because it must be evanescent. It is hard to doubt,
for all his animadversions on his own taciturnity, that
Addison was the most charming of talkers; yet we
have no record of what passed when he, Swift and
Steele met at Button’s in Russell Street. Of Will’s, also
in Russell Street, we know that Dryden before Addison’s
day presided very autocratically over its assemblies.
Another historical house was the Bedford in Covent
Garden whither went Foote, Fielding, Churchill, Hogarth
and Goldsmith.

The most celebrated of all these societies, and that of
which we know most, met at the Turk’s Head in Gerard
Street and had Johnson for president. Macaulay has
finely described it. ‘‘ The room is before us and the
table on which stand the omelet for Nugent and the
 

318 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

lemons for Johnson ; there are assembled those heads
which live for ever in the canvas of Reynolds. There
are the spectacles of Burke and the tall thin form of
Langton, the courtly sneer of Beauclerc, and the beaming
smile of Garrick, Gibbon tapping his snuff-box, and Sir
Joshua with his trumpet in his ear. In the foreground
is that strange figure which is as familiar to us as the
figures amongst which we have been brought up, the
gigantic body, the huge massy face seamed with the
scars of disease, the brown coat and the black worsted
stockings, the grey wig with the scorched foretop, the
dirty hands, the nails bitten and pared to the quick. We
see the eyes and the nose moving with convulsive twitches,
we see the huge form rolling, we hear it puffing, and
then comes the ‘ Why, sir,’ and the ‘ What, sir,’ and
the ‘ No, sir,’ and ‘ You don’t see your way through the
question, sir.’ ”’

Some of the societies of eighteenth century coffee or
chocolate houses have become modern clubs, but in the
process they have lost their old character. The step
from coffee-house to club consisted in the acquisition of
the ownership of premises and the formation of a list of
members who paid subscriptions ; and in the taking of
it the old distinction for conversation and good fellow-
ship was superseded by another, political, social or merely
culinary. The transition was in several cases accom-
plished in the eighteenth century. Among clubs which
date from that period are the Thatched House, the
Dilettanti Society, Boodle’s, White’s, and Almack’s or
Brooke’s. Almack’s was identified in the days of the
Regency with the party of the Prince of Wales, and
White’s with that of Pitt and the Queen.
“YP-D80 TJ AQ FUPAVASUI UD ULO.tsf

“SELI NI LATULS Ssav[ “LS

 
 

LONDON SOCIETY 319

 

Nothing in England really represents the coffee-house
of Anne’s day. Upper-class Londoners resumed stay-at-
home habits; even in clubs a sense of proprietorship
became necessary to their comfort. In houses of enter-
tainment they adopted an attitude of suspicious reserve.

These are some of the elements of social life in London
in the eighteenth century, and some of the interests which!
occupied Londoners in addition to the politics of a very
political age, in which the divisions of parties did not
correspond to those of the classes of society.

In modern London the problem of travelling from one
point to another within the town’s vast tract is real, and
its solution absorbs much energy and wealth. Even in
the eighteenth century town, with the growing West End,
it existed, but the means adopted to solve it were com-
paratively simple. The wealthy owned carriages, sedan
chairs and saddle horses. As to public vehicles, a man
might still, like Harry Esmond, charter a boat to row
him up the Thames from the city to Westminster or to
Chelsea, and there were hackney coaches and hackney
chairs. In 1710 an Act of parliament empowered cer-
tain commissioners to license no more than 800 coaches
and 200 chairs, to ply for hire in London and West-
minster, on Sundays and weekdays alike. Fares were
fixed also by statute ; a coachman must drive from the
Inns of Court to Westminster for a shilling, and a chair-
man might exact eightpence for the like journey. The
Commissioners were permitted in 1711 to license 100
additional coaches, and in 1725 chairs up to the total
number of 400. In 1767 it was enacted that they should
appoint stands for hackney coaches.

A penny post within London, Westminster, Southwark,
 

320 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

and the immediate suburbs was established in 1698. It
became customary to deliver a letter within ten miles of
the city if a second penny were paid by the receiver to
the man on horse-back who carried it ; and this practice
was confirmed by statute in 1731.
CHAPTER XX
MODERN LONDON

 

HE position to which London attained in the
nineteenth century is extraordinarily complex,
and can here be presented only in outline.

The city finally achieved the rank of the
financial centre of the world. In 1816 England, first of
all commercial nations, adopted the gold standard. In
1844 the Bank Act of Sir Robert Peel ended the issue
by the Bank of England of notes for which there was not
sufficient cover in specie ; and since that date, except
when in 1847, 1857, and 1866 the Act was suspended
by government, there has been a guarantee that all claims
on England and drafts on London will be paid in gold,
the one of all circulating mediums which is least subject
to fluctuations in value. The result has been that Eng-
lish bills are everywhere negotiable. The banking system
was perfected, the uses of credit multiplied, by, the estab-
lishment in London after 1833 of joint stock banks,
which had existed in the provinces since 1826. The
benefits of the clearing house, first founded in 1775,
were extended in 1854 to the joint stock banks, and a ‘great
saving of time, labour and currency was thereby accom-
plished. Numerous English banks and branches were
established not only in the provinces but also in the
colonies, and in various parts of Africa, Asia, China and
the Americas. ,

H.L. Y
 

322 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

It was mainly by her gold standard and her sound
banking policy that England secured for her capital city
the position of the principal money market and the great
clearing house of the world. But her commercial advance,
and the safety which her island situation was held to give
her, were contributory in producing such a result. At
this moment it is impossible to judge whether or not
she will maintain her place.

The problems of the organisation of modern industry
are not local but general, and therefore have no place in
the history of a particular town. But it is worthy of
notice that a principal feature of industrial conditions in
the present day has developed gradually in London from
the middle ages onwards. It was one of the first results
of an increasingly complex society in the city that the
mere craftsman tended to become subject to the merchant,
first as the distributor of the fruits of his labour, later
as the provider of his material. More and more he came
to depend only on his skill and his strength, to bring
nothing else into the market; and inevitably he was
degraded to a position in which he drove his bargains
not with the consumer but with the merchant, who thus
could annex a major share of the profits of the joint
enterprise. The middleman and the capitalist had come
into existence. In modern times such a position has been
much accentuated. It is comparatively rare nowadays to
find a workman who supplies his own capital or sells by
retail his own handiwork. And so largely have capitalists
and middlemen engrossed profits that the industrial popu-
lation have become co-extensive with the poor, almost
with the very poor.

Mr. Charles Booth in Life and Labour in London,
d TAL

TINWIDNG] AO NNVEE SAOIAAQ FDLON a

nh
i

Lire We

ot

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MODERN LONDON 323

points out that London is deficient in a supply of cheap
fuel and iron, running water, fresh air, space and light.
On this account she cannot be a centre of the iron and
steel trades, of chemical production, or of the textile
industry with which she was so long connected. It is
said that mat-making, originally a London industry, is
now centring rather in the provinces. The value of space
tends to banish ship-building, and the early and large
operations connected with stone dressing, carpentry and
joinering. Provincial tan-yards are superseding those of
Bermondsey.

The central position of London, the centre of the great
railway systems and the centre of retail trade, brings to
her industries connected with the final processes by which
goods are prepared for market. Paper made elsewhere
is converted in London into bags and envelopes ; cloth
from provincial manufactories is shrunk in London ; she
has become a “‘ fitting ’’ shop in which the different parts
of articles are put together.

The same causes have made of her a repair shop,
especially in connection with the metal and the ship-
building trades. Owing to her central position also, work
for which prompt execution or particular supervision is
required is largely done in the capital. The high average
of intelligence maintained by an urban and partly cosmo-
politan population, and the large field from which an
employer can choose his workmen, bring to London cer-
tain kinds of highly skilled work. The finest and most
artistic jewellery, the best stained-glass windows, the
best organs, surgical instruments and carriages, are still
made in London.

London, moreover, provides an enormous supply of

¥2
 

324 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

labour, ‘‘ unskilled, semi-skilled and over specialised.”
This is a great reason why, although no great industry.
centres in the capital, many are important in it. Some
would seem to have been established accidentally, and to
have maintained a strong position by the help of the
labour supply and of trading advantages. It is the labour
supply which explains the predominance of London in
the industries of cheap furniture, ready-made clothing,
wholesale boots and shoes, rope, sacks, rubber, fur, card-
board boxes, and envelopes.

Another class of industries, such as baking, brewing
and newspaper printing, are localised by the large de-
mands of the population.

Finally, for a few ‘industries, London to a great extent
supplies the material, as for the manufacture of soap, size
and glue, the tanning and dressing of leather, and the
making of glass from old and broken glass.

The capital no longer stands in isolation as the com-
mercial port of the kingdom ; in 1880 the value of her
total foreign trade was almost equalled by that of Liver-
pool. She occupies, however, an unique position in respect
of the extent to which her imports exceed her exports,
a circumstance due to her distance from any great manu-
facturing district, to the fact that she is rather a mart
than an industrial town or the port of industrial towns.
The accommodation of the Thames has become insuffi-
cient for her trade, and many of her imports and ex-
ports are now conveyed overland by way of Southampton,
Newhaven, Folkestone and Dover, which may be regarded
as ports of London. The trade with France, and with
India, China and the Baltic is largely concentrated in
London.
 

MODERN LONDON 325

 

An enormous population and an increasing prominence
as the social capital have emphasized that tendency,
noticed with jealousy and with fear even in the reign of
Elizabeth, by which British retail trade has been centred
in London. The capital is the shopping place of the three
kingdoms. As such her position has been strengthened
by steamships, railways and motor cars, by the Post
Office, the telegraph and the telephone. Of late years
there has been' a second tendency, to. centralise retail trade
of all descriptions within a few great shops ; and it has
been fostered by the increased means of communication.
It seems, especially as regards the food supply of the
wealthier classes, that shops in the suburbs and the neigh-
bourhood of London, and shops devoted to the sale of
a single class of goods, are on the decline.

Another particular function of the great town is that
of a distributor of foodstuffs and of certain other articles.

The old markets of East and West Cheap were, after
the fire, superseded by a small market for meat, poultry,
vegetables, and sales by retail in general, which occupied
the sites of the burnt churches of St. Mary Magdalene
Milk Street, and All Saints Honey Lane, and was known
as the Honey Lane Market. The thoroughfare of Cheap-
side was thus freed from serious obstruction to traffic.
The ancient Leadenhall, Smithfield and Billingsgate
Markets, and another held in the street near Newgate,
were continued. In 1700 a meat market was established
near the Fleet, and between 1735 and 1737 a fruit
market on the ground reclaimed by filling up the Fleet.
In the nineteenth century, under various Acts of parlia-
ment, the whole market system of London was re-

organised.
 

326 HISTORY OF LONDON

The Honey Lane, Smithfield and Newgate Markets were
closed and that of the Fleet removed to the Farringdon
site, so that important markets ceased to be held in
streets. The markets which, largely by the efforts of the
corporation, were established or organised in the nine-
teenth century may be divided into three classes ; those
which serve the whole country as centres for the dis-
tribution of food, those which distribute the food supply,
of London, and retail markets.

In the first category are four controlled by the cor-
poration, the London Central Meat, Poultry and Provision
Market at Smithfield, the Metropolitan Cattle Market at
Islington, the Foreign Cattle Market at Deptford, and the
Billingsgate fish market ; and also Covent Garden Market
and the Potato Depét of the Great Northern Railway, at
King’s Cross. These collect produce from all parts of
Great Britain ; to some extent, especially in the cases of
Covent Garden and of Deptford, from continental coun-
tries and from the colonies. They send their wares even
to remote parts of the kingdom. They supply also the
London tradesmen ; and it is noteworthy that by enabling
butchers to buy meat wholesale they have abolished the
nuisance of slaughter-houses in London.

The second class are mainly for fruit and vegetables ;
East London is served by the Spitalfields and the
Columbia Markets, South London by the Borough Market.
Their direct customers are the costermongers and the
greengrocers. The gay open shops of the green-
grocers and the costermongers’ barrows, laden with
the spoils of orchards and gardens in England, in France
and in America, fruits of tropical orange groves and
banana plantations, nuts which have ripened under the
 

MODERN LONDON S27

hot sun of South America, afford in the poor parts of the
town extraordinary relief from the monotony of strictly
economical architecture and much dirt. They, are proof
of the extent to which the poor Londoners are vege-
tarians. Costermongers, especially those who trade in
West London and the city, are supplied also from Covent
Garden. They frequently hawk fish and are customers
of Billingsgate.

The chief retail markets are that of Leadenhall, which'
is a collection of shops for the sale of provisions, and
the Farringdon for fruit and vegetables, which supplies
its own neighbourhood. There are to be found also,
scattered variously about the town on different days of
the week, aggregations of costermongers and hawkers, of
whom some, such as those who constitute the Portman
Market in Church Street, Lissom Grove, and the New-
port Market in Newport Street, are probably relics of
ancient markets of importance, while others exist by force
of more recent custom. In that goods are sold in them
at a cheaper rate than in shops, they are valuable to
the poor of their districts. Hawkers of all kinds have
throughout the history of London been a feature of street
life ; and recurrent efforts of the authorities, influenced
by the jealousy of established tradesmen or the necessi-
ties of traffic, to suppress them, have met with little suc-
cess. They are almost inevitably part of the society of
a great city, because in it there is a certain real demand
for their services. In the present day, the hawkers who
enjoy most dignity are the newspaper boys and the flower
sellers. The sellers of flowers in modern London, ill-
favoured women, usually elderly, figures distinguished by
a strange exaggeration of line, who sit behind banks of
 

328 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

fresh and lovely flowers, make at some principal street
corners an effect of grotesque beauty.

Two other notable markets of London are that held in
Bermondsey for hides and skins, and Tattersall’s, which
was established by Richard Tattersall who died in 1795,
and is the chief English mart for horses.

The century has witnessed an extraordinary develop-
ment of means of communication. Sedan chairs and the
boats of the Thames passed out of common use with
other eighteenth century fashions, and vehicles were for
many decades practically always horse drawn. An Act
of 1802 permitted hackney coaches to be licensed up to
the number of 1,000, and in 1833 all limit to the
number of carriages which might ply for hire was with-
drawn. Omnibuses were introduced from Paris about the
year 1828; and in 1834 the Common Council received
a complaint as to the manner in which the streets were
crowded by cabriolets and omnibuses. In December of
that year Joseph Aloysius Hansom took out a patent for
the cab he had invented. The underground railway from
Farringdon Street to Paddington was opened in 1863,
and its subsequent extensions have made the system of
the Metropolitan and District Railways. Tramways,
owing to the narrowness of many thoroughfares and their
crowded state, have never been used in central London.
It was decided in 1873 that they should not be suffered
within the city. The first electric underground railway,
the City and South London, was begun in 1890; the
Waterloo and City Railway followed in 1898; and in
1900 the Central London Raillway, from Shepherd’s Bush
to the Bank, which until recently was known as the Two-
penny Tube. In the last half-dozen years there has been
 

MODERN LONDON 329

 

a rapid development of means of transit. The single line
electric railways called tubes have been multiplied, and
have been connected with the earlier tubes and with the
Metropolitan and District Railways, which also have been
electrified, as well as with the termini of the great over-
land lines. It has become possible by the agency of
this strange network constructed beneath the foundations
of London, to travel underground from almost any point
in the town to another. There are a large number of
people who every morning pass directly from their homes
to subterranean regions, which they leave only to spend
the day immured within a great building of the city ;
and at night they descend again, and are carried beneath
the earth until they are once more within’ a stone’s throw
of the houses in which they sleep. Except on Sundays and
during a short holiday they hardly see the sky or the sunlight.

So rapid has been the increase of resort to London
from all parts of. the world, and of the habit of pursuing
occupation abroad rather than at home, that traffic has
hardly been appreciably lessened by the underground rail-
ways. On the streets it has within the last five years
been distinguished by the supersession of horse-drawn by
motor vehicles. Motor omnibuses, motor cabs, motor
vans seem to be about to replace their forerunners. Their
superiority in point of speed, by which so many more
journeys can be made in a given time, must have dis-
sipated the traffic which, were horses in undiminished use,
would be concentrated ; yet still there are no signs that
the streets of London grow empty. The ceaseless and
dense stream of men, women and children, and of the
vehicles which carry them and their goods, is unceasing
and dense as ever.
 

330 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

In this connection it is noticeable how vain have been
all efforts to restore the river to its old position as a
city thoroughfare. The persistent sacrifices of a county
council, almost hopelessly enamoured of the scheme, could
not induce Londoners to regard the cheapest and most
express of steamboats as intended for anything but their
pleasure jaunts. The reason is geographical ; the Thames
does not, like the Seine, cut through the heart of its city ;
it meanders round the busiest part of the town.

It would appear that the habit which Londoners have
acquired of sleeping and maintaining households far from
the central district in which they transact their business
was at first a cause rather than the effect of the facilities
for travelling. In the time of Jane Austen the rich mer-
chant still lived, usually, above his place of business in
Cheapside, Cornhill, Lombard Street, Thames Street or
Holborn ; but before 1831 the wealthiest Londoners had
abandoned the city. Probably their fashionable neigh-
bours of the West End had infected them with a distaste
for cramped quarters. The second exodus, that of the
poorer resident population, took place after 1851. It
was mainly a consequence of the higher value of city,
property which followed not only on the needs of a grow-
ing commerce, but also on a diminution of the area avail-
able for building caused by the making of new streets
and the widening of others. Southwark Bridge was
opened in 1819, and the new London Bridge, which occu-
pied a slightly different site from its predecessor and
therefore necessitated some diversion of the streets lead-
ing to it, in 1831. Cannon Street was widened and ex-
tended to St. Paul’s Churchyard in 1854. In 1856 the
ground was cleared for the construction of the Farringdon
 

MODERN LONDON 431

 

Road which continued Farringdon Street. The Holborn
Valley Improvement Act, which resulted in the construc-
tion of Holborn Viaduct, was passed in 1864. Queen
Victoria Street was opened in 1871 and Throgmorton
Avenue in 1876. In 1877 Temple Bar was removed.

In 1866, a few years after the opening of the first
underground railway, the persons who actually lived in
the city constituted about one-eighth of those who were
in it every day. It was computed in 1860 that four
hundred thousand of them walked daily in and out of
the city, while eighty-eight thousand travelled by omni-
bus. Of the smaller class who drove in cabs and private
carriages no estimate was made. The introduction of
new means of communication has not only reduced the
number of those who sleep in the city, or elsewhere in
central London, but has also extended widely the limits
of the greater London in which Londoners have their
dwellings ; and the term of such expansion has not yet
been reached.

Thus the ancient city, of London, once alive with all
the interests of a powerful and intelligent population, has
become a place in which men make money. by day, and
which at night is left desolate, a dead thing of offices and
warehouses. It has been partly reconstructed in accor-
dance with its new character. For some decades exten-
sive rebuilding has taken place, and large and ostenta-
tious buildings, often Renascence or pseudo-Renascence,
but sometimes bewilderingly mixed in style, have been
raised in many city streets. Evidently it is the rather
vulgar ideal of their architects to produce an impression
of wealth. Constructurally they are uninteresting because
they usually depend on iron frameworks. Buildings of
 

332 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

this type are found in all the prosperous commercial parts
of the town, in the West Central district and in some
West End streets as well as in the city.

The Londoners’ custom of living at a distance from
the place of their work is not confined to the middle
classes. In the industrial districts, East and South
London, the value of space has induced many workers to
live where a long walk, or even a train journey, separates
them from the factory, yard or workshop, or other place
in which they are employed.

In the residential parts of London, rich and poor, the
most remarkable recent feature is the extent to which
buildings containing flats have taken the place of houses
constructed to accommodate one family.

Until almost the end of the nineteenth century there was
no provision of a central authority for the general govern-
ment of Greater London. The corporation of the city
continued to exercise their ancient functions, although
with the shrinkage of the resident population it became
increasingly difficult to fill the lesser administrative
offices. The corporation of Westminster had governing
powers which extended to the limits of Westminster.
Furnival’s Inn and Staple Inn, the four Inns of Court,
the Charterhouse and the close of Westminster Abbey
were ruled by corporations of their owners; and the
Tower was a liberty of the crown. Administrative powers
outside the limits of the City were exercised by the ves.
tries of parishes. The whole of London was exempted
from the Municipal Corporations Acts of 1835, 1882
and 1883. Certain new authorities with particular
powers, which had for their sphere all the metropolitan
area, were however provided. In 1829 an Act of parlia-
 

MODERN LONDON 333

ment created the Metropolitan Police Force, an estab-
lishment of police officers and courts. But while this was
entitled after 1839 to assume power over any other dis-
trict within fifteen miles of Charing Cross, the actual
city was excepted from its scope. In 1832 the city itself
remodelled its police force on a plan which, in so far as
day arrangements were concerned, approximated to the
Metropolitan Police system while it made the Common
Council the supreme authority, but which left the duties
of a nightly police to the old agency of watchmen and
beadles. In Southwark, which belonged to their juris-
diction, the civic authorities maintained order by day
only by means of one marshalman, one messenger and
one housekeeper, while at night, since the borough had
no wardmote, it had not even a watch. Shortly before
1837, however, Southwark was included in the sphere of
the Metropolitan Police.

Police duties on the river had already, early in the
century, been allotted to a special force over which the
corporation had no rights; and in 1839 the Thames
together with its creeks, inlets, waters, docks, wharves,
quays and landing-places, within and without the city,
was made part of the Metropolitan Police district.

The second great authority, which acquired power over
the area of London in general, was that of the Metro-
politan Board of Works. The primary object of its
institution was the improvement of sanitary arrangements.
These in 1847 were controlled by seven different com-
missions, including the City, Commissioners of Sewers,
each of which was entrusted with a particular district:
The Metropolitan Board of Works was constituted under
an Act for the better management of the metropolis passed
 

334 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

in 1855. It acquired power over the whole metropolitan
area, not excepting the city, and consisted of three
members elected by the Common Council, and of forty-
three chosen, singly, in twos or in threes, by each of
twenty-three vestries and of fourteen unions of small
vestries in the rest of London.

This body was the object of frequent jealousy on the
part of the corporation, but accomplished much useful
work. Hitherto all the main sewers of London had dis-
charged into the Thames, and matter had remained stag-
nant at low tide, and at high tide had been forced into
low-lying streets and houses. Many houses had no sewer
accommodation, and every, extension of the town had
multiplied the filthy and dangerous cesspools. The whole
drainage system was remodelled on scientific principles
by the Board of Works.

They had power also over streets and roads; and in
such capacity were responsible for the finely constructed
Victoria, Albert and Chelsea Embankments, for the
widening and improvement of some streets, and the mak-
ing of some new thoroughfares. They had a control over
building. By various Acts they were charged with the
formation of parks and the management of open spaces ;
and through their initiative Finsbury, Southwark and
Victoria Parks were opened to the public, and Blackheath,
Hampstead Heath, Shepherd’s Bush Common, Hackney,
Commons, Tooting Bec Common, Leicester Square,
Clapham Common, Bostall Heath, King’s Road Wastes,
Parson’s Green, Brook Green, and the commons of Toot-
ing Graveney, Eel Brook and Streatham were improved
or acquired. The Fire Brigade was placed under their
direction in 1866. In 1872 by the Infant Life Protec-
 

MODERN LONDON 335

 

tion Act they became the local authority for the execu-
tions of provisions which regulated baby farming. They,
were able to compel the removal from the metropolitan
area of dangerous or obnoxious businesses. By various
acts they acquired power to supervise the construction of
tramways, to regulate the speed of road locomotives, to
execute the Act for the prevention of contagious diseases
among animals, to exercise certain control over the water
and gas supplies.

Thus the Metropolitan Board of Works largely super-
seded the vestries and to some extent the corporation,
They were, in fact, as the only existing general authority,
invested with powers to administer all the new depart-
ments of local government invented by the legislature,
for which a special authority was not created.

Among such special authorities were the Conservators
of the Thames, constituted by an act of 1851, on whom
the ancient rights of conservancy exercised by the cor-
poration devolved. They included the mayor, two alder-
men and four Common Council men, but consisted also
of five members appointed independently of the city ; and
later acts which remodelled their body gave a prepon-
derance to that section of them who were unconnected
with the corporation.

In 1867 the Metropolitan Poor Act transferred the
duties of poor relief from parochial authorities to Boards
of Guardians, to each of which a parish or union of
parishes was allotted. As a result of the same Act the
Metropolitan Asylums Board was constituted to maintain
and manage hospitals for the sick, the infirm and the
insane.

The Elementary Education Act of 1870 gave the con-
 

336 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

trol of public education in London to the London School
Board.

Thus in 1888 London was governed in a somewhat
chaotic manner. The two corporations of the city and
of Westminster and the lesser long established local
authorities existed side by side with new authorities, each
of which in isolation exercised certain new duties, and
likewise superseded to some extent the functions of the
ancient bodies.

In 1889, under the Local Government Act of the pre-
vious year, the whole London area, consisting of the
city and of adjacent parts of Middlesex, Kent and Surrey,
became the new county of London. The boundaries were
to some extent altered by another Act passed in 1899.
The chief officers of the county are a lord lieutenant, a
custos rotulorum, and a sheriff appointed by the Crown.

The central authority is the London County Council,
which consists of a chairman, nineteen aldermen, and one
hundred and eighteen councillors, of whom four are
elected by the city, and two by each of fifty-seven other
divisions of the county. This body acquired all previous
capacities of the Metropolitan Board of Works, the
administrative functions of the quarter sessions in such
parts of Kent, Middlesex and Surrey as are now in the
new county, and certain powers of the Court of Aldermen
and the justices of the city. In 1890 it became the. local
authority for the maintenance of lunatic asylums, and
under the Education Act of 1903 the local education
authority. By various acts the powers with regard to
the maintenance of public health, inherited from the
Board of Works, have been increased.

The Metropolitan Police authority and the city’s man
 

MODERN LONDON 337

 

agement of its own police, as well. as the poor law,
arrangements, have not been affected by the creation of
the county.

In 1899 an Act of parliament abolished vestries and
district boards of work outside the limits of the city,
and divided the whole county, except the city, into
twenty-eight metropolitan boroughs, governed by metro-
politan borough councils. From the sphere of these all
affairs connected with the church or ecclesiastical pro-
perty are exempted. They are the local authorities for
the maintenance, cleansing and lighting of streets and
for sanitary matters, and they may make bye-laws for the
peace, order and good government of their boroughs.

The electors of the London County Council are quali-
fied as are those of other county councils, while the
electors of the Metropolitan Borough Councils must have
the qualifications of those of urban or rural district
councils elsewhere in the kingdom.

The corporation of London has survived the establish-
ment of London County. The Common Council exercises
within the city those powers which belong in other parts
of the county to the borough councils, and has also cer-
tain capacities held elsewhere in London by, the County,
Council. The powers of the City Commissioners of
Sewers were vested in the Common Council in 1898.

In 1908 by the Port of London Act the process of
unifying administration was finally advanced. The up-
river limit of the port was fixed at Teddington Lock, and
control below that point was granted to a new authority,
which consists of ten persons elected severally by the
city corporation, the London County Council, the Board
of Trade, the Admiralty, and Trinity House, and of

H.L. Z
 

338 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

eighteen representatives of private persons interested in
the traffic and wharves of the river. This body acquired
all powers previously held by the Thames Conservators
within the limits of the port, and all those once exercised
by the Watermen’s company in respect of the registra-
tion and licensing of vessels and the regulation of
lightermen and watermen ; and it was made fully com-
petent ‘to authorise construction works.

The social divisions of Londoners are less simple than
they were in the days of Stow. Yet still the great popu-
lation may be classified in accordance with their means
of livelihood ; there are the financiers, the merchants,
and the manufacturers with their employees, who live by
the commerce and the manufactures of the town ; there
are the idle rich whom fashion will never lead away from
London while it is still the seat of the court and of
parliament, and still presents large opportunities for the
pleasant spending of money ; there are those who serve
all the others, artists, professional men, retail tradesmen,
servants, some workmen ; and finally there are more than
ever ‘“‘ the many begging poor,”’ whose begging is now to
some extent done for them.
CHAPTER XXI
THE COUNTY OF LONDON

 

HE division of London county into boroughs
is to some extent arbitrary ; the boundaries
have not always a meaning either historical
or economic. Yet roughly it is possible to

arrive at a general idea of that great district which is
London by considering singly each of the metropolitan
boroughs which compose it.

It is unnecessary to say more of the city itself, the
chief of all London’s divisions, which has been the sub-
ject of much of this book. Of the others Westminster is
undoubtedly the most interesting. For long known as
a city it was incorporated as such only in 1900, and has
now authority to style itself city instead of merely
borough. The modern boundaries differ slightly from
those of ancient Westminster ; the northern limit coin-
cides with Oxford Street as far east as Tottenham Court
Road, and with a line somewhat to the south of New,
Oxford Street and Holborn ; on the east the boundary is
formed by the city and the river, on the south by the
river only ; and on the west it includes Hyde Park, and
south of the park, where it separates Westminster from
Chelsea, follows the course of Sloane Street and Chelsea
Bridge Road.

Within this area was the little town which grew up

Z2
 

340 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

around the palace of Edward the Confessor and the
Abbey, the famed Westminster Hall, the road from Lud-
gate to Westminster Palace and the historic inns of the
Strand, Whitehall and St. James’s, the houses of the
Tudor and Stewart kings, the ancient royal parks, the
West End of the early Stewarts around and north of
the Strand, and the modern West End with the squares
and the ‘ palaces” of the seventeenth and eighteenth!
centuries. There is hardly a street in all the district
which has not been peopled by, the great novelists of
the Georgian era. From the Restoration until the present
day it has included all the theatres of London. The
clubs have always been situated in it. The chief royal
palace of London is still within its boundaries. It con-
tains the law courts and the government offices ; and it
is the principal shopping quarter of modern London.

The buildings of Westminster were extended in the
nineteenth century over Belgravia and Pimlico. Thomas
Cubitt leased some land known as the Five Fields from
the Grosvenor family in 1825, and erected on it Eaton
Square, Belgrave Square, Lowndes Square, Chesham Place
and other rows of houses. Victoria Street was planned
by the architect Abraham and opened in 1851. It was
one of the first London streets to contain mansions of
flats, and was not completely, built until 1887. Victoria
Station, which now engrosses a large part of Pimlico,
was opened in 1860.

The topography of the West End was in the nineteenth!
century notably affected by the making of Regent Street.
This street, distinguished by its fine line, was planned by
Nash, the favourite architect of the Prince Regent, and
was almost complete in 1820. It was intended as a way
 

THE (QUADRANT ABOUT 1840.
 

THE COUNTY OF LONDON 341

 

of communication between Carlton House and Regent’s
Park, and included the northern continuations of Lang-
ham Place and Portland Place. Foley House was bought
as part of the plan. Nash adopted a device of the
brothers Adam by, which, in order to secure some uni-
formity, a single fagade served several houses. Regent
Street inaugurated an age of slight building, for its
houses were of brick and composition, a circumstance
which inspired a popular epigram :—

“ Augustus at Rome was for building renown’d,

For of marble he left what of brick he had found ;

But is not our Nash, too, a very great master ?
He finds us all brick and he leaves us all plaster.’’!

The Quadrant was also designed by Nash. Its whole
footway was covered by an effective arcade, supported by
iron pillars, which was removed in 1848. The architect
built All Soul’s Church at the northern end of Langham
Place, as a termination to the view from Oxford Street.

A contributor to the ‘ Quarterly’ of June, 1826,
refers to ‘‘the new square at Charing Cross,’’ and the
project of erecting on its north side ‘‘a splendid build-
ing, designed for the use of the National Gallery of
Paintings and Sculpture . . . to supplant the mews and
to extend from Pall Mall East to St. Martin’s Church”’ ;
but Trafalgar Square in its present form, with Nelson’s
Column as its central point, was not completed until about
the middle of the century. The equestrian statue of
George IV. is by Sir Francis Chantrey. The lions are
more recent additions and are after Landseer’s studies.

Three modern thoroughfares traverse an historic dis-

1 “Quarterly Review,” June, 1826.
 

342 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

trict and have obliterated some landmarks ; Shaftesbury
Avenue, which cuts through Seven Dials rendered famous
by Dickens, was opened in 1886, and Charing Cross
Road in the following year. The wide Kingsway, which
joins the Strand and Holborn, and is as yet only par-
tially built, has existed only for a few years.

The classes of the population of Westminster are very
various. There are the fashionable residential districts
of Mayfair and Belgravia ; and in Soho, near the Strand,
and near Victoria Street and the Abbey, there are crowded
streets inhabited by casual workers and the poor who do
not work, some of them persons of doubtful character,
and other streets in which live the respectable poor who
are in regular employment. Soho is still the foreign
quarter of London. Middle class dwellings are found
principally in the Victoria and the Pimlico district.

The small borough of Holborn is situated around New
Oxford Street and Holborn, from Tottenham Court Road
to the city’s boundary. New Oxford Street, on the site of
the ‘“‘ Rookery” of St. Giles was opened in 1847, and
diverted the main line of traffic from High Street and
Broad Street. The buildings of the borough are to a
great extent commercial, but it includes the residential
district of Bloomsbury, which, in modern times, is largely
learned and respectable, and largely a place of middle
class hotels and boarding-houses, but also slightly dis-
reputable. Much of the old lawyers’ quarter of London,
Gray’s Inn, Furnival’s Inn, Staple Inn and Lincoln’s Inn,
is in Holborn Borough, as well as the ancient parish of
St. Giles-in-the-Fields, now a shabby place of partly
doubtful reputation.

The borough of St. Pancras, formed out of the parish
 

THE COUNTY OF LONDON 343

so called, adjoins that of Holborn on the north and west.
It reaches from Oxford Street to Highgate and is clus-
tered about the line of Tottenham Court Road, the
Hampstead Road, High Street, Kentish Town Road and
Highgate Road. It is a development of the eighteenth
century suburbs of Somers Town and Camden Town and
the village of Kentish Town, and their connections. The
district is mean and airless, and chiefly inhabited in its
residential parts by members of the lower middle class
and by the working poor, and elsewhere by the trades-
people who supply their wants. Certain streets are dis-
reputable. Tottenham Court Road is a shopping street
of a more general character, a centre of the retail trade
in furniture.

West of St. Pancras is the parish of St. Marylebone,
now Marylebone borough, which historically is of great
interest. It extends on the north side of Oxford Street
from Tottenham Court Road to Marble Arch, but reaches
little eastwards of Cleveland Street. On its north side
it includes almost all Regent’s Park and much of Prim-
rose Hill, and St. John’s Wood to the south of Boundary
Road. Its western boundary is Maida Vale and the
Edgware Road. It thus comprises a considerable part
of the ‘‘ polite end ” of the eighteenth century, as well as
the northern part of Regent Street with Langham Place
and Portland Place. Regent’s Park is a royal park, and
was designed by Nash together with all the terraces about
it but one, Cornwall Terrace, the work of Decimus Burton.
Bryanston and Montagu Squares, and Dorset Square,
which occupies the site of the original Lord’s cricket
ground, date from the same period. Blandford Square
was building in 1833. This district constitutes the
 

344 HISTORY OF LONDON

second extension in the early, nineteenth century of
fashionable London. The park was not accessible to the
public until 1838. The Zoological Gardens were opened
by, the Zoological Society in 1828, and the Botanic
Gardens by the Botanic Society in 1840.

The Duke of Bedford, who feared the nuisance of dust
behind Bedford House, insisted on the gardens of the
houses in Marylebone Road. The street was part of a
new road from Paddington to Islington made in
1756-7. It was a crowded thoroughfare in 1833 and its
buildings were then described as ‘pleasing and pic-
turesque.” At this date the west side of the Edgware
Road, of which part is now Maida Vale, was built as far
as Kilburn Priory, and included some ‘“‘ detached houses of
a most splendid style of architecture.” The suburb of
St. John’s Wood was building and had “ villa residences,
situated in large gardens, erected in every variety of
architectural elegance.’”’ It was already an artists’
quarter, inhabited by Thomas and Edwin Landseer, R. J.
Lane, G. Sintzenich, and Ugo Foscolo, the Italian poet.

In this period the poorest parts of Marylebone borough
were that behind the Edgware Road, northwards from
Marylebone Road to St. John’s Wood Road, and east-
wards to Lissom Grove and Grove Road, which from the
first was given up to the jerry builder; ‘‘the densely
populated mass of buildings north and south of Wigmore
Street, from Duke Street and Marylebone Lane”; and
Portman Town, the district between Grove End Road and
Lord’s.

In the first thirty years of the nineteenth century the
population of Marylebone borough was almost doubled.

In the eighty years which have since elapsed there have
 

THE COUNTY OF LONDON 345

 

been many changes. The district about Regent’s Park
and that north of the western part of Oxford Street are
still fashionable, but Harley Street and the streets around
it have been very largely appropriated to doctors. St.
John’s Wood, grown much more populous, is still a
pleasant place of many gardens much inhabited by artists.
The “splendid” detached houses of the Edgware Road
have disappeared, but Maida Vale remains a road of
private dwellings. The houses in Marylebone Road, no
longer either pleasing or picturesque, have completely the
air of decayed gentility. Of the neighbourhoods stig-
matized in 1833 as wretchedly poor that of Grove End
Road has been improved.

Paddington, the borough which adjoins Marylebone on
the west, and which comprises the districts of Bayswater,
Westbourne Park, Maida Vale and Kensal Green, is, in
its urban character, largely a creation of the mid-Victorian
age. In 1830 the Edgware Road might be called the
western boundary of London. At about that date the
building of Bayswater was begun, and after the opening
of Paddington station in 1840 there was considerable
building in its vicinity. Yet in 1849 there were green
fields to the north of Westbourne Grove and Bishop’s
Road, and the houses on the east side of Maida Vale were
not continuous. There are still small open spaces about
Maida Vale, and the artisan quarter of Kensal Green is
very modern.

The borough has been changed in recent years by the
conversion of numerous houses in the Bayswater squares
into boarding houses, and by the erection of many man-
sions of flats in Maida Vale. Westbourne Grove is an
important shopping street. There are shabby streets in
 

346 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

Paddington inhabited by the working classes, especially
near Praed Street and the Harrow Road, but there is
little extreme poverty.

The borough of Kensington styles itself, as the birth-
place of Queen Victoria, not ‘‘metropolitan’’ but
‘royal.’ In 1837 it still consisted mainly of its several
villages clustered around the principal highways, Ken-
sington about the High Street, Brompton about the old
Brompton Lane or Road, Little Chelsea on the north side
of the Fulham road, Earl’s Court on either side of Earl’s
Court Road or Lane, and Notting Hill around the
Uxbridge Road. From Kensington to Knightsbridge
there were however continuous buildings, except on an
open space now occupied by the Albert Hall, which in
the forties was the site of the Exhibition. In 1844
there were in Notting Hill High Street only two shops
which were more than one storey high.

Modern Kensington contains the important shopping
streets of Knightsbridge, the Brompton Road and Ken-
sington High Street. It has some public buildings and
monuments, all artistically deplorable ; the Albert Hall
and Memorial, the Imperial Institute and the South Ken-
sington Museum. St. Mary Abbots, the old church of
the parish, has been rebuilt. There is considerable
poverty in the Notting Hill district, especially in the
vicinity of Ladbroke Grove and the Portobello Road ;
but for the most part the borough is inhabited by well-
to-do people, and, like other residential parts of London,
it has been invaded by the flat. There are still some
‘great houses on the road to Knightsbridge, and there
are still streets and squares which have a sober dignity,
reminiscent of the days of the courtly suburb. Ken-
 

THE COUNTY OF LONDON 347

 

sington has faintly the atmosphere of traditions which in
Bayswater is so entirely lacking.

The small borough of Chelsea, once the parish of St.
Luke, has a form roughly triangular indicated by Sloane
Street, Walton Street and the Fulham Road, and ‘he
river. The King’s Road was made by Charles II. as a
way to Hampton Court, and was the private property of
the crown until 1830. The two districts, the older near
the church and that of Hans Town, grew rapidly in the
early nineteenth century. Many great houses were how-
ever demolished about the year 1830, and in some cases
squalid streets replaced them. Throughout the nine-
teenth century Chelsea, especially Cheyne Walk and its
neighbourhood, was a favourite dwelling place of artists.
It was inhabited by Turner, Rossetti, Carlyle, Leigh Hunt,
George Eliot, and many more. To some extent its pic-
turesqueness was impaired by the embanking of the
Thames ; yet Chelsea by the river has never ceased to
be, in the opinion of many, the most beautiful place in
all London. It has still fine houses and is still an
artists’ quarter. About King’s Road and the Embank-
ment there are poor streets and many habitations of the
working classes ; and poor households are provided by
the shops of the King’s Road and by one of the pic-
turesque irregular markets of London which there has
its site.

Sloane Street has shops which supply the less localized
demands of a more luxurious class. As a residential
quarter its neighbourhood has increased in fashion.
Dickens described Cadogan Place, which strictly is in
Westminster, as ‘“‘ the one slight bond that joins two great
extremes ; it is thé connecting link between the aristo-
 

348 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

cratic pavements of Belgrave Square and the barbarism
of Chelsea. It is in Sloane Street but not of it.”? But
in the present day there is no opprobrium attached to a
connection with Sloane Street.

The three remaining boroughs in the western part of
London county, Fulham, Hammersmith and Hampstead,
may even now be described as suburbs.

In 1813 Fulham parish consisted of the village around
the ancient palace of the bishops of London, and the
out-lying hamlets of Parson’s Green, Walham Green and
North End. Hammersmith was a riverside village which
for more than a hundred years had been ‘‘a summer
retreat for nobility and wealthy citizens.”” In Hammer-
smith parish there were the hamlets of Shepherd’s Bush,
Gagegle Goose Green, Stamford Brook Green, Pallings-
wick or Paddingwick Green and Brook Green. The copy-
holders of both Hammersmith and Fulham had rights on
the common of Wormholt Scrubbs. In either place the
principal industry was market gardening for Covent
Garden and other London centres of distribution.

There was little change between the years 1813 and
1849; and the modern urban characters of these two
boroughs is greatly due to the increased means of com-
munication. They are largely inhabited by respectable
working people and members of the lower middle class.
Some riverside property is occupied by casual labourers
and rough characters.

Hampstead in the sixteenth century is said to have had
for its principal residents the washerwomen of ‘the
nobility, gentry and chief citizens.’’ Later it attracted
the retired tradesman who wished to establish himself in

1 “Nicholas Nickleby,”
 

THE COUNTY OF LONDON 349

the country. Early in the eighteenth century Hampstead
Wells were opened, and about 1706 a comedy by Baker
called ‘‘ Hampstead Heath,” which had for subject the
pleasures of the Wells and of the adjacent area
rooms, was produced at Drury Lane.

In 1818 buildings ‘‘ stood thick’ about High Street
and Heath Street, and between High Street and the
Heath, and there were elsewhere scattered houses, and
the hamlets of Frognal, West End, Kilburn,! North End,
Pond Street and Haverstock Hill. But even in 1849 the
houses up to the limit of the borough were, outside the
village about High Street, detached, and commanded
views of green fields and of hills. The latest additions
have been the buildings in West Hampstead and in the
Belsize Park district, which date from the late nineteenth
century.

These finally, brought Hampstead within the vast tract
of London ; and the annexation was completed by the
construction, two or three years ago, of the Hampstead
Tube Railway. But until very recent times Hampstead
was a pleasant outlying village, and it has not yet lost
its individuality.

From the time of FitzStephen the land to the north of
the city was a pleasure ground of Londoners. In it they
followed athletic pursuits and practised archery ; and in
it, at a later date, the trained bands were exercised and
mustered. Some sort of right of common was claimed
by the citizens over the Moorfields and Finsbury Fields
and an indefinite tract stretching to the north of these,
for in 1516 a protest was made against certain enclosures.
‘‘ Before this time,’’ says Hall the chronicler, ‘‘ the towns

1 Part of Kilburn is in Willesden and outside London County.
 

350 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

about London, as Islington, Hoxston, Shoreditch, and
other, had so enclosed the common fields with hedges and
ditches, that nother the young men of the City might
shoot, not the auncient persons might walk for their
pleasure in the fields, except either their bows and arrows
were broken or taken away, or the honest and sub-
stantial persons arrested or indicted, saying that ‘ No
Londoner should go out of the City but in the highways.’
This saying sore grieved the Londoners, and sodianly
this year a great number of the city assembled them-
selves in a morning, and a turner in a fool’s coat came
crying through the city, ‘Shovels and Spades,’ and so
many people followed that it was wonder, and within a
short space all the hedges about the towns were cast
down, and the ditches filled, and everything made plain,
the workmen were so diligent.’”’ ‘* So after,’’ Hall con-
cludes, ‘‘ the fields were never hedged’; yet Stow, half
a century later, states that they were ‘‘ in worse case than
ever, by means of inclosure for gardens, wherein are built
many fair summer-houses.”” Throughout most of the
seventeenth century, however, a very considerable remnant
of unenclosed land was left to the enjoyment of the
citizens. ‘‘ Walked over the fields to Kingsland and back
again,’’ wrote Pepys in May, 1667; ‘‘a walk, I think,
I have not taken these twenty years; but puts me in
mind of my boy time, when I boarded at Kingsland, and
used to shoot with my bow and arrows in this field.”
Artillery Ground is part of a much larger tract over
which, as late as 1792, the Artillery Company success-
fully claimed a right of practice.

Of the northern boroughs that of Finsbury consists of
the district of Clerkenwell, of a former part of the parish
 

THE COUNTY OF LONDON © 351

 

of St. Giles Cripplegate, which in the eighteenth century
became St. Luke’s parish, of an extra-civic division of
St. Sepulchre’s parish, and of the liberties of Charter-
house and Glasshouse Yard.

Its earliest growth as an urban place must be ascribed
to the situation in it of religious houses ; Charterhouse,
the Benedictine nunnery of St. Mary on the present site
of St. James’s church, and the priory of St. John of
Jerusalem, of which the place is marked by St. John’s
Square. The well which named Clerkenwell was near
the priory, and Stow relates that on the green beside it,
Clerkenwell Green, ‘‘ the parish clerks of London .. .
of old time were accustomed .. . yearly to assemble,
and to play some large history of Holy Scripture.”

In the seventeenth century several distinguished persons
came to live in this suburb, and it was, moreover, one of
those most attractive to the industrial population who
wished to escape from the tyranny of the companies. But
the citizens still resorted to the northern part of the
modern borough in search of rural pleasures. Sadler’s
Wells, sometimes called Islington Wells, near the present
junction of Rosebery Avenue and St. John’s Street, were
opened in 1683, and their waters were drunk throughout
the eighteenth century. Certain bowling greens and
houses of entertainment, of which one was the first
Sadler’s Wells Theatre, were near them.

Building in the northern part of Finsbury known as
Pentonville began about the year 1773, and the inter-
vening district of the borough was covered with streets
and buildings in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Modern Finsbury is a crowded and busy place of un-
lovely streets inhabited by the poor, sometimes of the
 

352 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

miserable or even criminal class, sometimes respectable
working people. A few eighteenth-century brick houses,
strangely distinguished beside the uninteresting buildings
which flank them, can still be seen, and many streets
and squares plainly consist of former dwellings of the
middle classes, deserted at the time of the great migra-
tion to the suburbs. For a long period the trade of
working watchmakers, clockmakers and jewellers, and
such subsidiary industries as those of lapidaries and hair-
workers, centred in Clerkenwell. The centre of the high-
class jewellery trades is now Hatton Garden, which is im-
mediately outside the western limit of Finsbury borough,
but there are still in Clerkenwell a iconsiderable number of
jobbing jewellers. Dealers in precious stones are in
Hatton Garden, lapidaries in Clerkenwell or in Soho.
The watchmaking and clockmaking trades still centre in
Clerkenwell ; but many of the men employed, both in
them, and in the jewellery trade, live further afield in North
London.

The borough of Shoreditch, formed from the parish’ of
St. Leonard Shoreditch, adjoins Finsbury on the west
and the city on the south. It consisted originally of the
liberty of Norton Folgate, outside the city’s liberties,
which belonged to St. Paul’s Cathedral, the ancient
village of Shoreditch on the old road which led north-
wards from Bishopsgate, the outlying village of Hoxton
on the north side of the way now Old Street, and the
hamlet of Haggerston at a more northerly point of the
road from Bishopsgate. Halliwell Priory, which has
named Holywell Street and Holywell Lane, was in the
parish. Norton Folgate had been built over in 1720;
there were then houses also on either side of the High
 

THE COUNTY OF LONDON 353

 

Street, extending to the eastern limit of the parish, and,
in some places, as far west as Curtain Road ; and Hoxton,
still confined to the north side of Old Street, had a
market place and various streets. The Curtain Road, so
called after the Elizabethan playhouse which had been
situated in it, did not yet reach to Old Street. The
building of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries has
converted Shoreditch borough into a poor and crowded
neighbourhood much like that of Finsbury. Its sole claim
to beauty is in the fine perspective of the Kingsland
Road, the beginning of Ermine Street; along which from
Roman times men have travelled from London to the
north. The district is mainly one of artisans. The furni-
ture trade is largely localized in the Curtain Road and
its neighbourhood.

Bethnal Green was originally a part of Stepney parish.
The settlement in it of Huguenot weavers was a stimulus
to rapid growth ; and in 1720 the hamlet of Spitalfields
had come to be well populated and closely, built. In
1743 the inhabitants of all Bethnal Green were so
numerous that it was constituted a distinct parish with a
church dedicated to St. Matthew. Before 1839 it was
necessary to build a second church, and such was the
subsequent increase of population that before 1891 twelve
additional churches were erected.

Modern Bethnal Green is poor and crowded, a place of
wide streets and mean houses. Some needed freshness
is afforded by, the Victoria Park. The district is, like
Shoreditch, largely inhabited by artisans. The weavers
have from the latter end of the nineteenth century, been
on the decrease. Some streets have all the worst charac-
teristics of a slum.

H.L. AA
 

354 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

The parish of St. Luke, Islington, comprised in 1735
the considerable village of Islington on the road from
London to St. Albans, the hamlets of Upper and Lower
Holloway, Newington Green and Kingsland Green, and
the manors of Highbury, Canonbury, and Barnsbury. It
had assumed a suburban character in 1842 when con-
tinuous buildings connected it with the city, but it still
included much open land. In the latter half of the
nineteenth century it was built over entirely. It is now
inhabited chiefly by the working poor and by families
of the lower middle class ; here and there are squalid
localities in which dwell the wretchedly poor. Highbury
Fields form the one open space left to this borough,
which some sixty, years ago was a pleasant place.

Hackney village contained in 1795 several streets, and
in the parish there were the hamlets of Clapton, Homer-
ton, Dalston, Shacklewell, and a part of Kingsland. A
manor was named the Wick. In Hackney, as in other
places equally near to London, there were, from the six-
teenth century onwards, various fine houses ; many of them
were demolished in the first thirty years of the nineteenth
century. The conversion of this parish into part of
London took place mainly in the latter half of the
nineteenth century, and some important open spaces
have been left to it; London Fields, Hackney Downs
and Stoke Newington Common. Moreover, Victoria Park
lies around its south eastern boundary, and Hackney
Marsh, a public park of some extent, is at its south
eastern, and Hampton Hill near its northern limit. Hack-
ney has not, therefore, become one of the monotonous and
mean districts of London. There are pleasant houses,
inhabited by well-to-do people, around Victoria Park,
 

THE COUNTY OF LONDON 355

 

Hackney Downs and Stamford Hill. Extreme poverty is
found also, especially in Lower Clapton and near the river
Lea. The borough is largely inhabited by respectable
working people and by persons of the clerkly and shop-
keeping classes.

The borough of Stoke Newington, formed of the parish
of St. Mary, Stoke Newington, together with a part of
South Hornsey, has, in modern times, a character very like
that of Hackney. The village which was its nucleus was
situated about Church Street, and was in 1849 a village
only.

Eastwards of the city, between the liberties and the
river Lea, with the Thames as a southern boundary, there
are only two boroughs, Stepney and Poplar. The district
is traversed by an ancient thoroughfare, the way from
London to Essex, from Aldgate along Whitechapel High
Street, Whitechapel Road, Mile End Road, and Bow
Road, and by a great nineteenth-century road, Com-~
mercial Road, which from Whitechapel High Street leads
past the docks eastwards to the road to Barking, and
which by Commercial Street is connected with North London.

East London was never fashionable. From Aldgate a
straggling suburb, of cottages and dirty alleys, reached
in the beginning of the seventeenth century half a mile
beyond Whitechapel. On the river bank ‘‘a continual
street, or filthy straight passage, with alleys of small
tenements or cottages builded,” stretched almost to Rat-
cliff. Many small tenements had lately been raised
towards the manor of Shadwell. Ratcliff had increased
to the eastward so that it was joined to Limehouse, and
premises of shipwrights and small dwellings of sailors

extended almost to Poplar and Blackwall. It is said that
AA2
 

356 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

between 1590 and 1630 the population of the district
east of the city, especially of its waterside part, was
trebled. Although the eastward extension of London
was humble, there were here and there within the present
limits of Stepney, and Poplar boroughs, as in Bethnal
Green, country houses of wealthy men who wished to
live near the town. In 1720 ‘‘ many fine seats and noble
structures ’’ were still ‘‘ scattered about those parts,’
although they had been abandoned to meaner uses.

Sir Christopher Wren in the late seventeenth century
reported on the Mile End Road as a healthy place con-
venient for the habitation of mariners, and of manu-
facturers connected with shipping. Building along this
road was therefore undertaken in a less haphazard fashion
than heretofore. There were along the way from Ald-
gate, in 1720, the populous parish of Whitechapel, and
the hamlets of Mile End New Town, which was joined
to Spitalfields, and of Mile End Old Town ‘“‘ built with
many good houses, inhabited with divers sea captains
and commanders of ships.’ Yet the northern part of
Stepney had still ‘‘ the face of a country, affording every-
thing to render it pleasant.”

Stepney by the river had already something of its
modern importance with regard to shipping ; it was dis-
tinguished by ‘‘ Populousness, traffic, commerce, havens,
shipping, manufacture, plenty and wealth.” Wapping,
Shadwell, Ratcliff and Limehouse formed to the eastern
limit of the present borough, along the river bank, a con-
tinuous line of buildings which to the north extended to
Cable Street or beyond it. White House Street, which
had buildings on both sides, led, as it does now, from
Ratcliff to Stepney Church and thence to Mile End.
 

THE COUNTY OF LONDON 357

 

Poplar was an insignificant hamlet in Stepney parish.
At Blackwall there was, however, a wet dock of unusual
size. The Isle of Dogs was ‘‘a fine rich level for fatten-
ing cattle.”

In the latter part of the eighteenth century the docks
at Blackwall were extended until they covered an area of
nineteen acres. The buildings of Limehouse and of
Poplar had met by the middle of the nineteenth century ;
yet, beyond Whitechapel, East London, except near the
river, where streets, lanes and houses were closely packed,
did not yet constitute a crowded district. There were
open spaces especially within the limits of modern Poplar.
Beside the river Lea the villages of Stratford-le-Bow or
Bow and Bromley-by-Bow, of which both are now part
of that borough, had not yet lost individuality. Both the
West India Docks and the London Docks were at this
time in existence. The Isle of Dogs was still a deserted
tract.

Mr. Charles Booth, in his ‘‘ Life and Labour in Lon-
don,” considers modern Stepney borough as divided into
the several districts of Whitechapel, St. George’s-in-
the-East, which is a parish formed of central Stepney in
the eighteenth century, Mile End Old Town, and the
largely riverside area which alone still belongs to Stepney
parish.

Whitechapel is the Jewish quarter, and a great propor-
tion of the inhabitants follow the employments of the
Jews; they are tailors, bootmakers, tobacco workers,
street sellers and general dealers. A small percentage
are employers of labour, usually sweated.

Stepney is a labourers’ district, and St. George’s par-
takes of the two characters. Mile End has “‘a little of
 

358 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

9

everything ;”’ the labour of Stepney, the trade and in-
dustry of Whitechapel, and the artisan element of Bethnal
Green and Shoreditch ; and it ‘‘ very closely represents
the average ”’ of East London.

Of all the poor districts which surround the city on
the north, the east and the south, St. George’s is, in the
opinion of Mr. Booth, ‘‘ the most desolate.” It has not,
like some of the others, the charm of a life which is
vivid even if it is miserable. It has that squalor, that
hopeless, unabashed and unutterably dull poverty which
is the limit of degradation. The street life of White-
chapel, on the other hand, is full of colour and incident,
of drama, of possibilities. No race could be more
different from another than are the Whitechapel Jews
from that class of the hopeless and the degenerate who
drift into the worst slums of the East End. The Jews
have many hopes and schemes ; they have quick brains
and strong feelings, and many of them live in consider-
able comfort. To know all this it is only necessary to
watch them when in Petticoat Lane! on Sunday morn-
ings they noisily and showily sell to Christians clothes,
food, furniture, gaudy ornaments, patent medicines, all
manner of necessaries and luxuries. There are some
other street markets in Whitechapel. The fanciers bring
pet birds, rabbits and guinea pigs to sell in Brick Lane ;
and, as in other poor quarters of London, the coster-
mongers on Saturday night drive a thriving trade in cheap
food, beneath the glare of flaring torches.

Stepney parish has two miles of water frontage, which
have all the beauty of the misty river and its strange crafts
and sounds, with the half-seen buildings of distant banks.

1 Now officially called Middlesex Street.
 

THE COUNTY OF LONDON 359

 

It is moreover intersected by the Regent’s Canal, and
therefore jt derives interest from the waterside and river
faring population who form a section of its inhabitants,
and who have usually a wider outlook than the very
poor of inland places. Like Whitechapel it has a foreign
element. Mile End is comparatively fresh and clean, and
has frequent small open spaces.

Poplar now includes a large area of dockyards, of which
the whole Isle of Dogs is practically part. About the
fifteenth-century church of Bow some little steep-roofed
houses, and the line of the streets, still suggest the road-
side village, Stratford-atte-Bow, which grew up about
the bridge over the river Lea ; and even now Bow and
Bromley have not the crowded and closely-packed streets
of central London. North Bow and some other parts of
Poplar have, however, been impropriated by the jerry
builders. ‘‘ Desolate looking streets spring into existence
and fall into decay with startling rapidity, and are only
made habitable by successive waves of occupation.” The
foreign element in the population of Poplar is small. The
inhabitants are mainly labourers and artisans.

The topography of South London has been largely
affected by the building of the several bridges over the
Thames. Its oldest part was situated at the southern end
of the first bridge of all, the ancient borough of Southwark,
of which the history begins before the Norman Conquest.

Southwark in medizval times had importance as the
place in which were situated the inns of some great
ecclesiastics. Its river bank, Bankside and Tooley Street,
was as convenient a place as the Strand for the houses of
men who wished to live where, by way of the river, they
had easy access to parliament and the court. The
 

360 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

borough was otherwise distinguished by the disorder and
the loose morals of its inhabitants. This was due to its
proximity to the city combined with its exemption from
the civic jurisdiction ; it was an easy place of refuge for
London criminals. From the reign of Edward III. suc-
cessive charters of kings placed it within the scope of the
authorities of the city ; yet its independent history had
produced certain peculiarities and customs which the royal
grants did not completely override, and although, after a
grant by Edward VI., Southwark became Bridge Ward
Without; no complete uniformity between its arrangements
and those of other wards in the city was ever produced.
A second cause of disorder was the existence in the
borough, down to the final abolition of such institutions,
of an unusual number of places of exempt jurisdiction, in
which immunity from arrest under the public law was
enjoyed. Paris Garden, as a former possession of the
Knights Templars, the adjacent Clink liberty, which
belonged to the bishop of Winchester, the Mint which
adjoined the King’s Bench and Marshalsea prisons, were
all such privileged places, and one or other of them was,
in different periods, a popular haven for criminals and
debtors. Moreover, they were convenient sites for places
of amusement to which the city authorities might take
exception. The bear gardens and playhouses in the Paris
Garden and the Clink Liberty have already been noticed.
In the Clink there were situated also from an early period
the public stewes which were abolished only under Henry
VIII. When, after the dissolution of religious houses, most
of the inns of ecclesiastics in Southwark were converted
to other uses, the character of the borough suffered a

further degeneration.
 

THE COUNTY OF LONDON 361

 

Throughout the middle ages it was fairly populous.
Its most ancient thoroughfare is the road from the city
to Kent, now the Borough, the High Street, Tabard Street
and the Old Kent Road. Newington Causeway, which
continues the High Street towards Newington, is a
medizval way, as are Long Lane and Abbey Street which
led to Bermondsey Abbey, and, by the river, Bankside
and Tooley Street or St. Olave’s Street. The old borough
had a river frontage which extended eastwards as far as
Dockhead, but towards the south it included an area
rather less than that of the metropolitan borough.

Of the other boroughs of South London none had
until modern times an urban character. Bermondsey
derived some importance from the situation in it of the
great abbey of St. Saviour. Its history, as recorded in
the monastic chronicles, is largely concerned with re-
current floods of the river over its low-lying territory ;
and in modern times it is still a damp and foggy place,
very suggestive of the swamps which once were on its
site. Lambeth is historical because it has contained for
many centuries the archiepiscopal palace. There were in
Lambeth parish the manor of Kennington, a possession
of the Black Prince and of his descendants, kings of Eng-
land, the manors of Vauxhall and Stockwell, the district
of Brixton, and the hill called Herne Hill. Rotherhithe,
now, part of Bermondsey, was known for its shipping even
in the sixteenth century. Battersea, and, beyond it,
Clapham, Wandsworth, Putney and Roehampton, Streat-
ham and Tooting, which now, form Wandsworth borough,
were only villages until modern times. Camberwell
borough, which includes the early parishes of Newing-
ton, with its hamlet of Walworth, and of Camberwell,
 

362 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

with its hamlets of Peckham and Dulwich, was equally
rural. Of the boroughs which were taken from the
county of Kent, Deptford, like Rotherhithe, was anciently
important in connection with shipping, for Henry VIII.
made there a dock in which the royal ships were built
and repaired. The parish included the hamlet of New
Cross. Greenwich is celebrated for the palace and park,
made by Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, on an ancient
royal manor, and a favourite residence of Edward IV.
and of later kings and queens before the Civil Wars.
A rebuilding of the palace was begun by Charles II.,
yet it did not return to its ancient use, but, by a grant
of William and Mary, became Greenwich hospital. The
Ranger’s House was part of the old palace. Charlton
village stood within the limits of Greenwich borough.
Docks were made at Woolwich in the reign of Elizabeth,
and this village gradually superseded Deptford as the
place in which the royal navy was built. The metro-
politan borough of Woolwich comprises the old parishes
of Woolwich, Plumstead, and Eltham, which included the
hamlet of Shooter’s Hill, and which contained a palace
inhabited by kings of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
Within the present boundaries of Lewisham borough were
Lee parish, and the parish of Lewisham, with' its hamlets
of Perry Street; South End, and Sydenham. Sydenham
Wells Park commemorates the discovery in the village,
about the beginning of the eighteenth century, of some
mineral springs, and its consequent increase in size and
prosperity.

As elsewhere around London the districts on the south
side of the river, which were absorbed in the town at
a late date, were places for the country houses of retired
NANA

 

THE COUNTY OF LONDON 363

citizens and others whose tastes were not completely rural.
Such persons were living in the eighteenth century in
most of the villages which went to form the southern
metropolitan boroughs.

Westminster Bridge was opened in 1750, Blackfriars
Bridge in 1768, and Battersea Bridge in 1772. Asa
consequence new thoroughfares were made, notably, in
Southwark and Lambeth, several of those important
streets which centre in St. George’s Circus, and houses,
population and business increased rapidly. <A’ further
advance followed on the opening of Vauxhall Bridge in
1816, of Waterloo Bridge in 1817 and of Southwark
Bridge in 1819, and on the making of the new London
Bridge. These bridges have effected the annexation of
South London, and a curious reproduction on the south
bank of the Thames of the conditions which prevail on
the north; a portion of Southwark near the river has
become part of the city, a place of offices and ware-
houses deserted every night ; around it the rest of South-
wark, Bermondsey, Lambeth, and a part of Batttersea,
form a ring of districts which correspond in character to
Shoreditch, Bethnal Green and Stepney ; beyond them to
the south and west, as to the north and west of the inner
boroughs on the north side, are prosperous residential
quarters, and to the east there are the boroughs which,
like Poplar, are chiefly important for their dockyards.

The bridges over the Thames built since the middle of
the nineteenth century have been less instrumental in
extending London, and have had Gonseduence rather as a
means of diverting traffic.

In modern South London the great thoroughfares which
are connected with the bridges centre at a meeting of
 

364 HISTORY OF LONDON

 

ways known by the name of a public house, the Elephant
and Castle. These streets, which form the main lines of
communication, are wide and comparatively prosperous,
but behind them a network of smaller streets, alleys and
courts traverses some of the most wretched neighbour-
hoods in all London.

The old borough still enjoys the infamous distinction
of a pre-eminently evil reputation. It is a district which
has not the squalid monotony of some parts of the East
End ; but to the disreputable traditions of its past it has
added in modern times a certain new meanness which
proceeds from extreme poverty and decay. The ancient
streets of Southwark have a depressing quality which is
their own. They have an individual atmosphere born
both of the shiftless, unlovely, and tragically cheerful
poor who now, inhabit them, and of those graceless
scoundrels and brawlers who lived in old Southwark, in
Dirty Lane and Melancholie Walk.

East of the old borough, along the river bank to the
south of Jamaica Road, there is another very miserable
quarter ; and there are yet others in Lambeth, in Batter-
sea, and near Clapham Junction.

Beyond these neighbourhoods, in southern Bermondsey,
Camberwell, Lambeth, much of Battersea, and part of
Wandsworth, and much of Deptford, the houses are
mainly dwellings of the poor in regular employment. To
a great extent the district is Suburban; many of its
inhabitants daily cross the bridges to go to their work
in London north of the Thames ; others are employed in
the factories of Bermondsey, Southwark, Lambeth, Batter-
sea, and Greenwich. The leather trade centres about the
Leather Market in Bermondsey, and there is the usual
 

THE COUNTY OF LONDON 365

amount of waterside labour along the river bank. A large
part of Rotherhithe has been engrossed by the Surrey
Commercial Docks ; and in Woolwich employment is
provided by the dockyards and the arsenal.

The outlying district of South London is entirely
suburban. The large majority of its inhabitants, whether
the wealthy merchant of Dulwich or Wandsworth or the
artisan of Brixton, travel every morning to their work in
the central part of the town.
INDEX

 

A.

ABBEY Street, 361

Abingdon, Stephen de, 59
Abraham, architect, 340

Actors, 192 et seq.

expelled from city, 192—3
opposed by civic authori-

 

ties, 195—7
— protected by lords of coun-
cil, 193

schoolboys as, 193

women, 264

See Companies.

Adam, Brothers, 290, 301, 302, 341

Street, 302

Addison, Joseph, 317

Adelphi Buildings, 301, 302

Terrace, 301

Adkins, Alderman, 208

Admiralty, 300

Agincourt, battle of, 116

Aigle, del’, Richard, 34

Ailesbury, Earl of, 261

House, 261

Albemarle, second Duke of, 259

House, 259

Street, 259

Albert Embankment, 334

Hall, 346

Memorial, 346

Aldermen, 27, 28, 39, 45, 83, 89, 124,
168, 21I—12, 233, 243, 244, 267,
277, 278, 279, 280, 283, 336

Aldersgate, 6

Ward, 17

Aldgate, 6, 67, 86, 98, 122, 166, 355,
356

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aldgate Street, 98

— Ward, 17
Without Ward, 131
Aldwych, 134, 136
Aleconners, 244
Alehouses, 222
Alfred, 8

 

All Hallows, Barking, Church of,
15,142, 143—4, 153,
238
— London Wall, Church
of, 238
—— London Wall, parish
of, 149

Steyning, Church of,
238

All Saints’, Honey Lane, site of,
325

All Souls’ Church, 341

Allectus, 5

Allen, Sir John, 160

Alleyn, Edward, 194

Almack’s, 318

Almshouses, 150

America, 274

war with, 284

Anabaptists, 235

Anchorites, 75

Anne, Princess (Queen Anne), 259,

393

— Queen, 303

Anson, Thomas, M.P., 298

Apsley House, 300

Arch Row, 255

Archers, 91

Archery, 190

Architecture, Eighteenth century,
292—9
 

368

INDEX

 

Architecture, Elizabethan, 198—200

fifteenth century, 138
—144

modern, 331—2, 341

seventeenth century,
240—I, 264—5

thirteenth century,
92—4, 96

twelfth century, 30—1

See Buildings.

Argyll, Marquess of, 256

Arlington, Earl of, 262

Henry Bennett, Earl of,
260

House, 260, 298

Armed men of city, 91, 174, 209, 220

Armour, 95

Armourers, 39, 79, 87, III, 163

Arms, 95

Army in city, 231

Arthurian legends, 7

Artificers, 166 et seg. See Indus-
tries, Manufactures.

Artillery Company, 350

Garden, 221

Ground, 350

Arundel, Earls of, 247

Alethea, Lady, 252

House, 247, 263

Street, 247

Assendune, If

Associations, unrecognised, 80, 167

Asylums, 335

Auditors of corporation, 244

Augusta, 6

Princess of Wales, 299

Augustine, St., 7

Austin Canons, 66, 68, 148

Friars, 72, 89, 156

Church of, 186

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

B.

Bacon, Francis, 211
Bakers, 40, 53, 78, 165, 186
brown, 177

 

 

Bakers, white, 177
Ball, John, 85
Bamme, Adam, 90
Bank of England, 275, 321
Banks, 275, 321

Bankside, 189, 194, 359, 361
Barbers, 123

Bardi, 81

Barebones, Praise God, 219
Barentyne, Drew, 90
Barnard’s Inn, 135, 136
Barnet, battle of, 122
Barnsbury, 354

Barons in London, 29, 46
Basing, Adam de, 45

House, 229

Lane, 93
Basketmakers, 115

Bassett, Robert, 122
Bassishaw, 17

Bat, Gerard, 42

Nicholas, 42—3
Bateson’s coffee-house, 316
Bath, Inn of, Bishops of, 247
Bathurst, second Lord, 300
Battersea, 361, 363, 364
Bridge, 363
Battle, Inn of, Abbot of, 100
Baynard’s Castle, 125
Bayswater, 345
Beaders, 78

Beadles, 243

Bear Garden, 360
Theatre.

 

 

 

 

See The

 

Hope.
Bearbaiting, 191
Beauclerc, 318
Beaufort, Duke of, 304
Henry, Bishop of Win-
chester, 116
House, 304
Row, 304
Beaumont Street, 291
Becket, Gilbert, 33—4
Roesia, 33—4
—— See Thomas a Becket.

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

INDEX 369
Beckford, Mayor, 284—5, 286 Bishops Road, 345
Bede, the Venerable, 7 Bishopsgate, 5, 6, 67, 122, 352
Bedford, The, coffee-house, 317 Street, 68, 70, 181,
Duke of, 116, 118, 344 182, 192
— Earls of, 248 —— Ward, 17

House, Bloomsbury, 262,
296, 344
— Strand, 248
Covent
Garden, appurtenant to, 255
Bedford Street, 248
Beggars, 184, 187, 222
Belasyse, first Lord, 257
Belfry, 7
See St. Paul’s bell.
Belgrave Square, 340, 348
Belgravia, 260, 304, 340, 342
Belinus, 2
Belle Sauvage, La, 176, 192
Bellmen, 243
Benedictines, 66, 73, 351
Benetleye, Adam de, 43
Benevolences, 161
Berkeley, Lord, of Stratton, 259
Sir John, 259
House, 259, 300
Street, 259, 300
—— Upper, 291
Berkhampstead, 14
Berkshire House, 253
Bermondsey, 328, 361, 363, 364
Street, 171, 175
Bethnal Green, 353, 356
Betterton, 264
Bill of Rights, Society of, 285
Billingsgate, 2
Market, 325, 320, 327
Ward, 17
Bingley House, 296
Birmingham, 274
Bishop of London, 65
—— Palace of, 106,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

107

— See Geoffrey de

Coutances, Maurice, Mellitus,
William.

H.L.

 

Without Ward, 131

Black Death, 1or—z, 148

—— Friars, 6, 58, 62, 71I—z2

— Hall, 93

Blackfriars, 6, 123, 186

Bridge, 282, 363

Road, 198

Theatre, 198, 224—5

Blackheath, 85, 86, 118, 119, 334

Blacksmiths, 79, 87

See Smiths.

Blackwall, 355, 357

Blackwell Hall, 164

Bladesmiths, 163

Blanchapelton, 169

Blandford Square, 343

Bloomsbury, 262—3, 292, 294, 342

House, 296

Manor, 262

Square, 249, 262

Blund, John le, 57

Boadicea, 4

Board of Trade, 250, 337

Boarding houses, 342, 345

Boclaund, Idonia de, 75

Bohun, Humphrey de, Earl of Here-
ford and Essex, 72

Bokerel. See Bukerel.

Bolsover Street, 290

Bond, Sir Thomas, 259

Street, 259

Boodles, 318

Bookbinders, 116, 186

Books, 95, 189, 312

Booksellers, 185

Bordeaux, 34

Borough, 361

Market, 326

Be ghs. See Metropolitan

.oughs,
E all Heath, 334

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

370

INDEX

 

Botanic Gardens, 344

Boundary Road, 343

Bow, 87. See St. Mary-le-bow,
Stratford-le-bow.

Bowling alleys, 191

greens, 351

Bowyers, 40, 101

Brangwayn, Richard, 95

Braybrook, Robert, 152, 156

Braziers, 40, 163

Bread Street, 98

Ward, 17

Brembre, Nicholas, 85, 87, 89, 90

Brentford, 5

Brétigny, Peace of, 91

Brett, 174

Brewers, 40, 111

Brick Lane, Whitechapel, 358

Street, 289

Bricklayers, journeymen, 269

Bridge House feast, 241

—— master, 244

— Street, 5, 101

—— Ward, 17

Without, 360

Bridges, 65, 301, 359, 363, 364.
See Blackfriars Bridge, London
Bridge, Southwark Bridge, West-
minster Bridge.

Bristol, 19, 274

Lady, 306

fair, 165, 183

Britain’s Burse, 254

British Museum, 301

Britons, 4, 7

Brixton, 361, 365

Broad Street, city, 72

Oxford Street,
254, 342

—— Ward, 17

Bromley-by-Bow, 357, 359

Brompton, 303

Lane, 346

Road, 346

Brook Green, 334

Brookfields, 289

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

248,

 

 

 

 

Brothmakers, 115

Brown, William, 68
— Roesia, 68

Brutus, 2

Bryanston Square, 343

Buccleugh, Duchess of, 306

Buckingham, Duke of, 125, 126, 127

second Duke of, 254

George Villiers, Duke
of, 203, 211, 212,
213, 214, 254

John Sheffield, Duke
of, 298—9

Palace, 253, 260, 299

Street, 248

Bucklers, game of, 168

Bucklersbury, 34

Bucuinte, 34

Buildings, Regulation of, 30, 223

—4, 239

Bukerel, 34, 41

Stephen, 47, 48

Walter, 40

Bull Inn, 192

Bullbaiting, 191

Bullion, export of, 271—2

Bungaye, Reginald de, 42

Burbage, James, 194

Burgh, House of Hubert de, 250

Burgundy, Archduke of, 167

Bastard of, 145

Burke, Edmund, 318

Burlington, Earl of, 259, 296, 299

House, 259, 295, 300

Burton, Decimus, 343

Butchers, 78, 79

Butlery, 25, 57

Button’s coffee-house, 317

 

 

 

 

 

C.

CABLE Street, 356

Cade, Jack, 118, 119, 120, 121
Cadogan family, 304

Place, 347

Caen, 33, 94

 
 

 

 

INDEX 371
Cesar, Julius, 3 Cecil, Sir Edward, 254
Camberwell, 361 Sir Robert, 248

Cambridge Fair, 165 — Hotel, 248

Camden Town, 343 Central London, migration from,

Campden, Baptist Hicks, Lord, 303

House, 303

Candlewick Street, 40

Ward, 17

Cannon Street, 330.
wick Street.

Canonbury, 354

Canterbury, 104

Archbishop of, 18, 116

Cappers, 78, 163

Carbery, John Vaughan, Earl of,
395

Cardmakers, 87

Cardplaying, 316

Carfax of Leadenhall, 98

Carleton, Henry Boyle, Baron, 299

Carlisle, inn of Bishop of, 100,
248

Carlton Hotel, 311

House, 299, 341

Carlyle, Thomas, 347

Carmarthen, Peregrine Osborne,
Marquess of, 261

Carmelites. See White Friars.

Caroline, Queen, 303, 305

Carpenters, 40, 92, 123

journeymen, 269

Carta Mercatoria, 82

Carthusians, 148

Castille, King of, 69

Castle Baynard, 31. See Baynard’s
Castle.

Ward, 17

Wharf, 99

Street, 290

Castlewood, Lady, 305

Catteaton Street, 35

Caturensian merchants, 54

Cavendish, Earl of, 257

family, 300

— Square, 290, 292, 298

Street, 290

 

 

See Candle-

 

 

 

 

 

 

330—1
Railway, 328
Chamberlain of city, 124, 244
Chancery Lane, 55, 135, 136, 249
Chandlers, 40
Change Alley, 316
Chantrey, Sir Francis, 341
Chantries, 73, 96—7, 147, I51
Dissolution of, 173
Chantry priests, 97, 153
Chapel Royal, children of, 193
Chapter coffee-house, 316
Charing Cross, 161, 176, 247, 249,
250
—— demolition of, 254
Road, 342
Charles I., 219, 220, 221, 226, 230,
233, 275
Exactions of, 206—10
Statue of, 249
II., 235, 347, 362
Prince (Charles II.), 232
Street, Haymarket, 258
Charlotte, Queen, 299
Charlton, 362
Charterhouse, 101, 148, 188, 332,
351
Charters of the city, 13, 16, 24, 29,
41, 59, 60,
124, 157
forfeiture of,
241—2
restoration of,
242
Incorporation of Companies,
see under Livery Companies.
Chatham, William Pitt, Lord, 274
Chaucer, 97
Chaucer’s Pilgrims, 101
Cheap, 39, 4°, 62, 63, 98, 103, 104,
122, 144, 168, 169
—— Ward, 17

 

 

 

 

 

BB2
 

INDEX

 

372

Cheapside, 34, 98, 104, 109, 183,
184, 187, 202, 235,
239, 281—2, 330. See
West Cheap.

 

Market, 98, 325
Cheesemongers, 78, I15
Chelsea, 304—6, 347—8
Bridge Road, 339
— Embankment, 334, 347
Little, 346
Chesham Place, 340
Chester, 5
inn of Bishop of, 100, 247
Chesterfield, Earl of, 262, 300
House, 300
Chester’s Inn, 134
Cheyne, William, Lord, 304
Elizabeth, 304
— Francis, 303
—— Sarah, 304
ae Walk, 347
Chichester, 5
Chigwell, Hamo de, 61, 62
Child’s Bank, 275
coffee-house, 316
Chip Street, 258
Cholmely, Sir Richard, 169
Christianity, conversion of London
to, 7
Christ’s Hospital, 72, 173
Church reform, 152—3. See Refor-
mation.
Churches, 234
defacing of, 215, 216
riots in, 215—16
See Parish Churches, Re-
ligious Houses.
Church Street, Lisson Grove, 327
Spitalfields, 271
—— Stoke Newington,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

$55
Churchill, 317

Cistercians, 148

City and South London Railway,
328

Clapham, 361

 

Clapham Common, 334
Junction, 364
Clapton, 354
—— Lower, 355
— Robert, 112
Clare, Gilbert de, 96
Clarendon, Edward Hyde, Earl of,
210, 217, 258, 259
House, 258—9
Hotel, 297
Clement V., 147
VI., 102
Clement’s Inn, 134, 135
Clerkenwell, 32, 119, 171, 198, 350,
351, $52
Green, 122, 351
Cleveland House, 257
Street, 343
Clifford, Isabel, widow of Robert,
183
Clifford’s Inn, 133, 135, 136
Clink Liberty, 360
Clockmakers, 116, 352
Clothiers, 164—5
Clothworkers, 167, 185
Clubs, 318, 340
Cnihtengild, 66, 67
Cnut, II, I2
Coaches, 201
Stage, 308
— See Hackney Coaches.
Coachmakers, journeymen, 269
Coal duties, 239
Coalheavers, 271
Cockfighting, 191
Cockpit, The, theatre, 198
Coffee-houses, 316—18
Cofferers, 40, 78, 79
Cogge of All Hallows, La, 91
Coinage, debasement of, 209
Coke, Lady Mary, 306
Colchester, 5
Coleman Street, 72
Ward, 17

 

 

 

 

Colleges, 153
Colonial expansion, 272
 

 

INDEX 373
Columbia Market, 326 Cornhill Ward, 17
Commissioners of Sewers, 239, 281, | Cornwall Terrace, 343

$33, 337 Corpus Christi Chapel, 182
Common Council, 27, 79, 83, 87, 88, | Costermongers, 326, 327

89, 124, 152, 161, 165, 168, 207, | Cottington, 208

209, 210, 219, 220, 221, 228, 229, | Counter prison. See Sheriffs’ Coun-

230, 231, 232, 233, 242, 243,
243—4, 245, 267, 277, 278, 279,
280, 281, 283, 284, 285, 286, 287,
334, 335, 337

Common Council, Committees of,

280
Hall, 244,268, 284, 286, 287
Commonalty, 27
Commonwealth, 233, 244
Companies of actors, Chamberlains,

194

—— — DukeofYork’s,
264

— — Earl of Lei-
cester’s, 194

— —— LordStrange’s,
194

See Livery Companies.
Conduit, Fleet, 225, 305
—— Great, 99, 144, 191
by St. Paul’s, 144
Coneyhope Lane, 98, 137
Constable, 84
of precincts, 243
Constance of France, 19
Constantine, 5
the Great, 6
Constitution, eighteenth
277—80
modern, 332—8
seventeenth century,
242—5
Cooks, 123, 186
Cookshops, 32
Coopers, 165
Cope, Sir Walter, 303
Corders, 78
Cordwainer Ward, 17, 40
€ordwainers, 40, 78, 79, 87, 111, 186
Cornhill, 87, 98, 169, 235, 316, 330

 

 

 

century,

 

ters, Wood Street Counter.
Country gentlemen, 222
County of London, 336
Courbury, Lord, 258
Courtenay, Archbishop, 152
Coutances, Geoffrey de, Bishop of
London, 15
Covenant, 232
Covent Garden, 254, 255, 317
Market, 255, 326,
327, 348
Theatre, 311
Coventry, Lord, 289
Secretary, 260
Street, 260
Cowper, Lord, High Chancellor, 288
Cradock, 216
Crafts, 39—40 et seq., 49, 5I—2, 56
—6o, 7780, 83, 87, Ifo,
III, 115—6, 123, 163
charters of, 80
performances by, 192
representatives of, 124
wardens of, 778, 159
Craven, Lord, 254
House, 254, 260
Credit, use of, 274—6
Cremorne, Lord, 306
Crepyn, Ralph, 52, 53
Crewe, Lord, Bishop of Durham, 263
Cripplegate, 6, 75, 194
Ward, 17
Without Ward,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

187
Cromwell, Oliver, 228, 234, 254, 258
Crosby, Sir John, 141
Hall or Place, 125, 141—2
Cross, Broken, 99, 103
Cross of Cheap, 99, 104, 144

—— Great. See Cross of Cheap.

131,

 
 

374

INDEX

 

Cross Keys, 192, 196

Crossed Friars, 73

Crusades, 25

Crypts of houses, 93, 94

Cubitt, Thomas, 340

Cumberland Place, 291

Curriers, 87

journeymen, 269

Curtain, The, theatre, 194, 196, 353

Road, 353

Curzon Street, 289, 300

Customs revenue, 146, 204

Custos Rotulovum of London county,
336

Cutlers, 39, 78, 79, IOI, III

 

 

D.

Dacre of the South, Gregory, Lord,
252

Dalston, 354

Danegeld, 16

Danes, 8—11r

Daubers, 92

Davenant, 264

David I. of Scotland, 18

II. of Scotland, 94

De la Warr, Lord, 121

Dean Street, Soho, 262

Denham, Sir William, 161

Deptford, 5, 123, 156, 175, 326, 362,
364

Derby House, 257

Derry, Grant of county of, 207, 208,
210, 217, 219

Despenser, Hugh le, 47, 62

Devereux Court, Strand, 316

Devonshire, Duke of, 259

House, 259, 300

Place, 291

: Street, 291

Dick’s coffee-house, 316

Diet of Londoners, 188, 223

Digby, Sir Kenelm, 263

Dilettanti Society, 318

Dirty Lane, 364

 

 

 

 

Discoveries of new countries, 162

District Boards of Work, 337

Railway, 328—9

Dominican Friars. See Black
Friars.

Dorset Garden Theatre, 264

Dover Street, 259

Dowgate Ward, 17, 82, 167

Wharf, 99

Drainage, 239, 281, 333, 334, 337

Drama, 33, I91—8, 264, 311, 351.
See Actors, Theatres.

Drapers, 78, 79, 80, 103, II0, IIT,
150

Drapers’ Hall, 138, 146

Dress, 201—2

Drury family, 249

House, 249, 253

— Lane, 108, 236, 249, 255, 256,
261, 263

Theatre, 258, 291, 311.
See Theatre Royal,

Dryden, 261, 317

Duck, Dr., 216

Duke Street, Piccadilly, 258

(Sardinia Street), 255

Strand, 248

Duket, Laurence, 52

Dulwich, 362, 365

Dumas, Louis de, Earl of Faver-
sham, 257

Duncombe, Sir John, 257

Durham, inn of Bishops of, 248

House, 248, 254, 302
—- Yard, 302

Dutch, 167,212. See Netherlanders.

silkweavers, 187

Dyers, 40, 87, 123

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

E.

EARLE Street, 255

Earl’s Court, 303

Lane, 346

Road, 346

East London, 302, 326, 332, 355—9

 

 

 

 
 

INDEX

Eaton Square, 340

Edgar Atheling, 13, 14
Edgware Road, 344

Edmund, King, 10, 11
Education, 335. See Lectures,

Schools.
Edward the Confessor, 11, 12, 13
—— the Elder, 9
— I, 6, 53, 56, 82, 99
— ILI., 58, 59, 61
— IIl., 63, 81, 94, 104, 105,

147
IV., 122, 123, 141, 146, 362
V., 125, 126, 127, 142
Black Prince, 361
Earl of March (Edward
IV.), 121, 122
Prince (Edward I.), 43, 46,
48, 54
—— (Edward II.), 56
—— (Edward III.), 62,

eee

 

102

Eel Brook Common, 334

Egremont House, 297

Elders of London, 13

Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester, 118

Queen of Edward I., 56, 68

Elections, 233, 234, 244, 278, 279-
See Common Council; Mayor ;
Parliament, Members of ; Sheriffs.

Elephant and Castle, 364

Eliot, George, 347

Elizabeth, Queen, 176, 177, 189,
190, 193, 247, 248, 252

Queen of Edward IV.,
125

Queen of Bohemia, 260-1

Eltham, 362

Elsingspital, 148

Elsyng, William, 148

Ely fair, 165

Embankment, 301, 334, 347

Embroiderers, 186

Emperor’s men, 12

Empire, trade with, 167

Encroachments, 58

 

 

 

375

Engine Street, 289
Episcopacy, abolition of, 218, 229
Episcopalians, 232
Ermine Street, 5, 353
Eschevins, 26, 27
Esmond, Harry, 305
Essay writers, 313
Essex, 34, 355
London, capital of, 7
Humphrey de Bohun, Earl
of, 72
Arthur Capel, Earl of, 257
Robert Devereux, second
Earl of, 247
— Robert Devereux, third Earl
of, 229
—— Geoffrey de Mandeville, Earl
of, I9—23, 24, 69
— Earldom of, 20, 22
— House, 247, 263
—— Street, 247
Ethelbert, 7, 8
Ethelred, ealdorman of Mercia, 8, 9
the Unready, 9, 10
Eustace, son of King Stephen, 19
Evelyn, John, 237, 238, 256, 258,
259, 261
Every Man in his Humour, first pro-
duction of, 194
Excise Bill, 284
Exempt jurisdiction, places of, 360
Exeter, Bishop of. See Walter
Stapleton.
Cecil, Earl of, 248
inn of Bishops of, 100, 247
Hall, 248
Street, 248
Exhibition, 346
Extension of London, 131—z, 188,
200, 221, 222, 247 et seq., 269, 288
et Seg., 331, 340 et seq.
Extone, Nicholas de, 88, 90

F.

Fapyan, Robert, 53, 126, 127, 139,
146

 

 

ae
 

INDEX

 

376
Fairfax, Sir Thomas, 230, 231, 233,
254, 256
Brian, 289

 

Fairs, 165, 184

Falaise, John de, 102, 103

Famine, 59, 172

Fanmakers, 186

Farriers, journeymen, 269

Farringdon Road, 330

Ward, 17

Without Ward, 132

Faversham, Louis de Dumas, Earl
of, 257

Ferne, 132

Ferris, George, 160

Fetter Lane, 135, 219

Fielding, 317

Fiffyde, Richard, 88

Fifth Monarchy Men, 235

Filiol, John, 88

Finsbury, 190

Borough, 350—2

Fields, 194, 221

Park, 334

Fire, 9, 15, 18, 23, 29, 30, 34

Great, 237—40

Fire brigade, 334

Fishermen, 88

Fishmongers, 39, 78, 79, 80, 82, 85,
87, 88, 99, 103, 104, IIO, III, I12

FitzAlulf, Constantine, 40

FitzMary, Simon, 41—3, 70

FitzOsbert, William, 26, 28, 38

Fitzroy Square, 291

FitzStephen, William, 31, 349

FitzTheobald de Helles, Agnes, wife
of Thomas, 70

FitzThomas, Thomas, 46, 47, 48,

 

 

 

 

49
FitzWalter, Lord, 137
Robert, 31
Five Fields, 340
members in city, 21I9—221
Flats, 332, 340, 345, 346
Fleet Market, 325, 326
Prison, 256

 

 

 

 

Fleet River, 1, 2, 39, 282, 325

—— Street, 131, 135, 136, 141, 239,
264

Fleetwood, manager of Drury Lane
Theatre, 291

Flemings, 12, 56, 81, 86, 130

tapestry-makers, 186

weavers, II14

Fleshers, 40

Florentines, 81, 115

Flower sellers, 327

Foley House, 290—1, 341

Folkmoot, 7, 17, 18,27, 45, 46, 47, 50

Foote, 317

Foreign Cattle Market, 326

Foreigners, 12, 34, 80—3, 110, L13—
15, 166—71

halls of, 171

industries of, 114, 130,
186—7

journeymen workmen,
171, 266

leatherworkers, 186

merchants, 85, 89, 123,
127, 167

regulation of handi-
craftsmen of, 170—1

religious communities
of, 73

servants, I7I

victuallers, 88

Forestalling, 87

Fortune, The, theatre, 197, 213

Foscolo, Ugo, 344

Foster’s Lane, 138

Founders, 79

Foundling Hospital, 283

Fourbours, 115

Fowler, Edward, Bishop of Glouces-
ter, 305

France, noblemen of, 252

Franciscans. See Grey Friars.

Franks, 5, 6

Fraternities. See Gilds.

Fraunceys family, 113

Frederic, Prince of Wales, 299

 

 

 
 

INDEX

Freedom of the City, 77, 80—1, 242
French, 12
bakers, 186
church, 186
cooks, 186
dyers, 186
embroiderers, 186
fanmakers, 186
goldsmiths, 186
gunmakers, 186
silk weavers, 187
tailors, 186
, 69, 70—3, I50—I. See
Austin, Black, Crossed,
Grey Friars, Friars Sack,
Friars of St. Mary de
Areno, Minoresses, Pied,
White Friars.
of the Cross.
Friars.
Hermits. See Austin Friars.
Minor. See Grey Friars.
—— of the Penance of Jesus
Christ. See Friars Sack.
— dePica. See Pied Friars.
Preachers, 102. And see
Black Friars.
Sack, 55, 72, 137
of St. Mary de Areno, 73
Friday Street, 140
Fripperers, 40
Frith Street, 262
Frognal, 349
Froissart, 91, 107
Frowyk family, 113
Fulham borough, 348
—— parish, 348
Road, 346, 347
Fullers, 40, 87, 123
Fulwood’s Rents, Holborn, 316
Furniture, 94, 95
trade, 343, 353
Furnival, Lords, 134
Street, 134
Furnival’s Inn, 134, 135, 136, 332,
342

 

an

 

hy
fm.
p
a

See Crossed

 

 

 

 

 

377

G.

GaGGLeE Goose Green, 348

Galochemakers, 116

Games, 32—3, 144, 190

Gardiner, Sir Thomas, 216

Garraway’s coffee-house, 316

Garrick, David, 302, 318

Gas supply, 335

Gascons, 34

Gascony, 82

Gates, 6

Geare, Alderman, 215

Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, 22

of Monmouth, 2

George I., 303

II., 303

III., 284, 285, 299

IV., 299, 300

IV., statue of, 341

— Prince of Wales (George IV.),

goo, 318, 340

— Street, Hanover Square, 293

Gerard, John, 140

Germans, 82

Gerrard House, 261

Street, 261, 317

Gerrard’s Hall. See Gisors Hall.

Ghent, Abbey of St. Peter, 12

Gibbon, 318

Gibbons, Grinling, 240

Gilds, 65, 74—5, II1, 152—3

Dissolution of, 173, 174

Girdlers, 40, 78, 80, 87

Gisors, John, 93

Hall, 93

Glasshouse Yard, 351

Glaziers, 92

Globe, the, theatre, 196, 197, 198

Gloucester, Duchess of, 118

Duke of, son of Queen
Anne, 303

Humphrey, Duke of,
116, 117, 118, 362

Earl of, 44, 48, 50.

Gilbert de Clare, Robert.

 

 

 

 

 

 

See
 

380

INDEX

 

Holles William, 160

Holloway, Lower, 354

Upper, 354

Holy Days, 174

Holy Trinity, Aldgate, 66—68

Holywell, 32

Lane, 352

Street, 134, 352

Homerton, 354

Honey Lane, 98, 99

—— Market, 325, 326

Hope, The, theatre, 198

Horners, 87

Hornsey Park, 125, 128, 252

South, 355

Horse Guards, 300

Parade, 300

Horsey Down, 88

Hosiers, 78

Hospitals, 68, 148—50, 173, 335

Houghton collection, 306

Street, 134

Hounslow, 5

House of the Converts, 53

Keeper of.
See Master of the Rolls.

Houses, Great, 247—50, 252—3, 253
—4, 256—63, 265, 295—306. See
Inns.

Howard, Lord William, 175, 176

Howel, 256

Hoxton, 350, 352, 353

Huguenots, 186, 262, 267, 271, 353

church of, 271

congregation of, 136

silk weavers, 262, 271

Hundred Years’ War, 56, 91

Hunsdon, Lord, 186, 247

Hunt, Leigh, 347

Hunting, 17, 33, I91, 252

Huntingdon, Earl of, 106, 306

Hustings Court, 17, 18, 27, 56

Hyde, inn of Abbot of, 100

Manor of, 252

—— Park, 1, 176, 252, 803, 339

— — Corner, 5, 176, 252, 300

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I.

IMPERIAL Institute, 346

Incorporation of City, 124

Independents, 217, 228, 229, 231

Industrial population, 166, 351.
See Crafts, Foreigners.

Industries of Modern London,
322—4, 352

Industry, organization of, 322

Inner Temple, 133

Hall, 133

Innholders, 165

Inns, plays in courtyards of, 192

of Chancery, 132—6, 189

—— of Court, 132—6, 169, 189,

192, 332

—— of great men, 100, 359, 360.
See Houses.

Insanitary condition of London,
222. See Drainage.

Ironmonger Lane, 35, 39

Ironmongers, 39, 78, 79, 123 ~

Isabella,Queen of Edward II., 62
96, 102

Richard II., 105,

 

 

 

 

106, 107
Isle of Dogs, 357, 359
Islington, 326, 344, 350, 354
Borough, 354
Our Lady of the Oak in,
252
Wells, 351
Italians, 34, 69, 81, 82, 114—15, 186
congregation of, 186

 

 

J.

Jacos, Lady, wife of Christopher
Brooke, 255

Jamaica Road, 364

James I., 211, 213

exactions of, 206

— II., 242

Duke of York (James II.),

 

 

241
 

INDEX

381

 

 

 

James Street. See St. James’s
Street.
—— — (Orange Street), 258
Strand, 302
Jarvis, 306

Jermyn Street, 258

Jerusalem coffee-house, 316

Jewellers, 352

Jewellery, 95, 142

Jewin Street, 55

Crescent, 55

Jews, 16, 35, 37, 53—50, 357, 358

Garden, 55

Joanna, widow of Black Prince, 85

John Casimir, son of Frederick III.,
Elector Palatine, 252

King, 26, 69

charter of, 29

of France, 94

of Gaunt, 82, 84, 85, 86, 87,
88, 90, 107, 149, 155

Street, Oxford Street, 290

—— Strand, 302

the Anchorite, 75

Johnson, Samuel, 317—18

Joiners, 78

journeymen, 269

Joint stock companies, 276

Jonathan’s coffee-house, 316

Jones, Inigo, 255, 256, 265, 303

Jonette of London, La, 91

Journalism, 312-—13

Journeymen workmen, 80, 85, 101,

187

combinations of, 269-71

Jousts, 91. See Tournaments.

Jurisdictions, 18, 24

Justiciar, 16, 24

 

 

 

 

cn yal

 

 

 

K.

KaTHERINE, Queen of Henry V.,
117

Kemble Street, 255

Kenilworth, 119

Kennels, 97

 

Kennington, 85, 361

Kensal Green, 345

Kensington, 303—4, 346
Borough, 346
Gardens, 252, 303—4
Palace, 303

Kent, Duke of, 306

— Sheriff of, 120

Kentish Town, 343

Road, 343

 

Kilburn, 349

Killigrew, Thomas, 256

Kimbolton, Lord, 221

King, Gregory, 261

—— Square, 261

—— Street, City, 39, 239

St. James’s Square,
258

W.C., 255, 256

King’s Bench, Court of, 209

Prison, 120, 360

buyers, 87

Cross, 326

Road, Chelsea, 347

Wastes, 334

Street, Westminster, 251

Theatre, 311, 314

Kingship, abolition of, 233, 234

Kingsland, 350, 354

Green, 354

Road, 353

Kingston, 175

Kingsway, 136, 342

Kneller, painter, 263

Knightrider Street, 40, 189

Knightsbridge, 44, 304, 346

Knights Hospitallers, 133, 147

Templars, 23, 69, 70, 360

Knolles, Thomas, 114, 137

 

 

 

 

 

A

 

 

L.

LaBour supply of modern London,
323-—4

Labourers, 187

Lacy, Bishop Edmund, 247
 

382

INDEX

 

Ladbroke Grove, 346

Lambe, 213—14

Lambeth, 237, 361, 363, 364
Palace, 361

Lancaster, Earls of, Edmund, 73
Thomas, 59, 61

 

 

 

Landowners, 113

Landseer, Edwin, 341, 344
Thomas, 344

Lane, R. G., 344

Lanesborough, James, Lord, 300
House, 300

 

 

Lanfranc, 65

Langbourn Ward, 17

Langham Hotel, 291

Place, 341, 343

Langley, 110

Langton, 318

Stephen, 30, 53

Lansdowne House, 296

Lapidaries, 352

Laud, Archbishop, 214

Laundrymen and women, 100

Lavendersbrigge, 100

Law Courts, 340

Lea river, 1, 5, 355, 357

Leadenhall Chapel, 153, 189

Market, 325, 327

Street, 98

Leather Market, Bermondsey, 328,
364

Leathersellers, 79, 111, 177

 

 

Leatherworkers, 163, 1806.
Foreigners.

Lectures, 182, 189

Lee, 362

Leeds Castle, Kent, 61

Leicester, company of, Earl of

(actors), 194
Fields, 256
House, 260—1
Robert Dudley, Earl of,
247
Sidneys, Earls of, 260
Square, 256, 260—I, 334
Lely, painter, 263

See

 

Lens, Bernard, 304

Lenthall, Speaker of House of Com-
mons, 252

Leofric, Earl, 11

Leofwine, 12

Leper Hospital, 68

Lewes, Inn of, Prior of, 100

Lewisham, 362

Lichfield House, 298

Lieutenant of City, 175

Lord, of County of Lon-

 

don, 336
Lighting, 281, 302
Limehouse, 271, 356, 357
Limestreet, Ward of, 17
Lincoln, 5
Henry Lacy, Earl of, 134
Lincoln’s Inn, 134, 135, 342
Fields, 254, 255
— Square, 294
— Theatre, 264
— — Little, 264,

 

 

 

3II

Lindsey, Earl of, 255

Linen Armourers, 78, 163

Lions in Trafalgar Square, 341

Lisson Grove, 344

Little Duke Street, 290

Lincoln’s Inn Field’s Theatre,
264, 311

Liverpool, 274

Livery of Crafts, 109

—— Companies, III, 115, 123,

154, 163, 173,
174, 177—9,
190, 207, 210,
244, 266, 267
—8, 268, 351

charters of, III,
123, 177

courts of, 112

halls of, 136—9

lesser, 123

Llandaff, inn of Bishop of, 100

Lloyd, Dr., Bishop of St. Asaph, 261

Lloyd’s, 316

 

 
 

INDEX \

Lock, composer, 313

Lok, 68

Lollards, 153—7

Lombard silkworkers, 114

Street, 182, 330

Lombards, 81, 109, I114—5

London, capital of England, 12

great resort to, 222

leading position of, 203—4

metropolis of East Saxons,
7

name, 3

privileges of, 16, 17

sailors of, I1

see of, 7, 65

site of, I

social capital, 179—80

Bridge, 10, 15, 56, 86, 100,

 

 

MEET T |

IOI, 117, 120,
I2I, 122, 144,
200, 282

—— chapel of, 1o1
—— drawbridge of, 175
—— New, 330, 363

Central Meat Market, 326

County Council, 336, 337

Docks, 357

Fields, 354

Stone, 120

Londonderry. See Derry.

Londoners, classes of, 180—1I, 205
et seq., 338

origin of, 180

Long Acre, 255, 256

Lane, 361

Parliament, 216 e¢ seq.

loans to, 217

Longbeard. See FitzOsbert,
William.

Longchamp, William, 26

Lord’s Cricket Ground, 343

Lords Appellant, 90

Lorrimers, 40, 87

Louis, Dauphin, 30, 40

Lovell, Lord, 121

Lowndes Square, 340

aa

 

 

 

 

 

 

383

Luccans, 115

Lud, 2

Ludgate, 3, 5, 6, 99, 176

Hill, 2, 76, 192, 224
obelisk at foot of, 286
Lyon’s Inn, 133—4, 136

 

M.

MACCLESFIELD, Gerrards, Earls of,
261

Felton Gerrard,
Earl of, 305

House, 261

Machinery, opposition to use of, 271

Machyn, diarist, 190

Mackworth’s Inn. See Barnard’s
Inn.

Magna Carta, 30, 69

Magniac, Mr., 300

Maida Vale, 343, 344, 345

Maidstone, 174

Major-generals, government by, 234

Manchester, 274

House, 290

Square, 290

Mandeville, Geoffrey de, 19—23, 24,
69

Mandeville,
younger, 30

Manny, Sir Walter, 148

Mansel, John, 44, 45

Mansion House, 98, 282

Manufacturers, 83 et seg., 87, 89,
IOI, 123, 158—9, 163, 166 et seq.,
185—6, 268, 274. See Crafts,
Industries.

Marble Arch, 5

Margaret, Queen of Edward I., 96

Henry VI.,

 

 

 

Geoffrey de, the

 

 

118, I2I
— Tudor, Queen of Scot-
land, 251
— _ Street, 290
Mark Lane, 262
Market Street, 290
 

384

INDEX

 

Markets, 98, 165, 325—8, 347, 348,
358

Marlborough, Sarah, Duchess of,
299

Duke of, 299

House, 299

Marlowe, Christopher, 194

Marryat, William, mayor, 146

Marshal, 47, 84

Marshalsea Prison, 120, 360

Martin’s Bank, 275

Martyrs, 174

Mary, Queen 175, 176

of William ITI., 303

Marylebone, 252

Borough, 343—5

Gardens, 291

High Street, 290

Lane, 290, 344

Road, 344, 345

 

 

Masks, 316

Masons, 92

Master of the Rolls, 56

workmen, 80, 163, 185

Matilda, Empress, 18—23, 24
—— Queen of Stephen, 20, 21,
68

Maurice, Bishop of London, 15

May Day, insurrection on, 168—170

—— Fair, 289—90

—— game, 190

Mayfair, 289—90, 342

Maynard, Nicholas, 88

Mayor, 27, 29, 30, 41, 42, 45, 49, 56,
57, 61, 78, 110, 112, 118, 124, 130,
145, 146, 160, 161, 177, 207, 209,
212, 219, 233, 241, 244, 284, 287

Mayor’s Feast, 130, 172—3

show, 202

Mazarin, Duchesse de, 304

Medway, 41

Melancholie Walk, 364

Mellitus, 7

Mercantilist theory, 266, 271—4

Mercers, 39, 78, 79, 103, I10, III,
114, 115, 163, 167

 

 

 

Mercers’ Chapel, 186
Hall, 34, 70, 137
School, 136
Merchant Adventurers,
274
princes, ror, 181
Taylors, 163
School, 188
Mercia, Fyrd of, 10
Merton, canons of, 34
Metal standard, double, 275
Metropolitan Asylums Boards, 335
Board of Works, 333
—5, 336
Borough Councils, 337
Boroughs, 337, 339
Cattle Market, Isling-
ton, 326
Police, 333, 336
Railway, 328, 329
Middle Temple, 133, 134
Middlesex, Sheriff of, 13, 14, 16.
See Staller Esegar.
Street. See Petticoat

 

 

163, 165,

 

 

Lane.

Midsummer game, 190

Milan, Ambassador of, 129

Milbourne, Sir John, 150

Mile End, 86, 120, 356, 357—8,
359

Field, 188

New Town, 356

Old Town, 356, 357

Road, 356

Military Orders, 68—71

Milk Street, 35, 98

Milton Street, 312

Minoresses, 73

Minories, 73

Mint, 275, 360

Miracle plays, 33

Mob of city, 205, 212, 214, 216, 218,
226, 228, 229, 230

Monmouth, Duchess of, 306

House of Duke of, 261

Monopolies, 80, 83, 89, 178, 183

Ltt |
 

INDEX

Montagu Square, 343
Montague, Chief Justice, 212
Earl of, 122, 263
House, 250, 263
Montfort, Simon de, 48
Moorfields, 184, 238, 349
Moorgate, 6, 194

Street, 213

More, John, 89, 140

Sir Thomas, 127, 169, 304
Morris Street, 258

Mortimer. See Jack Cade.
Street, 290
Mortmain, Statute of, 111
Motor vehicles, 329
Mulberry Garden, 253
Music, 311, 313—14
Musicians, 123, 184
Mysteries. See Crafts.

 

 

 

 

N.

Nawnpo’s coffee-house, 316

Napery, 95

Nash, actor, 194

architect, 340, 341, 343

National Gallery, 341

Naval and Military Club, 297

Needler’s Lane, 40

Nelson’s Column, 341

Netherlander bookbinders, 186

brewers, 186

carvers, 186

dyers, 186

goldsmiths, 186

gunmakers, 186

weavers, 186—7

Netherlanders, 186. See Dutchmen,
Flemings.

congregation of, 186

Netherlands, trade with, 165

Neville, Thomas, Bastard of Fau-
conbridge, 122, 131

Chancellor, 122

New Cross, 361

Inn, 134, 136

H.L.

 

 

LT

 

 

 

 

 

385

New Street, W.C., 255
Newcastle, 209, 274

Newgate, 5, 6, 99, 121
Market, 325, 326
Prison, 169, 305
Newington, 195, 361
Causeway, 361
Green, 354
Newman’s Row, 255
Newport, Earl of, 256

House, 256

Street, 256, 327
Newspaper boys, 327
Nicholls, Gregory, 134
Norfolk House, 257, 297
North, Dudley, 241

North Briton, Number 45, 284
North End, Fulham, 348
—— —— Hampstead, 349
North London, 302, 343, 348—55
Mimms, 114
Northampton, 121

Earl of, 254
John de, 83, 85, 87,

 

 

 

 

 

 

88, 89, 90
Northumberland, Earl of, 254
Avenue, 254

 

 

House, 254
Norton Folgate, 352
Norwich, 274
— Earlof. See Lord Goring.

— inn of Bishop of, 248
Notting Hill, 346

Barnes, 303
Nottingham, second Earl of, 303

Fair, 165

 

 

Nugent, 317

O.

OatTHu of citizens of London, 26
Olaf of Norway, 9, 10
Old Fish Street, 40

— Ford, 5
— Jewry, 35, 213
— Kent Road, tor, 175, 361

cc
 

386

INDEX

 

Old Street, Shoreditch, 352, 353

Oldcastle, rising of, 157

Oliver, Robert, 102

Omuibuses, 328

Opera, Italian, 311

Orange Street, 258

Orchard Street, 290

Ormond, Duchess of, 306

Duke of, 257, 259

House, 257

Ossulston House,257

Ostend, 212

Ostrevant, Count d’, 106, 107

Otleye, Roger, 137

Overcrowding, 187, 188, 222

Oxford, Earl of, 306

twentieth Earl of, 257

last Earl of, 263

Fair, 165

Market, 290

Street, 5, 249, 253, 259, 295,
339, 343, 345

New, 339, 342

And see Tyburn, way to;

Tyburn Road.

 

 

 

 

ne

P.

PADDINGTON, 344

Borough, 345—6

way to, 253

Paddingwick Green, 348

Pageants, 144—5, 174, 189

Paget, William Lord, 247

Painted Tavern Lane, 93

Painters, 78, 313

Palace Yard, 228

Palaces, 204,340. See Buckingham,
Eltham, Greenwich, Hampton
Court, Kensington, St. James’s,
Westminster, Whitehall Palaces.

Palatinate, 206

Pall Mall, 251, 253, 258

Pallingswick Green, 348

Pamphlets, 226

Pancras Lane, 40

Pantheon, 295

 

 

Pantomine, 311

Panton Street, 258

Papal agent, 69

Paper currency, 275

Paris Garden, 191, 360

Parish churches, 12, 31, 66, 96, 142
—4, 151, 198—9

after fire, 240

colleges in, 153

clerks, 123, 351

Parishes, 66

Park Lane, 5, 289

Parks, 294, 334, 340. See Hyde
Park, Kensington Gardens, Re-
gent’s Park, St. James’s Park.

Parliament, 88, 90, 159

House, 147

members of, 161, 216,
244, 284, 287

servants of members of,
218

See Good Parliament,
Long Parliament.

Parson’s Green, 334, 348

Paternoster Row, 316

Paternosters, 116

Patriarch of Jerusalem, 56, 69

Paul’s Cross, 153, 156, 157

Paving, 97, 239, 281, 282, 302

Payens, Hugh de, 69

Peasants in London, 85—$87, 119

Peckham, 362

Pedlars, 183, 184, 222

Peele, 194

Pembroke, Earl of, 176

Pennington, 206

Penny Post, 319—20

Pentonville, 351

Pepper Alley, 189

Pepperers, 40

Pepys, Samuel, 236, 237, 240, 253,
291, 350

Percy, Henry, 84, 85

Perkin Warbeck, 167

Perry Street, 362

Peruzzi, 81

 

 

 

 
 

INDEX

387

 

Petition of citizens, 215, 217, 218,
229

Common Council, 228,
229, 230

twelve Peers, 215

Petticoat Lane, 358

Pewterers, 40, 123

Philip, Elizabeth, 138

Philippa, Queen of Edward ITI., 96,
104, 105

Physicians, College of, 189, 304

Piazza, 256

Picard, Henry, 93, 94, Io1

Margaret, wife of Henry, 93,

 

 

94
Piccadilly, 249, 258, 290, 296
Picts, 6 :
Pied Friars, 73
Piemakers, 115
Piers Plowman, 97
Pimlico, 260, 304, 340, 342
Pinners, 79, 87
Pitt, William, 318
Plague, 101, 102,

223—4
Great, 235—8, 256
Plasterers, 165
Pleasure Gardens, 314—16
Plumstead, 362
Police, 243, 333, 336
Pond Street, 349
Poor, 101, 187—8, 205
laws, 187, 335
Poplar, 355, 356, 357, 359
Port of London Act, 337
Portland Place, 290, 341, 343
Portman Market, 327
Square, 290
— Street, 290
Town, 344
Portobello Road, 346
Portreeve, 13, 14, 15
Portsoken Ward, 17, 67, 131
Portugal Row, 255
Street, 316
Potato Depét, King’s Cross, 326

172, 173, 188,

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pouchmakers, 79, 101, 163

Poulterers, 165

Poultry, 98, 182

and Provision Market, 326

Powder-boxes, 142

Praed Street, 346

Pratt, architect, 259

Chief Justice, 284

Prayer-book, 234

Preachers, 153, 156, 189, 212, 217,
226, 310

in opposition to theatres,
195

Scottish, 217, 227

Precincts, 243

meetings of, 243, 245

Presbyterianism, establishment of,
229, 245

Presbyterians, 217, 227, 230, 232,
233

Primrose Hill, 343

Princes Street (Kemble Street), 255

Oxford Street, 290

 

 

 

 

 

 

Printers, 185

Protestant refugees, 186, 205
Provisions of Oxford, 46
Public Record Office, 56
Purcell, composer, 313
Puritanism, 204, 214
Puritans, petitions of, 235
Pursers, 163

Putney, 361

Pym, 219

Q.

QUADRANT, 341

Queen Anne Square, 260

Square, Bloomsbury, 263
Westminster, 260
Street, City, 39, 40, 239
(Great Queen Street),

 

 

| |

 

255
Victoria Street, 39, 99, 331
Queenhithe, 99, 100
Ward, 17
Questmen, 243

 

 
 

388

INDEX

 

R.

RaInton, Alderman, 208

Raleigh, Sir Walter, 212, 248

Ranelagh Gardens, 315

Ratcliff, 355, 356

Ratepayers, 243, 278

Rebuilding of City, 239—241

Recorder of the City, 216

election of, 21I—12

Red Bull, The, theatre, 198, 264

— bakehouse, 93

— Cross Street, 55

— Lion Square, 263, 293

Refham, Richer de, 57, 58

Reformation, 174, 203, 205

Regent Street, 340, 341, 343

Regent’s Canal, 359

Park, 341, 343, 345

Religious houses, 31, 66 et seq., 147
et seq.

churches of, 96

— dissolution of,
173, 360

land held by, 150

 

 

 

 

 

Renascence, 203

Republicans, 235

Restoration, 235, 245

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 313, 318

Rhé, La, 207

Rich, John, 311

Richard I., 24, 25, 26, 27, 35, 54

II., 90, 9I, 105, 106, 107,
109, I10, III, 127

III., 127, 128

Richard III., 142, 196

Richard of Devizes, 36

Duke of York (brother of
Edward V.), 125

of Gloucester (Richard ITI.)
125—6, 141

— Plantagenet, 46, 47, 54

Prince (Richard IT.), 85

Richmond, John, Earl of, 96

Riffleres, 62

Roads. See Roman Roads.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert, Earl of Gloucester, 18, 21

Street, 302

Roche, Sir William, 161

Rochester, 174

Roehampton, 361

Roman roads, 4, 5

Romance tongue, 36

Romans in London, 3 ef seq., 17

King of, 167

Romeo and Juliet, first production
of, 194

Rookery of St. Giles, 342

Roquesle, Gregory de, 51, 53

Rose Alley, 195

Theatre, 194

Rosebery Avenue, 351

Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 347

Rotherhithe, 361, 365

Rouen, 16, 25, 33

men of, 12

Royal Academy, 313

Exchange, 182, 199, 236, 272,
284

—— keeper of city, 53

—— mews, 341

— patents, 178

— Society, 304

Royalists in London, 226, 232, 233,
234

plots, 228, 234, 235

Royston, 230

Russell Street, Covent Garden, 255,
256, 317

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ss.

SACKVILLE, Thomas, Earl of Dorset,
264

Street, 258

Sadler’s Wells, 351

Theatre, 351

Saddlers, 78, 79, III

Saddlers’ Hall, 40

Saddlery, 40

Sailmakers, journeymen, 269

St. Albans, 20, 354

 

 

 
 

INDEX

389

 

St. Albans, second battle of, 121
Henry Jermyn, Earl of,

 

256—7
St. Alphege, London Wall, Church
of, 238
St. Andrew, Holborn, church of,
238, 240
parish of, 171
Street, Holborn, 136
Undershaft, church of,

 

199, 238
St. Anne, Soho, parish of, 262
St. Antholin, church of, 217, 227

St. Anthony, hospital of, 73
church of hospital,

 

186
St. Augustine’s, Canterbury, inn of
Abbot of, 100
St. Augustine Pappey, chapel of, 149
hospital of,
149
St. Bartholomew the Great, Smith-
field,
church of, 15, 66, 238
hospital of, 68, 173
chapel of hospital of, 75
monastery of, 66, 68
St. Bartholomew the Less, church
of, 238
St. Benet Fink, parish of, 73
St. Botolph Without Aldgate,
church of, 238
parish of, 73, 147, 171
St. Botolph Without Bishopsgate,
church of, 238
St. Clare, nuns of. See Minoresses.
St. Clement Danes, church of, 9, 23,
248
—— parish of, 75,

 

 

 

171

St. Clement’s Well, 32

St. Dunstan in the West, church of,
238

St. Earconwald, feast of, 152

St. Ethelburga, church of, 142—3,
238

 

St. Evremond, 305

St. George’s, Hanover Square,church
of, 293

St. George’s Circus, 363

St. George’s Fields, 238

St. George’s Hospital, 300

St. George-in-the-East, parish of,
357, 358

St. Giles, Cripplegate, church of,
199, 238

parish of, 350
—tI

hospital of, 255

St. Giles in the Fields, parish of,
I7I, I9I, 249, 252, 342

St. Giles’s Fields, 157, 254, 255

St. Helen, Bishopsgate, convent of,

73
church of,

73, 142, 143, 238
St. James, Clerkenwell, parish of,
351
Mitre Square, church of,
238
Piccadilly,

 

church of,
257—8
parish of, 257
Westminster, fair of, 187
hospital of,

 

 

 

68, 251
St. James’s Fields, 257
Palace, 176, 189, 251,
299, 340
Park, 1, 251, 253, 299
Upper. See Green

 

 

 

Park.
St. John of Jerusalem, priory of,
351
St. John’s Square, Clerkenwell, 351
Street, Clerkenwell, 171,
264, 351
Wood, 343, 344, 345
Road, 344
St. Katherine by the Tower,
hospital of, 67, 68
liberty of, 186, 188 °

 

 

 
 

390

INDEX

 

St. Katherine Coleman, church of,
238
Cree, church of, 238,

 

240

St. Laurence Pountney, church of,
153

St. Lawrence Lane, 35

St. Leonard, Shoreditch, parish of,
352

St. Luke, Chelsea, parish of, 347

Finsbury, parish of, 351

Islington, parish of, 354

St. Margaret, Westminster, church
of, 251

St. Martin-in-the-Fields, parish of,
257, 262

le Grand, liberty of, 166

parish of, 171

precinct of,
169, 171

religious house,
66

school of, 32
church of,

 

 

 

 

Outwich,
238

Vintry, church of, 34

St. Martin’s Lane, 249, 255

St. Mary Abbot, church of, 346

of Bethlehem, hospital of,
70

without Bishopsgate,
hospital of, 68

le Bow, church of, 15, 52,
53, 76

school of, 31

Clerkenwell, nunnery of,

 

 

 

351

— within Cripplegate, hos-
pital of. See Elsing-
spital.

of Graces, abbey of, 148
Magdalene, Milk Street,
church of, 325
Overy, Southwark,
church of, 29
monastery of, 66, 68

 

St. Mary, Rouncivall, hospital of, 73
Somerset, parish of, 88
— Stoke Newington, parish

 

of, 355 |
St. Marylebone, parish of, 343. See
Marylebone.
St. Michael, Crooked Lane, church
of, 76

St. Michael, Paternoster Royal,
church of, 34, 153

parish of, 94

West Cheap, church of,

 

103
St. Nicholas Shambles, parish of, 72
St. Olave, Hart Street, church of,
142, 143, 238
St. Pancras, borough of, 342—3
parish of, 342
St. Paul, feast of, 152
St. Paul’s, 7, 15, 26, 34, 52, 59, 61,
65, 66, 76, 84, 89, 97,
99, 102, 103, 123, 148,
152, 156, 216, 352
chantry, priests of, 153
chapter house, 50
children of, 193, 198
Churchyard, 42, 43, 45
50, 225, 316, 330
Cross, 46, 126, 153, 156
minor canons of, 153
new school, 173
new work of, 96
rebuilding of, 239
School, 32
schoolboys as
192, 193, 198
singing school, 198
St. Peter le Poor, church of, 238
at Tower, church of, 75,
153
Westcheap, church of, 51
St. Pol, Count de, 106, 107

 

eV aHeene Etat

actors,

 

 

 

St. Saviour’s Abbey, Bermondsey,
361
Cathedral. See St.

 

Mary Overy.
 

INDEX

St. Sepulchre, church of, 238

parish of, 351

St. Stephen, Westminster, chapel of,
147

St. Swithin’s Lane, 138

St. Thomas, fraternity of, 165

of Acon, hospital of,
79, 137

Southwark, hospital of,

 

 

 

68, 173

Salisbury, Earl of, 121

Court Theatre. See
Whitefriars Theatre.

Fair, 165

House, 263

Street, 248

Sandwich, 121

Ralph de, 53

Sardinia Street, 255

Savoy, 84, 85, 86, 100

hospital, 149, 247—8

Sawyers, 163, 271

Saxons, East, 7

Say, Lord-treasurer, 120

Scales, Lord, 120, 121

Sir Anthony Wood-

 

 

 

 

 

 

ville, 145
Scavengers, 243 °
School Board, 336
Schools, 31, 173
Scotland, house of kings of, 251
Yard, Old, 251
Scottish commissioners, 217
invasion, 232, 233
—— preachers, 217, 227
war, 208, 209, 215, 218

 

 

 

Scots, 6

Scroope’s Inn, 135

Seamen, 221

Season, London, 179—80, 397
Sectarians, 234, 235

Sedan chairs, 319, 328

Selds, 93

Senlac, 13

Separatists, 216

Serjeant’s Inns, 135

 

39!

Serle’s coffee-house, 316

Seven Dials, 342

Sevenoaks, 119

Seymour, Thomas, Lord High Ad-
miral, 247

Street, Upper, 291

Shacklewell, 354

Shadwell, 355, 356

Shaftesbury Avenue, 342

Shakespere, 118, 194

Shaw, Sir Edmund, mayor, 126

Ralph, 126

Shearmen, 87

Sheathers, 79

Sheffield, 274

Sir Charles, 299
Shelburn House, 296

Shepherds’ Bush, 348

Common, 334

Sheridan, Richard, 311

Sheriff of London County, 336

Sheriffs, 14, 16, 18, 24, 29, 41, 42,
45, 53, 124, 209, 241

counters, 169, 214
— feasts, 130—I

Ship money, 207, 209

Shipping of London, 179

Ships, 91, 206

Shooter’s Hill, 362

Shooting, 190

Shops, 31, 93, 129—30, 140—I, 200,
340, 343, 345, 346, 347

Shoreditch, 171, 350, 352—3

Shrewsbury, Earl of, 169

Shute, 211

Signs, 93, 200, 281, 282—3

Silk shops, 187

— weavers, 187, 271

Silkwomen, 114, 123

Silver articles, 95, 129—30

Silvia, 25, 26

Sintzenich, G., 344

Skinners, 78, 79, 80, III

Skippon, Philip, 221, 234

Slaughter of cattle, 188, 326

Sloane, family of, 306

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

392

INDEX

 

Sloane, Sir Hans, 301, 304

Square, 306

Street, 306, 339, 347, 348

Smithfield, 86, 105, 145, 148, 156,
174

East, 67, Io

West, 160

bar of, 171

Fair, 32

Market, 325, 326

Smiths, journeymen, 269. See
Blacksmiths.

Soames, Alderman, 208, 215, 234

Soapmakers, 115

Soho, 262, 342, 352

Square, 261—2

Solemn Engagement, 230

Somers, Lord Chancellor, 261

Town, 343

Somerset, Earl of, 169

Robert Carr, Earl of, 256

Protector, 247

House, 134, 247, 299, 302

Soper Lane, 40, 104

South Audley Street, 300

End, 362

—— Kensington Museum, 346

—— London, 200, 302, 326, 332,
359—65

Southampton, 115

inn of Earls of, 249

Wriothesleys, Earls
of, 262

House, 249, 262, 296

Square, 262

Southwark, 11, 100, 121, 166, 167,
I7I, 175, I9I, 200,
359—61, 363, 364

Bridge, 330, 363

Fair, 183

hat dyers of, 271

hatmakers of, 271

Park, 334

Spain, treaty with, 212

Spaniards, 186, 201—2

Spanish Embassy, 212

 

 

 

LT |

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a

 

Spenser, Sir Hugh, 107

Spitalfields, 272, 353, 356

Market, 326

Spring Gardens, 253

Spurriers, 79

Squares, 255, 265, 292—4

Squire’s coffee-house, 316

Stafford, Lord, 252

Sir Humphrey, 119

Street, 259

Staines, 5

Staircases, 200

Stallar Esegar, Sheriff of Middlesex,
13, 15

Stamford Brook Green, 348

Fair, 28

Hill, 355

Standard in Cheap, 99, 120

Stanhope Street, 300

Staple, merchants of the, 135

Inn, 134, 135, 136, 199, 332,

 

 

 

 

 

 

342
Stapleton, Walter, Bishop of Exeter,
62, 99
Stationers, 115, 185
Staymakers, 270
Steele, Richard, 305, 317
Steelyard, 82, 99, 167, 171, 172
Stephen, King, 18—23, 24, 147
Stepney Borough, 355—9
—— Church, 356
Parish, 353, 357, 358—9
Stewarts, 178, 211
Stewes, 360
Stinking Lane, 72
Stirling, William Alexander, Earl
of, 255, 256
Stocks Market, 98, 281
Stockwell Manor, 361
Stoke Newington Borough, 355
Common, 354
Road, 5
Stondon, William, go
Stone, Nicholas, 256
Stourbridge Fair, 183
Stourton House, 252

 

 

 

 
 

INDEX

Stow, John, 59,93, 101, 135,175,176,
179, 180, 187, 190, 251, 350, 351

Strafford, 208, 216, 217

Strand, 9, 100, 129—130, 247—8,
253—4, 263, 340, 342

Inn, 134, 247

Strange, company of Lord (actors),
194

Stratford-le-Bowe, 123, 357, 359

Stratton Street, 259

Streatham, 361

Common, 334

Streets, 31, 39, 97—8, 200—I, 239,
281, 282, 334

amusements of, 189

new, in city, 330—1I

Strikes, 271

Suburbs, 31, 166, 178, 221

Suffolk, Earl of, 254

House, 254

Street, 258

Sunderland, Earl of, 257

Surrey Commercial Docks, 365

Swallow Street, 258

Swan, The, theatre, 198

Sweating sickness, 172, 173

Sweyn of Denmark, 9g, 10

Swift, Dean, 304, 317

Sudbury, Archbishop, 86

Suetonius, 4

Sydenham, 362

Wells Park, 362

Synagogues, 35, 55, 137

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a,

TABARD Street, 361
Tacitus, 4
Tailors, 40, 49, 78, 79, 80, III, 112,
163, 186
—— Hall, 136
journeymen, 269, 270—I
master, 269, 270—I
Tallow chandlers, 123
Tapestry, 95, 109
Tapestrymakers, 186

H.L.

 

 

 

393

Tapicers, 40

Tart Hall, 252

Tattersalls, 328

Tavie, John, 134

Tayllur, Philip le, 49

Templars, 69, 147

Temple, 147

Bar, 166, 176, 247, 331

Church, 23, 69, 133, 238

Garden, 133

Inns of Court,
135, 136

New, 69

Textile industries, 110

Thaive, John, 134

Thaive’s Inn, 134, 136

Thames, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 15, 31, 41, 99,
100, 129, 282

barges, 189

boats, 305, 319, 328

Conservancy of, 302, 335,
338

policing of, 333

steamboats of, 330

Street, 34, 239, 330

watermen of, 225

Thatched House Club, 318

Theatre, The, 194, 195, 196

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, 264

Theatres, 222, 340, 351, 353, 360

construction of, 192, 197
—8

eighteenth century, 311
—I2, 314

Elizabethan, 194—8

provincial, 312

Restoration, 263—4

Stewart, 198

suppression of, 198

See Drama and Actors.

Theodosius, 6

Thomas a Becket, 33—4, 68, 70

Thorney, 1

Three Cranes Wharf, 99

Throgmorton Avenue, 331

Tilers, 87, 92, 93

 

|

132—3,

 

|

I |

 

 

can

 

DD
 

394

INDEX

 

Tiles, 93

Tilt Yard, 251

Timberhithe, 100

Tithes, 154, 214—15

Tooley Street, 359, 361

Tooting, 361

Bec Common, 334

Graveney Common, 334

Tories in City, 241, 277

Tostig, 12

Tothill Fields, 252

Street, 252

Tottenham Court Road, 254, 291,
310, 339, 343

Tournaments, 91, 104—8, 145

Tovy, Michael, 42, 43, 45, 48, 52

Tower, 8, 14, 15, 19 —23, 26, 28, 29,
31, 46, 47, 53, 59, 86, 105,
Iog, 116, 118, 120, 121,
I22, 123, 160, 169, 176,
216, 217, 219, 233, 237,
285, 332

Constable of, 45

district, 166, 171

Ditch, 6

Hill, 156, 166

Street, 235

Ward, 17

Tower Royal, 34

Trade, 4, 6, 7, II, 16, 32, 60, 82,
158—9, 162 et seg., 167, 179, 204,
217, 232, 240, 27I—4

Traffic, 200, 201, 224—5, 319, 328

Trained bands, 221, 226, 227,230—I

Trecothick, Barlow, mayor, 285

Trinobantes, 3, 4

Trinovantum, 2

Tube railways, 328—9, 349

Tudors, 160, 203

commercial policy of, 164

Tuffnell, Mr., 298

Tun, prison, 144, 152

Tunbridge, 96

Turk’s Head, The, coffee-house, 317

Turner, 347

 

 

ae

 

 

Tyburn, 1, 190, 288, 289

way to, 253, 254, 288
—— Lane, 289

Road, 259, 290
Tyler, Wat, 85, 86, 133

 

 

Uz

UNDERGROUND railways, 328—9
Uxbridge Road, 346

V.

VALENTINIAN I., 6

Vane, Sir Harry, 209

the younger, 256

Vauxhall Bridge, 363

Gardens, 315, 316

Manor, 361

Venetians, 115

Vere Street, Clare Market, 264

Oxford Street, 290

Verrers. See Glaziers.

Verulam, 5

Vesey, Lord, 121

Vestries, 245, 332, 335, 337

Victoria Embankment, 334

Park, 334, 353, 354

—— Station, 340

Street, 340, 342

Victuallers, 83 et seq., 87, 110, III

Villiers Street, 248

Vintners, 39, 40, 78, 79, 80, 82, 99
103, III

Vintry, 17, 34, 40, 84

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

W.

WAGER of battle, 90
Walbrook, I, 17, 39
Ward of, 17
Walham Green, 348
Wallace, William, 56
Waller, 229

 
 

INDEX

Walloon silk weavers, 187

Walls, 3, 5, 6,9

turret in, 75

Walpole, Robert, 273—4, 305

Lady, 305

Walsh, John, 138

Walter, lawyer, 212

Hubert, 28

Waltham, Forest of, 146

Walton Street, 347

Walworth, mayor, 86

S.E., 361

Wandsworth, 361, 364, 365

Wapping, 356

Ward motes, 18, 27, 243

Wards, 17, 18, 243, 245

Warwick, Earl of (Kingmaker), 121,
122

Watches, 18

Watchmakers, 352

Watchmen, 243

Water supply, 335.

Waterloo Bridge, 363

and City Railway, 328

Watermen. See Thames.

Watermen’s Company, 338

Watling Street, 4, 5

Waxchandlers, 165

Wealth of citizens, 91

Weavers, 40, 61, 78, 81, 112, 186, 353

Welbeck Street, 290

Wellington, Duke of, 300

Street, 254

Wells, medicinal, 291, 349, 351, 362

Wellys, John de, 137

Wengrave, John de, 60

Wesley, 310

West Cheap, 52, 79, 99

End, 131, 247—65, 288—306,
340—2, 343—5

—— Hampstead, 349

— India Docks, 357

Indies, 274

Westbourne, I

Grove, 345

Park, 345

 

 

 

 

See Conduits.

 

 

 

 

 

—_

 

395

Westminster, 5, 14, 19, 20, 42, 43,
44, 46, 49, 50, 56,

57, 59, 73, 99, 103,
Io4, 109, 118, I61,

166, 170, 175, 178,
204, 218, 221, 251—
2, 269,270, 339—42,
347

Abbey, I, 66, 76, 116,
252, 255, 289, 332,
34°

Abbey district, 342

Bridge, 301, 362

Corporation of, 332,
336

Hall, 15, 218, 340

Palace, 31, 122, 252,

 

340°
Weymouth Street, 291
Whigs in City, 241, 277, 280
White Friars, 72
White House Street, 356
Whitechapel, 171, 355, 356, 357, 358
Whitecross Street, 197
Whitefield’s Tabernacle, 310
Whitefriars Theatre, 198
Whitehall, 189, 218, 221, 233, 234,
236, 237, 250, 260, 340
Court, 237
Gardens, 250
Street, 250
Whitelocke, 211, 212
White’s, 318
Whittawyers, 79
Whittington, Alice, 149
Richard, 90,
148-9
Wigmore Street, 290, 344
Wilkes, John, 284, 285, 286
William I., 13—15
I., charter of, 13
II., 15
III., 242, 303, 362
IV., 299
Bishop of London, 13, 14
65

 

113,

 

LIT
 

396

INDEX

 

William, son of William, 73

Street, 302

Willingham, John, 87

Will’s coffee-house, 317
Wimbledon House, 254

Wimpole Street, 290

Winchester, 10, 20, 21, 22, I15
Bishop of, 360

house of Bishop of, 100,

 

 

189
Windmill Street, 253, 260
Tavern, 214
Windsor, 107
Wiredrawers, 87
Witan, 10, II, 13
Witanagemot, 12
Wolke, John, 138
Wolsey, Cardinal, 161, 162, 164, 250
Wood Street, 35, 98
Counter, 270
Woodville, Sir Anthony,
Scales, 145
Woolmongers, 78, 79
Woolwich, 362, 365
Arsenal, 365
Worcester, Earl of, 145
Henry, first Marquess
of, 253
House, 253
inn of Bishop of, 100, 247

 

 

 

Lord

 

 

 

Wormbolt Scrubbs, 348

Worthing, Brother John de, 102

Wren, Sir Christopher, 239, 240,
241, 263, 265, 356

Writers, 312

of Court letters, 116

of texts, 116

Wyatt’s rebellion, 174—6

Wych Street, 134

Wyche, Richard, 156

Wycliffe, 84, 152, 155

 

 

Y.

YEOMEN of companies, 163

York, 60

Archbishop of, 69, 120

house of, 248,
250

 

 

Duke of, 116

House, 250, 254, 263
Place, 248, 254, 263
Street, 258

Ypres, John of, 84

ie

 

Z.

ZEALAND, 212
Zoological Gardens, 344

 

BRADEURY, AGNEW, & CO. LD., PRINTERS, LONDON AND TONBRIDGE.

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