"The six heralds take place according to seniority in office. They are created with the same ceremonies as the kings, taking the oath of an herald, and are invested with a tabard of the Royal arms embroidered upon satin, not so rich as the kings', but better than the pursuivants', with a silver collar of SS.; they are esquires by creation.

"The four pursuivants are also created by the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl Marshal, when they take their oath of a pursuivant, and are invested with a tabard of the Royal arms upon damask. It is the duty of the heralds and pursuivants to attend on the public ceremonials, one of each class together by a monthly rotation.

"These heralds are the king's servants in ordinary, and therefore, in the vacancy of the office of Earl Marshal, have been sworn into their offices by the Lord Chamberlain. Their meetings are termed Chapters, which they hold the first Thursday in every month, or oftener if necessary, wherein all matters are determined by a majority of voices, each king having two voices."

One of the earliest instances of the holding an heraldic court was that in the time of Richard II., when the Scropes and Grosvenors had a dispute about the right to bear certain arms. John of Gaunt and Chaucer were witnesses on this occasion; the latter, who had served in France during the wars of Edward III., and had been taken prisoner, deposing to seeing a certain cognizance displayed during a certain period of the campaign.

The system of heraldic visitations, when the pedigrees of the local gentry were tested, and the arms they bore approved or cancelled, originated in the reign of Henry VIII. The monasteries, with their tombs and tablets and brasses, and their excellent libraries, had been the great repositories of the provincial genealogies, more especially of the abbeys' founders and benefactors. These records were collected and used by the heralds, who thus as it were preserved and carried on the monastic genealogical traditions. These visitations were of great use to noble families in proving their pedigrees, and preventing disputes about property. The visitations continued till 1686 (James II.), but a few returns, says Mr. Noble, were made as late as 1704. Why they ceased in the reign of William of Orange is not known; perhaps the respect for feudal rank decreased as the new dynasty grew more powerful. The result of the cessation of these heraldic assizes, however, is that American gentlemen, whose Puritan ancestors left England during the persecutions of Charles II., are now unable to trace their descent, and the heraldic gap can never be filled up.

Three instances only of the degradation of knights are recorded in three centuries' records of the Court of Honour. The first was that of Sir Andrew Barclay, in 1322; of Sir Ralph Grey, in 1464; and of Sir Francis Michell, in 1621, the last knight being convicted of heinous offences and misdemeanours. On this last occasion the Knights' Marshals' men cut off the offender's sword, took off his spurs and flung them away, and broke his sword over his head, at the same time proclaiming him "an infamous arrant knave."

The Earl Marshal's office—sometimes called the Court of Honour—took cognizance of words supposed to reflect upon the nobility. Sir Richard Grenville was fined heavily for having said that the Duke of Suffolk was a base lord; and Sir George Markham in the enormous sum of L10,000, for saying, when he had horsewhipped the huntsman of Lord Darcy, that he would do the same to his master if he tried to justify his insolence. In 1622 the legality of the court was tried in the Star Chamber by a contumacious herald, who claimed arrears of fees, and to King James's delight the legality of the court was fully established. In 1646 (Charles I.) Mr. Hyde (afterwards Lord Chancellor Clarendon) proposed doing away with the court, vexatious causes multiplying, and very arbitrary authority being exercised. He particularly cited a case of great oppression, in which a rich citizen had been ruined in his estate and imprisoned, for merely calling an heraldic swan a goose. After the Restoration, says Mr. Planche, in Knight's "London," the Duke of Norfolk, hereditary Earl Marshal, hoping to re-establish the court, employed Dr. Plott, the learned but credulous historian of Staffordshire, to collect the materials for a history of the court, which, however, was never completed. The court, which had outlived its age, fell into desuetude, and the last cause heard concerning the right of bearing arms (Blount versus Blunt) was tried in the year 1720 (George I.). In the old arbitrary times the Earl Marshal's men have been known to stop the carriage of a parvenu, and by force deface his illegally assumed arms.

Heralds' fees in the Middle Ages were very high. At the coronation of Richard II. they received L100, and 100 marks at that of the queen. On royal birthdays and on great festivals they also required largess. The natural result of this was that, in the reign of Henry V., William Burgess, Garter King of Arms, was able to entertain the Emperor Sigismund in sumptuous state at his house at Kentish Town.

The escutcheons on the south wall of the college—one bearing the legs of Man, and the other the eagle's claw of the House of Stanley—are not ancient, and were merely put up to heraldically mark the site of old Derby House.

In the Rev. Mark Noble's elaborate "History of the College of Arms" we find some curious stories of worthy and unworthy heralds. Among the evil spirits was Sir William Dethick, Garter King at Arms, who provoked Elizabeth by drawing out treasonable emblazonments for the Duke of Norfolk, and James I. by hinting doubts, as it is supposed, against the right of the Stuarts to the crown. He was at length displaced. He seems to have been an arrogant, stormy, proud man, who used at public ceremonials to buffet the heralds and pursuivants who blundered or offended him. He was buried at St. Paul's, in 1612, near the grave of Edward III.'s herald, Sir Pain Roet, Guienne King at Arms, and Chaucer's father-in-law. Another black sheep was Cook, Clarencieux King at Arms in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, who was accused of granting arms to any one for a large fee, and of stealing forty or fifty heraldic books from the college library. There was also Ralph Brooke, York Herald in the same reign, a malicious and ignorant man, who attempted to confute some of Camden's genealogies in the "Britannia." He broke open and stole some muniments from the office, and finally, for two felonies, was burnt in the hand at Newgate.

To such rascals we must oppose men of talent and scholarship like the great Camden. This grave and learned antiquary was the son of a painter in the Old Bailey, and, as second master of Westminster School, became known to the wisest and most learned men of London, Ben Jonson honouring him as a father, and Burleigh, Bacon, and Lord Broke regarding him as a friend. His "Britannia" is invaluable, and his "Annals of Elizabeth" are full of the heroic and soaring spirit of that great age. Camden's house, at Chislehurst, was that in which the Emperor Napoleon has recently died.

Sir William Le Neve (Charles I.), Clarencieux, was another most learned herald. He is said to have read the king's proclamation at Edgehill with great marks of fear. His estate was sequestered by the Parliament, and he afterwards went mad from loyal and private grief and vexation. In Charles II.'s reign we find the famous antiquary, Elias Ashmole, Windsor Herald for several years. He was the son of a Lichfield saddler, and was brought up as a chorister-boy. That impostor, Lilly, calls him the "greatest virtuoso and curioso" that was ever known or read of in England; for he excelled in music, botany, chemistry, heraldry, astrology, and antiquities. His "History of the Order of the Garter" formed no doubt part of his studies at the College of Arms.

In the same reign as Ashmole, that great and laborious antiquary, Sir William Dugdale, was Garter King of Arms. In early life he became acquainted with Spelman, an antiquary as profound as himself, and with the same mediaeval power of work. He fought for King Charles in the Civil Wars. His great work was the "Monasticon Anglicanum," three volumes folio, which disgusted the Puritans and delighted the Catholics. His "History of Warwickshire" was considered a model of county histories. His "Baronage of England" contained many errors. In his visitations he was very severe in defacing fictitious arms.

Francis Sandford, first Rouge Dragon Pursuivant, and then Lancaster Herald (Charles II., James II.), published an excellent "Genealogical History of England," and curious accounts of the funeral of General Monk and the coronation of James II. He was so attached to James that he resigned his office at the Revolution, and died, true to the last, old, poor and neglected, somewhere in Bloomsbury, in 1693.

Sir John Vanbrugh, the witty dramatist, for building Castle Howard, was made Clarencieux King of Arms, to the great indignation of the heralds, whose pedantry he ridiculed. He afterwards sold his place for L2,000, avowing ignorance of his profession and his constant neglect of his official duties.

In the same reign, to Peter Le Neve (Norroy) we are indebted for the careful preservation of the invaluable "Paxton Letters," of the reigns of Henry VI., Edward IV., and Richard III., purchased and afterwards published by Sir John Fenn.

Another eminent herald was John Anstis, created Garter in 1718 (George I.), after being imprisoned as a Jacobite. He wrote learned works on the Orders of the Garter and the Bath, and left behind him valuable materials—his MS. for the "History of the College of Arms," now preserved in the library.

Francis Grose, that roundabout, jovial friend of Burns, was Richmond Herald for many years, but he resigned his appointment in 1763, to become Adjutant and Paymaster of the Hampshire Militia. Grose was the son of a Swiss jeweller, who had settled in London. His "Views of Antiquities in England and Wales" helped to restore a taste for Gothic art. He died in 1791.

Of Oldys, that eccentric antiquary, who was Norroy King at Arms in the reign of George II.—the Duke of Norfolk having appointed him from the pleasure he felt at the perusal of his "Life of Sir Walter Raleigh"—Grose gives an amusing account:—

"William Oldys, Norroy King at Arms," says Grose, "author of the 'Life of Sir Walter Raleigh,' and several others in the 'Biographia Britannica,' was natural son of a Dr. Oldys, in the Commons, who kept his mother very privately, and probably very meanly, as when he dined at a tavern he used to beg leave to send home part of the remains of any fish or fowl for his cat, which cat was afterwards found out to be Mr. Oldys' mother. His parents dying when he was very young, he soon squandered away his small patrimony, when he became first an attendant in Lord Oxford's library and afterwards librarian. He was a little mean-looking man, of a vulgar address, and, when I knew him, rarely sober in the afternoon, never after supper. His favourite liquor was porter, with a glass of gin between each pot. Dr. Ducarrel told me he used to stint Oldys to three pots of beer whenever he visited him. Oldys seemed to have little classical learning, and knew nothing of the sciences; but for index-reading, title-pages, and the knowledge of scarce English books and editions, he had no equal. This he had probably picked up in Lord Oxford's service, after whose death he was obliged to write for the booksellers for a subsistence. Amongst many other publications, chiefly in the biographical line, he wrote the 'Life of Sir Walter Raleigh,' which got him much reputation. The Duke of Norfolk, in particular, was so pleased with it that he resolved to provide for him, and accordingly gave him the patent of Norroy King at Arms, then vacant. The patronage of that duke occasioned a suspicion of his being a Papist, though I really think without reason; this for a while retarded his appointment. It was underhand propagated by the heralds, who were vexed at having a stranger put in upon them. He was a man of great good-nature, honour, and integrity, particularly in his character as an historian. Nothing, I firmly believe, would ever have biassed him to insert any fact in his writings he did not believe, or to suppress any he did. Of this delicacy he gave an instance at a time when he was in great distress. After the publication of his 'Life of Sir Walter Raleigh,' some booksellers, thinking his name would sell a piece they were publishing, offered him a considerable sum to father it, which he refused with the greatest indignation. He was much addicted to low company; most of his evenings he spent at the 'Bell' in the Old Bailey, a house within the liberties of the Fleet, frequented by persons whom he jocularly called rulers, from their being confined to the rules or limits of that prison. From this house a watchman, whom he kept regularly in pay, used to lead him home before twelve o'clock, in order to save sixpence paid to the porter of the Heralds' office, by all those who came home after that time; sometimes, and not unfrequently, two were necessary. He could not resist the temptation of liquor, even when he was to officiate on solemn occasions; for at the burial of the Princess Caroline he was so intoxicated that he could scarcely walk, but reeled about with a crown 'coronet' on a cushion, to the great scandal of his brethren. His method of composing was somewhat singular. He had a number of small parchment bags inscribed with the names of the persons whose lives he intended to write; into these bags he put every circumstance and anecdote he could collect, and from thence drew up his history. By his excesses he was kept poor, so that he was frequently in distress; and at his death, which happened about five on Wednesday morning, April 15th, 1761, he left little more than was sufficient to bury him. Dr. Taylor, the oculist, son of the famous doctor of that name and profession, claimed administration at the Commons, on account of his being nullius filius—Anglice, a bastard. He was buried the 19th following, in the north aisle of the Church of St. Benet, Paul's Wharf, towards the upper end of the aisle. He was about seventy-two years old. Amongst his works is a preface to Izaak Walton's 'Angler.'"

The following pretty anacreontic, on a fly drinking out of his cup of ale, which is doubtless well known, is from the pen of Oldys:—

"Busy, curious, thirsty fly, Drink with me, and drink as I; Freely welcome to my cup, Couldst thou sip and sip it up. Make the most of life you may; Life is short, and wears away.

"Both alike are mine and thine, Hastening quick to their decline; Thine's a summer, mine no more, Though repeated to threescore; Threescore summers, when they're gone, Will appear as short as one."

The Rev. Mark Noble comments upon Grose's text by saying that this story of the crown must be incorrect, as the coronet at the funeral of a princess is always carried by Clarencieux, and not by Norroy.

In 1794, two eminent heralds, Benjamin Pingo, York Herald, and John Charles Brooke, Somerset Herald, were crushed to death in a crowd at the side door of the Haymarket Theatre. Mr. Brooke had died standing, and was found as if asleep, and with colour still in his cheeks.

Edmund Lodge, Lancaster Herald, who died in 1839, is chiefly known for his interesting series of "Portraits of Illustrious British Personages," accompanied by excellent genealogical and biographical memoirs.

During the Middle Ages heralds were employed to bear letters, defiances, and treaties to foreign princes and persons in authority; to proclaim war, and bear offers of marriage, &c.; and after battles to catalogue the dead, and note their rank by the heraldic bearings on their banners, shields, and tabards. In later times they were allowed to correct false crests, arms, and cognizances, and register noble descents in their archives. They conferred arms on those who proved themselves able to maintain the state of a gentleman, they marshalled great or rich men's funerals, arranged armorial bearings for tombs and stained-glass windows, and laid down the laws of precedence at state ceremonials. Arms, it appears from Mr. Planche, were sold to the "new rich" as early as the reign of King Henry VIII., who wished to make a new race of gentry, in order to lessen the power of the old nobles. The fees varied then from L6 13s. 6d. to L5.



In the old times the heralds' messengers were called knights caligate. After seven years they became knight-riders (our modern Queen's messengers); after seven years more they became pursuivants, and then heralds. In later times, says Mr. Planche, the herald's honourable office was transferred to nominees of the Tory nobility, discarded valets, butlers, or sons of upper servants. Mr. Canning, when Premier, very properly put a stop to this system, and appointed to this post none but young and intelligent men of manners and education.

Among the many curious volumes of genealogy in the library of the College of Arms—volumes which have been the result of centuries of exploring and patient study—the following are chiefly noticeable:—A book of emblazonment executed for Prince Arthur, the brother of Henry VIII., who died young, and whose widow Henry married; the Warwick Roll, a series of figures of all the Earls of Warwick from the Conquest to the reign of Richard III., executed by Rouse, a celebrated antiquary of Warwick, at the close of the fifteenth century; and a tournament roll of Henry VIII., in which that stalwart monarch is depicted in regal state, with all the "pomp, pride, and circumstance of glorious (mimic) war." In the gallery over the library are to be seen the sword and dagger which belonged to the unfortunate James of Scotland, that chivalrous king who died fighting to the last on the hill at Flodden. The sword-hilt has been enamelled, and still shows traces of gilding which has once been red-wet with the Southron's blood; and the dagger is a strong and serviceable weapon, as no doubt many an English archer and billman that day felt. The heralds also show the plain turquoise ring which tradition says the French queen sent James, begging him to ride a foray in England. Copies of it have been made by the London jewellers. These trophies are heirlooms of the house of Howard, whose bend argent, to use the words of Mr. Planche, received the honourable augmentation of the Scottish lion, in testimony of the prowess displayed by the gallant soldier who commanded the English forces on that memorable occasion. Here is also to be seen a portrait of Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury (the great warrior), from his tomb in Old St. Paul's; a curious pedigree of the Saxon kings from Adam, illustrated with many beautiful drawings in pen and ink, about the period of Henry VIII., representing the Creation, Adam and Eve in Paradise, the building of Babel, the rebuilding of the Temple, &c. &c.; MSS., consisting chiefly of heralds' visitations, records of grants of arms and royal licences; records of modern pedigrees (i.e., since the discontinuance of the visitations in 1687); a most valuable collection of official funeral certificates; a portion of the Arundel MSS.; the Shrewsbury or Cecil papers, from which Lodge derived his well-known "Illustrations of British History;" notes, &c., made by Glover, Vincent, Philpot, and Dugdale; a volume in the handwriting of the venerable Camden ("Clarencieux"); the collections of Sir Edward Walker, Secretary at War (temp. Charles I.).



The Wardrobe, a house long belonging to the Government, in the Blackfriars, was built by Sir John Beauchamp (died 1359), whose tomb in Old St. Paul's was usually taken for the tomb of the good Duke Humphrey. Beauchamp's executors sold it to Edward III., and it was subsequently converted into the office of the Master of the Wardrobe, and the repository for the royal clothes. When Stow drew up his "Survey," Sir John Fortescue was lodged in the house as Master of the Wardrobe. What a royal ragfair this place must have been for rummaging antiquaries, equal to twenty Madame Tussaud's and all the ragged regiments of Westminster Abbey put together!

"There were also kept," says Fuller, "in this place the ancient clothes of our English kings, which they wore on great festivals; so that this Wardrobe was in effect a library for antiquaries, therein to read the mode and fashion of garments in all ages. These King James in the beginning of his reign gave to the Earl of Dunbar, by whom they were sold, re-sold, and re-re-re-sold at as many hands almost as Briareus had, some gaining vast estates thereby." (Fuller's "Worthies.")

We mentioned before that Shakespeare in his will left to his favourite daughter, Susannah, the Warwickshire doctor's wife, a house near the Wardrobe; but the exact words of the document may be worth quoting:—

"I gyve, will, bequeath," says the poet, "and devise unto my daughter, Susannah Hall, all that messuage or tenement, with the appurtenances, wherein one John Robinson dwelleth, situat, lying, and being in the Blackfriars in London, nere the Wardrobe."

After the Great Fire the Wardrobe was removed, first to the Savoy, and afterwards to Buckingham Street, in the Strand. The last master was Ralph, Duke of Montague, on whose death, in 1709, the office, says Cunningham, was, "I believe, abolished."

Swan Alley, near the Wardrobe, reminds us of the Beauchamps, for the swan was the cognizance of the Beauchamp family, long distinguished residents in this part of London.

In the Council Register of the 18th of August, 1618, there may be seen "A List of Buildings and Foundations since 1615." It is therein said that "Edward Alleyn, Esq., dwelling at Dulwich (the well-known player and founder of Dulwich College), had built six tenements of timber upon new foundations, within two years past, in Swan Alley, near the Wardrobe."

In Great Carter Lane stood the old Bell Inn, whence, in 1598, Richard Quyney directs a letter "To my loving good friend and countryman, Mr. Wm. Shackespeare, deliver thees"—the only letter addressed to Shakespeare known to exist. The original was in the possession of Mr. R.B. Wheeler, of Stratford-upon-Avon.

Stow mixes up the old houses near Doctors' Commons with Rosamond's Bower at Woodstock.

"Upon Paul's Wharf Hill," he says, "within a great gate, next to the Doctors' Commons, were many fair tenements, which, in their leases made from the Dean and Chapter, went by the name of Camera Dianae—i.e., Diana's Chamber, so denominated from a spacious building that in the time of Henry II. stood where they were. In this Camera, an arched and vaulted structure, full of intricate ways and windings, this Henry II. (as some time he did at Woodstock) kept, or was supposed to have kept, that jewel of his heart, Fair Rosamond, she whom there he called Rosamundi, and here by the name of Diana; and from hence had this house that title.

"For a long time there remained some evident testifications of tedious turnings and windings, as also of a passage underground from this house to Castle Baynard; which was, no doubt, the king's way from thence to his Camera Dianae, or the chamber of his brightest Diana."

St. Anne's, within the precinct of the Blackfriars, was pulled down with the Friars Church by Sir Thomas Cawarden, Master of the Revels; but in the reign of Queen Mary, he being forced to find a church to the inhabitants, allowed them a lodging chamber above a stair, which since that time, to wit in the year 1597, fell down, and was again, by collection therefore made, new built and enlarged in the same year.

The parish register records the burials of Isaac Oliver, the miniature painter (1617), Dick Robinson, the player (1647), Nat. Field, the poet and player (1632-3), William Faithorn, the engraver (1691); and there are the following interesting entries relating to Vandyck, who lived and died in this parish, leaving a sum of money in his will to its poor:—

"Jasper Lanfranch, a Dutchman, from Sir Anthony Vandikes, buried 14th February, 1638."

"Martin Ashent, Sir Anthony Vandike's man, buried 12th March, 1638."

"Justinia, daughter to Sir Anthony Vandyke and his lady, baptised 9th December, 1641."

The child was baptised on the very day her illustrious father died.

A portion of the old burying-ground is still to be seen in Church-entry, Ireland Yard.

"In this parish of St. Benet's, in Thames Street," says Stow, "stood Le Neve Inn, belonging formerly to John de Mountague, Earl of Salisbury, and after to Sir John Beauchamp, Kt., granted to Sir Thomas Erpingham, Kt., of Erpingham in Norfolk, and Warden of the Cinque Ports, Knight of the Garter. By the south end of Adle Street, almost against Puddle Wharf, there is one antient building of stone and timber, builded by the Lords of Berkeley, and therefore called Berkeley's Inn. This house is now all in ruin, and letten out in several tenements; yet the arms of the Lord Berkeley remain in the stone-work of an arched gate; and is between a chevron, crosses ten, three, three, and four."

Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, was lodged in this house, then called Berkeley's Inn, in the parish of St. Andrew, in the reign of Henry VI.

St. Andrew's Wardrobe Church is situated upon rising ground, on the east side of Puddle-Dock Hill, in the ward of Castle Baynard. The advowson of this church was anciently in the noble family of Fitzwalter, to which it probably came by virtue of the office of Constable of the Castle of London (that is, Baynard's Castle). That it is not of a modern foundation is evident by its having had Robert Marsh for its rector, before the year 1322. This church was anciently denominated "St. Andrew juxta Baynard's Castle," from its vicinity to that palace.

"Knightrider Street was so called," says Stow, "(as is supposed), of knights riding from thence through the street west to Creed Lane, and so out at Ludgate towards Smithfield, when they were there to tourney, joust, or otherwise to show activities before the king and states of the realm."

Linacre's house in Knightrider Street was given by him to the College of Physicians, and used as their place of meeting till the early part of the seventeenth century.

In his student days Linacre had been patronised by Lorenzo de Medicis, and at Florence, under Demetrius Chalcondylas, who had fled from Constantinople when it was taken by the Turks, he acquired a perfect knowledge of the Greek language. He studied eloquence at Bologna, under Politian, one of the most eloquent Latinists in Europe, and while he was at Rome devoted himself to medicine and the study of natural philosophy, under Hermolaus Barbarus. Linacre was the first Englishman who read Aristotle and Galen in the original Greek. On his return to England, having taken the degree of M.D. at Oxford, he gave lectures in physic, and taught the Greek language in that university. His reputation soon became so high that King Henry VII. called him to court, and entrusted him with the care of the health and education of his son, Prince Arthur. To show the extent of his acquirements, we may mention that he instructed Princess Katharine in the Italian language, and that he published a work on mathematics, which he dedicated to his pupil, Prince Arthur.

His treatise on grammar was warmly praised by Melancthon. This great doctor was successively physician to Henry VII., Henry VIII., Edward VI., and the Princess Mary. He established lectures on physic (says Dr. Macmichael, in his amusing book, "The Gold-headed Cane"), and towards the close of his life he founded the Royal College of Physicians, holding the office of President for seven years. Linacre was a friend of Lily, the grammarian, and was consulted by Erasmus. The College of Physicians first met in 1518 at Linacre's house (now called the Stone House), Knightrider Street, and which still belongs to the society. Between the two centre windows of the first floor are the arms of the college, granted 1546—a hand proper, vested argent, issuing out of clouds, and feeling a pulse; in base, a pomegranate between five demi fleurs-de-lis bordering the edge of the escutcheon. In front of the building was a library, and there were early donations of books, globes, mathematical instruments, minerals, &c. Dissections were first permitted by Queen Elizabeth, in 1564. As soon as the first lectures were founded, in 1583, a spacious anatomical theatre was built adjoining Linacre's house, and here the great Dr. Harvey gave his first course of lectures; but about the time of the accession of Charles I. the College removed to a house of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, at the bottom of Amen Corner, where they planted a botanical garden and built an anatomical theatre. During the civil wars the Parliament levied L5 a week on the College. Eventually sold by the Puritans, the house and gardens were purchased by Dr. Harvey and given to the society. The great Harvey built a museum and library at his own expense, which were opened in 1653, and Harvey, then nearly eighty, relinquished his office of Professor of Anatomy and Surgery. The garden at this time extended as far west as the Old Bailey, and as far south as St. Martin's Church. Harvey's gift consisted of a convocation room and a library, to which Selden contributed some Oriental MS., Elias Ashmole many valuable volumes, the Marquis of Dorchester L100; and Sir Theodore Mayerne, physician to four kings—viz., Henry IV. of France, James I., Charles I., and Charles II.—left his library. The old library was turned into a lecture and reception room, for such visitors as Charles II. who in 1665 attended here the anatomical praelections of Dr. Ent, whom he knighted on the occasion. This building was destroyed by the Great Fire, from which only 112 folio books were saved. The College never rebuilt its premises, and on the site were erected the houses of three residentiaries of St. Paul's. Shortly after a piece of ground was purchased in Warwick Lane, and the new building opened in 1674. A similar grant to that of Linacre's was that of Dr. Lettsom, who in the year 1773 gave the house and library in Bolt Court, which is at the present moment occupied by the Medical Society of London.

The view of Linacre's House, in Knightrider Street, which we give on page 301, is taken from a print in the "Gold-headed Cane," an amusing work to which we have already referred.



CHAPTER XXVI.

CHEAPSIDE—INTRODUCTORY AND HISTORICAL.

Ancient Reminiscences of Cheapside—Stormy Days therein—The Westchepe Market—Something about the Pillory—The Cheapside Conduits—The Goldsmiths' Monopoly—Cheapside Market—Gossip anent Cheapside by Mr. Pepys—A Saxon Rienzi—Anti-Free-Trade Riots in Cheapside—Arrest of the Rioters—A Royal Pardon—Jane Shore.

What a wealth and dignity there is about Cheapside; what restless life and energy; with what vigorous pulsation life beats to and fro in that great commercial artery! How pleasantly on a summer morning that last of the Mohicans, the green plane-tree now deserted by the rooks, at the corner of Wood Street, flutters its leaves! How fast the crowded omnibuses dash past with their loads of young Greshams and future rulers of Lombard Street! How grandly Bow steeple bears itself, rising proudly in the sunshine! How the great webs of gold chains sparkle in the jeweller's windows! How modern everything looks, and yet only a short time since some workmen at a foundation in Cheapside, twenty-five feet below the surface, came upon traces of primeval inhabitants in the shape of a deer's skull, with antlers, and the skull of a wolf, struck down, perhaps, more than a thousand years ago, by the bronze axe of some British savage. So the world rolls on: the times change, and we change with them.

The engraving which we give on page 307 is from one of the most ancient representations extant of Cheapside. It shows the street decked out in holiday attire for the procession of the wicked old queen-mother, Marie de Medici, on her way to visit her son-in-law, Charles I., and her wilful daughter, Henrietta Maria.

The City records, explored with such unflagging interest by Mr. Riley in his "Memorials of London," furnish us with some interesting gleanings relating to Cheapside. In the old letter books in the Guildhall—the Black Book, Red Book, and White Book—we see it in storm and calm, observe the vigilant and jealous honesty of the guilds, and become witnesses again to the bloody frays, cruel punishments, and even the petty disputes of the middle-age craftsmen, when Cheapside was one glittering row of goldsmiths' shops, and the very heart of the wealth of London. The records culled so carefully by Mr. Riley are brief but pregnant; they give us facts uncoloured by the historian, and highly suggestive glimpses of strange modes of life in wild and picturesque eras of our civilisation. Let us take the most striking seriatim.

In 1273 the candle-makers seem to have taken a fancy to Cheapside, where the horrible fumes of that necessary but most offensive trade soon excited the ire of the rich citizens, who at last expelled seventeen of the craft from their sheds in Chepe. In the third year of Edward II. it was ordered and commanded on the king's behalf, that "no man or woman should be so bold as henceforward to hold common market for merchandise in Chepe, or any other highway within the City, except Cornhill, after the hour of nones" (probably about two p.m.); and the same year it was forbidden, under pain of imprisonment, to scour pots in the roadway of Chepe, to the hindrance of folks who were passing; so that we may conclude that in Edward II.'s London there was a good deal of that out-door work that the traveller still sees in the back streets of Continental towns.

Holocausts of spurious goods were not uncommon in Cheapside. In 1311 (Edward II.) we find that at the request of the hatters and haberdashers, search had been made for traders selling "bad and cheating hats," that is, of false and dishonest workmanship, made of a mixture of wool and flocks. The result was the seizure of forty grey and white hats, and fifteen black, which were publicly burnt in the street of Chepe. What a burning such a search would lead to in our less scrupulous days! Why, the pile would reach half way up St. Paul's. Illegal nets had been burnt opposite Friday Street in the previous reign. After the hats came a burning of fish panniers defective in measure; while in the reign of Edward III. some false chopins (wine measures) were destroyed. This was rough justice, but still the seizures seem to have been far fewer than they would be in our boastful epoch.

There was a generous lavishness about the royalty of the Middle Ages, however great a fool or scoundrel the monarch might be. Thus we read that on the safe delivery of Queen Isabel (wife of Edward II.), in 1312, of a son, afterwards Edward III., the Conduit in Chepe, for one day, ran with nothing but wine, for all those who chose to drink there; and at the cross, hard by the church of St. Michael in West Chepe, 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.

The mediaeval guilds, useful as they were in keeping traders honest (Heaven knows, it needs supervision enough, now!), still gave rise to jealousies and feuds. The sturdy craftsmen of those days, inured to arms, flew to the sword as the quickest arbitrator, and preferred clubs and bills to Chancery courts and Common Pleas. The stones of Chepe were often crimsoned with the blood of these angry disputants. Thus, in 1327 (Edward III.), the saddlers and the joiners and bit-makers came to blows. In May of that year armed parties of these rival trades fought right and left in Cheapside and Cripplegate. The whole city ran to the windows in alarm, and several workmen were killed and many mortally wounded, to the great scandal of the City, and the peril of many quiet people. The conflict at last became so serious that the mayor, aldermen, and sheriffs had to interpose, and the dispute had to be finally settled at a great discussion of the three trades at the Guildhall, with what result the record does not state.

In this same reign of Edward III. the excessive length of the tavern signs ("ale-stakes" as they were then called) was complained of by persons riding in Cheapside. All the taverners of the City were therefore summoned to the Guildhall, and warned that no sign or bush (hence the proverb, "Good wine needs no bush") should henceforward extend over the king's highway beyond the length of seven feet, under pain of a fine of forty pence to the chamber of the Guildhall.

In 1340 (Edward III.) two more guilds fell to quarrelling. This time it was the pelterers (furriers) and fishmongers, who seem to have tanned each other's hides with considerable zeal. It came at last to this, that the portly mayor and sheriffs had to venture out among the sword-blades, cudgels, and whistling volleys of stones, but at first with little avail, for the combatants were too hot. They soon arrested some scaly and fluffy misdoers, it is true; but then came a wild rush, and the noisy misdoers were rescued; and, most audacious of all, one Thomas, son of John Hansard, fishmonger, with sword drawn (terrible to relate), seized the mayor by his august throat, and tried to lop him on the neck; and one brawny rascal, John le Brewere, a porter, desperately wounded one of the City serjeants: so that here, as the fishmongers would have observed, "there was a pretty kettle of fish." For striking a mayor blood for blood was the only expiation, and Thomas and John were at once tried at the Guildhall, found guilty on their own confession, and beheaded in Chepe; upon hearing which Edward III. wrote to the mayor, and complimented him on his display of energy on this occasion.

Chaucer speaks of the restless 'prentices of Cheap (Edward III.):—

"A prentis dwelled whilom in our citee— At every bridale would he sing and hoppe; He loved bet the taverne than the shoppe— For when ther eny riding was in Chepe Out of the shoppe thider wold he lepe, And til that he had all the sight ysein, And danced wel, he wold not come agen." (The Coke's Tale.)

In the luxurious reign of Richard II. the guilds were again vigilant, and set fire to a number of caps that had been oiled with rank grease, and that had been frilled by the feet and not by the hand, "so being false and made to deceive the commonalty." In this same reign (1393), when the air was growing dark with coming mischief, an ordinance was passed, prohibiting secret huckstering of stolen and bad goods by night "in the common hostels," instead of the two appointed markets held every feast-day, by daylight only, in Westchepe and Cornhill. The Westchepe market was held by day between St. Lawrence Lane and a house called "the Cage," between the first and second bell, and special provision was made that at these markets no crowd should obstruct the shops adjacent to the open-air market. To close the said markets the "bedel of the ward" was to ring a bell (probably, says Mr. Riley, the bell on the Tun, at Cornhill) twice—first, an hour before sunset, and another final one half an hour later. Another civic edict relating to markets occurs in 1379 (Richard II.), when the stands for stalls at the High Cross of Chepe were let by the mayor and chamberlain at 13s. 4d. each. At the same time the stalls round the brokers' cross, at the north door of St. Paul's (erected by the Earl of Gloucester in Henry III.'s reign) were let at 10s. and 6s. 8d. each. The stationers, or vendors in small wares, on the taking down of the Cross in 1390, probably retired to Paternoster Row.

The punishment of the pillory (either in Cheapside or Cornhill, the "Letter Book" does not say which) was freely used in the Middle Ages for scandal-mongers, dishonest traders, and forgers; and very deterring the shameful exposure must have been to even the most brazen offender. Thus, in Richard II.'s reign, we find John le Strattone, for obtaining thirteen marks by means of a forged letter, was led through Chepe with trumpets and pipes to the pillory on "Cornhalle" for one hour, on two successive days.

For the sake of classification we may here mention a few earlier instances of the same ignominious punishment. In 1372 (Edward III.) Nicholas Mollere, a smith's servant, for spreading a lying report that foreign merchants were to be allowed the same rights as freemen of the City, was set in the pillory for one hour, with a whetstone hung round his neck. In the same heroic reign Thomas Lanbye, a chapman, for selling rims of base metal for cups, pretending them to be silver-gilt, was put in the pillory for two hours; while in 1382 (Richard II.) we find Roger Clerk, of Wandsworth, for pretending to cure a poor woman of fever by a talisman wrapped in cloth of gold, was ridden through the City to the music of trumpets and pipes; and the same year a cook in Bread Street, for selling stale slices of cooked conger, was put in the pillory for an hour, and the said fish burned under his rascally nose.

Sometimes, however, the punishment awarded to these civic offenders consisted in less disgraceful penance, as, for instance, in the year 1387 (Richard II.), a man named Highton, who had assaulted a worshipful alderman, was sentenced to lose his hand; but the man being a servant of the king, was begged off by certain lords, on condition of his walking through Chepe and Fleet Street, carrying a lighted wax candle of three pounds' weight to St. Dunstan's Church, where he was to offer it on the altar.

In 1591, the year Elizabeth sent her rash but brave young favourite, Essex, with 3,500 men, to help Henry IV. to besiege Rouen, two fanatics named Coppinger and Ardington, the former calling himself a prophet of mercy and the latter a prophet of vengeance, proclaimed their mission in Cheapside, and were at once laid by the heels. But the old public punishment still continued, for in 1600 (the year before the execution of Essex) we read that "Mrs. Fowler's case was decided" by sentencing that lady to be whipped in Bridewell; while a Captain Hermes was sent to the pillory, his brother was fined L100 and imprisoned, and Gascone, a soldier, was sentenced to ride to the Cheapside pillory with his face to the horse's tail, to be there branded in the face, and afterwards imprisoned for life.

In 1578, when Elizabeth was coquetting with Anjou and the French marriage, we find in one of those careful lists of the Papists of London kept by her subtle councillors, a Mr. Loe, vintner, of the "Mitre," Cheapside, who married Dr. Boner's sister (Bishop Bonner?). In 1587, the year before the defeat of the Armada, and when Leicester's army was still in Holland, doing little, and the very month that Sir William Stanley and 13,000 Englishmen surrendered Deventer to the Prince of Parma, we find the Council writing to the Lord Mayor about a mutiny, requiring him "to see that the soldiers levied in the City for service in the Low Countries, who had mutinied against Captain Sampson, be punished with some severe and extraordinary correction. To be tied to carts and flogged through Cheapside to Tower Hill, then to be set upon a pillory, and each to have one ear cut off."

In the reign of James I. the same ignominious and severe punishment continued, for in 1611 one Floyd (for we know not what offence) was fined L5,000, sentenced to be whipped to the pillories of Westminster and Cheapside, to be branded in the face, and then imprisoned in Newgate.

To return to our historical sequence. In 1388 (Richard II.) it was ordered that every person selling fish taken east of London Bridge should sell the same at the Cornhill market; while all Thames fish caught west of the bridge was to be sold near the conduit in Chepe, and nowhere else, under pain of forfeiture of the fish.

The eleventh year of Richard II. brought a real improvement to the growing city, for certain "substantial men of the ward of Farringdon Within" were then allowed to build a new water-conduit near the church of St. Michael le Quern, in Westchepe, to be supplied by the great pipe opposite St. Thomas of Accon, providing the great conduit should not be injured; and on this occasion the Earl of Gloucester's brokers' cross at St. Paul's was removed.

Early in the reign of Henry V. complaints were made by the poor that the brewers, who rented the fountains and chief upper pipe of the Cheapside conduit, also drew from the smaller pipe below, and the brewers were warned that for every future offence they would be fined 6s. 8d. In the fourth year of this chivalrous monarch a "hostiller" named Benedict Wolman, under-marshal of the Marshalsea, was condemned to death for a conspiracy to bring a man named Thomas Ward, alias Trumpington, from Scotland, to pass him off as Richard II. Wolman was drawn through Cornhill and Cheapside to the gallows at Tyburn, where he was "hanged and beheaded."



Lydgate, that dull Suffolk monk, who followed Chaucer, though at a great distance, has, in his ballad of "Lackpenny," described Chepe in the reign of Henry VI. The hero of the poem says—

"Then to the Chepe I gan me drawn, Where much people I saw for to stand; One offered me velvet, silk, and lawn; Another he taketh me by the hand, 'Here is Paris thread, the finest in the land.' I never was used to such things indeed, And, wanting money, I might not speed."

In 1622 the traders of the Goldsmiths' Company began to complain that alien traders were creeping into and alloying the special haunts of the trade, Goldsmiths' Row and Lombard Street; and that 183 foreign goldsmiths were selling counterfeit jewels, engrossing the business and impoverishing its members.

City improvements were carried with a high hand in the reign of Charles I., who, determined to clear Cheapside of all but goldsmiths, in order to make the eastern approach to St. Paul's grander, committed to the Fleet some of the alien traders who refused to leave Cheapside. This unfortunate monarch seems to have carried out even his smaller measures in a despotic and unjustifiable manner, as we see from an entry in the State Papers, October 2, 1634. It is a petition of William Bankes, a Cheapside tavern-keeper, and deposes:—

"Petition of William Bankes to the king. Not fully twelve months since, petitioner having obtained a license under the Great Seal to draw wine and vent it at his house in Cheapside, and being scarce entered into his trade, it pleased his Majesty, taking into consideration the great disorders that grew by the numerous taverns within London, to stop so growing an evil by a total suppression of victuallers in Cheapside, &c, by which petitioner is much decayed in his fortune. Beseeches his Majesty to grant him (he not being of the Company of Vintners in London, but authorised merely by his Majesty) leave to victual and retail meat, it being a thing much desired by noblemen and gentlemen of the best rank and others (for the which, if they please, they may also contract beforehand, as the custom is in other countries), there being no other place fit for them to eat in the City."

The foolish determination to make Cheapside more glittering and showy seems again to have struck the weak despot, and an order of the Council (November 16) goes forth that—"Whereas in Goldsmith's Row, in Cheapside and Lombard Street, divers shops are held by persons of other trades, whereby that uniform show which was an ornament to those places and a lustre to the City is now greatly diminished, all the shops in Goldsmith's Row are to be occupied by none but goldsmiths; and all the goldsmiths who keep shops in other parts of the City are to resort thither, or to Lombard Street or Cheapside."

The next year we find a tradesman who had been expelled from Goldsmiths' Row praying bitterly to be allowed a year longer, as he cannot find a residence, the removal of houses in Cheapside, Lombard Street, and St. Paul's Churchyard having rendered shops scarce.

In 1637 the king returns again to the charge, and determines to carry out his tyrannical whim by the following order of the Council:—"The Council threaten the Lord Mayor and aldermen with imprisonment, if they do not forthwith enforce the king's command that all shops should be shut up in Cheapside and Lombard Street that were not goldsmiths' shops." The Council "had learned that there were still twenty-four houses and shops that were not inhabited by goldsmiths, but in some of them were one Grove and Widow Hill, stationers; one Sanders, a drugster; Medcalfe, a cook; Renatus Edwards, a girdler; John Dover, a milliner; and Brown, a bandseller."

In 1664 we discover from a letter of the Dutch ambassador, Van Goch, to the States-General, that a great fire in Cheapside, "the principal street of the City," had burned six houses. In this reign the Cheapside market seems to have given great vexation to the Cheapside tradesmen. In 1665 there is a State Paper to this effect:—

"The inquest of Cheap, Cripplegate, Cordwainer, Bread Street, and Farringdon Within wards, to the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen of London. In spite of orders to the contrary, the abuses of Cheapside Market continue, and the streets are so pestered and encroached on that the passages are blocked up and trade decays. Request redress by fining those who allow stalls before their doors except at market times, or by appointing special persons to see to the matter, and disfranchise those who disobey; the offenders are 'marvellous obstinate and refractory to all good orders,' and not to be dealt with by common law."

Pepys, in his inimitable "Diary," gives us two interesting glimpses of Cheapside—one of the fermenting times immediately preceding the Restoration, the other a few years later—showing the effervescing spirit of the London 'prentices of Charles II.'s time:—

"1659.—Coming home, heard that in Cheapside there had been but a little before a gibbet set up, and the picture of Huson hung upon it in the middle of the street. (John Hewson, who had been a shoemaker, became a colonel in the Parliament army, and sat in judgment on the king. He escaped hanging by flight, and died in 1662 at Amsterdam.)

"1664.—So home, and in Cheapside, both coming and going, it was full of apprentices, who have been here all this day, and have done violence, I think, to the master of the boys that were put in the pillory yesterday. But Lord! to see how the trained bands are raised upon this, the drums beating everywhere as if an enemy were upon them—so much is this city subject to be put into a disarray upon very small occasions. But it was pleasant to hear the boys, and particularly one very little one, that I demanded the business of. He told me that that had never been done in the City since it was a city—two 'prentices put in the pillory, and that it ought not to be so."

Cheapside has been the scene of two great riots, which were threatening enough to render them historically important. The one was in the reign of Richard I., the other in that of Henry VIII. The first of these, a violent protest against Norman oppression, was no doubt fomented, if not originated, by the down-trodden Saxons. It began thus:—On the return of Richard from his captivity in Germany, and before his fiery retaliation on France, a London citizen named William with the Long Beard (alias Fitzosbert, a deformed man, but of great courage and zeal for the poor), sought the king, and appealing to his better nature, laid before him a detail of great oppressions and outrages wrought by the Mayor and rich aldermen of the city, to burden the humbler citizens and relieve themselves, especially at "the hoistings" when any taxes or tollage were to be levied. Fitzosbert, encouraged at gaining the king's ear, and hoping too much from the generous but rapacious Norman soldier, grew bolder, openly defended the causes of oppressed men, and thus drew round him daily great crowds of the poor.

"Many gentlemen of honour," says Holinshed, "sore hated him for his presumptious attempts to the hindering of their purposes; but he had such comfort of the king that he little paused for their malice, but kept on his intent, till the king, being advertised of the assemblies which he made, commanded him to cease from such doings, that the people might fall again to their sciences and occupations, which they had for the most part left off at the instigation of this William with the Long Beard, which he nourished of purpose, to seem the more grave and manlike, and also, as it were, in despite of them which counterfeited the Normans (that were for the most part shaven), and because he would resemble the ancient usage of the English nation. The king's commandment in restraint of people's resort unto him was well kept for a time, but it was not long before they began to follow him again as they had done before. Then he took upon him to make unto them certain speeches. By these and such persuasions and means as he used, he had gotten two and fifty thousand persons ready to have taken his part."

How far this English Rienzi intended to obtain redress by force we cannot clearly discover; but he does not seem to have been a man who would have stopped at anything to obtain justice for the oppressed—and that the Normans were oppressors, till they became real Englishmen, there can be no doubt. The rich citizens and the Norman nobles, who had clamped the City fast with fortresses, soon barred out Longbeard from the king's chamber. The Archbishop of Canterbury especially, who ruled the City, called together the rich citizens, excited their fears, and with true priestly craft persuaded them to give sure pledges that no outbreak should take place, although he denied all belief in the possibility of such an event. The citizens, overcome by his oily and false words, willingly gave their pledges, and were from that time in the archbishop's power. The wily prelate then, finding the great demagogue was still followed by dangerous and threatening crowds, appointed two burgesses and other spies to watch Fitzosbert, and, when it was possible, to apprehend him.

These men at a convenient time set upon Fitzosbert, to bind and carry him off, but Longbeard was a hero at heart and full of ready courage. Snatching up an axe, he defended himself manfully, slew one of the archbishop's emissaries, and flew at once for sanctuary into the Church of St. Mary Bow. Barring the doors and retreating to the tower, he and some trusty friends turned it into a small fortress, till at last his enemies, gathering thicker round him and setting the steeple on fire, forced Longbeard and a woman whom he loved, and who had followed him there, into the open street.

As the deserted demagogue was dragged forth through the fire and smoke, still loth to yield, a son of the burgess whom he had stricken dead ran forward and stabbed him in the side. The wounded man was quickly overpowered, for the citizens, afraid to forfeit their pledges, did not come to his aid as he had expected, and he was hurried to the Tower, where the expectant archbishop sat ready to condemn him. We can imagine what that drum-head trial would be like. Longbeard was at once condemned, and with nine of his adherents, scorched and smoking from the fire, was sentenced to be hung on a gibbet at the Smithfield Elms. For all this, the fermentation did not soon subside; the people too late remembered how Fitzosbert had pleaded for their rights, and braved king, prelate, and baron; and they loudly exclaimed against the archbishop for breaking sanctuary, and putting to death a man who had only defended himself against assassins, and was innocent of other crimes. The love for the dead man, indeed, at last rose to such a height that the rumour ran that miracles were wrought by even touching the chains by which he had been bound in the Tower. He became for a time a saint to the poorer and more suffering subjects of the Normans, and the place where he was beheaded in Smithfield was visited as a spot of special holiness.

But this riot of Longbeard's was but the threatening of a storm. A tempest longer and more terrible broke over Cheapside on "Evil May Day," in the reign of Henry VIII. Its origin was the jealousy of the Lombards and other foreign money-lenders and craftsmen entertained by the artisans and 'prentices of London. Its actual cause was the seduction of a citizen's wife by a Lombard named Francis de Bard, of Lombard Street. The loss of the wife might have been borne, but the wife took with her, at the Italian's solicitation, a box of her husband's plate. The husband demanding first his wife and then his plate, was flatly refused both. The injured man tried the case at the Guildhall, but was foiled by the intriguing foreigner, who then had the incomparable rascality to arrest the poor man for his wife's board.

"This abuse," says Holinshed, "was much hated; so that the same and manie other oppressions done by the Lombards increased such a malice in the Englishmen's hearts, that at the last it burst out. For amongst others that sore grudged these matters was a broker in London, called John Lincolne, that busied himself so farre in the matter, that about Palme Sundie, in the eighth yeare of the King's reign, he came to one Doctor Henry Standish with these words: 'Sir, I understand that you shall preach at the Sanctuarie, Spittle, on Mondaie in Easter Weeke, and so it is, that Englishmen, both merchants and others, are undowne, for strangers have more liberty in this land than Englishmen, which is against all reason, and also against the commonweal of the realm. I beseech you, therefore, to declare this in your sermon, and in soe doing you shall deserve great thanks of my Lord Maior and of all his brethren;' and herewith he offered unto the said Doctor Standish a bill containing this matter more at large.... Dr. Standish refused to have anything to do with the matter, and John Lincolne went to Dr. Bell, a chanon of the same Spittle, that was appointed likewise to preach upon the Tuesday in Easter Weeke, whome he perswaded to read his said bill in the pulpit."

This bill complained vehemently of the poverty of London artificers, who were starving, while the foreigners swarmed everywhere; also that the English merchants were impoverished by foreigners, who imported all silks, cloth of gold, wine, and iron, so that people scarcely cared even to buy of an Englishman. Moreover, the writer declared that foreigners had grown so numerous that, on a Sunday in the previous Lent, he had seen 600 strangers shooting together at the popinjay. He also insisted on the fact of the foreigners banding in fraternities, and clubbing together so large a fund, that they could overpower even the City of London.

Lincoln having won over Dr. Bell to read the complaint, went round and told every one he knew that shortly they would have news; and excited the 'prentices and artificers to expect some speedy rising against the foreign merchants and workmen. In due time the sermon was preached, and Dr. Bell drew a strong picture of the riches and indolence of the foreigners, and the struggling and poverty of English craftsmen.

The train was ready, and on such occasions the devil is never far away with the spark. The Sunday after the sermon, Francis de Bard, the aforesaid Lombard, and other foreign merchants, happened to be in the King's Gallery at Greenwich Palace, and were laughing and boasting over Bard's intrigue with the citizen's wife. Sir Thomas Palmer, to whom they spoke, said, "Sirs, you have too much favour in England;" and one William Bolt, a merchant, added, "Well, you Lombards, you rejoice now; but, by the masse, we will one day have a fling at you, come when it will." And that saying the other merchants affirmed. This tale was reported about London.

The attack soon came. "On the 28th of April, 1513," says Holinshed, "some young citizens picked quarrels with the strangers, insulting them in various ways, in the streets; upon which certain of the said citizens were sent to prison. Then suddenly rose a secret rumour, and no one could tell how it began, that on May-day next the City would rise against the foreigners, and slay them; insomuch that several of the strangers fled from the City. This rumour reached the King's Council, and Cardinal Wolsey sent for the Mayor, to ask him what he knew of it; upon which the Mayor told him that peace should be kept. The Cardinal told him to take pains that it should be. The Mayor came from the Cardinal's at four in the afternoon of May-day eve, and in all haste sent for his brethren to the Guildhall; yet it was almost seven before they met. It was at last decided, with the consent of the Cardinal, that instead of a strong watch being set, which might irritate, all citizens should be warned to keep their servants within doors on the dreaded day. The Recorder and Sir Thomas More, of the King's Privy Council, came to the Guildhall, at a quarter to nine p.m., and desired the aldermen to send to every ward, forbidding citizens' servants to go out from seven p.m. that day to nine a.m. of the next day.

"After this command had been given," says the chronicler, "in the evening, as Sir John Mundie (an alderman) came from his ward, and found two young men in Chepe, playing at the bucklers, and a great many others looking on (for the command was then scarce known), he commanded them to leave off; and when one of them asked why, he would have had him to the counter. Then all the young 'prentices resisted the alderman, taking the young fellow from him, and crying ''Prentices and Clubs.' Then out of every door came clubs and weapons. The alderman fled, and was in great danger. Then more people arose out of every quarter, and forth came serving men, watermen, courtiers, and others; so that by eleven o'clock there were in Chepe six or seven hundred; and out of Paul's Churchyard came 300, which knew not of the other. So out of all places they gathered, and broke up the counters, and took out the prisoners that the Mayor had committed for hurting the strangers; and went to Newgate, and took out Studleie and Petit, committed thither for that cause.

"The Mayor and Sheriff made proclamation, but no heed was paid to them. Herewith being gathered in plumps, they ran through St. Nicholas' shambles, and at St. Martin's Gate there met with them Sir Thomas More, and others, desiring them to goe to their lodgings; and as they were thus intreating, and had almost persuaded the people to depart, they within St. Martin's threw out stones, bats, and hot water, so that they hurt divers honest persons that were there with Sir Thomas More; insomuch as at length one Nicholas Downes, a sergeant of arms, being there with the said Sir Thomas More, and sore hurt amongst others, cried 'Down with them!' and then all the misruled persons ran to the doors and windows of the houses round Saint Martin's, and spoiled all that they found.

"After that they ran headlong into Cornhill, and there likewise spoiled divers houses of the French men that dwelled within the gate of Master Newton's house, called Queene Gate. This Master Newton was a Picard borne, and reputed to be a great favourer of Frenchmen in their occupiengs and trades, contrary to the laws of the Citie. If the people had found him, they had surelie have stricken off his head; but when they found him not, the watermen and certain young preests that were there, fell to rifling, and some ran to Blanch-apelton, and broke up the strangers' houses and spoiled them. Thus from ten or eleven of the clock these riotous people continued their outrageous doings, till about three of the clock, at what time they began to withdraw, and went to their places of resort; and by the way they were taken by the Maior and the heads of the Citie, and sent some of them to the Tower, some to Newgate, some to the counters, to the number of 300.

"Manie fled, and speciallie the watermen and preests and serving men, but the 'prentices were caught by the backs, and had to prison. In the meantime, whilst the hottest of this ruffling lasted, the Cardinall was advertised thereof by Sir Thomas Parre; whereon the Cardinall strengthened his house with men and ordnance. Sir Thomas Parre rode in all haste to Richmond, where the King lay, and informed him of the matter; who incontinentlie sent forth hastilie to London, to understand the state of the Citie, and was truely advertised how the riot had ceased, and manie of the misdoers apprehended. The Lieutenant of the Tower, Sir Roger Cholmeleie (no great friend to the Citie), in a frantike furie, during the time of this uprore, shot off certaine pieces of ordinance against the Citie, and though they did no great harm, yet he won much evil will for his hastie doing, because men thought he did it of malice, rather than of any discretion.



"About five o'clock, the Earls of Shrewsbury and Surrey, Thomas Dockerin, Lord of Saint John's, George Neville, Lord of Abergavenny, came to London with such force as they could gather in haste, and so did the Innes of Court. Then were the prisoners examined, and the sermon of Dr. Bell brought to remembrance, and he sent to the Tower. Herewith was a Commission of Oyer and Determiner, directed to the Duke of Norfolk and other lords, to the Lord Mayor of London, and the aldermen, and to all the justices of England, for punishment of this insurrection. (The Citie thought the Duke bare them a grudge for a lewd preest of his that the yeare before was slaine in Chepe, insomuch that he then, in his fury, said, 'I pray God I may once have the citizens in my power!' And likewise the Duke thought that they bare him no good will; wherefore he came into the Citie with thirteen hundred men, in harnesse, to keepe the oier and determiner.)



"At the time of the examination the streets were filled with harnessed men, who spake very opprobrious words to the citizens, which the latter, although two hundred to one, bore patiently. The inquiry was held at the house of Sir John Fineux, Lord Chief Justice of England, neare to St. Bride's, in Fleet Street.

"When the lords were met at the Guildhall, the prisoners were brought through the street, tied in ropes, some men, and some lads of thirteen years of age. Among them were divers not of the City, some priests, some husbandmen and labourers. The whole number amounted unto two hundred, three score, and eighteen persons. Eventually, thirteen were found guilty, and adjudged to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. Eleven pairs of gallows were set up in various places where the offences had been committed, as at Aldgate, Blanch-appleton, Gratious Street, Leaden Hall, and before every Counter. One also at Newgate, St. Martin's, at Aldersgate, and Bishopsgate. Then were the prisoners that were judged brought to those places of execution, and executed in the most rigorous manner in the presence of the Lord Edward Howard, son to the Duke of Norfolke, a knight marshal, who showed no mercie, but extreme crueltie to the poore yonglings in their execution; and likewise the duke's servants spake many opprobrious words. On Thursday, May the 7th, was Lincolne, Shirwin, and two brethren called Bets, and diverse other persons, adjudged to die; and Lincolne said, 'My lords, I meant well, for if you knew the mischiefe that is insued in this realme by strangers, you would remedie it. And many times I have complained, and then I was called a busie fellow; now, our Lord have mercie on me!' They were laid on hurdels and drawne to the Standard in Cheape, and first was John Lincolne executed; and as the others had the ropes about their neckes, there came a commandment from the king to respit the execution. Then the people cried, 'God save the king!' and so was the oier and terminer deferred till another daie, and the prisoners sent againe to ward. The armed men departed out of London, and all things set in quiet.

"On the 11th of May, the king being at Greenwich, the Recorder of London and several aldermen sought his presence to ask pardon for the late riot, and to beg for mercy for the prisoners; which petition the king sternly refused, saying that although it might be that the substantial citizens did not actually take part in the riot, it was evident, from their supineness in putting it down, that they 'winked at the matter.'

"On Thursday, the 22nd of May, the king, attended by the cardinal and many great lords, sat in person in judgment in Westminster Hall, the mayor, aldermen, and all the chief men of the City being present in their best livery. The king commanded that all the prisoners should be brought forth, so that in came the poore yonglings and old false knaves, bound in ropes, all along one after another in their shirts, and everie one a halter about his necke, to the number of now foure hundred men and eleven women; and when all were come before the king's presence, the cardinall sore laid to the maior and commonaltie their negligence; and to the prisoners he declared that they had deserved death for their offense. Then all the prisoners together cried, 'Mercie, gratious lord, mercie!' Herewith the lords altogither besought his grace of mercie, at whose sute the king pardoned them all. Then the cardinal gave unto them a good exhortation, to the great gladnesse of the hearers.

"Now when the generall pardon was pronounced all the prisoners shouted at once, and altogither cast up their halters into the hall roofe, so that the king might perceive they were none of the discreetest sort. Here is to be noticed that diverse offendors that were not taken, hearing that the king was inclined to mercie, came well apparelled to Westminster, and suddenlie stripped them into their shirts with halters, and came in among the prisoners, willinglie to be partakers of the king's pardon; by which dooing it was well known that one John Gelson, yeoman of the Crowne, was the first that began to spoile, and exhorted others to doe the same; and because he fled and was not taken, he came in with a rope among the other prisoners, and so had his pardon. This companie was after called the 'black-wagon.' Then were all the gallows within the Citie taken downe, and many a good prayer said for the king."

Jane Shore, that beautiful but frail woman, who married a goldsmith in Lombard Street, and was the mistress of Edward IV., was the daughter of a merchant in Cheapside. Drayton describes her minutely from a picture extant in Elizabeth's time, but now lost.

"Her stature," says the poet, "was meane; her haire of a dark yellow; her face round and full; her eye gray, delicate harmony being between each part's proportion and each proportion's colour; her body fat, white, and smooth; her countenance cheerful, and like to her condition. The picture I have seen of her was such as she rose out of her bed in the morning, having nothing on but a rich mantle cast under one arme over her shoulder, and sitting on a chair on which her naked arm did lie. Shore, a young man of right goodly person, wealth, and behaviour, abandoned her after the king had made her his concubine. Richard III., causing her to do open penance in St. Paul's Churchyard, commanded that no man should relieve her, which the tyrant did not so much for his hatred to sinne, but that, by making his brother's life odious, he might cover his horrible treasons the more cunningly."

An old ballad quaintly describes her supposed death, following an entirely erroneous tradition:—

"My gowns, beset with pearl and gold, Were turn'd to simple garments old; My chains and gems, and golden rings, To filthy rags and loathsome things.

"Thus was I scorned of maid and wife, For leading such a wicked life; Both sucking babes and children small, Did make their pastime at my fall.

"I could not get one bit of bread, Whereby my hunger might be fed, Nor drink, but such as channels yield, Or stinking ditches in the field.

"Thus weary of my life, at lengthe I yielded up my vital strength, Within a ditch of loathsome scent, Where carrion dogs did much frequent;

"The which now, since my dying daye, Is Shoreditch call'd, as writers saye;[6] Which is a witness of my sinne, For being concubine to a king."

Sir Thomas More, however, distinctly mentions Jane Shore being alive in the reign of Henry VIII., and seems to imply that he had himself seen her. "He (Richard III.) caused," says More, "the Bishop of London to put her to an open penance, going before the cross in procession upon a Sunday, with a taper in her hand; in which she went in countenance and face demure, so womanly, and albeit she were out of all array save her kirtle only, yet went she so fair and lovely, namely while the wondering of the people cast a comely red in her cheeks (of which she before had most miss), that her great shame was her much praise among those who were more amorous of her body than curious of her soul; and many good folk, also, who hated her living, and were glad to see sin corrected, yet pitied they more her penance than rejoiced therein, when they considered that the Protector procured it more of a corrupt intent than any virtuous intention.

"Proper she was, and fair; nothing in her body that you would have changed, but if you would, have wished her somewhat higher. Thus say they who knew her in her youth; albeit some who now see her (for yet she liveth) deem her never to have been well-visaged; whose judgment seemeth to me to be somewhat like as though men should guess the beauty of one long departed by her scalp taken out of the charnel-house. For now is she old, lean, withered, and dried up—nothing left but shrivelled skin and hard bone. And yet, being even such, whoso well advise her visage, might guess and devine which parts, how filled, would make it a fair face.

"Yet delighted men not so much in her beauty as in her pleasant behaviour. For a proper wit had she, and could both read well and write, merry in company, ready and quick of answer, neither mute nor full of babble, sometimes taunting without displeasure, and not without disport."

FOOTNOTES:

[6] But it had this name long before, being so called from its being a common sewer (vulgarly called shore) or drain. (See Stow.)



CHAPTER XXVII.

CHEAPSIDE SHOWS AND PAGEANTS.

A Tournament in Cheapside—The Queen in Danger—The Street in Holiday Attire—The Earliest Civic Show on record—The Water Processions—A Lord Mayor's Show in Queen Elizabeth's Reign—Gossip about Lord Mayors' Shows—Splendid Pageants—Royal Visitors at Lord Mayor's Shows—A Grand Banquet in Guildhall—George III. and the Lord Mayor's Show—The Lord Mayor's State Coach—The Men in Armour—Sir Claudius Hunter and Elliston—Stow and the Midsummer Watch.

We do not hear much in the old chronicles of tournaments and shivered spears in Cheapside, but of gorgeous pageants much. On coronation days, and days when our kings rode from the Tower to Westminster, or from Castle Baynard eastward, Cheapside blossomed at once with flags and banners, rich tapestry hung from every window, and the very gutters ran with wine, so loyal and generous were the citizens of those early days. Costume was bright and splendid in the Middle Ages, and heraldry kept alive the habit of contrasting and mingling colours. Citizens were wealthy, and, moreover, lavish of their wealth.

In these processions and pageants, Cheapside was always the very centre of the show. There velvets and silks trailed; there jewels shone; there spearheads and axe-heads glittered; there breastplates and steel caps gleamed; there proud horses fretted; there bells clashed; there the mob clamoured; there proud, warlike, and beautiful faces showed, uncapped and unveiled, to the seething, jostling people; and there mayor and aldermen grew hottest, bowed most, and puffed out with fullest dignity.

In order to celebrate the birth of the heir of England (the Black Prince, 1330), a great tournament was proclaimed in London. Philippa and all the female nobility were invited to be present. Thirteen knights were engaged on each side, and the tournament was held in Cheapside, between Wood Street and Queen Street; the highway was covered with sand, to prevent the horses' feet from slipping, and a grand temporary wooden tower was erected, for the accommodation of the Queen and her ladies. But scarcely had this fair company entered the tower, when the scaffolding suddenly gave way, and all present fell to the ground with the Queen. Though no one was injured, all were terribly frightened, and great confusion ensued. When the young king saw the peril of his wife, he flew into a tempest of rage, and vowed that the careless carpenters who had constructed the building should instantly be put to death. Whether he would thus far have stretched the prerogative of an English sovereign can never be known (says Miss Strickland), for his angelic partner, scarcely recovered from the terror of her fall, threw herself on her knees before the incensed king, and so effectually pleaded for the pardon of the poor men, that Edward became pacified, and forgave them.

When the young princess, Anne of Bohemia, the first wife of the royal prodigal, Richard II., entered London, a castle with towers was erected at the upper end of Cheapside. On the wooden battlements stood fair maidens, who blew gold leaf on the King, Queen, and retinue, so that the air seemed filled with golden butterflies. This pretty device was much admired. The maidens also threw showers of counterfeit gold coins before the horses' feet of the royal cavalcade, while the two sides of the tower ran fountains of red wine.

On the great occasion when this same Anne, who had by this time supped full of troubles, and by whose entreaties the proud, reckless young king, who had, as it were, excommunicated the City and now forgave it, came again into Chepe, red and white wine poured in fountains from a tower opposite the Great Conduit. The King and Queen were served from golden cups, and at the same place an angel flew down in a cloud, and presented costly golden circlets to Richard and his young wife.

Two days before the opening of Parliament, in 1423, Katherine of Valois, widow of Henry V., entered the city in a chair of state, with her child sitting on her knee. When they arrived at the west door of St. Paul's Cathedral, the Duke Protector lifted the infant king from his chair and set him on his feet, and, with the Duke of Exeter, led him between them up the stairs going into the choir; then, having knelt at the altar for a time, the child was borne into the churchyard, there set upon a fair courser, and so conveyed through Cheapside to his own manor of Kennington.

Time went on, and the weak young king married the fair amazon of France, the revengeful and resolute Margaret of Anjou. At the marriage pageant maidens acted, at the Cheapside conduit, a play representing the five wise and five foolish virgins. Years after, the corpse of the same king passed along the same street; but no huzzas, no rejoicing now. It was on the day after the restoration of Edward IV., when people dared not speak above a breath of what might be happening in the Tower, that the corpse of Henry VI. was borne through Cheapside to St. Paul's, barefaced, on a bier, so that all might see it, though it was surrounded by more brown bills and glaives than torches.

By-and-by, after the fierce retribution of Bosworth, came the Tudors, culminating and ending with Elizabeth.

As Elizabeth of York (Henry VII.'s consort) went from the Tower to Westminster to be crowned, the citizens hung velvets and cloth of gold from the windows in Chepe, and stationed children, dressed like angels, to sing praises to the Queen as she passed by. When the Queen's corpse was conveyed from the Tower, where she died, in Cheapside were stationed thirty-seven virgins, the number corresponding with the Queen's age, all dressed in white, wearing chaplets of white and green, and bearing lighted tapers.

As Anne Boleyn, during her short felicity, proceeded from the Tower to Westminster, on the eve of her coronation, the conduit of Cheapside ran, at one end white wine, and at the other red. At Cheapside Cross stood all the aldermen, from amongst whom advanced Master Walter, the City Recorder, who presented the Queen with a purse, containing a thousand marks of gold, which she very thankfully accepted, with many goodly words. At the Little Conduit of Cheapside was a rich pageant, full of melody and song, where Pallas, Venus, and Juno gave the Queen an apple of gold, divided into three compartments, typifying wisdom, riches, and felicity.

When Queen Elizabeth, young, happy and regal, proceeded through the City the day before her coronation, as she passed through Cheapside, she smiled; and being asked the reason, she replied, "Because I have just heard one say in the crowd, 'I remember old King Harry the Eighth.'" When she came to the grand allegory of Time and Truth, at the Little Conduit, in Cheapside, she asked, who an old man was that sat with his scythe and hour-glass. She was told "Time." "Time?" she repeated; "and Time has brought me here!"

In this pageant she spied that Truth held a Bible, in English, ready for presentation to her; and she bade Sir John Perrot (the knight nearest to her, who held up her canopy, and a kinsman, afterwards beheaded) to step forward and receive it for her; but she was informed such was not the regular manner of presentation, for it was to be let down into her chariot by a silken string. She therefore told Sir John Perrot to stay; and at the proper crisis, some verses being recited by Truth, the book descended, "and the Queen received it in both her hands, kissed it, clasped it to her bosom, and thanked the City for this present, esteemed above all others. She promised to read it diligently, to the great comfort of the bystanders." All the houses in Cheapside were dressed with banners and streamers, and the richest carpets, stuffs, and cloth of gold tapestried the streets. At the upper end of Chepe, the Recorder presented the Queen, from the City, with a handsome crimson satin purse, containing a thousand marks in gold, which she most graciously pocketed. There were trumpeters at the Standard in Chepe, and the City waits stood at the porch of St. Peter's, Cornhill. The City companies stretched in rows from Fenchurch Street to the Little Conduit in Chepe, behind rails, which were hung with cloth.

On an occasion when James I. and his wife visited the City, at the Conduit, Cheapside, there was a grand display of tapestry, gold cloth, and silks; and before the structure "a handsome apprentice was appointed, whose part it was to walk backwards and forwards, as if outside a shop, in his flat cap and usual dress, addressing the passengers with his usual cry for custom of, 'What d'ye lack, gentles? What will you buy? silks, satins, or taff—taf—fetas?' He then broke into premeditated verse:—

"'But stay, bold tongue! I stand at giddy gaze! Be dim, mine eyes! What gallant train are here, That strikes minds mute, puts good wits in a maze? Oh! 'tis our King, royal King James, I say! Pass on in peace, and happy be thy way; Live long on earth, and England's sceptre sway,'" &c.

Henrietta Maria, that pretty, wilful queen of Charles I., accompanied by the Duke of Buckingham and Bassompierre, the French ambassador, went to what the latter calls Shipside, to view the Lord Mayor's procession. She also came to a masquerade at the Temple, in the costume of a City lady. Mistress Bassett, the great lace-woman of Cheapside, went foremost of the Court party at the Temple carnival, and led the Queen by the hand.

But what are royal processions to the Lord Mayor's Show?

The earliest civic show on record, writes Mr. Fairholt, who made a specialty of this subject, took place in 1236, on the passage of Henry III. and Eleanor of Provence through the City to Westminster. They were escorted by the mayor, aldermen, and 360 mounted citizens, apparelled in robes of embroidered silk, and each carrying in their hands a cup of gold or silver, in token of the privilege claimed by the City for the lord mayor to officiate as chief butler at the king's coronation. On the return of Edward I. from the Holy Land the citizens, in the wildness of their loyalty, threw, it is said, handfuls of gold and silver out of window to the crowd. It was on the return of the same king from his Scotch victories that the earliest known City pageant took place. Each guild had its show. The Fishmongers had gilt salmon and sturgeon, drawn by eight horses, and six-and-forty knights riding seahorses, followed by St. Magnus (it was St. Magnus' day), with 1,000 horsemen.

Mr. Fairholt proved from papers still preserved by the Grocers' Company that water processions took place at least nineteen years earlier than the usual date (1453) set down for their commencement. Sir John Norman is mentioned by the City poet as the first Lord Mayor that rowed to Westminster. He had silver oars, and so delighted the London watermen that they wrote a ballad about him, of which two lines only still exist—

"Row thy boat, Norman, Row to thy leman."

In the troublous reign of Henry VI. the Goldsmiths made a special stand for their privileges on Lord Mayor's day. They complained loudly that they had always ridden with the mayor to Westminster and back, and that on their return to Chepe they sit on horseback "above the Cross afore the Goldsmiths' Row; but that on the morrow of the Apostles Simon and Jude, when they came to their stations, they found the Butchers had forestalled them, who would not budge for all the prayers of the wardens of the Goldsmiths, and hence had arisen great variance and strife." The two guilds submitted to the Lord Mayor's arbitration, whereupon the Mayor ruled that the Goldsmiths should retain possession of their ancient stand.

The first Lord Mayor's pageant described by the old chroniclers is that when Anne Boleyn "came from Greenwich to Westminster on her coronation day, and the Mayor went to serve her as chief butler, according to ancient custom." Hall expressly says that the water procession on that occasion resembled that of Lord Mayor's Day. The Mayor's barge, covered with red cloth (blue except at royal ceremonies), was garnished with goodly banners and streamers, and the sides hung with emblazoned targets. In the barge were "shalms, shagbushes, and divers other instruments, which continually made goodly harmony." Fifty barges, filled with the various companies, followed, marshalled and kept in order by three light wherries with officers. Before the Mayor's barge came another barge, full of ordnance and containing a huge dragon (emblematic of the Rouge Dragon in the Tudor arms), which vomited wild fire; and round about it stood terrible monsters and savages, also vomiting fire, discharging squibs, and making "hideous noises." By the side of the Mayor's barge was the bachelors' barge, in which were trumpeters and other musicians. The decks of the Mayor's barge, and the sail-yards, and top-castles were hung with flags and rich cloth of gold and silver. At the head and stern were two great banners, with the royal arms in beaten gold. The sides of the barge were hung with flags and banners of the Haberdashers' and Merchant Adventurers' Companies (the Lord Mayor, Sir Stephen Peacock, was a haberdasher). On the outside of the barge shone three dozen illuminated royal escutcheons. On the left hand of this barge came another boat, in which was a pageant. A white falcon, crowned, stood upon a mount, on a golden rock, environed with white and red roses (Anne Boleyn's device), and about the mount sat virgins, "singing and playing sweetly." The Mayor's company, the Haberdashers, came first, then the Mercers, then the Grocers, and so on, the barges being garnished with banners and hung with arras and rich carpets. In 1566-7 the water procession was very costly, and seven hundred pounds of gunpowder were burned. This is the first show of which a detailed account exists, and it is to be found recorded in the books of the Ironmongers' Company.