In consequence of these complaints, it was ordained (15 Henry VII.) by all the said fellowship, that no goldsmith, within or without the City, should thenceforth put to sale such description of plate, in any of the places mentioned, without it had the mark of the "Lybardishede crowned." All plate put to sale contrary to these orders the wardens were empowered to break. They also had the power, at their discretion, to fine offenders for this and any other frauds in manufacturing. If any goldsmith attempted to prevent the wardens from breaking bad work, they could seize such work, and declare it forfeited, according to the Act of Parliament, appropriating the one half (as thereby directed) to the king, and the other to the wardens breaking and making the seizure.

The present Goldsmiths' Hall was the design of Philip Hardwick, R.A. (1832-5), and boasts itself the most magnificent of the City halls. The old hall had been taken down in 1829, and the new hall was built without trenching on the funds set apart for charity. The style is Italian, of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The building is 180 feet in front and 100 feet deep. The west or chief facade has six attached Corinthian columns, the whole height of the front supporting a rich Corinthian entablature and bold cornice; and the other three fronts are adorned with pilasters, which also terminate the angles. Some of the blocks in the column shafts weigh from ten to twelve tons each. The windows of the principal story, the echinus moulding of which is handsome, have bold and enriched pediments, and the centre windows are honoured by massive balustrade balconies. In the centre, above the first floor, are the Company's arms, festal emblems, rich garlands, and trophies. The entrance door is a rich specimen of cast work. Altogether, though rather jammed up behind the Post-office, this building is worthy of the powerful and wealthy company who make it their domicile.

The modern Renaissance style, it must be allowed, though less picturesque than the Gothic, is lighter, more stately, and more adapted for certain purposes.

The hall and staircase are much admired, and are not without grandeur. They were in 1871 entirely lined with costly marbles of different sorts and colours, and the result is very splendid. The staircase branches right and left, and ascends to a domed gallery. Leaving that respectable Cerberus dozy but watchful in his bee-hive chair in the vestibule, we ascend the steps. On the square pedestals which ornament the balustrade of the first flight of stairs stand four graceful marble statuettes of the seasons, by Nixon. Spring is looking at a bird's-nest; Summer, wreathed with flowers, leads a lamb; Autumn carries sheaves of corn; and Winter presses his robe close against the wind. Between the double scagliola columns of the gallery are a group of statues; the bust of the sailor king, William IV., by Chantrey, is in a niche above. A door on the top of the staircase opens to the Livery hall; the room for the Court of Assistants is on the right of the northernmost corridor. The great banqueting-hall, 80 by 40 feet, and 35 feet high, has a range of Corinthian columns on either side. The five lofty, arched windows are filled with the armorial bearings of eminent goldsmiths of past times; and at the north end is a spacious alcove for the display of plate, which is lighted from above. On the side of the room is a large mirror, with busts of George III. and his worthy son, George IV. Between the columns are portraits of Queen Adelaide, by Sir Martin Archer Shee, and William IV. and Queen Victoria, by the Court painter, Sir George Hayter. The court-room has an elaborate stucco ceiling, with a glass chandelier, which tinkles when the scarlet mail-carts rush off one after another. In this room, beneath glass, is preserved the interesting little altar of Diana, found in digging the foundations of the new hall. Though greatly corroded, it has been of fine workmanship, and the outlines are full of grace. There are also some pictures of great merit and interest. First among them is Janssen's fine portrait of Sir Hugh Myddleton. He is dressed in black, and rests his hand upon a shell. This great benefactor of London left a share in his water-works to the Goldsmiths' Company, which is now worth more than L1,000 a year. Another portrait is that of Sir Thomas Vyner, that jovial Lord Mayor, who dragged Charles II. back for a second bottle. A third is a portrait (after Holbein) of Sir Martin Bowes, Lord Mayor in 1545 (Henry VIII.); and there is also a large picture (attributed to Giulio Romano, the only painter Shakespeare mentions in his plays). In the foreground is St. Dunstan, in rich robes and crozier in hand, while behind, the saint takes the Devil by the nose, much to the approval of flocks of angels above. The great white marble mantelpiece came from Canons, the seat of the Duke of Chandos; and the two large terminal busts are attributed to Roubiliac. The sumptuous drawing-room, adorned with crimson satin, white and gold, has immense mirrors, and a stucco ceiling, wrought with fruit, flowers, birds, and animals, with coats of arms blazoned on the four corners. The court dining-room displays on the marble chimney-piece two boys holding a wreath encircling the portrait of Richard II., by whom the Goldsmiths were first incorporated. In the livery tea-room is a conversation piece, by Hudson (Reynolds' master), containing portraits of six Lord Mayors, all Goldsmiths. The Company's plate, as one might suppose, is very magnificent, and comprises a chandelier of chased gold, weighing 1,000 ounces; two superb old gold plates, having on them the arms of France quartered with those of England; and, last of all, there is the gold cup (attributed to Cellini) out of which Queen Elizabeth is said to have drank at her coronation, and which was bequeathed to the Company by Sir Martin Bowes. At the Great Exhibition of 1851 this spirited Company awarded L1,000 to the best artist in gold and silver plate, and at the same time resolved to spend L5,000 on plate of British manufacture.

From the Report of the Charity Commissioners it appears that the Goldsmiths' charitable funds, exclusive of gifts by Sir Martin Bowes, amount to L2,013 per annum.

Foster Lane was in old times chiefly inhabited by working goldsmiths.

"Dark Entry, Foster Lane," says Strype, "gives a passage into St. Martin's-le-Grand. On the north side of this entry was seated the parish church of St. Leonard, Foster Lane, which being consumed in the Fire of London, is not rebuilt, but the parish united to Christ Church; and the place where it stood is inclosed within a wall, and serveth as a burial-place for the inhabitants of the parish."

On the west side of Foster Lane stood the small parish church of St. Leonard's. This church, says Stow, was repaired and enlarged about the year 1631. A very fair window at the upper end of the chancel (1533) cost L500.

In this church were some curious monumental inscriptions. One of them, to the memory of Robert Trappis, goldsmith, bearing the date 1526, contained this epitaph:—

"When the bels be merrily rung, And the masse devoutly sung, And the meate merrily eaten, Then shall Robert Trappis, his wife and children be forgotten."

On a stone, at the entering into the choir, was inscribed in Latin, "Under this marble rests the body of Humfred Barret, son of John Barret, gentleman, who died A.D. 1501." On a fair stone, in the chancel, nameless, was written:—

"LIVE TO DYE.

"All flesh is grass, and needs must fade To earth again, whereof 'twas made."

St. Vedast, otherwise St. Foster, was a French saint, Bishop of Arras and Cambray in the reign of Clovis, who, according to the Rev. Alban Butler, performed many miracles on the blind and lame. Alaric had a great veneration for this saint.

In 1831, some workmen digging a drain discovered, ten or twelve feet below the level of Cheapside, and opposite No. 17, a curious stone coffin, now preserved in a vault, under a small brick grave, on the north side of St. Vedast's; whether Roman or Anglo-Saxon, it consists of a block of freestone, seven feet long and fifteen inches thick, hollowed out to receive a body, with a deeper cavity for the head and shoulders. When found, it contained a skeleton, and was covered with a flat stone. Several other stone coffins were found at the same time.

The interior of St. Foster is a melancholy instance of Louis Quatorze ornamentation. The church is divided by a range of Tuscan columns, and the ceiling is enriched with dusty wreaths of stucco flowers and fruit. The altar-piece consists of four Corinthian columns, carved in oak, and garnished with cherubim, palm-branches, &c. In the centre, above the entablature, is a group of well-executed winged figures, and beneath is a sculptured pelican. In 1838 Mr. Godwin spoke highly of the transparent blinds of this church, painted with various Scriptural subjects, as a substitute for stained glass.

"St. Vedast Church, in Foster Lane," says Maitland, "is on the east side, in the Ward of Farringdon Within, dedicated to St. Vedast, Bishop of Arras, in the province of Artois. The first time I find it mentioned in history is, that Walter de London was presented thereto in 1308. The patronage of the church was anciently in the Prior and Convent of Canterbury, till the year 1352, when, coming to the archbishop of that see, it has been in him and his successors ever since; and is one of the thirteen peculiars in this city belonging to that archiepiscopal city. This church was not entirely destroyed by the fire in 1666, but nothing left standing but the walls; the crazy steeple continued standing till the year 1694, when it was taken down and beautifully rebuilt at the charge of the united parishes. To this parish that of St. Michael Quern is united."

Among the odd monumental inscriptions in this church are the following:—

"Lord, of thy infinite grace and Pittee Have mercy on me Agnes, somtym the wyf Of William Milborne, Chamberlain of this citte, Which toke my passage fro this wretched lyf, The year of gras one thousand fyf hundryd and fyf, The xii. day of July; no longer was my spase, It plesy'd then my Lord to call me to his Grase; Now ye that are living, and see this picture, Pray for me here, whyle ye have tyme and spase, That God of his goodnes wold me assure, In his everlasting mansion to have a plase. Obiit Anno 1505."

"Here lyeth interred the body of Christopher Wase, late citizen and goldsmith of London, aged 66 yeeres, and dyed the 22nd September, 1605; who had to wife Anne, the daughter of William Prettyman, and had by her three sons and three daughters.

"Reader, stay, and thou shalt know What he is, that here doth sleepe; Lodged amidst the Stones below, Stones that oft are seen to weepe. Gentle was his Birth and Breed, His carriage gentle, much contenting; His word accorded with his Deed, Sweete his nature, soone relenting. From above he seem'd protected, Father dead before his Birth. An orphane only, but neglected. Yet his Branches spread on Earth, Earth that must his Bones containe, Sleeping, till Christ's Trumpet shall wake them, Joyning them to Soule againe, And to Blisse eternal take them. It is not this rude and little Heap of Stones, Can hold the Fame, although't containes the Bones; Light be the Earth, and hallowed for thy sake, Resting in Peace, Peace that thou so oft didst make."

Coachmakers' Hall, Noble Street, Foster Lane originally built by the Scriveners' Company, was afterwards sold to the Coachmakers. Here the "Protestant Association" held its meetings, and here originated the dreadful riots of the year 1780. The Protestant Association was formed in February, 1778, in consequence of a bill brought into the House of Commons to repeal certain penalties and liabilities imposed upon Roman Catholics. When the bill was passed, a petition was framed for its repeal; and here, in this very hall (May 29, 1780), the following resolution was proposed and carried:—

"That the whole body of the Protestant Association do attend in St. George's Fields, on Friday next, at ten of the clock in the morning, to accompany Lord George Gordon to the House of Commons, on the delivery of the Protestant petition." His lordship, who was present on this occasion, remarked that "if less than 20,000 of his fellow-citizens attended him on that day, he would not present their petition."

Upwards of 50,000 "true Protestants" promptly answered the summons of the Association, and the Gordon riots commenced, to the six days' terror of the metropolis.



CHAPTER XXXI.

CHEAPSIDE TRIBUTARIES, NORTH:—WOOD STREET.

Wood Street—Pleasant Memories—St. Peter's in Chepe—St. Michael's and St. Mary Staining—St. Alban's, Wood Street—Some Quaint Epitaphs—Wood Street Compter and the Hapless Prisoners therein—Wood Street Painful, Wood Street Cheerful—Thomas Ripley—The Anabaptist Rising—A Remarkable Wine Cooper—St. John Zachary and St. Anne-in-the-Willows—Haberdashers' Hall—Something about the Mercers.

Wood Street runs from Cheapside to London Wall. Stow has two conjectures as to its name—first, that it was so called because the houses in it were built all of wood, contrary to Richard I.'s edict that London houses should be built of stone, to prevent fire; secondly, that it was called after one Thomas Wood, sheriff in 1491 (Henry VII.), who dwelt in this street, was a benefactor to St. Peter in Chepe, and built "the beautiful row of houses over against Wood Street end."

At Cheapside Cross, which stood at the corner of Wood Street, all royal proclamations used to be read, even long after the cross was removed. Thus, in 1666, we find Charles II.'s declaration of war against Louis XIV. proclaimed by the officers at arms, serjeants at arms, trumpeters, &c., at Whitehall Gate, Temple Bar, the end of Chancery Lane, Wood Street, Cheapside, and the Royal Exchange. Huggin's Lane, in this street, derives its name, as Stow tells us, from a London citizen who dwelt here in the reign of Edward I., and was called Hugan in the Lane.

That pleasant tree at the left-hand corner of Wood Street, which has cheered many a weary business man with memories of the fresh green fields far away, was for long the residence of rooks, who built there. In 1845 two fresh nests were built, and one is still visible; but the sable birds deserted their noisy town residence several years ago. Probably, as the north of London was more built over, and such feeding-grounds as Belsize Park turned to brick and mortar, the birds found the fatigue of going miles in search of food for their young unbearable, and so migrated. Leigh Hunt, in one of his agreeable books, remarks that there are few districts in London where you will not find a tree. "A child was shown us," says Leigh Hunt, "who was said never to have beheld a tree but one in St. Paul's Churchyard (now gone). Whenever a tree was mentioned, it was this one; she had no conception of any other, not even of the remote tree in Cheapside." This famous tree marks the site of St. Peter in Chepe, a church destroyed by the Great Fire. The terms of the lease of the low houses at the west-end corner are said to forbid the erection of another storey or the removal of the tree. Whether this restriction arose from a love of the tree, as we should like to think, we cannot say.

St. Peter's in Chepe is a rectory (says Stow), "the church whereof stood at the south-west corner of Wood Street, in the ward of Farringdon Within, but of what antiquity I know not, other than that Thomas de Winton was rector thereof in 1324."

The patronage of this church was anciently in the Abbot and Convent of St. Albans, with whom it continued till the suppression of their monastery, when Henry VIII., in the year 1546, granted the same to the Earl of Southampton. It afterwards belonged to the Duke of Montague. This church being destroyed in the fire and not rebuilt, the parish is united to the Church of St. Matthew, Friday Street. "In the year 1401," says Maitland, "licence was granted to the inhabitants of this parish to erect a shed or shop before their church in Cheapside. On the site of this building, anciently called the 'Long Shop,' are now erected four shops, with rooms over them."

Wordsworth has immortalised Wood Street by his plaintive little ballad—

THE REVERIE OF POOR SUSAN.

"At the corner of Wood Street, when daylight appears, Hangs a thrush that sings loud, it has sung for three years; Poor Susan has passed by the spot, and has heard In the silence of morning the song of the bird.

"'Tis a note of enchantment; what ails her? she sees A mountain ascending, a vision of trees; Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide, And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.

"Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale, Down which she so often has tripped with her pail; And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove's, The one only dwelling on earth that she loves.

"She looks, and her heart is in heaven; but they fade, The mist and the river, the hill and the shade; The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise, And the colours have all passed away from her eyes."

Perhaps some summer morning the poet, passing down Cheapside, saw the plane-tree at the corner wave its branches to him as a friend waves a hand, and at that sight there passed through his mind an imagination of some poor Cumberland servant-girl toiling in London, and regretting her far-off home among the pleasant hills.

St. Michael's, Wood Street, is a rectory situated on the west side of Wood Street, in the ward of Cripplegate Within. John de Eppewell was rector thereof before the year 1328. "The patronage was anciently in the Abbot and Convent of St. Albans, in whom it continued till the suppression of their monastery, when, coming to the Crown, it was, with the appurtenances, in the year 1544, sold by Henry VIII. to William Barwell, who, in the year 1588, conveyed the same to John Marsh and others, in trust for the parish, in which it still continues." Being destroyed in the Great Fire, it was rebuilt, in 1675, from the designs of Sir Christopher Wren. At the east end four Ionic pillars support an entablature and pediment, and the three circular-headed windows are well proportioned. The south side faces Huggin Lane, but the tower and spire are of no interest. The interior of the church is a large parallelogram, with an ornamented carved ceiling. In 1831 the church was repaired and the tower thrown open. The altar-piece represents Moses and Aaron. The vestry-books date from the beginning of the sixteenth century, and contain, among others, memoranda of parochial rejoicings, such as—"1620. Nov. 9. Paid for ringing and a bonfire, 4s."

The Church of St. Mary Staining being destroyed in the Great Fire, the parish was annexed to that of St. Michael's. The following is the most curious of the monumental inscriptions:—

"John Casey, of this parish, whose dwelling was In the north-corner house as to Lad Lane you pass; For better knowledge, the name it hath now Is called and known by the name of the Plow; Out of that house yearly did geeve Twenty shillings to the poore, their neede to releeve; Which money the tenant must yearlie pay To the parish and churchwardens on St. Thomas' Day. The heire of that house, Thomas Bowrman by name, Hath since, by his deed, confirmed the same; Whose love to the poore doth hereby appear, And after his death shall live many a yeare. Therefore in your life do good while yee may, That when meagre death shall take yee away; You may live like form'd as Casey and Bowrman— For he that doth well shall never be a poore man."

Here was also a monument to Queen Elizabeth, with this inscription, found in many other London churches:—

"Here lyes her type, who was of late The prop of Belgia, stay of France, Spaine's foile, Faith's shield, and queen of State, Of arms, of learning, fate and chance. In brief, of women ne'er was seen So great a prince, so good a queen.

"Sith Vertue her immortal made, Death, envying all that cannot dye, Her earthly parts did so invade As in it wrackt self-majesty. But so her spirits inspired her parts, That she still lives in loyal hearts."

There was buried here (but without any outward monument) the head of James, the fourth King of Scots, slain at Flodden Field. After the battle, the body of the said king being found, was closed in lead, and conveyed from thence to London, and so to the monastery of Shene, in Surrey, where it remained for a time. "But since the dissolution of that house," says Stow, "in the reign of Edward VI., Henry Gray, Duke of Suffolk, lodged and kept house there. I have been shown the said body, so lapped in lead. The head and body were thrown into a waste room, amongst the old timber, lead, and other rubble; since which time workmen there, for their foolish pleasure, hewed off his head; and Launcelot Young, master glazier to Queen Elizabeth, feeling a sweet savour to come from thence, and seeing the same dried from moisture, and yet the form remaining with the hair of the head and beard red, brought it to London, to his house in Wood Street, where for a time he kept it for the sweetness, but in the end caused the sexton of that church to bury it amongst other bones taken out of their charnel."

"The parish church of St. Michael, in Wood Street, is a proper thing," says Strype, "and lately well repaired; John Iue, parson of this church, John Forster, goldsmith, and Peter Fikelden, taylor, gave two messuages and shops, in the same parish and street, and in Ladle Lane, to the reparation of the church, the 16th of Richard II. In the year 1627 the parishioners made a new door to this church into Wood Street, where till then it had only one door, standing in Huggin Lane."

St. Mary Staining, in Wood Street, destroyed by the Great Fire, stood on the north side of Oat Lane, in the Ward of Aldersgate Within. "The additional epithet of staining," says Maitland, "is as uncertain as the time of the foundation; some imagining it to be derived from the painters' stainers, who probably lived near it; and others from its being built with stone, to distinguish it from those in the City that were built with wood. The advowson of the rectory anciently belonged to the Prioress and Convent of Clerkenwell, in whom it continued till their suppression by Henry VIII., when it came to the Crown. The parish, as previously observed, is now united to St. Michael's, Wood Street. That this church is not of a modern foundation, is manifest from John de Lukenore's being rector thereof before the year 1328."

St. Alban's, Wood Street, in the time of Paul, the fourteenth Abbot of St. Alban's, belonged to the Verulam monastery, but in 1077 the abbot exchanged the right of presentation to this church for the patronage of one belonging to the Abbot of Westminster. Matthew Paris says that this Wood Street Church was the chapel of King Offa, the founder of St. Alban's Abbey, who had a palace near it. Stow says it was of great antiquity, and that Roman bricks were visible here and there among the stones. Maitland thinks it probable that it was one of the first churches built by Alfred in London after he had driven out the Danes. The right of presentation to the church was originally possessed by the master, brethren, and sisters of St. James's Leper Hospital (site of St. James's Palace), and after the death of Henry VI. it was vested in the Provost and Fellows of Eton College. In the reign of Charles II. the parish was united to that of St. Olave, Silver Street, and the right of presentation is now exercised alternately by Eton College and the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's. The style of the interior of the church is late pointed. The windows appear older than the rest of the building. The ceiling in the nave exhibits bold groining, and the general effect is not unpleasing.



"One note of the great antiquity of this church," says Seymour, "is the name, by which it was first dedicated to St. Alban, the first martyr of England. Another character of the antiquity of it is to be seen in the manner of the turning of the arches to the windows, and the heads of the pillars. A third note appears in the Roman bricks, here and there inlaid amongst the stones of the building. Very probable it is that this church is, at least, of as ancient a standing as King Adelstane, the Saxon, who, as tradition says, had his house at the east end of this church. This king's house, having a door also into Adel Street, in this parish, gave name, as 'tis thought, to the said Adel Street, which, in all evidences, to this day is written King Adel Street. One great square tower of this king's house seemed, in Stow's time, to be then remaining, and to be seen at the north corner of Love Lane, as you come from Aldermanbury, which tower was of the very same stone and manner of building with St. Alban's Church."

About the commencement of the seventeenth century St. Alban's, being in a state of great decay, was surveyed by Sir Henry Spiller and Inigo Jones, and in accordance with their advice, apparently, in 1632 it was pulled down, and rebuilt anno 1634; but, perishing in the flames of 1666, it was re-erected as it now appears, and finished in the year 1688, from Wren's design.



In the old church were the following epitaphs:—

"Of William Wilson, Joane his wife, And Alice, their daughter deare, These lines were left to give report These three lye buried here; And Alice was Henry Decon's wife, Which Henry lives on earth, And is the Serjeant Plummer To Queen ELIZABETH. With whom this Alice left issue here, His virtuous daughter Joan, To be his comfort everywhere Now joyfull Alice is gone. And for these three departed soules, Gone up to joyfull blisse, Th' almighty praise be given to God, To whom the glory is."

Over the grave of Anne, the wife of Laurence Gibson, gentleman, were the following verses, which are worth mentioning here:—

"MENTIS VIS MAGNA.

"What! is she dead? Doth he survive? No; both are dead, And both alive. She lives, hee's dead, By love, though grieving, In him, for her, Yet dead, yet living; Both dead and living, Then what is gone? One half of both, Not any one. One mind, one faith, One hope, one grave, In life, in death, They had and still they have."

The pulpit (says Seymour) is finely carved with an enrichment, in imitation of fruit and leaves; and the sound-board is a hexagon, having round it a fine cornice, adorned with cherubims and other embellishments, and the inside is neatly finniered. The altar-piece is very ornamental, consisting of four columns, fluted with their bases, pedestals, entablature, and open pediment of the Corinthian order; and over each column, upon acroters, is a lamp with a gilded taper. Between the inner columns are the Ten Commandments, done in gold letters upon black. Between the two, northward, is the Lord's Prayer, and the two southward the Creed, done in gold upon blue. Over the commandments is a Glory between two cherubims, and above the cornice the king's arms, with the supporters, helmet, and crest, richly carved, under a triangular pediment; and on the north and south side of the above described ornaments are two large cartouches, all of which parts are carved in fine wainscot. The church is well paved with oak, and here are two large brass branches and a marble font, having enrichments of cherubims, &c.

In a curious brass frame, attached to a tall stem, opposite the pulpit is an hour-glass, by which the preacher could measure his sermon and test his listeners' patience. The hour-glass at St. Dunstan's, Fleet Street, was taken down in 1723, and two heads for the parish staves made out of the silver.

Wood Street Compter (says Cunningham) was first established in 1555, when, on the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel in that year, the prisoners were removed from the Old Compter in Bread Street to the New Compter in Wood Street, Cheapside. This compter was burnt down in the Great Fire, but was rebuilt in 1670. It stood on the east side of the street, and was removed to Giltspur Street in 1791. There were two compters in London—the compter in Wood Street, under the control of one of the sheriffs, and the compter in the Poultry, under the superintendence of the other. Under each sheriff was a secondary, a clerk of the papers, four clerk sitters, eighteen serjeants-at-mace (each serjeant having his yeomen), a master keeper, and two turnkeys. The serjeants wore blue and coloured cloth gowns, and the words of arrest were, "Sir, we arrest you in the King's Majesty's name, and we charge you to obey us." There were three sides—the master's side, the dearest of all; the knights' ward, a little cheaper; and the Hole, the cheapest of all. The register of entries was called the Black Book. Garnish was demanded at every step, and the Wood Street Compter was hung with the story of the prodigal son.

When the Wood Street counter gate was opened, the prisoner's name was enrolled in the black book, and he was asked if he was for the master's side, the Knight's ward, or the Hole. At every fresh door a fee was demanded, the stranger's hat or cloak being detained if he refused to pay the extortion, which, in prison language, was called "garnish." The first question to a new prisoner was, whether he was in by arrest or command; and there was generally some knavish attorney in a threadbare black suit, who, for forty shillings, would offer to move for a habeas corpus, and have him out presently, much to the amusement of the villanous-looking men who filled the room, some smoking and some drinking. At dinner a vintner's boy, who was in waiting, filled a bowl full of claret, and compelled the new prisoner to drink to all the society; and the turnkeys, who were dining in another room, then demanded another tester for a quart of wine to quaff to the new comer's health.

At the end of a week, when the prisoner's purse grew thin, he was generally compelled to pass over to the knight's side, and live in a humbler and more restricted manner. Here a fresh garnish of eighteen pence was demanded, and if this was refused, he was compelled to sleep over the drain; or, if he chose, to sit up, to drink and smoke in the cellar with vile companions till the keepers ordered every man to his bed.

Fennor, an actor in 1617 (James I.), wrote a curious pamphlet on the abuses of this compter. "For what extreme extortion," says the angry writer, "is it when a gentleman is brought in by the watch for some misdemeanour committed, that he must pay at least an angell before he be discharged; hee must pay twelvepence for turning the key at the master-side dore two shillings to the chamberleine, twelvepence for his garnish for wine, tenpence for his dinner, whether he stay or no, and when he comes to be discharged at the booke, it will cost at least three shillings and sixpence more, besides sixpence for the booke-keeper's paines, and sixpence for the porter.... And if a gentleman stay there but one night, he must pay for his garnish sixteene pence, besides a groate for his lodging, and so much for his sheetes ... When a gentleman is upon his discharge, and hath given satisfaction for his executions, they must have fees for irons, three halfepence in the pound, besides the other fees, so that if a man were in for a thousand or fifteene hundred pound execution, they will if a man is so madde have so many three halfepence.

"This little Hole is as a little citty in a commonwealth, for as in a citty there are all kinds of officers, trades, and vocations, so there is in this place, as we may make a pretty resemblance between them. In steede of a Lord Maior, we have a master steward to over-see and correct all misdemeanours as shall arise.... And lastly, as in a citty there is all kinds of trades, so is there heere, for heere you shall see a cobler sitting mending olde showes, and singing as merrily as if hee were under a stall abroad; not farre from him you shall see a taylor sit crosse-legged (like a witch) on his cushion, theatning the ruine of our fellow prisoner, the AEgyptian vermine; in another place you may behold a saddler empannelling all his wits together how to patch this Scotchpadde handsomely, or mend the old gentlewoman's crooper that was almost burst in pieces. You may have a phisition here, that for a bottle of sack will undertake to give you as good a medicine for melancholly as any doctor will for five pounds. Besides, if you desire to bee remouved before a judge, you shall have a tinker-like attorney not farre distant from you, that in stopping up one hole in a broken cause, will make twenty before hee hath made an end, and at last will leave you in prison as bare of money as he himself is of honesty. Heere is your cholericke cooke that will dresse our meate, when wee can get any, as well as any greasie scullion in Fleet Lane or Pye Corner."

At 25, Silver Street, Wood Street, is the hall of one of the smaller City companies—the Parish Clerks of London, Westminster, Borough of Southwark, and fifteen out parishes, with their master wardens and fellows. This company was incorporated as early as Henry III.(1233), by the name of the Fraternity of St. Nicholas, an ominous name, for "St. Nicholas's clerk" was a jocose nom de guerre for highwaymen. The first hall of the fraternity stood in Bishopsgate Street, the second in Broad Lane, in Vintry Ward. The fraternity was re-incorporated by James I. in 1611, and confirmed by Charles I. in 1636. The hall contains a few portraits, and in a painted glass window, David playing on the harp, St. Cecilia at the organ, &c. The parish clerks were the actors in the old miracle plays, the parish clerks of our churches dating only from the commencement of the Reformation. The "Bills of Mortality" were commenced by the Parish Clerks' Company in 1592, who about 1625 were licensed by the Star Chamber to keep a printing-press in their hall for printing the bills, valuable for their warning of the existence or progress of the plague. The "Weekly Bill" of the Parish Clerks has, however, been superseded by the "Tables of Mortality in the Metropolis," issued weekly from the Registrar-General's Office, at Somerset House, since July 1st, 1837. The Parish Clerks' Company neither confer the freedom of the City, nor the hereditary freedom.

There is a large gold refinery in Wood Street, through whose doors three tons of gold a day have been known to pass. Australian gold is here cast into ingots, value L800 each. This gold is one carat and three quarters above the standard, and when the first two bars of Australian gold were sent to the Bank of England they were sent back, as their wonderful purity excited suspicion. For refining, the gold is boiled fifteen minutes, poured off into hand moulds 18 pounds troy weight, strewn with ivory black, and then left to cool. You see here the stalwart men wedging apart great bars of silver for the melting pots. The silver is purified in a blast-furnace, and mixed with nitric acid in platinum crucibles, that cost from L700 to L1,000 apiece. The bars of gold are stamped with a trade-mark, and pieces are cut off each ingot to be sent to the assayer for his report.

"I read in divers records," says Stow, "of a house in Wood Street then called 'Black Hall;' but no man at this day can tell thereof. In the time of King Richard II., Sir Henry Percy, the son and heir of Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, had a house in 'Wodstreate,' in London (whether this Black Hall or no, it is hard to trace), wherein he treated King Richard, the Duke of Lancaster, the Duke of York, the Earl Marshal, and his father, the Earl of Northumberland, with others, at supper."

The "Rose," in Wood Street, was a sponging-house, well known to the rakehells and spendthrifts of Charles II.'s time. "I have been too lately under their (the bailiffs') clutches," says Tom Brown, "to desire any more dealings with them, and I cannot come within a furlong of the 'Rose' sponging-house without five or six yellow-boys in my pocket to cast out those devils there, who would otherwise infallibly take possession of me."

The "Mitre," an old tavern in Wood Street, was kept in Charles II.'s time by William Proctor, who died insolvent in 1665. "18th Sept., 1660," Pepys says, "to the 'Miter Taverne,' in Wood Street (a house of the greatest note in London). Here some of us fell to handycap, a sport that I never knew before." And again, "31st July, 1665. Proctor, the vintner, of the 'Miter,' in Wood Street, and his son, are dead this morning of the plague; he having laid out abundance of money there, and was the greatest vintner for some time in London for great entertainments."

In early life Thomas Ripley, afterwards a celebrated architect, kept a carpenter's shop and coffee house in Wood Street. Marrying a servant of Sir Robert Walpole, the Prime Minister of George I., this lucky pushing man soon obtained work from the Crown and a seat at the Board of Works, and supplanted that great genius who built St. Paul's, to the infinite disgrace of the age. Ripley built the Admiralty, and Houghton Hall, Norfolk, for his early patron, Walpole, and died rich in 1758.

Wood Street is associated with that last extraordinary outburst of the Civil War fanaticism—the Anabaptist rising in January, 1661.



On Sunday, January 6, 1661, we read in "Somers' Tracts," "these monsters assembled at their meeting-house, in Coleman Street, where they armed themselves, and sallying thence, came to St. Paul's in the dusk of the evening, and there, after ordering their small party, placed sentinels, one of whom killed a person accidentally passing by, because he said he was for God and King Charles when challenged by him. This giving the alarm, and some parties of trained bands charging them, and being repulsed, they marched to Bishopsgate, thence to Cripplegate and Aldersgate, where, going out, in spite of the constables and watch, they declared for King Jesus. Proceeding to Beech Lane, they killed a headborough, who would have opposed them. It was observed that all they shot, though never so slightly wounded, died. Then they hasted away to Cane Wood, where they lurked, resolved to make another effort upon the City, but were drove thence, and routed by a party of horse and foot, sent for that purpose, about thirty being taken and brought before General Monk, who committed them to the Gate House.

"Nevertheless, the others who had escaped out of the wood returned to London, not doubting of success in their enterprise; Venner, a wine-cooper by trade, and their head, affirming, he was assured that no weapons employed against them would prosper, nor a hair of their head be touched; which their coming off at first so well made them willing to believe. These fellows had taken the opportunity of the king's being gone to Portsmouth, having before made a disposition for drawing to them of other desperate rebels, by publishing a declaration called, 'A Door of Hope Opened,' full of abominable slanders against the whole royal family.

"On Wednesday morning, January 9, after the watches and guards were dismissed, they resumed their first enterprise. The first appearance was in Threadneedle Street, where they alarmed the trained bands upon duty that day, and drove back a party sent after them, to their main guard, which then marched in a body towards them. The Fifth Monarchists retired into Bishopsgate Street, where some of them took into an ale-house, known by the sign of 'The Helmet,' where, after a sharp dispute, two were killed, and as many taken, the same number of the trained bands being killed and wounded. The next sight of them (for they vanished and appeared again on a sudden), was at College Hill, which way they went into Cheapside, and so into Wood Street, Venner leading them, with a morrion on his head and a halbert in his hand. Here was the main and hottest action, for they fought stoutly with the Trained Bands, and received a charge from the Life Guards, whom they obliged to give way, until, being overpowered, and Venner knocked down and wounded and shot, Tufney and Crag, two others of their chief teachers, being killed by him, they began to give ground, and soon after dispersed, flying outright and taking several ways. The greatest part of them went down Wood Street to Cripplegate, firing in the rear at the Yellow Trained Bands, then in close pursuit of them. Ten of them took into the 'Blue Anchor' ale-house, near the postern, which house they maintained until Lieutenant-Colonel Cox, with his company, secured all the avenues to it. In the meantime, some of the aforesaid Yellow Trained Bands got upon the tiles of the next house, which they threw off, and fired in upon the rebels who were in the upper room, and even then refused quarter. At the same time, another file of musketeers got up the stairs, and having shot down the door, entered upon them. Six of them were killed before, another wounded, and one, refusing quarter, was knocked down, and afterwards shot. The others being asked why they had not begged quarter before, answered they durst not, for fear their own fellows should shoot them."

The upshot of this insane revolt of a handful of men was that twenty-two king's men were killed, and twenty-two of the fanatics, proving the fighting to have been hard. Twenty were taken, and nine or ten hung, drawn, and quartered. Venner, the leader, who was wounded severely, and some others, were drawn on sledges, their quarters were set on the four gates, and their heads stuck on poles on London Bridge. Two more were hung at the west end of St. Paul's, two at the Royal Exchange, two at the Bull and Mouth, two in Beech Lane, one at Bishopsgate, and another, captured later, was hung at Tyburn, and his head set on a pole in Whitechapel.

The texts these Fifth Monarchy men chiefly relied on were these:—"He shall use his people, in his hand as his battle-axe and weapon of war, for the bringing in the kingdoms of this world into subjection to Him." A few Scriptures (and but a few) as to this, Isa. xli. 14th verse; but more especially the 15th and 16th verses. The prophet, speaking of Jacob, saith: "Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument, having teeth; thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff; thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away," &c.

"Maiden Lane," says Stow, "formerly Engine Lane, is a good, handsome, well-built, and inhabited street. The east end falleth into Wood Street. At the north-east corner, over against Goldsmiths' Hall, stood the parish church of St. John Zachary, which since the dreadful fire is not rebuilt, but the parish united unto St. Ann's, Aldersgate, the ground on which it stood, enclosed within a wall, serving as a burial-place for the parish."

The old Goldsmiths' Church of St. John Zachary, Maiden Lane, destroyed in the Great Fire, and not rebuilt, stood at the north-west corner of Maiden Lane, in the Ward of Aldersgate; the parish is annexed to that of St. Anne. Among other epitaphs in this church, Stow gives the following:—

"Here lieth the body of John Sutton, citizen, goldsmith, and alderman of London; who died 6th July, 1450. This brave and worthy alderman was killed in the defence of the City, in the bloody nocturnal battle on London Bridge, against the infamous Jack Cade, and his army of Kentish rebels."

"Here lieth William Brekespere, of London, some time merchant, Goldsmith and alderman, the Commonwele attendant, With Margaryt his Dawter, late wyff of Suttoon, And Thomas, hur Sonn, yet livyn undyr Goddy's tuitioon. The tenth of July he made his transmigration. She disissyd in the yer of Grase of Chryst's Incarnation, A Thowsand Four hundryd Threescor and oon. God assoyl their Sowls whose Bodys lye undyr this Stoon."

This church was rated to pay a certain annual sum to the canons of St. Paul's, about the year 1181, at which time it was denominated St. John Baptist's, as appears from a grant thereof from the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's to one Zachary, whose name it probably received to distinguish it from one of the same name in Walbrook.

St. Anne in the Willows was a church destroyed by the Great Fire, rebuilt by Wren, and united to the parish of St. John Zachary. "It is so called," says Stow, "some say of willows growing thereabouts; but now there is no such void place for willows to grow, more than the churchyard, wherein grow some high ash-trees."

"This church, standing," says Strype, "in the churchyard, is planted before with lime-trees that flourish there. So that as it was formerly called St. Anne-in-the-Willows, it may now be called St. Anne-in-the-Limes."

St. Anne can be traced back as far as 1332. The patronage was anciently in the Dean and Canons of St. Martin's-le-Grand, in whose gift it continued till Henry VII. annexed that Collegiate Church, with its appendages, to the Abbey of Westminster. In 1553 Queen Mary gave it to the Bishop of London and his successors. One of the monuments here bears the following inscription:—

"Peter Heiwood, younger son of Peter Heiwood, one of the counsellors of Jamaica, by Grace, daughter of Sir John Muddeford, Kt. and Bart., great-grandson to Peter Heiwood, of Heywood, in County Palatine of Lancaster, who apprehended Guy Faux with his dark lanthorn, and for his zealous prosecution of Papists, as Justice of the Peace, was stabbed in Westminster Hall by John James, a Dominican Friar, An. Dom. 1640. Obiit, Novr. 2, 1701.

"Reader, if not a Papist bred, Upon such ashes gently tred."

The site of Haberdashers' Hall, in Maiden Lane, opposite Goldsmiths' Hall, was bequeathed to the Company by William Baker, a London haberdasher, in 1478 (Edward IV.). In the old hall, destroyed by the Great Fire, the Parliament Commissioners held their meetings during the Commonwealth, and many a stern decree of confiscation was there grimly signed. In this hall there are some good portraits. The Haberdashers' Company have many livings and exhibitions in their gift; and almhouses at Hoxton, Monmouth, Newland (Gloucestershire), and Newport (Shropshire); schools in Bunhill Row, Monmouth, and Newport; and they lend sums of L50 or L100 to struggling young men of their own trade.



The haberdashers were originally a branch of the mercers, dealing like them in merceries or small wares. Lydgate, in his ballad, describes the mercers' and haberdashers' stalls as side by side in the mercery in Chepe. In the reign of Henry VI., when first incorporated, they divided into two fraternities, St. Catherine and St. Nicholas. The one being hurrers, cappers, or haberdashers of hats; the other, haberdashers of ribands, laces, and small wares only. The latter were also called milliners, from their selling such merchandise as brooches, agglets, spurs, capes, glasses, and pins. "In the early part of Elizabeth's reign," says Herbert, "upwards of L60,000 annually was paid to foreign merchants for pins alone, but before her death pins were made in England, and in the reign of James I. the pinmakers obtained a charter."

In the reign of Henry VII. the two societies united. Queen Elizabeth granted them their arms: Barry nebule of six, argent and azure on a bend gules, a lion passant gardant; crest or, a helmet and torse, two arms supporting a laurel proper and issuing out of a cloud argent. Supporters, two Indian goats argent, attired and hoofed or; motto, "Serve and Obey." Maitland describes their annual expenditure in charity as L3,500. The number of the Company consists of one master, four wardens, forty-five assistants, 360 livery, and a large company of freemen. This Company is the eighth in order of the chief twelve City Companies.



In the reign of Edward VI. there were not more than a dozen milliner's shops in all London, but in 1580 the dealers in foreign luxuries had so increased as to alarm the frugal and the philosophic. These dealers sold French and Spanish gloves, French cloth and frieze, Flemish kersies, daggers, swords, knives, Spanish girdles, painted cruises, dials, tablets, cards, balls, glasses, fine earthen pots, salt-cellars, spoons, tin dishes, puppets, pennons, inkhorns, toothpicks, fans, pomanders, silk, and silver buttons.

The Haberdashers were incorporated by a Charter of Queen Elizabeth in 1578. The Court books extend to the time of Charles I. only. Their charters exist in good preservation. In their chronicles we have only a few points to notice. In 1466 they sent two of their members to attend the coronation of Elizabeth, queen of Edward IV., and they also were represented at the coronation of the detestable Richard III. Like the other Companies, the Haberdashers were much oppressed during the time of Charles I. and the Commonwealth, during which they lost nearly L50,000. The Company's original bye-laws having been burnt in the Great Fire, a new code was drawn up, which in 1675 was sanctioned by Lord Chancellor Finch, Sir Matthew Hale, and Sir Francis North.

The dining-hall is a lofty and spacious room. About ten years since it was much injured by fire, but has been since restored and handsomely decorated. Over the screen at the lower end is a music gallery, and the hall is lighted from above by six sun-burners. Among the portraits in the edifice are whole lengths of William Adams, Esq., founder of the grammar school and almshouses at Newport, in Shropshire; Jerome Knapp, Esq., a former Master of the Company; and Micajah Perry, Esq., Lord Mayor in 1739; a half-length of George Whitmore, Esq., Lord Mayor in 1631; Sir Hugh Hammersley, Knight, Lord Mayor in 1627; Mr. Thomas Aldersey, merchant, of Banbury, in Cheshire, who, in 1594, vested a considerable estate in this Company for charitable uses; Mr. William Jones, merchant adventurer, who bequeathed L18,000 for benevolent purposes; and Robert Aske, the worthy founder of the Haberdashers' Hospital at Hoxton.

Gresham Street, that intersects Wood Street, was formerly called Lad or Ladle Lane, and part of it Maiden Lane, from a shop sign of the Virgin. It is written Lad Lane in a chronicle of Edward IV.'s time, published by Sir Harris Nicolas, page 98. The "Swan with Two Necks," in Lad Lane, was for a century and more, till railways ruined stage and mail coach travelling, the booking office and head-quarters of coaches to the North.

Love Lane was so named from the wantons who once infested it. The Cross Keys Inn derived its name from the bygone Church of St. Peter before mentioned. As there are traditions of Saxon kings once dwelling in Foster Lane, so in Gutter Lane we find traditions of some Danish celebrities. "Gutter Lane," says Stow, that patriarch of London topography, "was so called by Guthurun, some time owner thereof." In a manuscript chronicle of London, written in the reign of Edward IV., and edited by Sir N.H. Nicolas, it is called "Goster Lane."

Brewers' Hall, No. 19, Addle Street, Wood Street, Cheapside, is a modern edifice, and contains, among other pictures, a portrait of Dame Alice Owen, who narrowly escaped death from an archer's stray arrow while walking in Islington fields, in gratitude for which she founded an hospital. In the hall window is some old painted glass. The Brewers were incorporated in 1438. The quarterage in this Company is paid on the quantity of malt consumed by its members. In 1851 a handsome schoolhouse was built for the Company, in Trinity Square, Tower Hill.

In 1422 Whittington laid an information before his successor in the mayoralty, Robert Childe, against the Brewers' Company, for selling dear ale, when they were convicted in the penalty of L20; and the masters were ordered to be kept in prison in the chamberlain's custody until they paid it.



CHAPTER XXXII.

CHEAPSIDE TRIBUTARIES, NORTH (continued).

Milk Street—Sir Thomas More—The City of London School—St. Mary Magdalen—Honey Lane—All Hallows' Church—Lawrence Lane and St. Lawrence Church—Ironmonger Lane and Mercers' Hall—The Mercers' Company—Early Life Assurance Companies—The Mercers' Company in Trouble—Mercers' Chapel—St. Thomas Acon—The Mercers' School—Restoration of the Carvings in Mercers' Hall—The Glories of the Mercers' Company—Ironmonger Lane.

In Milk Street was the milk-market of Mediaeval London. That good and wise man, Sir Thomas More, was born in this street. "The brightest man," says Fuller, with his usual quaint playfulness, "that ever shone in that via lactea." More, born in 1480, was the son of a judge of the King's Bench, and was educated at St. Anthony's School, in Threadneedle Street. He was afterwards placed in the family of Archbishop Morton, till he went to Oxford. After two years he became a barrister, at Lincoln, entered Parliament, and opposed Henry VII. to his own danger. After serving as law reader at New Inn, he soon became an eminent lawyer. He then wrote his "Utopia," acquired the friendship of Erasmus, and soon after became a favourite of Henry VIII., helping the despot in his treatise against Luther. On Wolsey's disgrace, More became chancellor, and one of the wisest and most impartial England has ever known. Determined not to sanction the king's divorce, More resigned his chancellorship, and, refusing to attend Anne Boleyn's coronation, he was attainted for treason. The tyrant, now furious, soon hurried him to the scaffold, and he was executed on Tower Hill in 1535.

This pious, wise, and consistent man is described as having dark chestnut hair, thin beard, and grey eyes. He walked with his right shoulder raised, and was negligent in his dress. When in the Tower, More is said to have foreseen the fate of Anne Boleyn, whom his daughter Margaret had found filling the court with dancing and sporting.

"Alas, Meg," said the ex-chancellor, "it pitieth me to remember to what misery poor soul she will shortly come. These dances of hers will prove such dances that she will sport our heads off like foot-balls; but it will not be long ere her head will dance the like dance."

It is to be lamented that with all his wisdom, More was a bigot. He burnt one Frith for denying the corporeal presence; had James Bainton, a gentleman of the Temple, whipped in his presence for heretical opinons; went to the Tower to see him on the rack, and then hurried him to Smithfield. "Verily," said Luther, "he was a very notable tyrant, and plagued and tormented innocent Christians like an executioner."

The City of London School, Milk Street, was established in 1837, for the sons of respectable persons engaged in professional, commercial, or trading pursuits; and partly founded on an income of L900 a year, derived from certain tenements bequeathed by John Carpenter, town-clerk of London, in the reign of Henry V., "for the finding and bringing up of four poor men's children, with meat, drink, apparel, learning at the schools, in the universities, &c., until they be preferred, and then others in their places for ever." This was the same John Carpenter who "caused, with great expense, to be curiously painted upon a board, about the north cloister of Paul's, a monument of Death, leading all estates, with the speeches of Death, and answers of every state." The school year is divided into three terms—Easter to July; August to Christmas; January to Easter; and the charge for each pupil is L2 5s. a term. The printed form of application for admission may be had of the secretary, and must be filled up by the parent or guardian, and signed by a member of the Corporation of London. The general course of instruction includes the English, French, German, Latin, and Greek languages, writing, arithmetic, mathematics, book-keeping, geography, and history. Besides eight free scholarships on the foundation, equivalent to L35 per annum each, and available as exhibitions to the Universities, there are the following exhibitions belonging to the school:—The "Times" Scholarship, value L30 per annum; three Beaufoy Scholarships, the Solomons Scholarship, and the Travers Scholarship, L50 per annum each; the Tegg Scholarship, nearly L20 per annum; and several other valuable prizes. The first stone of the school was laid by Lord Brougham, October 21st, 1835. The architect of the building was Mr. J.B. Bunning, of Guildford Street, Russell Square, and the entire cost, including fittings and furniture, as nearly L20,000. It is about 75 feet wide in front, next Milk Street, and is about 160 feet long; it contains eleven class-rooms of various dimensions, a spacious theatre for lectures, &c, a library, committee-room, with a commodious residence in the front for the head master and his family. The lectures, founded by Sir Thomas Gresham, on divinity, astronomy, music, geometry, law, physics, and rhetoric, which upon the demolition of Gresham College had been delivered at the Royal Exchange from the year 1773, were after the destruction of that building by fire, in January, 1838, read in the theatre of the City of London School until 1843; they were delivered each day during the four Law Terms, and the public in general were entitled to free admission.

In Milk Street stood the small parish church of St. Mary Magdalen, destroyed in the Great Fire. It was repaired and beautified at the charge of the parish in 1619. All the chancel window was built at the proper cost of Mr. Benjamin Henshaw, Merchant Taylor, and one of the City captains.

This church was burnt down in the Great Fire, and was not rebuilt. One amusing epitaph has been preserved:—

"HERE LIETH THE BODY OF SIR WILLIAM STONE, KNT.

"As the Earth the Earth doth cover, So under this stone Lyes another; Sir William Stone, Who long deceased, Ere the world's love Him released; So much it loved him, For they say, He answered Death Before his day; But, 'tis not so; For he was sought Of One that both him Made and bought. He remain'd The Great Lord's Treasurer, Who called for him At his pleasure, And received him. Yet be it said, Earth grieved that Heaven So soon was paid.

"Here likewise lyes Inhumed in one bed, Dear Barbara, The well-beloved wife Of this remembered Knight; Whose souls are fled From this dimure vale To everlasting life, Where no more change, Nor no more separation, Shall make them flye From their blest habitation. Grasse of levitie, Span in brevity, Flower's felicity, Fire of misery, Wind's stability, Is mortality."

"Honey Lane," says good old Stow, "is so called not of sweetness thereof, being very narrow and small and dark, but rather of often washing and sweeping to keep it clean." With all due respect to Stow, we suspect that the lane did not derive its name from any superlative cleanliness, but more probably from honey being sold here in the times before sugar became common and honey alone was used by cooks for sweetening.

On the site of All Hallows' Church, destroyed in the Great Fire, a market was afterwards established.

"There be no monuments," says Stow, "in this church worth the noting; I find that John Norman, Maior, 1453, was buried there. He gave to the drapers his tenements on the north side of the said church; they to allow for the beam light and lamp 13s. 4d. yearly, from this lane to the Standard.

"This church hath the misfortune to have no bequests to church or poor, nor to any publick use.

"There was a parsonage house before the Great Fire, but now the ground on which it stood is swallowed up by the market. The parish of St. Mary-le-Bow (to which it is united) hath received all the money paid for the site of the ground of the said parsonage."

All Hallows' Church was repaired and beautified at the cost of the parishioners in 1625.

Lawrence Lane derives its name from the church of St. Lawrence, at its north end. "Antiquities," says Stow, "in this lane I find none other than among many fair houses. There is one large inn for receipt of travellers, called 'Blossoms Inn,' but corruptly 'Bosoms Inn,' and hath for a sign 'St. Lawrence, the Deacon,' in a border of blossoms or flowers." This was one of the great City inns set apart for Charles V.'s suite, when he came over to visit Henry VIII. in 1522. At the sign of "St. Lawrence Bosoms" twenty beds and stabling for sixty horses were ordered.

The curious old tract about Bankes and his trained horse was written under the assumed names of "John Dando, the wier-drawer of Hadley, and Harrie Runt, head ostler of Besomes Inne," which is probably the same place.

St. Lawrence Church is situate on the north side of Cateaton Street, "and is denominated," says Maitland, "from its dedication to Lawrence, a Spanish saint, born at Huesca, in the kingdom of Arragon; who, after having undergone the most grievous tortures, in the persecution under Valerian, the emperor, was cruelly broiled alive upon a gridiron, with a slow fire, till he died, for his strict adherence to Christianity; and the additional epithet of Jewry, from its situation among the Jews, was conferred upon it, to distinguish it from the church of St. Lawrence Pulteney, now demolished.

"This church, which was anciently a rectory, being given by Hugo de Wickenbroke to Baliol College in Oxford, anno 1294, the rectory ceased; wherefore Richard, Bishop of London, converted the same into a vicarage; the advowson whereof still continues in the same college. This church sharing the common fate in 1666, it has since been beautifully rebuilt, and the parish of St. Mary Magdalen, Milk Street, thereunto annexed." The famous Sir Richard Gresham lies buried here, with the following inscription on his tomb:—

"Here lyeth the great Sir Richard Gresham, Knight, some time Lord Maior of London; and Audrey, his first wife, by whom he had issue, Sir John Gresham and Sir Thomas Gresham, Knights, William and Margaret; which Sir Richard deceased the 20th day of February, An. Domini 1548, and the third yeere of King Edward the Sixth his Reigne, and Audrey deceased the 28th day of December, An. Dom. 1522."

There is also this epitaph:—

"Lo here the Lady Margaret North, In tombe and earth do lye; Of husbands four the faithfull spouse, Whose fame shall never dye. One Andrew Franncis was the first, The second Robert hight, Surnamed Chartsey, Alderman; Sir David Brooke, a knight, Was third. But he that passed all, And was in number fourth, And for his virtue made a Lord, Was called Sir Edward North. These altogether do I wish A joyful rising day; That of the Lord and of his Christ, All honour they may say. Obiit 2 die Junii, An. Dom. 1575."

In Ironmonger Lane, inhabited by ironmongers temp. Edward I., is Mercers' Hall, an interesting building.

The Mercers, though not formally incorporated till the 17th of Richard II. (1393), are traced back by Herbert as early as 1172. Soon afterwards they are mentioned as patrons of one of the great London charities. In 1214, Robert Spencer, a mercer, was mayor. In 1296 the mercers joined the company of merchant adventurers in establishing in Edward I.'s reign, a woollen manufacture in England, with a branch at Antwerp. In Edward II.'s reign they are mentioned as "the Fraternity of Mercers," and in 1406 (Henry IV.) they are styled in a charter, "Brothers of St. Thomas a Becket."

Mercers were at first general dealers in all small wares, including wigs, haberdashery, and even spices and drugs. They attended fairs and markets, and even sat on the ground to sell their wares—in fact, were little more than high-class pedlers. The poet Gower talks of "the depression of such mercerie." In late times the silk trade formed the main feature of their business; the greater use of silk beginning about 1573.

The mercers' first station, in Henry II.'s reign, was in that part of Cheap on the north side where Mercers' Hall now stands, but they removed soon afterwards higher up on the south side. The part of Cheapside between Bow Church and Friday Street became known as the Mercery. Here, in front of a large meadow called the "Crownsild," they held their little stalls or standings from Soper's Lane and the Standard. There were no houses as yet in this part of Cheapside. In 1329 William Elsing, a mercer, founded an hospital within Cripplegate, for 100 poor blind men, and became prior of his own institution.

In 1351 (Edward III.), the Mercers grew jealous of the Lombard merchants, and on Midsummer Day three mercers were sent to the Tower for attacking two Lombards in the Old Jewry. The mercers in this reign sold woollen clothes, but not silks. In 1371, John Barnes, mercer, mayor, gave a chest with three locks, with 1,000 marks therein, to be lent to younger mercers, upon sufficient pawn and for the use thereof. The grateful recipients were merely to say "De Profundis," a Pater Noster, and no more. This bequest seems to have started among the Mercers the kindly practice of assisting the young and struggling members of this Company.

In the reign of Henry VI. the mercers had become great dealers in silks and velvets, and had resigned to the haberdashers the sale of small articles of dress. It is not known whether the mercers bought their silks from the Lombards, or the London silk-women, or whether they imported them themselves, since many of the members of the Company were merchants.

Twenty years after the murder of Becket, the murdered man's sister, who had married Thomas Fitz Theobald de Helles, built a chapel and hospital of Augustine Friars close to Ironmonger Lane, Cheapside. The hospital was built on the site of the house where Becket was born. He was the son of Gilbert Becket, citizen, mercer and portreeve of London, who was said to have been a Crusader, and to have married a fair Saracen, who had released him from prison, and who followed him to London, knowing only the one English word "Gilbert." The hospital, which was called "St. Thomas of Acon," from Becket's mother having been born at Acre, the ancient Ptolemais, was given to the Mercers' Fraternity by De Hilles and his wife, and Henry III. gave the master and twelve brothers all the land between St. Olave's and Ironmonger Lane, which had belonged to two rich Jews, to enlarge their ground. In Henry V.'s reign that illustrious mercer Whittington, by his wealth and charity, reflected great lustre on the Mercers' Company, who at his death were left trustees of the college and almshouses founded by the immortal Richard on College Hill. The Company still preserve the original ordinance of this charity with a curious picture of Whittington's death, and of the first three wardens, Coventry, Grove, and Carpenter.

In 1414, Thomas Falconer, mercer and mayor, lent Henry V., towards his French wars, ten marks upon jewels.

In 1513, Joan Bradbury, widow of Thomas Bradbury, late Lord Mayor of London, left the Conduit Mead (now New Bond Street), to the Mercers' Company for charitable uses. In pursuance of the King's grant on this occasion, the Bishop of Norwich and others granted the Mercers' Company 29 acres of land in Marylebone, 120 acres in Westminster, and St. Giles, and St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, of the annual value of L13 6s. 8d., and in part satisfaction of the said L20 a year. The Company still possess eight acres and a half of this old gift, forming the north side of Long Acre and the adjacent streets, one of which bears the name of the Company. Mercer Street was described in a parliamentary survey in 1650 to have long gardens reaching down to Cock and Pye Ditch, and the site of Seven Dials. In 1544 the three Greshams (at the time the twelve Companies were appealed to) lent Henry VIII. upon mortgaged lands L1,673 6s. 8d. In 1561, the wardens of the Mercers' Company were summoned before the Queen's Council for selling their velvets, satins, and damasks so dear, as English coin was no longer base, and the old excuse for the former high charges was gone. The Mercers prudently bowed before the storm, promised reform, and begged her Majesty's Council to look after the Grocers. At this time the chief vendors of Italian silks lived in Cheapside, St. Lawrence Jewry, and Old Jewry.



During the civil wars both King and Parliament bore heavily on the Mercers. In 1640 Charles I. half forced from them a loan of L3,030, and in 1642 the Parliament borrowed L6,500, and arms from the Company's armoury, valued at L88. They afterwards gave further arms, valued at L71 13s. 4d., and advanced as a second loan L3,200. The result now became visible. In 1698, hoping to clear off their debts, the Mercers' Company engaged in a ruinous insurance scheme, suggested by Dr. Assheton, a Kentish rector. It was proposed to grant annuities of L30 per cent. to clergymen's widows according to certain sums paid by their husbands.

"Pledging the rents of their large landed estates as security for the fulfilment of their contracts with usurers, the Mercers entered on business as life assurance agents. Limiting the entire amount of subscription to L100,000, they decided that no person over sixty years of age should become a subscriber; that no subscriber should subscribe less than L50—i.e., should purchase a smaller contingent annuity than one of L15; that the annuity to every subscriber's widow, or other person for whom the insurance was effected, should be at the rate of L30 for every L100 of subscription. It was stipulated that subscribers must be in good and perfect health at the time of subscription. It was decided that all married men of the age of thirty years or under, might subscribe any sum from L50 to L1,000; that all married men, not exceeding sixty years of age, might subscribe any sum not less than L50, and not exceeding L300. The Company's prospectus further stipulates 'that no person that goes to sea, nor soldier that goes to the wars, shall be admitted to subscribe to have the benefit of this proposal, in regard of the casualties and accidents that they are more particularly liable to.' Moreover, it was provided that 'in case it should happen that any man who had subscribed should voluntarily make away with himself, or by any act of his occasion his own death, either by duelling, or committing any crime whereby he should be sentenced to be put to death by justice; in any or either of these cases his widow should receive no annuity, but upon delivering up the Company's bond, should have the subscription money paid to her.'

"The Mercers' operations soon gave rise to more business-like companies, specially created to secure the public against some of the calamitous consequences of death. In 1706, the Amicable Life Assurance Office—usually, though, as the reader has seen, incorrectly, termed the First Life Insurance Office—was established in imitation of the Mercers' Office. Two years later, the Second Society of Assurance, for the support of widows and orphans, was opened in Dublin, which, like the Amicable, introduced numerous improvements upon Dr. Assheton's scheme, and was a Joint-Stock Life Assurance Society, identical in its principles with, and similar in most of its details to, the modern insurance companies, of which there were as many as one hundred and sixty in the year 1859."



Large sums were subscribed, but the annuities were fixed too high, and the Company had to sink to 18 per cent., and even this proved an insufficient reduction. In 1745 they were compelled to stop, and, after several ineffectual struggles, to petition Parliament.

The petition showed that the Mercers were indebted more than L100,000. The annuities then out amounted to L7,620 per annum, and the subscriptions for future amounts reached L10,000 a year; while to answer these claims their present income only amounted to L4,100 per annum. The Company was therefore empowered by Act of Parliament, 4 George III., to issue new bonds and pay them off by a lottery, drawn in their own hall. This plan had the effect of completely retrieving their affairs, and restoring them again to prosperity.

Strype speaks of the mercers' shops situated on the south side of Cheapside as having been turned from mere sheds into handsome buildings four or five storeys high.

Mercers' Hall and Chapel have a history of their own. On the rough suppression of monastic institutions, Henry VIII., gorged with plunder, granted to the Mercers' Company for L969 17s. 6d. the church of the college of St. Thomas Acon, the parsonage of St. Mary Colechurch, and sundry premises in the parishes of St. Paul, Old Jewry, St. Stephen, Walbrook, St. Martin, Ironmonger Lane, and St. Stephen, Coleman Street. Immediately behind the great doors of the hospital and Mercers' Hall stood the hospital church of St. Thomas, and at the back were court-yards, cloisters, and gardens in a great wide enclosure east and west of Ironmonger Lane and the Old Jewry.

St. Thomas's Church was a large structure, probably rich in monuments, though many of the illustrious mercers were buried in Bow Church, St. Pancras, Soper Lane, St. Antholin's, Watling Street, and St. Benet Sherehog. The church was bought chiefly by Sir Richard Gresham's influence, and Stow tells us "it is now called Mercers' Chappell, and therein is kept a free grammar school as of old time had been accustomed." The original Mercers' Chapel was a chapel toward the street in front of the "great old chapel of St. Thomas," and over it was Mercers' Hall. Aggas's plan of London (circa 1560) shows it was a little above the Great Conduit of Cheapside. The small chapel was built by Sir John Allen, mercer and mayor (1521), and he was buried there; but the Mercers removed this tomb into the hospital church, and divided the chapel into shops. Grey, the founder of the hospital, was apprenticed to a bookseller who occupied one of these shops, and after the Fire of London he himself carried on the same trade in a shop which was built on the same site. Before the suppression, the Mercers only occupied a shop of the present front, the modern Mercers' Chapel standing, says Herbert, exactly on the site of part of the hospital church.

The old hospital gate, which forms the present hospital entrance, had an image of St. Thomas a Becket, but this was pulled down by Elizabethan fanatics. The interior of the chapel remains unaltered. There is a large ambulatory before it supported by columns, and a stone staircase leads to the hall and court-rooms. The ambulatory contains the recumbent figure of Richard Fishborne, Mercer, dressed in a fur gown and ruff. He was a great benefactor to the Company, and died in 1623 (James I.).

Many eminent citizens were buried in St. Thomas's, though most of the monuments had been defaced even in Stow's time. Among them were ten Mercer mayors and sheriffs, ten grocers (probably from Bucklersbury, their special locality), Sir Edward Shaw, goldsmith to Richard III., two Earls of Ormond, and Stephen Cavendish, draper and mayor (1362), whose descendants were ancestors of the ducal families of Cavendish and Devonshire.

William Downer, of London, gent., by his last will, dated 26th June, 1484, gave orders for his body to be buried within the church of St. Thomas Acon's, of London, in these terms:—"So that every year, yearly for evermore, in their foresaid churche, at such time of the year as it shal happen me to dy, observe and keep an obyte, or an anniversary for my sowl, the sowles of my seyd wyfe, the sowles of my fader and moder, and al Christian sowles, with placebo and dirige on the even, and mass of requiem on the morrow following solemnly by note for evermore."

Previous to the suppression, Henry VIII. had permitted the Hospital of St. Thomas of Acon, which wanted room, to throw a gallery across Old Jewry into a garden which the master had purchased, adjoining the Grocers' Hall, and in which Sir Robert Clayton afterwards built a house, of which we shall have to speak in its place. The gallery was to have two windows, and in the winter a light was ordered to be burned there for the comfort of passers-by. In 1536, Henry VIII. and his queen, Jane Seymour, stood in the Mercers' Hall, then newly built, and saw the "marching watch of the City" most bravely set out by its founder, Sir John Allen, mercer and mayor, and one of the Privy Council.

In the reign of James I., Mercers' Chapel became a fashionable place of resort; gallants and ladies crowded there to hear the sermons of the learned Italian Archbishop of Spalatro, in Dalmatia, one of the few prize converts to Protestantism. In 1617 we look in and find among his auditors the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, the Earls of Arundel and Pembroke, and Lords Zouch and Compton. The chapel continued for many years to be used for Italian sermons preached to English merchants who had resided abroad, and who partly defrayed the expense. The Mercers' School was first held in the hospital and then removed to the mercery.

The present chapel front in Cheapside is the central part alone of the front built after the Great Fire. Correspondent houses, five storeys high, formerly gave breadth and effect to the whole mass. Old views represent shops on each side with unsashed windows. The first floors have stone balconies, and over the central window of each room is the bust of a crowned virgin. It has a large doorcase, enriched with two genii above, in the act of mantling the Virgin's head, the Company's cognomen displayed upon the keystone of the arch. Above is a cornice, with brackets, sustaining a small gallery, from which, on each side, arise Doric pilasters, supporting an entablature of the same order; between the intercolumns and the central window are the figures of Faith and Hope, in niches, between whom, in a third niche of the entablature, is Charity, sitting with her three children. The upper storey has circular windows and other enrichments.

The entrance most used is in Ironmonger Lane, where is a small court, with offices, apparently the site of the ancient cloister, and which leads to the principal building. The hall itself is elevated as anciently, and supported by Doric columns, the space below being open one side and forming an extensive piazza, at the extremity whereof is the chapel, which is neatly planned, wainscoted, and paved with black and white marble. A high flight of stairs leads from the piazza to the hall, which is a very lofty apartment, handsomely wainscoted and ornamented with Doric pilasters, and various carvings in compartments.

In the hall, besides the transaction of the Company's business, the Gresham committees are held, which consist of four aldermen, including the Lord Mayor pro tempore, and eight of the City corporation, with whom are associated a select number of the assistants of the Mercers. In this hall also the British Fishery Society, and other corporate bodies, were formerly accustomed to hold their meetings.

The chief portraits in the hall are those of Sir Thomas Gresham (original), a fanciful portrait of Sir Richard Whittington, a likeness of Count Tekeli (the hero of the old opera), Count Panington; Dean Colet (the illustrious friend of Erasmus, and the founder of St. Paul's school); Thomas Papillon, Master of the Company in 1698, who left L1,000 to the Company, to relieve any of his family that ever came to want; and Rowland Wynne, Master of the Company in 1675. Wynne gave L400 towards the repairing of the hall after the Great Fire.

In Strype's time (1720), the Mercers' Company gave away L3,000 a year in charity. In 1745 the Company's money legacies amounted to L21,699 5s. 9d., out of which the Company paid annually L573 17s. 4d. In 1832, the lapsed legacies of the Company became the subject of a Chancery suit; the result was that money is now lent to liverymen or freemen of the Company requiring assistance in sums of L100, and not exceeding L500, for a term, without interest, but only upon approved security.

The present Mercers' School, which is but lately finished, is a very elegant stone structure, adjoining St. Michael's Church, College Hill, on the site of Whittington's Almshouses, which had been removed to Highgate to make room for it.

The school scholarship is in the gift of the Mercers' Company, and it must not be forgotten that Caxton, the first great English printer, was a member of this livery.

Subsequently to the Great Fire, says Herbert, there was some discussion with Parliament on rebuilding the Mercers' School on the former site of St. Mary Colechurch. That site, however, was ultimately rejected, and by the Rebuilding Act, 22 Charles II. (1670), it was expressly provided that there should be a plot of ground, on the western side of the Old Jewry, "set apart for the Mercers' School." Persons who remember the building, says Herbert, describe it whilst here as an old-fashioned house for the masters' residence, with projecting upper storeys, a low, spacious building by the side of it for the school-room, and an area behind it for a playground, the whole being situate on the west side of the Old Jewry, about forty yards from Cheapside.

The great value of ground on the above spot, and a desire to widen, as at present, the entrance to the Old Jewry, occasioned the temporary removal of the Mercers' School, in 1787, to No. 13, Budge Row, about thirty yards from Dowgate Hill (a house of the Company's, which was afterwards burnt down). In 1804 it was again temporarily removed to No. 20, Red Lion Court, Watling Street; and from thence, in 1808, to its present situation on College Hill. The latter premises were hired by the Company, at the rent of L120, and the average expense of the school was L677 1s. 1d. The salary of the master is L200, and L50 gratuity, with a house to live in, rent and taxes free. Writing, arithmetic, and merchant's accounts were added to the Greek and Latin classics, in 1804; and a writing-master was engaged, who has a salary of L120, and a gratuity of L20, but no house. There are two exhibitions belonging to the school.

With the Mercers' Hospital, in the Middle Ages, many curious old City customs were connected. The customary devotions of the new Lord Mayor, at St. Thomas of Acon Church, in the Catholic times, identify themselves in point of locality with the Mercers' Company, and are to be ranked amongst that Company's observances. Strype has described these, from an ancient MS. he met with on the subject. The new Lord Mayor, it states, "after dinner," on his inauguration day (the ceremony would have suited much better before dinner in modern days), "was wont to go from his house to the Church of St. Thomas of Acon, those of his livery going before him; and the aldermen in like manner being there met together, they came to the Church of St. Paul, whither, when they were come, namely, in the middle place between the body of the church, between two little doors, they were wont to pray for the soul of the Bishop of London. William Norman, who was a great benefactor to the City, in obtaining the confirmation of their liberties from William the Conqueror, a priest saying the office De Profundis (called a dirge); and from thence they passed to the churchyard, where Thomas a Becket's parents were buried, and there, near their tomb, they said also, for all the faithful deceased, De Profundis again. The City procession thence returned through Cheapside Market, sometimes with wax candles burning (if it was late), to the said Church Sanctae Thomae, and there the mayor and aldermen offered single pence, which being done, every one went to his home."

On all saints' days, and various other festivals, the mayor with his family attended at this same Church of St. Thomas, and the aldermen also, and those that were "of the livery of the mayor, with the honest men of the mysteries," in their several habits, or suits, from which they went to St. Paul's to hear vespers. On the Feast of Innocents they heard vespers at St. Thomas's, and on the morrow mass and vespers.

The Mercers' election cup, says Timbs, of early sixteenth century work, was silver-gilt, decorated with fretwork and female busts; the feet, flasks; and on the cover is the popular legend of an unicorn yielding its horn to a maiden. The whole is enamelled with coats of arms, and these lines—

"To elect the Master of the Mercerie hither am I sent, And by Sir Thomas Leigh for the same intent."

The Company also possess a silver-gilt wagon and tun, covered with arabesques and enamels, of sixteenth century work. The hall was originally decorated with carvings; the main stem of deal, the fruit, flowers, &c., of lime, pear, and beech. These becoming worm-eaten, were long since removed from the panelling and put aside; but they have been restored by Mr. Henry Crace, who thus describes the process:—

"The carving is of the same colour as when taken down. I merely washed it, and with a gimlet bored a number of holes in the back, and into every projecting piece of fruit and leaves on the face, and placing the whole in a long trough, fifteen inches deep, I covered it with a solution prepared in the following manner:—I took sixteen gallons of linseed oil, with 2 lbs. of litharge, finely ground, 1 lb. of camphor, and 2 lbs. of red lead, which I boiled for six hours, keeping it stirred, that every ingredient might be perfectly incorporated. I then dissolved 6 lbs. of bees'-wax in a gallon of spirits of turpentine, and mixed the whole, while warm, thoroughly together.

"In this solution the carving remained for twenty-four hours. When taken out, I kept the face downwards, that the oil might soak down to the face of the carving; and on cutting some of the wood nearly nine inches deep, I found it had soaked through, for not any of the dust was blown out, as I considered it a valuable medium to form a substance for the future support of the wood. This has been accomplished, and, as the dust became saturated with the oil, it increased in bulk, and rendered the carving perfectly solid."

The Company is now governed by a master, three wardens, and a court of thirty-one or more assistants. The livery fine is 53s. 4d. The Mercers' Company, though not by any means the most ancient of the leading City companies, takes precedence of all. Such anomalous institutions are the City companies, that, curious to relate, the present body hardly includes one mercer among them. In Henry VIII.'s reign the Company (freemen, householders, and livery) amounted to fifty-three persons; in 1701 it had almost quadrupled. Strype (1754) only enumerates fifty-two mayors who had been mercers, from 1214 to 1701; this is below the mark. Halkins over-estimates the mercer mayors as ninety-eight up to 1708. Few monarchs have been mercers, yet Richard II. was a free brother, and Queen Elizabeth a free sister.

Half our modern nobility have sprung from the trades they now despise. Many of the great mercers became the founders of noble houses; for instance—Sir John Coventry (1425), ancestor of the present Earl of Coventry; Sir Geoffrey Bullen, grandfather of Queen Elizabeth; Sir William Hollis, ancestor of the Earls of Clare. From Sir Richard Dormer (1542) sprang the Lords Dormer; from Sir Thomas Baldry (1523) the Lords Kensington (Rich); from Sir Thomas Seymour (1527) the Dukes of Somerset; from Sir Baptist Hicks, the great mercer of James I., who built Hicks' Hall, on Clerkenwell Green, sprang the Viscounts Camden; from Sir Rowland Hill, the Lords Hill; from James Butler (Henry II.) the Earls of Ormond; from Sir Geoffrey Fielding, Privy Councillor to Henry II. and Richard I., the Earls of Denbigh.

The costume of the Mercers became fixed about the reign of Charles I. The master and wardens led the civic processions, "faced in furs," with the lords; the livery followed in gowns faced with satins, the livery of all other Companies wearing facings of fringe.

"In Ironmonger Lane," says Stow, giving us a glimpse of old London, "is the small parish church of St. Martin, called Pomary, upon what occasion certainly I know not; but it is supposed to be of apples growing where now houses are lately builded, for myself have seen the large void places there." The church was repaired in the year 1629. Mr. Stodder left 40s. for a sermon to be preached on St. James's Day by an unbeneficed minister, in commemoration of the deliverance in the year 1588 (Armada); and 50s. more to the use of the poor of the same parish, to be paid by the Ironmongers.



CHAPTER XXXIII.

GUILDHALL.

The Original Guildhall—A fearful Civic Spectacle—The Value of Land increased by the Great Fire—Guildhall as it was and is—The Statues over the South Porch—Dance's Disfigurements—The Renovation in 1864—The Crypt—Gog and Magog—Shopkeepers in Guildhall—The Cenotaphs in Guildhall—The Court of Aldermen—The City Courts—The Chamberlain's Office—Pictures in the Guildhall—Sir Robert Porter—The Common Council Room—Pictures and Statues—Guildhall Chapel—The New Library and Museum—Some Rare Books—Historical Events in Guildhall—Chaucer in Trouble—Buckingham at Guildhall—Anne Askew's Trial and Death—Surrey—Throckmorton—Garnet—A Grand Banquet.

The Guildhall—the mean-looking Hotel de Ville of London—was originally (says Stow) situated more to the east side of Aldermanbury, to which it gave name. Richard de Reynere, a sheriff in the reign of Richard I. (1189), gave to the church of St. Mary, at Osney, near Oxford, certain ground rents in Aldermanbury, as appears by an entry in the Register of the Court of Hustings of the Guildhall. In Stow's time the Aldermanbury hall had been turned into a carpenter's yard.

The present Guildhall (which the meanest Flemish city would despise) was "builded new," whatever that might imply, according to our venerable guide, in 1411 (12th of Henry IV.), by Thomas Knoles, the mayor, and his brethren the aldermen, and "from a little cottage it grew into a great house." The expenses were defrayed by benevolences from the City Companies, and ten years' fees, fines, and amercements. Henry V. granted the City free passages for four boats and four carts, to bring lime, ragstone, and freestone for the works. In the first year of Henry VI., when the citizens were every day growing richer and more powerful, the illustrious Whittington's executors gave L35 to pave the Great Hall with Purbeck stone. They also blazoned some of the windows of the hall, and the Mayor's Court, with Whittington's escutcheons.

A few years afterwards one of the porches, the Mayor's Chamber, and the Council Chamber were built. In 1501 (Henry VII.), Sir John Shaw, mayor, knighted on Bosworth Field, built the kitchens, since which time the City feasts, before that held at Merchant Taylors' and Grocers' Hall, were annually held here. In 1505, Sir Nicholas Alwin, mayor in 1499, left L73 6s. 8d. to purchase tapestry for "gaudy" days at the Guildhall. In 1614 a new Council Chamber, with a second room over it, was erected, at an outlay of L1,740.

In the Great Fire, when all the roofs and outbuildings were destroyed, an eye-witness describes Guildhall itself still standing firm, probably because it was framed with solid oak.

Mr. Vincent, a minister, in his "God's Terrible Voice in the City," printed in the year 1667, says: "And amongst other things that night, the sight of Guildhall was a fearful spectacle, which stood the whole body of it together in view for several hours together, after the fire had taken it, without flames (I suppose because the timber was such solid oake), like a bright shining coal, as if it had been a palace of gold, or a great building of burnished brass."

Pepys has some curious notes about the new Guildhall.

"Sir Richard Ford," he says, "tells me, speaking of the new street"—the present King Street—"that is to be made from Guildhall down to Cheapside, that the ground is already, most of it, bought; and tells me of one particular, of a man that hath a piece of ground lying in the very middle of the street that must be; which, when the street is cut out of it, there will remain ground enough of each side to build a house to front the street. He demanded seven hundred pounds for the ground, and to be excused paying anything for the melioration of the rest of his ground that he was to keep. The Court consented to give him L700, only not to abate him the consideration, which the man denied; but told them, and so they agreed, that he would excuse the City the L700, that he might have the benefit of the melioration without paying anything for it. So much some will get by having the City burned. Ground, by this means, that was not fourpence a foot afore, will now, when houses are built, be worth fifteen shillings a foot."



In the "Calendar of State Papers" (Charles II., February, 1667), we find notice that "the Committee of the Common Council of London for making the new street called King Street, between Guildhall and Cheapside, will sit twice a week at Guildhall, to treat with persons concerned; enquiry to be made by jury, according to the Act for Rebuilding the City, of the value of land of such persons as refuse to appear."

The Great Hall is 153 feet long, 50 feet broad, and about 55 feet high. The interior sides, in 1829, were divided into eight portions by projecting clusters of columns. Above the dados were two windows of the meanest and most debased Gothic. Several of the large windows were blocked up with tasteless monuments. The blockings of the friezes were sculptured; large guideron shields were blazoned with the arms of the principal City companies. The old mediaeval open timber-work roof had been swallowed up by the Great Fire, and in lieu of it there was a poor attic storey, and a flat panelled ceiling, by some attributed to Wren. At each end of the hall was a large pointed window; the east one blazoned with the royal arms, and the stars and jewels of the English orders of knighthood; the west with the City arms and supporters. At the east end of the hall (the ancient dais) was a raised enclosed platform, for holding the Court of Hustings and taking the poll at elections, and other purposes. The panelled wainscoting (in the old churchwarden taste) was separated into compartments by fluted Corinthian pilasters. Over these was a range of ancient canopied niches in carved stone, vulgarly imitated by modern work on the west side. Our old friends Gog and Magog, before Dance's improvements, stood on brackets adjoining a balcony over the entrance to the interior courts, and were removed to brackets on each side the great west window.



Stow describes the statues over the great south porch of King Henry VI.'s time as bearing the following emblems: the tables of the Commandments, a whip, a sword, and a pot. By their ancient habits and the coronets on their heads, he presumed them to be the statues of benefactors of London. The statue of our Saviour had disappeared, but the two bearded figures remaining, he conjectured, were good Bishop William and the Conqueror himself. Four lesser figures, two on each side the porch, seemed to be noble and pious ladies, one of them probably the Empress Maud, another the good Queen Philippa, who once interceded for the City. These figures were taken down during Dance's injudicious alterations in 1789. They lay neglected in a cellar until Alderman Boydell obtained leave of the Corporation to give them to Banks, the sculptor, who had taste enough to appreciate the simple earnestness of the Gothic work. At his death they were given again to the City. These figures were removed from the old screen in 1865, and were not replaced in the new one.

Stow, in relation to the Guildhall statues, and to the general demolition of "images" that occurred in his time, states, "these verses following" were made about 1560, by William Elderton, an attorney in the Sheriffs Court at Guildhall:—

"Though most the Images be pulled downe. And none be thought remain in Towne. I am sure there be in London yet Seven images, such, and in such a place As few or none I think will hit, Yet every day they show their face; And thousands see them every yeare, But few, I thinke, can tell me where; Where Jesus Christ aloft doth stand, Law and Learning on either hand, Discipline in the Devil's necke, And hard by her are three direct; There Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance stand; Where find ye the like in all this Land?"

The true renovation of this great City hall commenced in the year 1864, when Mr. Horace Jones, the architect to the City of London, was entrusted with the erection of an open oak roof, with a central louvre and tapering metal spire. The new roof is as nearly as possible framed to resemble the roof destroyed in the Great Fire. Many southern windows have been re-opened, and layer after layer of plaster and cement scraped from the internal architectural ornamentation. The southern windows have been fitted with stained glass, designed by Mr. F. Halliday, the subjects being—the grant of the Charter, coining money, the death of Wat Tyler, a royal tournament, &c. The new roof is of oak, with rather a high pitch, lighted by sixteen dormers, eight on each side. The height from the pavement to the under-side of the ridge is 89 feet, the total length is 152 feet; and there are eight bays and seven principals. The roof, which does great credit to Mr. Jones, is double-lined oak and deal, slated. The hall is lighted by sixteen gaseliers. A screen, with dais or hustings at the east end, is of carved oak. There is a minstrels' gallery and a new stone floor with coloured bands.