Memorials of the Counties of England

General Editor:
Rev. P. H. Ditchfield, M.A., F.S.A., F.R.S.L., F.R.Hist.S.

Memorials of Old London
VOLUME I.

OLD BELL INN, HOLBORN, 1897
(From the painting by Philip Norman, LL.D.)

MEMORIALS
OF OLD LONDON

EDITED BY
P. H. DITCHFIELD, M.A., F.S.A.
Fellow of the Royal Historical Society

Author of
The City Companies of London and their Good Works
The Story of our Towns
The Cathedral Churches of Great Britain
&c. &c.

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL. I.

With many Illustrations

LONDON
BEMROSE & SONS LIMITED, 4 SNOW HILL, E.C.
AND DERBY
1908

[All Rights Reserved]

TO
THE RIGHT HON.
Sir John Charles Bell, bart.
LORD MAYOR OF LONDON
THESE MEMORIALS OF THE ANCIENT
CITY OVER WHICH HE RULES
ARE DEDICATED, WITH HIS LORDSHIP’S
KIND PERMISSION,
BY
THE EDITOR

{vii}

PREFACE

In the year of grace one thousand nine hundred
and nine the citizens of London are celebrating
their Pageant, a mighty spectacle representing some
of the stately scenes of splendour and magnificence
which London streets have witnessed from the days of
Alfred to the nineteenth century. It is perhaps fortunate
that these volumes of the Memorials of Old London
should appear when the minds of the people of England
are concerned with this wonderful panorama of the past
history of the chief city of the Empire. The Pageant
will be all very beautiful, very grand, instructive and
edifying, and profoundly interesting; but, after all,
London needs no Pageant to set forth its
attractions, historical and spectacular. London is
in itself a Pageant. The street names, the buildings,
cathedral, churches, prisons, theatres, the river with
its bridges, and countless other objects, all summon
up the memories of the past, and form a Pageant that
is altogether satisfying. Many books have been written
on the greatest city of England’s Empire—some learned
and ponderous tomes, others mere guide books; some
devoted to special buildings and foundations, others{viii}
to the life, manners, and customs of the citizens. This
work differs from other books in that each chapter is
written by an expert who has made a special study of
the subject, and is therefore authoritative, and contains
all the information which recent investigations have
brought to light. It is not exhaustive. London contains
so much that is of profound interest, that many
additional volumes would be needed in order to describe
all its treasures. The city of Westminster, the suburbs
and the West End, have for the most part been excluded
from the plan of this work, and possibly may be treated
of in a subsequent volume. The domain of the city of
London, not of the London County Council, provides
the chief subjects of these volumes, though occasionally
our writers have strayed beyond the city boundaries.

We have endeavoured to give sketches of London,
its appearance, its life and manners, at various stages
of its history. We have tried to describe its historic
buildings, its fortress, its churches, the Exchange, and
other houses noted in its annals. Monastic London is
represented by the Charterhouse. Legal London finds
expression in the histories of the Temple and the Inns
of Court. Royal London is described by the story of
its Palaces; and the old city life of the famous merchants
and traders, artizans and ‘prentices, is shown in our
glimpses of Mediæval London, the histories of the
Guildhall, the City Companies, the Hanseatic League,
Elizabethan London, and in other chapters. Old inns,
coffee-houses, clubs, learned societies, and literary shrines
present other phases of the life of the old city which{ix}
are not without their attractions, and help to complete
the picture which we have tried to paint.

All the chapters have been specially written for this
work, and my most grateful thanks are due to each of
the contributors for their valuable papers, as well as
to those who have supplied photographs, old prints, or
drawings. I desire especially to thank Mr. Philip
Norman for his coloured sketches which form the
pleasing frontispieces of the two volumes; to
Mr. Harold Sands for his skilfully constructed plan
of the Tower of London; and to Mr. Tavenor-Perry
for his valuable drawings of St. Bartholomew’s Church,
Smithfield, and the bridges that span the Thames.

P. H. Ditchfield.

Barkham Rectory,
Berks.,

August, 1908.
{xi}

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

{xiii}

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
IN VOL. I.

{1}

LONDON IN EARLY TIMES

By W. J. Loftie, B.A., F.S.A.

I.—Celtic London

When we see the words “Celtic London” at
the head of a chapter we naturally feel
inclined to ask, “Was there such a place?
Was there any Celtic London?” Although
it is almost impossible to answer such a question by
either “yes” or “no,” it may be worth while to examine
it briefly before passing on to the domains of authentic
history.

In the first place, there must have been some gathering
of huts or houses, some aggregation of residences, to
which a name could be applied, and it must have been
important enough to retain its name after the Romans
came—nay, to retain it even in spite of an attempt on
their part to change it.

But though we must accept the existence of a London
in the old obscure period when something very like
modern Welsh was the language of the south-eastern part
of Britain, and though we know that London was situated
on a river which also had a Welsh name, we do not
know directly on which side of that river it stood, and
have nothing for it but to apply to the problem what a
great authority has described as an historical imagination,
and try if we can find a sufficient number of geographical
or topographical facts to reduce the problematic side of the
questions involved; and so to leave certain points, certain{2}
pedestals, so to speak, of firm ground on which we may
place the foundations of the greatest city the world has
seen.

Our first facts are meagre enough. We have three
words; no more. They are Lon, don, and Thames. We
are like the Oriental lady in the legend of St. Thomas
of Canterbury. She knew but two words of English—Gilbert
and London. We know three words, and,
keeping them in our minds, wander down the Thames
till we find the place to which we can fit the other
two words. But, first, we must make an attempt to translate
them into modern English. The Welsh Lynn is
pronounced lunn. Dun, or down, has passed into English.
Thame, or thames, occurs in many parts of England,
everywhere denoting the same thing, and, according to
most authorities, being practically the same as the English
word tame. The name of the Tamar will occur to the
mind as well as Thame. In the case of the Thames, the
name may very well have come over from the Continent
with the early traders—the Angles, for instance, or
the Danes—and have thus passed into British use. A
great authority, Mr. Bradley, is said to have mentioned
that Lynn in London may be a personal name. The
ordinary interpretation is so simple that it seems hardly
worth while—unphilosophical, in fact—to search for
another. Lynn, pronounced Lunn, is a lake. Dun is a
down or hill. London, as the first syllable may be taken
adjectively, will mean the Lake Hill. Where, then, is
the hill which stands by a lake?

If we consult a map which includes the lower
Thames, and has the levels clearly marked or contoured,
and follow the coast line from, say, Kew Bridge, we come
to no higher ground for more than six miles, the surface
varying from one foot above the ordnance datum of
high water to seven. Hills are visible in the background,
but none at the water’s edge, until we reach that on which
St. Paul’s stands. Mylne gives it as forty-five feet high,{3}
and that on which, close by, the Royal Exchange stands
he marks as forty-eight. If we could denude this region
of its myriad houses, we should see a plain extending
back to the higher ground from the site of the Temple
Gardens—that is, to Clerkenwell. Ludgate, rising nearly
fifty feet in a steep slope from the river’s edge, would
appear something great in such a landscape, backed, as
it would have been, to the eastward by a still higher down,
with the narrow stream of Walbrook rushing to the
Thames, between them. No other height would stand
so near the water’s edge, or would be visible within a
couple of miles, on this left bank of the river. So much
for our “down.” But where is our “lynn”?

Roof Tile (Roman).

If we could see Southwark and the region immediately
to the south of it similarly
denuded, we should find that,
across the Thames from the
double down, an archipelago of
islets extends from what is
now Bermondsey westward to
Lambeth. The dry ground
would be seen dotted here and
there, while every tide, every
flood, every increase of water from the upper Thames,
would make the whole region into a morass. The main
stream of the great river, coming eastward round a bend
from Westminster, would deepen its channel under the
down, leaving the opposite islets in shallow water, and
spreading, according to the first author by whom the
place is mentioned, “at every tide would form a lake.”

Here, then, Dion Cassius, writing in the second
century, describes for us the site of Southwark. He
furnishes us with what we want—the “lynn” for our
“down,” the Lon for the Don. We do not know for
certain whether this Celtic London was on the double
hill or among the islets opposite—whether, that is, the
town was on the lynn or on the dun. There is, however,{4}
a certain amount of evidence that it was on the lynn. A
British road seems to have been already in existence—the
road which led from Dover toward Chester. Where
did it cross the Thames? If we could make sure of the
answer, our three facts would become four. There was
no bridge in this Celtic period to carry the road across
the Thames. At the same time, we know that a crossing
was made; and, if we judge by the course and direction
of the road, it must have been at or very near what is
now called Westminster. Here the shoal-water, as
sailors say, was on both sides of the river. The islets,
many of them covered at every high tide, existed where
a landing was called by later settlers the Lambhithe.
Other landing-places are denoted by such names as
Stanegate, Toothill, Merefleet, Pollen Stock, Thorney,
Jakeslea and others, all Saxon, which tell us of the
condition of both banks of the Thames at a very remote
period. From this we may safely argue—first, that the
amount of water coming down being approximately the
same, it had a much wider district to cover; and, secondly,
that it was much more shallow. These names also show
that, in crossing, the road from Dover had in Saxon
times certain landmarks to follow, while the use of the
word Toot, our word “tout,” shows that guides existed,
who could be called upon to help travellers across. All
these items are more or less obscurely mentioned by
Dion Cassius, and show that wheresoever Celtic London
stood, whether on the left or the right bank, Aulus
Plautius chose the easternmost of the double hills for
his bridge head; and when the wall was built, a couple
of centuries later, it took in the western hill as well, while
the bridge rendered the ford at Westminster useless, and
the Watling Street was diverted at the Marble Arch
along Oxford Street, instead of running straight down
Park Lane to the ford at Westminster.

As for facts in the history of Celtic London, we
have none. The late General Pitt Rivers recorded the{5}
discovery of piles, of origin possibly before the Roman
period, in the street called London Wall, and also in
Southwark, some nine feet below the present surface. A
few articles of Roman make were found mixed with a
few bone implements of a ruder type. This, the only
authentic discovery of the kind, does not prove more than
that some of the Britons lived among the Romans, and
the date is quite uncertain. As to their dwellings before
the Romans came, we have remains in various places from
which we can but gather that, though some ancient race
in these islands built up such rude but vast temples as
Stonehenge, the dwellings of the people who lived by
the Walbrook, or in Southwark, were mere wigwams. A
hollow was dug in the ground, and where stones were
plentiful, which cannot have been the case on the site of
Lynn Dun, a few were used in the flooring. Over the
hollow the house was raised—a bank of earth, perhaps
roofed with boughs and trunks, and with some means of
making a wood fire. Rings of brass and scraps of
pottery are often found in the hollows, but of such
discoveries in London the records are silent.

Red-glazed Pottery (Roman).

{6}

II.—Roman London

With the coming of the Romans, we might expect
to find ourselves on firmer ground than in our
vain endeavours to learn something about the
early Britons in London. But if we date the
Latin discovery of Britain with the coming of
Julius Cæsar to the southern coast of our island
in 55 B.C., it is evident that before the expedition, which
was eventually commanded by Aulus Plautius in
A.D. 43, nearly a century elapsed, and that during all
that time there is no mention at all of London. To use
Dr. Guest’s cautious words: “The notion entertained by
some antiquaries that a British town preceded the Roman
camp has no foundation to rest upon.” In the chapter
on Celtic London I have endeavoured to show that the
British town, if there was one, stood, as Ptolemy asserts,
on the Cantian side of the river. The Romans seldom
or hardly ever chose a Celtic site for a new building,
but, to quote Guest again, “generally built their castellum
two or three miles from the British oppidum.” On this
principle, the new building of Aulus would be either a
couple of miles from the Celtic town, or separated from
it at least by the width of the Thames. If we suppose, as
is more than probable, that Lynn Dun was in Southwark,
and that some settlement was also among the shallows
and islets crossed by the Dover Road and named by the
Anglo-Saxons the Watling Street, the Roman general, by
building London Bridge and by making a strong fort
on the hill at the northern end of it, laid the foundation
of Roman London.

The new city, which speedily rose round the bridge
head on the northern side of the river, was of considerable
dimensions by the time it is first mentioned—namely, in
A.D. 64. This is by Tacitus, who describes it as full
of merchants and merchandise. At the same time,
except for the pretorium at the bridge head, there were{7}
no defences. Anything like a walled town must have
been among the islets on the southern side; but, from
the character of the Roman remains found in Southwark
and St George’s Fields, it is probable that the British
town there was not of any importance, and answered
to Julius Cæsar’s contemptuous description: “The Britons
call a thick wood, enclosed with a rampart and a ditch, a
town.” The new Roman fort at the northern end of
the bridge, with its suburb of merchants’ houses along the
Walbrook, is the London of history, and the first we
hear about it is that—while Camalodunum was a Roman
Colonium, and Verulam a Municipium—London was only
a Prefectura. This is the opinion of Pennant; but
Tacitus, who first names London as being in existence
at all and who lived and wrote about A.D. 90,
expressly mentions it as abounding in merchants and
business. Dr. Guest was of opinion that the Roman fort
was made in A.D. 43. It stood above the outfall of the
Walbrook, its western wing being where Cannon Street
terminus is now, and its eastern extremity reaching to
Mincing Lane. These limits were determined in a paper
by Arthur Taylor in Archæologia in 1849, and were
confirmed during the building of Cannon Street Station.
The road from the bridge divided in East Cheap and
passed out towards the spot now called from the Marble
Arch, where it joined the old road which the Saxons subsequently
named the Watling Street, now Park Lane and
Edgware Road, as to one branch; and as to the other,
the Ermin Street, which led towards Lincoln. The
Roman governor probably lived in his Pretorium, where,
at the north-west corner, close to the celebrated London
Stone, remains of pavements and buildings have been
found. At the south-eastern corner, too, but at a lower
level, another pavement, which still exists under the Corn
Exchange, may have been part of a bath. There are
no remnants of a church or a temple, but some antiquaries
fancied they saw relics of a Roman basilica, or judgment{8}
hall, among the fragments of masonry removed for the
station. There were no burials within the walls, but they
begin, even among the pavements and villas, just outside
the limits marked by the wall of the Pretorium. That it
was defended by the stream of Walbrook on the west,
and by a wide fosse on the northern side, seems certain.
The Mansion House, in 1738, was built on piles “in a
ditch,” according to Stukeley. This fosse probably
communicated with the Walbrook, and from what Stow
says, seems to have had a certain amount of stream
through it. “Langborne Ward,” he says, “is so called of
a long borne of sweete water, which of old time breaking
out into Fenchurch streete, ran down the same streete
and Lombard streete to the West end of St. Mary
Woolnothe’s Church, where turning south, and breaking
it selfe into many small shares, rilles or streames, it left
the name of Shareborne, or south borne lane (as I have
read) because it ranne south to the river of Thames.”

Stow’s interpretations of names often read like bad
jokes, not to say bad puns. We remember his Matfelon,
his Sherehog, his Cripplegate and other curiosities of
the kind. Sherborn Lane has now disappeared, but
there can be little doubt the “burn” or “bourne” was
a relic of the fosse of the first Roman London. It
divides two wards, so was as ancient as those wards—namely,
Cornhill and Langborne; and if there was any
stream through it fell into Walbrook, between the
parish church of St. Mary on the Woollen Hithe and
St. Mary of the Woolchurch Haw. This corner, then near
the modern Mansion House, was the north-western corner
of the little fort, Dowgate was at the south-western, and
Billingsgate at the south-eastern corner, while Mincing
Lane, perhaps at Fenchurch Street, completed the
rectangle. What formed the defence on this, the eastern
side, we have no evidence, but it was probably one of
the “shares, rilles, or streames” which so puzzled Stow.
The Walbrook was 248 feet wide.{9}

Roman Sandals (found in London).

{10}

It is evident, then, that the Roman London Bridge
was well protected, but the town which grew round it
lay open to any attack. Such a contingency was the
rebellion of Boadicea, when Suetonius abandoned the
bridge fort and open town and held to Verulam and
Camalodunum, which had walls. We do not hear anything
about the repairs of the bridge when the rebellion
was over. It probably, as in so many other places, consisted
of a few piers of massive masonry, and great
beams, probably wide apart, formed the roadway. The
line of coins found in the Thames may have been dropped
as offerings to the river-god, or merely by careless
passengers. They dated back to republican times, and
ended only with the last years of the Roman occupation,
long after the introduction of Christianity. It may be
mentioned here that in the catalogue of Roach Smith
(1854), from which we have borrowed some illustrations,
is an account of a box which had perished, but
which had contained tiers of iron coins, plated with silver,
oxydised together in masses, being obviously base money
coined to pass current in Britain in the reign of
Claudius, A.D. 41. It was discovered in King William
Street, almost the centre of the old fort. Forged denarii
of lead or brass formed the larger part of those found
in the Thames. The bridge was probably in a line with
Botolph Lane, the old London Bridge of Peter of Colechurch
being higher up, and the present London Bridge
higher again. The Roman Bridge, frequently repaired,
and frequently, too, broken down—as when Anlaf, the
Dane, sailed up the Thames with his fleet in 993—was
finally removed in favour of the nineteen arches and a
drawbridge, which subsisted until 1831. (The site of the
Roman Bridge is discussed in a paper on “Recent
Discoveries in Roman London,” in volume lx. of
Archælogia.)

The Gates of the City: Aldersgate and Bridgegate.

Such, then, was Roman London during the greater part
of the Roman occupation of Britain—as it is still, a city
of suburbs.{11}

Of the date of the building of the wall we have
no certainty. A recent writer finds fault with my
cautious statement in Historic London that “in 350
London had no wall,” and would substitute 360. The
wall was certainly built about that time or a little later,
but may have been begun long before. It is evident
that such a piece of work was not completed in a single
year, even under the Roman Emperors. Perhaps—it is
too easy to form theories—Constantine (Stow says
Helena) projected it and left it to be finished by his
successors. It had been completed by the reign of
Theodosius, about A.D. 368.

The course of the new wall, according to Stow, was
from the Tower to Aldgate, thence to Bishopsgate, and
from Bishopsgate to Aldersgate, with a postern at Cripplegate.
Next came Newgate, and Ludgate was towards
the Fleet—the wall ending at the Thames. The whole
length was two miles and a half and 608 feet. Stow did
not know that several of the gates he named—Aldgate,
Cripplegate, Aldersgate, and Ludgate—were not Roman.
Nor did he know that Ludgate means a postern, and
Crepulgeat a covered way, both these gates being
probably of late construction, though possibly of the time
of Alfred. The exact site of the wall and the two landward
gates seems to be indicated by the old ward
boundaries, but modern investigators have neglected
them. There was another Roman settlement, namely, at
Westminster, where the abbey stands on the site of some
older buildings. Roman concrete forms the foundation
of the older part of the church and the dark cloisters.
The pavement of a dwelling was found under the nave,
and a sarcophagus, bearing a rudely carved cross,
showed that the town was not walled. The Romans
possibly built here on account of the ford, and we may
be sure that at times, when the only bridge was under
repair or unfinished, the crossing here for the ancient
road, which the Saxons named the Watling Street, was{12}
found convenient. There is mention of the buildings on
Thorney in a charter at the British Museum (Kemble,
D.L.V.), apparently a thirteenth century forgery, but of
interest as showing that a tradition survived. King
Eadgar is made to say that a temple of abomination had
been destroyed to make way for the church of St. Peter.
Such a temple, if one existed, was more probably Saxon
than Roman.

As to the houses and buildings of Roman London
within the walls we know very little. Sir W. Tite
enumerated a large number of mosaic pavements, some
of them of considerable size, and scattered over a wide
area, but apparently not marking any fine or magnificent
public buildings. Stukeley made a plan showing where,
in his opinion at least, remains of such buildings should
be found; but, to put it briefly, remains of the kind
have been conspicuous by their absence on his eight
sites. Stukeley is, in fact, a very untrustworthy authority.
He thought, with Stow, that Algate, the mediæval name,
meant Oldgate, or, as Stow wrote it, Ealdgate, whereas
it was in reality one of the latest. The name probably
denoted a gate open to all without toll.

The remains of the wall, which still or lately existed,
have been carefully examined by Mr. Norman, of the
Society of Antiquaries, and Mr. Francis Reader. Their
account of various excavations is in volume lx. of
Archæologia, and illustrated by a series of plans, sections,
and other drawings by Mr. Reader, who seems to have
proved that the marsh on which Moorfield was laid out
in 1605 did not exist in the early Roman time, but was
caused by the building of the wall.

III.—Saxon London

If we know but little about Roman London, we know
still less, if possible, about Saxon London. So far as
it was inhabited at all, it was the capital of the kings{13}
of Essex, and is so described in a very few documents.
On this account it was an episcopal see. How the
Saxons became possessed of it we do not know. Probably
Stow’s account may be accepted as the most
likely:—

“This citie of London having beene destroyed and brent by the Danes
and other pagan ennemies about the yere of Christ 839, was by Alfred
King of the West Saxons, in the yere 886, repayred and honorably restored
and made againe habitable.”

That Stow’s account is according to the best authorities
will be apparent to any reader of Green’s Conquest of
England. In chapter iv. he describes the condition of
London and the neighbouring kingdom of the East
Saxons—”A tract which included not only the modern
shire that bears their name, but our Middlesex and Hertfordshire,
and whose centre or ‘mother-city’ was London.”
He goes on to point out that at the time of Alfred’s
great campaigns against the Danes, London had played
but little part in English history: “Indeed,” he affirms,
“for nearly half a century after its conquest by the East
Saxons, it wholly disappears from our view.” Its position,
he goes on to show, was sure eventually to draw in
both trade and population, but the Danish war arrested
progress.

“To London the war brought all but ruin; so violent, in fact, was
the shock to its life that its very bishoprick seemed for a time to cease
to exist. The Roman walls must have been broken and ruined, for we
hear of no resistance such as that which in later days made the city
England’s main bulwark against northern attack.”

Asser, in his Life of Alfred, tells us plainly enough
of the condition of the space within the ruined walls. It
must have been that of Pevensey now, or of Silchester
before the grass grew over it. Alfred, he says,
“restauravit et habitabilem fecit.” “To make a town
habitable” implies that it was uninhabited; “to restore
it” implies that at some previous period it had been
what the great king then made it once more. How long{14}
this condition of desolation prevailed within the Roman
wall we have no information. Unfortunately no successful
attempt has been made to discriminate between the
Roman masonry, that of Alfred, and that of the successive
mediæval repairs, in the recent examinations of
what is left of the wall.

It is well to keep the few chronological facts before
us in trying to judge of the influence of the events of
457 on what was left of Roman London. These facts
may be briefly stated. In 369 London was Augusta of
the Romans. In 457, or ninety-eight years—practically
a century—later, the Saxons caught the Britons of
London at the ford over the Cray, in Kent, fifteen
miles down the Thames, and slew 4,000 of them, the
rest flying “in great terror to London.” The chronicle
does not tell us whether the Saxons entered the city then
or not. Judging by analogy, they did enter it then or
soon after, and slew the Britons that were left from the
slaughter at Crayford. The Britons had certainly
ceased out of London when we hear of it again. They
had so utterly perished that not a single Celtic or Roman
local name was left, except the two already mentioned—Thames
and London. There is absolute silence in the
chronicle. This ominous silence lasts from 457 to 609.
We have, therefore, a hundred years from the departure
of the Romans to the battle of Crayford, and 152 years
more to the next mention of London; in all 250 years
during which there is only one thing certain—namely,
that owing to some cause, the British and Roman
languages ceased altogether to be spoken or even remembered,
and together with them the Roman religion. The
change is complete, as well it might be in that long
time—as long as between the death of Charles I. and
the accession of Edward VII. This blank in the
history is all the more marked because no inscriptions
have survived. We have a few—very few—examples
of writing before the Romans left. We have not a
line, not a letter, during those 250 years, and when we{15}
find anything again, the writers are
Anglo-Saxon—the language is entirely
changed, so entirely that not even one
local name survives.

It may be necessary to note here that
some excellent authorities, finding certain
traces of Roman law and customs existing
in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,
have formed the opinion that such laws
were relics of the Roman occupation. It
would be interesting if we could accept
this view, just as if, for example, we could
say that Paternoster Row was so named
by the Romans. But, as I shall have to
point out a little further, the origin of
such usages is obvious without any
recourse to the revival of laws dead and
buried centuries before; if, indeed, they
ever existed among people whose very
language had wholly died out and been
forgotten. It is, to say the least, unlikely
that a continuity should exist in this
respect, while the language in which it
must have been preserved, orally, if not in
records, died out and left not a trace even
in a local name.

Bronze Pin with
Christian Emblems
(Roman).

I had written so far when I received
Mr. Gomme’s very interesting volume on
the Governance of London. I greatly
regret to say I cannot make his views fit
with most of the facts I have endeavoured
to put into chronological order above.
For example, Roman London, when
walled, was a Christian city. When the
Saxons had held it from about 457 to 609,
it was, we know, a heathen city, and twice
afterwards returned to the worship of
Woden and Thor. Is this compatible with{16}
the survival of a Roman constitution? Or, again, is there
any London custom or law which might not have come
to it from the cities of Flanders and Gaul more easily
than after the changes and chances of two or three
centuries? This is not the place to discuss these and
other similar questions, and I for one will be extremely
glad if Mr. Gomme can prove his point in the face of
so much which seems to tell against him.

The East Saxons, it is pretty certain, made but little
use of London. We only hear of it when the King
of Kent, Ethelbert, set up Sebert, his sister’s son, as
King of Essex, and having become Christian himself,
sent Mellitus, a Roman priest, to preach to Sebert and his
people, making him Bishop of London. So much we
learn from the Chronicle under the year 609. Next, in
Beda, we read that Ethelbert furthermore built the
church of St. Paul in London for Mellitus, “where he
and his successors should have their episcopal see.”
Beda also tells us that the Metropolis of the East Saxons
is London; so that when we, at the present day, speak
of it as the Metropolis, we mean it is the chief ecclesiastical
city of Essex; which shows the absurdity of a phrase
very common at the present day. Sebert lived till 616
or later, but there is no distinct mention of his life in
London. His supposed burial, whether in St. Paul’s or
at Westminster, belongs to monkish legendary lore, and
cannot be discussed as serious history. When his three
sons turned back from Christianity they were attacked
and slain by the men of Wessex, who seem to have
acquired an ascendancy over the East Saxons which they
retained till the Danish wars and the settlement of
Alfred.

When we next hear of a bishop, he is a missionary
from the West Saxons. The brother of the great Chad,
the bishop of the Mercians, Cedd, is invited to preach
to the heathen East Saxons by Oswy, King of Northumbria.
We may take Oswy as godfather of the East{17}
Saxon king, Sigebert; but there are many names with
little certainty in the few contemporary records. In the
confusion Sigebert is murdered, and of his successor we
know nothing. He may have reigned at Kingsbury or
at Tilbury, where—not in London—Cedd preached: at
Colchester or at St. Albans. Then there comes a story of
“simony,” in which the influence of Worcester is again
apparent. Then, at last, we have some documentary
evidence. The kings, or kinglets, of Essex were usually
two in number. At this time they were Sebbi and his
colleague, Sighere, and they both witness a gift made
by their cousin Hothilred to Barking Abbey. The
document is printed by Kemble in Codex Diplomaticus
(vol. i.), and is dated by him in 692 or 693. After this
date again the East Saxons—there is not a word about
London—become pagans. Sighere and his people of the
“East Saxon province” are mentioned by Beda. The
subjects of Sebbi remain steadfast, and if we care to
guess they will probably be found to have belonged to
the “Middlesaxon province.” It is mentioned in a document
relating to Twickenham, which is described as in
that part of the province, and is signed by Swaebred,
King of the East Saxons, under the sanction of Coenred,
King of Mercia.

The same year that Hothilred gave his land to Barking,
the great legendary benefactor of that nunnery died.
This was Erkenwald, Abbot of Chertsey, who had become
Bishop of London in 675. Two years before, in 673,
there is a distinct mention of a church in London. The
Archbishop of Canterbury consecrated a bishop of
Dunwich “in the city of London.” The next mention
is by Beda, who tells us of the appointment of Erkenwald,
and immediately after of the death of King Sebbi and
his burial “in the church of the blessed apostle of the
Gentiles.”

It thus appears likely that both Erkenwald and Sebbi
lived in London. It does not follow that Erkenwald{18}
built or rebuilt Bishopsgate. Newgate was in existence
under the name of Westgate very soon after. As it
opened near the church, it is surely more likely that
Erkenwald rebuilt it than the northern gate; but the
history of this bishop is so overlaid with monkish
legend that we do not require any guesswork.

Gold and Enamel Brooch (Ninth Century).
Found in Thames Street.

In the same way Offa, King of Essex, son of Sighere,
is constantly confused with Offa, the great King of
Mercia. That one of the two had a house in London is
very likely, and is noticed by Matthew Paris. But it is
curious that the great Offa’s biographers wholly omit to
mention London. There were some half-dozen kings of
the East Saxons after the abdication of Offa, of Essex,
and there is some confusion among them and among the
Saxon “dukes” after the submission to Egbert in 823,
when we may suppose the Kinglets of Kent, Surrey,
Sussex, and Essex assumed the lower title.

Now, at last, we come to a document which throws
light on the condition of London before the Danish war,
and the passage quoted from Green’s Conquest of England.
This is a grant by Burhed, or Burgred, King of
Mercia, afterwards styled Duke, who married a sister of
Alfred, and no doubt abdicated the royal title when
Egbert became king. In it Burgred gives to Bishop
Alhun, of Worcester, a piece of land—”a little cabbage
garden,” as it may be translated—”in vico Lundoniæ;
hoc est ubi nominatur Ceolmundingchaga,” in the street
of London where it is called the enclosure of Ceolmund,
“qui est non longe from Uestgetum positus,” which is not
far from Westgate. We observe the scribe’s ignorance
of the Latin of “from,” and his presumption that those
who read the grant would be at least equally ignorant.
This grant throws light on the condition of London
before the great Danish inroad. There is no building of
note along the principal thoroughfare between the modern
Newgate and Coleman’s enclosure, now, we may safely
assume, represented by some part of Coleman Street.{19}
Moreover, such an enclosure was possible. Also the
ground was occupied by a market garden. There is
nothing about a Roman city. There is nothing about a
government, municipal or otherwise; there is a king—not
of London or of Essex, but of Mercia; and there
is a bishop, but he is bishop of Worcester. The date is
in full—April 18th, 857. Several other charters occur in
which London is named more or less distinctly, and it
is evident that the old desolation, if not quite at an end,
was at least a circumstance worthy of remark. More than
one of these documents speak of the port and of ships
resorting to it, and we see the meaning of Green’s allusion
to the fact that, while London up to that time—namely,
the end of the eighth century—had played but little part
in English history, its position made it sure to draw
both trade and population. Then came the great Danish
invasion, the reign and victories of Alfred, the repair of
the wall and a new London, England’s main bulwark
against foreign invasion.

Asser and Stow point out clearly that Alfred’s settlement
came after a long period of ruin. This period was
brought to an end by the renewal of the Roman wall.
If we date the events as follows, the slow progress of
the re-settlement is apparent. The Danes pervaded
London and the neighbourhood in 872. Alfred drove
them out twelve years later, in 884. In 886 Alfred
commenced his repairs, and before his death in 901, the
beginning of the tenth century, he may have seen houses
and streets newly rising, some, it is possible, where
Roman buildings had stood, but for the most part on
wholly new lines. It would not have been like Alfred
if he did not leave London with a settled government;
and if there are certain foreign usages which can be
traced to his time, they had probably been brought in
with the concourse of foreign merchants who formed a
large part, if not the majority, of the new citizens. A
century and a half later they were described by the{20}
Norman conqueror as “burghers within London, French
and English,” and from the prevalence of certain names
we find a large Danish element among them, while the
term French indicates that perhaps the largest part were
either Normans or Gauls from the opposite coast. It is
possible that a careful survey of the early history of St.
Paul’s might bring a few facts to light, whether directly
or by inference; but even after the reign of Alfred we
have very little knowledge of the condition of the city
and its port. It was never taken by the Danes. During
the reign of Ethelred “the Unready,” the King seems
to have been shut up in London while the marauders
ravaged the country round. Either the Londoners had
great stores of provisions, or they had access to foreign
markets. Edgar first recognised the importance of this
trade, and no doubt the ill-advised Ethelred, his
successor, was well advised in this respect. In years of
comparative peace, Edward the Confessor built or rebuilt
Westminster Abbey, and lived there; but London trade
was not interrupted, and William the Norman was too
wise to interfere with it.

The Gates of the City: Bishopsgate and Cripplegate.

We have no remains of Saxon times in the city. The
bridge continued to exist, and must have been well
fortified. There is a story, which may be true, that Cnut
dug a canal through or round Southwark, but as we have
seen, this was probably no great feat. He did not succeed
in taking London. Soon after, and down to Hastings,
Normans, as well as Danes, settled in large numbers in
the city, and their names are found in the oldest lists
among those of the Saxon aldermen and leading citizens.
In the laws of Ethelred, printed by Thorpe, we find two
additions to the list of the gates. As we have seen,
only two Roman gates are known on the landward side—the
Westgate, later known as Newgate, which opened
on the Watling Street; and the northern gate, said to
have been rebuilt later on a slightly different site, and
named Bishopsgate. Ethelred provides for guards at{21}
Cripplegate and Aldersgate. This provision seems to
show that the gates were then new. Of Aldred, whose
name was given to one of them, we have no special
knowledge, and Stow supposes it was called “of alders
growing there,” a typical guess, but nothing to his guess
about “Cripplesgate,” so called “of cripples resorting
there”! But “Crepul geat” is good Anglo-Saxon for
a covered way, and the covered way here led to the
Barbican. Both gave their names to wards of the
city, and in the twelfth century Alwold was alderman of
Cripplegate and Brichmar, “who coins the King’s money,”
of Aldersgate, which is distinctly named “Ealdredesgate.”

The same document, in which these new gates are
mentioned, also gives a few topographical particulars.
Thus Billingsgate is mentioned as a place to which ships
brought fish, and as being close to the bridge. This
was probably what was left of the Roman bridge. It
names the merchants of Rouen as entitled to certain
consideration in the tax they pay on cargoes of wine.
The cities of Flanders, of Normandy, and of France are
named in that order, as well as Hogge (Sluys), Leodium
(Liege), and Nivella (Nivelle), and there is special
mention of the Emperor’s men. If any imperial usages,
any laws following Roman customs and differing from
those of other English cities, prevailed in London it is
probably hence that they came, and not through two
periods of emptiness and desolation, lasting in all at
least 250 years, and probably a good many more.

IV.—Norman London

London comes more and more into prominence in the
second half of the eleventh century. Whether this was
on account of the increase of its trade and wealth when
the Danes had ceased from troubling, or on account of
the personal qualities of certain citizens, we cannot now
distinguish. The French or Norman element increased,{22}
and it is possible to name a few individuals who are
known to have lived within the walls both before and
after Hastings. Among them are Albert the Lotharingian,
after whom Lothbury is called. William “de Pontearch”
and William Malet, both of whom are mentioned
in histories of the Conquest, were citizens. Ansgar, the
Staller, who was Portreeve the year of Hastings, appears
to have been, like King Harold, of Danish descent. He
was described in Edward the Confessor’s great charter
to Westminster Abbey as “Esgar, minister,” so apparently
filled several offices, as well as that of Portreeve. We
begin about the same time to hear of a governing guild,
and of reeveland, or a portsoken, as its endowment.
Sired, a canon of St. Paul’s, built a church on land belonging
to the Knightenguild. There is mention, apparently,
of a son of Sired, who was a priest, about the time of
Hastings, among the documents preserved at St. Paul’s;
but I have, so far, failed to find any reference there to
this guild, of which Stow has so much to tell.
According to him, it was founded by Edward the
Confessor, or perhaps by Edgar, and had a charter from
William Rufus. Can it be commemorated in the name
of the Guildhall which then fronted Aldermanbury?

More authentic are the charter of the Conqueror and
a few facts which go to prove that London and its
trading and industrial citizens were but little disturbed
by the change of government. Things went on as before.
The bishop, himself an alderman, the Portreeve and the
burghers, French and English, are addressed “friendly.”
The liberties, whatever they were—whether, as Mr.
Gomme thinks, they had come down from Roman times,
or whether, as seems to me so much more likely, they
had come over from the cities of the continent—were
confirmed to them, and everything went on as before.

One other charter in Norman times may suffice to
illustrate the position of the great walled city and its
busy and wealthy port under the Norman kings. This{23}
was the grant of Middlesex to the citizens by Henry I.
This grant, which was only abrogated in 1888 by Act
of Parliament, gave London the same rights over the
county that were held in those days by the earls and
reeves of shires. Dr. Reginald Sharpe seems to think
that this charter was granted for a heavy money payment.
But there are other ways of looking at the matter.
It would appear probable that King Henry recognised
the help the city had given him; first, in obtaining the
crown, and afterwards in maintaining his position. The
King, no doubt, wanted money. The citizens did not
expect favours without payment; it would have been
contrary to all previous experience. But the gift was a
very real boon, one which could not very well have been
valued in gold. That a Norman king should have been
willing to grant away the deer which his father was said
to have loved like his children shows clearly that there
was a strong sense of obligation in the King’s mind.

The constitution of the city during the reigns of the
Norman kings, if we may judge by what we find in
twelfth-century documents at St. Paul’s and in thirteenth-century
documents at the Guildhall, must have been, as
Bishop Stubbs and Professor Freeman have pointed out,
that of a county. The municipal unity was of the same
kind as that of the shire and the hundred. The Portreeve
accounted to the King for his dues. He was the
justice, and owed his position to popular election as
approved by the King. Under him were the aldermen
of wards, answering very nearly to lords of manors. The
people had their folkmote, answering to the shiremote
elsewhere. Their weekly husting eventually became a
“county court,” and there was besides the wardmote,
which still exists, and led eventually to the abolition of
proprietary aldermen in favour of aldermen elected by
the wards.

At this period the buildings of the city began to
assume a certain importance we do not hear of under{24}
the Saxons. St. Paul’s became a notable example of
what we now call Norman architecture. The nave
survived until the fire in 1666. The church of St. Mary
le Bow, in Cheap, still retains its Norman crypt. The
great white tower, with which the Conqueror strengthened
the eastern extremity of the Saxon and Roman wall,
contains still its remarkable vaulted chapel. A few other
relics of the style survive, but St. Bartholomew’s is outside
the line of the wall.

The Gates of the City: Ludgate and Newgate.

To the old gates must now be added one more—namely,
Ludgate. “Ludgate” or “Lydgate” is like Crepulgate,
a Saxon term, and signifies a postern, perhaps a kind
of trap door opening with a lid. The exact date is
unknown, but the building of a new street across the
Fleet, with a bridge of access, is evident from documents
mentioning the names of persons who dwelt “ultra
fletam,” which are found early in the reign of Henry I.
Another gate was subsequently added—namely, Aldgate—in
or about the beginning of the twelfth century. The
names of both these gates have been subjects of much
guesswork, not only by such topographers as Stukeley,
but even by Stow. Ludgate was, of course, assigned to
an imaginary King, Lud, celebrated in the great poem
of the Welsh bard, who made London the foundation
of descendants of Æneas of Troy. Much of this was
extensively believed in the Middle Ages; and some of
us imagined that Ludgate might have been called in
honour of one of the heroes of the poem, until the real
meaning of the word was pointed out. With regard to
Aldgate, a meaningless name, we always find it spelled
without the “d” in old manuscripts, and usually with an
added “e.” Stow perceived that to be consistent he must
put the “e” in; but he did so in the wrong place, with
the result that Alegate or Allgate, perhaps meaning a
gate open free to all, is turned into Ealdgate, and has its
age wholly mistaken. It was, no doubt, built when the
Lea was bridged, traditionally by Queen Maud, about{25}
1110. Previously the paved crossing, the Stratford, was
reckoned dangerous, and passengers went out by Bishopsgate
and sought a safer crossing at Oldford. The last
of the city gates, Moorgate, was not opened till 1415. It
was erected for the convenience of citizens passing out
among the fields. It is evident that fortification had
become a secondary object. Accordingly, it is often
described as the most spacious and handsome of the city
gates.

The others, especially Ludgate and Newgate, were,
we may be sure, judging by Roman and mediæval
fortifications elsewhere, narrow and inconvenient. There
was probably an overlapping tower in front of the exit,
and the pathway described a semicircle, as we know was
the case at the Tower, where the present arrangement, by
which a vehicle can drive in, was not possible till the
Lion Tower and its overlapping defence, the Conning
Tower, were removed. That something of the same kind
existed at the Old Bailey is evident on an inspection of
the boundary of the ward in a good map, where the overlapping
is clearly marked both at Ludgate and at Newgate.
The roadways at both places were made straight,
the larger archways opened, and the stately portals,
suggested by Stukeley and others, erected, if ever, when
the wall was no longer regarded as a fortification. This
view may, in part at least, account for a statement that
the Roman gate, which answered to Bishopsgate, was
considerably to the eastward of the mediæval gate,
removed in 1760. The Roman gate, to be useful and at
the same time safe, probably consisted of a narrow
passage, opening into the city at a point near the
northern end of the road from the Bridge. The passage,
guarded by towers, would have its exit some distance to
the eastward, and probably, before it reached the outer
country, passed back under the wall. We see arrangements
of this kind at any place, like Pompeii, where a
Roman fortification unaltered may be examined.{26}

We have thus, I hope, traced the beginnings of our great
city, not so clearly as to its origin as could be wished,
but sufficiently as to its development from a Roman fort
or bridge head. Others will take up the tale here and
show how the walls and gates, the churches and the great
castle, the double market and riverside landing places,
became by degrees the greatest city in the land. London,
rather than royal Winchester, held the balance between
Maud and Stephen, and with the election of Henry II.,
the first Plantagenet, we come upon the establishment of
the modern municipal constitution and the long battle for
freedom. The Londoner set a pattern to other English
burghers. His keenness in trade, his vivacity, his tenacity
of liberty and, perhaps above all, the combination of
duty and credit which brought him wealth, have made his
city what it is—the central feature of a world-wide
empire.

The Gates of the City: Moorgate and Aldgate.

{27}

THE TOWER OF LONDON

By Harold Sands, F.S.A.

It has been well and wisely said that “the history
of its castles is an epitome of the history of a
country,” but the metropolis may proudly boast
that it still possesses one castle whose history
alone forms no bad compendium of the history of
England, in the great fortress so familiarly known by
the somewhat misleading appellation of “The Tower
of London,” of which the name of one portion (the
keep) has gradually come into use as a synonym for
the whole. Of the various fortress-palaces of Europe,
not one can lay claim to so long or so interesting a
history. The Louvre at Paris, though still in existence,
is so as a comparatively modern palace, in which nothing
now remains above ground of the castle of Philip
Augustus, with its huge circular keep, erected by that
monarch in 1204. The Alhambra at Granada is of a
by no means so remote antiquity, as the earlier portion
of it only dates from 1248, while the Kremlin at Moscow
only goes back to 1367. Probably the sole building
erected by a reigning monarch as a combined fortress
and palace at all comparable with the Tower of London
is the great citadel of Cairo, built in 1183 by Saladin,
which, like it, is still in use as a military castle; but,
secure in its venerable antiquity, the Tower is superior
to all. The greater portion of the site upon which
the Tower stands has been occupied more or less since
A.D. 369, when, according to Ammianus, the Roman wall
surrounding the city of London was built. At this
point, which may be termed its south-eastern extremity,
the wall crossed the gentle slope that descended to the
Thames bank, on reaching which it turned westwards,{28}
the angle being probably capped by a solid buttress
tower or bastion. Although Roman remains have been
found at various points within the Tower area, it is
not likely that any extensive fortification ever occupied
the sloping site within the wall at this point, for the
original Roman citadel must be sought for elsewhere,
most probably upon the elevated plateau between the
valley of the Wallbrook, and Billingsgate, where even
now there stands in Cannon Street, built into a recess
in the wall of St. Swithin’s church, a fragment of the
ancient Roman milestone, or milliarium (known as
“London Stone”), from which all distances along
the various Roman roads of Britain are believed to
have been reckoned. From what is known of the Roman
system of fortification, it is obviously improbable that
there should have been any extensive fortress erected
upon the site where the Tower now stands. Not only
would this have been opposed to the Roman practice
of placing the arx, or citadel, as far as possible in a
central and dominating position, but in the present
instance it would actually have been commanded by
higher ground to the north and west, while to the east
free exit to the open country would have been seriously
impeded by the extensive marshes (not as yet embanked
and reclaimed) that then skirted the northern bank of
the Thames.

The Tower of London.
Engraved by Hollar, 1647.

According to the Saxon Chronicle,[1] King Alfred
“restored” London in 886, and rebuilt the city wall,
where it had become ruinous, upon the line of the ancient
Roman one; and, until the Norman Conquest, it seems
to have remained practically unaltered, nor does it
appear to have been damaged by the various Danish
attacks in 994, 1009, and 1016,[2] though frequently
repaired afterwards during the Middle Ages. Without{29}
the wall was a wide and deep ditch, while between the
edge of the ditch and the foot of the wall was the
characteristic “berm,” or external terrace, about ten
feet in width.[3] There is every reason to suppose that
this wall and ditch extended right across what is now
the inner ward, or bailey of the Tower, as far as what
was then the river bank, to a point somewhere near
the site of the present Lanthorn Tower “k,” where
it turned to the west; for when, in 1895, the range of
buildings of fourteenth century date (then known as
the Great Wardrobe, “3“) that formerly concealed the
eastern face of the White Tower was removed, part of
the ancient Roman wall was found to have been
preserved within it, and a fragment, having the usual
bonding courses of Roman tile bricks, has been spared,
which may now be seen above ground close to the
south-east angle of the keep, together with the remains
of the Wardrobe Tower “s.” If a line is drawn
northward from this point[4] across the present moat,
it will be found to meet what remains of the old city
wall, which is still partly visible above ground in a
yard known as “Trinity Place,” leading out of the
eastern side of Trinity Square, on Great Tower Hill.
Such Roman remains as have been found within the
Tower area do not tend to favour the supposition that
any large buildings, save ordinary dwellings of the
period, ever occupied the site. On his first approach
to the city from Kent, when Duke William discovered
that so long as he was unable to cross the Thames
London could not be immediately reduced, after burning
Southwark in order to strike terror into the citizens,
he left it a prey to internal dissensions, and having
in the meantime received the submission of the ancient
Saxon capital of Winchester, he passed round, through
Surrey, Berkshire, and Hertfordshire, by a route, upon
which the ravages of the Normans are clearly indicated{30}
in Domesday Book,[5] to a position on the north of
London, thus gradually severing its communications
with the rest of England, so that neither men nor
convoys of provisions could enter its walls. Placing
camps at Slough, Edmonton, and Tottenham, William
himself remained some distance to the rear of these
last with the main body of the army, and it seems
probable that the actual surrender of London took place
at or near Little Berkhampstead, in Hertfordshire,[6]
some four miles to the east of Hatfield, and then about
eighteen miles to the north of the city, which could be
seen in the distance from the high ground hard by.

According to Orderic, William, after his coronation
at Westminster, spent some days at Berkhampstead,
during which “some fortifications were completed in
the city for a defence against any outbreaks by its
fierce and numerous population.”[7] Meagre in details as
is the history of this early period, it would appear from
the foregoing passage that William caused two castles
to be erected, one at either end of the city, hard by
the river bank, the western one becoming the castle of
that Ralph Baynard who gave his name to it and to
the ward; the eastern one (after the building of its stone
keep) receiving the appellation of the Tower of London.

When erected on new sites, the early castles seem
to have consisted of a bailey, or court, enclosed by
wooden palisades, and a lofty circular mound, having
its apex crowned by a wooden tower dwelling, also
within a stockade, the whole enclosed by a ditch common
to both; but though nothing remains of these early
castles in London, it seems probable that the mound
was dispensed with, and that the angle of the wall
was utilized to form a bailey, the side open to the
city being closed by a ditch and bank, crowned by{31}
stout palisades of timber, while the Roman wall would
be broken through where the ditch abutted upon it
at either end, the whole bearing a strong resemblance
(allowing for the difference in the site) to the castle
of Exeter. Orderic goes on to say that William at
once built a strong castle at Winchester, to the possession
of which he evidently attached greater importance than
that of London, where the great stone keep was probably
not even commenced till quite a decade later, though
Pommeraye, in a note to his edition of Orderic, tells us
“that it was built upon the same plan as the old Tower
of Rouen, now destroyed.”

The advantages of the site selected for the Tower
were considerable, the utilization of the existing Roman
wall to form two sides of its bailey, its ditch isolating
it from the city, while it was so placed on the river
as to command the approach to the Saxon trade harbour
at the mouth of the Wallbrook, then literally the port
of London, and with easy access to the open country
should a retreat become necessary.

It is much to be regretted that London was omitted
from the Domesday Survey, for that invaluable record
might have furnished us with some information as to
the building of the Tower, and perhaps revealed in one
of those brief but pithy sentences, pregnant with
suggestion, some such ruthless destruction of houses as
took place in Oxford and elsewhere[8] in order to clear
a site for the King’s new castle. Unless the site were
then vacant, or perhaps only occupied by a vineyard
(for these are mentioned in Domesday Book as existing
at Holborn and Westminster),[9] some such clearance must
obviously have been made for even the first temporary
fortifications of the Conqueror, although contemporary
history is silent as to this. The Saxon Chronicle tells{32}
us that “upon the night of August the 15th, 1077,
was London burned so extensively as it never was before
since it was founded,”[10] which may have determined
William to replace the temporary eastern fortification
by an enlarged and permanent castle, he having then
completed the conquest of England and crushed the
rebellions of his turbulent baronage.

Plan of the Tower of London about 1597.

Although the art of the military engineer was then
in its infancy, the Conqueror seems to have selected
as his architect one already famous for his skill.
Gundulf, then just appointed Bishop of Rochester, was
no ordinary man. The friend and protégé of Archbishop
Lanfranc, by whom he had been brought to England
in 1070, he had as a young man been on pilgrimage
to the Holy Land, and doubtless profited by his travels
and the opportunity afforded of inspecting some of the
architectural marvels of the Romano-Byzantine engineers.
Although Gundulf had rebuilt the cathedral of
Rochester, to which he added the large detached belfry
tower that still bears his name, built other church towers
at Dartford, and St. Leonard’s, West Malling (long
erroneously supposed to have been an early Norman
castle keep),[11] and founded at the latter place an abbey
of Benedictine nuns, his reputation as an architect rests
chiefly on his having designed the keep of the Tower
of London (probably that of Colchester also), and built
the stone wall round the new castle at Rochester for
William Rufus. While engaged in superintending the
erection of London keep, Gundulf lodged in the house
of one Eadmer Anhœnde,[12] a citizen of London, probably
a friend of the Bishop, for we find his name occurring{33}
as a generous donor to Gundulf’s new cathedral at
Rochester, where, by his will, he directed his own body
and that of his wife to be interred, and to have an
obit annually. Gundulf’s work therefore consisted of
the great keep (afterwards called the White Tower),
which he erected close to the line of the Roman city
wall, and some fifteen or twenty feet within it. At
first this was probably (like its sister keep at Colchester)
only enclosed by a shallow ditch and a high earthen
bank, crowned by a stout timber palisade, the city wall
forming two sides of its perimeter, and probably broken
through where the ditch infringed upon it at either end.
With the sole exception of Colchester keep, which,
as will be seen from the following table of dimensions,
is considerably larger, the tower or keep of the castle
of London exceeds in size the great rectangular keep
of every other castle in the British Isles. Unfortunately,
the two upper stories of Colchester keep have been
destroyed, but sufficient remains (coupled with the
resemblance of its plan to that of the White Tower)
to show that both were designed by the same hand
and erected about the same period, while both alike
were royal castles.

Table of Comparative Dimensions

{34}

Thanks to the drastic removals of recent years, the
White Tower stands to-day very much as when first
erected. In plan it is practically rectangular, but the
north-east angle is capped by a projecting circular turret
containing the great main staircase that ascends from
the basement to the roof, serving each floor en passant,
while the south angle of the east face has a large
semicircular projection that contains the apse of the
chapel. The main staircase terminates in a large circular
turret of two stories, that rises some twenty-nine feet
above the roof. The other angles terminate in three
rectangular turrets about fourteen feet square, and
twenty-seven feet high above the roof. The walls are
at the base some fifteen feet in thickness, exclusive
of the steep battering plinth from which they rise, and
which slopes sharply outwards. They diminish by
set-offs at each floor. The interior is divided into two
unequally sized chambers by a cross-wall ten feet in
thickness, running from north to south. Of these, the
eastern one is again subdivided by a thick cross-wall
at its southern end, which is carried up solid to the
roof, while on the upper floors the central wall is
perforated by arcades of three, and four perfectly plain
semicircular headed arches. To the north and west the
basement floor is about sixteen feet below the existing
ground level, which falls rapidly along the east side,
and on the south it is practically on the ground level,
as the ground there has not been artificially raised.
The two larger chambers of the basement have a modern
plain brick barrel vault. The well, a plain ashlar pipe
six feet in diameter, is in the south-western angle of
the floor in the western chamber. The south-eastern
chamber retains its original stone barrel vault. This
forms the sub-crypt of the crypt below St. John’s
Chapel, and is lighted, or at least its darkness is made
dimly visible, by a single small loop in the east wall.
It is now known as “Little Ease,” and is said to have{35}
served as the prison of Guy Fawkes. The basement
chambers have boldly sloped recesses in the walls,
with small loops high up in their heads, which afford
the minimum of air and light; but as they were only
used for stores, this was not of great importance.
Ascending by the main staircase to the second floor,
the same subdivision into three chambers is continued,
but these were lighted by larger loops, that have been
converted into larger windows at the time of Sir
Christopher Wren’s renovations in 1663. The crypt of
the chapel opens from the eastern chamber, and has
in its north wall a singular dark cell eight feet wide
and ten feet long, in the thickness of the wall, in which
Sir Walter Raleigh is said to have once been imprisoned.
The western chamber has in its north-west angle a
latrine, or garderobe, in the thickness of the wall. At
the west end of its south face is a large original opening,
with parallel sides, having niches in them. The masonry
shows traces of where the arch and door jambs have
been torn away and the present large window substituted,
probably during Wren’s alterations. There is little room
to doubt that this was the original door of entrance,
placed, as is usual, some distance above ground, and
probably reached by an external flight of steps, now
removed, protected by a similar fore building to that
of Rochester keep.[13]

Proceeding by the main stair to the third floor, we
enter first what is known as the “Banqueting Hall,” which
is lighted by four large windows, and has a fireplace
in its east wall, with two latrine chambers in its north
and east walls. Passing through a low doorway in
the partition wall, we enter the great western chamber,
which has a fireplace in its west wall, a latrine in its
north wall, and is lighted by eight large windows.
Two newel staircases in the western angles ascend to{36}
the battlements. In the south wall is a doorway leading
to a passage at the head of a small newel stair, which,
rising from a door in the wall on the floor below,
formerly afforded a direct communication from the
palace to the chapel of St. John upon the third floor,
without entering the keep. At the foot of this stair,
in the time of Charles II., some bones in a chest were
discovered by workmen engaged in repairs, which were
said to be those of the murdered Edward V. and his
brother the Duke of York. These were transferred;
by the King’s instructions, to the vaults of Westminster
Abbey.

Ascending to the fourth floor, there are two large
rooms separated by the cross-wall, the arcade of which
was probably filled in with wooden partitions. The
larger or western room is known as the “Council
Chamber,” and the other as the “Royal Apartments.”
Neither has any fireplace. Over the vaulting of the
chapel, close under the flat, lead roof, there is a curious
cell about seven feet high, lighted by small loop windows,
which extends the entire length of the chapel. Formerly
used as a prison, it must have subjected its miserable
inmates to even more trying variations of heat and cold
than the famous “Piombi” of Venice.

With the exception of the chapel, its crypt, and
sub-crypt, which were vaulted throughout, all the floors
were originally of wood, and were supported on double
rows of stout oak posts, which in their turn sustained
the massive oak main floor beams.

The forebuilding, on the south face of the keep,
was probably added by Henry II. It survived until
1666, as it is shown in a view of the Tower executed
by Hollar about that date; but it appears to have been
removed prior to 1681.

The chapel of St. John is a fine example of early
Norman ecclesiastical architecture. It consists of a nave,
with vaulted aisles, having an apsidal eastern termination.{37}
It is covered by a plain barrel vault, and on the fourth
floor level has a triforial gallery, also vaulted. It is
connected by two doors with the gallery in the thickness
of the wall that surrounds this floor, from one of the
windows of which it is said that Bishop Ralph Flambard
effected his remarkable escape.

It is probable that at first (except the chapel, which
was covered by its own independent roof) there were
two separate high-pitched roofs, one covering each
division, and not rising above the battlements, the wall
gallery serving as a kind of additional fighting deck,
for which reason it was carried round the triforium
of the chapel. As the need for this diminished, two
large additional rooms were gained by raising the central
wall a story, and superposing a flat, lead roof.

The absence of privacy, fireplaces, and sanitary
accommodation on this fourth floor, with the cold
draughts from the stairways and windows of the
wall-gallery, must have been well-nigh intolerable; nor
could wooden screens, hangings, or charcoal brasiers
have rendered it endurable. It is not surprising,
therefore, that under Henry III. the palace was
considerably enlarged, or that these chambers were
abandoned by him for warmer quarters below, in the
Lanthorn Tower “k,” and its new turret “J” although
the chapel and council chamber continued to be used
down to a much later date.

After the siege of Rochester by William Rufus in
1088, Gundulf had built a stone wall round the new
castle of Rochester. This probably moved the King
to enclose the Tower of London with a similar wall,
for the Saxon Chronicle tells us that in 1091 “a stone
wall was being wrought about the Tower, a stone bridge
across the Thames was being built, and a great hall
was being erected at Westminster, whereby the citizens
of London were grievously oppressed.”[14]

{38}

Now, as Gundulf did not die until 1108, it is by
no means improbable that, while superintending the
erection of these two great towers at London and
Colchester,[15] he also constructed the stone wall round
the former, for the chronicler says of him that “in
opere cæmentarii plurimum sciens et efficax erat.”[16]

As it is on record that the smaller keep of Dover,
built by Henry II. nearly a century later, was upwards
of ten years in construction, while some additional time
had been consumed—in the collection of materials and
workmen—with the preliminary preparation of the site,
it does not seem probable that the great Tower of
London (honeycombed as its walls are with cells and
mural passages) could have been erected in a much
shorter space of time. When the ruder appliances of the
earlier period are taken into account, such a keep could
not have been built in a hurry, for time would be
needed to allow the great mass of the foundation to
gradually settle, and for the mortar to set. Although
preparations for its erection may have begun as early
as 1083, it seems more probable that the White Tower
was not commenced much before 1087, or completed
before 1097.

Stow, quoting from FitzStephen’s Description of
London,[17] mentions the White Tower as being “sore
shaken by a great tempest of wind in the year 1091,”
which, as I do not (with the conspicuous modesty of
the late Professor Freeman) “venture to set aside the
authority of the chronicles”[18] when they have the audacity
to differ from my preconceived ideas, seems to me
reasonable ground upon which to argue that not only
was the White Tower then in course of erection, but{39}
that in that year the works were not in a very advanced
state. That it must have been completed prior to 1100
is evidenced by the fact that King Henry I., on succeeding
to the throne in August of that year, committed to the
custody of William de Mandeville, then Constable of
the Tower, his brother’s corrupt minister, Ranulph (or
Ralph) Flambard, Bishop of Durham. The chronicler
exultingly tells us that he was ordered[19] “to be kept
in fetters, and in the gloom of a dungeon,” which must
have been either “Little Ease” or the small dark cell
opening from the crypt of St. John’s Chapel, afterwards
rendered famous by the imprisonment there of Sir Walter
Raleigh.

Although the great fortress-palace was to
subsequently acquire a most sinister reputation as a
state prison, yet the present is the first recorded instance
of the committal of a great and notorious offender to
its dungeon cells. Subsequently, however, the severity
of the bishop’s imprisonment appears to have been
somewhat mitigated, for the King ordered him to be
allowed the large sum of two shillings a day for his
maintenance; so that, although a prisoner, he was enabled
to fare sumptuously.

One day after the Christmas of 1101, a long rope
having been secretly conveyed to him, concealed in a
cask of wine, by one of his servants, he caused a plentiful
banquet to be served up, to which he invited his keepers,
and having intoxicated them to such a degree that they
slept soundly, the bishop secured the cord to a mullion
in one of the double windows of the southern wall-gallery
in the keep, and, catching up his pastoral staff,
began to lower himself down. Having forgotten to
put on gloves, and being a heavy, stout man, the rope
severely lacerated his hands, and as it did not reach
the ground he fell some feet and was severely bruised.{40}
His trusty followers had horses in readiness, on one
of which they mounted him. The party fled to the
coast, took ship, and crossed over to Normandy to seek
refuge with Duke Robert.[20] After some time had elapsed,
he contrived to make his peace with Henry, who allowed
him to return to England, when he regained his See of
Durham, of which he completed the cathedral, and also
added to the works of the great castle there. The
window from which he is supposed to have escaped is
over sixty-five feet from the ground, and his evasion
was evidently considered at the time a most audacious
and remarkable feat, as more than one contemporary
chronicler gives a very detailed and circumstantial
account of it.

It is not until the Edwardian period of our history
that we find castles used as places for the secure
detention of captives. In the earlier Norman times
dungeons were of little use, their policy being one of
ruthless extermination, or of mutilation, in order to strike
terror into rebellious populations.[21] Only persons of the
most exalted rank, such as Duke Robert of Normandy,
Bishops Odo, of Bayeux, and Ralph Flambard, of
Durham, Earl Roger, the son of William FitzOsbern,
with a few distinguished Saxon captives, underwent a
prolonged imprisonment.

The Tower of London as it exists to-day has, by
a slow process of gradual accretion round the keep as
a nucleus, become what is known as a “concentric”
castle, or one upon the concentric plan, from the way
in which one ward encloses another; and its architectural
history falls, roughly speaking, into three chief periods
covered by the reigns of William Rufus, Richard I., and
Henry III., all the more important additions to the{41}
fortress occurring approximately within these periods,
as will be seen later on.

Commencing with the building of the great keep
(now called the White Tower), and the small inner or
palace ward to the south of it, by William the Conqueror,
this at first was probably only enclosed by a stout
timber palisade on the top of a raised bank of earth,
having a ditch at its base. The first recorded stone
wall round the Tower was that of William Rufus,
already mentioned, and it is not improbable that the
wall marked “v” on the plan (only discovered in 1899
during the erection of the new guard house) may have
formed part of his work.

But little is known to have been added by Henry I.
The sole remaining Pipe Roll of his reign only records
a payment of £17 0s. 6d. “in operatione Turris
Lundoniae,” without any further mention of what these
works were, and as the amount is not very large, it is
not probable that they included anything of much
importance. That the smaller inner or palace ward to
the south of the keep was already completed, is shown
by a charter of the Empress Maud, dated Midsummer,
1141, which granted to Geoffrey de Mandeville (then
Constable of the Tower, and third of his family to
hold that important office) the custody of the Tower,
worded as follows: “Concedo illi, et heredibus suis,
Turris Lundoniae cum ‘parvo castello’ quod fuit
Ravengeri”;[22] and this “little castle” is the before
mentioned inner or palace ward, though how or where
this was originally entered from the city nothing now
remains to tell us—most probably at or near the point
subsequently occupied by the Cold Harbour Gate “u,”
at the south-west angle of the “turris,” or White
Tower “r,” for it is but seldom that the original entrance
gates of castle baileys or courtyards are removed, unless{42}
in the case of an entire re-arrangement of the plan,
with the consequent rebuilding thereby rendered
necessary.

Owing to the state of anarchy that prevailed during
the troubled reign of Stephen, and the destruction of
all the Pipe Rolls and other records that resulted, it
is improbable that any extensive works were in progress
during that period.

Although the Pipe Rolls of Henry II. record a total
amount expended upon works at the Tower of
£248 6s. 8d., but little appears to have been added as
to which we can speak with any certainty, unless it
be the forebuilding of the keep “y” (long since
destroyed), the gatehouse of the inner ward “u,” and
perhaps the basement of the hall or Wakefield tower “l.”

As at first constructed, the White Tower (like its
fellow at Colchester) had no forebuilding covering the
original entrance, which was at the western extremity
of its south front, upon the first floor, then some
twenty-five feet above the external ground level. The
small doorway leading to the flight of stairs in the
south wall which ascends to St. John’s Chapel, by
which visitors now enter the keep, is not, and is far
too small in size to have ever been, the original entrance.

On the Pipe Rolls there are frequent entries of
sums for the repairs of the “King’s houses in the Tower,”
probably the great hall “x,” with its kitchen and other
appendant buildings; “of the chapel” (obviously that
of St. Peter, as that of St. John in the keep would
hardly be in need of any structural repairs at so early
a date); and “of the gaol.” These last doubtless stood
in an outer ward added by Henry I., and at first
probably only enclosed by the usual ditch and earthen
rampart, furnished with stout wooden palisades.

St. John’s Chapel, Tower of London.

It is somewhat difficult to assign any precise date
for the first foundation of the “Chapel of St. Peter ad
Vincula apud turrim.” It is not probable that it was{43}
contemporary with the Chapel of St. John, but was
doubtless erected by Henry I. when he enlarged the area
of the outer ward of the Tower; as this necessitated a
considerable increase to the permanent garrison, St. John’s
Chapel in the keep would no longer suffice for their
accommodation, and a new chapel would become
necessary. If St. Peter’s Chapel had only been parochial
(which at its first erection it was not), it might have
been possible to ascertain the precise date of its
foundation.

In 20 Henry II. (or 1174), Alnod, the engineer,
received the sum of £11 13s. 4d. for works at the Tower.
Other payments occur for sheet-lead for the repairs of
the chapel, the carriage of planks, and timber for the
kitchen,[23] the gateway of the gaol (probably Cold
Harbour Gate “u“), various repairs to the “King’s
houses within the bailey of the Tower,” and occasionally
for the repairs to the “turris” or great keep itself.
This, when first built, was of rough rag-stone, rudely
coursed, with very open joints in thick mortar, so that
these repairs (consisting, doubtless, of patching and
pointing) occur with more or less frequency.

Not until 1663 did the keep receive its final
disfigurement, at the hands of Sir Christopher Wren,
who cased part of the exterior in Portland stone, rebuilt
two of the angle turrets, and “Italianised” all the window
openings, thereby obliterating many valuable mediæval
details.

All these outlays are certified by the view and report
of two inspecting officials, Edward Blund and William
Magnus, the works being carried out by Alnod, while
the writs authorising payments were signed by one or{44}
other of the justiciars, Ranulph de Glanville and Richard
de Lucy, or by the King himself.

The following reign marks a period of great
constructive activity at the Tower. The new monarch
was one of the foremost military engineers of the age;
and when we consider the valuable experience in the
art of war which he had already gained, in the decade
prior to his accession to the throne, in conducting (while
Count of Poitiers and Duke of Aquitaine) various sieges
of the castles of his rebellious barons in those provinces,
it seems improbable that he would have been satisfied
to leave the Tower in the condition it then was, with
a keep standing in a small inner ward, enclosed by
a plain stone curtain wall, devoid of any projecting
towers, unless perhaps the base of the Hall tower, and
the Cold Harbour Gate (see plan), and a large outer
ward, only enclosed by a wooden palisade and ditch.

Richard must have been well aware of the enormous
increase to the power of effective defence conferred
by salient or boldly projecting towers flanking with
their fire the curtain walls, which in England, at any rate,
were then somewhat of a novelty. At this time the
Tower was extremely defective in this respect, its great
need being not for mere repairs, but for effective
modernization as a fortress.

Before embarking upon the hazardous enterprise of
the third Crusade, Richard left his trusted Chancellor,
William Longchamp, to carry out an extensive series
of new works at the Tower, all of which were probably
from the designs of the sovereign himself.

In his valuable monograph upon the Tower,[24] the
late G. T. Clark, F.S.A., has fallen into a strange error
as to the actual amount expended upon works there
during the earlier years of the reign of Richard I.,
which he states “do not show above one or two hundred{45}
pounds of outlay.” When this rather dogmatic assertion
is tested by reference to the existing documentary
evidence of the Public Records, its glaring inaccuracy
is at once apparent; indeed, it might fitly serve as an
illustration of Pope’s well-known lines:

The Pipe Roll of 2 Richard I. discloses an
expenditure, “ad operationes turris Lundoniae,”
amounting to no less than £2,881 1s. 10d., in itself a
sufficiently large sum, but one which, when multiplied
twenty-fold in order to bring it up to its present-day
value,[25] is increased to £57,621 16s. 8d. of our modern
money!

The custody of the Tower was entrusted by
Longchamp to one of his dependents, William Puinctel,
who seems to have acted as Constable and superintendent
of the new works, according to the Pipe Roll of
2 Richard I.

It is well known that all the contributions levied
in the King’s name do not invariably appear set out
in full in the records, and there were certainly other
sources of revenue open to the Chancellor, of which
he doubtless took the fullest advantage.[26] The difficulty
in this case is not so much his raising the funds needed
for carrying out these works (which he undoubtedly did),
but to account for their rapid completion in so short
a time.

If, however, it was possible, only seven years later,
for Richard himself to build, in a far more inaccessible
situation, the entire castle of Chateau Gaillard in the
short space of a single year, it need not have been
so difficult for Longchamp to carry out in two or three{46}
years the works we are about to describe, especially
when we consider that he had practically unlimited
funds at his disposal.[27]

Until the period of which we write, the area enclosed
by the Tower fortifications lay wholly within, and to
the west of the ancient city wall, which had been utilized
to form its eastern curtain. The perimeter was now
to be largely increased by the addition of a new outer
ward, “W,” extending entirely round the fortress, having
a new curtain wall of stone, furnished with two large
bastions (now entirely re-modelled and modernised),
known as the “Legge Mount” and “Brass Mount”
towers, “S” and “T.” The so-called “North Bastion,”
capping the salient angle of the wall between them,
being a purely modern work of recent date, has been
intentionally omitted from the plan.

The inner ward now received a large addition. To
the east of the White Tower, the old Roman city wall,
where it crossed the line of the new works (see plan),
was entirely demolished, and a new wall, some one
hundred and eighty feet further to the east, and studded
with numerous towers at frequent intervals, took its
place, and on the north, west, and south replaced the
former palisaded bank and ditch. Most of these towers,
as at first constructed, were probably open at the gorge,
or inner face, and not until a later period were they
raised a stage, closed at the gorge, and in several
instances had the early fighting platforms of timber
replaced by stone vaulting.

When the remains of the Wardrobe Tower “s” were
exposed some years ago by the removal of the buildings
formerly known as the “Great Wardrobe,” “z” about
sixteen feet of the Roman city wall was found to have{47}
been incorporated with it; and so recently as 1904
several excavations were made immediately to the south
of it in order to ascertain, if possible, whether any traces
of the continuation southwards towards the river of
the line of the Roman wall could be found, or any
foundations indicating the point at which it turned
westwards; but the demolitions and rebuildings upon
the site have been so numerous and so frequent that
all traces have been obliterated, nor is it probable that
any other remains of the Roman wall will ever be laid
bare within the Tower area.[28]

A plain outer wall, devoid of towers, faced the river,
and some kind of an entrance gateway must have been
erected at the south-west angle of the new outer ward,
where now stands the Byward Gate, “F.” The inner
ward was probably entered by a gate, now replaced
by the Bloody Tower Gate, “m.” A wide and deep
ditch was also excavated round the new works, which
the Chancellor appears to have expected would be filled
by the Thames; but inasmuch as it was not provided
with any dams or sluices for retaining the water when
the tide was out (a work carried out successfully in a
later reign), the chroniclers record with great exultation
that this part of Longchamp’s work was a comparative
failure.[29]

The level of the greater part of the inner ward, “7,”
is (as will be seen by the figures upon the plan, which
represent the heights in feet above the mean sea-level)
some fifteen feet above that of the outer ward, and
but little below that of Great Tower Hill. It seems
probable that much of the clay from the ditch excavated
by Longchamp was piled up round the western and
northern sides of this inner ward, thus completely
burying the base or battering plinth of the keep (now{48}
only visible at the south-eastern angle), while at the
same time it served as a revetment to the curtain wall,
and strengthened the city side of the fortress against
any attack.

Whilst these works were in progress, the Chancellor
seems to have seized upon some lands of the Priory
of the Holy Trinity in East Smithfield, and removed
a mill belonging to St. Katherine’s Hospital. These
illegal usurpations, coupled with his excessive and
unscrupulous taxation of clergy and laity alike for the
conduct of these new works, seem to have aroused great
indignation at the time, and doubtless contributed to
his sudden downfall. His high-handed proceedings
appear to have formed a ground for claims, not settled
until, long years afterwards, a rent, by way of
compensation for the land so unjustly taken, was paid
by Edward I.

In 3 Richard I. the Pipe Roll records further
expenditure upon lime, stone, timber, brushwood,
“crates” (a kind of wickerwork hurdle), and stakes
or piles for works at the Tower.

In 5 Richard I. there is an outlay upon a “palicium,”
or palisade, “furnished with mangonels (or stone-casting
engines) and other things necessary,” “circa turrim
Lond,” which probably refers to an outwork or barbican
covering the western entrance gate, for the expression
“turrim” must here be taken in its widest sense as we
should now employ it, meaning not merely the keep,
but the whole castle.

The total amount expended during the last five
years of Richard’s reign was only £280 14s. 10d., so
that all the extensive new works previously referred
to were probably completed before 1194.

Lest it be thought that undue importance has been
attached to the extensive use of timber stockades or
palisades for the first defensive works at the Tower,
it may here be conveniently pointed out that, with but{49}
few exceptions, the early castles were of earth and
timber only. The keep-towers, as well as the palisades,
were of timber, and the constant employment of timber
by mediæval military engineers extended into the
fourteenth century![30]

The lower bailey of the royal castle at Windsor
was not walled with stone until 1227, yet we find it
in 1216 successfully resisting for upwards of three
months a vigorous siege (aided by projectile engines)
by the combined forces of the French and the
Barons.[31]

Still later, we find Edward I. erecting a strong
temporary castle in timber at Flint[32] in his Welsh war
of 1277; and, again, in his Scotch war, building small
castles, with keeps and gatehouses, in timber, called
“Peels,”[33] at Dumfries, Linlithgow, Lochmaben, Selkirk,
and elsewhere in 1300 and subsequent years.

The Pipe Rolls of John show an outlay for the entire
reign of some £420 19s. 8½d. on sundry works at the
Tower, carried out by Master Elias, the engineer, and
Master Robert de Hotot, the master carpenter; but, save
for the stereotyped item of repairs to the King’s houses,
deepening the ditch on the north towards the city, and
building a mud or clay wall round the Tower precinct
or “liberty” (frequently mentioned in surveys of later
date), nothing is named, except the “Church of
St. Peter at the Tower,” from which, in 1210, we find
the King granting to one Osbert, a knight, a gift of
ten marks, and a hundred shillings to buy a horse for
his journey to Poitou. The Devereux tower, “c,” the
Bell tower, “a,” Wardrobe tower, “s,” and Cold Harbour
gate, were probably all completed about this time.

{50}

We now arrive at the long reign of Henry III., during
which the various Rolls are full of detailed information
as to alterations, repairs, and new works at the Tower,
which, full of interest as they are, considerations of
space forbid our quoting in extenso.

In 1221 occurs the first instance of a body of
prisoners being sent to the Tower. They were taken at
the siege of Bytham Castle, in Lincolnshire, from whence
seven men with carts were employed in their transport
to London, while sixteen iron rings were made for their
safe custody. New barriers in timber were erected, and
a well was made, perhaps that at “w,” but not probably
that now existing in the basement of the keep. A new
tower adjoining the hall is built, probably the upper
story of the Hall tower, “l,” having a roof of lead, and
a chapel or oratory, which still exists in this tower, and
so helps in its identification.

The Liberate Roll of 23 Henry III. contains directions
from the King to the Constable relative to the
“whitewashing and painting of the Queen’s chamber,
within our chamber, with flowers on the pointings, and
cause the drain of our private chamber to be made in
the fashion of a hollow column, as our beloved servant,
John of Ely (probably the King’s favourite clerk and
famous pluralist, John Mansel), shall more fully declare
unto thee.”[34]

The chronicler records the fall of a handsome gate,
with outworks and bastions, on the night of St. George’s
Day, April 23rd, 1240, probably from inattention to the
foundations. The King, on hearing of it, ordered the
fallen structure to be more securely rebuilt. A year
later the same thing happened again, which the
chronicler states was due to the supernatural interference{51}
of St. Thomas à Becket, and that the citizens of London
were nothing sorry, for they had been told that a great
number of separate cells had been constructed in the
fallen towers, to the end that many might be confined
in divers prisons, and yet have no communication one
with another.[35]

After more than 12,000 marks had been thus
fruitlessly expended, the King, in order to propitiate
the saint, after ordering the tower to be rebuilt for the
third time, and called by his name, also ordered a small
oratory to be constructed in its south-east turret.
Whether the saint allowed himself to be thus propitiated,
or that greater care had been bestowed upon its
foundations, this tower, which at first served as the
water gate of the fortress, and was known as that of
St. Thomas, “I,” was in Tudor times used as a landing-place
for state prisoners, and thence derived its dismal
but better known appellation of “Traitors’ Gate.”

This tower, though “restored” in 1866, still stands
as solidly as when first erected. Its wide interior arch
of sixty-one feet span, with joggled arch stones, is
a most remarkable piece of work.

The legend may be considered as evidence that
about 1239-1241 the King was engaged in constructing
all the great works upon the south or river front of
the Tower. The Middle Tower gate, “E,” the Byward
Tower gate, “F,” the dam or bridge between them, the
before-mentioned water gate, “I,” the Lanthorn tower,
“k,” its new turret, “J,” the south postern or Cradle
tower, “K,” the Well tower, “L,” the tower leading to
the east postern, “M,”[36] the dam, with its bridge and
sluices for the retention of the water in the ditch, and
the east postern, “N,” were each and all of them works{52}
of sufficient importance to be replaced, no matter what
the cost, when destroyed by the subsidence of
foundations probably insufficient when placed upon a
footing of wet and treacherous London clay so near
the shifting foreshore of the river. The great quay,
or wharf, “Kaia Regis,” “O,” is first mentioned in
1228.

The distinction of having been (albeit unconsciously)
the founder of the present Zoological Society might
well be claimed for Henry III., as, although Henry I.
had a collection of wild beasts at Woodstock Palace,[37]
yet in this reign the menagerie at the Tower is first
mentioned.

In 1252 a white bear from Norway is recorded as
kept at the Tower, and the sheriffs of London are
directed to pay 4d. a day for his sustenance and that
of his keeper, with a muzzle, and a strong chain to
hold him when out of the water, also “unam longam,
et fortem cordam ad tenendum eundem ursum piscantem
in aquae Thamesis,” or, in other words, a long strong
cord to hold the said bear when fishing in the water
of Thames![38]

Already in 1235 the Emperor Frederick had sent
the King three leopards, in allusion to the royal armorial
bearings of England.

In 1255 Louis of France presented Henry with an
elephant, which was landed at Sandwich, and brought
to the Tower,[39] where a house or shed forty feet by twenty
feet was built to contain him, again at the expense of
the sheriffs of London, on whose Corporation the King
seems to have had a playful habit of throwing the
expense of these and all other such little matters as
he could thus avoid paying for himself.

{53}

During the reigns of the three Edwards the collection
of wild beasts was largely increased from time to time,
and lions were kept in the great Barbican, “C,” long
known as the Lions’ tower, which probably gave rise
to the expression, “Seeing the Lions at the Tower.”

The menagerie remained there until, in 1834, the
various houses were found to impede the restoration
of the entrance towers and gates, so they were removed
to their present quarters in the Regent’s Park; but, most
unfortunately, the necessity for the conservation of the
Barbican as an important feature of the mediæval
fortress was but imperfectly understood, and it was
entirely demolished, its ditch filled up, the present
unsightly ticket office and engine house being erected
on its site.[40]

Besides the towers already named, the outer ward
was additionally secured against any attempts at
surprise by several cross-walls, “G,” with gates, which
subdivided it into several independent sections; so that,
were any one gate forced, the assailants would only
obtain possession of a small courtyard, in which they
could be attacked in flank and front, and be overwhelmed
by missiles from the curtain walls and towers.
All these have long been removed, but their sites will
be found marked upon the plan. The two posterns in
the north wall of the inner ward against the Devilin
and Martin towers, “c” and “g,” were not made till 1681.

In spite of all these multiplied means of defence,
the Tower was once surprised by a mob in 1381, on
which occasion Simon of Sudbury, Archbishop of
Canterbury, and Sir Robert Hales, the Treasurer, whom
they found in the chapel, were dragged to instant
execution by these lawless miscreants, but it is possible{54}
that the way was paved by some treachery on the part
of those in charge of the gates.

Though subjected to various sieges, the Tower was
only once surrendered, after the one in 1460.

In 1263 two posterns were made for the service of
the palace. One of these was undoubtedly the Cradle
tower, “K“; the other may have been that of the
Byward tower, “H,” subsequently rebuilt about the time
of Richard II.

In 1267 the Papal Legate, Cardinal Ottobon, took
refuge in the tower, which was promptly besieged by
the Earl of Gloucester. According to the Chronicle of
T. Wykes, “the King threw reinforcements into the
fortress, and brought out the Legate by the south
postern,” which can only have been one of the two
posterns before mentioned, or that of the Iron Gate
tower, “N,” which then gave upon the open country
without the city walls.

To return to the records. In 1240 the King directed
the keepers of the works at the Tower to repair all
the glass windows of St. John’s Chapel, also those of
the great chamber towards the Thames, “J,” and to
make a great round turret in one corner of the said
chamber, so that the drain from it may descend to
the Thames, and to make a new cowl on the top of
the kitchen of the great tower (the keep?).[41]

In the following year, “the leaden gutters of the keep
are to be carried down to the ground, that its newly
whitewashed external walls may not be defaced by the
dropping of the rain-water; and at the top, on the
south side, deep alures of good timber, entirely and
well covered with lead, are to be made, through which
people may look even unto the foot of the tower, and
ascend to better defend it if need be (this evidently
refers to a wooden hoarding projecting beyond the{55}
stone battlements, and supported on beams and brackets).
Three new painted glass windows are to be made for
St. John’s Chapel, with images of the Virgin and Child,
the Trinity, and St. John the Apostle; the cross and
beam (rood-beam) beyond the altar are to be painted
well, and with good colours, and whitewash all the
old wall round our aforesaid tower.”[42]

In 1244, Griffin, the eldest son of Llewellyn, Prince
of North Wales, was a prisoner in the keep, and was
allowed half a mark (6s. 8d.) for his daily sustenance.
“Impatient of his tedious imprisonment, he attempted
to escape, and having made a cord out of his sheets,
tapestries, and tablecloths, endeavoured to lower himself
by it; but, less fortunate than Flambard, when he had
descended but a little, the rope snapped from the weight
of his body (for he was a big man, and very corpulent),
he fell, and was instantly killed, his corpse being found
next morning at the base of the keep, with his head
and neck driven in between his shoulders from the
violence of the impact, a horrible and lamentable
spectacle,” as the chronicler feelingly expresses it.[43]

In 1237 there is a curious reference to a small cell
or hermitage, apparently situated upon the north side
of St. Peter’s Chapel, near the place marked “q.” It
was inhabited by an “inclusus,” or immured anchorite,
who daily received one penny by the charity of the
King. A robe also appears to have been occasionally
presented to the inmate. It was in the King’s gift, and
seems, from subsequent references in the records, to
have been bestowed upon either sex indifferently, unless
there were two cells, for the record mentions it in one
place as the “reclusory” or “ankerhold” of St. Peter,
and in another as that of St. Eustace.[44]

{56}

The Liber Albus also mentions, in the time of
Edward III., a grant of the “Hermitage near the garden
of our Lord the King upon Tower Hill.”[45] This last
was probably near the orchard of “perie,” or pear trees,
first planted by Henry III. on Great Tower Hill,
doubtless in what were known as the “Nine gardens
in the Tower Liberty,” adjoining the postern in the city
wall.

In 1250, the King directs his chamber in the Lanthorn
tower, “k,” to be adorned with a painting of the story
of Antioch[46] and the combat of King Richard.

From the time of John, the Tower seems to have been
used as an arsenal, suits of armour, siege engines, and
iron fetters being kept there; and in 1213 we find
John drawing from the stores in the fortress thirty
“dolia” or casks of wine, and also giving orders that
“bacones nostros qui sunt apud turrim” should be
killed and salted, so that pig-styes and wine cellars
then formed part of its domestic buildings.

In 1225 the manufacture of crossbows was carried
on. The “Balistarius,” or master bowyer (who perhaps
gave his name to the Bowyer tower, “e,” in the basement
of which he had his workshop), had twelve pence a day,
with a suit of clothes and three servants (probably
assistant workmen). Other officials were appointed to
provide and keep in store armour, arrows, and projectile
engines.[47]

With the accession of Edward I., the long list of
works at the Tower practically comes to an end.

In 1274 there is a payment of two hundred marks
for the completion of the great barbican, with its ditch,{57}
commenced by Henry III., afterwards known as the
Lions’ tower, “C,” which probably included the outer
gate at “B,” called the Lions’ Gate.

The chapel of St. Peter was rebuilt about 1305,
St. Thomas’ tower, “I,” was finished, and connected by
a flying bridge with the upper story of the Hall tower,
“l.” This, though subsequently destroyed, was restored
by Mr. Salvin in 1867, at which time, the new Record
Office in Fetter Lane being completed, the State papers
formerly kept in the Hall tower, and elsewhere in the
Tower, were removed thither. The basement of the Hall
tower was vaulted, and its upper story fitted up for
the reception of the regalia. The Crown jewels were
removed from the Martin or Jewel tower, “g,” where
they were formerly kept, which was the scene of the
notorious Colonel Blood’s attempt to steal the crown in
1673. The keeper of the regalia now resides in the
upper part of St. Thomas’ tower, above Traitors’ Gate,
and has thus ready access at all times to his important
charge.

In 1289 the great ditch was again enlarged, and in
1291 occurs the entry already mentioned of the annual
payment of five marks as compensation to the “Master,
Brethren, and Sisters of St. Katherine’s Hospital, near
our Tower, for the damage they have sustained by the
enlargement of the ditch that we caused to be made
round the aforesaid Tower.”[48]

It is probable that towards the close of this reign
vaultings of stone replaced wooden floors in several of
the towers, and other improvements were made in them.
The clay from the ditch was sold by the Constable to
the tile-makers of East Smithfield. In the first year
it only yielded 20s., but during the twelve years the
work was in progress it contributed £7 on the average
every year to the exchequer, a large sum when the{58}
relative value of money is considered, and equal to
more than £100 a year of the present currency![49]

In 1278 no less than 600 Jews were imprisoned
in the Tower on a charge of clipping and debasing
the coin. Many of them are said to have been confined
in that gloomy vault now called “Little Ease,” where,
from the entire absence of sanitary accommodation
and proper ventilation, their numbers were rapidly
thinned by death.[50]

The Tower of London.

The mural arcade of the inner curtain wall between
the Bell tower, “a,” the Beauchamp tower, “b,” and
the Devereux tower, “c,” is probably of this period.
In spite of much patching and alterations to adapt
it for the use of firearms, it bears a close resemblance
in its design to those of Caernarvon Castle and Castle
Coch, near Cardiff. The great quay, “O,” does not
appear to have been walled through; it had its own
gates, “P,” at either end. Two small towers (now
removed) protected the drawbridges of the two posterns,
“H” and “K.” The outer curtain wall, “R,” commanded
the ditch and wharf, and was in its turn commanded
by the more lofty inner curtain, “8,” and its towers,
and these again by the keep, while the narrow limits
of the outer ward effectually prevented any attempts
to escalade them by setting up movable towers, or by
breaching them with battering rams. Any besiegers who
succeeded in entering the outer ward would be overwhelmed
by the archery from these wall arcades at
such point-blank range that even plate armour would
be no protection, while, should they succeed in carrying
the inner ward, the remnant of the defenders might
retreat to the keep, and, relying upon its passive strength,
hold out to the last within its massive walls in hope{59}
of external succour, before famine or a breach compelled
a surrender.

The Scotch wars of Edward I. filled the Tower with
many distinguished prisoners, among whom were the
Earls of Ross, Athol, and Menteith, and the famous
Sir William Wallace. They seem to have experienced
a varying degree of severity: some were ordered to
be kept in a “strait prison in iron fetters,” as were
the Bishops of Glasgow and St. Andrew’s (though they
were imprisoned elsewhere); others are to be kept “body
for body,” that is to say, safely, but not in irons, with
permission to hear mass; while a few are to be treated
with leniency, and have chambers, with a privy chamber
or latrine attached.[51]

In 1303 the King (then at Linlithgow) sent the
Abbot of Westminster and forty-eight of his monks
to the Tower on a charge of having stolen £100,000
of the royal treasure placed in the abbey treasury for
safe-keeping! After a long trial, the sub-prior and
the sacrist were convicted and executed, when their
bodies were flayed and the skins nailed to the doors
of the re-vestry and treasury of the abbey as a solemn
warning to other such evildoers,[52] the abbot and the rest
of the monks being acquitted.

No works of any importance can be assigned to the
reign of Edward II., the only occurrences of importance
being the downfall of the Knights Templars and the
imprisonment of many of them at the Tower, where
the Grand Prior, William de la More, expired in solitary
confinement a few months after the close of the
proceedings that marked the suppression of the order;
and the escape of Roger Mortimer from the keep (which
reads almost like a repetition of Flambard’s), the{60}
consequences to the constable being his disgrace and
imprisonment.[53]

The Tower was the principal arsenal of Edward III.,
who in 1347 had a manufactory of gunpowder there,
when various entries in the Records mention purchases
of sulphur and saltpetre “pro gunnis Regis.”[54]

A survey of the Tower was ordered in 1336, and
the Return to it is printed in extenso by Bayley.[55] Some
of the towers are called by names (as for example,
“Corande’s” and “la Moneye” towers, the latter
perhaps an early reference to the Mint) which no longer
distinguish them. The Return shows that these—the
Iron gate tower, “N,” the two posterns of the wharf, and
Petty Wales, “P.P.,” the wharf itself, and divers other
buildings—were all in need of repair, the total amount
for the requisite masonry, timber, tile work, lead, glass,
and iron work being £2,154 17s. 8d.!

In 1354 the city ditch is ordered to be cleansed and
prevented from flowing into the Tower ditch, and,
according to the Liber Albus, the penalty of death
was promulgated against anyone bathing in the
Tower ditch, or even in the Thames adjacent to the
Tower!

In 1347 the Tower received, in the person of David,
King of Scotland, the first of a long line of royal
prisoners, and in 1358 the large sum of £2 12s. 9d.
was paid for his medicine. John, King of France,
Richard II., Henry VI., Edward V., Queens Jane Dudley,
Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, and Princess Elizabeth
complete the list.

The Great Wardrobe, “z,” adjoining the Wardrobe
tower, “s,” the Beauchamp tower, “b,” the upper story{61}
of the Bowyer tower, “e,” and perhaps the Constable
and Broad Arrow towers, “h” and “i,” are probably
of this period.

Mr. Clark attributes the Bloody Tower gate, “m,”
to this reign, but an entrance existed there long before.
Most probably it was remodelled, and the vaulting and
portcullis were inserted about this time, or early in the
reign of Richard II., to whom he also attributes the
rebuilding of the Byward tower postern, “H.”

There is but little to record in the way of new works
after this. Edward IV., in 1472, built an advanced work,
called the Bulwark Gate, “A,” and nothing further
transpires till the reign of Henry VIII., who ordered
a survey of the dilapidations to be made in 1532.
The repairs of this period, being mostly in brickwork
and rough cast, with flint chips inserted in the joints
of the masonry, are easily recognised, as are those of
Wren by his use of Portland stone.

The buildings of the old palace being much out of
repair, the quaint old timber-framed dwelling, “n,”
adjoining the Bell tower, “a,” was built about this time.
It is now called the “Lieutenant’s Lodgings,” but was
first known as the “King’s House.” It contains a curious
monument commemorating the Gunpowder Plot of 1605,
of which it gives an account, and enumerates the names
of the conspirators, and of the Commissioners by whom
they were tried.

The quaint storehouses of the Tudor period were
replaced in the reign of William III. by an unsightly
building, destroyed by fire in 1841, the site of which
is now occupied by the Wellington barracks.

The old palace buildings have long since vanished
entirely. Towers have been rebuilt or restored, and in
1899 a new guard house has been built between Wakefield
tower, “l,” and the south-west angle of the keep. The
hideously ugly effect of its staring new red brick in
contrast with the old and time-worn stone of the ancient{62}
fortress must be seen to be realized, its sole redeeming
feature being the impossibility of future generations
mistaking it for a building of any earlier period.
During the clearance of the site for its erection, two
discoveries were made—one of a Norman well, “w,”
which was found to have its top completely hidden
by modern brickwork; the other, a remarkable
subterranean passage, “9,” of which the presence was
only detected by its being accidentally broken into.
This, when cleared out, was found to terminate in a
horrible subterranean prison pit under the south-west
angle of the keep (with which, however, it has no means
of communication), that doubtless served as the
oubliette of the Tower. The pit was empty, but the
passage was found to contain bones, fragments of
glass and pottery, broken weapons, and many cannon
balls of iron, lead, and stone, relics probably of Wyatt’s
unsuccessful attack in 1554. Leaving the pit, the passage
dips rapidly, and, tunnelling under both wards and
their walls, emerges a little to the east of Traitors’ Gate
(see plan), where its arched head may now be seen from
the wharf, though formerly several feet below the level
of the water in the moat. As it traverses the site of
the Hall, there is some reason to suppose that the lower
end served as a sewer, for there was a similar one,
dating from 1259, at the old Palace of Westminster,
so that this may likewise be attributed to Henry III.[56]

It will be seen that the blood-curdling description
of the horrors of the rat-pit in Harrison Ainsworth’s
immortal romance is by no means devoid of some
foundation of fact, though when he wrote its existence
was unknown. Rats from the river would be attracted
to the sewer mouth by the garbage from the palace
kitchens, and if any wretched prisoner had been placed{63}
in this dreadful dungeon he would speedily have been
devoured alive![57]

The presence of a single subterranean passage at
the Tower ought not to have aroused so much surprise,
for such “souterrains” were a not infrequent feature
of the mediæval fortress. They may be found at
Arques, Chateau Gaillard, Dover, Winchester, and
Windsor (three), while Nottingham has its historic
“Mortimer’s Hole.” Sometimes they led to carefully
masked posterns in the ditches, but they were generally
carried along and at the base of the interior faces of
the curtain walls, with the object of preventing attempts
at undermining, at once betrayed to listeners by the
dull reverberations of pickaxes in the rocky ground.
There were doubtless others at the Tower, now blocked
up and forgotten; indeed, Bayley mentions something
of the kind as existing between the Devereux and Flint
towers.[58]

There is an allusion to them in the narrative by
Father Gerard, S.J., of his arrest, torture in, and escape
from the Tower in 1597;[59] but the history of the many
illustrious captives who have suffered within these walls
would in itself suffice for a large volume, while so
much, and from so many pens, has already been written
thereon, that I have contented myself with few allusions
thereto, and those necessarily of the briefest.

It is much to be regretted that military exigencies
have rendered it needful to remove from the walls of
the various prison cells many interesting inscriptions
with which their inmates strove to beguile the monotony
of captivity, and as far as possible to concentrate them
in the upper room within the Beauchamp tower, with
which many of them have no historic association
whatever; but as the public would otherwise have been{64}
debarred from any sight of them, this is far from being
the unmixed evil it might otherwise appear, while they
have been fully illustrated and carefully described by
Bayley.

About the time of Edward I. a Mint was first
established in the western and northern portions of the
outer bailey, where it remained until, in 1811, it was
removed to the New Mint in East Smithfield, and the
name “Mint Street,” given to that portion of the bailey,
now commemorates this circumstance.

When, about 1882, the extension of the “Inner Circle”
Railway was in progress, the site of the permanent
scaffold on Great Tower Hill, upon which so many
sanguinary executions took place, was discovered in
Trinity Square, remains of its stout oak posts being
found imbedded in the ground. A blank space, with a
small tablet in the grass of the Square garden, now
marks the spot.

In a recent work upon the Tower, an amazing theory
has been seriously put forward “of State barges entering
the ditch, rowing onto a kind of submerged slipway
at the Cradle tower, when, mirabile dictu, boat and
all were to be lifted out of the water and drawn into
the fortress!” Such things are only possible in the
vivid imagination of a writer devoid of the most
elementary knowledge of the purpose for which this
gateway was designed. It suffices to point out that
no long State barge could have entered the ditch without
first performing the impossible feat of sharply turning
two corners at right angles in a space less than its
own length, and too confined to allow oars to be used,
while there are no recorded instances of such mediæval
equivalents of the modern floating and depositing dock!
The Cradle tower gate is too short and narrow to admit
any such a lift with a large boat upon it, nor does
it contain the slightest trace of anything of the kind,
or of the machinery necessary for its working. Although{65}
prior to the restoration in 1867 there were side openings
to Traitors’ Gate as well as that from the river, not
only were they too low and narrow to admit a boat,
but they were fitted with sluice gates for the retention
of the water in the moat when the tide was out, which
were used until, in 1841, the moat itself was drained
and levelled, and the Thames excluded by a permanent
dam. The Cradle tower was, as already stated, a
postern, leading from the wharf to the Royal Palace,
and derived its name from its cradle or drawbridge that
here spanned the waters of the moat.

When, in the time of Henry VIII. and his successors,
the water gate, “I,” ceased to be a general entrance,
and was only used as a landing-place for State prisoners
on their way to and from trial at Westminster, it first
received the less pleasing appellation it still bears of
“Traitors’ Gate.”

The procedure when the Queen or any distinguished
person visited the Tower by water was as follows:
They alighted from the State barge at the Queen’s stairs,
“Q,” on the river face of the quay, “O,” and traversing
this on foot or in a litter, entered the Tower by the
Cradle tower postern, “K,” which afforded the readiest
and most direct access to the Palace in the inner ward,
while it was entirely devoid of any sinister associations.

In conclusion, it only remains for me to express my
thanks to the Major of the Tower, Lieutenant-General
Sir George Bryan Milman, K.C.B., for the permission
so courteously accorded to visit and examine portions
of the fortress closed to the general public, and to the
officials of the Tower for facilities kindly afforded me
to do so on several occasions.{66}

ST. BARTHOLOMEW THE GREAT,
SMITHFIELD

By J. Tavenor-Perry

Anyone now visiting the Church of St.
Bartholomew the Great, after a lapse of fifty
years, would scarcely recognize in the present
stately building the woe-begone and neglected
place of his recollections. In the apse and the transepts,
in the lofty screen to the west of the stalls, suggesting a
hidden nave beyond, and in the glimpses of the Lady
Chapel across the eastern ambulatory, he would see the
completed choir of some collegiate church, of which the
principal architectural features suggested an ancient
foundation. It is true that, in the church of fifty years
ago, the Norman details were still very distinct, though
the round arches of the arcades had been parodied by
the Georgian windows of the east end, and by the
plastered romanesque reredos; but gloom and darkness
overspread the whole place, encroachments of the most
incongruous kinds had invaded the most sacred portions,
and to the casual observer it seemed impossible that
the church could ever be rescued from the ruin with
which it was threatened, or reclaimed from the squalor
by which it was surrounded.

To understand the difficulties which lay before the
restorers, who, in 1863, commenced the task of saving
the building from annihilation, and to properly appreciate
what they have achieved, as well as what they only{67}
aimed at accomplishing, it is necessary to give some
account of the state of the fabric in that year, and, without
repeating at undue length the oft-told tale of its
foundation, to give a history of the church during the
eight hundred years of its existence.

The founder, both of the priory and of the hospital,
was one Rahere, of whom but little is certainly known.
Some assume that he was that same Rahere who assisted
Hereward in his stand against the Norman invaders of the
Cambridgeshire fens, but if so, this did not prevent him,
later on, from attaching himself to the court of the
Conqueror’s son. He is generally described as having
been jester to Henry I., and it has been assumed that
the nature of his engagement involved a course of life
calling for repentance and a pilgrimage. But whatever
the reason may have been, he apparently went to Rome
in 1120, though the journey at that particular juncture
was a very unsafe proceeding. He may, perhaps, have
joined himself to the train of Pope Calixtus II., who had
just been elected at Cluny, in succession to the fugitive
Gelasius II., and who made his journey to Rome in the
spring of that year. If so, he arrived in Rome at the
very worst season, and like many others who visit the
city in the summer, he contracted the usual fever.
During his illness, or after his recovery, St. Bartholomew
appeared to him in a vision, and directed him, on his
return to London, to found a church in his honour,
outside the walls, at a place called Smithfield. Although
visions and their causes are not always explicable, the
association of St. Bartholomew with this dream of
Rahere’s may, perhaps, be accounted for. The church
of S. Bartolommeo all’Isola had been built, a century
before Rahere’s visit, within the ruined walls of the
Temple of Æsculapius, on the island of the Tiber, and
Saint had succeeded, in some measure, to the
traditional healing-power of the God. In classic times,
those who flocked to the shrine generally stayed there{68}
for one or two nights, when the healer appeared to them
in a vision, and gave them directions for their cure. So,
in mediæval times, his successor and supplanter followed
the same course, but provided cures for the soul rather
than for the body.

Rahere can have lost but little time in hastening
home and obtaining from the King a grant of the
prescribed land, for we find that within three years of
his visit to Rome the church of his new convent was
sufficiently advanced for consecration, and presumably
the convent itself was ready for occupation. The new
priory was designed for the reception of Canons Regular
of the Order of St. Augustine, and the reason for the
founder’s adoption of this Order, apart from the fact
that it was somewhat fashionable at this period, may
have been partly because his former occupation had
particularly fitted him for public speaking, and partly
because two, at least, of the men with whom he had
been closely associated at Henry’s court were themselves
members of this order. And it is necessary to bear
these facts in mind in considering the never-to-be-determined
question of whether the apse of St. Bartholomew’s
was ever completed by Rahere.

These two friends of the founder’s were Richard de
Belmeis, Bishop of London, and William de Corbeil, or
Corboyle, Archbishop of Canterbury, and they were not
only themselves Austin Canons, but were actively
engaged in spreading the influence of that order. The
Bishop had then recently built the Priory of St. Osyth,
in Essex, of which the Archbishop, who had previously
been connected with the Priory of Merton, had been the
first prior. Moreover, Corbeil, soon after he had received
the pallium, obtained permission to suppress the
monastery of St. Martin-le-Grand—for monasteries
were suppressed in the reign of the first Henry,
as well as in the reign of the last—and devote its
revenues to building a new priory for Austin Canons,{69}
outside the walls of Dover. This priory, known as St.
Martin New-work, of which considerable portions remain
to this day, presents what may be regarded as a model
plan of a church of this order, and consisted of a small
square-ended choir, shallow transepts, and a large nave
with aisles. From this it is evident that Rahere’s
building differed most essentially from the recognized
type, and the question is, did his friends point out to
him his deviation from the almost invariable rule of the
Austin Canons to give their churches a square east end
in time to enable him to modify his design, or were they
able to induce him, after he had completed his apse, to
remove the two easternmost piers, and to insert in place
of them a square-ended chapel? But to this question
no answer has ever been discovered.{70}

Fig. 1—Norman Capital.
Discovered in 1863.

Fig. 2—Priory Gate and Church Tower in 1863.

Fig. 3—Transitional Capital.
Discovered in 1863.

At the death of Rahere, in 1143, but a small part
of his great scheme had been achieved, of the existing
church perhaps no more than the choir to the top of
the triforium and the choir aisles; but judging from
fragments discovered from time to time, such as the
capital to a nook shaft shown in fig. 1, which clearly{71}
belong to this period, he had completed other works
which have now been destroyed. Perhaps during his
life-time the conventual buildings, as was the case at
Merton, were mainly of wood, and of a merely temporary
character; but it may be assumed that these, together
with the cloisters, had been built when the great arch,
which formed the entrance to the priory (shown in fig. 2),
was completed about the middle of the thirteenth century.
The work to the choir and transepts went on gradually,
no doubt, without any alteration of design, or only such
modifications in the details as resulted from the changes
in progress in the style, until their completion, and it
is likely that the end of the twelfth century saw the
conclusion of that section of the work. The fragment
given in fig. 3 is a fair example of this transitional
style. In the building of the nave, which was a very
important part of the church with the Austin Canons,
who sought by their preaching to attract large congregations,
some fresh departure in the design was made.
Evidence of this can be seen in the east bay of the
south side (fig. 4), where an Early English clustered-shaft,
with the springing of some groining, standing
clear of the older Norman pier, gives an idea of the{72}
character of the work of the now destroyed nave. With
this building, which was apparently achieved before the
close of the thirteenth century, we may regard the priory
as finished, having taken over a hundred and fifty years
to accomplish.

After a lapse of two hundred years, it is not unlikely
that the building had fallen somewhat into a state of
dilapidation and for that reason, as well, perhaps, from
a desire for improvement and display, large works of
alteration and rebuilding were undertaken at the beginning
of the fifteenth century. Prior John Walford, of
whom little is known, except that he was summoned to
a convocation at Oxford in 1407, is credited with the
work, which embraced the new east wall to the choir,
and perhaps a reredos, the Lady Chapel and chapels,
on the north side of the north ambulatory, and the rebuilding
of the east walk of the cloisters with rooms above.
But although Prior John may have been the agent
for carrying out all these works, the initiative was
probably due to Roger de Walden, afterwards Bishop of
London. This man, who had a most remarkable career,
was in some way closely associated with St. Bartholomew’s,
for his stepmother resided in its vicinity, and he
had a brother John, a man of considerable wealth, who
is described as an esquire of St. Bartholomew, Smithfield.
During the reign of Richard II., Roger de Walden
held high and lucrative ecclesiastical appointments, and
in 1395 became Dean of York and Treasurer of England,
and when Archbishop Arundel was banished from the
realm in 1397 for his share in the conspiracy of his
brother, Roger was advanced to the See of Canterbury.
After the downfall of Richard, Arundel returned to
England, and Roger was ousted from his seat; but
strange though it may appear, the Archbishop bore him
so little ill-will for his usurpation that he induced
Henry IV., though with some difficulty, to agree to his
nomination to the Bishopric of London at the next{73}
voidance of the See. As Bishop of London, he died in
1406, and though he lay in state in his chantry chapel
at St. Bartholomew’s, it is believed that he was actually
buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Fig. 4—East Bay of South Aisle of Nave.

{74}It was during his years of prosperity, and before he
had anticipated the honours to which he afterwards
succeeded, that he built his chantry chapel in the church
with which his early youth was doubtless associated, and
tradition, to some extent supported by both architectural
and heraldic evidence, has identified the screen in which
Rahere’s monument is encased as a portion of that
chapel. The beautiful canopies and tracery, the character
of the carving of the effigy and its attendant figures, and
the arms of England emblazoned on one of the shields,
all point to a date supporting the tradition, whilst the
arms, which seem undoubtedly to be Walden’s, displayed
on the fourth shield make it improbable that the work
can be assigned to any other person.

Of the building carried out at this time, except the
screen of the chantry chapel and some portions of the
restored cloister, but little remains, and all the evidences
which might have enabled us to determine how far the
east wall was a restoration, or an entirely new work,
were swept away when the apse was rebuilt. That this
east wall was not merely a reredos is shown by the fact
that the upper part rose clear of the aisles, and was
pierced by two large traceried windows in the same
position as the Georgian windows which lighted the
church in the last century, and it is quite possible that
it was only a restoration of an earlier wall, which had
been built across the apse so as to make it conform to
the Austin Canon rule. The screen of the chantry
chapel, the two eastern bays of which have been
destroyed, but which is shown complete in our illustration
(fig. 5), may have been continued across the east
wall, and formed the reredos itself, but all traces of this
were effaced in subsequent alterations.{75}

Fig. 5—Screen of Roger de Walden’s Chantry,
and Rahere’s Monument.

{76}

One alteration was made in the choir which very
much affected the proportions of the building between
the date of its first building and the erection of Rahere’s
monument. Perhaps because the ground outside the
church had become raised by the building operations,
which had gone on around it, and the drainage of the
interior had become defective, or for some other reason,
the floor over all the eastern part was filled in for a
depth of nearly three feet, dwarfing considerably the
Norman arcades, and burying the bases of the columns;
and it was upon this altered level the screen of Bishop
Roger de Walden’s chantry was built.

Having undergone such extensive repairs the priory
received no further alterations until, after another hundred
years, William Bolton became prior in 1506. It has been
asserted, on what seem very insufficient grounds, that
Bolton was the architect of Henry VII.’s Chapel at
Westminster; but although this is very improbable, he
was associated with those who were engaged on the work,
and seems himself to have been disposed to architectural
display. He has been credited with very large alterations
to the conventual buildings, and the erection of a tower
over the crossing; but nearly all traces of his work have
disappeared, except a doorway in the south aisle, and
the beautiful window in the triforium, overlooking the
choir, which is always, known as “Prior Bolton’s window,”
and is distinguished by his rebus, a bolt in a tun, in the
centre lower panel, as is shown in the illustration (fig. 6).

Bolton’s successor, Robert Fuller, was the last of the
priors, and with him is ushered in the era of dissolution
and decay, when—

The priory was suppressed, and the great nave was
deliberately pulled down. But, except that so much of
the cloister as adjoined the nave was destroyed with it,{77}
no further demolitions took place at that time, and it was
only gradually that the conventual buildings, some of
which lasted to our own day, were removed. The choir
and transepts were preserved to form a parish church, and{78}
the area of the destroyed nave became the churchyard.
The rest of the buildings were sold by the King to Sir
Richard Rich, for the sum of £1,064 11s. 3d., not a large
sum considering the area of the site and the extent of
the buildings, which included, among others, the prior’s
lodgings, styled “the Mansion,” which had housed so
great a man as Prior Bolton.

Fig. 6—Prior Bolton’s Window.

In Queen Mary’s reign the Church resumed possession
of the conventual buildings, and they were occupied by
the Black Friars, who, it is said, made some attempt
to rebuild the nave; but beyond some slight works to be
seen in the east cloister, they left no traces of their
occupation behind, the sole relic remaining of them
being the seal of their head, Father Perryn, the matrix
of which has already come into the possession of the
church authorities.

With the death of Mary the friars retired, and the
choir became, once more, the parish church, and for the
next century neglect and decay continued the ruin of
the fabric. But with the advent of Laud to the See of
London, some attempts were made at reparation. It is
said that the steeple had become so ruinous that it had
to be taken down, and in 1628 the present brick tower,
which stands over what was the easternmost bay of the
south aisle of the nave, was erected. Where the ruined
steeple stood is not clear, but most probably over the
crossing, and as towers were unimportant features in the
churches of the Austin Canons, it is likely that it rose
but little above the roofs. Another and remarkable
erection of this period was the charnel-house at the east
end, known as “Purgatory,” which was constructed with
some attempt to give it a Gothic appearance, and was
attached to the reredos wall. This is shown in fig. 7,
which illustrates the eastern ambulatory, as it existed
before the restoration.{79}

Fig. 7—Eastern Ambulatory and Purgatory before Restoration.

During the great Georgian period considerable work
was done to the church, not without some attempt at{80}
architectural improvements, unappreciated, however, at
a later date. The choir appears to have been re-roofed,
the old timbers being partly re-used, but shortened by
cutting off the rotten ends, with the result that the
pitch of the roof was considerably lowered. To this
or to their own decay may be due the destruction of
the two great traceried windows at the east end, which
were replaced by two wide semi-circular headed windows,
which their designers, perhaps, fondly imagined to
accord better with the Norman arcades below. Whether
the reredos screen had already been destroyed or defaced
is uncertain, or whether, as at Southwark, they were
content with hacking off the projecting canopies cannot
now be determined, but in place of it was erected a vast
wooden structure, picturesque from its very ugliness,
more suited to the classic taste of the Georgian era. At
this time, no doubt, the church was re-pewed, and the
great pulpit, with its sounding-board, set up on the north
side of the choir.

Among the conventual buildings which had survived
to this time, and remained in occupation, was the chapter
house, which, with nearly all traces of its antiquity
destroyed, and with a gallery erected across its west
end, had been converted into a meeting-house for dissenters,
the old slype having been made into a vestry.
The access to it appears to have been the ancient one
through the east cloister, which was also standing perfect
at that time. It does not appear to have belonged to
any particular sect, but was always known as St.
Bartholomew’s Chapel, and among those who preached
in it was John Wesley, who also occasionally preached
and celebrated weddings in the church itself.

In 1830 occurred a great fire, which destroyed this
chapel, together with all the upper part of the east
cloister, and the greater part of the south transept.
Whether the great dormitory, which extended southwards
from the transepts, or any part of it, had been{81}
left standing seems uncertain, but if so, this fire must
have destroyed it. The fine undercroft of the dormitory,
which consisted of two vaulted aisles of the Transitional
period, remained perfect, and was standing as recently
as 1870, when it was ruthlessly, and, apparently, unnecessarily,
destroyed to make room for some parochial offices.

Shortly before this fire happened, some small, and not
very fortunate, attempt at a restoration was made within
the church, which resulted in more loss than gain, as
it entailed the complete destruction of any remains of
the ancient altar-screen which might have survived the
previous alterations. The Georgian reredos which had
taken its place was removed, and the east wall was
plastered over and ornamented with a blank arcade in
cement, which its architect doubtless thought agreed
with the Norman features of the church. The Georgian
pulpit was removed, and a symmetrical arrangement of
two was substituted, recalling the Gospel and Epistle
ambones of an ancient Italian church, but lacking their
beauty.

Thus, after the vicissitudes of over seven hundred
years, the church was reduced to the appearance shown
in our illustration (fig. 8), when its restoration was
seriously taken in hand in 1863.

Fig. 8—Interior of Church in 1863.

The task which the restorers then set themselves to
accomplish, and in which they have been eminently
successful, seemed at the time well-nigh hopeless. All
the conventual buildings, and everything outside the
actual walls of the church had been alienated, and, to a
great extent, destroyed, and of the church itself but a
battered torso remained. The nave had been destroyed
at the Dissolution, and its site had become the parish
churchyard; the south transept had perished in the fire of
1830, and its unroofed area had also become a burying-ground;
whilst the north transept had been gradually
encroached upon, no one knew how, and a large part of
it was then used as a forge. The desecration of the{82}
east end was almost worse. The great Lady Chapel,
which had been rebuilt in the fourteenth century, and
which had formed part of the assignment to Sir Richard
Rich, had been for long employed for trade purposes,{83}
being at one time the printing shop in which Benjamin
Franklin had worked, and was, in 1863, a factory for
fringe. This factory had gradually extended, on the
upper floor, over the eastern ambulatory, up to the back of
the reredos wall and over the south aisle, so that it was
lighted, in part, through Prior Bolton’s window from the
church itself. This encroachment over the ambulatory
shows well in the illustration (fig. 7). The north
triforium was the parish school, which, with its noises,
interfered with the services of the church, and, with the
roughness of its occupants, endangered the safety of the
groining below, and of the north wall which then leaned
dangerously from the upright. The whole area of the
church, which had been raised in the fifteenth century,
was filled with graves, many of which were dug below
the very foundations of the piers; moisture oozed over
the grave-stones and darkness overspread the walls, so
that it struck a chill into all who entered it. It was a
by-word and a desolation.

In draining the area of the church, in rebuilding the
decayed piers, and in bringing up the north wall to the
perpendicular, the restorers effected great and substantial
improvements, but in lowering the floor to its original
Norman level, and in rebuilding the apse as they believed
it was first planned, they embarked on extensive
operations which were by some regarded not only as
unessential, but as going beyond legitimate restoration;
in fact, as was pointed out by more than one, it was not
unlike an attempt to restore the nave of Winchester
Cathedral by clearing out first all the work of William
of Wykeham. There was much to be said in favour of
lowering the floor, but the building of the apse was open
to considerable question, and there is but little doubt
that had the restorers commenced the destruction of the
east wall at the top, instead of at the bottom, and so
discovered the ruins of the great traceried windows, they
would have paused in their scheme; but the position of{84}
the fringe factory prevented this, and it was only many
years after the ambulatory arcade of the apse had been
completed that this discovery was made. The question
of whether there ought to have been an apse according
to Austin Canon rule was not properly considered, but
when it was found, after the walls of Purgatory had
been removed, that there were no traces of any foundations
to the missing central piers, some doubt as to the
correctness of the course they were following was
necessarily suggested. It was then, however, thought to
be too late to alter the plans, the most important part
of the east wall having then been destroyed, and the
result is that we now have a Norman apse of uncertain
authority, crowned with a lofty traceried clerestory, which,
though a clever architectural composition, is only a
modern makeshift. In place of this, had the fifteenth
century east wall been preserved, we should have had
in the upper part the two great windows, much of the
tracery of which still remains, and beneath them the
reredos might have been renewed. In this case the
eastern portion of Roger de Walden’s screen, with its
doorway, would have been saved, and Sir Walter
Mildmay’s picturesque monument been left intact, making
altogether a more beautiful sacrarium, and a much more
truthful representation of what had once been, than the
doubtful restoration of the rude Norman apse.

In succeeding years the work of restoration went on
slowly, but much was achieved. The great schemes of
the earlier restorers were wisely reviewed, and reasonable
limitations acknowledged. All idea of rebuilding the
nave was abandoned, and the rude brick wall which had
been built to the west end of the choir was refaced in
a seemly but permanent manner. The south transept was
rebuilt over a portion only of its former area, and, with
the north transept, finished in an appropriate manner
which does not pretend to be a literal restoration. In
the Lady Chapel, when it was rescued from the fringe{85}
factory, much of the old work in the windows was found
intact, and a complete restoration had been possible.
The continuous work of the last forty years has been
crowned with success, and, although portions are
evidently modern in design and execution, the choir of
St. Bartholomew’s Priory Church has been preserved for
future generations as an example of the earliest and
most important ecclesiastical buildings of London.{86}

THE LONDON CHARTERHOUSE

By the Rev. A. G. B. Atkinson, M.A.

Of the religious houses of which remains may
be found in London, none perhaps is of greater
interest than the Charterhouse. Here More and
Colet kept retreat, and as a peaceful haven for
pensioned age the place still retains something of its
old monastic calm. Lying behind the markets of Smithfield,
its secluded courts and gardens are barely penetrated
by the roar of the great city. The history of Bruno, the
original founder of the Carthusian order, and his six
companions has often been told. It is related by Prior
Guigo that the University of Paris, professors as well
as scholars, were assembled at the funeral obsequies of
one of the most learned and pious of their number. To
the amazement of all, the dead man raised his head, and
as he sank back again on the bier called out with a loud
voice, “I have been accused at the just tribunal of God.”
Three times on three successive days this terrible
occurrence took place. Amongst those present on this
occasion who were struck with horror at the unexpected
sentence of damnation was Bruno, a native of Cologne.
He was a Canon of Rheims and professor of divinity.
Five others with him, seized with a holy fear, consulted
a hermit how they might escape the judgment of God.
To them he gave the answer of the Psalmist, “Lo, I
have prolonged my flight and remained in solitude.”
They, too, were fired with the love of solitude, and begged
of Hugh Bishop of Grenoble that he would assign them{87}
a place suitable for a retreat. This the bishop did, and
the order was established at La Chartreuse in the
mountains of Savoy in the year 1084.[60]

The Charterhouse Hospital.
From an old print by Toms.

The first Carthusian house in England was founded
by Henry II. at Witham, in Somersetshire, about the
year 1178, in fulfilment of his penitential vow taken at
the tomb of Thomas Becket. Another house was founded
at Hinton, also in Somersetshire, in 1227. An attempt
to found a house in Ireland did not succeed, the institution
only lasting forty years. A third house was founded at
Beauvale, in Nottinghamshire, in 1343. The London
Charterhouse, with which we are immediately concerned,
was the fourth house of the order established in England.
Before entering upon the details of its history it will be
well to sketch the main features of the Carthusian order,
since Carthusian houses in all their chief characteristics
closely resemble one another. Its distinguishing marks
are extreme severity and entire seclusion from the world.
The fathers live alone, each in his cell built around the
great cloister. The cell is, however, in reality a small
house, and contains four rooms, two on each floor;
adjoining these apartments is a small garden. From
the great cloister strangers are entirely excluded, and
the cell is never entered except by the father himself,
the prior, or his deputy.

A walk, the “spatiamentum,” taken once a week
together, is the only occasion upon which the fathers
leave the house; conversation is then enjoined. Upon
Sundays and Chapter feasts the monks dine together,
when some instructive book is read aloud by one of the
fathers.

The Franciscans and Dominicans are preachers, the
Benedictines maintain educational institutions, Trappists
and Cistercians cultivate the soil; but the isolation of{88}
the Carthusian fathers is complete. They may not even
leave the monastery to administer the Sacrament to the
dying, unless assured that no other priest can be secured.

Their food is thrust into their cells through a small
hatchway. They eat no meat, but fish, eggs, milk, cheese,
butter, bread, pastry, fruit, and vegetables. The brethren
or “conversi,” who are laymen, occupy themselves with
the manual labour of the monastery, but all that is
necessary in the cell is done by the father himself. When
death ends the solitary’s life he is buried uncoffined
in the cloister garth, “O beata solitudo! O sola
beatitudo!”[61]

The history of the London Charterhouse may conveniently
be divided into three periods—I., the Monastery;
II., the Palace; III., the Hospital.

I.—The Monastery, 1371-1537

The exact circumstances under which the house was
founded are involved in some obscurity, for it would
appear that at least three men were concerned at
different times in the work. The share of the first of
these, Ralph Stratford, Bishop of London, being but a
slight one, may be briefly dismissed. In 1348-49 a
terrible visitation of the black death devastated the
country. The bishop, being concerned that many were
being interred in unconsecrated ground, purchased three
acres of land in West Smithfield outside the city
boundaries, known as “no man’s land,” and consecrated
it for purposes of burial, and erected also a mortuary
chapel. The whole he called Pardon Churchyard and
Chapel. It was situated adjoining the north wall of the
garden of the monastery, and extended from St. John{89}
Street to Goswell Street. In 1349 additional ground was
required, and Sir Walter de Manny bought thirteen acres
and a rood from St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, called the
Spittle Croft, adjoining the land purchased by the bishop.
Here he also built a chapel, from which building the
Spittle Croft became known as New Church Haw. Stow
asserts that more than 50,000 bodies were interred here.
De Manny’s original intention, as appears from a bull of
Pope Urban VI. in 1378, was to endow a chantry with
a superior and twelve chaplains. This project appears,
however, subsequently to have been abandoned; for by
letters patent, dated 6th February, 1371, the King licensed
De Manny to found a house of Carthusian monks to be
called the “Salutation of the Mother of God.” In this
work De Manny had the co-operation and sanction of
Michael de Northburgh, successor to Ralph Stratford in
the bishopric of London. It seems probable that when
De Manny was summoned abroad on the King’s wars
Northburgh took up the work, and that to enable him
to do so effectually the land De Manny had bought was
transferred to him by a nominal sale.[62] The bishop died
in 1361, and from his will it appears that he had acquired
the land above mentioned, as well as the patronage of
the chapel, from De Manny. Further, he left £2,000 and
various lands and tenements to found a convent of
Carthusians. De Manny and Bishop Northburgh thus
share between them the credit of the foundation, although
the allusion in the Papal Bull of Urban VI., “Conventum
duplicem ordinis Carthusiensis,” refers unquestionably not
to the fact that there were two founders, but to the
fact that the monastery was intended for twenty-four
monks—double the usual number. Sir Walter de Manny,
who may perhaps be regarded as the chief founder, was{90}
a native of Valenciennes, and was descended from the
Counts of Hainault. Froissart, his fellow-countryman, is
our chief authority for the events of his life, and has
recorded at length his deeds of bravery and daring on
many fields of battle. With these we are not concerned
at length. It is sufficient to note that he first came to
England in the train of Queen Philippa, distinguished
himself in the Scottish wars, and was the recipient of
many grants of land and other favours from Edward III.
He was present at the battle of Sluys in 1359, and had
conferred upon him the Order of the Garter. After an
eventful career De Manny died in January, 1372. His
will, dated November 30th, 1371, was proved at Lambeth,
13th April, 1372. He left directions that he should be
buried in as unostentatious a manner as possible; but
this being coupled with the provision that a penny should
be paid to all poor persons coming to his funeral, it is
not surprising to learn that the funeral procession was
a large one. He was buried in the middle of the choir,
and a fragment of the tomb was found in a wall which
was being repaired in 1896, and may be seen to-day in
the chapel of the Charterhouse. Various other benefactions
were made to the house, and in particular
a further grant of four acres of land from the
hospital of S. John of Jerusalem in 1378. The relations
existing between these two neighbouring institutions were
always of a friendly character. John Luscote was
appointed the first prior, and held office till shortly before
his death, which took place in 1398. During many
succeeding years the history of the foundation was
uneventful, the peaceful life of the monks in their
secluded home affording little of interest to the historian.[63]

Happy were the monks when they had no history.{91}
Troubles gathered thick around their successors of a later
age, after the accession of Henry VIII. to the throne.

John Houghton was elected prior in 1531, and it is
around his personality that the interest of the history now
centres. “He was small,” we are told, “in stature, in
figure graceful, in countenance dignified. In manner he
was most modest, in eloquence most sweet, in chastity
without a stain.” Such was the man who worthily upheld
the traditions of his order during the Reformation troubles.
For these and the succeeding events we have the
authority of Maurice Chauncey, one of the fathers.[64]

In 1533 Henry obtained the sanction of Cranmer in
the Archbishop’s Court to his divorce from Catherine,
and the King’s marriage with Anne Boleyn was confirmed
by Parliament. In 1534 the Royal Commissioners called
upon the prior and monks of the Charterhouse to make
formal approval of the marriage. Prior Houghton and
the procurator Humphrey Middlemore were committed
to the Tower, the Commissioners being dissatisfied with
the nature of their answers. After a month’s imprisonment
they were induced to swear to the King’s laws “as
far as the law of God permitted,” and were released and
returned to the Charterhouse. The Commissioners
extracted from the rest of the community a similar oath,
by which the succession to the Crown was fixed upon
the issue of Anne Boleyn to the exclusion of the Princess
Mary. This, however, was but the beginning of troubles.
The oath by which Henry was declared Head of the
Church of England was a more serious matter. To deny
him this title became high treason. Prior Houghton
addressed the assembled fathers in a touching manner,
and bid them prepare for death. The days were solemnly
devoted to spiritual exercises. Their fears were only too
well founded, and after interrogation Prior Houghton and{92}
Robert Lawrence were committed to the Tower by
Cromwell. With them was arrested a third father,
Augustine Webster, prior of the Charterhouse in Axholme.
In the Tower they were visited by Cromwell and the
Royal Commissioners, and memoranda of the interview
remain.[65] John Houghton says that “he cannot take the
King, our Sovereign, to be supreme head of the Church
of England afore the Apostles of Christ’s Church.”

Robert Lawrence says that “there is one Catholic
Church and one Divine, of which the Bishop of Rome
is the head; therefore, he cannot believe that the King
is supreme head of the Church.” On 29th April, 1535,
after a trial lasting two[66] days, the three Carthusians and
Father Richard Reynolds were condemned to be drawn,
hanged, and quartered. On their way to the scaffold they
passed their fellow-prisoner, Sir Thomas More, who saw
them from his prison cell. “Lo, dost thou not see, Meg,”
he said to his daughter Margaret, “that these blessed
fathers be now as cheerfully going to their death as bridegrooms
to their marriage.” When the scaffold was
reached Father Houghton preached a brief but touching
sermon:

“I call to witness Almighty God and all good people, and I beseech
you all here present to bear witness for me in the day of judgment, that
being here to die, I declare it is from no obstinate rebellious spirit that
I do not obey the King, but because I fear to offend the majesty of God.
Our holy Mother the Church has decreed otherwise than the King and
parliament have decreed, and therefore rather than disobey the Church
I am ready to suffer.”

The cruel sentence was carried out on May 4th, 1535.
Part of the mangled remains of Prior Houghton was fixed
on the gateway of the Charterhouse. Three weeks after
the prior’s execution, three fathers, Exmew, Middlemore,
and Newdigate, were thrown into the Marshalsea, where{93}
they were cruelly tortured, being bound upright to posts.
They were brought to trial at Westminster, and executed
on the 19th June with the same horrible mutilations as
attended the execution of Houghton. For a period of
two years after this no further executions are recorded;
but Cromwell, exasperated by the firmness of the monks,
adopted a new form of persecution. The King’s
Commissioners took charge of the monastery, which was
placed in the charge of seculars. Pressure of every kind
was brought to bear upon the religious, who were often
deprived of food, robbed of their books, and made to
listen to sermons in proof of the royal supremacy. Under
the prolonged persecution of Cromwell’s instruments,
Whalley, Bedyll, and Fylott, some few of the monks gave
way, but the major part remained firm.

In the early part of the year 1536 Cromwell took a
new step. He appointed another prior, William Trafford,
doubtless with the ulterior object of inducing the monks
to transfer the property of the house to the King. At
length he succeeded, and a large number—some twenty,
both fathers and lay brothers—were persuaded to take
the oath of supremacy. At least ten, however, refused
to do so. These ten were cast into Newgate on 18th
May, 1537, and here nine died of the cruel treatment
they received. William Horn, the sole survivor, a lay
brother, was transferred to the Tower and executed on
4th August, 1540. On the 10th June, 1537, a deed was
executed, rendering up the monastery to the King. The
monks remained till 15th November, 1538, when they
were all expelled with a small pension of £5 per annum,
with the exception of Trafford, who received £20. The
yearly revenue of the house at its dissolution was valued
at £642 4s. 6d. Thus the monastery was destroyed,
though no accusation of immorality or wrong doing was
ever brought against the unhappy men who perished with
it. The monks were faithful to their vows, the house
was well ordered. No record is to be found of any{94}
fault proved against the London Charterhouse: “Nunquam
reformata quia nunquam deformata.”

Though the old buildings have been largely swept
away, or altered and added to, yet enough remains to
enable us, with the help of a fifteenth-century plan, to
constitute with some degree of exactness the arrangement
of the old monastery. This plan, which is still preserved
amongst the archives of the Charterhouse, is a
vellum roll ten feet long, of four skins, showing the
construction of a conduit by which the monastery was
supplied with water from Islington. The waterpipe
discharged into a conduit in the centre of the great
cloister; from the conduit it was conveyed through the
gardens into the cells of the monks. The playground of
the Merchant Taylors’ School occupies nearly the site of
the great cloister, and on the east and the west side of it
may be found traces of two of the cells. The lower part
of the gatehouse served as entrance to the monastery,
though the doors were probably renewed after the
Carthusians had gone. The south and part of the east
walls of the present chapel are those of the monks’ church,
and the lower part of the Tower was built by them
probably in 1510-20. The charming little quadrangle,
known as Wash House Court, was the habitation of the
“conversi” or lay brothers, the servants of the convent.
On the west external wall of this court are the letters
J. H., which may possibly be the initials of the last Prior,
John Houghton, and the wall itself of his building.
Besides these remains there may also be seen a bit of
the monastic refectory, now used as the brothers’ library,
though it has been thought by some that this is the
site of the prior’s cell.

II.—The Palace, 1545-1611

During the period from 1545-1611 the Charterhouse
became a nobleman’s palace, and passed through several{95}
changes of ownership. After the suppression of the
monastery the buildings were used as a storehouse
for the King’s hales (that is, nets) and tents. John
Brydges, yeoman, and Thomas Hales were placed in
charge of the King’s property. This arrangement, however,
was of short duration, for in 1545 the King
presented the site to Sir Edward North, Brydges and
Hales receiving £10 per annum by way of compensation.
According to Bearcroft[67] the gift was likely to have cost
North dear. The historian tells the story on the authority
of one of North’s attendants:

“Once, early in the morning, there came from the King to Charterhouse,
then the mansion of Sir Edward North, a messenger, known to
be a friend of his, to command his immediate repair to the court, which
message was delivered with some harshness. This was so terrible in the
suddenness and other circumstances, as he observed his master to
tremble at the delivery of it, who yet, finding it dangerous to use the
least delay hasted thither, and was admitted speedily into the King’s
presence with this his servant attendant on him. The King was then
walking, and continued doing so with great earnestness, and every now
and then cast an angry look upon him, which was received with a still
and sober carriage: at last the King broke out into these words: ‘We
are informed that you have cheated us of certain lands in Middlesex’;
whereunto, having received none other than a plain and humble negation,
after some little time he replied, ‘How was it then? Did we give these
lands to you?’ Whereunto Sir Edward answered, ‘Yes, Sire, your
majesty was pleased to do so.’ Whereupon, having paused a little while,
the King put on a milder countenance, and calling him to a cupboard
conferred privately with him a long time. Whereby, said this servant, I
saw the King could not spare my master’s service as yet.”

The angry monarch was appeased, and North retained
the lands. North lost influence with the Protector and
declared subsequently for the Princess Mary, who, on her
accession to the throne, created him Lord North.

Elizabeth, two days after her accession, rode from
Hatfield and stayed at the Charterhouse with this Lord{96}
North “many days,” and again in 1561 stayed there
for four days, as is recorded in Burleigh’s diary:

“The Queen supped at my house in Strand (the Savoy) before it
was finished, and she came by the fields from Christ Church. Great cheer
was made until midnight, when she rode back to the Charterhouse, where
she lay that night.”

In 1564 North died, leaving Charterhouse to his son,
Roger, Lord North. He, some months later, sold the
main part of the buildings to the Duke of Norfolk for
£2,500, but retained the house which his father had built
about twenty years before, together with some two or
three acres of adjoining land. This was situated on the
east side of the convent church and on the east side of
the great cloister.

The property has passed through various hands since
that day. It belonged to the Earls of Rutland during
part of the seventeenth century, and a reminiscence of
their ownership remains in the name of the small street
called Rutland Place, issuing from the north-east corner
of Charterhouse Square. It was in this house that Sir
William Davenant, in the year 1656, was permitted to
exhibit stage plays at a time when all theatres were closed
by the government. The land is now in the hands of
various owners—Charterhouse, Merchant Taylors’ School,
and others.

Old Porch, Charterhouse.
From a drawing by J. P. Neale (1813), engraved by Owen.

In providing himself with a residence on the property
which he had purchased, the Duke of Norfolk adopted a
plan very different from that of his predecessor. Instead of
building for himself a new residence, he adopted a common
practice and determined to adapt to his own uses part
of the buildings which the Carthusians had left behind
them. The part he chose for this purpose was the little
cloister, which had been built probably about fifty years
before, and was very easily converted into a sufficiently
stately mansion in accordance with the fashion of the day.
Fortunately, he was able to do this with a minimum of{97}
destruction of the old work. The little cloister was, in
fact, a house built round a quadrangle. In adapting it
to his own use the Duke did not interfere with the outer
walls or floors, which are very substantially built, but
merely rearranged the rooms inside. This was the more
easy because the inside rooms were probably divided
from one another by wooden partitions. The result is
most interesting to the antiquary, for he finds at Charterhouse
not only an excellent specimen of monastic building
in the early sixteenth century, but also a very pure
example of the London house of a great nobleman of
the same date. The Duke left intact a smaller quadrangle
opening out of the little cloister, which had been built
also in the sixteenth century for the use of the lay
brothers. He also beautified the large room which had
been used for a Guesten Hall, and perhaps raised the
roof. He certainly built two handsome rooms to the
north of the Guesten Hall, on the first floor, over what
had been the prior’s cell and a small part of the cloister
walk. To form an approach to these upper rooms he
built a handsome interior staircase, which may be seen
in perfect condition at the present day. A tradition
exists that in order to give himself a little more room
he pulled down the east side of the little cloister, and
re-erected it in the same style, fourteen feet in the
eastern direction. These works were executed during
the years 1565 to 1571, during part of which time the
Duke made the Charterhouse his residence.

In the year 1569 Norfolk was committed to the Tower
for contemplating marriage with Mary, Queen of Scots,
and of being implicated in a plot against the throne and
life of Elizabeth. He was released after some months’
imprisonment upon pledging himself to abandon all
thoughts of the contemplated union. This promise,
however, he did not keep. A cypher correspondence was
discovered under the tiles of the roof of the house, and{98}
other papers were found concealed under the mat outside
his bed chamber. For this he was arraigned on a charge
of high treason, and executed in 1571.

As the Duke was executed for high treason his land
escheated to the Crown. The Charterhouse, however,
continued in the possession of his sons. It was first held
by the Earl of Arundel, and on his death it passed to
Lord Thomas Howard, his younger brother, when it
became known as Howard House. Whether this arose
from the favour with which Elizabeth was always disposed
to treat her great nobility, or whether it was that the
Duke had granted leases to his sons, which leases protected
the property from “escheat,” is not very clear.
Certainly, however, the Howards held the property until
the younger son sold it for £13,000 to Mr. Thomas Sutton
in 1611, for the purpose of founding his “Hospital.”

III.—The Hospital, 1611-1908

Of the early life and ancestry of Thomas Sutton little
is recorded. He was born in 1532, the son of Richard
Sutton, a native of Knaith, in Lincolnshire. His father
died in 1558. Thomas Sutton went to Eton, but there
seems little reason to believe, as Bearcroft endeavours
to prove, that he proceeded to Cambridge. It is certain
that he entered as a student at Lincoln’s Inn, but did
not complete his studies. Shortly afterwards he went
abroad and travelled extensively, visiting Holland, France,
Italy, and Spain. He had inherited a modest competence
from his father.

On returning home Sutton entered the service of
Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, and later engaged himself in
the capacity of secretary to the Earl of Warwick. The
Earl was Master of the Ordnance, and made Sutton
assistant to himself in this capacity for the district
of Berwick-on-Tweed. Sutton was active during the{99}
Popish reaction then taking place in the north.
He showed loyalty, valour, and wisdom, and was
for this rewarded by being made Master General
of the Ordnance in the north in 1569. Two
cannons carved over the mantelpiece in the great
hall still commemorate Sutton’s work in this capacity.
When the country became quiet Sutton embarked upon
mercantile pursuits. He leased lands from the Bishop
of Durham and from the Crown, on which were rich and
undeveloped coal mines. In this way he laid the foundation
of his subsequent fortune; so that when he moved
to London, in 1580, he was reputed worth £50,000, and
his purse, it was said, was fuller than Elizabeth’s
exchequer. In 1582 Sutton married Elizabeth, widow of
John Dudley, of Stoke Newington. He continued to
amass wealth as his mercantile operations extended, and
he carried on a large trade with the Continent, where
at one time he had as many as thirty agents. He is
reported to have fitted out a privateer at his own
charges to meet the navy of Philip, King of Spain.
In 1594 Sutton resigned his post as Master General
of the Ordnance, and there is evidence to show that
the question of a proper disposal of his wealth began
to occupy his mind. In 1602 Mrs. Sutton died, and the
loss of his wife no doubt tended to turn his thoughts
in the same direction. Fuller[68] says:—

“This I can confidently report from the mouth of a creditable witness,
who heard it himself and told it to me, that Mr. Sutton used often to
repair into a private garden, where he poured forth his prayers to God,
and amongst other passages was frequently overheard to use this expression,
‘Lord, Thou hast given me a large and liberal estate, give me also
a heart to make use thereof.'”

He was at all times charitable and generous with his
money, and many begging letters are extant from those
who desired to profit by his liberality. There were others{100}
with wider ambitions, and amongst these Sir John
Harrington appears to have conceived the idea of inducing
Sutton to leave his large fortune to Charles, Duke of
York, the King’s second son, afterwards Charles I. No
doubt he thought that this scheme, if successful, would
further his interests at court.

Harrington hinted to the King that Sutton was contemplating
this disposal of his property, and suggested
that a barony should be conferred upon him. Sutton,
however, had no ambitions in this direction, and when
he heard of the matter wrote to the Lord Chancellor and
the Earl of Salisbury declining the honour. He says:
“My mynde in my younger times hath been ever free
from ambition and now I am going to my grave, to gape
for such a thing were mere dotage in me.” Further, he
prayed for “free liberty to dispose of myne owne as
other of his Majesty’s loyal subjects.”

Sutton had already formed the intention of founding
a hospital at Hallingbury, in Essex, and had conveyed
all his estates in Essex to the Lord Chief Justice, Sir
John Popham, the Master of the Rolls, and others for this
purpose.

Charterhouse Hall.

In 1609 an Act was passed in the legislature for the
creation of a hospital at Hallingbury. Shortly after,
however, Sutton changed his mind with regard to the
locality of the hospital, and determined to acquire Howard
House for the purpose. On June 22nd, 1611, he obtained
letters patent from King James, with license of mortmain,
which set aside the Act of 1609 and enabled him
to carry out his altered intentions, and found his hospital
on the Charterhouse site. The letters patent set out, at
length, the purpose of the founder to establish a hospital
for old people, and a free school, and schedules the lands
given for this purpose, as well as the names of the sixteen
original governors of the institution. Amongst these
were Launcelot Andrewes and Dean Overall. Fuller
says:—

{101}

“This is the masterpiece of Protestant English charity designed (by
the founder) in his life; completed after his death, begun, continued
and finished with buildings and endowments, solely at his own charges,
wherein Mr Sutton appears peerless in all Christendom on an equal
standard of valuation of revenue.”

Sutton had hoped to become himself the first master
of the new establishment, to the foundation of which his
latter years had been devoted. This, however, was not
to be, and the munificent donor died at his house in
Hackney on December 12th, 1611, at the age of seventy-nine
years.

The foundation of the hospital thus initiated was not
carried through without a legal struggle. Shortly after
his death Sutton’s nephew, Simon Baxter, laid claim to
the estates as next-of-kin to the founder, and in this
design obtained the support of Sir Francis Bacon, who
acted as his counsel. While the suit was still pending,
this eminent but corrupt lawyer wrote a lengthy and
specious letter to King James, setting forth objections
to the proposed scheme, and hinting in effect that if
the will were set aside the King might himself obtain
considerable influence in the disposal of the property.
The Courts decided against Baxter, though this decision
was not arrived at until after the governors had made
largesse to the King. They handed over to James the
large sum of £10,000, setting out that the grant was for
the purpose of repairing Berwick Bridge, then “much
ruinated or rather utterly decayed.” The King received
this offering, says Smythe, in a very delicate way.[69] It
was, in point of fact, nothing more nor less than a bribe,
though entered by the Treasury among “Sums of money
extraordinarily raised since the coming of His Majesty
to the Crown.” The whole transaction sheds a sinister
light on the customs of the period, for it is not likely
that Sutton’s executors would have parted with so large{102}
a sum had they not been apprehensive of losing the whole,
a fear which no doubt quickened their solicitude for the
safety of Berwick Bridge. After this, the organization
of the foundation proceeded without further trouble, and
on December 12th, 1614, the body of Sutton was
transferred from Christ Church, Newgate Street, where
it had rested since his death, to the elaborate tomb
prepared for it in the chapel of the new house where
it still rests.

The governors found much work ready to their hand.
The buildings had to be rendered suitable for the habitation
of pensioners and scholars, and a constitution for the
institution had to be prepared. The buildings, as we
have seen, had been erected for an entirely different
purpose. The Duke of Norfolk’s house, with the outbuildings,
stables and farmyard, were the materials which
the governors had to utilise. It is a matter for which the
antiquary must be grateful, that in dealing with this mass
of sixteenth century building they did their best to preserve
it, and succeeded so well that it remains to the
present day. Twenty-one pensioners or “Pore Bretheren”
were elected as the first recipients of the charity, but in
1613 the number was raised to eighty, as contemplated
by Sutton. Forty scholars were also selected and placed
under the care of a schoolmaster and an usher. Those
elected pensioners were to be

“no rogues or common beggars, but such poor persons as could bring
good testimony of their good behaviour and soundness in religion, and
such as had been servants to the king’s Majesty, either decrepit or old;
captains either at sea or land; soldiers maimed or impotent; decayed
merchants; men fallen into decay through shipwreck, casualty of fire,
or such evil accident; those that had been captives under the Turks.”

The hospital did not escape its share of the troubles
attendant upon the Civil War. Some of the governors
were deposed from the government of the foundation, the
internal management of which was interfered with by the
Parliament. In 1643 an order was made for the{103}
“sequestering of the minister’s and preacher’s and
organist’s place of the Charterhouse; and that the master
of the Charterhouse do permit such as the House shall
appoint to execute the said places; and that the receiver
do pay the profits belonging to the said places to such
as this House shall appoint to receive the same.” About
the same time Mr. Brooke, the schoolmaster, was ejected
from his office. It is alleged that he flogged some boys
who favoured the parliamentary cause.[70] With the
restoration of the monarchy some of the governors were
restored to their positions, and Mr. Brooke, though not
reappointed schoolmaster, was given lodging and commons
in the house, and a pension of £30 per annum, to be paid
by his successor.

The history of the succeeding years is uneventful.
From time to time necessary reforms have been introduced
into the management of the institution, but the
intentions of the founder have been faithfully carried
out. The wisdom of Sutton in entrusting his institution
to the management of governors, who have always been
men of eminence in church and state, rather than in
attempting to lay down hard and fast rules for its guidance,
has been abundantly vindicated.

In the early part of the nineteenth century, Mr. Hale,
who was first preacher, and then master for more than
thirty years, introduced various necessary reforms, and
abolished abuses which in course of time had crept in.
Archdeacon Hale, besides devoting his attention to the
general care and management of the institution, was
responsible for much rebuilding and alteration in the house
itself. Between the years 1825 and 1830 the preacher’s
court and pensioners’ court, now occupied by the brothers’
rooms and official residences, were built.

What the labours of Archdeacon Hale were to one
Part of the institution, the work of Dr. Haig Brown was{104}
to the school. In course of time the locality, once outside
the boundaries of the town and surrounded by pleasant
fields, had become built over and entirely changed in
character. In 1864 the Public School Commissioners
recommended that the school should be removed into the
country. It was not easy, however, to get those in
authority to consent to so great a change. Sentiment
was aroused against a plan which broke long years of
tradition, and it was not till 1872 that the school was
moved to its present site at Godalming. The credit of
this step, and the subsequent success which attended it,
must be given to Dr. Haig Brown, for thirty-four years
the headmaster, and subsequently, upon his retirement,
master of the Charterhouse. Dr. Haig Brown was
appointed headmaster in 1863, and it was owing to his
clear-sightedness and energy that this migration was
accomplished. He had to struggle against the prejudices
of officials, the fears of the governing body, and the
feeling which he himself could not altogether dismiss—that
a great experiment was being made, and a serious risk
run. A touch of comedy was not wanting, for the boys
themselves were strongly against the move, and complained
loudly that they were being badly treated in
being forcibly removed from the somewhat dingy habitation,
which they loved so well, to the breezy uplands of
Godalming. By this time, no doubt, they are reconciled
to the change.

That part of the London site which was vacated by
the removal of the school was sold for £90,000 to the
Merchant Taylors’ Company, who utilize it now for their
school, for which purpose it is well adapted, being
intended for day scholars only. Charterhouse at
Godalming rapidly increased in numbers, and continues
to be one of the leading public schools in the country.

Thus, though now unavoidably severed, the two
separate parts of Sutton’s foundation are still fulfilling
the purposes of the founder. The London Charterhouse{105}
remains—as Thackeray, in The Newcomes, depicts it—a
peaceful haven for those whose reverses in the struggle
of life have made them fit pensioners on Sutton’s bounty;
and the school equips, year by year, scholars of a younger
generation, who frequently attain to posts of distinction
in church and state.

“Floreat aeternum Carthusiana Domus.”

{106}

GLIMPSES OF MEDIÆVAL LONDON

By George Clinch, F.G.S.

Everything connected with mediæval life
in London offers a peculiarly fascinating field
for the author, the student, and the reader.
It reflects and epitomizes all that is most
important and really worthy of notice in the story of
England during what one may properly call its most
picturesque period.

The story of mediæval London presents much romance
and poetry, as well as strenuous activity; much religion
and genuine piety, as well as superstition and narrowness
of vision. It would not, indeed, be difficult to write
lengthy volumes on such a subject, but it will of
course be quite understood that in the present brief
chapter anything of the nature of minute detail will be
impossible. All that can be attempted is to give one or
two glimpses of mediæval life in London from points of
view which may possibly be novel, or, at any rate,
worthy of the consideration of those who desire to study
the past in its human interests, and as something more
than mere bricks and mortar.

The Jews in London

The association of the Jews with London forms an
important and interesting chapter of ancient history.
As has been justly pointed out,[71] the history of the{107}
Jews in England is divided into two marked sections
by the dates 1290 and 1656; at the former period they
were expelled, at the latter they began to be readmitted.
No trace has been found of Jews in England prior to
the Norman Conquest. Soon after the Conquest, however,
the Jews came from Rouen by special invitation
of William. They were introduced as part of a financial
experiment of the Norman kings. The need of large
sums of ready money such as the Jews, and the Jews
only, could furnish was specially felt at this time. The
system of barter was going out of fashion, and money
was required for commercial operations. Stone buildings,
too, were taking the place of those of wood, and
the new works involved a large outlay.

Money-lending on interest among Christians was
expressly forbidden by the canon law, and it was
therefore from the frugal and careful Jews alone that
large sums of ready money could be obtained when
required. The author of the interesting article just
referred to writes:—

“Though it is a moot point how far the money lent by the Jews
was actually the King’s in the first instance, there is no doubt that the
Exchequer treated the money of the Jews as held at the pleasure of the
King. There was a special Exchequer of the Jews, presided over by special
Justices of the Jews, and all the deeds of the Jews had to be placed in
charge of Exchequer officers, or else they ceased to be legal documents.
The Jews thus formed a kind of sponge which first drained the country dry
owing to the monopoly of capitalist transactions given them by the canon
law, and then were squeezed into the royal treasury.”

Although the Jews were useful, and indeed, in the
conditions of social life at that time, almost indispensable,
they suffered many disabilities. They were unable, from
the very fact of their religion, to enter the guilds
founded on religious principles. Similarly they were
debarred from holding land, because their possession of
would have put into their hands spiritual benefices.

By the order of the Lateran Council of 1215 the Jews
were compelled to wear a distinctive mark on their{108}
clothing. In England this was made of cloth in the
shape of the two tables of the law.

The worst parts of the towns seem to have been
devoted to the use of the Jews. Thus, at Southampton
there are Jews’ houses built close against the town wall.
At Leicester the Jewry was situated quite close to the
town wall, and some of the residences appear to have
been built against the inside of the Roman wall there,
a considerable portion of which still remains. In London
in the thirteenth century there was a Jewry, or dwelling-place
for Jews, within the liberty of the Tower of London.
The street now known as Old Jewry, leading northward
from Cheapside to Lothbury, had become deserted by
the Jews, it is believed, before the date of the expulsion
in 1291, and the inhabitants had removed to a quarter
in the eastern part of the city afterwards indicated by
the street-names “Poor Jewry Lane” and “Jewry Street.”

In several cases, therefore, it is evident that the
pomerium, or the space between the inhabited part of
the town and the actual walls of its outer defence, was
devoted to the Jews, who took up their residence there.

One circumstance which embittered the Church
against the Jews was the spread of Judaism among
certain classes. One Jewish list of martyrs includes
twenty-two proselytes burnt in England, and even if the
number be exaggerated, there is other evidence of Jewish
proselytism in this country. To counteract the movement
the Church founded a conversionist establishment
in “New Street” on the site of the present Record Office.
Here converts were supported for life, and the building
continued to be utilized for this purpose down to the
time of Charles II.

Old London Bridge:
showing its wooden houses with projecting stories.

The classic pages of Sir Walter Scott’s romances
contain much which illustrates the popular antipathy
against the Jews. The pictures he draws are, perhaps,
somewhat over-coloured for the purpose of romance,
but that they were not without foundation in fact is{109}
evident from the following curious incident relating to
a Jew in London, narrated in the Chronicle of the Grey
Friars of London, under the date 1256:—

“Thys yere a Jew felle in to a drawte on a satorday, and he wolde not
be draune owte that day for the reverens of hys sabbot day, and sir
Richard Clare, that tyme beynge erle of Gloucseter, seynge that he wolde
not be drawne owte that day, he wolde not suffer hym to be drawne
owte on the sonday, for the reverens of the holy sonday, and soo thus
the false Jue perished and dyde therein.”

Although there was a good deal of prejudice against
the Jews, there is reason to think that the idea of anything
approaching general ill-treatment of the race is erroneous.
The Jews were useful to the King, and therefore, in
all cases before the expulsion, excepting during the
reign of King John, they enjoyed royal patronage and
favour.

The evil of clipping or “sweating” the coin of the
realm grew to such an extent during the latter half of
the thirteenth century that strong measures had to be
taken for its suppression. In November, 1278, the King
gave orders for the immediate arrest of all suspected
Jews and their Christian accomplices. They were brought
to trial, and the result was that nearly three hundred
Jews were found guilty and condemned to be hanged.
This was during the mayoralty of Gregory de Rokesle
(probably Ruxley, Kent), the chief assay master of
King’s mints, a great wool merchant, and the
richest goldsmith of his time. This Mayor passed a
series of ordinances against the Jews, including one to
the effect that the King’s peace should be kept between
Christians and Jews, another forbidding butchers who
were not freemen of the city buying meat from Jews
to resell to Christians, or to buy meat slaughtered for
the Jews and by them rejected. Still another ordinance
provided that “No one shall hire houses from Jews, nor
demise the same to them for them to live in outside the
limits of the Jewry.”{110}

By the time of Edward I. the need for the financial
aid of the Jews was no longer felt, and from that moment
their fate in England was fixed. The canon law against
usury was extended so as to include the Jews. They
were henceforth forbidden to lend money on interest,
and, as has been explained, owing to their religion they
could not hold lands nor take up any trade. The expulsion
followed as a matter of course in a few years.

In order to rearrange the national finances, Italians
who had no religious difficulties were substituted for the
Jews. Certain Jews, it is known, from time to time
returned to London disguised as Italians, but it was not
until the time of the Commonwealth, when Cromwell
took a more tolerant view of the outcast Jews, and when
the State recognised the legality of difference of creed,
that the return of the Jews became possible. This event
is fixed with some precision by the lease of the Spanish
and Portuguese burial-ground at Stepney, which bears
the date of February, 1657.

London as a Walled Town

It is not by any means easy to imagine the present
London as a walled town. The multiplicity of streets,
the lofty and pretentious character of its buildings, and
the immense suburban area of bricks and mortar which
surrounds it, render it an extremely difficult task to
picture in the mind’s eye what the ancient city looked
like when all the houses were enclosed by a lofty and
substantial wall, largely of Roman masonry, and when
admission could only be obtained by strongly defended
gateways, approached by means of drawbridges spanning
the encircling moat of City Ditch.

Old Wooden Houses at Cripplegate
(recently demolished).

Whatever additions or reparations may have been
made in the Middle Ages to the wall of London, there
is no reason to doubt that the area it enclosed was
that which its Roman builders had laid out, with the{111}
exception of an extension at the south-western corner
made to enclose the house of the Black Friars. What
happened to the wall of London when the Roman
occupation of Britain was determined by the withdrawal
of the legions is a matter which scarcely falls
within the scope of this paper. Whether the place
was abandoned, like other Roman walled towns, such
as Silchester, etc., or whether it maintained a population
throughout the dark ages, are questions which have
exercised the ingenuity and imagination of several antiquarian
authorities,[72] but it must be confessed that the
evidence is insufficient to enable one to settle it
conclusively.

Whatever may have been the early history of Londinium
after the Romans left it, the fact remains that the
limits and bounds of the actual city continued for many
centuries afterwards. It is known that Alfred the Great
caused the walls to be repaired; but the precise significance
of this is not great, because he may have been
merely carrying out a long-needed work, and from the
very solid character of the Roman wall (judging from
the fragments that remain) it seems scarcely conceivable
that his operations extended lower than the battlements
of the wall, unless indeed they comprised the freeing of
the ditch and berme from vegetation, obstructions, or
other kinds of weakness.

What the houses of London were like when Alfred
repaired the wall is not known. Probably they were
constructed of timber and were humble in size and
ornamentation. It is doubtful if anything of the nature
of a house built of masonry was constructed in London
before the twelfth century. No trace of such a structure
is known to remain, but there is reason to think that
such buildings existed within the boundary of the city of
London.

{112}

What the twelfth century house was like is well seen
in the charming example standing close by the castle
mound at Christchurch, Hampshire. In plan it is an
oblong of modest proportions. The lowest storey was
low-pitched and lighted by mere slits for windows. The
first floor contained the principal rooms, which were
lighted by double-light, round-headed windows. The
whole idea was to obtain a residence which would be
sufficiently strong to keep out robbers and resist fire.

Many of the architectural peculiarities of the old
city of London which the Great Fire swept away may
be attributed to the fact that the city was bounded by
a wall too small for the requirements of the population.
The problem of adequately housing the people of London
must have become acute at a comparatively early
period, certainly before the time of the dreadful pestilence
commonly known as the Black Death (1348-1349).

The value of space within the city, and the jealousy
with which the rights of property were guarded, are shown
by the narrowness and crookedness of the streets and
lanes. Every available inch was occupied by houses
and shops, and as little as possible was devoted to
thoroughfares. The sinuosity of the public ways indicates
in another way the great value of land, because it
obviously arose from the existence of individual
properties, which were probably defined and occupied
at an earlier period than the making of the roads.

Another circumstance which points to the same early
settlement of property boundaries is the irregularity of
the ground-plans of many of the city churches. This is
observable in the case of churches which from their
dedication or other reasons may be pronounced of Saxon
foundation.

Alley near the Cloth Fair, Smithfield.

The economising of space was effected in two well-marked
directions. Houses and shops were erected on
old London Bridge, and half-timbered houses with many
over-sailing storeys were very largely built in the city.{113}
There is an excellent representation of old London
Bridge with its closely packed houses in Robert Prycke’s
bird’s-eye view (here produced).

It may be well to add a word or two here to explain
what is implied by the term half-timbered houses, popular
ideas upon the subject being somewhat vague.

There are, in fact, several different interpretations as
to its significance. One meaning of “half-timber” is
trunks of wood split in half; but this is used mainly in
connection with shipbuilding. One writer states that
half-timber work is so called “because the timbers which
show on the face are about the same width as the spaces
between.” Gwilt describes a half-timber building as
“a structure formed of studding, with sills, lintels, struts,
and braces, sometimes filled in with brick-work, and
plastered over on both sides.” Parker defines a half-timber
house as having “foundations and the ground floor only
of stone, the upper part being of wood.” With these
different definitions there is no wonder that popular ideas
as to what a half-timber house actually is are rather
hazy.

The point of most importance, however, is not the
mere verbal explanation adopted in technical handbooks,
but the characteristics of this kind of structure, differentiating
it from those built up from the foundations of
one species of material, such as stone, or brick, or
what-not.

The following may be regarded as the essential
features of half-timber houses or timber-framed houses
(for the terms are practically synonymous):

(1) The foundations and the lower parts of the walls,
sometimes up to the sills of the ground-floor windows,
are of stone or brickwork. Above this the house is a
timber structure as far as its main outline and its sustaining
parts are concerned, whatever may be the character of the
material with which the intervening spaces are filled.

(2) In old buildings of this kind each range or floor{114}
was made to project somewhat beyond that below it,
producing what are technically termed over-sailing
storeys. The advantages of this kind of construction
were manifold. It gave to rooms on the upper floor or
floors greater dimensions than those on the ground floor.
It also imparted structural balance, and afforded a
convenient opportunity of strengthening the whole
structure by means of external brackets. Moreover, each
overhanging or over-sailing storey tended to shelter from
the weather the storey below it. The principle of over-sailing
storeys was entirely due to the use of timber in
house construction.

(3) Perhaps the chief distinguishing mark of half-timber
construction is that the bases of the walls are
always constructed of materials which are not damaged
by damp in the ground; whilst the upper part, comprising
the main body of the house, is constructed of dry timbers
so arranged as to be free from rain, and none of the
timbers were near enough to the ground to be injured
by the dampness arising from it. The Anglo-Saxon
houses, which are believed to have been timber-built
structures, were probably not furnished with foundations
and dwarf walls of stone or brick, and for that reason
their destruction, by the damp rising from the ground
through the interstices of the timbers, was rapid and
complete.

The use of half-timber work in the construction of
London houses indicates a desire to make the greatest
possible use of the space at the disposal of the builder.
The repeated use of over-sailing storey above over-sailing
storey indicates quite clearly that the idea was not to
obtain structural stability so much as additional space.

The Cloth Fair, Smithfield.
Looking to the south-west, and showing the south side of the street.

There is no aspect of the ancient city of London
more picturesque than this constant multiplication of
projecting storeys, and perhaps there was no more
unwholesome or insanitary plan possible than this, which
effectually excluded daylight and fresh air, keeping the{115}
streets damp and muddy, and rendering the whole
atmosphere unsavoury. Indeed, the constant visitations
London received in the form of pestilence is to be
referred to this source alone; and much as every one
must regret the loss of the picturesque old houses, with
their projecting storeys, their irregular gables, and their
red roofs, it must be admitted that one of the greatest
blessings London ever received, in the direction of
sanitary improvement, was the Great Fire of 1666, which
swept away the great bulk of the wooden houses in the
City.

After the fire, the original arrangement of the streets,
as to their general direction, was restored, but of course
they were made wider and more commodious. Indeed,
it is not difficult to make out much of the course of
the ancient wall from an examination of the disposition
of the streets as they now exist. Such well-marked
thoroughfares as London Wall, Wormwood Street,
Camomile Street, Bevis Marks, Jewry Street, Houndsditch,
Minories, and others indicate, internally and
externally, the course of the wall, and at some points,
particularly Trinity Square, London Wall, and Newgate,
actual fragments are still visible. As has already been
explained, the wall is mainly of Roman workmanship,
but its embattled crest, of which a fragment in situ may
be seen, was built or renewed in the Middle Ages.

In the wholesale destruction wrought by the Great
Fire so much perished, and, as a consequence, so much
was rebuilt that one looks in vain for a specimen of a
mediæval house constructed of wood within the bounds
of the city. It is because of this that Crosby Place, a
domestic dwelling of the fifteenth century and of the
most important class, was so highly valued, not alone by
antiquaries, but by all who love mediæval London.

Until a comparatively recent date there were some
wooden houses covered with weather-boarding at Cripplegate.
These were examples of the type of house erected{116}
immediately after the Great Fire. Others, somewhat
less picturesque, still remain between Cannon Street
and the river.

A remarkable group of timber houses, presumably of
about the same date, exists in and immediately adjacent
to the narrow street at Smithfield known as the Cloth
Fair. Although they present no particular feature of
architectural merit, they remain as an extremely
interesting group of old wooden houses with over-sailing
storeys and picturesque gables. The street, by reason
of its very narrowness, looks old, and, notwithstanding
the various reparations and rebuildings which have been
carried out at the Church of St. Bartholomew the Great,
and in spite of the many other changes which have
been carried out in the neighbourhood, the Cloth Fair
remains to-day a veritable “bit” of old London as it
was pretty generally in the seventeenth century.

The accompanying views, reproduced from recent
photographs, represent the general appearance of the
houses, although it is somewhat difficult to get anything
like a clear picture in such a dark and narrow street.

A little way out of the City we have the remarkably
picturesque half-timbered buildings of Staple Inn; and
in the Strand, near the entrance to the Temple, there
was once a group of wooden houses, one of which,
popularly called Cardinal Wolsey’s Palace, has been
rescued from destruction, thanks to the action of the
London County Council.

The Cloth Fair, Smithfield.
The north-east end of the street.

Old St. Paul’s

No account of mediæval London, however brief and
partial, could be considered adequate which did not
include some reference to Old St. Paul’s. One of the
greatest glories of London in the old days was its
cathedral church, which, in contradistinction from the{117}
earlier edifice and from that which has superseded it,
we now familiarly designate “Old St. Paul’s.”

It must have been a church calculated to inspire the
admiration, veneration, and pride of Londoners. Its
lofty spire, covered with ornamental lead, rose high
above every other building near it. It dominated the
City and all the surrounding district. The spire itself
was over two hundred feet high, and, perched upon a lofty
tower, it rose about five hundred feet into the blue sky.
The few old views which give a picture of St. Paul’s
before the storm of 1561 clearly show the magnificent
proportions of the spire.

At the east end, a most beautiful and well-proportioned
composition was the famous rose-window, forty
feet in diameter, referred to as a familiar object by
Chaucer.

The magnificent Norman nave, which well deserved
admiration on account of its architectural merit, acquired
even greater celebrity under the designation of Paul’s
Walk as a famous meeting-place and promenade of
fashionable folk.

Here bargaining and dealing were carried on openly
and unchecked. Many English writers refer to this
extraordinary desecration of a consecrated building, and
from them we learn that the trading carried on in Paul’s
Walk included simony and chaffering for benefices.
Chaucer, in the prologue to his Canterbury Tales, when
describing the parson, writes:—

The expression “to dine with Duke Humphrey,”
applied to persons who, being unable either to procure a
dinner by their own money or from the favour of their{118}
friends, walk about and loiter during the dinner-time, had
its origin in one of the aisles of St. Paul’s, which was
called Duke Humphrey’s Walk: not that there ever was
in reality a cenotaph there to the Duke’s memory, who,
as everyone knows, was buried at St. Albans, in Hertfordshire,
but because, says Stow, ignorant people mistook
the fair monument of Sir John Beauchamp, who died in
1358, and which was in the south side of the body of the
church, for that of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester.

The Cloth Fair Smithfield.
Looking to the south-west, and showing the north side of the street.

Perhaps one of the most vivid pictures, although it
has certainly some unnatural colouring, is that given in
The Gull’s Horne-Booke, a satirical work published in
London in 1609. Under the heading of “How a Gallant
should behave himselfe in Powles-Walkes,” one of the
chapters gives some details of the place. The following
extracts are perhaps the most important:—

“Now for your venturing into the Walke, be circumspect and wary
what pillar you come in at, and take heede in any case (as you love the
reputation of your honour) that you avoid the Seruingmans logg, and
approach not within five fadom of that Piller; but bend your course
directly in the middle line, that the whole body of the Church may
appeare to be yours; where, in view of all, you may publish your suit
in what manner you affect most, either with the slide of your cloake
from the one shoulder, and then you must (as twere in anger) suddenly
snatch at the middle of the inside (if it be taffata at the least) and so by
that meanes your costly lining is betroyed, or else by the pretty advantage
of Complement. But one note by the way do I especially wooe you to,
the neglect of which makes many of our Gallants cheape and ordinary,
that by no meanes you be seene above foure turnes; but in the fifth
make yourselfe away, either in some of the Sempsters’ shops, the new
tobacco-office, or amongst the booke-sellers, where, if you cannot reade,
exercise your smoake, and enquire who has writ against this divine weede,
etc. For this withdrawing yourselfe a little, will much benefite your suit,
which else, by too long walking, would be stale to the whole spectators:
but howsoever if Powles Jacks bee once up with their elbowes, and
quarrelling to strike eleven, as soone as ever the clock has parted them,
and ended the fray with his hammer, let not the Duke’s gallery contain
you any longer, but passe away apace in open view.

---

“All the diseased horses in a tedious siege cannot show so many
fashions, as are to be seene for nothing, everyday, in Duke Humfryes{119}
walke. If therefore you determine to enter into a new suit, warne your
Tailor to attend you in Powles, who, with his hat in his hand, shall
like a spy discover the stuffe, colour, and fashion of any doublet, or hose
that dare to be seene there, and stepping behind a piller to fill his table-bookes
with those notes, will presently send you into the world an
accomplisht man: by which meanes you shall weare your clothes in
print with the first edition. But if Fortune favour you so much as to
make you no more than a meere gentleman, or but some three degrees
removd from him (for which I should be very sorie, because your London
experience wil cost you deere before you shall have ye wit to know what
you are) then take this lesson along with you: The first time that you
venture into Powles, passe through the Body of the Church like a Porter,
yet presume not to fetch so much as one whole turn in the middle Ile, no
nor to cast an eye to Si quis doore (pasted and plaistered up with Servingmens
supplications) before you have paid tribute to the top of Powles
steeple with a single penny: And when you are mounted there, take
heede how you looke downe into the yard; for the railes are as rotten
as your great-Grand father; and thereupon it will not be amisse if you
enquire how Kit Woodroffe durst vault over, and what reason he had
for it, to put his neck in hazard of reparations.

---

“The great dyal is your last monument: there bestow some half of
the threescore minutes…. Besides, you may heere have fit occasion
to discover your watch, by taking it forth and setting the wheeles to the
time of Powles, which, I assure you, goes truer by five notes than
S. Sepulchres Chimes. The benefit that wil arise from hence is this yt
you publish your charge in maintaining a gilded clocke; and withall
the world shall know that you are a time-pleaser.”

Paul’s Cross

This interesting open-air pulpit stood on a site near
the north-eastern angle of the choir of the cathedral
church. It was used not only for the instruction of
mankind, by the doctrine of the preacher, but for every
purpose political or ecclesiastical—for giving force to
oaths; for promulgating laws, or rather royal pleasure;
for the emission of papal bulls; for anathematising
sinners; for benedictions; for exposing penitents under
censure of the Church; for recantations; for the private
ends of the ambitious; and for the defaming of those
who had incurred the displeasure of crowned heads.{120}

The Society of Antiquaries of London possesses an
interesting painted diptych, showing two views of Old
St. Paul’s on one side, and another, in which the cathedral
church occupies only a minor place, on the other side.

One of those three pictures is of peculiar value for
the present purpose inasmuch as it gives a vivid and, in
a way, realistic representation of Paul’s Cross and its
surroundings in the year 1620. There are certain features
in the picture which are obviously inaccurate. The view
which is taken from the north-west of the cathedral is,
for example, made to include the great east window of
the choir by, as Sir George Scharf remarked, “an
unwarrantable straining of the laws of perspective.”
Again, the nave and choir are improperly made to appear
shorter than the north and south transepts. But with
regard to the cross itself, which forms the chief object
in the foreground, the details are represented in a manner
and with a completeness which suggest accuracy.

The representation of the actual cross is probably
the best in existence, and has furnished the data upon
which artists have largely depended in the various
attempts to reconstruct the great historical scenes which
took place long ago at Paul’s Cross. The pulpit proper
was covered by a rather gracefully shaped roof of timber
covered with lead and bearing representations of the
arms of Bishop Kempe at various points. Above
the roof, and indeed rising out of it, was a large and
slightly ornamental cross. The brickwork enclosing the
cross, which is known to have been erected in 1595, is
clearly shown in the picture.

So numerous are the great public events which have
taken place at Paul’s Cross that it is not possible to
give details of them in this article.

Old Wooden Houses, near the Temple Gate,
Fleet Street.

The date of the demolition of Paul’s Cross is stated
by Dugdale to have been 1643, but the late Canon
Sparrow Simpson produced evidence which clearly
proves that it was pulled down before 1641, and probably{121}
before 1635. In the charge-books of the cathedral there
is an entry under June, 1635, which shows that labourers
were employed in carrying away “the lead, timber, etc.,
that was pull’d downe of the roomes where the Prebends
of the Church, the Doctors of the Law, and the Parishioners
of St. Ffaith’s did sett to heare sermons at
St. Paul’s Crosse.” Succeeding entries in the same
volume render it highly probable that the cross had
previously been taken down, and that preparations were
being made for its re-erection.

The Great Fire probably destroyed any other traces
which may then have been remaining of this extremely
interesting old preaching-cross. The foundations alone
have been preserved. These were discovered by the late
Mr. C. F. Penrose, the surveyor to the cathedral, in the year
1879, and they are now indicated by an octagonal outline
of stones on the ground-level close to the north-east
corner of the present cathedral church.

Steps are now being taken to build another cross on
the site of Paul’s Cross, a legacy of five thousand pounds
having been left for that purpose by the late H. C. Richards,
M.P.

THE LIVES OF THE PEOPLE

By the Editor

A study of contemporary documents enables us to
picture to ourselves the appearance of Old London in
mediæval times, and to catch a glimpse of the manners
and customs of the people and the lives they led.
The regulations of the city authorities, the letter-books,
journals, and repertories preserved in the Record Room
at Guildhall, which show an unbroken record of all
events and transactions—social, political, ecclesiastical,
legal, military, naval, local, and municipal—extending{122}
over a period of six centuries; the invaluable Liber
Albus of the city of London; the history and regulations
of the Guilds; the descriptions of Stow, Fitzstephen,
and others—all help to enable us to make a sketch of
the London of the Middle Ages, which differs very
widely from the city so well known to us to-day.

The dangers of sieges and wars were not yet over,
and the walls of Old London were carefully preserved
and guarded. The barons in John’s time adopted a
ready means for repairing them. They broke into the
Jews’ houses, ransacked their coffers, and then repaired
the walls and gates with stones taken from their broken
houses. This repair was afterwards done in more
seemly wise at the common charges of the city. Some
monarchs made grants of a toll upon all wares sold
by land or by water for the repair of the wall.
Edward IV. paid much attention to the walls, and
ordered Moorfields to be searched for clay in order
to make bricks, and chalk to be brought from Kent
for this purpose. The executors of Sir John Crosby,
the wealthy merchant and founder of Crosby Place,
also did good service, and placed the knight’s arms
on the parts that they repaired. The City Companies
also came to the rescue, and kept the walls in good
order.

South View of Old St. Paul’s when the Spire was standing.
From an old print.

Within these walls the pulse of the city life beat
fast. The area enclosed was not large, only about the
size of Hyde Park, but it must have been the busiest
spot on earth; there was life and animation in every
corner. In the city the chief noblemen had houses, or
inns, as they were called, which were great buildings
capable of housing a large retinue. We read of Richard,
Duke of York, coming in 1457 to the city with four
hundred men, who were lodged in Baynard’s Castle;
of the Earl of Salisbury with five hundred men on
horseback lodging in the Herber, a house at Dowgate
belonging to the Earl of Warwick, who himself stayed{123}
with six hundred men at his inn in Warwick Lane,
where, says Stow, “there were oftentimes six oxen eaten
at a breakfast.” Eight hundred men were brought by
the Dukes of Exeter and Somerset, and one thousand
five hundred by the Earl of Northumberland, the Lord
Egremont, and the Lord Clifford. The houses of these
noble owners have long since disappeared, but the
memory of them is recorded by the names of streets,
as we shall attempt to show in a subsequent chapter.
Even in Stow’s time, who wrote in 1598, they were
ruinous, or had been diverted from their original uses.
The frequent visits of these noble persons must have
caused considerable excitement in the city, and provided
abundant employment for the butchers and bakers.

The great merchants, too, were very important people
who had their fine houses, of which the last surviving
one was Crosby Hall, which we shall describe presently,
a house that has been much in the minds of the citizens
of London during the present year. Stow says that
there were many other houses of the same class of the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and that they were
“builded with stone and timber.” In such houses, which
had a sign swinging over the door, the merchant and
his family lived and dined at the high table in the
great hall, his ‘prentices and servants sitting in the
rush-strewn “marsh,” as the lower portion of the hall
was anciently named. These apprentices played an
important part in the old city life. They had to serve
for a term of seven years, and then, having “been
sworn of the freedom” and enrolled on the books of
the city, they were allowed to set up their shop or follow
their trade. They were a lively, turbulent class of young
men, ever ready to take to their weapons and shout
“Clubs! Clubs!” whereat those who lived in one
merchant’s house would rush together and attack the
apprentices of a rival merchant, or unite forces and
pursue the hated “foreigners”—i.e., those who presumed{124}
to trade and had not been admitted to the freedom
of the city. Boys full of high spirits, they were ever
ready to join in a fight, to partake in sports and games,
and even indulged in questionable amusements—frequented
taverns and bowling alleys, played dice and
other unlawful games, for which misdemeanours they were
liable to receive a good flogging from their masters
and other punishments. They had a distinctive dress,
which changed with the fashions, and at the close of
the mediæval period they were wearing blue cloaks in
summer, and in winter blue coats or gowns, their
stockings being of white broadcloth “sewed close up
to their round slops or breeches, as if they were all
but of one piece.” Later on, none were allowed to wear
“any girdle, point, garters, shoe-strings, or any kind
of silk or ribbon, but stockings only of woollen yarn
or kersey; nor Spanish shoes; nor hair with any tuft
or lock, but cut short in decent and comely manner.”
If an apprentice broke these rules, or indulged in dancing
or masking, or “haunting any tennis court, common
bowling alley, cock-fighting, etc., or having without his
master’s knowledge any chest, trunk, etc., or any horse,
dog or fighting-cock,” he was liable to imprisonment.
Chaucer gives an amusing picture of the fondness of
the city apprentices for “ridings”—i.e., for the
processions and pageants which took place when a king
or queen entered the city in state, and such like
joyful occasions—and for similar diversions:

The presence of large companies of these somewhat
boisterous youths must have added considerable life
and animation to the town.

We have seen the noble in his town house, the
merchant in his fine dwelling. Let us visit the artizan
and small tradesman. The earliest historian of London,
Fitzstephen, tells us that the two great evils of his
time were “the immoderate drinking of foolish persons
and the frequent fires.” In early times the houses were
built of wood, roofed with straw or stubble thatch.
Hence when a single house caught fire, the conflagration
spread, as in the reign of Stephen, when a fire broke
out at London Bridge; it spread rapidly, destroyed
St. Paul’s, and extended as far as St. Clement Danes.
Hence in the first year of Richard I. it was enacted
that the lower story of all houses in the city should
be built with stone, and the roof covered with thick
tiles. The tradesman or artizan had a small house
with a door, and a window with a double shutter
arrangement, the upper part being opened and turned
outwards, forming a penthouse, and the lower a stall.
Minute regulations were passed as to the height of the
penthouse, which was not to be less than nine feet,
so as to enable “folks on horseback to ride beneath
them,” and the stall was not to project more than two
and a half feet. In this little house the shoemaker,
founder, or tailor lived and worked; and as you passed
down the narrow street, which was very narrow and
very unsavoury, with an open drain running down the
centre, you would see these busy townsfolk plying their
trades and making a merry noise.

A very amusing sketch of the appearance of London
at this period, and of the manners of the inhabitants,
is given in Lydgate’s London’s Lickpenny. A poor
countryman came to London to seek legal redress for
certain grievances. The street thieves were very active,
for as soon as he entered Westminster his hood was{126}
snatched from his head in the midst of the crowd in
broad daylight. In the streets of Westminster he was
encountered by Flemish merchants, strolling to and fro,
like modern pedlars, vending hats and spectacles, and
shouting, “What will you buy?” At Westminster Gate,
at the hungry hour of mid-day, there were bread, ale,
wine, ribs of beef, and tables set out for such as had
wherewith to pay. He proceeded on his way by the
Strand, at that time not so much a street as a public
road connecting the two cities, though studded on each
side by the houses of noblemen; and, having entered
London, he found it resounding with the cries of
peascods, strawberries, cherries, and the more costly
articles of pepper, saffron, and spices, all hawked about
the streets. Having cleared his way through the press,
and arrived at Cheapside, he found a crowd much larger
than he had as yet encountered, and shopkeepers plying
before their shops or booths, offering velvet, silk, lawn,
and Paris thread, and seizing him by the hand that
he might turn in and buy. At London-stone were the
linendrapers, equally clamorous and urgent; while the
medley was heightened by itinerant vendors crying “hot
sheep’s feet, mackerel,” and other such articles of food.
Our Lickpenny now passed through Eastcheap, which
Shakespeare later on associates with a rich supply of
sack and fat capons, and there he found ribs of beef,
pies, and pewter pots, intermingled with harping, piping,
and the old street carols of Julian and Jenkin.
At Cornhill, which at that time seems to have been a
noted place for the receivers of stolen goods, he saw
his own hood, stolen at Westminster, exposed for sale.
After refreshing himself with a pint of wine, for which
he paid the taverner one penny, he hastened to
Billingsgate, where the watermen hailed him with their
cry, “Hoo! go we hence!” and charged him twopence
for pulling him across the river. Bewildered and
oppressed, Master Lickpenny was delighted to pay the{127}
heavy charge, and to make his escape from the din
and confusion of the great city, resolving never again
to enter its portals or to have anything to do with
London litigation.

Then there was the active Church life of the city.
During the mediæval period, ecclesiastical, social, and
secular life were so blended together that religion entered
into all the customs of the people, and could not be
separated therefrom. In our chapter upon the City
Companies we have pointed out the strong religious
basis of the Guilds. The same spirit pervaded all the
functions of the city. The Lord Mayor was elected
with solemn ecclesiastical functions. The holidays of
the citizens were the Church festivals and saints’ days.
In Fitzstephen’s time there were no less than one hundred
and twenty-six parish churches, besides thirteen great
conventual churches. The bells of the churches were
continually sounding, their doors were ever open, and
the market women, hucksters, artizans, ‘prentices,
merchants, and their families had continual resort to
them for mass and prayer. Strict laws were in force
to prevent men from working on saints’ days and
festivals, and if the wardens or searchers of a company
discovered one of their trade, a carpenter, or cobbler, or
shoemaker, working away in a cellar or garret, they
would soon haul him up before the court of the company,
where he would be fined heavily.

The life of the streets was full of animation. Now
there would be ridings in the Cheap, the companies clad
in gay apparel, the stands crowded with the city dames
and damsels in fine array; pageants cunningly devised,
besides which even Mr. Louis Parker’s display at the
last Lord Mayor’s procession would have appeared mean
and tawdry; while the conduits flowed with wine, and
all was merry. Now it is Corpus Christi Day, and
there is a grand procession through the streets, which{128}
stirs the anger of Master Googe, who thus wrote of
what he saw:

Verily Master Googe’s fingers itched to carry off
some of this “bootie good,” but we are grateful to him
for giving us such a realistic description of the
processions on Corpus Christi Day.

Religious plays were also not infrequent. These the
city folk dearly loved. Clerkenwell was a favourite
place for their performance, and there the Worshipful
Company of the Clerks of London performed some
wonderful mysteries. In 1391 A.D. they were acting
before the King, his Queen, and many nobles, “The
Passion of our Lord and the Creation of the World,”
a performance which lasted three days. At Skinners’
Well, the Company of the Skinners “held there certain
plays yearly”; and in 1409 the Clerks performed a
great play which lasted eight days, when the most
part of the nobles and gentles in England were present.
Originally these plays were performed in the churches,
but owing to the gradually increased size of the stage,
the sacred buildings were abandoned as the scenes of
mediæval drama. Then the churchyards were utilised,
and in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the people
liked to act their plays in the highways and public
places as at Clerkenwell, which, owing to the{130}
configuration of the ground, was well adapted for the
purpose.

Strange scenes of savage punishment attract the
attention of the unfeeling crowd in the city streets,
who jeer at the sufferers. Here is a poor man drawn
upon a hurdle from the Guildhall to his own house.
He is a baker who has made faulty bread, and the
law states that he should be so drawn through the
great streets where most people are assembled, and
especially through the great streets that are most dirty
(that is especially laid down in the statutes), with the
faulty bread hanging from his neck. There stands the
pillory, and on it, with head and hands fast, is another
baker, who has been guilty of a second offence. Blood
is streaming from his face, where cruel stones have hit
him, and rotten eggs and filth are hurled at him during
the one hour “at least” which he has to remain there.

But there were less savage amusements than the
baiting of bakers. Jousts and tournaments periodically
created unwonted excitement, as when, in 1389, there was
a mighty contest at Smithfield. Froissart tells us that
heralds were sent to every country in Europe where
chivalry was honoured, to proclaim the time and place,
and brave knights were invited to splinter a lance,
or wield a sword, in honour of their mistresses.
Knights and nobles from far and near assembled.
London was thronged with warriors of every clime and
language. Smithfield was surrounded with temporary
chambers and pavilions, constructed for the accommodation
of the King and the princes, the Queen and the
maidens of her court; and when the solemnity was about
to commence, sixty horses, richly accoutred, were led
to the lists by squires, accompanied by heralds and
minstrels; after which, sixty ladies followed on palfreys,
each lady leading an armed knight by a chain of silver.
The first day the games commenced with encounters
of the lance, the two most skilful combatants receiving{131}
as prizes a golden crown and a rich girdle adorned with
precious stones; after which, the night was spent in
feasting and dancing. During five days the contest
lasted, and each evening called the knights and dames
to the same joyous festivities and pastimes. The
‘prentices and citizens enjoyed the spectacle quite as
much as the combatants, and the young men used to
copy their betters and practise feats of war, riding on
horseback, and using disarmed lances and shields.
Battles, too, were fought on the water, when young men
in boats, with lance in rest, charged a shield hung on
a pole fixed in the midst of the stream. This sport
provided great amusement to the spectators, who stood
upon the bridge or wharf and neighbouring houses,
especially when the adventurous youths failed and fell
into the river. Leaping, dancing, shooting, wrestling,
casting the stone, and practising their shields were the
favourite amusements of the London youths, while the
maidens tripped to the sound of their timbrels, and
danced as long as they could well see. In winter, boars
were set to fight, bulls and bears were baited, and cock-fighting
was the recognised amusement of schoolboys.

When the frost covered the great fen on the north side
of the city with ice, good Fitzstephen delighted to
watch “the young men play upon the ice; some, striding
as wide as they may, do slide swiftly; others make
themselves seats of ice as great as millstones; one sits
down, many hand in hand do draw him, and one slipping
on a sudden, all fall together; some tie bones to their
feet and under their heels, and, shoving themselves by
a little picked staff, do slide as swiftly as a bird flieth
in the air, or as an arrow out of a crossbow. Sometimes
two run together with poles, and, hitting one another,
either one or both do fall, not without hurt; some break
their arms, some their legs; but youth desirous of glory
in this sort exerciseth itself against the time of war.”
Lord Roberts and other patriots would like to see the{132}
youth of the present day, not breaking their arms and
legs, but exercising themselves against the time of war.
The citizens used also to delight themselves in hawks
and hounds, for they had liberty of hunting in
Middlesex, Hertfordshire, all Chiltron, and in Kent to
the water of Cray. The game of quintain, which I
need not describe, was much in vogue. Stow saw a
quintain at Cornhill, where men made merry disport,
and the maidens used to dance for garlands hung
athwart the streets. Time would fail to tell of the
May-day junketings, of the setting up of the May-pole
in Cornhill before the church of St. Andrew, hence
called Undershaft; of the Mayings at early dawn, the
bringing in of the may, the archers, morris dancers and
players, Robin Hood and Maid Marian, the horse races
at Smithfield, so graphically described by Fitzstephen,
and much else that tells of the joyous life of the
people.

Life was not to them all joy. There was much
actual misery. The dark, narrow, unsavoury, insanitary
streets bred dire fevers and plagues. Thousands died
from this dread malady. The homes of the artizans
and craftsmen were not remarkable for comfort. They
were bound down by strict regulations as regards their
work. No one could dwell where he pleased, but only
nigh the craftsmen of his particular trade. But, on
the whole, the lot of the men of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries was by no means an unhappy one.
They were very quick, easily aroused, turbulent, savage
in their punishments, brutal perhaps in their sport; but
they had many sterling qualities which helped to raise
England to attain to her high rank among the nations
of the world, and they left behind them sturdy sons
and daughters who made London great and their country
honoured.{133}

THE TEMPLE

By the Rev. Henry George Woods, D.D.
Master of the Temple

“On the 10th of February in the year from the
Incarnation of our Lord 1185, this Church
was consecrated in honour of the Blessed
Mary by the Lord Heraclius, by the grace
of God Patriarch of the Church of the Holy Resurrection,
who to those yearly visiting it granted an Indulgence
of sixty days off the penance enjoined upon them.”

So we may render the ancient Latin inscription,
formerly on the wall of the Round Church, which
supplies the earliest definite date in the history of
the Temple. Originally settled near the Holborn end
of Chancery Lane, the Templars had apparently been
in occupation of the present site (still called “the
New Temple” in formal documents) for some considerable
time before the Round Church was consecrated.
There is evidence, at any rate, that “the Old Temple”
in the parish of St. Andrew’s, Holborn, had been
sold as a town house for the Bishops of Lincoln before
1163. We must suppose that a temporary church was
used during this interval—perhaps St. Clement’s, which
had been granted to the Order in 1162 by Henry II. The
performance of the consecration ceremony by Heraclius,
Patriarch of Jerusalem, and the presence at it of Henry II.
and his court, show that the headquarters of the Templars
in England were felt to be of national importance. Never,{134}
indeed, since its foundation were the services of the Order
more needed. The Templars in Palestine were being
sorely pressed by Saladin, and Heraclius had come to
England to obtain help. When absolution for the murder
of Thomas à Becket was granted to Henry, he had promised
to lead an army into Palestine, as well as to maintain
two hundred Templars there at his own cost. This
personal service he now found himself unable to perform.
Fabyan (died 1513) gives a quaint version of the King’s
conversation with the Patriarch:

“‘I may not wende oute of my lande, for myne own sonnes wyll
aryse agayne me whan I were absente.’ ‘No wonder,’ sayde the
patryarke, ‘for of the deuyll they come, and to the deuyll they shall go,’
and so departyd from the kynge in great ire.”

Two years later Jerusalem surrendered to Saladin, and
Henry, after conferring with the King of France, arranged
for the collection of a “Saladin tithe” to meet the cost of
the new crusade.

The Temple Church: Exterior View.

“The poor fellow-soldiers of Jesus Christ of the
Temple of Solomon”—for such was the full designation
of the Templars in commemoration of the quarters
assigned them within the area of the former Jewish
Temple—naturally had their thoughts turned towards
Jerusalem, wherever they were stationed. The design of
the church which Heraclius consecrated was determined by
the circular chapel which stood on the site of the Old
Temple in Holborn, and the prototype of both buildings
was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, with
which English Templars must have been familiar from
the earliest days of the Order. The travels of Templars
and Crusaders undeniably influenced English architecture.
One such influence we find in the constructive use of the
pointed arch, which is said to have been introduced about
1125 from the South of France—a route which Norman
Crusaders frequently followed. For many years after that
date pointed and round arches were used almost indifferently
in Norman work, so that the strongly pointed arches{135}
of the Round Church are not in themselves decisive of
the date of the building. It is not till about 1170 that
the real transition from Norman to Early English can
be said to have begun. In the interior of the Round
Church this movement is in full swing. The lower arcade
has been inaccurately restored and must not be taken as
evidence, but in the decorative band of arcading on the
upper wall which frames the openings into the triforium
we see how the intersection of two semi-circular arches
gives the pure lancet form. The crucial point, however,
is the absence of the massive Romanesque columns which
invariably mark true Norman work. In their place we
have columns of comparative slenderness, each consisting
of four almost insulated shafts of Purbeck marble, two
smaller and two larger. These columns must be among
the earliest examples of their kind in England. There
is a somewhat similar treatment (two shafts only, as
originally designed) in the Galilee of Durham Cathedral,
built a few years later, whereas in the choir of Canterbury
Cathedral, which was rebuilt only a few years before
1185, the Romanesque columns are still retained, though
the style of the capitals is modified.

The historical interest of the church is not confined to
its architecture. The eight small half-length figures
between the capitals outside the west door, though sadly
defaced and only reproductions of the originals, stand
in close relation to the consecration ceremony. In 1783,
according to a writer in the Gentleman’s Magazine, they
were “very perfect,” and were believed to represent on
the north side Henry II. with three Knights Templars,
and on the opposite side Queen Eleanor with Heraclius
and two other ecclesiastics. This identification is in the
main correct. The king and queen are farthest from the
door. He is holding a sceptre, or possibly a roll
containing a grant to the Order. One of the figures by his
side—it is difficult to see whether they are bearded, as
Knights Templars would have been—is certainly holding{136}
a roll, perhaps the royal licence for the building of the
church. Others have their hands folded in prayer.

The unique and most successfully restored series of
nine marble effigies on the floor of the church is also
of great antiquity. Six are cross-legged, but not necessarily
on that account to be regarded as Crusaders. One
of them has been supposed to represent the notorious
Geoffrey de Magnaville, Earl of Essex, who died
excommunicate in 1144, ten years before the accession
of Henry II. Three others probably represent William
Marshal, Earl of Pembroke (died 1219), Protector of
England during the minority of Henry III., and his two
sons, William (died 1231) and Gilbert (died 1241). The
figure which lies apart cannot be older than the latter
half of the thirteenth century, and according to tradition
is a Lord de Ros. Of the others nothing is known.
It seems certain, however, that the series contains no
effigy of an actual Knight of the Order, since none of
the figures are represented as wearing the red cross
mantle. Men of wealth and position were often admitted
to the privileges of the Order without taking the vows,
under the title of “Associates of the Temple.” The
special exemption from interdicts which the Templars
enjoyed, and the sanctity of their churches as burial-places,
made this associateship attractive to devout men,
who willingly gave benefactions in return for it. It is
one of fate’s ironies that of the many Knights Templars
buried in the church not a single name or monument
should have been preserved in situ. No separate graves
are now marked by the effigies, but during the 1841
restorations stone and leaden coffins containing skeletons
were found below the pavement. These remains have
been reburied in a vault in the middle of the church.

Doorway of the Temple Church.

The outline of the Round Church was never probably
a perfect circle. Excavations have been made, and some
foundations have been discovered underground on the
east side of the church, which seem to shew that an apse{137}
existed nearly fifty feet long. This, of course, contained
the altar. Even so, however, the church must often have
been inconveniently crowded, and the spaciousness of the
later addition shows how much this inconvenience had
been felt. The middle opening between the two churches
is probably the original arch by which the apse was
entered, since it does not, like the two side arches, break
into the line of arcading. In passing from the earlier
to the later church, we pass from Transitional Norman to
a pure example of Early English style, the details of
which closely remind us of Salisbury Cathedral. That
cathedral, which was not finished till 1258, was begun in
1220, and the foundations of the Temple choir cannot
have been laid very long after this. Matthew Paris (died
1259) tells us that “the noble church of the New Temple,
of a construction worthy to be looked at,” was consecrated
on Ascension Day, 1240, in the presence of Henry III.
and many great men of the realm. As the king looked
round the new church during the consecration ceremony,
it is quite conceivable that he turned over in his mind
the idea of rebuilding the east end of Westminster Abbey
in this same style—a design which he proceeded to put
into execution five years later. The combination of the
two Temple Churches into one harmonious whole is a
stroke of genius on the part of the unknown architect.
It might have been a failure had there been any violence
of contrast. As it is, we feel that we are only moving
one step forward in the evolution of church-building. The
general effect of the columns and arches is much the same
throughout, and the view from either church into the other
pleases the eye.

To realise the full beauty of this great choir we must
in thought sweep away the present seats and pulpit, and
reconstruct the two side altars dedicated to St. John and
St. Nicolas, which flanked the high altar dedicated to
the Virgin Mary. Traces of this original arrangement
are still to be seen in the restored aumbreys and piscina{138}
on the north and south walls. The height of these niches
seems to show that the side altars were some four or
five steps above the level of the present floor. The three
aumbreys over the high altar are unfortunately hidden
by the incongruous reredos which was put up in 1841. In
these locked cupboards some of the church plate was
kept. The inventory of 1307 contains various priced
items of silver-gilt plate, together with numerous relics,
unpriced—among them “the sword with which the Blessed
Thomas of Canterbury was killed, and two crosses of the
wood on which Christ was crucified.” The safe custody
of these treasures must have been a source of anxiety.
Opening out of the staircase which leads to the triforium
a small chamber has been constructed in the thickness of
the wall, lighted by two loop-holes, one of which looks
towards the altar, the other across the church. This
has been supposed to be a penitential cell for disobedient
Templars, but it was more probably a watcher’s chamber,
used as a safeguard against possible theft. The three
altars seem to have been at first entirely open to the body
of the church, the idea being that the whole building was
a chancel or choir. During the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, however, the space round the high altar seems
to have been enclosed by a screen with gates, thus forming
a separate chancel. The side altars were presumably
removed soon after the Reformation, and in Puritan days
the communion table was for a time brought down from
the east end and placed longitudinally on the floor in
the body of the church. Probably about this time the
old stained glass was wrecked, and the marble columns
were white-washed. The only pre-Reformation monument
which has survived in the choir is the recumbent
figure of a bishop, supposed to be Silvester de Everdon,
Bishop of Carlisle, who was killed by a fall from his horse
in 1254. A good many brasses seem to have disappeared.
“Divers plates of brass of late times have been torn out,”
says Dugdale (1671), who gives one or two epitaphs{139}
in French. Of post-Reformation monuments but two
now remain in the body of the church—those of Richard
Hooker (died 1600) and John Selden (died 1654). The
rest have been placed in the triforium.

Little else of the Templars’ work now survives. Below
the pavement outside the south wall of the Round Church
are the remains of the crypt of St. Ann’s Chapel, built
about 1220. There is enough left to show that the
building was in the Early English style, and corresponded
in its details with the choir church. Parts of the upper
chapel still existed in a ruined state, hidden among
encroaching buildings, as recently as 1825. On the west
side of the Inner Temple Hall, which occupies the site of
the Templars’ Refectory (or perhaps, we should say, one
of their refectories, for in the inquisition of 1337 two halls
are mentioned), are two ancient chambers, one above the
other, the roofs of which are supported by intersecting
arches, rising from the four corners of the floor. This
work is perhaps a little older than the Round Church. The
lower chamber has been supposed to be what is called in
the records “the Hall of the Priests.” With these
exceptions the church alone remains as a monument of
the greatness and the glory of the Templars. For a
century and a half at the New Temple they were a power
in the land. Men deposited treasure in their custody.
Popes conferred upon them exceptional privileges. They
stood high in royal favour. Henry II. and Richard were
benefactors. John was a frequent guest. It was while
he was holding his court at the Temple on the Epiphany
feast of 1215 that the Barons came before him in full
armour to announce their ultimatum, and his signing
the Magna Carta was partly due to the influence of the
then Master of the Temple. Henry III. at one time
intended to be buried in the Temple Church. His
subsequent change of mind perhaps marks some decline
in the popularity of the Templars. But their downfall
in England (1308) was mainly owing to Papal pressure.{140}
Edward II. resisted as long as he could, and the more
serious charges against them, which were based on confessions
extracted by torture, are now generally regarded
by historians as unfounded.

The premises of the Temple were eventually (1340)
granted to the Knights Hospitallers, the rivals and bitter
enemies of the fallen Order. They held the property for
two hundred years, but they had their own settlement at
Clerkenwell, and the Temple did not mean to them what
it had meant to the Templars. About 1347 they leased
all but the consecrated buildings and ecclesiastical
precincts to “certain lawyers,” who had already become
tenants of the Earl of Lancaster and others, on whom in
the first instance Edward II. had bestowed the premises.
Great interest attaches to this settlement of lawyers, but
much remains obscure about it. Some of the early
documents may have been destroyed during Wat Tyler’s
insurrection (1381). A manuscript (quoted by Dugdale)
describes the scene in the law-French of the day.

“Les Rebells alleront a le Temple … et alleront en l’Esglise,
et pristeront touts les liveres et Rolles de Remembrances que furont en
lour huches deins le Temple de Apprentices de la Ley, et porteront en
le haut chimene et les arderont.”

This, however, is not the full extent of the loss which
has been sustained. The records of the following 120
years up to 1500 are missing, both in the Inner and the
Middle Temples.[73] One result of these losses is that
there is nothing to show when the two Inns became
separate societies, on the assumption that they were not
independent bodies from the outset. Chaucer’s well-known
description (about 1390) of “a gentil manciple of
the [or perhaps the true reading is ‘a’] Temple” is not
decisive.

{141}

An entry in the books of Lincoln’s Inn incidentally
mentions the Middle Temple in 1422, and in one of the
Paston Letters, dated 1440, we read “qwan your leysyr is,
resorte ageyn on to your college, the Inner Temple.” It is
generally admitted now that neither society can establish
any claim of priority or precedence over the other.
Appeal has been made to the badges, but they throw no
light on the question. The Agnus of the Middle Temple
is apparently not mentioned till about 1615, and the
Pegasus of the Inner Temple not before 1562. It is still
a matter of dispute whether the Templars’ emblem of a
horse with two knights on its back can have been altered
into a horse with two wings by the ignorance or ingenuity
of some workman.

We try in vain to reconstruct with any fullness the life
of the lawyers and their apprentices at the Temple in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. But it is clear that,
together with the buildings, they inherited some of the
traditions. The old church remained their place of
worship. In the old refectory they were served by
“panier-men” on wooden platters and in wooden cups,
as the Templars had been before them. The penalties
inflicted for small misdemeanours, such as being “expelled
the hall” and “put out of commons,” were much the same
as those prescribed in the “Rule” of the Templars, as
drawn up by St. Bernard.

It is a curious coincidence that not long after the
coming of the lawyers a change was introduced in the legal
profession which recalls the organisation of the old
military brotherhood. In 1333, according to Dugdale,
the judges of the Court of Common Pleas received knighthood,
and so became in a sense successors of the Knights{142}
Templars. The creation of sergeants-at-law (now
abolished) goes further back, but it has been suggested
that they were representatives of the frères serjens, the
fratres servientes, of the old Order. Had the white linen
coif worn by sergeants the same symbolical meaning as
the Templars’ white mantle? Was it, as some say, the
survival of a linen headdress brought back by the Templars
from the East? These are disputable points. At any
rate, the common life at the Temple, with the associations
which it recalled, cannot have been without its influence
on the lawyers. Their numbers grew apace. By 1470
courses of legal studies had been organised, and each of
the two Inns at the Temple had more (perhaps considerably
more) than two hundred students—numbers amply
sufficient to resist successfully any attempts on the part
of the Lord Mayor, backed by the city apprentices, to
enforce an illegal jurisdiction over the precincts. In the
absence of maps and records we cannot trace with
certainty the gradual extension of the buildings. Such
names as Elm Court and Figtree Court suggest that in
byegone days open spaces and garden plots were interspersed
among the chambers. Not least among the
amenities of the lawyers’ goodly heritage was the large
garden by the river side with its pretty fifteenth century
story of the red and white roses. It has been said that
Shakespeare in his well-known scene refers to the smallness
of the hall in the phrase which he assigns to Suffolk:

But do the words imply more than the obvious contrast
between being indoors and in the open air, as regards
noise? We have a companion picture to Shakespeare’s
garden-scene in Spenser’s river-piece. Some people see
in it a reference to “Brick Buildings” which stood on
the site of what is now Brick Court:{143}

In 1540, on the dissolution of the Order of Knights
Hospitallers, the two societies became yearly tenants of
the Crown, and took over the charge of the fabric of the
church. No change, however, was made in the ecclesiastical
staff, John Mableston, sub-prior, William Ermestede,
master of the Temple, and the two chaplains of the house
being continued in their offices. There were modifications,
of course, in the services of the church; but nowhere
probably in London did the Reformation cause less interference
with established custom. Dr. Ermestede, indeed,
bridges over the critical interval between 1540 and 1560
in a remarkable way, for on Mary’s accession he went
back to the old form of worship, and then accepted a third
change of religion under Elizabeth. The building of the
beautiful Middle Temple Hall, soon after Elizabeth’s
accession, is associated with the name of Edmund Plowden
(died 1585), whose fine monument stands in the triforium
of the church. The work was begun during his treasurership
in 1561, and in 1571 he “offered his account for the
new buildings.” In 1575 the fine carved oak screen was
put up. Towards the cost of this contributions were made
by the masters of the bench, the masters of “le Utter
Barre,” and other members of the society. In this hall
took place the interesting Shakespearean performance
recorded by John Manningham, barrister, in his diary
(1601-2). “At our feast wee had a play called Twelve
Night or what you will, much like the Commedy of
Errores or Menechmi in Plautus, but most like and neere
to that in Italian called Inganni. A good practise in it
to make the steward beleeve his lady widdowe was in love
with him,” etc. The halls of the Inns of Court lent themselves
very conveniently for dramatic representations at{144}
a time when there were no theatres in London. In 1561-2
“Gorboduc,” one of the earliest of English plays, written
by Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton, members of the
Inner Temple, was performed in the Inner Temple Hall
before Queen Elizabeth, and in 1568 she was also present
there at the performance of “Tancred and Gismund.”
Masques were frequently given in the halls of both
societies during the early part of the seventeenth century,
and with these some interesting literary names are connected,
such as Francis Beaumont, William Browne,
Michael Drayton, and John Selden.

The Interior of the Temple Church before it was restored.

The reign of James I. is of special importance in the
history of the Temple, because the patent granted by him
in 1608 relieved the two societies from what had been a
somewhat precarious tenure of their property. As a mark
of gratitude they spent £666 (about £3,500 at present
value) on a gold cup for the king, which was subsequently
pawned in Holland by Charles I. The outbreak
of the Civil War in 1642 checked for a time the
prosperity of the Temple. For two years the buildings
were practically deserted, and readings and exercises
ceased till the Commonwealth was established. From
1651 to 1654 every barrister and master of the bench
before opening his lips in court had to take what was
called “the engagement”—”I do declare and promise
that I will be true and faithful to the Commonwealth of
England, as it is now established without a king or a
house of lords.” Soon after the Restoration there came
further troubles from plague and fire. Twelve deaths from
the plague are recorded in the Burial Register for 1665,
and the buildings were again for a time deserted. The
great fire of 1666, the flames of which, after destroying
King’s Bench Walk, licked the east end of the Temple
Church, was followed in 1678 by another fire which did
much damage to the buildings of the Middle Temple,
burned down the old cloisters (afterwards replaced by
Wren’s somewhat commonplace colonnade) and threatened{145}
the south-west angle of the church. A bird’s-eye view
made in 1671 and John Ogilby’s plan of 1677 enable us
to follow the process of reconstruction after the great fire,
and at the same time call attention to the disfigurement of
the church by the mean shops and small houses which had
been built against its walls and even over its porch. It
seems as if for a time all appreciation of the beauty of the
buildings was lost. The Round Church, not being used
for Divine service, became, like Paul’s Walk, a rendezvous
for business appointments, and the font was often specified
in legal documents as the place where payment was to be
made to complete some transaction. That is why the
lawyer consulted by Hudibras advises his client while
getting up his case to

Still, in spite of its shortcomings, the seventeenth
century has at least one claim upon the gratitude of those
who worship in the Temple Church. The organ of
Bernard Schmidt (Father Smith), purchased in 1686, still
survives as the foundation of the modern instrument.
The story of the Battle of the Organs has been often told.
The masters of the bench were anxious to secure by
competition the best possible make, and rival organs were
set up in the church by Smith and Harris. The decision
was eventually left to Judge Jeffreys, not apparently on
account of his musical knowledge, but because he was
Lord Chancellor at the time. The beautiful music of
the Temple Church is thus strangely linked with a name
not usually associated with sweetness or harmony.

A few only of the Temple buildings are named after
eminent men, and the choice of names has been to some
extent capricious or accidental. Among lawyers thus
commemorated, no one will dispute the claims of Edmund
Plowden, already mentioned. Hare Court preserves the{146}
memory not of Sir Nicholas Hare, Master of the Rolls in
Mary’s reign (died 1557), but of a nephew of his, a comparatively
unknown Nicholas Hare, who rebuilt the
chambers on the south side of the court. The present
Harcourt Buildings replace earlier chambers erected
during the treasurership of Sir Simon Harcourt, afterwards
Lord Chancellor (died 1727). The eponymus of Tanfield
Court was Sir Lawrence Tanfield, a well-known judge
in his day, who resided there. We cannot but regret that
more of the greatest legal names have not in this way
been handed down as household words to posterity. Two
great literary names do thus survive, but in neither case
was the existing building the home of the man. Dr.
Johnson’s Buildings, rebuilt in 1857, recall nothing but
the site of the chambers in which Johnson lived for a few
years from 1760. Goldsmith Building, erected in 1861,
stands in no relation to the poet save that it is near the
stone which serves to mark (not very exactly) his burial
place. Pious pilgrimages are still made yearly to that
stone on November 10, the anniversary of his birth.
Goldsmith died in the Temple in 1774, and from 1765
onwards he occupied chambers which still exist at 2, Brick
Court. A commemorative tablet recently placed there
raises the question whether the rooms on the north or
on the south side of the staircase are properly described
as “two pair right.” Some years before Oliver Goldsmith
removed to Brick Court, the Temple was the residence of
another poet—William Cowper. His attempted suicide
there in 1763 shows how bad for his melancholy temperament
was a solitary life in chambers. Charles Lamb, on
the other hand—as we see, for instance, from his essay on
the Old Benchers of the Inner Temple—delighted in the
Temple and all its ways. The sense of its charm may be
said to have been born and bred in him, for he was born
and spent his childhood in Crown Office Row. In later
life, for seventeen years from 1800, he and his sister
occupied chambers now no longer in existence, first in{147}
Mitre Court Buildings, and afterwards in Inner Temple
Lane, from the back windows of which he looked upon the
trees and pump in Hare Court. Lamb Building, of
course, has nothing to do with Charles Lamb. It belongs
to an earlier time, and its name is derived from the Agnus
of the Middle Temple over its doorway. Within fifteen
years of Lamb’s departure from the Temple Thackeray
was settled for a short time in the chambers in Hare
Court, which were immortalised some twenty years later,
in Pendennis. “Lamb Court,” in which he places the
chambers of George Warrington and Arthur Pendennis,
is the result of a combination of Lamb Building and
Hare Court. Other reminiscences of his life at the
Temple may be found by the student of Thackeray in
some of his other works. Dickens, though he never lived
at the Temple, also betrays the influence of its charm.
No one can walk through Fountain Court without thinking
sometimes of Ruth Pinch.

Of the great lawyers who have occupied chambers in
the Temple nothing can here be said. The settlement of
the lawyers has now lasted for nearly six hundred years—almost
four times as long as the tenure of the Knights
Templars, and for the greater part of that time we find
in every generation legal names which still survive in
history, and which have been concerned with the making
of history. The lists which have been compiled of distinguished
members of the Inner and the Middle Temple
are of great interest and importance. But even more
important is the long, continuous history of the two
societies. It has preserved for us such memorials of the
Knights Templars as still survive. If the lawyers had
never settled in the Temple, the Temple Church would
probably have met with the fate which overtook the
Church of St. Bartholomew the Great, and all that could
now be done would be to restore a ruin. There have been
times, no doubt, in its past history when the church has
suffered from neglect and ignorance, but on the whole the{148}
lawyers have shown a large-minded appreciation of
their responsibilities. The last restoration of the building
in 1841, in spite of one or two mistakes, was wonderfully
successful. It was one of the earliest and best examples
of the “Gothic revival” which was just beginning to set
in over England. We owe to it, among other things,
two interesting works on the Knights Templars and on
the Temple Church by C. G. Addison (died 1866), who
was one of the first lawyers in modern times to study
the history of the Temple in connection with the original
documents. During the last few years a great advance
has been made in this direction, mainly by the labours
of lawyers. The Calendar of the Inner Temple
Records, with its full and learned introductions by
F. A. Inderwick, K.C., Master of the Bench (died 1904),
is never likely to be superseded; and the same may be
said of The Middle Temple Records, with Index and
Calendar, edited by C. Hopwood, K.C. (died 1904),
Master of the Bench of that society. To these must be
added A Catalogue of Notable Middle Templars, by
Mr. John Hutchinson, and a privately printed list of
Masters of the Bench of the Inner Temple from 1450 to
1883, with Supplement to 1900. Judge Baylis, K.C.,
Master of the Bench of the Inner Temple, has given much
valuable information in his well-known work on the
Temple Church, which has gone through several editions.
More recently, Mr. H. Bellot, of the Inner Temple,
Barrister-at-Law, has aimed at recording the legal,
literary, and historic associations of the Inner and Middle
Temple, and in a Bibliography appended to his book
gives some idea of the immense mass of material which
has accumulated round the history of the Temple. May
“the two Learned and Honourable Societies of this
House”—as they are designated in the Bidding Prayer
used every Sunday in the Temple Church—long continue
to be the home, not merely of professional learning, but
of general culture.{149}

HOLBORN AND THE INNS OF
COURT AND CHANCERY

By E. Williams

Just as Holland denotes the hollow land, so Holborn,
or Holeburn, implies the hollow bourne—the bourne
or river in the hollow. This once forcible little
stream descended four hundred feet in a journey
of six miles, taking its rise in Ken Wood, the beautifully
timbered estate of the Earls of Mansfield at Highgate.
After passing through several ponds, skirting the existing
Millfield Lane, it crossed the foot of West Hill
and continued its course through what is now known
as the Brookfield Stud Farm, till, somewhat to the north
of Prince of Wales’ Road at Kentish Town, it
encountered another stream of almost equal rapidity,
the birthplace of which was in the Happy Valley at
Hampstead. The united current then rolled on through
Camden Town and St. Pancras towards Battle Bridge
at King’s Cross, from whence it flowed through Packington
Street, under Rosebery Avenue, into Farringdon
Street, creating steep banks on its flanks, which still
remain the measure and evidence of its ancient energy;
until, finally, it debouched into that tidal estuary from
the Thames mediævally known as the Fleet. Holborn
Viaduct, at a much higher altitude, now spans the hollow
where once stood Holeburn Bridge, at the wharves on
either side of which “boats with corn, wine, firewood,
and other necessaries” would unload. But in 1598 John
Stow knew of this burn only as Turnmill Brook.{150}
Now it no longer exists; the damming of its waters for
the erection of mills in the Middle Ages, and its more
recent absorption by the water companies, have led
to its complete disappearance.

The Manor of Holeburn, which was bounded on the
east by the southern part of the Farringdon Street portion
of this stream, included both sides of Shoe Lane; but how
far west or north it originally extended is not known.
In the year 1300, Saffron Hill, Fetter (or Faytour) Lane,
and Fleet Street were all outside its bounds. Shoe
Lane was known as Sho Lane, at one end of which
was a well, called Show Well, from which the neighbourhood
drew its water.[75]

It was here that the Dominicans, or Black Friars,
made their first settlement in 1222;[76] their monastery
was in Shoe Lane, and in 1286, when they moved to
the eastern side of the Fleet, by Baynard’s Castle,
Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, who was lord of
the manor and a justiciar, bought their old houses and
established the first Lincoln’s Inn.[77] Two other inns of
that name, one next to Staple Inn and one in Chancery
Lane, came into existence later, as we shall see presently.
Here the earl died in 1311, and he was buried in
St. Paul’s Cathedral. By his will, proved in the Court
of Hustings at the Guildhall, he directed that the houses
which he had acquired from the monks should be sold;[78]
but the inheritance of the manor of Holeburn descended
to his son-in-law, Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, the King’s
cousin and Steward of the kingdom. Legal business
was certainly transacted at his Inn. The yearly accounts
of the Earldom of Lancaster for that period show
that at his house in Shoe Lane, from Michaelmas, 1314,
to Michaelmas, 1315, the amount of £314 7s. 4½d. was{151}
spent for 1,714 lbs. of wax, with vermilion and turpentine
to make red wax, and £4 8s. 3¼d. for one hundred
and twenty-nine dozen of parchment, with ink.[79] He was
beheaded in 1322, leaving no issue, and his widow,
Alesia de Lacy, married secondly Ebulo Lestrange,[80]
in whose family the manor remained until 1480, when
it passed by marriage to the Stanleys, Earls of Derby.[81]
In 1602 it was sold by the widow of Ferdinando, fifth
earl, to Lord Buckhurst,[82] afterwards Earl of Dorset,
under whose immediate successor it was broken up for
building purposes.

The street of Holborn was at first simply the King’s
Street; afterwards it acquired the name of Holebourne-Bridge-strate.
From Newgate to a little way west of
St. Sepulchre’s Church the high-road was known as
“la Baillie”; from thence it bore the same name as the
river, being carried over the bridge on to the ridge
along which the Romans had built their military stone-way,
known as Watling Street, out of which, in the year
1300, there turned two streets towards the south, namely,
Scho Lane and Faitur Lane, and two towards the north,
one called “le Vrunelane,”[83] afterwards Lyverounelane,
then Lyver Lane, now Leather Lane, and the other called
Portpool Lane, now Gray’s Inn Road.

The justiciars, clerks in Chancery, and serjeants had
frequent cause to protest against the manner in which
the stream of Holeburn was being defiled. In the
Parliament of Barons held in 1307, the Earl of Lincoln,
whose Inn was in close proximity, complained that

“whereas formerly ten and twelve ships were wont to come to Flete
Bridge and some of them to Holeburn Bridge, now, by the filth of the
tanners and others, by the erection of wharfs, especially by them of the{152}
New Temple for their mills without Baynard’s Castle, and by other
impediments, the course was decayed so that ships could not enter as they
were wont.”[84]

Later on, in 1371, a writ was issued by Edward III.
to the mayor and sheriffs to the effect that

“Upon the open information as well of our Justiciars and our Clerks
in Chancery and our other Officers, as of other reputable men now living
in Fletestrete, Holebourne and Smythfeld, we have heard that certain
butchers of the said city, giving no heed to our Ordinance, have slain
large beasts within the said city and have thrown the blood and entrails
thereof in divers places near Holbournebrigge and elsewhere in the suburb
aforesaid, from which abominations and stenches, and the air affected
thereby, sicknesses and very many other maladies have befallen our Officers
aforesaid and other persons there dwelling to the no small damage of
the same our Officers and others,” etc.[85]

Political exigencies had led these justiciars, clerks in
Chancery, and “our other officers,” to settle outside the
city walls. London had been a free city in Saxon times,
and William the Conqueror had allowed its privileges
when, by issuing his famous charter, six inches by one
of parchment, he granted its burghers to be all “law-worthy.”[86]
Successive monarchs had put their seal to
further charters, renewing and enlarging previous concessions,
so that none of the King’s men, whether knight
or clerk, might lodge within the city walls, nor might
lodging be taken by force, and all pleas of the Crown
were to be determined elsewhere. In 1191 the burghers
obtained a “sworn Commune,” after the pattern of that
of Rouen, and it became a boast that “come what may,
the Londoners shall have no King but their Mayor.”[87]

Henry III., jealous of political control, constantly
endeavoured, by irritating Ordinances, to cripple the
powers previously conferred. On December 2nd, 1234,
he issued a{153}

“Mandate to the Mayor and Sheriffs of London that they cause
proclamation to be made through the whole city firmly forbidding that
any should set up schools in the said city for teaching the laws there for
the time to come; and that if any shall there set up such schools they
cause them to cease without delay.”

Whatever the reason of this mandate may have been,
the result was that the Inns of the apprentices-at-law
became fixed in the suburb.

At that date, namely, 1234, the principal officer of
the Crown was Ralph Nevill, Bishop of Chichester, the
King’s Chancellor, who held land on both sides of New
Street, afterwards known as Chancery Lane, and who
had succeeded to the power and influence previously
enjoyed by the justiciar, Hubert de Burgh. This once
powerful minister, who had been Regent during Henry’s
minority, had himself held land in New Street. But
upon his disgrace and dismissal in 1232 he was deprived
of it, and it was granted

“to the House which the King has founded in the street called Newstrate,
between the Old Temple and the New Temple, for the support of the
brethren converted, and to be converted, from Judaism to the Catholic
faith, saving the garden which the King has already granted to Ralph,
Bishop of Chichester, his Chancellor.”[88]

This house became the Rolls Office, and in after
times, when the Master of the Rolls became head of the
Chancery clerks, the street became known as Chancery
Lane.

The Old Temple was in Holborn, and the property
extended from the north-eastern corner of Chancery
Lane to Staple Inn, and possibly further. The Knights
Templars sold it about the year 1160 to the Bishopric
of Lincoln. Their round chapel, of which the round
of the present Temple Church is a replica, still retained
its chaplain in 1222, and its ruins were still existing
in Queen Elizabeth’s reign, quite close to Staple Inn.
In 1547 the bishopric had to resign the property to John{154}
Dudley, Earl of Warwick, Great Chamberlain of
England, afterwards Earl of Northumberland,[89] who conveyed
it in 1549 to the Chancellor, Thomas Wriothesley,
Earl of Southampton. The eastern part of the property
was built upon in 1580 by William Roper, of Lincoln’s
Inn; and in 1638 the then Earl received licence to
demolish his house to make way for eighty smaller
houses and one tavern. The rotunda of the Birkbeck
Bank occupies the site of what was once Northumberland
Court, and Southampton Buildings now cover the
grounds of Southampton House.

On the west side of Chancery Lane, or New Street,
Ralph Nevill, the Bishop of Chichester, possessed a
house which became part of the third and present
Lincoln’s Inn; but his garden was on the east side of
Chancery Lane, and was bounded on the north by a
ditch, known in 1262 as Chanceleresdich. This ditch
separated his garden from certain property, occupied
one hundred years later by serjeants and apprentices of
the law, which may be conveniently designated the
second Lincoln’s Inn. It was situated to the east of
Staple Inn, where now is Furnival Street.

Dugdale describes Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln,
as a person well affected to the study of the laws, who
had gathered around him numbers of students. This
statement is probably correct, for in 1292, only six years
after the earl had bought the houses of the Black Friars,
Edward I. urges the same course upon his Chief Justice
of Common Pleas. He enjoins John Metyngham and
his fellows, et sociis suis, to provide a certain number
of every county of the better and more legally and
liberally learned for the purpose of being trained to
practise in the Courts.[90] If the Earl of Lincoln had
already brought students to London, we may be fairly
certain that many of them would have come from his{155}
lands in Lincolnshire and North Wales. The second
Lincoln’s Inn appears to have been much connected with
the one, and Davy’s Inn with the other.

In the year 1252, Adam de Basing, then Mayor of
London, held a block of land, about 100 yards wide
by 220 yards long, on the east side of Staple Inn, part
of which was leased to Roger the Smith, and part to
Geoffrey the Wheelwright. In 1269, Simon Faber, son
and heir of Roger, granted a portion of it, lying next
to Staple Inn, to Simon the Marshall, “being in breadth
at the King’s street on the north 12 ells of the iron ell
of King Henry,” and 48 ells long, “for the yearly
rent, to Thomas, son of Adam de Basing, and his heirs,
of 10s. sterling, and to Simon Faber and his heirs one
rose at the feast of the nativity of St. John Baptist.”[91]
But Simon the Marshall accepted this grant only to make
a feoffment of the property at once to Gilbert de Lincoln,
known also as Gilbert de Haliwell and as Gilbert
Proudphoet, a dealer in parchment, parmentarius, who
held it for thirty-three years; his wife, after his death,
holding it for another five. In 1307, William le Brewere
and William atte Gate, executors of Gilbert de Lincoln,
sold the property, with the buildings thereon, to John
de Dodyngton, variously described as parmentarius and
skinner, pelliparius, for the sum of one hundred
shillings.[92] Within five years, in 1312, John de Dodyngton
transferred it to Robert le Hende de Worcester, also
parmentarius and pelliparius, who held it for twenty
years; from whom it descended in the female line to
James Gylot, who in 1369 enfeoffed of it Roger de
Podyngton, and Joan his wife, “to hold to Roger and
Joan, and the heirs and assigns of Roger, of the chief
lords of that fee by the accustomed services for ever.”[93]
In the same year Roger and Joan “gave” it to Walter
de Barton, citizen and cordwainer of London, to hold{156}
under the same conditions, in whose possession it remained
for seventeen years, when he granted a feoffment
of it to Robert de Cherlton, Chief Justice of Common
Pleas, Richard the Mauncyple, John Sutton, John
Aldurley, and John Parkere,[94] who in the same year
transferred it to the Abbot of Malmesbury. By an
Inquisition, ad quod damnum, held in May of that year,
for the purpose of determining whether the gift might
be legally made, it was stated that the property was
held in burgage—i.e., town tenure—of the King, and there
are no means between the King and the said Robert,
etc.[95] The abbot allowed Walter de Barton and his
successors to remain in occupation, the monastery
receiving the rents.

Though for thirty-three years it had been held by
Gilbert de Lincoln, this property did not form a part
of what was called Lyncolnesynne. It was partly a
brewery and partly a hostel, and remained such until
the reign of Henry VIII.

The property east and south of this was, in the year
1262, held by Geoffrey the Wheelwright. That part of it
lying east had been leased direct from Adam Basing;
it extended from the King’s Street to the “land of the
Conversi,” and was 12 ells in width at the north, 10 ells
in width at the south, and 220 yards long. That part
lying south had been granted to Geoffrey by Simon
Faber; it contained

“in length from the ditch called Chaunceleresdich towards the Church
of the Conversi on the south as far as Simon’s own curtilage on the
north 31 perches of the perch of Henry III., whereof each perch contains
16½ feet,”

and in width 11 ells of the said King;

“to hold to Geoffrey, his heirs and assigns, of Adam Basing, for 2s. 8d.
rent paid in the name of Simon, his heirs and assigns, and one rose at
the nativity of S. John Baptist to Simon and his heirs.”[96]

{157}

Adam de Basing gave this property to his daughter,
Avice, wife of William de Hadestok, Alderman of Tower
Ward.[97] They had a daughter, Joan, who married Adam
Bidic, the King’s tailor and custodian of the assize of
cloth,[98] who in 1291 granted it to William le Brewere and
Alice his wife.[99] It was described as stretching from the
King’s Street on the north to the tenement of the Bishop
of Chichester on the south;

“to hold to William and Alice, their heirs and assigns, for the yearly
rent of two marks and for suits of court and all other services wont to
be done by Geoffrey, le Whelwriste, in the time of Adam Basing, formerly
citizen of London.”

The widow of William le Brewere, in 1315, granted
the property to Robert le Hende de Worcester, who
already held the brewery on the west.[100] In 1334 the
executors of Robert sold the property (exclusive of the
brewery) to Thomas de Lincoln of the Common Bench,
the King’s serjeant, who is described as son of Thomas
de Lincoln.[101] Three years before, in 1331, Thomas de
Lincoln had acquired from John de Totel de Lincoln
other property to the east of this, and in 1332 a garden
also, to the south-east, from Andrew Courtays, the
Coupere. These three combined properties formed the
inn which came to be known as “Lyncolnesynne.” On
the 11th January, 1348, Thomas Bedic, grandson of
Adam de Bedic, granted all his rights of lordship in this
property to Thomas de Lincoln, who thus became entire
owner of it.

After holding it for thirty-two years, Thomas de
Lincoln, on Sunday, 1st December, 1364, granted it to
John Claymond, Justice for County Lincoln, Peter
Turke, and Robert de Ditton, “to hold to them, their
heirs and assigns, of the chief lords of that fee by
the accustomed services.”[102] These feoffees, two years{158}
afterwards, granted it to William de Worston, Justice
of County Wilts., Thomas Coubrigge, William Camme,
Vicar of Westport, Malmesbury, and Robert de Cherlton,
Chief Justice of Common Pleas; and they, two years
later still, in 1369, received letters patent of Edward III,
granting them licence to assign it to the Abbot and
Convent of Malmesbury,

“to hold to the Abbot and Convent and their successors of the King, the
chief lord of that fee, by the services belonging to those houses for ever.”[103]

To the east of this property of Lincoln’s Inn there
was, in 1295, “a tenement with buildings thereon, and
a curtilage adjacent,” belonging to the Knights Templars,
which was then held by Simon le Webbe de Purtepol,
Bailiff of the Commonalty of the Guild of Weavers.
Upon his death it came into the possession of John
Wymondeswolde, chaplain and pelliparius, who in 1328
granted it to Robert the Marshall, citizen and goldsmith
of London

“to hold to Robert, his heirs and assigns, of the chief lords of that fee,
namely, the Prior of the Hospital of S. John of Jerusalem in England
and the Brethren of the Hospital, by reason of the annulling of the Order
of the Knights of the Temple, by the service of ten shillings yearly.”[104]

This rent was reduced in 1336 to 6s. 8d., because the
tenement was ruinous, Robert the Marshall promising to
rebuild it. Eventually, in the year 1361, it came into
the hands of Gaillard Pete, or Pecche, and eighteen years
afterwards he granted it to Robert de Cherlton, Chief
Justice of the Common Bench, John atte Mulle, chaplain,
Thomas de Worston, and William Camme, their heirs and
assigns, “to hold of the chief lord of that fee for the
accustomed services.”[105] They demised it to the same
Gaillard and Agnes his wife for their lives, with
remainder to Roger, son of Gaillard, for his life. And
eight years afterwards the Chief Justice and his fellow
feoffees granted this property also to the Abbot of
Malmesbury.[106] In the Inquisition ad quod damnum{159}
already quoted, it is stated that “the messuage and
garden are held of the King by Gailard Pete,” which
seems to imply that the Chief Justice and his fellows had
been acting all along as trustees; and it is also stated
that

“they are worth yearly according to their true value 13s. 4d. and not
more because they are charged yearly to the Master of the Church of
the New Temple within the Bar of London in 6s. 8d. quit rent.”

The Abbot of Malmesbury had now become possessed
of three properties in Holborn: the tenement of Walter
Barton, next to Staple Inn, acquired in 1387;
Lyncolnesynne, acquired in 1369; and the tenement of
Gailard Pete, acquired, like that of Walter Barton, in
1387. In the reign of Henry VIII., at the dissolution
of the monasteries, there was still at this spot a chapel,
a hall, a kitchen, and a “great garden,” where the
monks had “liberty to walk” when they came to
London; and the brewery also was still in existence.[107]

In 1399 a rental of the property of the Convent of
Malmesbury was drawn up, in which the following items
appear[108]:—

Written in a different hand, with different coloured
ink, at the bottom margin of the page, and certainly of
a later date, the following remarks have been added:—

{160}

The “Inn of the Esquire … which is ruinous”
of the marginal note is obviously the same as the
“Lyncolnesynne” of the original entry, with the rent
reduced from £8 to 40s. per annum. It is not possible
to date this note, but it was probably made in
the fifteenth century. In 1422 the Society of Lincoln’s
Inn took what is believed to be their first lease of the
Bishop of Chichester property on the west side of
Chancery Lane; but the society existed before that date,
as in the Corporation letter books Thomas Broun is
described as Maunciple of Lincoln’s Inn, under date of
1417. In 1466 the society was paying 9s. yearly to the
prior of St. Giles’ Hospital for Lepers for another part
of its property; and no other rents, apparently, were
being paid for any other part on the west side of Chancery
Lane. But in the Black Books of that Inn (vol. i., p. 8),
under a date only sixteen years later than that of their
lease of the Bishop’s Inn, the following entry occurs:—

“In the vigil of the Apostles Peter and Paul 16 Henry VI. (1438)
John Row delivered to John Fortescue and others in the name of the
Society to be paid to … Halssewylle for the farm of Lyncollysyn
in arrear for the 15th year (Henry VI.) in the time of Bartholomew Bolney
then Pensioner in full payment 40s. out of money received by him.”

The yearly rent for the farm of Lyncollysyn is the
same, therefore, as was paid for the ruinous “Hospicium
Armigeri”; and in the fourteenth century, as Foss has
pointed out, the term “esquire” was often used as a
synonym for “serjeant.” The Black Books also show
that in 1457 a payment was made by the society to the
gardener of Staple Inn, from which Inn access could be
easily obtained to the “great garden” in which the
“Hospicium Armigeri” was situated. It would seem
not improbable, therefore, that the second and third
Lincoln’s Inns may, in the year 1438, have been coexistent
and under the same rule. But there is at
present no evidence that this same society was connected{161}
with the Inn in Shoe Lane, which 130 years earlier had
belonged to Henry de Lacy.

John Fortescue, who received the 40s. for payment
to Halssewyll, became serjeant in 1441 and Chief Justice
of the King’s Bench in 1442. In 1465 he wrote his famous
work, De Laudibus Legum Angliæ, in which he says:

“The laws are taught in a certain place of public study nigh to the
King’s Courts…. There are ten lesser houses or Inns (and sometimes
more) which are called houses of Chancery, and to every one of them
belongeth 100 students at least, who, as they grow to ripeness, are admitted
into the greater Inns, called Inns of Court, of which there are four in
number, and to the least of which belongeth 200 students or more.”

It is clear, then, that the difference between the Inns
of Court and Inns of Chancery was recognised in 1465,
and it is also certain that one of those four Inns of Court
was that to which he himself had belonged, namely,
Lincoln’s Inn. The others were undoubtedly Gray’s Inn
and the Inner and Middle Temples. We have seen that
in 1387 Lincoln’s Inn in Holborn was held directly of
the King; we shall find that the other Inns of Court
came to be similarly held.

In the year 1294, Reginald de Grey, a member of one
of the leading administrative and legal families, was
Justiciar of Chester. He received in that year from the
Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s a feoffment of the manor
of Portpool, which they had received in mortmain from
Richard de Chyggewell, alderman and mercer of London.
It is doubtful whether Reginald de Grey lived here;
it is more likely that he acquired the property for the
training of his clerks, having found himself under much
the same necessity as his contemporaries, Sir John de
Metyngham and the Earl of Lincoln. In 1296 he was
in association with Prince Edward, as one of the Regency,
during the expedition of Edward I. to Flanders. In 1307
he died, when an inquisition was taken, at which the jurors
reported that Reginald le Grey was seized at Purtepol
of a certain messuage with gardens and one dove house{162}
worth 10s. a year, 30 acres of arable land worth 20s. a
year, price 8d. the acre, and a certain windmill worth 20s.
all held of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s.[109]

In 1316 his successor, Sir John de Grey, created a rent-charge
on the property in favour of the prior and convent
of St. Bartholomew, in Smithfield, to provide a chaplain
to perform daily service in the chapel of the manor; and
at an inquisition held in that year, at the Stone Cross
in the parish of the Blessed Mary at the Strand, to know
whether it would be to the King’s damage if he granted
the necessary permission, the jurors reported that the
property was

“holden of Robert de Chiggewelle by the service of rendering to the
same Robert one rose yearly, and the same Robert holds the tenements,
together with others, of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s, and the
said Dean and Chapter hold the same of the king in pure and perpetual
alms.”[110]

The grandson of Sir John de Grey, another Reginald,
died in 1370, and was succeeded by Henry de Grey, under
whom the first feoffment-in-trust of this property that
we know of took place. For when he died in 1397 it
was found by inquisition that Henry, Lord Grey de
Wilton, held no land in Middlesex, because by deed he
had enfeoffed Roger Harecourt, Justice for Co. Derby;
John de Broughton, Escheator for the counties of Bucks
and Beds; William Danbury; John Boner, rector of the
Church of Shirland (one of the manors of the De Greys),
and others, of his manor of Portpoole, called Gray’s Inn.[111]
This was probably in 1371. Similar feoffments-in-trust
were made by successive Lords de Grey until 1506, when
Edmund, Lord de Grey of Wilton, sold the manor to
Hugh Denys, verger of Windsor Castle, and others, the
said Hugh’s feoffees.[112]

{163}

Hugh Denys died in 1511, and by his will he desired
that all such persons as had been feoffed of his manor of
“Greysynte” should be seized of it to the use of his
heirs, “until such time as the Prior and Convent of the
Charterhouse at Shene, in the county of Surrey, have
obtained of the king’s grace sufficient licence for the
amortisement” of the manor to them.[113] And five years
later the necessary authority was granted, the manor being
described as having escheated to the King, “by the
death of Robert de Chiggewell without an heir,” to be
held to the annual value of £6 13s. 4d.

At the dissolution of the monasteries the Benchers
of Gray’s Inn had to pay this amount to the Crown, instead
of to the Charterhouse at Shene. Charles II. sold
the rent to Sir Philip Matthews, and in 1733 the Benchers
purchased it from parties deriving title from his co-heirs.[114]
The hall of Gray’s Inn dates from 1560; the chapel is
of unknown, but of ancient date.

The New Temple was in occupation by the Knights
Templars before 1186. They were bankers for the King,
who sometimes lodged there. Their chapel was the
muniment house of the rolls of chancery; there the
treasure and regalia were stored; and there Parliaments
and Courts, both criminal and civil, were held. Naturally,
they needed their own fratres servientes, who were
provided with food “at the clerks’ tables,” and yearly
robes at Christmas “of the suit of the free servants of the
house.”[115]

The chief lord was the Earl of Lancaster. But when
the Knighthood was suppressed, in 1308, their clerks were
pensioned, and Edward II. granted the property to Aymer
de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, he receiving the issues,
but holding the manor of the lord, to whom, however,
he made a “quit claim” in October, 1314, the Pope having{164}
granted the possessions of the Templars to the Knights
of St. John. Upon the execution and attainder of
Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, in 1322, the King gave the
lordship to Hugh le Despencer, who also obtained from
the Prior of St. John’s a feoffment of the houses and
appurtenances,[116] and on the attainder of Hugh le
Despencer, in 1327, the lordship and also the ferm came
into the hands of Edward III., who put William de
Langeford, clerk of the Prior and “chief servitor of the
King’s religion,” in charge as “fermor” at £24 yearly.
He repaired the old houses for the King’s clerks
to occupy;[117] and for some years following litigants coming
into chancery would take their oaths in the Temple
Church; though sometimes at this period they would
attend in the church of St. Andrew in Holborn, Thomas
de Cotyngham, one of the Chancery clerks, then being
rector there. It was William de Langeford who, in 1335,
took a lease from the mayor and commonalty of “a piece
of land” without Newgate “for making a hall and three
fit chambers at his own expense, for the sessions of the
Justices appointed to deliver Newgate Gaol.”[118] This
early Sessions House is described as being in the King’s
high street, on the way towards Holebourne. It would
have stood at the north-west corner of the present
Newgate Street.

The Temple contained an inner consecrated area,
which was occupied by the Knights, and some houses
adjacent on the west owned by them, but not improbably
occupied by students of the law. It appears that when
the manor was handed over to the Knights of St. John
the King retained part of it, which, however, in 1338,
he allowed them to purchase for £100, and from that
date we read no more of the chancery being held in the{165}
Temple Church. In gratitude to William de Langeford,
whose services had secured to the Order the restitution
of their property, the prior granted him a lease of “all
their messuages and places of the sometime Temple lying
from the lane called Chauncellereslane to the Templebarre
without the gates of the New Temple.” This lease was
dated June 11th, 1339,[119] and the lawyers have held the
property ever since.

The consecrated and secular areas may, perhaps, be
the origin of the division of the property into two Inns
of Court; for the lease of 1339 obviously refers only to
what is now known as the Middle Temple.

There is a tradition that the students of the Inner
Temple came from Davy’s Inn, which could hardly have
existed at that time under that name, but it may be noted
that in the records of that Inn it is stated, under date
of 1525, that “Master Barnardston is pardoned the office
of Steward because he executed the office of Principal
of Davy’s Inn at the instance of this Society,”[120] thus showing
that this Inn of Court had the right in that year
of supplying one of its own members to that office.

In 1521 the Prior of St. John’s made complaint that
the Society of the Inner Temple was occupying his lands
against his will; but at the dissolution of the religious
houses in 1541, the rentals became due to the Crown; and
James I., in his sixth year, granted the property to the
Benchers of the Middle and Inner Temples in perpetuity
for a fixed rental of £20,[121] their several moieties of which
Charles II. allowed them to purchase in 1673 and 1675
respectively.[122]

The “round” of the church was completed in 1185, the
choir in 1240, and the whole building was “restored”
in 1842 at a cost of £70,000. The hall of the Middle{166}
Temple was built in 1572, that of the Inner Temple in
1870.

The property on the west side of New Street, or
Chancery Lane, had been granted to, or acquired by,
the Knights Templars. Henry III.’s Chancellor, Ralph
Nevill, Bishop of Chichester, died at his house there in
1244, and the King arbitrarily authorised his Treasurer,
William de Haverhill, to secure the property upon the
Chancellor’s death, so that neither the Templars nor any
other person should lay hands on it.[123] To the north of
it was a garden once held by William Cottrell, which he
had given to the Knights of St. John, who in turn had
given it to St. Giles’ Hospital for Lepers.[124] In the year
1310, when Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, died, another
Bishop of Chichester, John de Langton, was Chancellor,
and was occupying the Inn of the see, whilst the hospital
of St. Giles was still receiving rent for Cottrell’s garden.
No Black Friars house, therefore, ever existed here, nor
did Henry de Lacy die here; and all traditions to the
contrary can be disproved.

In 1422 the Society of Lincoln’s Inn, coming probably
from Holborn, took a lease of the Bishop of Chichester’s
property, and afterwards a lease of Cottrell’s garden. In
1537 Bishop Sampson sold the house and land belonging
to the see to William and Eustace Sulyard, members of
the Inn, from whom it descended to Edward Sulyard,
who sold it in 1579 to the society. Subscriptions for this
purchase were received by the Benchers, as is evident
from the will of Sir Roger Cholmeley, dated 1565, who
gave to certain trustees a house in Newgate Market “to
hold to them and their heirs for ever towards the purchase
of Lincoln’s Inn and in the mean season towards the
repairs of the same.”[125] The hall of this Inn was pulled
down and rebuilt in 1489; but since then, in 1845, a new{167}
hall, Gothic in character, and of great dignity and beauty,
has been erected. The chapel, by Inigo Jones, dates from
1621, and the fine old gateway from 1518.

The Inns of Chancery were at first independent of the
four Inns of Court, but, inasmuch as serjeants were chosen
only from the latter, it became the custom for students
in the lesser Inns, when “they came to ripeness,” as
Fortescue puts it, to enter one of the higher Inns if they
desired advancement. Gradually each Inn of Court took
special interest in certain of the lesser Inns, by sending
to them Readers and by other marks of patronage, until an
impression came to exist, which was much strengthened
by various Orders in Council, that a certain governorship
of one over the other was a normal, legal, and time-honoured
institution. And in a few instances the Inns
of Court put the coping stone to this theory by purchasing
the property of those lesser Inns, of which they were
the patrons. Thus Lincoln’s Inn bought Furnival’s on
December 16th, 1547, having previously held a lease of
it, and Davy’s on November 24th, 1548; and the Inner
Temple bought Lyon’s Inn in 1581, which they sold in
1863, the Globe Theatre being built upon its site.

It is doubtful whether Furnival’s Inn was ever occupied
by the Lords Furnival. In 1331 the property belonged
to Roger atte Bowe, a wool-stapler, who died in that year,
leaving his tenements in Holbourne and a garden in
Lyverounelane to his children. How or when it came
into the hands of the De Furnivals is not known; but
in 1383 an inquisition post mortem was taken by the
Mayor, at which the jurors recorded that

“William Furnyvall, knight, did not die seised of any lands or tenements
in the city of London nor in the suburbs thereof. But that in his
life time he was seised of two shops and 13 messuages with appurtenances
in the street called Holbourne in the suburb of London situated between
a tenement of Jordain de Barton on the east (he was a Chauff-cier, i.e.,
an officer of Chancery who prepared the wax for the sealing of writs
to be issued) and a tenement of John Tonyngton on the west and which
formerly belonged to Roger atte Bogh. And William de Furnyvale{168}
enfeoffed William Savage, parson of the church of Handsworth and John
Redesere, chaplain, of the aforesaid messuages and shops to hold to
them, their heirs and assigns for ever and they are still thereof seised.
And the messuages and shops are worth 100s. and are held in free
burgage of the king by the service of 11s. 4d. for all services. William
Furnyvall died 12th April last past. Joan his daughter, wife of Thomas
Nevill, is his nearest heir, aged 14 years and 6 months.”[126]

William de Furnival had succeeded his brother in
1364. Six years before he died—namely, in 1377—he was
reported to be feeble and infirm, and it seems most probable
from the above inquisition that his Inn was occupied
by clerks. Maude, the heiress of Thomas de Neville,
married John Talbot, Lord Strange of Blackmere, who
was summoned to Parliament as Lord Furnival in 1442,
and created Earl of Shrewsbury in 1446. His son, John
Talbot, second Earl, was also Treasurer of England. The
fifth Earl, Francis Talbot, sold the property in 1547, then
in a ruinous condition, to the Society of Lincoln’s Inn,[127]
who, after holding it for nearly 340 years, sold it to the
Prudential Assurance Company, in 1888, who demolished
it for their present offices. John Staynford was principal
of the Inn in 1425, and John Courtenay in 1450. It was
sometimes called an Inn of Court,[128] and had its own
chapel, which, however, was in St. Andrew’s Church.[129]
A coloured drawing of its quaint little Hall, built in
1588, is in the Guildhall Library.

Barnard’s Inn, situated to the east of the second
Lincoln’s Inn, and opposite to Furnival’s Inn, was so
named from one Lionel Barnard, who was in occupation
of it in 1435. But the real owner was John Mackworth,
who was Dean of Lincoln from 1412 to 1451. He
had inherited it probably from his brother, Thomas
Mackworth, of Mackworth, co. Derby, who in 1431{169}
became owner, having married Alice de Basing.[130] At an
inquisition ad quod damnum held February 2nd, 1454,
permission was given to Thomas Atkyn, citizen of
London,

“An executor of the will of John Macworthe, Dean of Lincoln Cathedral,
to assign a messuage in Holbourne called Macworth Inne, now commonly
called Barnard’s Inne, to the Dean and Chapter of the aforesaid Cathedral
towards this work, extraordinary fees were raised, and divine service in the
Chapel of St. George, in the southern part of the said church, where the
body of the said John is buried, for the soul of the said John for ever, in
part satisfaction of £20 of land which Edward III. licenced the said Dean
and Chapter to acquire. The said messuage is held of the king in free
burgage as is the whole city of London and is worth yearly beyond
deductions six marks (£4) and there is no mean between the king and the
said Thomas Atkyn; whether he has enough of lands, &c., to support all
dues and services, &c., remaining after the said donation and assignment
or whether he will be able to be sworn on assizes as before this donation
the jurors are thoroughly ignorant; but the country will not by this
donation in defect of the said Thomas be burdened.”[131]

This Inn became attached to Gray’s Inn. In 1894
the Dean and Chapter of Lincoln Cathedral sold it to
the Mercers’ Company for the Mercers’ School, and the
old hall of the Inn is now used as a dining-room for
the boys.

Brooke House, to the west of Furnival’s Inn, stood
where now is Brooke Street, and was probably at one
time an Inn for lawyers. In the reign of Henry V. it
was held by John Gascoigne, who demised it to Justice
Richard Hankeford,[132] who died in 1431, and whose heir,
Thomasina, married Sir William Bourchier, brother of the
Treasurer Henry, Earl of Essex. In 1480 his descendant,
Fulk Bourchier, died, and it was found that he had
enfeoffed John Sapcote and Guy Wollaston, esquires of
the King’s body (pro corpore domini Regis), and others,
of his property in Holborn.[133] His descendant, John{170}
Bourchier, was created Earl of Bath in 1536, and in 1623
Bath House passed into the possession of Lord Brooke
and took his name.

The earliest evidence yet obtained respecting the name
of Staple Inn is in the will of Richard Starcolf, a wool-stapler,
which was proved in the Court of Hustings on
February 14th, 1334, and dated July 22nd, 1333, wherein
he bequeaths his tenement in Holborn, called le Stapled
halle, to be sold for pious uses.[134] No less than four
stapled halles are known to have been in existence, at
this time, at various trade gates of the city, and the
meaning of the title has been much discussed.

Lincoln’s Inn Gate, Chancery Lane.

From an old print published in 1800.

Richard Starkulf was a Norfolk man of Danish origin,
and was admitted to the freedom of the city of London
in 1310. He is described as a mercer, but no mercer
could carry on his trade in those days without belonging
to a staple. After his death, as his son Thomas was still
a minor, his lands were placed in the custody of William
de Hampton, of Shrewsbury, controller of the customs
in the King’s staple there, and to Richard de Elsyng,
another mercer. But the tenement of le Stapled halle,
which he directed should be sold, came into the hands
of William de Elsyng,[135] also a wool-stapler, a brother of
Richard, and the founder of St. Mary’s Hospital, commonly
known as Elsyng Spital. Five years later, when William
de Elsyng made further gifts to the hospital, an inquisition
was held to know if the gift might be made without
injury to anyone, and thereat some interesting particulars
respecting his Holborn property were recorded. We are
told that

“there remains to William a tenement in the parish of St. Andrew of
Holbourne which is worth yearly in all its issues 100s.; thence should be
subtracted 3s. 4d. quit rent yearly to the church of St. Paul, London,
and 6s. 8d. for yearly repairs, the clear value thus being £4 10s.; which
tenement (with others), remaining after the aforesaid assignment are held{171}
of the king in free burgage as is the whole of the aforesaid city and are
sufficient for the maintenance of all dues and services and William can
be put on assizes, juries and recognisances as before his assignment.”[136]

The next person to hold Staple Inn was Thomas de
Brenchesle.[137] No record of his appointment to any duties
at Holborn Bars has been discovered, but on April 12th,
1343, he was ordered to “attach” Thomas Tirwhitt, of
Pokelynton,

“who has taken without the realm twelve sarples of wool uncustomed
and uncoketed (i.e., unsealed), as the king is certainly informed, and
bring him before the council with all speed to answer for his contempt.”[138]

And on April 1st, 1349, Thomas de Brynchesle was
ordered,

“upon pain of forfeiture, to be at Westminster with all the evidence in
his possession for the time when he was appointed with others to supervise
the state of the king’s staple in Flanders, before the king and his council
on the morrow of the close of Easter next, to inform them of things that
will be set forth to him.”[139]

It seems apparent, then, that Staple Inn was not unconnected
in those days with the staple of wool.

The Ordinance of the Staple was issued in 1313,[140] but
there are good grounds for believing that long before this
date the site was already in use as a custom house and
wool court. The ordinance was embodied in a statute
of the realm in 1353.[141] London was no longer mentioned
as a staple, Westminster being substituted, the bounds
of which were defined as commencing at Temple Bar, and
ending at Tothill.[142] But it is likely that the Inn at
Holborn Bars was still occupied by attorneys who practised
for their patrons of the Staple, and that the
Merchants for Wools still had their meetings there. In{172}
1401 Hamond Elyot sued a plaint of debt against Martyn
Dyne, of Haydon, Norfolk, for the sum of £26 2s. 3d., in
the Court of Staple at Westminster;[143] and one hundred
years later, John Dyne, his descendant, also of Haydon,
Norfolk, was a member of Staple Inn. In his will, proved
1505, he gives the names of the company of the Inn.
Edmund Paston, grandson of the Judge, was a member
in 1467, and we learn from one of his letters that the
Inn had a Principal at that date.

In 1529, John Knighton and Alice, his wife, daughter
of John Copwode of the Remembrancer’s Office of the
Exchequer, sold the inheritance of the Inn to the Ancients
of Gray’s Inn, after which there were other feoffments in
trust, the last of which, that we know of, dated June 4th,
1622, being that of Sir Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, to
Edward Moseley, Attorney of the Duchy of Lancaster
and others, Readers of Gray’s Inn, “to hold to them,
their heirs and assigns of the chief lords of that fee by
the services thence due and of right accustomed.”[144] The
society eventually became its own master, and in 1811
had no connection whatever with Gray’s Inn. It was
dissolved in 1884, when its property was sold to a firm
of auctioneers, who parted with it in the same year, the
Government buying the southern portion for an extension
of the Patent Office, and the Prudential Assurance Company
the remainder. The lawyers still congregate there;
the only difference being a change of landlords, though
the hall has been leased to the Institute of Actuaries.
The frontage of the Inn dates from 1570 and 1586, the
hall from 1581.

Middle Temple Hall.

Davy’s Inn is most probably the correct name of
the Inn, which for three centuries past has unaccountably,
possibly through Stow’s mistake, gone by the name of
Thavies Inn. No record has yet been found earlier than{173}
the reign of Queen Elizabeth in which the name of this
Inn is any other than Davy’s or David’s. The will of John
Davy was proved in the Court of Hustings in 1398.[145] He
desired to be buried in the church of St. Andrew. To
Alice, his wife, he left his lands and tenements in Holborn
for life, with remainder to John Osbern and his wife,
Emma, testator’s daughter, in tail; with remainder in
trust for the maintenance of a chantry in St. Mary’s
Chapel in the church of St. Andrew. The annual proceeds
of this latter bequest were still being received by
the church in the reign of Henry VIII. The testator
was an attorney, and his name occurs in many legal documents
relating to Holborn in the reign of Edward III.;
he was also associated with others of the neighbourhood
in various pavage commissions. It is quite possible,
however, and probable, that the Inn which bore his name
was an Inn long before his time. It was bought by
Lincoln’s Inn in 1548, and sold in 1769. It has since
been demolished.

New Inn, in the Strand, also called St. Mary’s Inn,
was a guest Inn, says Sir George Buck, writing in 1615,
hired by Sir John Fineux, Chief Justice of King’s Bench,
in the reign of Edward IV., for £6 per annum, to place
therein those students who were lodged in “la Baillie,”
in a house called St George’s Inn, near the upper end
of St. George’s Lane. In the year 1348 the will of John
Tavy, armourer, was proved in the Court of Hustings.[146]
He therein orders that after the decease of his wife an
Inn, where the apprentices were wont to dwell, should
be sold, and the proceeds devoted to the maintenance
of a chantry. These apprentices are not in the original
will described as ad legem, but these words have crept
into a subsequent transcription. The testator was, in
1342, one of the four members of the Company of
Armourers appointed by the mayor and aldermen, and{174}
sworn to observe and supervise the then new regulations
respecting the making and selling of armour.[147] He would
certainly have had his apprentices, and it may be he
referred to them in his will. He would have been a
member of the Fraternity or Guild of St. George of the
men of the Mistery of Armourers, St. George being the
Armourers’ patron saint. This fact seems to suggest that
his Inn became St. George’s Inn, which would have stood
not far from the Sessions House, built by William de
Langeford.

The Six Clerks Inn, formerly Herfleet’s Inn, and then
Kidderminster Inn, was on the west side of Chancery Lane,
opposite the Rolls Office, and was probably an Inn of
Chancery, though unattached, at a very early date. In
1454 Nicholas Wymbyssh, one of the clerks of the King’s
Chancery, assigned it to the prior of Necton Park, co.
Lincoln, to hold of the King in free burgage.[148] It was
then in the parish of St. Dunstan. It acquired the name
of Kidderminster Inn from John Kidderminster, one of
the society, who purchased it at the time of the dissolution
of the monastery. In the eighteenth century the
Six Clerks Inn Society moved to the north-western end
of Chancery Lane. Stone Buildings, part of Lincoln’s
Inn, now occupies the site.

Cursitors’ Inn, also in Chancery Lane, was sometimes
known as Bacon’s Inn, having been founded, in 1574,
by Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal.
In 1478 it was known as the Bores hedde, and then
consisted of one tenement and a large garden, about
two and a half acres in extent, bounded on the north
by the grounds of the Old Temple and of Staple Inn;
on the east by that property of the Convent of
Malmesbury which had formerly been known as
“Lyncolnesynne”; and on the south by a lane now{175}
known as Cursitor Street. The rent was then being
paid to the Corporation of the City of London, who
were probably feoffees of the bishopric of Lincoln; but
in 1561 they purchased it of Edward VI., into whose
hands it had come at the dissolution of chantries and
chapels; and they, in 1574, granted it to Sir Nicholas
Bacon,[149] who there housed the cursitor clerks. There
were twenty-four cursitor clerks—i.e., Clerks of the
Course—whose business was to draw up the writs. The
Cursitor Baron administered the oaths to the sheriffs,
bailiffs, and officers of the Customs, etc. Cursitor Street
perpetuates the name of the Inn.

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

Clement’s Inn, an Inn of Chancery attached to the
Inner Temple, was divided within recent years from New
Inn, which belonged to the Middle Temple, only by iron
railings with a gate. Its origin is unknown, but its name{176}
connects it either with St. Clement’s Church, or
St. Clement’s Well. It was certainly in existence before
the time of Henry VII.

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

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

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

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

Lincoln’s Inn Hall: the Lord Chancellor’s Court.

From a drawing by T. H. Shepherd.

{177}

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

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

Now the Inns of Chancery have practically vanished,
leaving the Inns of Court to monopolise all the glory
of the great future which undoubtedly still lies before
them.{178}

THE GUILDHALL

By Charles Welch, F.S.A.