IE" AND OUT OF LONDON 
 
 OR, THE
 
 Frontutpiece 
 
 I.NAtK COIKI, K.NOLJ^. 
 
 Page 162,
 
 "m^ 
 
 IN AND OUT OF LONDON : 
 
 OE, THE 
 
 ialf-l0litraus d u Coton €hx]x. 
 
 ur 
 
 W. J. LOFTIE, B.A., F.S.A., 
 
 Assistant Minister, Chapel Royal, Savoy ; Author of "A Century of 
 Bibles," "The Latin Year," &c. <tc. 
 
 PUBLISHED UNDEE THE DIBECTION OF THE 
 
 COMMITTEE OF GENERAL LITEEATUEE AND EDUCATION, APPOINTED BI 
 
 THE SOCIETY FOB PEOMOTING CHEISIIAIT KNOWLEDQE. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 ^otictg for promoting ©Ijristian ISlnotolcOgc. 
 
 Sold at the Depositories : 
 
 7", Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields ; 
 
 4, Royal Exchange ; 48, Piccadilly : 
 
 And Ijv all Booksellers. 
 
 KEW YOKK : POTT, YOUNG, & CO. 
 
 
 '■■A
 
 UNWIN' BROTHERS, 
 PRINTERS.
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 iJ.NlVERSITY OF CArjFnRM\ 
 
 SA.NTA BARBARA 
 
 ADYERTISEMEXT. 
 
 JEYEEAL of these essays liave, in sub- 
 stance at least, been printed before. 
 I have to thank the Editor of the 
 Guardian for kindly allowing me to use 
 those contributed to his joui-nal. The second essay 
 and that on St. Helen's appeared in the late 
 Peojjle's Magazine, and the St. Olave's in Long Ago, 
 — another magazine ■which must be numbered 
 "with things of the past : I have to thank Mr. John 
 Piggott, F.S.A., for leave to use it. And I have 
 also to thank the proprietors of CassclVs Magazine 
 for leave to use an article on Tyburn, •which, in 
 part at least, is incorporated vrith " Eondou a 
 Centm-y Ago." The bulk of this essay, however, 
 formed a lecture delivered five years ago for the 
 benefit of a South London church building fund, 
 and has not been printed before. The articles on 
 London Geography, Northumberland House, and 
 Berkhamsted are new, and that on " Dr. Fuller 
 and the Savoy," although a considerable part of it 
 was used in a recent sermon at the Chapel Eoyal, 
 is also now in print for the first time.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction ... ... ... ... ... 15 
 
 Great Size and rapid Growth of London — Advan- 
 tages of a taste for Archaeology — Objects of Interest in 
 and near London — Sketch of Plan pursued in present 
 Volume. 
 
 London Geography... ... ... ... ... 23 
 
 Difficulty of realising what the Site of London was 
 before the Houses were built — The Plains of London — 
 Attempt to trace the "Seven Streams" — Differences of 
 Level and Soil — Comparative Healthiness of certain Dis- 
 tricts. 
 
 London Four Centuries Ago ... ... ... 32 
 
 1. ToPOGiiAPHT. — Associations — The City — The Tower 
 Ditch and the Medicine-bill of the King of Scots — Aldgate 
 — Moorgate — Aldersgate — Holbom — Ludgate- -Lincoln's 
 Inn— The Temple— The Strand— St. Giles's Fields and 
 Lord Cobham — Charing — The King's Hawks — Holbom 
 Hill— The Elms— Smithfield— The Stake— Newgate—
 
 8 ' CONTENTS. 
 
 T}ie Biirial-placo of Isabella of France — The Earl of 
 Warw-ick —Cheap— Bow Church— Hanging for trifling 
 Offences — Crosby Hall— Pawnbrokers in Lombard Street 
 —Sir John Fastolf, K.G.— A Royal 'Witch— London 
 Bridge — View from the Southern End. 
 
 2. Maxxees. — Comfort unknown — ^Palaces of the 
 Nobility — Bedrooms — Furniture — Dining Halla — Hours 
 — Westminster Hall and Eichard the Second's " house- 
 warming" — His reception in the City — Marriage and 
 Coronation Feast in Lent — Physicians— Master La-m-ence 
 — Master Gun — Surgery — Plague — Prisons — Doubt- 
 ful story of Chief Justice Gascoigne— The Fleet — 
 Churches — Monks and Friars — Cheapsido as it was 
 in 1400. 
 
 3. History. — Henry II. — Weak Kings always Oppres- 
 sors — Henry III, and Sir Thomas FitzThomas — The bold 
 Mayor's Fate — The Red Earl — Henry's Extravagance — 
 Sir William Wallace— Cost of War — Gunpowder— The 
 Story of Sir John de Molins— The King and the Abbot. — 
 The Duchess's Penance — Hangman's Fees — Richard III. 
 at Crosby Hall. 
 
 London a Ckntury Ago ... ... ... ... 93 
 
 Death of George II. — London North of Hyde Park — 
 London South of Hyde Park — Lambeth — The Borough — 
 London Bridge — The City — St. George's Fields — Rothcr- 
 hithe — Prince Lee Boo — Bermondsey — Camberwell — 
 Tyburn — John Howard — Prisons — The Gallows — The 
 Tyboume — Cromwell's Bone.s — Hanging Statistics — Riots 
 in St. George's Fields — Highwaymen — How to go from 
 Marylebonc to Camberwell a hundred years ago — Notes 
 from the Newspapers.
 
 CONTENTS. y 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Pepys akd St, Olaye's ... ... ... ... 119 
 
 Register of Pepys' Bui-ial — His Diary — The Plague in 
 St. Olave's — Dr. Mills in the Pulpit — The Bayning Monu- 
 ment — The Grave of Samuel Pei:)ys. 
 
 Gkeat St. Helen's ... ... ... ... 125 
 
 Sunday Morning in the City — The Priory of St. Helen 
 — A Labyrinth — Great St. Helen's — The Nuns' Aisle — 
 The Worshippers — The Monuments — Sir Julius Csesar 
 and his Bond — The Modern Aspect of St. Helen's. 
 
 Dk. Fuller and the Savoy ... ... ... 135 
 
 The Palace and the Hospital — The Chapel — Fuller's 
 position — His Epitaph— His Ministry at the Savoj- — He 
 preaches Moderation — Fuller during the Commonwealth 
 — Lord Montagu — Return to the Savoy — A Royal Chap- 
 lain — A Good Custom — Fuller's last Sermon and Death. 
 
 Nokthumeeeland House ... ... ... ... 147 
 
 Old Charing Cross — Riverside Palaces — The Percies — 
 The Interior of the House — Improvement of the Site. 
 
 Holland House and Lady Saeah ... ... 15G 
 
 The Great Houses of Old London — Holland House — 
 Its Inhabitants— Lady Sarah Lennox — George III. in 
 Love — Rejected — ABroken Leg — A RoyalMarriage — Old 
 and Blind — Contents of Holland House — Frere's Epigram. 
 
 Fulham ... ... ... ... ... ... 1G7 
 
 The oldest Villa in England — The Bishop's Reception 
 — The Architectural History of FuUiam — Bonner — Grin-
 
 10 CONTEXTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 dal's Grapes — Eidlcy — Quiet Days — Compton— The 
 Bishops' Graves — The Chiirch — The Eiverside. 
 
 Knole ... ... ... ... ... ... 178 
 
 The Progress of an Archbishop — ^Knole — Sevenoaks — 
 The Park — A Walk — A Museum of Architecture — Arch- 
 bishop Bourchier — The Earl of Dorset — The Tapestry — 
 Eighty Staircases. 
 
 Ingatestone... ... ... ... ... ... 190 
 
 Sir William Petre's Consistency — Its Success — The 
 Lime "Walk — The Priest's Hiding-place — The Church — 
 The Bells— The Tombs and Epitaphs. 
 
 Bebkhamsted ... ... ... ... ... 199 
 
 A Little Fragment of a Great Place — Age of the Castle 
 — The Earl of Cornwall — Richard, King of the Romans 
 — John of Berkhamsted — The Black Prince — " Proud 
 Cis" — A Tragical Storj- — Falkland — King Charles's 
 Cook — Dean Incent — Peter the Wild Bey — Cowper. 
 
 On the Sureey Hills ... ... ... ... 210 
 
 Chalk and Sand — Secluded Valleys — Chaldon and its 
 Picture — The Church — Merstham — View from the Hill — 
 A Pleasant Walk — Mr, Waller's Account of the Chaldon 
 Picture— "The Ladder of the Soul "—Date of the Work 
 — Home Again. 
 
 St. Albans 224 
 
 Battle Bridge — First View of St. Albans — View from 
 the Street — Caxton — The Conventual Buildings — History 
 of the Church— The last Abbot— The " Protomartyr of 
 England " — George Tankerville — The Relics of St. Alban
 
 CONTENTS. 11 
 
 — OfFa — Cologne — Summary— The Shrine — The Abbots 
 — The Battles — The Literary Monks — Matthew Paris — 
 Nero D. 7 — The Cellarers — The Monuments — A Remark- 
 able Poem — An Unfortunate Marriage — The Grave of a 
 Penitent Sinner — The Repairs of the Building — The 
 Town — Vallcs habundabunt.
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Inner Court, Knole ... ... Frontispiece. 
 
 Stone in Panyer Alley, Paternoster Row ... 31 
 London before the Fire. After Hollar ... 32 
 
 Old Moorgate ... ... ... ... ... 36 
 
 Old Cripplegate ... ... ... ... ... 37 
 
 Windows in Westminster Hall. From Brmjley... 54 
 Eestoration' of Part of Crosby Place, St. Helen's 91 
 Tyburn Turnpike. From a China Plate ... ... 105 
 
 Churchyard Gateway, St. Olave's, Hart Street... 119 
 Crypt of St. Helen's Seventy Years ago ... 129 
 Dr. Fuller ... ... ... ... ... ... 135 
 
 The Chapel Royal, Savoy, Fifty Years ago ... 140 
 Gateway, Northumberland House to face p. 118 
 
 Gateway, Fulham Manor House ... ... ... 107 
 
 FuLHAM Church ... ... ... ... ... 17G 
 
 Garden Front, Knole ... ... ... ... 178 
 
 Gateway, Ingatestone Hall ... ... ... 192 
 
 Ingatestone Hall ... ... ... to face p. 190 
 
 Berkhamsted Church ... ... 208 
 
 East End op St. Albans Abbey ... to face p. 224 
 
 Doorway, North Transept, St. Albans Abbey ... 250
 
 INTKODUCTION. 
 
 [ONDON has become more than a city : 
 it is a comitry, a kingdom in itself. 
 With a population already greater than 
 that of Holland or Portugal, almost as 
 great as that of Sweden and Norway together, it 
 increases every day. It spreads north, south, east 
 and west, creeping onward like the tide of the sea, 
 slowly but sm*ely, year by year, and obliterates, as 
 it goes, all the original features of the country. 
 The green fields and orchards are first swallowed 
 up. Next, the old houses and all historical associa- 
 tions. Lastly, the face of the ground is so covered 
 over with brick and mortar, that the geographical 
 landmarks — hill and dale, brook and marsh — are 
 wiped out, and can never reappear. "Who can show 
 us the fen in Fmsbmy, or the islet at Hay Hill ? 
 Not only are they gone, but they will never come 
 back. Supposmg even that London became a deso-
 
 16 INTRODrCTION. 
 
 late plain, these natural features would not be^ 
 restored. The thought gives something of a 
 melancholy interest to the subjects of which I have 
 endeavoured to treat in this volume ; and there is 
 melancholy enough without it. To the clergyman 
 there is, in the every-day aspect of London, a 
 sadness which, when he goes into the streets and 
 lanes where his work lies, is redoubled in intensity. 
 To influence London is to influence the world ; but 
 to grapple successfully with the terrible problems 
 everywhere presented by London life, is at best 
 a hopeless task. The faithful minister may do 
 something, but it is not much ; and moments of 
 hopelessness and discouragement come upon him, 
 the harder he works and the more he accom- 
 plishes. 
 
 Hard work is much alleviated by the possession 
 and cultivation of a taste. AVe have scarcely yet 
 sufficiently calculated on the power of the lighter 
 arts and sciences in the education of the young. 
 But the man whose life is passed in labom-, whether 
 manual or intellectual, has within him the possi- 
 bility of gi'eat happiness, and the certamty of 
 relaxation without \ace, if he early take up, as the 
 amusement of his leisure, art, archaeology, zoology, 
 or some other scientific or aesthetic pursuit. 
 
 London is full of interest ; and the country 
 within half a day's jom'ney of London is the most
 
 INTRODUCTION. 17 
 
 interesting part of England. The man who knows 
 somethmg of the history of Kent, Surrey, and 
 Hertfordshire, knows something tangible of the 
 history of his country. He can connect events 
 with places ; and the places are often beautiful, 
 while the events are often the greatest in om- history. 
 And the working men of London — be they clerks 
 2)riestly or lay, be they merchants or mechanics — 
 can find, within the limits of a Satm*day afternoon's 
 excm-sion, scenes and places which a tour on the 
 Continent will not exceed, for the Englishman, 
 either in interest or beauty. 
 
 I have endeavoured, in these pages, to describe a 
 few of the places which may be thus visited. Some 
 of them are in town, some in the country, but all 
 are within easy reach. And many places remain 
 of which, though they are within the limit of an 
 afternoon, I have said nothing. Such are Lambeth 
 and the Tower, Westminster and St. Paul's, and 
 many others within the town ; while, a short way 
 out, Windsor and Eltham, King's Langley and 
 Chertsey, Hatfield, and a hundi'ed more would have 
 "been accessible. But I am not writing a guide-book, 
 and have selected my subjects rather on the princi- 
 ple that no place near London is so uumteresting 
 that somethmg^ may not be found in its history, or 
 its situation, or its buildmgs, worth thinkuig over. 
 Among the localities less often visited, I might have
 
 18 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 mentioned Dunstable, with its priory ; or Burn- 
 Lara, -o-itli its abbey and its beeches ; or Cobham, 
 with its hospital and its brasses ; or Stoke d'Abernon, 
 where a visitor will find scenery and antiquity 
 combined in such equal proj)ortions, that probably 
 no other spot within a short distance from London 
 will better repay him. Eichmond and Hampton 
 Comi, too, are full of historical associations. 
 Greenwich and Tilbm-y to the east, Brentford and 
 Harmondsworth to the west, Harrow and Pinner to 
 the north, all afford material for pleasant half-days* 
 excursions, and might have been included in my 
 book. 
 
 And without wandering so far afield, the London 
 archaeologist has numberless objects, besides those 
 I have described, worthy of notice close at hand. 
 The topography of Clerkenwell, with the monastery 
 of the luiights of St, John, still offers points but 
 half explored. The gate is only one, and that the 
 latest in date, of the buildings which remain. The 
 crypt is not so easily seen, but it will reward a, 
 visitor. Then St. Bartholomew's Priory, with its 
 iicble chm-ch and cloisters, which may still be 
 traced ; or Austin Friars, one of the few relics of 
 the Pointed style spared by the fire ; or Bermondsey 
 Abbey, of which something, if very Httle, remains ; 
 or St. Giles's, Cripplegate, with its neighbour, Syon 
 College ; or St. Saviour's, Southwark ; all may be
 
 INTRODUCTION. 19 
 
 easily visited and are worth visiting. I might suggest 
 to anyone ambitious to do good work, a collection 
 of the quaint epitaphs of the seventeenth and 
 previous centm-ies which may yet be found in 
 London chm'ches ; or, what would be better still, a 
 careful study of the chm-ches older than the fire, of 
 which so few are left to us. Such a pilgrimage 
 might begin within the Tower, at St. Peter ad 
 Vincula, and might include All Hallows, Barking; 
 its neighbom-, St. Olave's, Hart Street, of which I 
 have said something ; St. Andrew, Undershaft ; 
 St. Etheldi-eda's and St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, of 
 which I have endeavoured to give a short account ; 
 the two or three old churches mentioned above ,- 
 and fm-ther west, the Temi)le ; the Savoy, from 
 whose curious history I have taken one chapter ; 
 and above all, Westminster. These ancient Gothic 
 buildings of London would form the subject of an 
 interesting volume. 
 
 If any of my readers take up such a task, let me 
 beg of them to remember, in their investigation, 
 the great importance of exactness in minute details ; 
 and of constant reference to, and acknowledgment 
 of, authorities. Half the collections of epitaphs, for 
 example, are of no historical or antiquarian value 
 whatever, because chapter and verse, place and 
 date, are not given. The yoimg archa3ologist should 
 accustom himself never, if he can help it, to take 
 
 b2
 
 20 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 anything at second-band; but at tbe same time, 
 never to neglect any means of adding to bis 
 information, bowever bmuble it may at first 
 appear. 
 
 In tbe following cbapters I bave endeavoured to 
 give, first, a picture of tbe natural featm-es of tbe 
 district on wbicb London lias been built ; next, 
 one of London as it was in tbe early years of tbe 
 fifteenth century — say in tbe reign of Hem-y V. ; 
 tben a brief sketch of what it was only a hundred 
 years ago. These chapters may be taken together 
 in support of a proposition I think it well worth 
 while to uphold, namely, that our progress has been 
 greater in tbe last hundred years than in many ages 
 before them. Our progress has not always been 
 made m times of perfect peace ; but war has 
 invariably tended to national declension in art, in 
 science, in social improvement, and above all in 
 true religion. 
 
 Tbe cbapters on Old London generally are 
 followed by three sketches of ancient churches, and 
 one of an old river-side palace, — St. Olave's, Hart 
 Street ; St. Helen's, Bisbopsgate ; tbe Chapel 
 Hoyal, Savoy ; and Northumberland House, 
 Charing Cross. In tbe cases of tbe first and 
 third of these, I bave connected with them the 
 name of a prominent character of the seventeenth 
 century.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 21 
 
 I next take two ancient subiu'ban residences, one 
 ecclesiastical and the other civil ; and lastly I trace 
 some more extended wanderings, one in Kent, one 
 in Essex, one in Herts, and one in Surrey ; ending 
 with a notice of St. Albans Abbey, which recent 
 events have brought into such prominence. 
 
 35« 
 
 
 ■-^s^-^^ikx. 
 
 ^ :;■• V=,. ■"".., •■-^l ■■■:■'■',?'■ 
 
 MJ 
 
 Anas ox ST. jonx's gate, clebkenwell
 
 LONDON GEOGRAniY. 
 
 (sl^^^^ HE natural features of the eastern parts 
 of Middlesex are covered oy an im- 
 penetrable veil. Eivers and ravines 
 are masked, hills are levelled, marshes 
 are hidden. A flood of brick fills up the hollows. 
 The brooks run far underground. The flats are 
 elevated, and the heights depressed. The tide of 
 buildings sm'ges on, swallowing up in its course 
 fields and gardens, parks and woods ; uprooting 
 trees, blasting flowers ; shutting out even the air 
 and the winds of heaven. There is something 
 appalling in the resistless growth of London. 
 Middlesex is nearly eaten up. Surrey and Kent and 
 Essex have been largely contaminated. It spreads 
 like moths fretting a garment. The old form of 
 ihe country, as it lay bare to the sky, is wholly lost. 
 It is overwhelmed and obliterated. Even when the 
 houses fall and London becomes ruinous heaps, the 
 old geography will not be restored. The rivers will 
 never flow again. The valleys and the hills will 
 alike have disappeared, and men shall some day 
 talk of the plains of London as we talk of the 
 j)lains of Babylon. If we could look on the land
 
 24 LONDON GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 we live iu as it was before our cit}' was made, we 
 should not know it. We may still identify the 
 seven hills of Eome, but who will find for us the 
 seven streams which traverse London ? We can 
 neither find the Laugbourne on the east nor the 
 Kilbourne on the west. Who can define the extent 
 and the boundaries of the fields of St. Martin and 
 St. Giles, or tell us where the mount stood iu Mount 
 Street, or the conduit in Conduit Street ? We have 
 all a vague idea that there is a stream running 
 under Buckingham Palace, to account for the fog 
 which never rises from off those dreary gardens. 
 We are in the habit of taking strangers to Panyer 
 Alley, as to the " highest ground in the City," and 
 we do not yet forget the steep ascent of Holborn 
 Hill. But our information seldom extends much 
 further. We are unacquainted with the soil in our 
 own street. We have no notion how many feet it 
 is above or below the level of the Thames. W^e 
 have never remarked whether Park Lane slopes to 
 the north or to the south. We have not the slightest 
 idea over what river Battle Bridge was built, nor 
 why we should have to go down steps from Thread- 
 needle Street to Broad Street. All these things 
 depend more or less directly on the iDhysical geo- 
 graphy of the region which we have covered over 
 and disguised with pavements and rows of houses. 
 The London district, at least the more thickly 
 inhabited portion of it, consists of a series of low 
 hills rising from the sloping bank of the Thames.
 
 LONDON GEOGRAPHY. 25 
 
 These hills are divided from one another hy brooks 
 or bournes of varying importance, "which flow into 
 the river between Milbank and the Tower. The 
 line of hills is not uniformly parallel with the river's 
 edge, as it stands east and west, while the Thames, 
 which flows from west to east when it passes London, 
 flows from south to north when it passes "Westmin- 
 ster, There is thus a long tract of level gi-ound 
 south of Notting Hill and west of the river Thames, 
 where the elevation is very slight, and where in 
 places there is even a depression. On this tract an 
 enormous population is now gathered. The villages 
 of Kensington and Bromptonwere formerly separated 
 from the water's edge by an unwholesome morass, 
 but even this has been built upon, and Pimlico, 
 which contains some of the w^orst, contains also 
 some of the best, streets in London. We are sur- 
 prised to notice the great differences of level and 
 also of soil which occur. While north of the Park, 
 in places, the ground rises to nearly a hundred feet 
 above the sea, at Milbank it only stands twelve feet 
 -above the river. The highest ground in the City is 
 in Cannon Street, where it reaches sixty feet, and 
 not in Newgate Street, where it is only fifty-eight ; 
 for the old rhyme in Panyer Alley is untrue, like so 
 many other things we have believed in from our 
 youth up. The slope falls rapidly towards the east. 
 Stepney is only thirty-five feet above the river, and 
 a short distance beyond we are again at the level of 
 Brompton. But if we look further into the matter
 
 26 LONDON GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 •we find that the slope from the Thames and its 
 adjacent morass is not miiform, that it is broken 
 into a number of different eminences, and that each 
 ridge is separated from the next by a running 
 stream. If we could divest Oxford Street, for 
 instance, of its houses, "we might see that the whole 
 line of thoroughfare from Newgate to Xotting Hill 
 goes up and down hill alternately not less than 
 three times. Instead of a long piece of almost 
 level road, bordered on either side by houses, we 
 should see a steep hill when we had crossed the 
 Fleet, round which the river would run on the north 
 and east, and arriving at the summit should find 
 ourselves on a ridge elevated perhaps as much as 
 eighty feet above the Thames, towards which, on 
 the left, there would be a continuous slope, while on 
 the right a valley of slight depth, but considerable 
 steepness, would mark the north-westward winding 
 of the Fleet. This valley, of which the head would 
 be at Euston Square, would correspond with a 
 similar dejiression on the west of a large tract of 
 the most dense clay kno-^-n to geologists. This 
 tract is now the Eegent's Park, and from it the 
 principal streams of which we speak take their 
 source. The Fleet and the Old Bourne on the east, 
 the Marybourne on the south, the Tybourne on the 
 west, all either flow directly from it, or are largely 
 fed by the waters gathered in its tenacious grasp. 
 We wonder to find the Zoological Gardens damp 
 even on a fine day, and cold on a warm day, but a
 
 LONDON GEOGRAPHY. 27 
 
 more unfortunate situation in Avliicli to place an 
 acclimatising establishment could hardly have been 
 found elsewhere in Middlesex, What suits flowers 
 and trees does not suit Bengal tigers and " exotic " 
 birds. 
 
 The ridge which begins at Holborn reaches its 
 highest point near the Regent's Circus. Thence 
 to Bird Street we find a slope which, if we could 
 strip off the granite and bricks, would be seen to 
 be part of a long ravine extending from the 
 Church of St. Mary "lebone," southward to West- 
 minster, the little brook which marks its course 
 being still acknowledged in the right name of the 
 parish, and in that of Brook Street and of Engine 
 Street, Piccadilly, where probably a waterwheel 
 or "engine" was turned by the stream. It is not 
 very easy to trace the depression caused by the 
 bourne. The windings of Marylebone Lane per- 
 haps represent the earlier windings of the stream 
 along whose banks it ran. At Stratford Place, a 
 few centuries ago, there was a conduit connected 
 with the stream, and standing on its left bank, and 
 this is still the boundary between the territories of 
 the Corporation and the Duke of Westminster. 
 The brook turns to the left on crossing Oxford 
 Street ; then, winding round the base of a mount, 
 and feeding another conduit, it turns almost at 
 right angles past Hay Hill, and thence under Lans- 
 downe House by Engine Street into the Green 
 Park, across which its path is marked, especially at
 
 28 LONDON GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 Bunset, bj' a line of mist. Emerging very near, if 
 not actually under the spot on which Buckingham 
 Palace stands, it turns again to the right, and 
 finally falls into the Thames at Westminster, form- 
 ing in the last few hundred yards the delta of 
 Thorncy. In all probability this brook was the 
 original T3-burn : and the place of Mortimer's 
 execution in 1330 cannot have been far distant 
 from Stratford Place. So lonely was the neigh- 
 bourhood, that St. Mary's Church having been 
 repeatedly robbed. Bishop Braybrook removed it 
 from the foot of Marj-lebone Lane to the High 
 Street early in the fifteenth centm-y, though, with 
 characteristic immobility, the vestry remained, 
 where it still stands, close to the original site. 
 From this point again there is a considerable ascent, 
 the highest ridge being just opposite the Marble 
 Ai'ch ; and here the traditional Tyburn, the bourne 
 in particular from which so many travellers never 
 returned, has usually been placed. The sandy and 
 gravelly soil must have been found unsuitable for 
 gardens. The hill was probably little more than a 
 bare heath, favourable, no doubt, except under 
 peculiar circumstances, to human life ; for, standing 
 as it does almost a hundred feet above the Thames, 
 surrounded on all sides by valleys, more or less 
 depressed, and bounded on the east and west by 
 the Tybourne and the Marybom-ne,the hill, although 
 without a name of its own, has always been remark- 
 able in later times for its low death-rate, a blessing
 
 LONDON GEOGRAPHY. 29 
 
 duly aclmowledged by the inhabitants, who built St. 
 Luke's Church in Nutford Place to commemorate 
 the absence of cholera from the district during 
 the visitation of 1849. Though the Tybourne or 
 Tyburn has as many aliases as some of the heroes 
 ■u'ho passed their last moments upon its banks, we 
 can trace its course more easily than that of the 
 companion stream. Eising originally in the clay 
 north of the Eegent's Park, it takes a south- 
 westerly course, and, having been augmented by 
 the Westbourne, it reaches the boundary of Hyde 
 Park, where the old burial-ground of St. George's, 
 Hanover Square, was placed to be well away from 
 the houses. Traversing the Park by a winding but 
 well-marked course, it is now lost in the Serpentine ; 
 but time was, no doubt, wdien the junction of the 
 two bournes gave its name to the abbey manor of 
 Ey or Ait, now, by the Middlesex pronunciation, 
 corrupted into Hyde. 
 
 If, instead of turning west at the Fleet below 
 Holborn Hill, we try to examine the geographical 
 features of the City itself, the difficulties in our 
 way are even greater. The hill of wdiicli St. 
 Paul's is the crown never rises much more than 
 half the height of that on which the gallows stood 
 at Tyburn. And some fifteen or twenty feet of even 
 this moderate elevation must be accounted for by 
 the successive destructions of a series of cities 
 which have stood on the same site, and which have 
 contributed to the salubrity of their modern rcpre-
 
 30 LONDON GEOGRArnY. 
 
 scntative b}' raising it on a deep layer of ashes 
 and adventitious soil of all kinds. "We are not con- 
 cerned here with the exact place occupied by Roman 
 Loudon. Piccent discoveries have added to the 
 proofs adduced by Mr. "W. H. Black, in 18G3, to show 
 that it stood west of the Wallbrook. If the masonry 
 just uncovered at Newgate be in reality Eoman, it 
 reached just as far north-west as he would have 
 had us believe. His view, notwithstanding certain 
 discoveries of Eoman remains on Tower Hill, would 
 have finally disposed of a thcor}^ seldom now held as 
 to the origin of the Tower. Two streams crossed the 
 site of the City. Both have disappeared, like the Fleet 
 itself. The Langbourne only survives in the name 
 of the ward through which it ran, and Sherbourne 
 Lane marks its later course before it fell into the 
 Thames at Swan Wharf. The Wallbrook also had 
 at least two names, whether as the Dour it gave a 
 name to Dowgate, and whether as the Wallbrook it 
 really marked the eastern boundary of the ancient 
 city. Barges at one time sailed uj) it at high water 
 as far as Bucklersbury, and a boat-hook of Eoman 
 make has been found in Coleman Street. Bridges 
 crossed it at the same period and later, one of them 
 connecting the two streets which are now the two 
 ends of Cannon Street. The ship which formed 
 the vane of St. Mildred's in the Poultry has been 
 referred to the stream which flowed . under the 
 church ; St. Mary Bothaw has been explained as 
 St. Mary Boat-haw, and the course of the brook
 
 LONDON GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 31 
 
 may be traced across Princes Street, behind the 
 Bank, along Broad Street, until, like the Lang- 
 bourne, it reaches Finsbury. The marshy groimd 
 in Moorfields is to the City what the Kegent's Park 
 clay is to the west end ; and though Threadneedle 
 Street is thirteen and Broad Street six feet above 
 the ancient level of the land, they preserve in a re- 
 markable manner evidences of their respective 
 positions when suburban villas lined the banks of 
 the Wallbrook, and corn grew upon Cornhill. 
 
 STONE IX PANYBE ALLKT, rATEBSTOSTER BOW.
 
 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 
 
 L— TOPOGPiAPHY. 
 
 ^:. 
 
 'W, 
 
 
 toxDOX BEFOEB THE FIEE. FtoM an Eiijravhig ly Hollar. 
 
 HEN we consider the extraordinary 
 growth of London, both in size and 
 population, within the last few years, 
 and that this growth is not the only 
 way in which it has altered within the memory
 
 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 33 
 
 of many still living, we cannot be surprised that 
 the changes of all kinds in four hundi-ed years 
 should be much greater. This consideration does 
 not, however, diminish the interest we feel in 
 tracing those changes, Londoners are not alone in 
 then- feelings about their city. All England shares 
 in their pride. And now-a-days the great increase 
 of facilities for locomotion has rendered the features 
 of the Metropolis more or less familiar to almost 
 everyone, even in remote parts of the kingdom ; and 
 most of those who have visited it will confess to 
 having experienced a feeling of something very like 
 awe when they saw for the first time those thorough- 
 fares whose names were already household words 
 to them. 
 
 To an Englishman, Westminster Hall and the 
 Abbey, St. Paul's and the Tower of London, are 
 crowded with associations ; but not only in such re- 
 markable places as these does he feel an interest, but 
 even in the very streets, alleys, and turnings which 
 conduct him to them. It is impossible to pass 
 Whitehall without thinkmg of Charles I. It is hard 
 to pass the Marble Arch without thinking of Tybmn. 
 The open space of Lmcoln's Inn Fields constantly 
 reminds us of William Lord Eussell and his execu- 
 tion there ; we think we see the great square filled 
 with anxious faces, and the mourning coach which 
 conveyed the dying patriot tm-ning out of Queen- 
 street ; we fancy we hear him repeat, as he sees the 
 great assembly, the openmg lines of the l-19th Psalm : 
 
 c
 
 34 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 
 
 " praise ye the Lord, prepare your glad voice 
 His praise in the great assembly to sing ; " 
 
 and adding, "' I am about to praise Him in a greater 
 company than this." Nor as we pass along the 
 Strand and under Temple Bar, can we forget how 
 often Johnson and his friends walked along there 
 and under the same arch, and especially the walk 
 he and Goldsmith took to Westminster and back, 
 and how they looked up at the heads of the unfor- 
 nate Scots rebels of 1745, which still gi-inned fi-om 
 their spikes on the top of the gate. Nor can we 
 repress a shudder as we glance from Ludgate-hill 
 ■along the Old Bailey ; nor a sigh of pity when King- 
 street, Westminster, reminds us of Edmund Spenser, 
 who died there "for lake of bread;" or when 
 Brooke-street, Holborn, recalls the death in similar 
 ^circumstances of the bo}'- Chatterton. iUmost every 
 corner in London teems with such recollections, but 
 I will endeavour m the present paper to confine my 
 attention to a view of the size and state of the city 
 — say in the commencement of the reign of Henry V. 
 One sentence will show how very different its 
 .aspect was then from what we see now. The inha- 
 bited portion was almost confined to the City proper. 
 Although the population of that portion was large — 
 considerably larger than it is now — the area was 
 very small, the houses being for the most part 
 within the walls. The merchants lived in their 
 places of business, and every house and street was 
 crowded with citizens. They did not, as now, resort
 
 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 35 
 
 to the City only in the day-time for business, and 
 'keep villas in the suburbs. Few except the monks 
 dared to live beyond the i^rotection of the City walls. 
 
 These walls commenced at the Tower, between 
 which and the wall there was a ditch ; and we read 
 of Edward III. ordering the ditch to be cleared lest 
 it should overflow into that fortress. No wonder that 
 we find about the same time a bill for medicines 
 supplied to the unfortunate King of Scots, who had 
 been imprisoned there for eleven years. The bill 
 amounts to ^2 12s. 9d. This sum represents 
 between ^£40 and £50 in om- money. From the 
 Tower the wall passed northward as far as Aldgate, 
 which was really a gate in those days. A gate was 
 still standing on the spot a hundred years ago ; in 
 fact, very few of the City gates had been demolished 
 when George III. came to the throne. 
 
 Outside Aldgate there was a small village or 
 hamlet called Whitechapel, and near it a monastery 
 of the White Friars, or Friars Minors, which has 
 given its name to the Minories. A little farther to 
 the north there was another monastery and hospital 
 dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin, and the open 
 country round was known as the Hospital or 'Spital 
 Fields. Shoreditch lay a little to the west, and was 
 the estate of an honourable family of the name of 
 Shore, many of whom were City merchants. One 
 of them, a jeweller, was husband to Jane Shore. 
 
 Then outside Moorgate was a moor or heath, and 
 in the hollow nearer the City w\all apiece of marshy 
 
 c2
 
 36 
 
 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 
 
 ground wliich is often said to have given its name fa 
 the district of Finsbury. The street now called 
 London-wall still shows the marks of the great foss 
 which ran imder the wall ; and parts of the fortifi- 
 cations themselves may still be seen a little to the 
 west of Moorgate, at Cripplegate chm-chyard. In 
 the same dii*ection there was a small gate or bar- 
 bican, which has given its name to a modern street; 
 and to the number of beggars who assembled here 
 
 
 UOOBGATE 
 
 we may attributo the name of the neighbom'ing 
 chm-ch, which stood outside the walls, and was
 
 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 
 
 37 
 
 j)erliaps resort- 
 ed to by mendi- 
 cants because 
 they were for- 
 bidden the ex- 
 ercise of their 
 trade in the 
 City. 
 
 Aldersgate 
 stood close to 
 where the 
 General Post- 
 office has been 
 built; and next 
 came Newgate, 
 which seems to 
 have been used 
 as a prison for 
 
 London and Middlesex as early as 1218. Holborn 
 Bars were a kind of outwork to Newgate, and 
 ihere was some fortification near them, the site 
 of which is indicated by Castle-street. Then 
 came Ludgate, and, as an outwork. Temple Bar, 
 within which was the river Fleet and the Fleet 
 Bridge where now is Farringdon-street ; and the 
 wall ended close to where Blackfriars Bridge now 
 stands. 
 
 There was some protection also along the river ; 
 and we hear of Dowgate and Billingsgate among 
 other modes of access to the water ; but except a 
 
 C2IPPLEGATB.
 
 38 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 
 
 strongly fortified castle at each end of London Bridge, 
 there were few attempts at defence on that side. 
 
 If we retui-n to Ludgate and pass out through the 
 gate (which was said to have been called after a, 
 mythical personage ever so many centm-ies before 
 Julius Caesar, but which more probably is called 
 from the river or flood), we find om'selves at the 
 small bridge which conducts us over the Flood, or 
 Fleet. Vessels are moored in this little river as high 
 as the bridge; on the right we have the pleasant 
 gardens and gentle slope of the Earl of Lincoln's 
 grounds ; and beyond, at the top of the ascent, 
 we see his house. About the time of which I speak 
 it was no longer in the Earl's hands, and the law- 
 yers' chambers were very soon to convert it into 
 Lincoln's Inn. 
 
 More than a hmidi-ed years before, or in 1307, we 
 find the Earl of that time complaming to Parlia- 
 ment — which sat then at Carlisle on account of the 
 King's expedition to Scotland — that vessels could 
 hardly reach the bridge on the Fleet, so much was 
 it impeded by rubbish thrown mto it ; and reciting 
 that hitherto they had been able to go up as far as 
 King's Cross, where there had been wharves for the 
 reception of merchandise. 
 
 If we pm'sue om* way along what is now Fleet- 
 street, we pass on the left, just before we reach 
 Temple Bar, the great monastery of the Knights 
 Templars, then called the New Temple, to distin- 
 guish it from then' former habitation near Holboru.
 
 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 39 
 
 In this place the King's jewels or " jocalia " were 
 deposited for safety by most of the sovereigns until 
 the time of Henrj^ III. King John had bcgmi to use 
 the Tower for this pm-poso, and thither the regalia 
 were finally removed in 1252. 
 
 Passing through Temple Bar, we find ourselves 
 in open coimtry. The road, now the Strand, is a 
 mere muddy track, overgrown with bushes, and 
 skirted on the right by gardens and thickets. On 
 the left, between the road and the river, are a few 
 half-fortified town houses of the great nobility, 
 Arundel House, which came first, being perhaps the 
 most important. Pleasm-e gi'omids and gardens are 
 romid them and the Temple, and walks along the 
 Thames, like what we still see at Piichmond and 
 Twickenham. At St. Clement's Chm-ch there are 
 a few houses, said to be the remains of a colony of 
 Danes who settled here before the Conquest ; many 
 of them are pleasm-e houses and taverns, much 
 resorted to by the youth of the Citj^ wdio come to 
 drink of the water of the neighbouring holy well, 
 and to play at various games in the open fields of 
 Lmcoln's Inn. And probably here they are often 
 enteiiained with stories about the grim Danish king, 
 son of Canute, who lies bm-ied in the neighbom-ing 
 church ; how, when he had killed himself by his 
 gluttony at Lambeth, his body was bm-ied in West- 
 minster Abbey, and was dug uj) again by his brother 
 and successor and thrown into the Thames ; and 
 how one day a fisherman, drawing his net to shore.
 
 40 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 
 
 was astonished at the unusual weight until the 
 royal hody was discovered ; and how it finally found 
 a resting-place under the fane of St. Clement. 
 
 Going on still to the westward, we come to what 
 was called Aldwych-road, where now stand Wych- 
 street and Drury-lane ; and leaving on our left the 
 garden of the Convent of Westmmster, we pass on 
 the right the chm-ch of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, and 
 emerge in the Oxford-road, near the pleasantly 
 situated village of Holhorn. 
 
 As we pass through St. Giles's Fields we shall 
 prohahly see a bod}- of soldiers encamped in the 
 oi^en ground, and perhaps encounter a gang of poor 
 wretches marching towards the City in chains. For 
 here, within a few days, has been held a meeting of 
 the followers of Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham ; 
 and here they have been set upon by the young 
 King, Hem-y V., in person, and made prisoners. 
 The King has been told by his religious advisers 
 that the followers of the new religion design nothing 
 less than the subversion of his throne; and, therefore, 
 short time is allowed for question or investigation : 
 thirty Lollards expiate their supposed crime on the 
 gallows, while their leader escapes to Wales. Nor is 
 his fate eventually preferable to theh's, for in a year 
 or two he is taken, and, his legs having been broken, 
 he is hung up in his armour and roasted to death 
 over a slow fire. 
 
 Beyond the road by which we have arrived at 
 Uolborn from the Strand, and running nearly par-
 
 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 41 
 
 allcl to it, is St. Martin's-lanc. Commencing at the 
 Tillage of Charing, it passes St. Martin's Cliapel, on 
 the site of which a church was erected by Henry 
 VIIL, then really " in the fields," like St. Giles's, 
 and a little farther on, the entrance to the great 
 Eeading-road, now Piccadill}'. The foot of the lane 
 at Charing is marked by a cross, sacred to the 
 memory of Queen Eleanor, the wife of Edward I. 
 Some have fancifully derived the name of Charing 
 fi-om the French words chh-e reine, referring to 
 Edward's love for his queen ; but, unfortunately 
 for such a pretty idea, the village has borne the 
 same appellation from Saxon times. Near the cross 
 is the magnificent palace of the Ai'chbishops of 
 York, surrounded by pleasant gardens, and a park 
 which stretches away to Westminster. This palace 
 was afterwards kno^ii as Whitehall, the gardens as 
 Spring Gardens, and the park as St. James's. 
 
 Near the cross, where now stand the Nelson 
 Column and Sh- Edwin Landseer's lions, was an 
 aviary or mews for the King's hawks. The word 
 "mew" signifies, in the technical language of fal- 
 com-y, a moulting-place. That falcons were in 
 great esteem in those days will be proved by the 
 fact that, — unless the law has been very recently 
 repealed — it is still felony, by Act of Parliament, to 
 steal a hawk. The following extract from the Ward- 
 robe Accomits of Edward I. relates to the royal 
 mews at Charing-cross : — " For timber whereof to 
 make the King's mews, and carriage of the same
 
 42 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 
 
 from Kingston to the said mews as well by land as 
 by water : divers keys for the same, and for repau'- 
 ing the keys of the gerfalcon's bath : for iron rmgs 
 for the cm-tain of the mews before the said falcons : 
 and for tm-fs bought for the herbary of the said fal- 
 cons . . . .-£25 . Os. . 2d." This sum represents no 
 less than £'500 of om* money, not counting the 
 twopence. It was in the same days that the Bishop 
 of Hereford paid his falconer 3s. 4d. a half-year ! 
 The royal mews remained here as stables imtil the 
 reign of George IV. 
 
 We must pass for the present the great palace of 
 the Savo}', of which the twice-restored chapel still 
 remains to this nineteenth centmy ; and retm-ning 
 towards the City by the Oxford-road, we find our- 
 selves at the top of Holborn-hill. In the valley 
 below runs the Fleet, and fi'owning from the oppo- 
 site steep we see the city towers, and high above 
 them all, to the right, the spire of St. Paul's, at that 
 time the taUest steeple in Christendom, if, as some 
 say, it was 180 feet higher than the ball and cross on 
 the top of Sh' Christopher Wren's dome. Imme- 
 diately opposite us we see the tower of St. Sepul- 
 chre's, just at the top of the hill, and outside the 
 fortifications of Newgate ; and as we begin to descend, 
 we pass St. Andi-ew's on the right and the palace 
 of the Bishop of Ely on the left. This palace was 
 famous for its gardens, which are referred to by 
 Shakespeare. Hatton-garden and Ely place pre- 
 serve for us indications of the site.
 
 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 43 
 
 A little farther up on the sloi:)e we pass through 
 crocus heels (now Saffron-hill), and find ourselves at 
 the entrance of Cow-lane, hy which we ascend the hill 
 and enter Smithfield. Cow-lane has but few houses 
 in it. It is not a pleasant place in which to live ; 
 for just at the end, as we emerge on the open 
 space, we pass a spot known as the Elms ; and 
 if you are curious in such matters, you may 
 see the great elmwood gibbets, placed here by 
 Hemy III. Perhaps as you go by some of Lord 
 Cobham's unhappy followers are still suspended on 
 them. 
 
 Crossing Smithfield, we come to the porches of a 
 magnificent church, the west end of which projects 
 far into the open space. It is St. Bartholomew's 
 Church, and the priory buildings surround it. A 
 beautiful doorway leads into the south aisle of the 
 nave. This doorway is destined to remain a witness 
 to the splendour of the other buildings, and in the 
 days of Queen Victoria to form the entrance to St. 
 Bartholomew's Chm-chyard. But you care little to 
 look at the chm-ch or priory, for opposite the gate is 
 a post about three feet thick and eight high. It is 
 charred all over, as if it had been partially burnt. 
 It is sunk deep in the ground at the foot, and has 
 two or three non staples and rings driven into each 
 side. You shudder and pass on. 
 
 Turning to the right, with the wall on your left 
 hand, you follow what is now Giltspm'-street, where 
 probably races were held, as well as tournaments.
 
 44 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 
 
 We must not delay to tell any old stories of the 
 joiistings here, but proceed at once past St. Sepul- 
 chre's Church, to enter the City through the New 
 Gate, which King Hemy has just completed, and 
 which is ah'cady full of prisoners. If j^ou are chari- 
 tahl}' disposed you will stop to put a farthing or two 
 into the bag which you see hangmg by a long string 
 from one of the windows ; and if you are rich, per- 
 haps you will put in a penny, equal to a shillmg at 
 least of modern coinage. The bag is quickly di'awn 
 up and emptied by the poor starving wTetches above. 
 Frightful stories have been told of the condition of 
 Newgate and all the prisons of those days ; nor did 
 they much improve until a period but little removed 
 fi-om om- own. Strange to say, they were almost 
 all either private property or were leased to a pri- 
 vate individual, who made what he could out of the 
 necessities of his miserable charge. 
 
 As 3"ou proceed through Newgate-street, you per- 
 ceive that all along the left hand of the way the 
 space is occupied by another monastery. This time 
 it is the Grey Friars. The clim-ch, which is at the 
 extremity of the street, is very magnificent. In 
 later times, after the great fire, it was pulled down, 
 and the present Clu-ist Church built on part of the 
 site ; but in the reign of Henry V. the visitor was 
 able to see some very remarkable tombs within its 
 walls. These tombs were wantonly destroyed by a 
 Lord Mayor of Queen Elizabeth's time. Among 
 others, you might have seen the monuments of four
 
 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 45 
 
 queens — Margaret of France, the second wife of 
 Edward I. ; her niece, the wicked Isabella, whom 
 Gray calls the " She-wolf of France ; " her daughter, 
 Joane of the Tower, Queen of Scotland ; and Isabel 
 Fitzwarren, in her own right Queen of the Isle of 
 Man. Near them lies the body of Eogcr Mortimer, 
 Earl of March, the infamous companion of Queen 
 Isabella ; to whom belongs the unenviable distinc- 
 tion of having been the fii'st person hanged at 
 Tyburn. As if in mockery of death, we read that 
 upon Queen Isabella's breast, in the tomb, was 
 deposited the heart of " her murdered mate " in a 
 golden vase. 
 
 Opposite the Grey Friars stands the town mansion 
 of the great Earls of Warwick. Here in a few years 
 will be held the semi-regal com-t of the King-maker, 
 to whom the estate has descended by his marriage 
 with one of the hen-esses of the last of the Beau- 
 champs. A few steps farther and we are in Pater- 
 noster-row, so called from the number of text-writers 
 who lived there and in the neighbourhood of Ave 
 Maria-lane, Amen-corner, and so on. Here also lived 
 bead or rosary makers, which were popularly called 
 paternosters and aves. The row was, if possible, 
 narrcfw-er than it is now, and was bordered on one 
 side by the wall of the great Cathedral-close. The 
 wall is overhung with trees, probably belonging to 
 gardens of the great Earl in Warwick-lane, and of 
 the great Bishop whose palace formed part of the 
 cathedral buildings. Among the Public Eecords is
 
 4G LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 
 
 one of an inquest held on a boy who was killed by 
 falling from the bough of an apple-tree in Pater- 
 noster-row. 
 
 At the north-east end of the Close is an archway; 
 and here, if you are so disposed, you may enter to 
 hear the sermon at Paul's Cross. Any description 
 of the great cathedi-al would require a paper to 
 itself ; so we will not pause now, but enter Cheape 
 or Cheapside, the great market-place of the City. 
 It is very narrow ; there is hardly room for one 
 horse to pass along the centre of the street in most 
 places ; yet this is the chief thoroughfare towards 
 St. Paul's and Ludgate-hill, as well as towards 
 Newgate. The best way in those days, although the 
 longest, was to tm-n do^\-n Old Change and through 
 Carter-lane and Creed-lane ; the way through St. 
 Paul's Chiu'ch3'ard was altogether stopped by the 
 cathedi'al precincts. Cheapside is full, in the wider 
 parts, not only of shops, but of open stalls where 
 all kmds of merchandise are exposed for sale. 
 
 London was already famous for the importance 
 of its trade. The Hall of the Mercers' Company, 
 one of the chief guilds of the City, stood about half- 
 way along the street upon the site of the house in 
 which the great Thomas Becket was born. His 
 father was a citizen and mercer of London, but 
 there is no truth in the romantic story of his 
 mother's Saracenic origin. 
 
 At the entrance to Cheapside, where a road or 
 street leads towards Aldersgatc, is the market cross ;
 
 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 47 
 
 and as you go along you sec the localities dcYotcd 
 to the different wares which are sold hero : Bread- 
 street, Milk-street, Honey-lane, and at the farther 
 end the Poultry market, may be noticed. There is 
 no open space opposite the Mansion House ; in 
 fact there is no Mansion House ; the Lord Mayor 
 lives in his o^vn house, and entertains in the hall of 
 the Company to which he belongs. Halfway up the 
 street is Guildhall, and opposite it Bow Church. In 
 the open space between a great tournament was 
 held in 1329 by Edward IH., when a scaffolding 
 fell, by which several persons were injured. Edward 
 in a fury ordered the carpenters to be instantly 
 hanged, but released them on Queen Philippa's 
 mtercession. At the extremity of Cheapside stands 
 a church, where the Eoyal Exchange was built 
 three centuries later; and another, St. Christopher's, 
 where the Bank of England afterwards rose. 
 
 You will have perceived that the number of 
 chm'ches in London is very great. Two centu- 
 ries before the time of King Hem*y V. they were 
 reckoned at 126 parish chm'ches, besides the chapels 
 of thh'teen convents, and no fewer than seventy 
 chantries and chapels attached to St, Paul's. The 
 steeples of some of these churches were higher than 
 any in modern London ; and as there was not much 
 smoke to obscure the view, the City must have 
 looked very beautiful fi'om a distance. That there 
 was little smoke we infer from the fact that coal 
 was still rare in London, and that, so unwholesome
 
 48 LONDON FOUR CENTUEIES AGO. 
 
 were its fumes considered, we bear of a man having 
 been banged for using it in tbe reign of Edward I. 
 Indeed, nothing strikes us more when we stud}' 
 those times than the ease with which a man might 
 get himself hanged ; and it seems strange that three 
 centuries were passed before our legislators learned 
 the wisdom of the saying, "It is the worst use to 
 which you can jmt a man." 
 
 Proceeding on our way through Cornhill, we pass 
 St, Michael's Church, and, a little farther on, the 
 street which leads to one of the outlets of the wall 
 at Bishopsgate. Just within the gate we see the 
 magnificent mansion which Sir John Crosby has 
 almost completed. A bj'stander will perhaps inform 
 us that the ground belongs to the prioress of St. 
 Helen's (another convent !), and that Sir John pays 
 her £11 6s. 8d, per annum for the lease. In the 
 hall of the mansion you may see one of the first 
 fireplaces used in England in such a building. Logs 
 were usually burnt in the centre of the floor, and 
 the smoke escaped — or, more probably, did not es- 
 cape — by a hole in the roof. It was, therefore, 
 customary on great occasions to burn spices and 
 sweet-scented wood in those places. During the thu*d 
 mayoralty of Sir Richard Whittington, in 1419, he 
 entertained King Henry and his bride Katherine of 
 France at a sumptuous banquet in Guildhall ; and 
 when they remarked upon the sweet perfume of the 
 fire which bm-ned in the centre. Sir Eichard replied 
 that with then* graces' leave he would make it even
 
 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 49 
 
 more pleasant ; and drawing forth tlic bonds which 
 he held of the King for more than £G0,000, which 
 the King had borrowed towards his French expedi- 
 tion, he threw them into the fire. This story must 
 be taken for what it is worth ; it is told of other great 
 kings and merchants, at home and abroad, and is pro- 
 bably no more true than the other famous story of 
 the same Su" Richard's cat, or the collateral one that 
 he let all his lands upon leases for nine lives.' It is, 
 however, true that King Henry obtained large sums 
 of money in the City for his French wars, and that 
 he even pawned the royal crown of England for 
 20,000 marks to the Bishop of Winchester, 
 
 Pawnbroking w^as not confined to the natives of 
 London in those days ; and if we turn to the right 
 out of Cornhill, through Gracechurch-street, we 
 shall pass the head-quarters of the business in 
 Lombard-street, so called on account of the immi- 
 gration of Italian jew'ellers and other merchants, 
 who here drove a thriving trade in money-lending. 
 The sign of the pawnbroker — the three golden balls 
 — is derived from the arms of the great Medici, Dukes 
 of Florence, which some of these merchants have 
 himg over their doors in honour of their native 
 sovereigns. This reminds us to observe that none of 
 the houses are numbered, but that every shop has its- 
 sign, as taverns, brokers, barbers, and gold-beaters 
 have still. The lighting of the streets as well as the 
 numbering has been neglected hitherto ; but in the 
 beginning of this King's reign. Sir Henry Barton, 
 
 D
 
 50 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 
 
 the Lord Mayor, ordered the streets to be lighted 
 with lamps, which was first done in the year 1416. 
 
 Passmg the end of Lombard-street, we find om'- 
 selves in another market, called Eastcheap ; and 
 among the taverns which siuTound it we shall pro- 
 bably be shown the "Boar's Head," in which, ac- 
 cording to the popular belief. King Hemy in his 
 yomiger days has had man}^ a frolic with his fat 
 friend Sii" John Fastolf. Sir John, however, has 
 married a rich widow at Castle Combe, in "Wiltshire, 
 and settled down as a comitry gentleman, and is just 
 now engaged in a lawsuit with his step-son, whom he 
 hopes to keep out of the inheritance dm-ing his own 
 lifetime ; and Kmg Henry has not less altered his 
 manner of life, and is feasting, as we have seen, 
 with the Lord Mayor instead of Dame Quickly. 
 
 From Eastcheap to the Tower is but a short way, 
 :and at the j)eriod we speak of. Tower-street would 
 prolDably be full of j'oung men on their way to join 
 the great army which the King requii-es in France. 
 Henry V. probably resides at the Tower just now, 
 and with him his bride, Katherine of France. You 
 had better not ask too many questions about the 
 other queen, Henry's step-mother, who also perhaps 
 is in residence here ; those who show too much 
 interest in her will probably be suspected of Lollard- 
 ism ; as Joan of Navarre has been lately accused 
 of sorcery on account of her well-kno\ATi leanings 
 towards the followers of Cobham and Wicklifle. 
 
 We must not now delay to visit the Tower, but
 
 LONDON" FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 51 
 
 l^roceed at once to London Bridge in order to reach 
 the Borough before dark. This bridge is the only 
 one over the Thames in London. You cannot cross 
 otherwise, except by boat. The bridge is covered 
 with buiklmgs, a gateway being at each end ; and 
 as you pass in through the archway and pay your 
 toll, you could imagine yourself in a street and for- 
 get the river altogether, but for the noise of the 
 mill-wheels which are worked mider every arch by 
 the rush of water through the narrow apertui-e. A 
 roaring sound like this would be most aj^propriate 
 in a modern street ; but we must remember that 
 in those days there were few or no cai-ts or car- 
 riages, especially in the streets, and that the only 
 sounds were those of human voices, or the tramp- 
 ling of horses, with the occasional clanking of a man 
 in armour as he rode along. 
 
 Half way across is St. Thomas's Chapel, in which 
 the engineer who built the bridge, Peter, cm'ate of 
 Colechm-ch in the City, lies biu'ied. He died in 
 1205, and his bridge stood mitil 1832! The 
 houses built upon it were crowded with inhabitants. 
 In the reign of Eichard IL they fell into deep dis- 
 grace, for the King's mother, the widow of Edward 
 the Black Prince, was insulted and pelted as she 
 passed tmder one of the arches in a boat. Richard, 
 who was always glad of an excuse for getting monej^ 
 out of the citizens, made them pay a hea\'y fine for 
 this offence. The same insult had been offered 
 many years before to Eleanor of Provence, the 
 
 D 2
 
 52 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 
 
 mother of Edward I. Over the gate at the South- 
 wark end you will see the blackened skulls of some 
 of the victims of the usurpation of Henry IV. ; and 
 will perhaps remember that, like the water gate at 
 the Tower, this is called the Traitor's Gate. 
 
 If you look back at the City from the southern 
 end of the bridge you get a very fair idea of the 
 extent of it, and of the comparative sizes of the 
 various buildings with which it is adorned. The 
 limits are very sharply defined by the Tower on the 
 right or eastern side, and the buildings of the 
 Temple on the left. In the centre, towering above 
 all competition, stands the great cathedi-al, with its 
 glorious spire ; while the other most prominent 
 churches are those of St. Mary-le-Bow, in Cheap- 
 side; St. Michael's, in Cornhill; and the Grey Friars, 
 near Newgate. Nearer the water's edge you observe 
 the great pile of Baynard's Castle, within the City 
 walls, near Blackfriars ; and outside, the New 
 Temple, Arundel House, the Savoy, Whitehall, and 
 far in the west the clock tower of the royal palace 
 at Westminster, the huge spireless shape of the 
 Abbey, and the roof of Westminster Hall. 
 
 Of these, Arundel House is the seat of the great 
 Earls of Arundel and Sm-rey ; and Baynard's Castle 
 is the present domicile of a lady whose children are 
 to play a very prominent part in the affairs of the 
 kingdom during the next forty years of the fifteenth 
 century. Here Cicely, Duchess of York, mother of 
 Edward IV., keeps a kind of court. She is cousin
 
 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 53 
 
 of the King-maker, being herself a Neville, the 
 daughter of his uncle the Earl of Westmoreland. I 
 Si3eak more at length of her in my chapter on 
 Berkhamsted. 
 
 Near the foot of London Bridge stands the chm'ch 
 of St. Mary Overies, otherwise called St. Saviour's. 
 It is one of the largest and handsomest chm-ches in 
 London ; and is destined to be the only one of any 
 importance, after Westminster Abbey, which will 
 survive till the nineteenth centm-y. It forms a kind 
 of cathedral for the Bishop of Winchester, who re- 
 sides in a magnificent palace not far off, and who 
 holds occasionally a court in the Lady-chapel for 
 the trial of heretics. In the church is a monument 
 over the bmial-place of Sir John Gower, the poet of 
 the reign of King Edward III. 
 
 Sm-rounding the chm-ch are some of the oldest 
 
 buildings in London ; and in fact some antiquaries 
 
 have been of opinion that Southwark is more ancient 
 
 than the City to which it belongs on the opposite 
 
 bank. In the principal street you will see an inn, 
 
 just then becoming famous as the scene of part of 
 
 a poem by one Geoffrey Chaucer. He was Clerk of 
 
 the Works at Westminster, and has recently died 
 
 and been buried near his royal master, Pdchard 
 
 11. , whose bones the young King had removed 
 
 from Langley, in Hertfordshire, and laid beside 
 
 those of his wife in the Confessor's Chapel. The 
 
 " Tabard " Inn, as you pass by, is probably crowded 
 
 with pilgrims setting off for a visit to the shrine of
 
 54 
 
 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 
 
 St. Thomas of Canterbury, and some of them have 
 perhaps taken the opportimity to say a prayer and 
 leave a gift at the same saint's chapel on London 
 
 Bridge. 
 
 ■mxDOWS IV WESTMIXSTEB HALL. From Brnyley. 
 
 II.— MANNERS. 
 
 It is difficult now-a-days to arrive at any very 
 distinct idea of the condition of om* forefathers a few 
 centuries ago. The progress of antiquarian research 
 within the last fifteen or twenty years has, however, 
 been so great, that it is easier for us to form some
 
 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 65 
 
 conception of their mode of life, especially in largo 
 to^vns, than it would have been before so many 
 volumes of research had been made public. This is 
 particularly the case with respect to London. We 
 have very full accounts before us of the architecture, 
 the laws, the customs, the dress, the language, and 
 even the food of the people of the Metropolis in the 
 Middle Ages ; and from them we should be able to 
 approximate to those of other parts of England at 
 the same period, always allowing a few years for tho 
 higher civilisation of places near to, than of places 
 more remote from, the great centre of progress and 
 activit}'. 
 
 Still, with all the help these archaeological inves- 
 tigations afford, it is hard to conceive the state of 
 people who lived without what to us are such ordi- 
 nary things as glass windows, or oil paint, or 
 waiting paper, or printed books. Yet in London, in 
 the year 1400, such things were almost, some of 
 them quite, unknown. Street lamps were introduced 
 by Sir Hemy Barton, Lord Mayor in 1416. Chim- 
 neys were often made of wood before 1419, when it 
 was ordered that any henceforth constructed except 
 of stone, tiles, or plaster, should be pulled down. 
 Glass was very dear, and only made in small pieces, 
 so that few completely glazed windows were to be 
 seen except in churches ; and the poorer citizens 
 were obliged to content themselves with lattices, of 
 with very small windows almost filled up with stone 
 or wooden tracery. In the houses of some of the
 
 56 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 
 
 wealthy nobility, sets of glass windows were remov- 
 able, and were taken from place to place, as their 
 owner changed his residence. Crockery was almost 
 miknown, except as a great rarity from Italy ; and 
 a glass or majolica basin or drinking cup was worth 
 more than its weight in gold. The common people 
 used horn, or perhaps in some cases iron cups and 
 di-inking-vessels, and the richer sort silver, silver- 
 gilt, and even gold. 
 
 Crosby Hall, which still remains, and is now 
 very appropriately turned into an eating-house, 
 gives us a fair idea of what the houses of the upper 
 class in London were like in the time of Eichard 
 III. ; but this is an extremely magnificent example, 
 and the houses of peoj^le in an mferior rank were 
 very different. Not, indeed, that such a house as 
 Crosby Hall would be considered comfortable now- 
 a-days. The vast rooms, the thorough draughts, 
 the badly fitting doors, the smoky chimneys, and 
 the very imperfect drainage and ventilation must 
 have more than made up for the beauty of the 
 carving, and the magnificence of the hangings on 
 the walls — or for the general splendom- of the 
 furniture, and richness of the stained glass. The 
 town house of the Earls of Warwick in Newgate - 
 street ; Baynard's Castle, in which the Duchess of 
 York, mother of Edward IV., lived; Pembroke Place, 
 on the site of which stands Stationers' Hall; and 
 Ai'undel House, in the Strand, were all very similar ; 
 varying more in size than in general arrangement.
 
 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 07 
 
 In these fine mansions a visitor would have found 
 a strange mixture of luxury and barbarism. He 
 would have seen the great hall used as a sleeping 
 place by the servants of the family — the bare floor 
 being their bed, and for a pillow a sheaf of rushes 
 or straw ; while in the chambers of the master and 
 his equals he would have seen the most elaborate 
 and sumptuous couches, ornamented with heraldic 
 devices of the richest kind, hung with velvet or silk, 
 and constructed of the softest down. Linen sheets 
 would not be so common, and in many instances 
 he would only find the bed arranged for lying uj)on, 
 not in ; but in others he would see counterpanes of 
 damask or satin, and sheets of the finest cloth of 
 Cambray, or cambric. The word counterpane is 
 derived from the practice of " paning " or striping 
 various rich stuffs one with another. Our words 
 panel and pane are from the same source. The 
 walls would be hung with tapestry, generally orna- 
 mented with heraldic badges, but sometimes 
 embroidered with reijresentations of scenes from 
 the romances and ballads which were popular at 
 the time. 
 
 For furniture he would probably see in each 
 chamber a chair or two — generally what we should 
 call arm-chairs — or stools without any back ; also 
 a seat in the thickness of the wall under the 
 window ; and a wardi'obe, sometimes of great mag- 
 nificence, but often a mere cm-taincd recess, in 
 which to hang clothes. A more important article
 
 58 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 
 
 of fm-niture "would be the chest, or cabinet, which 
 •svould also serve for a table, and would be richly 
 ornamented with hinges, and perhaps painted or 
 carved with shields of arms. The visitor would 
 probably see no looking-glass, or else only a small 
 hand-mirror of metal ; he would not find any 
 washhand-stand — though there might be a bath — 
 and he would miss a fireplace, though he might 
 see a brazier with charcoal. The door would be 
 protected with heavy cm-tams, and the window 
 would not be made to open and shut ; nevertheless 
 he would find a plentiful supply of the outer air 
 circulating in the room, some coming through 
 the imperfectly leaded window panes, some under 
 the ill-fitting door, and a great deal through the 
 boards of the floor, from whatever room chanced 
 to be beneath, as ceilings were seldom plastered, 
 and floors seldom carpeted. Carpets were more 
 commonly used for wall hangings, though we read 
 of then- use for the floors in the king's palace as 
 early as the reign of Edward III. There would bo 
 no hau' brushes, though combs were in common 
 use ; and no pins, though brooches like skewers, 
 but ornamented with jewels, would be found ; metal 
 pins were first made about the reign of Edward IV. 
 A smaller bed would probably be found at the foot 
 of the great one, for a servant or a guard ; and a, 
 little oratory would probably occur in one corner, 
 fitted with an image, a little reliquary, containing 
 perhaps a piece of the " true cross," and a " pater-
 
 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 59 
 
 noster," or rosary of beads. In a few cases j^ou 
 might also find a volume of prayers, or the "Book 
 of Tribulation," containing the seven penitential 
 psalms ; and in another part of the room, a volume 
 of the Eomaunt of Sir Lancelot du Lac, or a 
 Chronicle of the Wars. 
 
 Descending to the reception rooms of the house, 
 3'ou would be struck by the general want of furni- 
 ture everywhere apparent. Li the great hall there 
 would be forms at either side of a long table, which 
 itself would consist of boards laid upon trestles, and 
 removed after each meal. The forms would then 
 be set back against the wall, or taken away alto- 
 gether. A cross table at the upper end of the hall 
 would be provided for the lord of the mansion, who, 
 with his wife and the principal guests, would sit 
 under a canopy, which would be not so much a 
 matter of state as of necessit}^, for protection from the 
 draughts. The servants, and indeed all the family, 
 high or low, except those actually engaged ui cook- 
 ing or waiting, would dine together ; and dinner 
 would be the principal meal of the day, a slight 
 breakfast and a slighter supper preceding and 
 following it. The Duchess of York dined at eleven 
 in the forenoon, and supped at five. These early 
 hours were general : the Judges at Westminster 
 sat only from eight in the morning until eleven, 
 when they adjourned for the day. No doubt the 
 diiticulty of performing any labour, literary or 
 manual, except by daylight, led to these arrange-
 
 60 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 
 
 ments. Candle-light was Lad, and candles dear ; 
 the only light always available during the short 
 days of winter being that of the fire which bm-nt m 
 the middle of the hall — the smoke escaping by the 
 lomTe in the roof. The hall of Westminster School 
 was warmed in this way until the year 1850, if not 
 later ; and the same old method may still be seen 
 in occasional use at Penshm-st Place, in Kent. 
 Crosby Hall gives us the earliest examj^le of a great 
 hall with a fireplace. It was almost impossible, 
 without a chimney or any certain exit for the 
 smoke, to bm-n coal ; and we have already seen 
 that the smoke of coal was considered so unwhole- 
 some that its use was prohibited in London by the 
 severest enactments until the middle of the fom-- 
 teenth century, and was by no means common for 
 a hundred years later. 
 
 Westminster Hall was completed by Eichard II. 
 in 1390. Accounts of the " house warming " which 
 he gave in celebration of this event have come 
 down to us, and give us a lively pictm-c of the 
 table arrangements of the period. The prices of 
 provisions may also be easily ascertained by a 
 reference to the market regulations made at different 
 times. These prices were always much affected by 
 the visitations of the plague, which were so common 
 in Old London. For example, after the plague of 
 the year 1318, in which 100,000 persons are said 
 to have died, a fat ox might have been bought for 
 4s., and a fat wether for 4d. A lamb was 2d., and
 
 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. Gl 
 
 a pig 5d. Even if we allow that money is now 
 fifteen times more valuable, these are exceedingly 
 low rates. The usual prices were much higher. 
 One schedule gives us these particulars : between 
 Easter and Whit-Sunday a fat goose was to be had 
 for 5d., at other times for 4d., or even 3d. Three 
 pigeons came to a penny ; which is not very cheap 
 if we calculate a penny as worth between Is. 3d. 
 and Is. 8d. of om- money. The swan was much 
 esteemed at the great City feasts, and cost the pro- 
 digious sum of 3s., equal to nearly £2 10s. in 
 modern currency. There were many swans on the 
 Thames ; the King's birds and those belonging to 
 the citizens being distinguished by markings an- 
 nually made on their bills. The common tavern 
 sign, a swan with Two Necks, properly Jiicks, has 
 its rise from this circumstance. Salmon were from 
 3s. to 5s. each, which multiplied by 15, answers pretty 
 nearly to the present price ; whilst oysters were at 
 2d. a gallon, which, on the same calculation, is 
 certainly cheap. A prominent feature at all great 
 entertainments was a peacock served *' in his 
 pride," with the feathers and train ; as we still see 
 pheasants at table, with the tail-feathers by way of 
 garnishing. 
 
 "When Richard II. gave the feast at Westminster 
 Hall of which I have spoken, he employed, we 
 read, 2,000 cooks, and is said to have feasted at 
 one time above 10,000 persons. Many particulars 
 have come down to us of this and other extravagant
 
 G'2 LONDON' FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 
 
 banquets of the unfortunate Eicliarcl, but none 
 seems to have exceeded the magnificent pageant 
 displayed by the City of London at the time of bis 
 coronation ; "when, among other things, we read of 
 the following "sotylty" or device which was exhi- 
 bited in the street at Cheapside. " At the upper 
 end of Chepe," says the chronicler, "was a cer- 
 taine castell made with fom-e towers, out of the 
 which castell, on two sides of it, there ran foorth 
 wine abundantlie. In the towers were placed 
 fom-e beautifull vkgins, of statm-e and age like to 
 the King, apparelled in white vestm-es, in everj' 
 tower one, the which blew in the King's face, at his 
 approaching neere to them, leaves of gold. . . . 
 "When he was come before the castell, they took 
 cups of gold, and, filling them with wine at the 
 spouts of the castell, presented the same to the 
 King and to his nobles. On the top of the castell, 
 betwixt the foure towers, stood a golden angell, 
 holding a crowne in his hands, which was so con- 
 trived that when the King came, he bowed downe 
 and offered him the crowne." 
 
 This was a "sotylty " on a very large scale, but 
 similar devices were common at table ; heraldry 
 being called in to help, and great pains, if not great 
 taste, being shown in their composition. Thus at 
 the coronation feast of Queen Kathcrine, wife of 
 Henry Y., we read that there was '' a sotylty called 
 a pellyoan, sytting on his nest, with her byrdes and 
 an image of Seynt Katheryne holdyng a booke, and
 
 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 63 
 
 (lispiit}aige with the doctoiu's, holcljTig a reason m 
 her right hande." This feast, which was held in 
 Lent, was remarkable. It consisted entii'ely of 
 fish, di-essed in various ways ; and included, besides 
 many kinds of salt and fresh water fish, the names 
 of which it is not very easy to identify, "porpies 
 rostyd," and " memiys fryed " — porpoises and 
 minnows. At a feast given a few years before, 
 there were served at table, besides wild boar and 
 venison dressed in several ways, peacocks, cranes, 
 bitterns, egrets, cm-lews, partridges, quails, snipes, 
 and " smal byrdys" — perhaps sparrows. 
 
 After this accomit of the high feeding of the 
 period, it may not be amiss to say something of 
 the state of medicine. The monks were the chief 
 physicians, and seem to have been but moderately 
 successful. Henry V. was, probably, killed by the 
 imskilfulness of his medical advisers. Their pre- 
 scriptions are of inordinate length, and seem to be 
 compounded in a sort of wild hope that if one drug 
 fails, another may succeed. Diuring visitations of 
 the plague, or any^epidemic sickness, they appear 
 to have been utterly powerless ; although they did 
 guess at the real cause of these disorders, as we 
 see from the many ordinances for the better cleansing 
 of the City, and for the abating of nuisances. It 
 was imlawful, for instance, to keep pigs within certain 
 boimdaries. But, no doubt, the stagnant moat 
 which surromided the City walls, to say nothing of 
 that which protected the Tower, was enough to
 
 64 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 
 
 account for the awful visitations of pestilence to 
 which the people were so frequently suhjected. 
 
 The names of two or three of the eminent phy- 
 sicians of those clays have come down to us. Master 
 Lawrence was Queen Isabella's medical adviser; 
 but we cannot say much for his skill when we read 
 that his royal patient's death was occasioned by a 
 too powerful dose of some medicine which, although 
 at her desire, he had administered to her. We 
 find that he was paid £2 for a whole month's 
 attendance. Another eminent practitioner was 
 Master Gun, or Quin, a monk at Bermondsey 
 Abbey, to which many royal and noble personages 
 resorted for the benefit of his advice. Dm-ing one 
 Buch visit Queen Elizabeth Woodville, widow of 
 Edward IV., died. 
 
 Surgery was no fm-ther advanced than medicine, 
 and a very slight wound was sm-e to be fatal. 
 Amputations were seldom attempted, and when 
 attempted were almost always unsuccessful. We 
 cannot wonder at this when we read that it was 
 customary, after a man's leg or arm had been 
 lopped off with an axe, to plunge the stump in 
 boiling pitch, in order to stop the bleeding. No 
 doubt this object was effectually accomplished ! 
 There were some surgeons, nevertheless, not un- 
 skilful in reducing fractm-es and dislocations. A 
 magnificently illuminated MS. in the National 
 Library of Paris contains the English translation 
 of the treatise of Guy de Chauliac, an eminent
 
 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 65 
 
 French surgeon, on the " Eestoryngo of Broken 
 Bones." 
 
 The overcrowdhig of the poor in miserable hovels 
 in the City, and the want of pure water, are quite 
 sufficient to account for the fearful mortality caused 
 by the plague in various years. The worst visita- 
 tion seems to have been that of 1348, in which 
 100,000 are said to have died, as I mentioned 
 above ; and it was rendered further memorable by 
 the munificence of Sir Walter Manny, who pur- 
 chased a piece of ground outside the City walls, 
 and had it dedicated as a cemetery for those who 
 died of the plague. Fifty thousand corpses are said 
 to have been interred here during the prevalence of 
 the visitation ; but this number is probably in- 
 accurate and exaggerated. Sir Walter, who was 
 one of the first Knights of the Garter, and a famous 
 hero in the wars of Edward III., died in 1372, and 
 was buried in this cemetery. He had given it into 
 the charge of a society of monks, of the Chartreuse 
 or Carthusian Order, who were afterwards violently 
 suppressed by Henry VHI. Their last prior was 
 hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn, in May 1535; 
 and the site of the priory and bm'ial-ground, by a 
 new foundation, became the famous Charterhouse 
 School, at which so many eminent men were edu- 
 cated in after years. 
 
 Mention of Henry VHI. and his cruelty to the 
 Carthusians reminds me to say a few words about 
 what was a much more prominent featm*o in the 
 
 £
 
 66 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 
 
 every-day life of London four hundred years ago 
 than it is now. Executions were at all times very 
 frequent. The English laws were very sanguinary, 
 and they seem to have been carried out with the 
 utmost rigoui-. There was hardly any punishment 
 for crime of all shades except death, the cruelty of 
 the mode of execution alone marking the heinous- 
 ness of the crime. For ordinary offences hanging 
 was the usual punishment ; but for heresy bm-ning 
 alive at the stake, and for treason di-awing and 
 quartering, were the regular formulae. By an excess 
 of barbarity, women guilty of capital crimes were 
 usually bm-nt alive ; and burning the body 
 after strangling continued to obtain m England 
 imtil the end of the eighteenth centmy. On this 
 subject I shall have more to say in the next paper. 
 The continual shedding of blood by the English 
 law seems to our modern ideas very horrible ; but, 
 in reality, there was in those days little choice 
 between death and imprisonment. The City prisons 
 were in so shocking a state of miwholesomeness 
 and filth, that pestilence was constantly ragmg 
 within their walls. In the year of the accession of 
 Henry V. sixty-fom- prisoners at Newgate, together 
 with all the turnkeys and the chief jailor, were 
 carried off by one such fever. After Whittington's 
 death his executors rebuilt Newgate Prison, as an 
 act of charity, under the provisions of his will. 
 But the condition of poor prisoners was not much 
 ameliorated, and pestilence and misery reigned
 
 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 67 
 
 supreme for more than two centuries longer. Besides 
 Newgate, there were two smaller prisons, under the 
 control of the sheriffs. One of them was in Cheap- 
 side, and the other, which remamed until a few 
 3^ears ago, in Giltspur-street. There was also the 
 King's Bench Prison, which was situated in South- 
 wark. To it Chief Justice Gascoigne is said to 
 have committed Henry V. when Prince of Wales. 
 Notwithstanding the general opinion to the con- 
 trary which has so long prevailed, it is perfectly 
 certain that one of Henry's first acts at his acces- 
 sion was to deprive Gascoigne of his elevated office. 
 Nearly adjoining the King's Bench was the Mar- 
 shalsea, so called from its being under the control 
 of the Marshal of the King's Household. Prisoners 
 for debt, and along with them, by a cm-ious though 
 not miaccountable regulation, pirates, were confined 
 here until the time of its final discontinuance, m 
 1842. 
 
 But the most remarkable as well as the largest 
 of the old debtors' prisons — the Fleet — stood close 
 to the spot at which the railway bridge now crosses 
 Ludgate-hill. The misery and misgovernment for 
 which this prison was notorious began almost at its 
 first institution ; and many eftbrts to improve the 
 condition of the prisoners and the asj)ect of the 
 prison were made by charitably disposed persons 
 from time to time. The most remarkable during 
 the period of which we have been speaking was 
 that of Sir Stephen Foster and Dame Agnes, his 
 
 E 2
 
 68 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 
 
 wife. Foster, who had been a small tradesman in 
 the City, was imprisoned in the Fleet for debt ; and 
 it happened that one da}', when he was begging at 
 the gi'ated opening through which the unfortmiate 
 debtors were permitted to behold the outer world 
 and to excite the compassion of the charitable, 
 a certain widow, who possessed wealth and was 
 willing to do good, asked him what sum would set 
 him at liberty. " Twenty pounds," he replied. 
 The money was paid, and Foster became the ser- 
 vant of his benefactress ; and in due time, having 
 by his diligence and integrity greatly advanced her 
 interests, he married her, and became a wealthy 
 citizen, serving the office of Lord Mayor in 1454. 
 But in his prosperity he did not forget his sufferings 
 in the Fleet : he and his wife, having purchased 
 the adjoining houses, pulled them down, and en- 
 larged the prison by the addition of a chapel, and 
 many other buildings, for the benefit of his former 
 companions, in order that, from the time of this 
 benefaction, they should not be obliged to pay out 
 jof their scanty means for additional accommodation. 
 He also left a foundation for the office of chaplain, 
 .and so wisely and carefully framed his regulations 
 that, notwithstanding the continual extortions of 
 the officials, this continued until the last century to 
 be esteemed the best and least oppressive prison 
 for debtors in England. 
 
 The endowment l)y Sir Stephen Foster of the 
 Fleet Chapel reminds me to speak of the Loudon
 
 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. G9 
 
 churches of that day. Within the walls they 
 were very numerous. The parishes, owing to the 
 large number of inhabitants in each, and their 
 crowded dwellings, were small in area, but enor- 
 mously large in population ; and two or more of 
 the chm'ches often closely adjoined one another. 
 Thus St. Paul's, though not itself a parish cluu'ch, 
 had the chm*ch of the parish of St. Faith in its 
 crypt, and the chm-ch of St. Gregory built against 
 its walls : St, Swithin's, in Cannon-street, stood 
 almost touching Abchurch ; St. John's, Watling- 
 street, was close to St. Antholin's, and both were 
 just opposite St. Augustine's. 
 
 But all these churches, and many more, were 
 destroyed in the Great Fire of 166G, and very few 
 specimens of the older buildings have come down 
 to oin* time. The most remarkable are to be seen 
 in St. Bartholomew, Smithfield, and St. Giles, 
 Cripplegate; and there is still a very beautiful 
 porch adjoining St. Sepulchre's, in Giltspm'-street. 
 All these, however, were outside the City walls : 
 inside them there are but few remains of any im- 
 portance. The chm-ch of All Hallows Barking, in 
 Tower-street, has some examples in different parts 
 of the building of the architectm^e of the fom-teenth 
 centmy. Part of the crypt, too, of the old chm-ch 
 of St. Michael still exists mider the houses at the 
 junction of Cornhill with Gracechm'ch-street ; but 
 St. Andrew's Undershaft — that is, imder the May- 
 pole, which used to stand at the end of Cornhill —
 
 70 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 
 
 although entu-ely in the old Pointed or Gothic stjde, 
 was not built as we now see it until a full centuiy 
 after the period of which we are speaking. 
 
 In addition to the number of parish chui'ches, 
 the buildings of the monasteries were very nu- 
 merous. There were two principal orders of monks 
 in London. They were all spoken of as the regular 
 clergy, in contradistinction to the secular, or 
 i)riests — that is, they lived according to certain rules 
 or regulations ; and the different orders of monks 
 were distinguished among themselves by the system 
 of rules to which they adhered. The Cistercians, 
 the Carthusians, and the Augustinians might all be 
 classed as reformed Benedictines ; and to the same 
 order almost all the abbej^s and cathedrals in 
 England belonged. But in the thirteenth century 
 these societies had become corrupted. They 
 had all yielded more or less to the enervating 
 influence of wealth and prosperity; and although 
 each new sect, or denomination of monk, at its 
 fii'st settlement in England endeavom*ed to fulfil 
 the rules of its founder, and by visiting the poor 
 and needy in theii- distress, and relieving then- 
 wants, to do the work which in our days is so 
 differently performed, yet the corrupting influ- 
 ence of luxm-y soon began to tell upon each in 
 succession : and no matter how carefully the earlier 
 members of a fraternity framed its rules, then- 
 successors eventually yielded to the temptations 
 of wealth and power, and departed from their
 
 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 71 
 
 primitive simplicity, and then the orders became 
 one after another, in their tm-n, luxm-ious, proud, 
 tyrannical, and superstitious. As true piety died 
 out among them, the worship of relics, of images, 
 and of a daily increasing host of saints supplied 
 its place. In the thirteenth century these things 
 had come to such a pitch that the monks were 
 everywhere di-eaded or despised, and only kept 
 their hold on the minds of the people by the super- 
 stitions which they fostered. 
 
 In London and its neighbourhood the various 
 divisions of the Benedictine Order were especially 
 powerful. To them belonged the magnificent and 
 wealthy abbey of Westminster ; Canterbury and 
 Rochester were also mider their dominion, as well 
 as the stately fomidation of St. Albans ; and to 
 various denominations of the same Eule were as- 
 signed almost all the monasteries in London. St. 
 Bartholomew's, and St. Mary Overies at the foot of 
 London Bridge, were Augustinian, the monks of 
 which Order were generally known as Austin 
 Priars, but sometimes as White Friars. The Clu- 
 niac Order held Bermondsey Abbey, of which we_ 
 have abeady spoken ; and the Carthusians the 
 magnificent foundation of the Charter House. There 
 were also monasteries of Carmelites and Cistercians, 
 who, however, preferred the country ; and besides 
 all these, the semi-military orders of Templars and 
 Hospitallers. The Templars were originally lodged 
 in Holborn, and afterwards in Fleet-street ; whilst
 
 72 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 
 
 the Knights of St. John had their hcad-qiiarters at 
 Clerkenwell, in a noble building, the interesting old 
 gate of "^'hich is still to be seen, as "well as the 
 crypt imderneath then* church. 
 
 In addition to all these monks of the older 
 orders, the thirteenth century saw the rise of a new 
 and in many respects very different monastic 
 system. The Franciscans and Dominicans — both 
 fomided by men who, as far as their light went, 
 were sincere and good, and who, when we consider 
 the age in which they lived, are entitled to our 
 admiration — had then- origin within a few vears of 
 each other, and rapidly spread throughout all the 
 countries of Em-ope. In England the Franciscans 
 were especially successful, and tliirt}^ years from 
 their first landing in 1226 had attained the large 
 number of 1,242 members, and possessed forty-nine 
 convents in different places throughout the kingdom. 
 We look in vain among the remains of Franciscan 
 monasteries for those glories of architectm'e so 
 commonly found in the ruins of the abbeys of the 
 older orders. They lived in hovels, and practised 
 the strictest austerities. By their founder's pre- 
 cept, they were bound to consider themselves 
 lower than the lowest : hence the name of " Mi- 
 norites," or "Friars Minors," by which they were 
 known. St. Francis had forbidden them to apply 
 themselves to learning, by which term in those 
 days the ancient philosophies and the more modern 
 theologies were known : they therefore addicted
 
 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 73 
 
 themselves to physical studies, and were the na- 
 tiu'alists and mathematicians of the age. Eoger 
 Bacon was a member of their order. Bishop 
 Grosteste was their chief patron. But it was for 
 their charities that they were best known— or rather 
 for their laboiu'S in distributing the charity of 
 others ; for they themselves professed, and even to 
 the time of their dissolution under Henry VIII. 
 maintained, an austerity of manners which forbade 
 the acquisition of riches. Their chief church in 
 London was on the site of the chancel or choir 
 of Christ Chm-ch, Newgate-street ; its ornaments, 
 and especially the stained glass windows for which 
 it was remarkable, were the gift of those who had 
 benefited from the preaching or ministrations of 
 members of the order, but the dwellings of the 
 brethren were not in accordance with the magnifi- 
 cence of their church. 
 
 Besides their chief and oldest convent within 
 Newgate, they had a branch establishment near 
 the Tower: of this building, which has left its 
 name to the " Minories," no remains exist ; and of 
 the older house in New^gate-street we have only the 
 memories still attached to the Blue Coat School, 
 which now occupies the groimd once covered with 
 the low-roofed dormitories, bleak cloisters, and 
 meagrely furnished refectories of the brother- 
 hood. They were, especially at first, loved and 
 honom-ed by the immense population which partook 
 of their benevolence ; and seem really to have
 
 74 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 
 
 deserved such feelings by their devotion in times 
 of pestilence, and by the eloquence with which they 
 enforced from the pulpit the practical piety of their 
 lives. 
 
 How different om- great city must have looked to 
 the every-day observer at that period from anything 
 we are now acquainted with ! Cheapside a long and 
 narrow market-^Dlace, more like an Oriental bazaar 
 than the busy and gloomy street now standing on 
 its site ; the houses projecting above, so as almost 
 to meet in their upper storeys, and so as com- 
 pletely to shelter the open-aii' stall upon which 
 goods were displayed below ; no sound of wheels in 
 the streets, or at most the slow, lumbering waggon 
 in which a great lady in bad health, might choose 
 to travel to or from her town residence; the absence 
 of the dense smoke to which modern Londoners 
 are accustomed, and consequently the much gayer 
 dresses of all ranks of people. 
 
 Here, a knight in plate armom-, and with his 
 horse almost concealed under iron trappings, jogs 
 heavily and noisily over the pavement ; a page 
 running by his side, a squire carrying his helmet 
 behind him, and a long train of ferocious-looldng 
 soldiers, some on foot, some on horseback, but all 
 clad in then- lord's colom-s, following behind in 
 single file on account of the narrowness of the 
 streets ; there, a procession of white-robed monks, 
 each with his face concealed in a black hood, lead 
 the way to the burial of some eminent citizen, or
 
 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 75 
 
 convey the sacrament to some dying penitent ; 
 liere, perhaps, the Lord Mayor or a leading alder- 
 man, clad in a maronc-colom-ed velvet robe, lined 
 throughout with fm*, and wearing a scarlet silk suit 
 underneath, goes, attended by mace and sword 
 bearers, whose office was no sinecm-e among the 
 tm-bulent populace, to hold his court at Guildhall or 
 at Newgate ; there, the shop of a hcrbseller in 
 Bucklersbury is besieged by a howling mob ; while 
 its unhappy owner, suspected, perhaps, of complicity 
 in witchcraft with the Lollards, Lord Cobham, and 
 Queen Joanna, is led away to undergo that fatal 
 ordeal which leaves no hope of escape : if he is in- 
 nocent, he drowns ; if guilty, he floats, and is de- 
 spatched by the stones and bludgeons of the crowd. 
 
 III.— HISTOKY. 
 
 In the two previous chapters I have endeavoured 
 to give some account of the City in the time of 
 Hem*y V. and his immediate predecessors and 
 successors, and also of the manners and customs 
 of the people by whom it was inhabited. In the 
 following pages I propose to conclude my account 
 of London fom- centuries ago by a few extracts 
 from its history under the rule of the family which 
 it is usual now to call that of Plantagenet, a name 
 which would scarcely have been recognised by any 
 of them. It is not on record that any king ever 
 used the name.
 
 16 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 
 
 Hemy II., who ascended the throne m 1154, was 
 the first of the family to reign in England. He 
 had an hereditary quarrel with the citizens. It was 
 chiefly, if not altogether, owing to then- election of 
 King Stephen, whose right to the crown was of the 
 faintest kind, that Hem-y's mother, the Empress 
 Maud, was kept out of her just inheritance ; and he 
 was not likely to neglect such a good excuse for 
 plundering the wealthy burghers. We are not sur- 
 prised, therefore, to find that a contribution of 1,000 
 marks was exacted in 1159. A mark is the thii-d of 
 a pound, and a pound then was worth nearly £20 
 now. Again, they had to pay the same sum in 
 1172, and in the following year, besides a contribu- 
 tion of £'G66 13s. 4d. towards the expenses of 
 Henry's expedition to Ii'eland. 
 
 And Henry's extortions are only a sj)ecimen of 
 what London had often to endure from his descen- 
 dants. On the other hand, the citizens obtained 
 from the needy kings grants of privileges and ex- 
 emptions from service, which laid the foundation of 
 their subsequent liberties. One cm-ious consequence 
 of this relation between the kings and the London 
 merchants was, that those sovereigns who had no 
 hereditary right to the throne were generally the 
 most popular in the City, because they sought to 
 strengthen their position by conciliating the power- 
 ful and wealthy citizens. So that those kings 
 whose title was worst were generally the best sove- 
 reigns, or at least the best liked in London ; and
 
 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 77 
 
 this we fmd to have been esijecially the case with 
 Henry IV., Henry V., and Eichard IH. It always 
 seemed that those kings were the strongest who 
 supported the privileges of the City, and that the 
 best hereditary right was not sufficient to counter- 
 balance neglect of this principle. The weakest were 
 those who, like Heni-y III., Eichard IL, and Henry 
 VI., notwithstanding the prestige of a lengthened 
 succession in their family, were induced to build on 
 their hereditary rights, instead of preserving theii- 
 personal popularity. The success of Eichard III. 
 was wholly owmg to recollection of this fact ; and, 
 indeed, the same may be said of Edward IV., who, 
 although his right to the throne was undoubted, lost 
 no opportunity of strengthening his position in the 
 affections of the London people. And I must not 
 neglect in this place to mention that, according to 
 many authorities, it was by grant from Eichard III. 
 that the chief magistrate became a "Lord" Mayor. 
 We cannot obtain a better idea of the relative 
 positions of the King and the citizens, than by see- 
 ing how Henry III. treated them during the mayor- 
 alty of Sir Thomas Fitz -Thomas, who was elected 
 to that office in 12G2, and again during each of the 
 two following years. He was a bold man, and 
 opposed the oppressions of the Com-t with all his 
 power. For this he is maligned by the contempo- 
 rary historians ; and it is not easy to discover his 
 really brave and noble conduct under the accounts 
 they give of him. In 1264 Henry paid a visit to the
 
 78 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 
 
 City ; and, seated in state in St. Paul's Cathedi-al, 
 he received the unwilHug homage of the citizens, to 
 whom his visit boded no good. " Then," to quote 
 from the Chronicle, " those "who •were present might 
 see a thing wondrous and imheard-of in this age ; 
 for this most \\Tetehed mayor, when taking the oath, 
 dared to utter words so rash as these, saying unto 
 his lordship the King, in presence of the jjeople, 
 ' My Lord, so long as unto us j'ou will be a good 
 lord and king, we will be faithful and duteous unto 
 you.' " Sir Thomas is not the only mayor who is 
 said to have spoken such words as these to his 
 sovereign. A similar expression is to be seen on the 
 monument of Alderman Beckford, in the Guildhall. 
 He is said, but on questionable authority, to have 
 spoken thus to George III. 
 
 Henry was deeply offended at the mayor's speech ; 
 and when, in the following year, the citizens again 
 elected Fitz-Thomas, he determined to humble them 
 by force of arms. It seemed to him a thing not to 
 be borne that they should be able to call then- earn- 
 ings their own, or to elect again a mayor who had 
 so deeply insulted their king as only to promise him 
 obedience dm-ing his good behaviour ! He therefore 
 caUed to him at Windsor all the earls and barons 
 whom he could persuade to support his cause ; and 
 pronouncing the citizens his foes, he prepared to 
 besiege London. They in the meanwhile, knowing 
 the King's imgovernable temper, and Imowing, 
 moreover, that they could not but lose in any
 
 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 79 
 
 struggle with so powerful an adversary, detcrminetl 
 to throw themselves on his mercy, and make the 
 best terms they could. 
 
 The lung's terms were very hard, — they were to 
 sm'render to him unconditionally. This they at 
 length agreed to do. The agreement was di-a^vn up 
 and sealed, and now Henry showed his real designs. 
 Ho summoned 'the mayor and principal citizens to 
 Windsor, offering them letters of safe-conduct, 
 which, as you will see, he had not the slightest idea 
 of observing. Wlien they reached the castle, late on 
 a Sunday afternoon, he kept them waiting until the 
 evening, when he sent them a message that he could 
 not see them until the morrow ; at the same time 
 they were invited to enter, and were lodged in what is 
 now the Bound Tower or Keep. There they waited 
 that night and the following day till evening, when 
 they were separated and put into different prisons 
 within the castle. The safe-conduct went for nought. 
 
 In the meantime the King and his knights started 
 for London, where the citizens, suspecting nothing, 
 were awaiting the retm-n of Fitz -Thomas and their 
 other friends. The King called them all his ene- 
 mies, and, riding with his soldiers through the 
 streets, treated them as if he had conquered them in 
 war and by force of arms. He immediately seized 
 violently no fewer than sixty houses of those who 
 had offended him, and gave them to his own fol- 
 lowers, tmming the imhappy inhabitants out-of-doors. 
 He then went on through the City to the Tower, and
 
 80 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 
 
 appointed the constable, Sir Hugh Fitz-Otes, or 
 Otho, to govern London as ^varden or seneschal, 
 suspending the office of maj'or altogether. 
 
 When the luifortunate deputation had been impri- 
 soned at "Windsor for about three weeks, they were 
 liberated — all, that is, except five, who were detained 
 there for nearly three months, and only set at 
 liberty when the citizens had paid the enormous 
 fine of 20,000 marks, equal to not less than 
 £100,000 of our money. Besides this, the prisoners 
 were obliged to make over then* lands and posses- 
 sions to the King, who granted them as he pleased 
 to his knights. These citizens were alwa3's after- 
 wards kno"^Ti on this accoimt as the disherisoned, or 
 those whose inheritance had been taken away. 
 
 Hem-y continued to govern the City by wardens 
 for five years, much against the will of the peoj^le, 
 who demanded only Sir Thomas Fitz -Thomas for 
 then- ruler, and who were therefore constantly in 
 hot water dm-ing the time the wardens continued to 
 hold power. They at that time called themselves 
 by the proud name of " The Commons of England," 
 and in those hanging days showed no slight amount 
 of courage and constancy in the cause of their 
 rights and liberties against the usurpations of the 
 Court. But now a new actor appeared on the scene. 
 Gilbert, third Earl of Gloucester, of the Clare 
 family — like his father Richard, second Earl, and 
 his grandfather, one of the famous Magna Chai-ta 
 barons — had always been attached to the jiopular
 
 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 81 
 
 cause in the civil commotions of the reign of Henry 
 III. He went by the name of the " Eed Earl," on 
 accomit of his hair or of his armour, or possibly of 
 both. Just at this time he had raised a force in 
 suppoi-t of the barons agamst the King ; and having 
 been summoned by the Pope's legate, who then 
 resided at the Tower, to answer before him for dis- 
 turbing the peace of the kingdom, he came indeed, 
 but brought with him his army, and took possession 
 of the City. He then set himself to bring the 
 government into better order, and if possible to 
 make peace between the King and his subjects. His 
 notions of justice were peculiar, and his method of 
 carrymg out his decrees rough and ready. Certainly 
 he seems to have been at least impartial, and many 
 stories have been told of his summary mode of deal- 
 ing with all distm-bers of the peace. He caused 
 daily proclamation to be made against acts of depre- 
 dation, and did not spare some of his oami soldiers 
 who had been concerned in a fatal quarrel with 
 certain of the citizens ; he had four of them tied 
 hand foot and thrown headlong into the Thames. 
 Eventually a peace was patched up between the 
 King and the citizens ; and Gloucester's rule in the 
 City, after having lasted about six weeks, came to 
 an end. It was this same earl who was Montfort's 
 friend, and who afterwards, by his timely action and 
 decision, secured the succession of the Crusader, 
 Edward L, during his absence in Palestine, on his 
 father's death.
 
 82 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 
 
 Early in 1267, Henry III. renewed the City 
 charter, under certain conditions. What became of 
 Sir Thomas Fitz-Thomas is not ascertainable. He 
 had probably died, either dming his confinement or 
 soon after. In 1269 a list was made of those ban- 
 ished dm-ing this contest, and his name does not 
 occm- among the number. 
 
 This is only one example of Hemy's method of 
 treating the Londoners. They were objects of con- 
 tinual persecution on his part, chiefly because of 
 then- wealth, and the jealousy with which they 
 guarded any encroachment on their liberties. The 
 Kin g was in continual pecuniary difficulties. The 
 expenses he incmTed by his lavish gifts to the needy 
 foreigners who came over to England with his wife, 
 Eleanor of Provence ; and especially to her uncle, 
 Peter de Savoy ; coupled with his own reckless pro- 
 fusion and the great buildings which he erected — 
 including his palace at Westminster and the Abbey 
 there — all caused him to seek any method of per- 
 suasion or oppression by which he might obtain 
 money. During some of his periodical difficulties 
 he was advised to sell his jewels, which were of 
 great value. " Who will buy them ? " he asked. 
 " The citizens of London," was the reply. " By my 
 troth," he cried in a fury, " if the treasm*es of 
 Augustus were to be sold, those citizens would store 
 them up ! Those clowns, who assume to call them- 
 selves barons, abound in all things, whilst I am 
 without even necessaries." It will not, however,
 
 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 83 
 
 siu'priso US to jSnd him thus complainmg of poverty 
 when we remember some of his extravagances. 
 Thus in 1244 he spent on the buildings at West- 
 minster upwards of .£40,000 in modern reckoning ; 
 and in 124G he assigned .£2,591, equal to about 
 £50,000 modern, which was due to the treasury 
 from the widow of one David, a Jew of Oxford, to 
 the building of the Abbey. 
 
 The most remarkable events m the City during 
 the reign of Edward I. were connected with the 
 Scotch wars in which that king engaged. On 
 August 23, 1305, Sir WilHam Wallace, who had 
 been brought from Scotland a few days before, was 
 hanged at "The Elms," in Smithfield; his body 
 was quartered, and his limbs were sent to different 
 Scotch towns, while his head was placed upon 
 London Bridge, A little later in the same year, 
 Eraser, a servant of Wallace, and two other Scotch 
 knights, were executed in the same cruel manner, 
 the body of Eraser, however, being bm-nt ; and in 
 the follomng year another unfortunate Scot, the 
 Earl of Athol, shared the same fate. Nor did 
 Edward's severity rest here, but in 1307, shortly 
 before his own death, a brother of Wallace, together 
 with two brothers of Eobert Bruce, were hanged 
 at the same place and under similarly barbarous 
 circumstances. 
 
 London was always deeply interested in the wars. 
 The money \\ith which any expedition was paid 
 for came out of the pockets of London merchants. 
 
 F 2
 
 84 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 
 
 Nor was this the only reason for their warlike spirit, 
 "We find that almost all the armour, which was then 
 so important a means of defence, came from the 
 City. On hearing of the invasion of Louis the 
 Dauphin, in the early part of the reign of Henry 
 III., the merchants sent the King 60,000 coats of 
 mail. The citizens themselves were — all, at least, 
 who could bear arms — accustomed to martial exer- 
 cises, and took part in most of the expeditions to 
 France under Edward III. and Henry V. ; and in 
 the wars of the Eoses they were equally active, 
 ■either on one side or other, or else in their own de- 
 fence. Thus, dm-ing a meeting of the heads of the 
 rival parties, attended by a large number of fol- 
 lowers, order was kept in the City by the mayor 
 with 5,000 men, completely armed, whilst three 
 aldermen watched with another force of 2,000 during 
 the night. Of all the City companies, that of the 
 Armourers was of the most importance, and even 
 the great Edward himself was a member of it. Every 
 king of England since his time has belonged to some 
 City company. Edward's French wars were always 
 popular in the City, and the armourers no doubt 
 derived the greatest benefit from them. Ii-on in those 
 days came from the hills and valleys of Sussex and 
 Kent, which were full of small furnaces for extract- 
 ing the precious ore from the red earth. Remains 
 of their shallow pits and burnt-out fires are often 
 met with ; and it may be of interest in this place 
 to mention that Walter the Smith, otherwise known
 
 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 85 
 
 as Wat Tyler, of Hilliard, who, in the early part of 
 the reign of Eichard 11. , headed the Kentish insur- 
 rection, was one of these iron-founders. Perhaps 
 also we may note here, that the dagger or sword in 
 the City arms, generally supposed to have been 
 granted by Kichard to Sir William Walworth for his 
 assistance m putting down this rebellion, had been 
 there long before, and perhaps referred to past ser- 
 vices of the citizens in furnishing arms ; or more 
 likely to St. Paul, the City's patron saint, whose 
 emblem it was. When the Black Prince and his 
 prisoner, John, King of France, made their public 
 entry into London after the battle of Poitiers, in 
 1356, we read that the London authorities met him 
 at Southwark, gorgeously apparelled, and conducted 
 him in state through the City to the Savoy ; but the 
 most remarkable part of the show on that occasion 
 was, not so much the tapestry hanging from every 
 window, the showers of roses, or the sanded streets, 
 but the extraordinary quantity of arms — bows, 
 arrows, spears, and swords — exhibited by the citi- 
 zens in token of their warlike proclivities. It was at 
 this time that Sir John Picard, the mayor, enter- 
 tained four kings — namely, those of England, France, 
 Scotland, and Cyprus — at a banquet in the City. 
 
 During the reign of Edward III. cannon were 
 first used, and a manufactory established in the 
 Tower by the King, for powder for his engines, — 
 " pulvis pro ingeniis suis." In 1346 we read 
 of saltpetre and other ingredients being purchased,
 
 86 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 
 
 "ad opus ipsius regis pro gimnis suis." Edward 
 seems to have superintended this and all other 
 preparations for his expeditions himself; and to 
 this fact we must attribute in a great measure his 
 success. There is a cm-ious story of his unexpected 
 return one day from Ghent, where he had been with 
 his arm3\ He found to his sm-prise that the Tower 
 was unguarded, the constable being " out of town," 
 and the deputy absent, as well as many of the 
 inferior officers. In great wrath he sent for the 
 mayor, and charged him, as he valued his head, to 
 arrest and bring before him that same night nine 
 persons who had neglected then- duty, and whose 
 names he gave him. They were immediately ar- 
 rested and given up to the King for f)unishment — 
 all but one, Sir John de Molins, who took to flight. 
 To those who surrendered Edward acted with great 
 moderation. They were imprisoned for a short 
 time, and then pardoned ; but we may be sm*e they 
 never again obtained emi3loyment in any situation 
 of trust. He acted quite differently towards Sii* 
 John de Molins. His flight was attributed to a con- 
 sciousness of having committed treason, and, by the 
 King's decree, his goods were confiscated without 
 delay. A large quantity of treasure which he had 
 laid up at the Temple in Fleet-street was imme- 
 diately seized. About the same time the King paid 
 a sudden visit to St. Alban's Abbey, as he had 
 reasons for suspecting the complicity of the abbot 
 in Sir John's disappearance. Edward obliged the
 
 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 87 
 
 frightened monks, who, it seems, had heard nothing 
 of the occurrences at the Tower, to open all their 
 secret recesses and places of concealment. The 
 abbot showed him all without reserve, except one 
 room, which he declared was fastened up. " What 
 does it contain?" asked the King. "Treasures 
 belonging to Sii" John de Molins," replied the uncon- 
 scious abbot. " The very thing I want," said the 
 King ; and sending for a smith, he had the lock 
 broken, and seized a large treasure. 
 
 A terrible tragedy took place in 1441. The cir- 
 cumstances are singularly illustrative of the manners 
 and superstitions of the times. Hemy VI. had been 
 from his childhood weak both in mind and body. 
 He was now nineteen years of age, and, his health 
 not improving as he grew older, a rumom- was 
 spread abroad among the common people, by which 
 it was insinuated that some of the King's relations 
 were anxious to shorten his life, in order that they 
 might themselves reap the advantage of succeeding 
 him. By the arts of Cardinal Beaufort suspicion 
 was du-ected to the Duke of Gloucester, who was 
 Hem-y's uncle, being one of the sons of Hemy IV. 
 He was accused of various treasonable crimes, but the 
 Cardinal failed to substantiate his charges. He de- 
 termined, however, to obtain the destruction of the 
 Duke, with whom he had been long at open feud. 
 The means he adopted gave him, as a cardinal and 
 a bishop, the greatest advantage in the contest. He 
 fixed upon the Duke's wife as the object of per-
 
 88 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 
 
 secution. She was accused " of certain articles of 
 negi'omancie," by "which Tvas meant witchcraft 
 or sorcery, together with a charge of heresy and 
 treason. 
 
 It was alleged that, in conj miction with a priest 
 named Bullingbrook and two other men, together 
 with a reputed witch named Margery Jordan, she 
 had caused a waxen figure resembling the King to 
 be made ; that the conspirators intended, by placing 
 this figm-e, after certain magical ceremonies, in 
 fi'ont of a large fire, to melt it by degrees ; and it 
 was stated, and fully believed by the great majority 
 of the people, that, if she had been permitted to 
 treat the effigy in this manner, the King would have 
 also wasted away and been consumed gradually. 
 She was brought up at Guildhall and tried, with 
 her alleged associates ; and full confii-mation of her 
 crime was extorted from Bullingbrook, who, pro- 
 bably in hope of pardon, deposed that the Duchess 
 had consulted him on certain questions regarding 
 her own fortunes, and had asked him to discover 
 "what should befall of her, and to what estate she 
 should come." This admission was supposed to 
 point to her desire of the cro^ii for her husband : 
 after a short trial, however, she was acquitted of 
 the treason, but foimd guilty of consulting with the 
 sorcerers, and condemned to do public penance and 
 to suffer a lifelong imprisonment. Stow gives the 
 following account of the manner in which her 
 penance was performed : —
 
 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 89 
 
 " On Monday, November 13, she came from 
 Westminster by water, and landed at the Temple 
 Bridge, from whence, with a taper of waxe of two 
 pound in her hande, she went through Fleete- 
 streete, hoodlesse save a kerchefe, to Paul's, where 
 she offered her taper at the high altar. On the 
 Wednesday next she landed at the Swan, in Thames- 
 street" — the position of which landing-place is still 
 marked by Swan Wharf, where the river-steamers 
 land their passengers — " and then went through 
 Bridge Street, Gracechm-ch Street, straight to 
 Leadenhall, and so to Christ Church by Aldegate. 
 On Friday shee landed at Queene Hithe, and so 
 went through Cheape to St. Michael's, in Cornhill, 
 in forme aforesaid : at which time the maior, 
 sherifes and crafts of London receaved her and 
 accompanied her." 
 
 On the following day, the 18th, the unfortimate 
 Bullingbrook was dragged to Tyburn, and, notwith- 
 standing his confession, was hanged and quartered, 
 having first, on his way, standing on a high scaffold 
 in St. Paul's Churchyard, abjured "the craft of 
 negromancie." The unhappy woman Jordan was 
 at the same time bm-nt in Smithfield, whilst the 
 Duchess was banished to the Isle of Man, and 
 remained there in perpetual imprisonment until 
 her death. 
 
 Shortly after these events, Hemy married Mar- 
 garet of Anjou, who siding with the Cardinal against 
 Gloucester, the Duke's destruction was finally accom-
 
 90 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 
 
 plisbed. lu 1447 he Tvas arrested at Bury St. 
 Edmund's, and mui-dered the following day in 
 prison. Some accounts, however, relate that his 
 death was caused by disease, aggravated by the 
 excitement of his arrest. As if to justify the Duke's 
 enemies, his servants, to the number of five, were 
 condemned to death, and really hanged at Tyburn, 
 care being taken that then- ropes should be cut so 
 as to avert their death, and their pardon was pro- 
 duced at the same moment. It shows the barbarity 
 of the times, that these unfortunate men, who had 
 committed no crime, were stripped of all they 
 possessed, their very clothes being taken from them 
 by the hangman and his assistants. 
 
 I have already spoken of Crosby House ; and in 
 my accoimt of St. Helen's I shall have occasion to 
 speak of it again. In it was laid one of the last 
 scenes in which the expiring race of Plantagenet 
 took part. Eichard, Duke of Gloucester, youngest 
 brother of Edward IV., resided here in 1483, and 
 here, a little later, he accomplished the deposition 
 of his nephew, the young Edward V. Hall, the 
 Chronicler, from whom Shakespeare has adapted 
 the story of his "Eichard III.," narrates the circum- 
 stances very fully. " When the Protector had both 
 the chyldren in his possession, yea, and that they 
 were in a sm^e place, he then began to thirst to se 
 the ende of his enterprise ; and, to avoyde al sus- 
 picion, he caused al the lordes whom he knew to be 
 faithfull to the Kynge to assemble at Baynai'des
 
 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 
 
 91 
 
 Castill to commune of the order of the coronacion, 
 while he and other of his compHces and of his 
 affinitee, at Crosbie's Place, contrjrved the contrary 
 and to make the Protector Kyng ; of which counsail 
 they were, adhibite, very few, and they very 
 secrete. . . . Little and little all men drew from the 
 tower, where the Kygne was, and drewe to Crosbie's 
 Place ; so that the Protector had all the resorte, 
 and the Kynge in maner desolate." 
 
 EESTOBA.TIOjr OF TAKT OF CROSBY PLACE, ST. HELEIf'S.
 
 92 LONDON FOUR CENTURIES AGO. 
 
 Thus Eichard gradually matiu'ed the plans which 
 he had formed, and mounted the tottering throne. 
 It is curious to remark that, even if the family of 
 Edward IV. had been set aside, Eichard would not 
 have been the next heir, but Edward Earl of War- 
 wick, the son of his brother George, Duke of Clarence. 
 This unhappy boy spent almost all his life in the 
 Tower. The accession of Henrj^ YII. brought him 
 no relief. He was the last male of his house, and 
 in 1499 shared the fate of so many of his family. 
 
 After this time Crosby Hall was inhabited suc- 
 cessively by many eminent persons ; and it is not 
 a little cm-ious to find among the number " Syd- 
 ney's sister, Pembroke's mother," the patroness of 
 Ben Jonson, and, through him, possibly of a more 
 famous person than either — "William Shakespeare, 
 who had a house nearly opposite in the same 
 street, and who had no doubt many opportunities 
 of studying here the scene of his great historical 
 tragedy. 
 
 FIGURE AT PIE COBNEB.
 
 LONDON A CENTURY AGO. 
 
 ' HEN George II. died in 1760 at his villa 
 about three miles west of London, near 
 Kensington, England was in the throes 
 of a war which had lasted with little 
 intermission since the King's accession in 1726. 
 Notwithstanding this, England had reached a pitch 
 of opulence unlmown before. The historians of the 
 time speak of it very differently from the way we 
 should now : they say England was rich notwith- 
 standmg a National Debt of £100,000,000. If our 
 National Debt amounted only to a hundred millions 
 we would not complain. It amounts now — in time 
 of peace— to upwards of £700,000,000. The con- 
 quest of Canada was then the great topic of con- 
 versation ; and we may note that new streets were 
 in several places called from the city of Quebec. 
 Two at least were thus named in different parts of 
 the little town of Marylebone, which was at that 
 period being extended in all directions. Its pro- 
 gress westward was stopped by Tyburn, of which I 
 shaU have more to say presently ; and there were 
 few or no houses along the Oxford-road from Tyburn
 
 94 LONDON A CENTUEY AGO. 
 
 Turnpike, near -where the Marble Arch is now, to 
 Kensington. Between Tyburn and Holborn the 
 houses were tolerably plentiful, at least on the 
 southern side of the way: on the northern side it 
 was more open. The Foundhng Hospital had a few 
 very fashionable streets about it, and the district 
 of Bloomsbury, Eussell-square, Bedford-square, and 
 the rest, answered to our Belgravia and Bayswater. 
 
 On the south side of Hyde Park, Piccadilly ex- 
 tended as far as it does now, and was full of 
 builders' yards and plaster works, like Euston- 
 road at the present day. On the site of St. 
 George's Hospital was a turnpike, and just beyond 
 it, the country house of Lord Lanesborough had just 
 been pulled down to make way for the new institu- 
 tion. Near it, facing the park, was Buckingham 
 House, which the young Iving was about to make 
 his residence, then commonly called the Queen's 
 House. There were few or no buildings, except 
 country houses, fui'ther west. Pimlico was a marsh, 
 Belgravia was market gardens. Chelsea was re- 
 sorted to as Eichmond is now ; and fi-om Battersea 
 to Lambeth was almost open comitry, with widely 
 separated villages and a few country houses of rich 
 noblemen. 
 
 Lambeth was a little better populated, but the 
 population was not of a very respectable kind. All 
 round the Archbishop's palace were streets and 
 alleys of the worst description. Some of them 
 possessed privileges of sanctuary, and were resorted
 
 LONDON A CENTURY AGO. 95 
 
 to by insolvent persons of all classes, who lierc 
 enjoyed a kind of liberty and ventui'ed out on 
 Sundays only, being exempt from arrest on that 
 day. Very few houses w'ere to be fomid in Lambeth 
 Marsh, and where the busy stations wc call Waterloo 
 now stand there were open fields with an occa- 
 sional factory, and a fringe of wharves towards the 
 river. Thus we reach Southwark, at the foot of 
 London Bridge. In 1770 the Borough was very 
 densely populated, and, like Lambeth, with the 
 lowest class. There was another sanctuary here 
 called the Mint, but fifty years before its privileges 
 had been abolished. The debtors' prison, called 
 the Eang's Bench, as well as the Marshalsea, were 
 between Lambeth and Southwark. Pirates as well 
 as debtors were confined in the latter, which stood 
 close to St. George's Chm'ch. We shall have to 
 retm'n to the subject of prison life a hundi-ed jenrs ago. 
 
 St. George's Chm-ch had not been built very long. 
 St. Saviom-'s had recently been repaired, but the 
 old nave was still standing. 
 
 The Borough was still the great place for theatres. 
 Shakespeare's Globe Theatre had been near the 
 Bridge foot, and Shakespeare's brother Edmund is 
 bmied in St. Saviom-'s, These theatres had sadly 
 degenerated since his time, and in 1770 were used 
 for bull-baiting and such other cruel sports. 
 
 But if we could revisit those old times, I think 
 the strangest thing in om- eyes would have been 
 the bridge as it existed a himdred years ago.
 
 96 LONDON A CENTURY AGO. 
 
 It had been ahvaj's a serious matter bow to cross 
 the Tbames. There was a horse ferry from Lam- 
 beth to Westminster until the year 1750 or there- 
 abouts, when Westminster Bridge was completed — 
 not the bridge we see now, but a stone bridge 
 almost on the same site. The Thames there is 300 
 feet wider than at London Bridge, and the archi- 
 tect deserved great credit for his boldness. Black- 
 friars Bridge was begun in 1760, and was now 
 approaching completion. And the only other way 
 over the water was London Bridge. In 1770 it was 
 a very different structure from what we see now. 
 A year or two before, it had houses on it — not a 
 double row as previousl}^ but a few here and there, 
 and the remains of the chapel of St. Thomas a 
 Becket in the centre. In 1766 the old half-fortified 
 gateway stood at the southern end, and may still 
 have deserved its name of the Traitor's Gate, fi'om 
 the skulls of the Scots rebels grinning on spikes 
 over the archway. It was like St. John's Gate at 
 Clerkenwell, or the Gate of St. James's Palace, but 
 of stone. The bridge itself was built on abutments 
 and piers of the most primitive kind. It contained 
 no fewer than nineteen arches, pointed, and of 
 com'se very narrow ; instead of only five arches, as at 
 j)resent. For two hundi'ed years a large part of the 
 water supplied to the City was dra"\\T.i fi-om the 
 river by a water-wheel, which moved under one of 
 the arches. The stream was often ver}- strong, and 
 Pemiant, in 1787, speaks of taking boat from West-
 
 LONDON A CENTURY AGO. 97 
 
 minster along the river, but getting out at Old Swan 
 Stairs, to avoid the risk of "adding to the many 
 thousands who had lost their lives in darting down 
 the rapids at London Bridge." He tells us then of 
 walking to Billingsgate and there re-embarking. 
 The present bridge was begun in 1825, and the 
 principal difficulty in the way of the new bridge 
 was the extraordinary solidity of the old foundations 
 and piers. They were like rocks in the river bed. 
 
 There is very little change in the outward aspect 
 of the City from a distance in one hundi-ed years. 
 St. Paul's had been finished about thirty years 
 before. There was, of course, no station at Cannon- 
 street nor any railway bridge, but otherwise the 
 difference between London five, and London one 
 himdred, years ago is very slight in outward; 
 appearance. There was hardly so much smoke ,- 
 very few tall chimneys ; a few more trees, especially 
 to the left, towards the Temple ; the warehouses 
 were lower, and the chm*ch steeples consequently 
 looked taller, and there were more houses with 
 gables and perhaps a Gothic window or two. The' 
 approaches to the bridge, however, were very dif- 
 ferent, consisting of a labyrinth of small streets 
 where King William-street now stands. And from 
 the Tower, looking down the river, there were only 
 one or two docks, and a very small number of ships 
 — at least to our modern ideas — and of com-se no 
 steamers. Where the important St. Ivatherine's 
 Dock now stands, just beyond the Tower, was a 
 
 G
 
 98 LONDON A CENTURY AGO. 
 
 church and a kind of almshonse or college ; they 
 were moved to the Kegent's Park in 1827. 
 
 Eetiu-ning to Southwark, the fii-st thing, perhaps, 
 that strikes us is how soon the streets end and the 
 open country succeeds. Newington Causeway was 
 a real causeway or paved way over some marshy 
 ground, and Newington Butts was what we should 
 call a rifle-ground — only for hows and arrows. 
 
 St. George's Fields were still fields in reality, 
 with only a sprinkling of houses. But all about the 
 foot of the bridge was a closely-inhabited district, 
 containing the remains of many fine buildings of 
 older times than these. To the west of St. Saviom-'s 
 Chm'ch was an old Gothic hall, j)art of the Bishop 
 of Winchester's Palace. It was let in small tene- 
 ments and divided by floors, though the roof was 
 worthy to be compared with that of Westminster 
 Hall. Eochester House, another palace of the 
 same kind, stood where the Borough Market is 
 now. 
 
 The cloisters of the Conventual Church stood on 
 the site of Montagu Close. Lord Monteagle was 
 living there when he got the famous letter about the 
 Gmipowder Plot. 
 
 The Globe, Shakespeare's Theatre, was on part 
 of the groimd now occupied by Barclay and Perkms's 
 brewery. It was abandoned at the time of the 
 Parliament's proclamation against theatrical enter- 
 tainments, and was never afterwards revived. 
 
 A little way down the river from Southwark was
 
 LONDON A CENTURY AGO. 99 
 
 Eotherhitbe, a mere village, generally called Eed- 
 riff. Here was the Greenland Dock, into which 
 ships laden with whale's blubber were brought. It 
 was seventy years founded, and was looked upon in 
 those days as quite a wonder. The new church was 
 just finished at this time. The tower and spu'e are 
 remarkable. Prince Lee Boo was buried here in 
 1784. The number of houses at this time was 
 about 1,500, and it was growing rapidly. 
 
 A little way ofif, across the fields, was Bermondsey. 
 It is now a little more than a hmidred years since 
 Bermondsey Spa was discovered. Tea gardens and 
 groimds like Cremorne were established there. 
 There were some remains still standing of the 
 Abbey and the King's* Palace, all which are gone 
 now. In those days the parish contained only 
 about 2,500 houses. 
 
 Next to Piotherhithe, and between it and Dept- 
 ford, came Camberwell. In the year 1787, there 
 were 3,762 inliabitants. The whole parish con- 
 sisted of gentlemen's country seats, some of them 
 very handsome ; there was only one church, the 
 parish chm'ch : how many are there now ? Peck- 
 ham was in the parish, and contained about 400 
 houses ; and there were 130 in Hatcham. 
 
 We have thus obtained some idea of the size and 
 appearance of South London a hundred years ago. 
 North London was just as different. Hampstead 
 and Highgate were a long way off, and were occu- 
 pied by the villas of various noblemen and gentle - 
 
 G 2
 
 100 LONDON A CENTURY AGO. 
 
 men. But we need not pause to notice them ; 
 they were, in those days, as little accoimted a part 
 of London as we should account Pdchmond or 
 Harrow. The western extremity of the town was 
 at Tybm-n. And the mention of Tybm-n suggests 
 so many cm-ious memories that I had better stop 
 to speak, fii'st of the state of London prisons as 
 they were then, and next of the a^\'ful scenes which 
 made Tybm-n itself so disgracefully famous. 
 
 It is hard to understand how persons who were 
 constantly in the habit of using such phrases as 
 " the mildness and humanity of English law," a 
 very common expression among writers of the 
 eighteenth centm-y, could have allowed their gaols 
 to be so mismanaged as they were. A change 
 began when, in 1773, John Howard happened to be 
 sheriff of Bedfordshire. His attention was called 
 to the fact that, after trial and acquittal, prisoners 
 were seldom discharged. He then found the reason 
 to be that the gaolers had no salary but the fees 
 to be paid by each prisoner, and that these were 
 seldom forthcoming. He endeavom*ed to obtain a 
 mitigation of this evil, and travelled throughout 
 England to prosecute inquiries on the subject. Li 
 London, in Howard's time, debtors and felons were 
 almost always confined together : men and women 
 in many cases : men, women, and children in some. 
 A woman was hanged at Tyburn with a baby at 
 the breast, for stealing a piece of lace worth two 
 shillings. There were several cases of children
 
 LONDON A CENTURY AGO. 101 
 
 dying of cold in prison. There were no prison 
 sui'geons in London except at Newgate, and three 
 other of the most recently erected prisons. The 
 gaolers always rented the prisons, and made what 
 they could out of the prisoners. At the entrance of 
 every gaol was a tap or publichouse, kept by the 
 gaoler himself in most cases, but sometimes by one 
 of the jDrisoners. At the Marshalsea, in Southwark, 
 the tap was kept by a prisoner-for-debt from the 
 King's Bench, which was so near that he could 
 attend to his business without going beyond the 
 bounds or rules. It was common for persons who 
 were friends of the prisoners to come in and drink 
 with them. In one place there was a skittle alley, 
 exclusively used by outsiders, who thus pre- 
 vented the prisoners from taking exercise in theii' 
 yard. Gaol fever raged so terribly in almost all the 
 London and country prisons that, to give you one 
 example of each, in London in 1750, two judges, 
 the Lord Mayor, several aldermen, the under 
 sheriff, and many lawyers who had attended the 
 March sessions at the Old Bailey, together with 
 most of the Middlesex jury, and a considerable 
 number of spectators, died of this distemper ; and 
 at the Taunton assizes. Lent, 1730, the Lord Chief 
 Baron, Serjeant Sheppard, Mr. Pigot the High 
 Sheriff, and more than 200 other people, died of the 
 same epidemic. Prisons do not appear to have 
 been inspected in any way : nay, they were often 
 private property — the Gate House, the chief prison
 
 102 LONDON A CENTUEY AGO. 
 
 for Westminster, belonged to the Dean and Chap- 
 ter, and the town gaol of Salisbm-y to the 
 Bishoj) — and this gave rise to many abuses : the 
 gaoler being appointed not for his humanity or any 
 other quality, except his power of wringing a good 
 rent out of his wretched charge. In most places 
 there was no provision made for feeding the pri- 
 soners, except perhaps a few pence worth of bread 
 in the day. In others, charitable persons gave 
 smaU sums of money to be applied in this way, and 
 others sent meat and provisions of various kinds. 
 Legacies, too, were sometimes left. They were, 
 however, administered — as legacies were usually 
 administered in those days. No bedding, or straw 
 even for bedding, was allowed in any prison except 
 out of the charity of private individuals. Water 
 had often to be fetched long distances by prisoners 
 in irons. Even air was often denied through the 
 ojoeration of the window tax, which had to be paid 
 by the gaoler. Another shocking abuse arose from 
 the distances which prisoners had often to go for 
 trial. There were no prison vans, and you might 
 often meet along a country road a gang of mihappy 
 creatm'es — men, women, and children — di'agging 
 heavy irons to prevent escape, and walking — or 
 rather creeping — perhaps fourteen or fifteen miles 
 to the assize town. Wlien they arrived there, a room 
 or two would be hired for their occupation till after 
 the sessions, probably in some publichouse, and 
 then they would all — men, women, and children, as
 
 LONDON A CENTURY AGO. 103 
 
 I have said — be shut up together, th'ecl, filthy, 
 starving: so that it is no wonder we hear that their 
 shrieks and cries disturbed the whole neighbour- 
 hood; no wonder that Mr. Howard was informed at 
 Aylesbury of two men whose toes had mortified after 
 their journey from Hertford; and that another man 
 told him that he and fifteen others were confined in 
 a very small room at Keigate, awaiting their trial at 
 quarter sessions, and were almost suftocated. The 
 keeper confirmed the statement. Yet this man was 
 only arrested in order to oblige him to maintain a 
 child, and being unable at a strange place like 
 Eeigate to find securities, was sent back to the 
 Comity Bridewell, in St. George's Fields, for an 
 indefinite term. This same Bridewell is a fair 
 sample of all. There was no glass in the windows, 
 only iron bars. There were no fires, nor was any 
 firing allowed. The sick prisoners lay on the floor : 
 no bedding; no straw. Allowance, l|d. worth of 
 bread per diem. Comdcts and all other prisoners 
 together. No infirmary. And yet in this hell upon 
 earth many unfortmiates who had committed no 
 crime, and had yet to be tried, were confined. 
 Before trial they had, perhaps, to wait six months 
 or more, and then to undergo the misery of a 
 jom-ney such as I have described to Eeigate or 
 Kingston. 
 
 When the trial came on, it was not wonderful to 
 find, neither prisoners nor judges were very careful 
 as to the pmiishment. Almost all crimes were
 
 104 LONDON A CENTURY AGO. 
 
 punished alike : a jom-ney in a cart up Holborn- 
 hill to Tyburn for prisoners in London itself, and 
 the gallows when they got there. The history of 
 Tybm-n has yet to be written. It is not a hundred 
 years since the monthly horrors ceased : we can 
 scarcely yet speak of them calmly. But abeady 
 the exact spot on which the gallows stood is in 
 question, and a hundred years hence it may be 
 difficult to identify any part of the site. 
 
 The executions at Tyburn were discontinued in 
 the year 1783. The gallows had been removed 
 further and fm-ther westward from the year 1415, 
 when they stood in St. Giles's Fields — probably 
 very near the spot at which Bloomsbury-street 
 crosses Oxford-street ; in 1449, or earlier, they had 
 gone as far as Stratford-place, where there was a 
 conduit and other civic institutions — including, of 
 com'se, a banqueting-house. They reached Tyburn 
 early in the sixteenth centmy, and remained there 
 for nearly 300 years. 
 
 The Eye Bom-ne, or Biu-n, rises at Kilburn or 
 thereabouts, and rmis in a southerly direction, 
 turning and winding as much as other brooks of the 
 kind ; and having given some part of its name suc- 
 cessively to Tyburn or t'Eycbourne, Eye Park, or 
 Hyde Park, and Eye Hill, or Hay Hill, it reaches the 
 Thames at the Isle of Thorn- ey,* now called West- 
 
 * See p. 29 for a further account of the brook. It is not 
 clear how far the derivation of " Hyde," &c. from " Eye " may 
 be pressed here.
 
 LONDON A CENTURY AGO. 
 
 105 
 
 minster — at least, this is its probable direction; but 
 it is not easy to trace now, as what little of it still 
 flows, flows underground. Another stream rises 
 at St. Mary-le-bourne, or Marylebone, and gives its 
 name probably to Conduit-street and Brook-street ; 
 a third flowed through Holborn, and a fom-th was 
 the Fleet. The Tybm-n and the Marybourne are 
 sometimes, as by Dean Stanley, considered the same 
 stream. This is questionable ; but they probably 
 met in the neighbom-hood of Berkeley-square, per- 
 haps on the site of Lansdowne House, and flow^ed 
 together to the Abbey. It is impossible now to make 
 very sure of any of these surmises. We only know 
 that the gallows were erected at a place to the west of 
 
 TYBlKX TUBjrriKE. From an Old China Thile.
 
 106 LONDON A CENTURY AGO. 
 
 Marylebone-lane — probablj', at fii-st, almost adjoin- 
 ing it ; and as bouses came nearer the open space 
 the fatal tree was moved fm-tber, till it took up its 
 most permanent abode at a place where it was 
 almost certain to remain open on two sides at 
 least. This was at the angle formed by the junc- 
 tion of the Edgware and Oxford roads, faced by the 
 Park en one side and by open country on two 
 others. Tybm-n Turnpike stood where we now see 
 the Marble Ai-ch, that is, a little to the left of Park- 
 lane (formerly Tybmm-lane) ; and a little way up 
 the Edgware-road on the right-hand side was an 
 inn, where, a hundred years ago and upwards, the 
 sheriffs and other of&cials dined after the exe- 
 cutions. A stage, much resembling the grand 
 stand at a race, was erected in front of this house 
 for the spectators. Dming the declining years of 
 the show, the gallows were removed after each 
 performance, and were deposited in the inn-yard 
 till they were next required. After 1783 they re- 
 mained there permanently, and eventually degene- 
 rated into horse-blocks and watering-troughs. A 
 place of execution for soldiers was just within 
 the Park bomidarj', which consisted of a low 
 wall. 
 
 In Hogarth's print of the Execution of the Idle 
 Apprentice, a representation of Tybm-n in 1747 will 
 be found, and may be considered tolerably accm'ate. 
 A long avenue of walnut-trees commenced just 
 within the Park-wall. This is on the left of the
 
 LONDON A CENTURY AGO. 107 
 
 picture. The wall itself is surmounted by a row of 
 spectators. Behind, on the right, stand the gal- 
 lows ; they are triangular, supported by three 
 stout beams or legs, and must have been set up 
 almost, if not exactly, on the site of the easternmost 
 house of Connaught-place. In 1860 a considerable 
 number of human bones were found in digging a 
 sewer under the pathway along the garden-wall of 
 this house. Possibly these were part of the remains 
 of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw, w'ho were 
 buried under the gallows in 1661. In 1811, or there- 
 abouts, another large find of bones had been made 
 near the same spot : a pit was dug in the mews, and 
 there they were buried again. It would not surely 
 be difdcult to obtain a list of all the criminals who 
 were buried under the gaUows at Tybm-n. 
 
 It has often been asserted that the gallows stood 
 as far to the west as Connaught-square, and a 
 house there. No. 49, is said to stand on the exact 
 site. This is of course quite possible, because, 
 as we have seen, they were by no means fixtures, 
 but were several times removed — generally at each 
 change of place going a little further towards the 
 west. Their last migration, however, was in an 
 easterly direction, for just before their final remove 
 they were set ujd across the Edgware-road for each 
 execution, where they must have formed a highly 
 interesting, if unpleasant, object to pass on the 
 retm-n fi-om a country drive. 
 
 Views of Tyburn, as it was a hundred years ago.
 
 108 LONDON A CENTURY AGO. 
 
 are almost uukno-wn. Hogarth gives one in his 
 
 Execution of the Idle Apprentice, to which vre have 
 
 ah'eady adverted. But except incidentally, so to 
 
 sj^eak, there is no extant representation. The en- 
 
 gi-aving on p. 105 is taken from a china plate in my 
 
 own possession, and gives a rough but, for want of 
 
 better, an interesting sketch of the Turnpike-gate. 
 
 It is, perhaps, seventy years old ; on the right, as 
 
 in Hogarth's print, we see the Park wall. Behind, 
 
 but sm-ely magnified, are Hampstead and Highgate. 
 
 A curious iron lamp-post is beyond the gate, and 
 
 marks the corner of what we still recognise as the 
 
 Edgware-road. When turnpikes were abolished an 
 
 iron tablet" was set up against the Park railings to 
 
 indicate its site. How many of the thousands who 
 
 daily tm-n out of Oxford-street into Edgware-road 
 
 reflect that they perchance pass over the very spot 
 
 where rest the remains of one of the greatest men 
 
 England has produced ? How many recall the 
 
 words — 
 
 " Siste, viator, heroem calcas?'' 
 
 Yet the fact is beyond a doubt that here — that is to 
 say, at the corner of Edgware-road, probably just 
 where the easternmost house of Connaught-place 
 now stands — the body of Oliver Cromwell, together 
 with the bodies of Ireton and Bradshaw, were bm-ied 
 "under the gallows." When Connaught-place was 
 built, a cart-load or more of bones were discovered 
 and removed to the adjacent mews, where they 
 were again buried in a pit.
 
 LONDON A CENTURY AGO. 109 
 
 " Imperious Cfcsar, dead and turned to clay, 
 Might stop a hole to keep the wind away : 
 O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe, 
 Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw ! " 
 
 Surely, never -were Hamlet's \vords better illus- 
 trated. Cromwell's remains having been exhumed 
 from their first resting-place in Henry the Seventh's 
 Chapel, were conveyed under guard to the "Eed 
 Lion " Inn, Holborn, which stood nearly opposite 
 the "Blue Boar," in the stable of which Cromwell 
 is said to have discovered the letter which deter- 
 mined the question of the King's execution. Both 
 inns have now disappeared. On the site of the 
 " Blue Boar " is the " Inns of Com-t " Hotel; and 
 Bed Lion-square marks the situation of the other. 
 What is now the square was then the paddock; 
 and it has often been said that during the night of 
 the 29th of January, 1661, on which the remains 
 of the great usurper rested there, some of his old 
 soldiers contrived to steal them and to bury them 
 secretly in the paddock. Another story runs differ- 
 ently, and assigns Northborough, in Huntingdon- 
 shire, as the final resting-place of the dead Protec- 
 tor. Another, again, takes him down to the field 
 of Naseby, and deposits him among the slain of his 
 great victory. But all these traditions and rumours 
 — for there were many of them — only show how 
 great was the reluctance with which the public 
 mind accepted the fact of the 30th of January, and 
 how abhorrent to all the feelings of the nation was
 
 110 LONDON A CENTURY AGO. 
 
 the scene TNiiich then took place. The three 
 corpses, in their leaden covering, were dragged 
 along the Oxford-road to Tj'bm-n, and himg by 
 the necks upon the triangular gallows, which then 
 stood there. At simset they were taken down, the 
 heads were hacked off, and the headless bodies 
 thrown into a hole under the gallows, among the 
 bones of the malefactors who had alread}' been 
 buried there. The heads were carried to West- 
 minster Hall, and grinned from the gable for many 
 years. Two or three " heads of Oliver Cromwell " 
 are now in private possession ; one (but which ?) 
 is probably the real skull — Ireton's and Bradshaw's 
 may supply the others. 
 
 Were the bones exhumed at the building of Con- 
 naught-place those of Cromwell ? It is very likely 
 they were. Very few persons were bm-ied under the 
 gallows, and it is not impossible that the greater 
 part of the " cart-load " was composed of the 
 skeletons of the three great men of the Eebellion. 
 A careful examination of them might have revealed 
 their identity. The leaden coverings would not 
 perish entirely in two himdred years, and perhaps 
 it is not yet too late to make the attempt. In these 
 monument-building days we should have a monu- 
 ment to Cromwell ; and if his bones could be 
 discovered, there seems little doubt that a head 
 might be fitted to them and the remains interred 
 with the honom- he sm-ely deserves of our nation. 
 
 Another memory, connecting these sad times and
 
 LONDON A CENTUKY AGO. Ill 
 
 their history with Tyburn, is that of the execution 
 here of two of the regicides, in October, 1660. 
 Eight of them had ah-eady been barbarously hanged, 
 drawn, and quartered at Charing Cross; but Hacker 
 and Axtel — ominous names — were reserved for 
 Tyburn. They had both been colonels under Crom- 
 well. Axtel was the officer who, at the King's trial, 
 caused the soldiers to cry out for his execution. 
 Hacker was in charge of the scaffold, and led the 
 King out to his death. About nine in the morning 
 of Friday, the 19th of October, they were drawn 
 from Newgate on a hurdle. Axtel was hanged and 
 quartered ; but Hacker, although undoubtedly the 
 more guilty of the two, was simply hanged, and his 
 body delivered entu-e to his friends. The mangled 
 limbs of his companion were exposed in various 
 parts of the City. 
 
 A century ago the number of persons hanged in 
 London in the course of a year was usually 29 or 30. 
 In 1771 it was 37, of which three only were con- 
 demned for murder. In 1774 the number was 40, 
 two only for murder. In 1773, a woman was bm'nt 
 for murder ; in 1778, one was burnt for coining. 
 Nay, so lately as 1789 a woman named Christian 
 Bowman was strangled at the stake and publicly 
 burnt before Newgate for coining. In 1769, a woman 
 called Lott, who had mm'dered her husband, had 
 been executed in the same way. In 1770, at one 
 sessions at the Old Bailey, 30 persons were con- 
 demned to death ; 17 of them were respited, and 13
 
 112 LONDON A CENTURY AGO. 
 
 hanged at TyLuni a fortnight later. They '^ere 
 chiefly j'oimg boys, the eldest of the party being only 
 22. It took five carts to convey them from Newgate. 
 
 I have, perhaps, delayed too long over these 
 memories, which, strictly speaking, do not belong to 
 an accomit of London one centm-y ago ; but as 
 Tybm-n was then, literally, in full swing, and as it was 
 so soon afterwards abolished as a place of execution, 
 this seems the best opportunity for speaking of them. 
 
 As I draw these notes to a close, it may be worth 
 while to inquu-e a little into the historical events of 
 a hundred years ago in London. 
 
 1768, May 10. There was a riot in St. George's 
 Fields. The troops fired, and killed many persons. 
 The epitaph on one of the slain says " he was in- 
 humanly mm'dered by Scottish detachments from 
 the army." 
 
 17G9, September 30. There was a similar riot in 
 Spitalfields to resist the introduction of power looms. 
 Two of the mob and a soldier were killed. Two men 
 were afterwards hanged at Bethnal Green for the 
 soldier's death. They protested their innocence to 
 the last, and I fear we must believe their statements. 
 It is not very surprising they were condemned, if we 
 remember that persons tried for felony were, by an 
 excess of barbarity, denied counsel, although in a 
 case like this, in which party spu'it ran very high, 
 there would be a great array of legal talent on the 
 side of the j)rosecution. 
 In newspapers of this date we have news from
 
 LONDON A CENTURY AGO. 113 
 
 America two months old, and this calls to om- mmds 
 the difficulties of locomotion. The roads about 
 London were very bad, and were, moreover, infested 
 with highwaymen. On the 14th April, 1770, two 
 gentlemen, coming home across Blackheath, were 
 attacked in their carriage by a robber ; one of the 
 gentlemen fired a pistol and shot him dead. They 
 left the body where it lay, and drove on. Just as 
 they came to New Cross, they were attacked again 
 by a man on horseback; and again the same 
 gentleman fired and hit the highwayman, who fell 
 from his horse, but managed to hide in the ditch 
 and to escape among the thickets on the Old Kent- 
 road. In the following month, a young man was 
 murdered by thieves as he retiumed on foot through 
 one of the lanes near Sadler's Wells. On the 27th of 
 May, two men, sailors I think, were shot by footpads, 
 near Stepney. Nay, to such a pitch had brigandage 
 come, that w^e hear of a plot being laid to rob the 
 Queen on her way to St. James's from supping in 
 the City. The design was to have been carried out 
 in St. Paul's Churchyard ; but, in the words of the 
 historian, " Those execrable villains being employed 
 in robbing Sir Gilbert Heathcote, an Alderman of 
 London, on his retm-n in his chariot from the House 
 of Commons, her Majesty luckily passed them in 
 her coach without being attacked." Most people 
 travelled on horseback, but noblemen and those who 
 were wealthy, by using four horses, or even some- 
 times six, were able to get about in carriages at 
 
 II
 
 114 LONDON A CENTURY AGO. 
 
 great expense. Coaches carrying the mails lum- 
 bered along very slowly, and were constantly the 
 prey of highwaymen. Thus, just one hundred years 
 ago, the Chester mail was robbed in the City- 
 road. The Leeds coach was stopped at Holloway 
 in March, 1769, by a single highwayman, who was 
 wounded, but got off. In the dark, a passenger 
 was tied neck and heels and thrown into the basket 
 before he was recognised. In town, a hackney 
 coach might be had at great expense, but there 
 were no cabs, and it was really a serious matter to 
 take even a jom*ney from Marylebone to the Kent- 
 road. Coming from the village of Marylebone, one 
 would probably have avoided the Park for fear of rob- 
 l)ers, and Park Lane for the same reason, as well as 
 the badness of the road. We should have gone along 
 Oxford-road to Holborn, taking care, as we passed 
 the labyrinth of streets on the site of which Piegent- 
 street now stands, to carry our swords well in hand 
 and to cock our pistols. Perhaps, however, a 
 clergyman would not have worn a sword, and would 
 have trusted more to his gown and bands to protect 
 him than to his pistols. But the probability is I 
 should not have worn the usual costume of a clergy- 
 man (the long black cassock, which still sm-vives in 
 Bishops' aprons, and the go-^Ti and bands, to say 
 nothing of the shovel three-cornered hat and the 
 full-bottomed wig) ; it would be too inconvenient to 
 take so long a journey in. When I got as far as 
 Holborn, I should try to keep company with any
 
 LONDON A CENTURY AGO. 115 
 
 respectable-looking person I coukl find going the 
 same way till we were well past St. Giles's. I would 
 then turn down Chancery-lane, and at Temple 
 Stah's would try and make a bargain with a water- 
 man to row me down the river to London Bridge. 
 I should cross the bridge on foot, and then, if 
 l)Ossible, obtain a hackney coach hi Southwark to 
 drive me along the Kent-road towards Deptford. 
 This would cost £l Is. I might, perhaps, get a 
 seat on one of the Greenwich coaches, which are 
 beginning to ply, morning and evening, as far as 
 Southwark. I should not think of returning to the 
 distant Marylebone the same night, unless I was 
 willing to run the risk of being out all night, and of 
 being, perhaps, robbed and murdered on the way 
 home. The beauty of the severe penal laws was, 
 that if a man robbed you he might as well shoot you, 
 because dead men tell no tales, and if he were 
 caught and convicted, he would be hanged just as 
 surely for robbing you as for killing you. It is very 
 odd that our legislators were so long perceiving the 
 effect of then- efforts for suppressing crime by 
 severity. I should, as I passed through Southwark, 
 have admired the light of the numberless oil lamps 
 which had been lately placed in St. George's 
 Fields to mark the way, but which only served to 
 make the darkness of the Kent-road more dismal. 
 I should also, in passing through the streets of 
 London, have congratulated myself and the London 
 public on the brilliant illumination made by the oil 
 
 n 2
 
 116 LONDON A CENTURY AGO. 
 
 lamps at almost eveiy corner, autl, iu some streets, 
 even along both sides of the way at long inter^-als. 
 Of com-se, I should not admire this feeble light if I 
 had ever seen gas ; and, bad as London gas is, it is 
 a thousand times better than anything used before. 
 In houses the chief light was tallow candles ; wax 
 was too expensive for common use, and composites 
 were not yet invented. Even to light j'our dip you 
 had to go through an elaborate process with a flint 
 and steel and some dry tinder in your tinder box. 
 
 In conclusion, here are some miscellaneous notes 
 from the newspapers of 1768, 1769, and 1770 : — 
 
 21st Nov., 1768. The wife of one Shmy, a cooper 
 in Westminster, had two boys, being her third and 
 fourth children born iu that same year : and her 
 twenty-sixth, counting from the eldest. 
 
 A velocipede, " a machine or carriage to go 
 vdthout horses," was exhibited to the King. 
 
 August, 1769. A clergyman and a captain in 
 the army fought a duel in H^-de Park. The officer 
 was wounded. 
 
 Advertisement in May, 1769. For a P — e M — r, 
 " who is acquainted with and ready to do all the 
 dirty work of that station, &c. N.B. If a Scotch- 
 man, the more agreeable." 
 
 Parliamentary seats were for sale, like livings 
 now-a-days. 
 
 Marriages, " with privacy, secrecy, and regularity 
 at the Savoy," were advertised. "N.B. Five 
 private ways by land and tico by water."
 
 LONDON A CENTURY AGO. 117 
 
 Curious notices of marriage abounded, thus : — 
 
 " Feb., 17C9, Thomas Fitzhugh, Esq., to Miss 
 Lloyd, with £10,000." 
 
 " July, 17G9, Bysshe Shelley, Esq., to the Hon. 
 Miss Sichiey, £80,000. 
 
 August, 1770. Chatterton, the boy poet, 
 poisoned himself at Broke-street, Holborn, and 
 was buried in Shoe-lane as a pauper on the 
 28th. His name is entered by mistake in the 
 St. Andrew's Eegister as William Chatterton, so 
 unknown was he. 
 
 The first Eoyal Academy Exhibition was held at 
 Somerset House on the 1st Jan., 1769. 
 
 A newspaper of a few years later shows that 
 Messrs. Christie were as busy then as they are 
 now in dispersing works of art. The Morning 
 Post of January 24, 1777, advertises — " The 
 valuable collection of pictui-es of the late Earl 
 of Strathmore, deceased, brought from his lord- 
 ship's house in Grosvenor-square," which are to be 
 sold by "Messrs. Christie and J. Aiisell, at their 
 Great Eoom in Pall Mall this day, the 24th of Jan- 
 uary, and the following day, by order of the Execu- 
 tors." A hundred years hence somebody may think 
 it worth while to quote the announcement of the 
 sale of Mr. Gladstone's china. 
 
 A hundred years ago, too, other things besides 
 works of art were sold as they unfortunately (in 
 respect at least to one of the two) are sold now. 
 The following advertisement presents a curious
 
 118 LONDON A CENTURY AGO. 
 
 combination of purchase in the army and the sale 
 of clerical appointments : — 
 
 "Army. Wanted to purchase, a Chaplaincy of 
 Dragoons, on the English establishment. Any 
 Gentleman inclined to sell may direct for P. H., 
 ■with terms, regiment, &c., at the Bar of George's 
 Coffee-house, Coventry-street."
 
 PEPYS AND ST. OLAYE"S. 
 
 CllUUtUYAKD GATEWAY, ST. OLAVE S HABT STBEET. 
 
 W^f^UNE 4, 1703. Samuel Peyps (sic), Esq., 
 r, m l-rv) ]j-^^.[q^ i^ a vault by y** Communion 
 Table." This line, from the parish 
 register of St. Olave, Hart-street, is all 
 the memorial which a grateful country has raised 
 in ackno^Yleclgment of the merits of a worthy
 
 120 PEPYS AND ST. OLAVE'S. 
 
 citizen, a member of Parliament, a faithful public 
 servant, a President of the Koyal Society, a founder 
 of a great University library, and — to mention last 
 the one thing for which his name will be longest 
 cherished — the writer of a ten years' Diary (1659- 
 1669), in one of the most eventful periods of om- 
 history. 
 
 In 1838, two well-kno^\ii antiquaries published a 
 book about London Chm-ches. They described St. 
 Olave's at full length. They mentioned all the 
 monuments except one. They enumerated the great 
 men connected with the parish, and quoted Defoe's 
 fictitious account of the Great Plague. Yet they 
 omitted all mention of the most remarkable man 
 bm-ied in the chm*cli. They gave no account of his 
 wife's monument, one of the largest the church con- 
 tains. They said nothing of his " Jom-nal of the 
 Plague," although it is by far the best extant. A 
 few years before Messrs, Godwin and Britton brought 
 out then- book, Mr. Smith had deciphered and Lord 
 Braj'brook had edited the now famous " Diary." Sii" 
 Walter Scott had reviewed it in the Quarterly, and 
 Lord Jeffrey in the Edinburgh. But a six-guinea 
 book, especially so long ago as 1828, was not likely 
 to be very widely known, and people had little more 
 than a vague idea of Pepys' merits mitil a couple of 
 popular editions, the first in 1848, began to make 
 him better appreciated, and about ten years ago 
 everybody who had read anything had read his 
 Diary. But even now, it is new to many people to
 
 TEPYS AND ST. OLAVE's. 121 
 
 licar that be is buried iu tbe City ; and few, even of 
 tbose who agree in Coleridge's note in bis own cop3% 
 "most valuable on many various and most miportant 
 accounts,'' remember how much be did for learning 
 in his life, and, after death, by bis bequests. His 
 library, which was given to Magdalen College, Cam- 
 bridge, numbers, among other valuable books, two 
 volumes of London topographical views and maps, 
 which he had collected. He was President of the 
 Koyal Society, then in its youth ; and showed in 
 many ways the practical and benevolent tm-n of his 
 mind. 
 
 For us be is the writer of tbe Diary. We can 
 hardly think of him without a smile. But when we 
 visit his wife's tomb, look at tbe bust with which it 
 is surmoimted, and read the eulogistic Latin epitaph 
 which was indited by her wddowed Samuel ; when 
 we look at the monument below, and think that it 
 occupied the same place when Pe^Dys worshipped 
 here, that he must have often read the quaint 
 inscription, and may possibly have determined to 
 mould his own life on tbe model of the two worthy 
 aldermen there commemorated ; when, in short, we 
 stand in St. Olave's, Hart-street, the Diary over 
 which we have so often laughed, and which seems 
 to belong to a period too remote to have much reality 
 for us, seems now to become a living thing, and its 
 author something more to us than a name. 
 
 This is one of the few chm-ches that sm-vived the 
 Great Fii-e, and it possesses many other claims on
 
 122 PEPYS AND ST. OLAVE's. 
 
 our consideration. Here, perhaps, for the first time 
 in parochial history the celebrated experiment of 
 the Duke of St. Albans was tried. In 1672, Sir 
 Andrew Riccard left the advowson to the inhabi- 
 tants, and with them it has ever since remained. 
 The register books date from 1563, and the cm-ious 
 visitor may still see, under July 24, 1665, the name 
 of Mary Eamsay, with the dreadful "P" annexed, 
 for she was the person who brought the plague into 
 the City, and who, before the year was out, was fol- 
 lowed to the tomb by a hiuidi-ed thousand victims. 
 The organ is said to bo one of the efforts of the 
 famous artist Bernard Schmidt, better kno'^Ti as 
 Father Smith, and it is worthy of his fame. The 
 quaint monuments which till every corner, the 
 venerable arches of the aisles, the beadle with his 
 silver mace, the arms of City companies on the iron- 
 work, the vestry-room with an angel looking down 
 from the roof, the various patterns of the windows, 
 and not least, the quiet, country-like service, renders 
 this one of the most attractive among the minor City 
 chmxhes, quite apart from its connection with 
 Samuel Pejij^s. Yet, let us endeavour as we will to 
 recall wandering thoughts, it is impossible not to 
 remember that in the pulpit here* Dr. Mills so often 
 " made a good sermon," and at the altar on the 4th 
 November, 1660, " did begin to nibble at the Com- 
 mon Prayer;" that here in November, 1669, he 
 
 * But not in the present pulpit, -wLich came from a neigh- 
 bouring church.
 
 PEPYS AND ST. OLAVE's. 123 
 
 buried Mrs. Pepys, ' so soon after her husband's 
 return from his foreign tour, as her epitaph observes ; 
 and here in lC89,Dr. Mills was buried himself. Then, 
 after having survived the last entry in his Diary for 
 more than thirty years, the diarist was borne hither 
 from the house at Clapham, where he had died at 
 " about three-quarters past three on Wednesday 
 morning," May 26, 1703, and was laid mider the 
 pavement of the chancel. A hundred and twenty 
 mom-ning rings were distributed at the funeral, 
 which was performed by Dr. Hickes, the Nonjuring 
 ex-Dean of Worcester, who wrote of him: "I doubt 
 not but he is now a very blessed spirit, according to 
 his motto, mens ciij usque is est quisque^' (as the mind, 
 so the man). 
 
 The register spells his name Peyps. Immediately 
 below the bust of Mrs. Pepys is a very good example 
 of the early seventeenth-ceutm-y monument and 
 epitaph. It commemorates two brothers, aldermen, 
 named Bayniug, Paul and Andrew, who died re- 
 spectively in ICIG and 1610: — 
 
 " If all great Cities prosperously confesse 
 That lie by whom their Traffick doth increase 
 Deserves well of them, then th' adventux-e's worth 
 Of these two who were Brothers both by birth, 
 And office, prove that they have thankful bin 
 For the Honours which the City put them iu : 
 And dying old, they by a blest consent 
 This Legacy bequeathed, their Monument. 
 The happy sum and end of their Affaires, 
 Provided well both for their soules and Heires.''
 
 124 
 
 PEPYS AND ST. OLAVE S. 
 
 It is pleasant to find for once that the heii'S were 
 satisfied. 
 
 lu 1836, during the progress of some repairs, the 
 bones of Pepys were disturbed, and carefully re- 
 placed by the side of his brother and his wife : but 
 it does not redound to the credit of the University 
 and College which he so greatly benefited, nor of 
 the gentlemen who in late years reaped so large a 
 profit from his Diary, that no monument marks the 
 place of his bmial, and that even the memorial 
 which alone preserves his name in the chm-ch is 
 darkened by ages of London smoke, and made 
 illegible by the damps of two hundi'ed wmters. The 
 chm-ch has been well and conservatively restored. 
 A handsome encaustic pavement covers the grave of 
 Pej)ys, but not so much as a " piece of brass " points 
 the pilgrim to the spot. 
 
 AUJIS OF SOrTHWABE, FaOU OLD LOXDJX BnlDGT.
 
 GREAT ST. HELEN'S. 
 
 ;HE City is very pleasant on Sunday 
 morning. In all its aspects it clilTers 
 from the same place during the week. 
 It is empty, except of foot-passengers : 
 it is comparatively clean, even in wet weather ; it 
 is free from smoke ; the ringing of the church hells 
 drowns all other sounds. The visitor who keeps his 
 eyes open is surprised at the long views he obtains 
 through streets which he is accustomed to see 
 crowded with vehicles and thick with dust or fog. 
 The day of rest is a real Sabbath in the Cit3\ You 
 miss the hm*rying throng and the anxious faces. 
 Great warehouses, with their archways and por- 
 ticoes, are deserted ; the ordinary signs of life 
 are wantmg — no children play along the gutters 
 or sit on the doorsteps, as in other parts of the 
 Metropolis; no doors are open, no carriages are 
 passing ; the people walk in the roadway, and every- 
 bod}' seems to be going to chmxh. Such an im- 
 pression is of course much modified by a little expe- 
 rience of Sunday in London ; after a time we find 
 that all the people do not go to a place of worship ;
 
 12G GREAT ST. Helen's. 
 
 tbcat some of the chiirclies are almost empty, others 
 not half full ; and that as the afternoon wanes many 
 sights are to be seen, many soimds to he heard, 
 sadly at variance ■with the promise of the morning. 
 A pilgrimage from the western districts of the 
 metropolis is very different now from what it was 
 when the chm'ch we are about to visit was in its 
 glory. Four centm-ies ago St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, 
 was one of the wealthiest of the religious houses 
 with which London so much abounded. The Pri- 
 oress owned land in several quai^ters of the City : 
 Crosby-place was rented from her in the reign of 
 Edward IV. ; she let a house in Lombard-street to 
 Queen Isabella. At the dissolution her income was 
 equal to ten thousand a year m modern reckoning. 
 Yet this was only one of many similar institutions ; 
 the City and subm-bs on all sides were full of them ; 
 but within the walls they were most frequent. The 
 City itself was then a place of habitation, and though 
 the religious orders considered it umiecessary to seek 
 the protection of fortifications, and were to be found 
 in Smithfield and Fleet-street as well as at Wal- 
 brook and Newgate, with the laity it was not so. 
 Almost all the Londoners lived within the walls. 
 The merchant princes dwelt where they labom-ed. 
 Cheapside, where now on Sunday morning the long 
 processions of charity childi-en in quaint antiquated 
 costume seem to represent, at once, the coming 
 race, and that long jmst, was then as resonant as 
 Drury-lane is now. The churches, in which the
 
 GREAT HT. Helen's. 127 
 
 bcadlo and the parish pensioners arc often the only 
 ■\vorshii")pers, had then their full complument of 
 lords and ladies, knights, aldermen, soldiers, mer- 
 chants, tradesmen, and poor ; where we now pass 
 on oiu' way through crowded streets, teeming with 
 life, old and young, until we reach what is the com- 
 parative quiet of the City itself, then we should 
 have journeyed through pleasant villages, sur- 
 rounded by gardens ; and in coming perhajjs from 
 the far brook side at St. Mary-le -bourne, should 
 have passed successively through St. Giles m the 
 Fields, with its tall Gothic church, the bare common 
 in front of Lincoln's Inn, the cluster of high-peaked 
 roofs and vine-clad gables about the entrance of the 
 City precincts at Holborn Bars, and descending the 
 hill, between Ely House, with its rich gardens, and 
 the suburban church of St. Andrew, on the right 
 bank of the Fleet, should have enjoyed a view of 
 castles, palaces, monasteries, towers, churches, 
 and spii-es, such as can now be called up only 
 by the liveliest imagination, assisted by an 
 occasional dip into one of Pugin's romances on 
 copper. 
 
 But though the view is now nothing in one sense 
 to what it was, it is very imposing and very beauti- 
 ful still. The Viaduct and the railways, the vast 
 markets, the tall warehouses, have a double interest, 
 which mere modern buildings, without the associa- 
 tions which cling so close about such a situation, 
 never excite. But cndeavoming as we pass to
 
 128 GREAT ST. Helen's. 
 
 recall the older glories, we go, by the Grey Friars 
 Monastery, its low comfortless buildings in strange 
 contrast to the vast and magnificent chm-ch, where 
 so many royal and noble persons lie bm-ied ; by the 
 sanctuary and collegiate church at St. Martin's-le- 
 Grand ; by the Austin Friars gate, and so through 
 Walbrook and a labyrinth of passages to the 
 fashionable quarter which lay just within the 
 Bishop's-gate ; and tlien passing through an arch- 
 way on the right, a little beyond the chief entrance 
 to Crosby-place, find om-selves in what was once an 
 extensive " pleasamice," laid out with all the art of 
 mediaeval gardening, and bounded on the north by 
 the buildings then lately erected by Sir John, on the 
 south by the Priory of St. Helen, and opposite the 
 entrance by a fine chm-ch, which, in part at least, 
 remains to tell us of the place as it once was. The 
 little avenue leading to the west door, the double 
 aisles, the chapels, the tombs, and what is better 
 than all, a congregation rare in the cit}', seem to 
 transport us in a moment miles away into the 
 country, where the busy, heartless town has not j^et 
 corrupted the old customs, or destroyed the anti- 
 quated buildings. 
 
 This is Great St. Helen's. On the right a gable 
 and oriel of Crosby-place remain to serve as a pat- 
 tern by which all may be restored in our mind's 
 eyes. On the left we have nothing but the back of 
 a row of houses which occupy the site of the nuns* 
 dwellings. These slope across the vacant space, so
 
 GREAT ST. HELEN S. 
 
 129 
 
 CiiXri OP SI. IIELEX S SUVEXTY YliiES AGO. 
 
 as to come into collision with the cliurcli at the 
 farther end ; and there, where priory and chapel 
 met, a crypt was still to be seen seventy years ago. 
 Within the chm-ch, at that point, doorways still in- 
 dicate the situation of the dormitories and of the 
 refectory. The double nave and a chapel on the 
 south are all that now represent the magnificent 
 conventual chm-ch. The " Nuns' Aisle " equals the 
 other aisle in size, and both now constitute the 
 parish chm-ch. But before the sixteenth century, 
 one-half only admitted the ordinary worshippers, 
 while a high screen divided the congregation from 
 the sisters. If we enter, like the parishioners, by a
 
 130 GREAT ST. Helen's. 
 
 south porch, which has now little of its original 
 character, hut is interesting as an example of 
 architectural vicissitude, we are at once struck by 
 the peculiarities of the building. A clear space 
 upwards of one hundred feet in length is occupied 
 by the low seats of the congregation, and at the 
 eastern end by the choir stalls, leading up to a 
 railed platform, which serves as a chancel : a fine 
 window some thirty feet in height, filled with glass, 
 of which we need only say it is worthj' of its situa- 
 tion, bounds the view in this direction. 
 
 The north, or nuns' aisle, is two or three steps 
 higher, and differs much in arrangement. Here 
 are no pews, a few chau'S only being required 
 for the overflowings of a well-attended church ; 
 the floor is occupied by a series of tombs and 
 monuments, of various ages and styles; and the 
 wall, facing the noble arches of the nave, is a 
 rare museum of archfeological specimens, tablets, 
 doorways, niches, and squints. I have already 
 said that the domestic buildings of the priory stood 
 beyond this wall. At the western extremity there 
 is a charming little lancet window, filled with an 
 admirable figm-e in modern glass ; a little farther 
 are two Perpendicular windows, with some remains 
 of sixteenth-century glass. Eastward from these, 
 the buildings of the priory abutted ; and the wall 
 is pierced by a series of hagioscopes, at different 
 levels, accordmg as the chamber, to which they 
 admitted views of the holy table, was^in an upper 
 
 I
 
 GREAT ST. Helen's. 131 
 
 or lower story. The largest opening is of a kind 
 unique in England, but Burgos in Spain and St. 
 Patrice at Eouen supply examples of a similar 
 arrangement of window, tomb, reliquary, and hagio- 
 scope. The screen which divided the nuns' aisle 
 from the chm-ch w^as removed at the Eeforma- 
 tion ; it can never have been a very formidable 
 barrier, and except at high festivals, the sisters 
 probabl}' worshipped without leaving their own 
 precincts. 
 
 We cannot help conjectming what cmious 
 looks must often have wandered from the altar 
 to scan the faces of the congregation, when 
 some great prince or noble, attended by knights 
 and squires, came to the chm-ch from a neigh- 
 bouring palace. Here may have knelt in tmrn 
 the conqueror of Agincom-t, the King-maker, 
 the half-imbecile Henry, the fierce and hand- 
 some Edward; and here, a little later perhaps, 
 came the usm'per Richard, from his house adjoin- 
 ing, and the delicate heiress of Warwick, his wife, 
 to beseech St. Edmmid and St. Helen for the heal- 
 ing of their dying boy. To the same chm'ch, in 
 after years, when the nuns had disappeared and 
 the saints were forgotten, came, living or dead, many 
 whose names are still remembered. Did not Shake- 
 speare live in Bishopsgate-street ? Did not Sidney's 
 sister, Pembroke's mother, live in Crosby-j^lace ? 
 Sir John Crosby, and his wife, have their tomb on 
 the south side of the chancel. Their ejBigies are 
 
 i. —
 
 132 GREAT ST. Helen's. 
 
 unusually fine, and almost unmutilatcd. On the 
 north a still greater man, Sir Thomas Gresham, 
 lies between the magnificent cenotaph of Sir William 
 Pickering and the window of the priory. A window 
 also commemorates the founder of the Exchange, 
 while of Sir William Pickering we are told that 
 " for learning, arts, and warfare, he was the pattern 
 of his age." 
 
 Nor are the mural tablets less interesting. 
 One, all glowing with colour and gold, is half- 
 hidden by the Pickering monument ; another, 
 over the prioress' window, shows the camp at Til- 
 bmy, and the figm'e of Captain Martin Bond, with 
 his orderlies and his war-horse ; close above it 
 -again is the epitaph of his father, " The rival of 
 Jason," 
 
 " Flos mercatorum, quos terra Britanna creavit, 
 Ecce sub hoc tumulo Gulielmus Bondus humatur." "■'= 
 
 Nearly opposite this tablet reposes Sir John Spen- 
 cer, and adjoining it is the monument of Alderman 
 Eobinson, "the glasse of whose life held seventy 
 yeeres and then ranne out;" but perhaps the 
 strangest of all these quaint inscriptions is in the 
 south chapel, behind the organ. Here the visitor 
 will find almost as much to interest him as in the 
 nmis' aisle. On the east, a beautifully moulded 
 
 * The flower of merchants who upon the British soil have 
 bloomed, 
 Behold beneath tliis monument lies William Bond entombed.
 
 GREAT ST. Helen's. 133 
 
 arch, its supports covered -sYitli the remains of 
 coloui' and gilding, marks the entrance to what was 
 the "Chapel of the Holy Spu-it." A vestry-room 
 now fills the space, but will he condemned when 
 fimds permit. In the south-west corner is a fine, 
 but late brass of a lady in a mantle embroidered 
 with rampant lions. The centre of the chapel is 
 occupied by a large tomb of black marble, bearing 
 on its sm-face a white carving inlaid to represent a 
 parchment deed, with signature, and seal, and 
 clause of attestation. On it, in text-hand, we read 
 that Sir Julius Cffisar, otherwise Dalmare, Master 
 of the Eolls to King James, hinds hhnself, ivhen 
 called upon, to pay the debt of nature. 
 
 But St. Helen's has well been called the West- 
 minster Abbey of the City. Within reasonable 
 limits it would be impossible to describe even half 
 the objects of interest with which it abounds. We 
 have only alluded to the best assembly of brasses 
 in London, to the ancient glass which still lingers 
 here and there, to the Elizabethan oak carvings 
 which abound. We have not mentioned the 
 panelled Stuart pulpit; the carefully restored pave- 
 ment, "semee of spread eagles;" the strange mor- 
 tuary-chamber of Bancroft's degenerate son; the 
 dole of loaves, spread on a white cloth upon the 
 tomb of an unknown benefactor, as if to remind us 
 by its pleasant odom*, fresh from the baker's oven, 
 of the glorious actions of the just, as set forth in 
 Sherley's poem ; the hearty service, the sm*pliced
 
 134 GREAT ST. Helen's. 
 
 choir, the orderly ritual. We retiu-n to the outer 
 world again with a sigh. No sound from the vortex 
 around it seems ever to jjenetrate to Great St. 
 Helen's ; it rests in the calm centre of the whirl. 
 The citizen who is tired of the tm-moil and bustle 
 without, may here find a moment's peace, and be 
 reminded of the quiet simplicity and the hallowing 
 associations he is accustomed to seek only in some 
 remote country village. 
 
 And so we retm-n home, unexpectedly refreshed 
 by a Sunday morning in the City.
 
 m FULLER AND THE SAVOY. 
 
 Da. FULLBB. 
 
 'EOPLE pass along the crowded and busy 
 ^ Strand, some of them for years, without 
 any acquaintance with the quiet httle 
 chm-ch, surrounded by green grass and 
 trees, which hides itself behind the rows of dmgy
 
 136 DR. FULLER AND THE SAVOY. 
 
 houses. "WTien the mob under Wat Tyler broke into 
 the great and rich palace of John of Gaunt, they 
 burnt the greater part of the buildings, if not the 
 whole. They may have spared the chapel. But if 
 they did, it has not been recorded ; and but for the 
 fact that during the hundred and twenty years in 
 which the site lay desolate some burials took place 
 here, we should have nothing to go upon in conclud- 
 ing that any part of the chapel, in which very pro- 
 bably Wycliffe may have ministered, still remained. 
 When Henry YIIL, in obedience to the dying com- 
 mands of his father, rebuilt the Savo}' as a hospital, 
 he put it on record that he rebuilt it from the foun- 
 dation ; and there is nothing in the masom-y or 
 mouldings of the architecture to lead us to any 
 conclusion but what this would indicate. The 
 chapel was consecrated in or about 1516, but its 
 history as a London church, strictly speaking, does 
 not begin until the following reign. The Protector 
 Somerset has been often found fault with for pulling 
 down the church of St. Mary-le- Strand ; but as the 
 congregation took refuge at the Savoy Chapel, and 
 as this double employment, both as the chapel of a 
 collegiate foundation and also as the chm'ch of a 
 parish, led to its being connected with some remark- 
 able men and some memorable events, and per- 
 haps also saved it from utter ruin, those who are 
 interested in it do not regret the connection. 
 The parishioners of St. Mary's elected a chaplain 
 for themselves, and, by the permission of the Master
 
 DR. FULLER AND THE SAVOY. 137 
 
 of the hospital, he i)reachecl and ministered in this 
 chapel. Some famous men held the office of Master, 
 and some famous men that also of Chaplain, hut of 
 them all no name now stands out so prominently^as 
 that of Thomas Fuller, who held the latter office in 
 the first year of the reign of Charles 11. 
 
 There is nothing more remarkable than the way 
 in which the long perspective of past time brings 
 certain figures into prominence, while it sufifers 
 others to fall out of sight. When we are near a 
 light-house, the waves seem to dash over it, and at 
 times even to conceal it. But when we are fur- 
 ther away the waves are no more seen, while the 
 light shines out clearly and brightly. And so, 
 when we read the life of a good man, when we note 
 the events of his career, when we enumerate his 
 friends, and, perhaps, examine the doings of his 
 enemies ; while we trace his steps as he surmomited 
 difficulties, and avoided dangers, and fought through 
 obstructions, till he reached the goal, we are often 
 confused among the names and places, the people 
 and scenes, the events and complications by which 
 his course was marked. But when, after a time, 
 Ave begin to forget his immediate sm*romidings, when 
 he becomes more of a historical character to us, we 
 are able to estimate his greatness by the way in which 
 his deeds or his words are still like shining lights 
 among us; and as the people among whom he lived 
 and worked become hidden in the obscurity of ages, 
 we are able to observe how his figure comes out fi'om
 
 138 DR. FULLER AND THE SAVOY. 
 
 those of its associates, and illustrates the same truth 
 now which centuries ago he strove to point to his con- 
 temjjoraries. It is thus, in a remarkable decree, with 
 the character of Fuller. As the quaint epitaph on 
 his monument at Cranford states, he spent his life 
 making others immortal, and thereby attained im- 
 mortality himself ; a sentence which is true of him 
 in a double sense, for though the reference is there 
 first to his great work, the "Worthies of England," it 
 also holds good to the work he performed as a clergy- 
 man, and especially to that part of his work which 
 was performed in the Savoy, and among the pre- 
 decessors of the congregation who stdl assemble 
 where he for the last time preached the gospel of 
 peace. 
 
 Bom in 1608, Thomas Fuller was in the prime of 
 life when the great troubles of the Civil War broke 
 upon his comitry. He lived one year only after the 
 Eestoration, and died at the comparatively early 
 age of 53. His career was thus passed among 
 events and trials sufficient to make most men par- 
 tisans, and to cloud over the most even tempera- 
 ments. But it is Fuller's greatest praise that, living 
 in the midst of strife, he took no part in it ; that 
 nothing shook his faith ; that no employment caused 
 him to deviate from the strict path of duty ; that 
 the end of his labom-s was to spread abroad the 
 knowledge of truth, to comfort the fatherless and 
 the widow, to show the cheerfulness of an undaunted 
 Christian sphit, and to make all men loiow the
 
 DR. FULLER AND THE SAVOY. 139 
 
 230ssibility of moderation, when passion and preju- 
 dice were the ruling powers. What his faith was 
 may be learnt from the quaint sentence he has put 
 into one of his epigrams. It refers to his own name, 
 and is a fair specimen of the solemn play on words 
 in which he so much delighted. It is headed "A 
 Prayer : " — 
 
 " My Soul is stained with a dusty colour, — 
 Let thy Son be the sope, I'll be the I'uUer." 
 
 And elsewhere, speaking of his infirmities being 
 known to God, he says, most devoutly, "As for 
 other stains and spots upon my soul, I hoj)e that 
 He (be it spoken without the least verbal reflection), 
 who is the Fuller's sope, Mai. iii. 2, will scour them 
 forth with His merit, that I may appear clean by 
 God's mercy." And when asked to make an epitaph 
 for himself, it is said that he humbly replied, "Let 
 it be, ' Here lies Fuller's earth.' " 
 
 Fuller began his ministrations in the Savoy, 
 according to his latest biographer, Mr. Bailey, 
 in the year 1641, and he remained here at fiLrst 
 for three years. He was in London, therefore, in 
 the most exciting times ; and his preaching was 
 thought so much of that it was said he had two 
 congregations, one within the church, and the 
 other consisting of those who could not get in, 
 but crowded about the windows and doors to get 
 within reach of his voice. It is possibly in refer- 
 ence to the hour-glass in the pulpit here that 
 he says, speakmg of another preacher. Dr. Holds-
 
 140 DR. FULLER AND THE SAVOY. 
 
 worth, that " whereas the London people honour 
 then- pastors for a short hour, his was measured by 
 a Large glass : " a sentence which may well be 
 applied to his own preaching. He used his influ- 
 ence, not in addmg to the violence of party feeling, 
 which then ran so high, but in endeavouring by all 
 means in his power to make peace among the con- 
 tending factions ; and among the sermons of his 
 which are still extant, there is one, preached here 
 with this aim in December, 1G42, just as the 
 terrible war broke out. He chose for his text 
 the words, " Blessed are the peace-makers," and 
 said, " We used to end our sermons with a bless- 
 ing : Christ begins his with the beatitudes ; and of 
 the eight my text is neither the last nor the 
 least." The best loork, he says, is 'peacc-making, 
 and the best wages, that they who make peace 
 are ''blessed^ Advocating peace, then, he is care- 
 ful to be moderate even in this, refusing to ask 
 for peace at any price, but peace without any sacri- 
 fice of truth. Yet the sword, he sa3'S, is the worst 
 way of finding truth, for " it cannot discern between 
 truth, error, and falsehood ; it may have two edges, 
 but it hath never an eye." 
 
 In addition to this sermon, he has left us an 
 essay on " Moderation," which is well worth reading 
 at the present day. He defines moderation in a few 
 admii-able sentences: it "is not a halting between 
 two opinions." ..." Neither is it a lukewarmness 
 in those things wherein God's glory is concerned.
 
 DR. FULLER AND THE SAVOY. 141 
 
 But it is a mixture of discretion and charity in one's 
 judgment." " The lukewarm man," he contmues, 
 *' eyes only his own ends and particular profit ; the 
 moderate man aims at the good of others and the 
 unity of the Church." 
 
 Toward the middle of 1643, he was forced to fly 
 from the Savoy. He did so with the utmost regret, 
 following Ivmg Charles to Oxford. His last sermon 
 preached in this church before his departm-e is also 
 still extant, and prefixed to it is an epistle " to my 
 dear parish, St. Mary, Savoy," full of touching allu- 
 sions to his sorrow at leaving them, and his hope 
 that peace might at length return. " The longer," 
 he says, "I see this war, the less I like it, and the 
 more I loath it. Not so much because it threatens 
 temporal ruin to our kingdom, as because it will 
 bring a general spmtual hardness of hearts. And 
 if this war long continues, we may be affected for 
 the departure of charity, as the Ephesians were 
 at the going away of St. Paul, sorrowing most of 
 all that we shall see the face thereof no more." 
 
 Fuller followed the King's army to the field, and 
 endeavom-ed to do what he could to succom" the 
 wounded and comfort the dying. Another preacher 
 took possession of his pulpit here, and he himself, 
 like many of the clergy of his time, when the war 
 was over, wandered from one place to another, 
 patronised by moderate men, and loved by all. He 
 says: "For the first five years during om' actual civil 
 wars, I had little list or leisure to write, fearing to
 
 142 DR. FULLER AND THE SAVOY. 
 
 be made a history, and shifting daily for my safety. 
 All that time I could not live to study, Init did only 
 study to live." Yet during this time he projected 
 and in part composed his works, the " Church His- 
 tory " and the " Worthies of England;" the latter, 
 however, not being finished till just before his death. 
 In 1645, he came back to the Savoy for a time, but his 
 own flock was dispersed by the troubles, and it was 
 said of hun, as of his Divine Master, " He came to 
 his OTSTi, and his own received him not." The few 
 who remained were overawed by the factions which 
 divided London, and were in daily fear between the 
 Presbyterians and the Independents. Yet he pre- 
 ferred a London congregation to any other, for he 
 said, some clergymen wished for a Lincolnshire 
 chm-ch, as best built, and others for a Lancashire 
 parish, as the largest, but he liked a London 
 audience, as consisting of the most intelligent 
 people. He did not stay here long, however. He 
 would not give up the Liturgy, and the penalties for 
 using it were fixed that very year at £5 for the first 
 offence, £10 for the second, and a year's imin-ison- 
 ment for the thu-d. He was, therefore, thro^ii on 
 his own resources, and his means were very small, 
 and wholly insufficient for the support of himself 
 and the education of his son. Brighter daj-s were 
 in store, and he was allowed to remain mimolcstcd 
 as Vicar of Waltham, and afterwards as Eector of 
 Cranford, until the Restoration, when we find him 
 again at the Savoy.
 
 DR. FULLER AND THE SAVOY. 143 
 
 But, in the meantime, its precincts had heen 
 further consecrated to him by a melancholy event. 
 His friend, Lord Montagu of Boughton, being sus- 
 pected by the party in power and arrested, was 
 imprisoned, or rather kept in some kind of restraint, 
 m the Savoy, although a person of " great rever- 
 ence," as we are told, " and above fourscore years 
 of age ;" and, after about two years' confinement, 
 he died here. In Fuller's "Worthies" he is thus 
 spoken of: — "To have no bands in their death is 
 an outward favom- many wicked have, many godly 
 men want ; amongst whom this good Lord, who 
 died in restraint at the Savoy, on account of his 
 loyalty to his Sovereign." 
 
 Fuller's return to the Savoy was marked by such 
 a welcome as few preachers have ever been accorded. 
 His sermons, in which he had formerly endeavoured 
 to preserve peace, now that the war was over, were 
 du-ected to the mitigation of the cruelties of the 
 party in power. Their influence is mentioned by 
 many of his contemporaries, and among others by 
 Pepys, the diarist. Witty as all his utterances 
 were they were always within bounds. As his bio- 
 grapher says, his wit is all but invariably allied to 
 wisdom, " and very few would rise from the perusal 
 of his pulpit utterances, with a feeling that they 
 had been in the company of one who was irreverent 
 or undevout." Craik said of him, in his " History of 
 English Literatm-e," that "there is probably neither 
 an ill-natured nor a profane witticism in all that
 
 1-44 DR. FULLER AND THE SAVOY. 
 
 Fuller has ■written." He was strongly of opinion 
 that sermons should be short, and in his account of 
 an ideal " Faithful Minister," he speaks of him as 
 " one who makes not that wearisome which should 
 ever be welcome ; " adding, in his quaint way, an 
 anecdote of a certam professor, " who, being to ex- 
 pound the prophet Esay to his auditors, read 21 
 years on the first chapter, and yet finished it not." 
 And now we come to the close. Fuller was made, 
 without solicitation, a Eoyal Chaplain, and prepared 
 a sermon to preach at court. But it was otherwise 
 ordered. Before the day appointed for its delivery, 
 the preacher had left the pulpit for ever. A greater 
 King had summoned him. On the 12th of August, 
 1661, being Sunday, he preached in the Savoy. It 
 was for the last time. He felt unwell, and his friends 
 would have kept him from making the exertion. 
 But a member of the congregation was to be married 
 on the following day, Moudaj', and Fuller lovingly 
 undertook to wish the wedding couple well in a 
 special sermon, a good custom which still obtains 
 in the Savo}'. He said he " had often gone into the 
 pulpit sick, but always came ^o\ra well, and he 
 hoped he should do as well now by God's strengthen- 
 ing grace." Before he began, he told his congrega- 
 tion he felt ill, but by a strong exertion he got 
 tln-ough, and, as his biographer records, "he very 
 pertinently concluded." A clu-istening was to have 
 followed, and he would have made an effort to 
 officiate ; but the fever had now taken its hold.
 
 DR. FULLER AXD THE SAVOY. 145 
 
 Ho was carried from the churcli half fainting, and, 
 being taken to his lodgings close by, he was put 
 to his bed, and he never rose from it again. So 
 Monday and Tuesday passed, and on Wednesday he 
 was much worse. He had been insensible, but as 
 his strength abated his senses retm'ned. Many 
 friends stood round him. He begged them to pray 
 for him, and joined fervently with them, " recom- 
 mending himself, with all humble thankfulness and 
 submission, to God's welcome Providence." He 
 would not, as the last scene drew near, allow anyone 
 to weep. He begged them to restrain themselves, 
 to refrain from tears, and spoke of his departure as 
 a translation to a happy eternity. Though he had 
 before comiselled men to make their wills early 
 in life, that so, when they came to die, they 
 might " have nothing to do but to die," he had 
 made no will himself, having probably little to 
 leave. And now he refused to be disturbed by any 
 thought of worldly affairs. Even the book by 
 which his name has chiefly lived, and which w^as 
 still unpublished, he did not speak of at all. His 
 thoughts were all engaged on the world to which he 
 was hastening. No regret for the career which 
 had so lately been re-opened to him — no sorrow for 
 the loss of the Bishopric to which he was already 
 designated — nothing but love to those aromid him,, 
 and hope of the heaven before him. One more 
 night he lived, and on the morning of Thursday, 
 the 18th, passed away in peace ; and so, as his 
 
 K
 
 146 
 
 DR. FULLER AND THE SAVOY. 
 
 biographer says, " The last view of the faithful 
 minister represents him as assummg, in place of 
 the lawn of the Prelate, the shining raiment, ex- 
 ceeding white as snow, so as no fuller on earth 
 can white it : a whiteness mixed with no shadow ; 
 a light dimmed with no darkness." 
 
 THE CHAPEL EOTA.I,, SAVOY, AS IT APPEABED FIFir TEARS AGO.
 
 NORTHUMBERLAND HOUSE. 
 
 •HE removal of such a landmark as 
 Northumberland House must be the 
 cause of a certain amount of regret. 
 Sorrow is much tempered, however, by 
 an examination of the interior of the building. If 
 ever a building could be said to have put its best 
 foot first, it was this. The centre of the Strand 
 front, and the turrets at either end, are all that 
 was beautiful or interesting in the whole house. 
 After them, any enthusiasm which might have 
 been felt for its preservation had to depend on the 
 historical, sentimental, and archaeological associa- 
 tions of the place. And they are but meagre. 
 The fact that Northumberland House is the last of 
 a row of palaces which once began at Baynard's 
 Castle, in the City, and ended at Westminster Hall, 
 gave it a claim to our regard. Within the walls 
 one or two remarkable events took place, and 
 General Monk here held some of his meetings with 
 the Royalists before the restoration of Charles H. 
 And the plan, which was of the type known in 
 France as cntre cour et jardin, becomes extinct 
 
 k2
 
 148 NORTHUMBERLAND HOUSE. 
 
 among us by the demolition. It would not be 
 easy to say any more than this in its favom*. It 
 was as ngly, as inconvenient, and i^robably as 
 uncomfortable a family residence as any in Lon- 
 don. Many people are by no means convinced 
 of the expediency of removing it ; and it may 
 turn out that the public will not gain materially 
 by the sacrifice. It must be remembered that not 
 only do we take away a relic of antiquity with 
 a fair amount of historical interest attaching to 
 it, but we do so at the expense of half a million 
 of money ; and, as far as we are aware, no 
 very commendable design for utilising the site 
 acquired at such an expense both of feeling and of 
 cash has yet been put forward. 
 
 The history of Northumberland House has been 
 detailed more or less correctly in almost every 
 London newspaper within the last two years, and 
 is to be found, with less, rather than more, correct- 
 ness, in all the London guide-books. In realitj', 
 however, there is very little to tell about it. The 
 street front only towards the Strand bore any 
 traces of the work of Bernard Janson or Gerard 
 Christmas, and even this was greatly altered and 
 not improved. It had over the oriel the initials 
 and badges of Algernon Seymour, who was Duke of 
 Somerset for fourteen months, from 1748 to 1750, 
 and who had inherited the representation of the 
 Percies on the death of his mother some five-and- 
 twenty years before. His daughter, Lady Elizabeth
 
 GAILWAV, .NOHTHrMBl.Iil,AND UOlSt. 
 
 Pajv U8.
 
 NORTnUMBERLAND HOUSE. 149 
 
 Smitlison, carried on the reparation and alteration 
 of the bouse in conjunction with her husband, 
 who was the first Duke of NorthumberLand of the 
 l)resent family. In their time probably the corner 
 turrets were lowered to the height they had before 
 the demolition. Towards the end of the last 
 century any marks of antiquity remaining were 
 carefully wiped off the exterior, and a fire soma 
 few years ago completed the transformation ot 
 the interior. The side next the Strand had 
 originally an open-work parapet, formed of the 
 letters of a motto, probably that of the busy and 
 scheming Henry Howard, Surrey's second son, 
 who was Earl of Northampton during ten years 
 before 1614, and who built the house. A letter fell 
 down in 1G19, during the passage of the funeral of 
 Queen Anne of Denmark from Somerset House, 
 and killed a bystander, for which reason the other 
 letters were removed. At least so runs the story, 
 with the impossible addition that it was the letter 
 S from Esperance en Dieu ; how the Percy motto 
 came on the parapet more than twenty years before 
 the Percies themselves came into the house, we are 
 not informed. In fact, to judge from a letter quoted 
 in the recent Eeport of the Historical Manuscripts 
 Commission, the family had no town house at this 
 time, for one of them writes in 1G23 to Lord 
 Middlesex to excuse himself from calling on him, 
 because he has no house nearer town than Syon. 
 There is some difficulty, too, in the received accounts
 
 150 NORTnUMBERLAND HOUSE. 
 
 of the descent of Northampton House, first to 
 Sufifolk and then to Northumberland. Mr. Craik 
 expressl}' states that the Earl -svlio built it gave it 
 as a New Year's gift to his grandnephew, the second 
 Earl of Suffolk ; but it is not easy to believe that 
 Northampton did anj'thing so generous except for a 
 consideration. Lord Suffolk again gave it away. 
 Perhaps it was a kind of white elephant. It must 
 have always been expensive to keep up. But 
 Suffolk's son-in-law was well able to make use of 
 the gift. From his time it is identified with the 
 fortunes of the Percies, and during the Common- 
 wealth and afterwards was the scene of many of 
 those dubious but apparently successful efforts 
 which the tenth Earl made for keeping himself in 
 power under any form of government. His grand- 
 daughter, the wife of the " Proud " Duke of Somer- 
 set, and the favourite of Queen Anne, is immortal- 
 ised as much by Swift's hatred as by her strange 
 history and great possessions. It was when the 
 Irish Dean lampooned her for her red hair, warning 
 England to beware of carrots from Northumberland, 
 and accusing the Duchess of complicity in the 
 murder of her second husband, the victim of 
 Konigsmark, that he cut himself off for ever from 
 all chances of a seat on the bench of Bishops. 
 
 Northumberland House must have been singularly 
 unsuited to the requirements of family life at the 
 present day. The street front was practically 
 separated from the rest of the house, and contained
 
 NORTHUMBERLAND HOUSE. lol 
 
 at least two unconnected residences. The rest of 
 the house resembled an H in plan. The cross-bar 
 was formed by an entrance-hall or corridor, with 
 some reception rooms towards the garden. This 
 was said to have been originally built by Inigo 
 Jones, but it retained no traces of his handiwork. 
 Two wings at the back partly enclosed the garden, 
 that on the west containing a great gallery upwards 
 of a hundred feet in length, but badly lighted ; the 
 east wing consisted only of of&ces. There was a 
 low wall beyond the garden towards the embank- 
 ment, but the view over the river was neither 
 extensive nor attractive, its chief feature being the 
 dome of Bedlam, which rose conspicuously in the 
 background, flanked by tall chimneys. Bedlam, 
 indeed, has travelled nearly all round Charing 
 Cross. It stood three centm-ies ago near the site of 
 the XDresent National Gallery, whence it migrated to 
 Bishopsgate, and at last went across the river and 
 settled down exactly opposite its original station. 
 The garden, owing to the slope of the ground, is at 
 a much lower level than the Strand front, and has 
 the cheerful and verdant appearance of other 
 London gardens where the grass has grown long 
 and rank, and only half covers the naked clay 
 below, while the trees are miserably stunted and 
 black with smoke. The great staircase stood to the 
 left of the entrance. It probably supplanted an 
 older, and possibly a more picturesque, structure 
 on the same site, under Janson's turret, but for a
 
 152 KORTHUMBEKLAND HOL'SE. 
 
 long time it had been the best feature of the house. 
 Yet, costly as was the ormolu balustrade, and hand- 
 some as were the marble steps and pilasters, they 
 ■were not much more substantial than the ornaments 
 of the other parts of the house, in which stucco, 
 gilding, and scagliola were the chief ingredients in 
 a magnificent effect. When the walls were covered 
 with tapestry or pictm*es, and especially when the 
 floors were occupied with people, all must have 
 looked very different. At Knole or Haddon the 
 architectural features which would disappear with 
 the furniture might not be very great ; the windows, 
 the oaken floors, the panelled walls, the groined 
 roofs w^ould still remain. In Northumberland 
 House there was nothing of this kind — nothing, in 
 fact, but what might be expected when we read in 
 Brayley's descri^^tion that at the beginning of the 
 present century a very general repair took place 
 under the direction of the brothers Adam. Even 
 this, however, will hardly account for its being 
 more ugly by many degrees than the Adelphi 
 Terrace, though it will account for the prevalence 
 everywhere of plaster work and paint for stone. 
 Successive architects, including, it is true, many of 
 eminence, had managed to reduce it in two hundred 
 and fifty years to an extreme of ugliness seldom, if 
 ever, equalled even in London. So many cooks never 
 perhaps before more completely ruined a pudding. 
 And nothing could have improved it. The faulty 
 arrangement by which the best rooms were hidden
 
 NORTHUMBERLAND HOUSE. 153 
 
 from the sun, which must have shone chiefly on 
 the offices and seldom on the inhabited parts ; the 
 absence of those conveniences of hot air and water 
 which are now to be found in the most humble 
 dwellings ; the interminable length of corridors and 
 passages ; the want of concentration ; the suites of 
 apartments which opened only out of one another, 
 and were therefore almost useless for the purposes 
 of modern life, — all these things must have made 
 Northumberland House a singularly disagreeable 
 residence, notwithstanding its great dignity. 
 
 The change when it is swept away will be very 
 great, but the difficulties of making a good use of 
 the site will be almost insuperable. The slope to 
 the level of the Embankment is steep, and would 
 admit of very picturesque treatment, but as the 
 direct road will not square with any of the existing 
 roads or buildings, it is difficult to see how any 
 better design than that of Sir James Pennethorne 
 can be suggested. By this scheme the destruction 
 of Northumberland House might have been avoided; 
 and a graceful curve, such as that which produces 
 in the Quadrant in Kegent Street one of the most 
 satisfactory architectural effects in London, might 
 have been happily employed. To lay out the slope 
 with terraces and flower-beds may perhaps be 
 thought a pleasing idea, but it is hardly worth the 
 price paid for it. If buildings are to occupy the 
 ground with a street leading straight to the Em- 
 bankment, the hill must be such as to make the
 
 154 NORTHUMBERLAND HOUSE. 
 
 approach to the river extremely inconvenient ; and 
 if traffic cannot be persuaded at present to use the 
 road through ^Vhitehall l^lace, neither will it be 
 tempted by a heavy declivity to drive over the site 
 of Northumberland House. 
 
 A very much more sweeping measure, by which 
 the magnificent bend of the river at this point 
 might have been made available for a pictorial 
 effect, could only be carried out by some Baron 
 Haussmann. Yet short of something of this kind 
 it will be almost impossible to do anything at Char- 
 ing Cross which will be a real improvement. When 
 Wliitehall with its gateway blocked the road to 
 Westminster ; when Spring Gardens and Leicester 
 Fields, and the Abbot's Garden and Long Acre sur- 
 rounded the village of Charing, while the river lay 
 open at the fourth side and the great spire of St. 
 Paul's was visible from Hedge Lane or the Reading 
 Eoad, the place of Northumberland House was filled 
 by the alien Priory of St. Mary Rouncival, whose 
 chapel extended to the water's edge ; and if we 
 could bring back the ancient buildings as well as 
 the gardens, and could make a break in the endless 
 row of brick walls which covers so many miles 
 without interruption, we should do something satis- 
 factory with the place. But, short of the execution 
 of some wild scheme like this, nothing will now 
 much improve the appearance of Charing Cross ; 
 all the land we have bought for om- five hundred 
 thousand pounds is a mere flea-bite, and all that
 
 NORTHUMBERLAND HOUSE. 155 
 
 can be done with it is of very little consequence. 
 We shall be glad of course if it can, even in part, 
 be left without buildings ; but we must have all felt 
 that sooner or later, with or without good reason, 
 Northumberland House was doomed to go. Just 
 two hundred years ago the progress of the spirit of 
 improvement began on this bank of the Thames by 
 the removal of Essex House, which with its gardens 
 was outside Temple Bar. Steadily has the wave 
 swept forward till Paget House and Arundel House, 
 Durham House and York House, and many more, 
 have one by one disappeared. The palace of the 
 Protector Somerset retains not even the ancient 
 plan. Of the Savoy there is nothing left but the 
 chapel ; and Northumberland House alone survived 
 to tell in our time of the glories of the days gone 
 by.
 
 HOLLAND HOUSE AND LADY SAEAH. 
 
 HUNDRED years ago and upwards 
 London was suiTounded at a short dis- 
 tance by villas : they could be reached 
 from town in about the same time by 
 a coach and fom- which it now takes us to get 
 thirty miles into the country. Such were Arling- 
 ton House, now Buckingham Palace ; Nottingham 
 House, now Kensington Palace ; Canons, Tottenham 
 Court, and, in older times. Havering, Greenwich, 
 and Kemiington. Montagu House (now the British 
 Museum), and Bedford House (the gardens of which 
 remain as Bedford Square), Apsley House, and 
 Burlmgton House, were a little nearer home ; but 
 exceptmg those which are more or less in public 
 hands, as national institutions or royal palaces, 
 almost all have been overwhelmed by the tide of 
 brick and mortar which daily creeps fm-ther and 
 obliterates more and more the gardens and green 
 fields. Fulham Manor House, the comitry resi- 
 dence or " palace " of the Bishop of London, is an 
 exception, as we shall see in the next chapter ; but 
 it has little of the picturesque to recommend it to
 
 HOLLAND HOUSE AND LADY SARAH. 157 
 
 sight-scers, although it is probably the oldest inha- 
 bited house in England. Lambeth Palace is, strictly 
 speaking, a town house ; and it would not be easy for 
 me to name a third suburban residence of the kind 
 if I pass over that whose name heads this page. 
 
 Holland House, therefore, is interesting to Lon- 
 doners as the relic of an age and a phase of manners 
 now long gone by. And it is, moreover, interesting 
 intrinsically for three things in which it has few 
 rivals in England : its beauty, its historical associa- 
 tions, and the works of art it contains. It is, to 
 begin with the first of these, a very charming 
 specimen of a style of architecture which should 
 commend itself to the tastes of Englishmen, as the 
 last of native growth. The development of art in 
 building presents a regular series or succession, 
 from the days when our Saxon ancestors dwelt in 
 wooden huts or in hovels of mud and stone to the 
 days when She Walter Cope founded the centre and 
 turrets of Cope Castle, in the manor of Kensington, 
 and when his son-in-law, the first Earl of Holland, 
 changed its name to Holland House, and completed 
 the building. There is perhaps no contrast iu 
 nature more pleasing than the artificial one between 
 red brick and green trees. It makes even the 
 square, pseudo-Italian mansion of the Georgian 
 period look pictm-esque in a well-timbered park; 
 and as we approach Holland House from among 
 the narrow crowded streets or the lath-and-plaster 
 of the new subm-bs, the views through an avenue of
 
 158 HOLLAND HOUSE 
 
 ancient elms, gi-een even in London, of the quaint 
 red tun-ets, the shaped gables, the arcaded terraces, 
 the many-paned oriels, are twice as charming 
 as anythmg that has been built so near London 
 smce. We first see the south side of the house. 
 It is the most pictui'esquo, and was formerly the 
 front. But now the avenue passes to the east of 
 the house, and the hall door is at what used to be 
 the back. Bej^ond are the pleasure-grounds and the 
 Dutch garden, with their yew hedges, clipped bor- 
 ders, heavy cedars, statues, avenues, arbours, and 
 archways. Everything is in the state in which our 
 generation fomid it when they came into the world. 
 Nothing of any importance has been altered, for 
 though the public entrance is now on the north, the 
 fabric of the building is hardly distm-bed. As I 
 have said, the old entrance was at the south side ; 
 facing it were Inigo Jones's piers and gateway, and 
 the front of the house was thus fh-st apjn'oached by 
 the visitor. Now, the piers have been removed to 
 a terrace in the pleasm-e-ground ; the porch leads 
 only into a garden, and the chief entrance is at the 
 eastern side. On the whole, however, few exteriors 
 of the period have be.en less altered than this, a fact 
 the more remarkable when we remember the 
 number of different families by which the estate has 
 been held, and its so dangerous proximity to the 
 metropolis. 
 
 The mention of the different owners to whom the 
 place has belonged brings us to the historical asso-
 
 AND LADY SARAH. 159 
 
 ciations which crowd about Holland House. It 
 may be said that any house more than two centuries 
 old and less than two miles from London must be 
 full of such memories. This is, perhaps, true ; but 
 the names which occur to the memory with the 
 mention of Holland House are such as no other 
 place of the kind can boast. Lord Macaulay, himself 
 something more than a name to be only mentioned 
 in this connection, says of it in a famous essay, and 
 speaking only of one generation, that the sm-vivors — 
 now, alas ! few, if any — will remember how the last 
 debate was discussed in one corner of the Library 
 and the last comedy of Scribe in another, " while 
 Wilkie gazed with modest admiration on Sir 
 Joshua's Baretti, while Mackintosh turned over 
 Thomas Aquinas to verify a quotation, while 
 Talleyrand related his conversation with Barras at 
 the Luxembom-g, or his ride with Lannes over the 
 field of Austerlitz." These are only the names of 
 one generation ; but in a charmingly illustrated book, 
 written by a lady * w^io long resided at Holland 
 House, we are enabled to trace the steps of many 
 other great men and women, and to bring the history 
 and memories of the place down to the present day. 
 There are so many interesting facts to be recalled 
 that it would be impossible, in our present limits, to 
 do more than mention a tithe of them. But as the 
 history of a lady who narrowly missed becoming 
 
 * " Holland House," by Princess Marie Leichteustein. 
 Macmillan & Co. 1874.
 
 IGO HOLLAND HOUSE 
 
 Queen of England occurs among them, and is, on 
 the whole, less kno\^^l than some of the others, I 
 will confine mj'self for a few pages to it alone. 
 I may take her story, then, passing hy the many 
 anecdotes of Addison, of Charles James Fox and 
 others of his name, of the first Lady Holland (Lady 
 Sarah's sister), of the second Lady, of the third, 
 who is the Lady Holland of Macaulay, of Sydney 
 Smith, Lord Lansdo-^Tie, Hookham Frere, Eogers, 
 Brougham, and many more whose lives belong 
 either to the history of our literatm-e, or to that of 
 the country at large. 
 
 Lady Sarah Lennox was the daughter of Charles, 
 second Duke of Richmond, grandson of Charles 11. 
 and the Duchess of Portsmouth. Her mother was 
 Sarah, daughter and co-heii-ess of William, fii-st Earl 
 Cadogan. Everyone who visited the Royal Academy 
 diu-ing the exhibition of Old Masters some years 
 ago will remember a charming picture by Reynolds, 
 in which Charles James Fox, then about thirteen, 
 is represented walkmg m the garden of Holland 
 House with his cousin Lady Susan Strangways, 
 while his young aunt. Lady Sarah Lennox, looks 
 pitying from between the mullions of an oriel 
 window at the dead bird which Lady Susan 
 holds up to her. This picture is at Holland 
 House, and a great part of Princess Leichten- 
 stein's book is taken up with stories of the 
 three figures represented in it. Walpole speaks 
 of Lady Sarah's beauty at an early age : "When
 
 AND LADY SARAH. 161 
 
 Lady Sarah was in white, with her hair about her 
 ears, and on the ground, no Magdalen by Corrcggio 
 was half so lovely and expressive." Her sister was 
 the wife of the owner of Holland House, and Wal- 
 pole saw her there on this occasion in an amateui- 
 theatrical performance. Her brother-in-law de- 
 scribed her (in a memoir in MS. preserved at Hol- 
 land House) as having "the finest Complexion, most 
 beautifull Hair, and prettyest Person that ever was 
 seen, with a sprightly and fine Air, a pretty Mouth 
 and remarkably fine Teeth, and excess of bloom in 
 her Cheeks, little Eyes," and so on ; but he adds : 
 " Her Great Beauty was a peculiarity of Counten- 
 ance, that made Her at the same time different 
 from, and prettyer than, any other Gu-1, I ever 
 saw." The father of this marvel of perfection was 
 one of the Lords of the Bedchamber to George H., 
 whose grandson, the young Prince of Wales, had 
 many opportmiities of seeing and admhing Lady 
 Sarah. In some papers by Mr. Hem*y Napier, we 
 are informed that his admhation "ripened into an 
 attachment which, as I have been told, never left 
 him, even in his most unsettled moments, until the 
 day of his death." When he ascended the throne 
 as George HI. she was but fifteen, and seems to 
 have been as free from affectation, and, indeed, as 
 sweet a character, as any we read of. She refused 
 one day to tell a lie — even a white one — to please 
 the King, and we find him saying of her that he 
 liked her because she spoke her mind so fi-ankly,
 
 1G2 HOLLAND HOUSE 
 
 and was so utterly devoid of guile. The King, 
 according to Mr. Napier, made a confidant of Lady 
 Susan Strangways, asking her at a Court ball when 
 Lady Sarah was not present, " When she meant to 
 leave town ? " "I intend to remain for the Coro- 
 nation, Sir," was her reply. " But," said the King, 
 " there will be no Coronation until there is a Queen, 
 and I think your friend is the fittest person for it ; 
 tell your friend so from me." 
 
 The next time Lady Sarah Lennox appeared 
 at Com't the young King led her aside and asked, 
 " Has yom- friend told a'ou of my conversation 
 with her?" "Yes, Sir." " And what do you 
 think of it ? Tell me, for my happiness depends 
 on it ! " But whether Lady Sarah was frightened 
 at the giddy elevation thus offered her, or really 
 did not fancy the Kmg, or had some other attach- 
 ment, or, as is more likely, already showed signs 
 of the good sense and presence of mmd which 
 she transmitted in so large a measm'e to her sons, 
 her only answer was, " Nothing." 
 
 We next hear of her as romj^ing with an old play- 
 mate, LordNewbottle, and apparently forgetful of her 
 Eoyal admh'er. Then she goes into Somersetshire, 
 gets thrown from her horse, and breaks her leg. 
 On this event Lord Newbottle seems to have jested, 
 while the King was full of tenderness, making 
 anxious mquiries, and even, it seems, proposmg to 
 go to see her — greatly, no doubt, to the horror of the 
 Coiurt officials. Wlien her brother-m-law, Mr. Fox,
 
 AND LADY SARAH. 103 
 
 and her uncle, Mr, Conolly, are at the Palace, 
 George is most particular in his inquiries, and 
 shudders at the description of her sufferings. This 
 was in April, 1761, and in a few months we fmd her 
 again at Holland House, and the King's attentions 
 more marked than ever, though it seems as if, after 
 the rebuff he had received, he took care not for- 
 mally to renew his offer. Meanwhile, the coiu-tiers 
 were alarmed, and especially the members of the 
 Royal family. Something must bo done at once. 
 Lord Bute, and with him probably the Princess 
 Dowager, opposed the idea with their utmost influ- 
 ence. Colonel Graeme was deputed to visit various 
 little Protestant courts, and to report upon their 
 eligible Princesses. The King left it to the Privy 
 Council whether he should marry to please himself, 
 or to satisfy the claims of Royal rank. The Council 
 decided against him, and he submitted. Princess 
 Charlotte of Mecklenburg was chosen, her name was 
 announced to the Council on the 1st July, and on the 
 16th the romance of his youth came to an end. The 
 King and Lady Sarah met ; the King was confused ; 
 the lady was dignified, nay even, we read, cross, 
 and in secret she confesses that she had a " cry " 
 of two hom-s' dm-ation. But the sickness and death 
 of a pet squirrel immediately took up all her atten- 
 tion ; she wept longer for it than for the loss of a 
 crown, and we find her shortly aiLerwards first 
 bridesmaid at the Royal marriage, when the King 
 kept his eyes fixed on her dui-ing the whole cere- 
 
 l2
 
 164 HOLLAND HOUSE 
 
 moH}-, and Lord Westmoreland, who was near- 
 sighted, mistook her for the new Queen ; and then 
 we only know of her further relations with Ilovalty 
 that the King never forgot his fiiendship for her, 
 and that the Queen behaved to her throughout life 
 with imdeviating kindness. In 1762 she married 
 Sir Charles Bunbm-y, and after his death Colonel 
 George Napier, a younger son of the Merchistoun 
 House, and by him became the mother of Sk 
 Charles, Sh' George, and Sk "William Napier, 
 brothers whose achievements reflect more lustre 
 upon her than even the King's admiration could 
 have done. Once more we hear of her in a touching 
 anecdote which connects her name and his. In 1814 
 Dean Andrews preached a sermon in aid of an in- 
 stitution for the relief of the blmd. The preacher 
 spoke of the King's blindness, and the interest 
 he had taken in this infirmary from his sad expe- 
 rience. It was in St. James's Chm-ch, and a 
 person w^ho was present relates that on one of 
 the seats sat an elderly lady, who appeared to 
 feel deeply these allusions in the sermon. She 
 wept tenderly, and at the end of the service was 
 led out of chm-ch, being herself helpless fi'om loss 
 of sight. It was Lady Sarah. She sm-vived both 
 the King and Queen, and died in 1826, preserving 
 her remarkable beauty until the end. 
 
 So much for Lady Sarah Lennox. "Wliether 
 King George did wisely or not may be a question. 
 But speculators on what might have been, can
 
 AND LADY SAEAH. 1G5 
 
 hardly help contrasting the active and heroic lives 
 of the sons of Colonel Napier, with the miserably 
 selfish and degraded careers of more than one of 
 the sons of George III. 
 
 I must not take leave of Holland House ^Yithout 
 a moment's glance at the wonders of the interior. 
 Taking the Library Passage alone, a kind of 
 museum in itself, we fmd there Addison's portrait, 
 about the authenticity of which authorities arc so 
 much divided ; next a picture of Benjamin Frank- 
 lin, then Lope de Vega ; then a copy of Titian's 
 Galileo, and Machiavelli, Locke, and Madame de 
 Sevigne. A sketch of Edward VL by George 
 Vertue, the engraver, presented by Horace Walpole, 
 and a drawing by Ee3Tiolds of Lord Ossory, are 
 among the mmor portraits. Then a photograph of 
 the members of the Congress of Paris in 185G, with 
 the signatures of the assembled Plenipotentiaries 
 below ; near it a miniatm-e of Catherine of Eussia, 
 with an autograph letter annexed. On either side 
 of the Empress are the likenesses of Napoleon and 
 Kobespierre ; and near the photograph of the Con- 
 gress a miniatm-e of the Prince Kegent, a little bust 
 of Earl Grey, and a portrait of George Tiemey. 
 Fox has written on the back of Eobespierre's like- 
 ness, " un scelerat, un lachc, et un fou.'" La other 
 parts of the room are pen-and-ink sketches of 
 Gibbon, Voltaire and his friends, a letter from Vol- 
 taire, the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle at dinner, 
 a view of Beethoven's Cabinet by moonlight, a
 
 166 HOLLAND HOUSE AND LADY S.UIAH. 
 
 crowquill portrait of the Yoiing Pretender, Joseph 
 Addison's last signatm-e, of which a fac-simile is 
 given, as well as of the Empress Catherine's letter, 
 and above this autograph a frame contammg a 
 piece of wood from the door of the room at Ferrara 
 in which Ariosto died in 1533. The passage also 
 contains portraits of Milton, Bm-ke, EejTiolds, 
 Benedict XIV., and George Selw}m. The author of 
 the book mentioned above tells this anecdote of 
 the window of the Library Passage : — " In the 
 southern window is a pane of glass, removed from 
 the wmdow of what, we believe, used to be Rogers' 
 dressing-room in the east tm-ret. Upon this frame 
 of glass are cut some lines by Hookliam Frere. 
 They date from October, 1811, and run as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 ' May neither fire destroy nor waste impair 
 Nor time consume thee till the twentieth Heir, 
 May Taste respect thee and may Fashion spare.' 
 
 To which we add a devout amen ! and to which 
 Piogers is reported to have said, ' I wonder where 
 he got the diamond.' "
 
 EULIIAM. 
 
 GATEWAY, FULHAM MAIfOE HOTISE. 
 
 HERE is perhaps something of paradox 
 in saying that, though Fulham ■Manor 
 House is, in all probability, the oldest 
 villa residence in England, it has not a 
 single feature which dates further back than the 
 middle of the sixteenth centmy. Yet undoubtedly
 
 168 FULHAM. 
 
 the manor belonged to the Bishop of London long 
 before the days of the Confessor, even though we 
 hesitate to accept Wharton's dicitur that it was 
 granted to St. Erkenwald b}- Tyrhtilus of Hereford 
 in or about the year G91, with the consent of 
 Sigehard, King of the East Saxons, and Conrad, 
 King of the Mercians. Bishop Erkenwald is no 
 more a mythical personage than his recent name- 
 sake. Bishop Archibald ; nor yet is Bishop Tyrhtilus. 
 But all we know with certainty of Fulham is that 
 before the Conquest it was held directly of the King — 
 b}' the service of praying for the royal soul ; and that 
 it was probabl}' granted to an early Bishop by the 
 King himself. In point of antiquity as an episcopal 
 residence, Hartlebury almost equals it. The Bishops 
 of Worcester have resided there since the foundation 
 of the see, but, like Fulham, little or nothing remains 
 to it of any building erected before the fifteenth cen- 
 tui'y. In historical interest Fulham far siurpasses 
 its western contemporary, for all the Bishops of 
 London have occupied it ; and some of the most 
 important events in the annals of the Chm*ch have 
 their scenes laid within its boundaries. It has 
 never indeed vied with Lambeth, except in its 
 superior antiquity. Nor has it, like the Kentish 
 manors of the Archbishops, been at any time 
 deemed worthy of royal envy. Its nearness to 
 London seems even to have saved it from the perils 
 of any royal visits except those of the progress- 
 loving Elizabeth and James. And perhaps this very
 
 FULHAM. 9G1 
 
 nearness has also saved it in other ways, and •will 
 accoimt for its being so little known among sight- 
 seers. It is too far for the regular London visitant, 
 and too near for a special excursion. Parties of 
 pleasm-e to Putney or Wimbledon point, as they 
 cross the bridge, to the "palace" biuried among its 
 trees : a certain air of mystery seems to hang over 
 it, — no one has time to stop and go out of the M'ay 
 to visit it. And so it has remained where it was 
 placed a thousand years ago or more, till the very 
 earth all aroimd it has grown up and helps to hide 
 it from the great city which sm-ges, street after 
 street, villa after villa, up to the very moat, and, 
 passing by, gathers again on the other side, but 
 leaves it alone. 
 
 There is a sleepy air about it too. The little red 
 court, the quiet gardens, the dark trees, slumber in 
 the summer sunshine : in winter they seem to 
 hibernate. When the Bishop holds a reception, 
 and Compton's fine avenue by the moat, and the 
 little entrance lodge, and the low gateway echo with 
 the driving of carriage wheels, while clerical friends 
 and gaily dressed ladies exchange salutations on the 
 sandy sweep or the smooth-tm-fed lawn, the genius 
 of the place seems to vanish. To recall it we must 
 visit Bishop Tait's chapel, or the library of Bishop 
 Porteus at opposite extremities of the garden 
 front, and while studying the broA^ni-backed folios, 
 or scanning the solemn row of portraits, or endea- 
 vom'ing to identify the mitred escutcheons in the
 
 170 
 
 FULHAM. 
 
 windows, to renew the memories which still hamit 
 the jDlace, and peoj^le it with figures more in 
 accordance with its historical dignity. It is true, 
 this range of huilding is wholly modern. Fulham 
 was visited m 1715 by Vanbrugh and Wren — 
 ominous names — and all that lay to the northward, 
 the bake-house, the pastry-house, and many other 
 (now disused) offices of the ancient Episcopal 
 menage, were removed, while in more recent times 
 all that now fronts to the east was built, to use the 
 words of Brewer, " in a style eminently chaste." 
 Still, some sixty rooms were left in the older part ; 
 and to improve or restore these has been, though in 
 a languid way, befitting the character of the house, 
 the object of several successive occupants. Bishop 
 Blomfield and Ai-chbishop Tait are to be thanked 
 for a more active course. Most of what is interest- 
 ing now was preserved and created by their care. 
 The history of the house is clearly written on its 
 walls and in its sm-roundings. The new chapel, the 
 substantial rooms toward the garden, the red gables 
 of the older part, the venerable trees, the church 
 beyond just rising above the intervening foliage, are 
 all crowded with memories more or less sacred. 
 The very incongruities and anachronisms of the 
 building have their story. The summer house, in 
 which Bishop Bonner examined his victims, nestles 
 under the trees which Bishop Compton planted ; 
 while the sunshine enters Bishoj) FitzJames's hall 
 through windows dight with the heraldry of Bishop
 
 FULHAM. 171 
 
 Timstall and Bishop Blomfield, and rests warmly 
 on the carved mantelpiece and panelling of Bibhop 
 Sherlock, 
 
 The name of Bonner seems to call up the clearest, 
 if one of the least pleasing, pictm-es. Many 
 attempts have been made of late to whitewash his 
 character, with but indifferent success. A stain is 
 upon his hand which all the perfumes of Araby will 
 not remove. He and his coadjutor Gardiner were 
 both men of base birth, and both connected ap- 
 parently with some of the highest m the realm ; but 
 Bonner owed his advancement to his own talents, 
 and to the skilful use he made of the opportunities 
 afforded him by the very movement he afterwards 
 attempted with such violence to repress. The same 
 vehemence which excited him so strenuously against 
 the Keformers had in his youth supported him 
 against the Pope himself; and while we repre- 
 hend the passion which blinded him in the furious 
 zeal of his later years, we must not forget the 
 strong influence which, in the commencement 
 of the struggle, his unflinchmg character had exer- 
 cised. He had assisted to mould the mind of the 
 nation : when the mould had hardened, all his 
 efforts were in vain to break it, though he dashed 
 himself against it with the reckless daring of his 
 nature. When we think of him wearing out his 
 last years in the confinement of the Marshalsea, 
 like Jeffries in the Tower at a later date, we cannot 
 but pictm*e to ourselves a terrible vision of disap-
 
 172 FULHAM. 
 
 pointment and rage. Ten years elapsed before his 
 body was worn out ; yet even then it was deemed 
 imsafe that he should be buried in the sight of the 
 people. His coffin was carried at midnight to the 
 neighbouring parish chm'ch in Southwark, while his 
 successor at Fulham writes to Cecil to announce the 
 funeral, and adds, perhaps in imconscious irony, 
 the unconcerned postscript : — " My grapes this year 
 are nott yet rype." So much for Bishop Bonner ! 
 The same grapes were destined to cause Bishop 
 Grindal considerable uneasiness, and we somehow 
 do not feel sorry for him. A few days after the 
 burial he writes again : — " I hear that some fault is 
 found with me abroad for sending of my servant 
 lately to the court with grapes, saying one died of 
 my house of the plague, as they say, and three 
 more are sick ;" but the charge was untrue. 
 
 Between Bonner and Grindal properly comes a 
 greater name than either. Nicholas Ridley held 
 the see after the first deposition of Bonner and 
 until the death of Edward. There is little to con- 
 nect him with Fulham, yet that little is to his 
 honom-. He charitably allowed the mother of his 
 predecessor to reside at his manor house, though 
 her presence must have been extremely distasteful 
 to his scrupulous mind. Ai'chbishop Heath, too, 
 shared his toleration and hospitality ; but found it 
 convenient when faggots were blazing to forget both. 
 
 There were quiet days after the fiery tempest, 
 while Aylmer rested at Fulham from the fatigues
 
 FULHAM. 173 
 
 and dangers of exile, and was censured by the 
 Sabbatarians for playing in the bowling green on 
 Sunday afternoons ; while Fletcher reimired the 
 hall, and offended the Queen by marrying Lady 
 Baker ; while Bancroft called meetings of the 
 learned and projected the new translation of the 
 Bible, which he did not live to see completed ; 
 while Vaughan preached by his good life, "being," 
 as Fuller says in his quaint way, " a very corpulent 
 man, but spiritually minded ;" until at length we 
 come to the stirring scenes in which Bishop Laud 
 took part, the storm that biu-st in the days of 
 Bishop Juxon, the war, the camp at Putney, the 
 bridge of boats, the King at Hampton Court, and 
 the Lord General with the City forces billeted at 
 Fulham. Then exile again, followed a second time 
 by years of peace, till Bishop Henchman died 
 in 1675, and was buried in the middle aisle of the 
 church, under an inscription setting forth his 
 gravity and clemency, "quae vel in vultu elucebant 
 (which even shone forth in his countenance;") and 
 Compton succeeded, in the days of the Declara- 
 tion, when the Archbishop and he and five others 
 of his rank were committed to the Tower, and were 
 tried and acquitted in Westminster Hall. 
 
 The figm-e of Compton is a prominent one at 
 Fulham. His father was a Koyalist Earl killed at 
 Hopton. He himself began, as a cornet in the 
 Horse Guards, the longest public life in the lists of 
 the Bishops of London. The tutor of Mary and of
 
 74 fulha:m. 
 
 Anne, his sympathies were all with the Orange 
 party and against the policy and coui't of James. 
 His suspension from the exercise of the duties of 
 his office dm'ing the last two j'ears of that reign 
 was the cause of a retu-ement to Fulham, the 
 marks of which are still, after the lapse of two 
 centm-ies, plainly visible. The trees planted by 
 Bishop Compton are yet pointed out ; and the story 
 is still told imder their shade of the old trooper 
 who took horse and escaped to William with the 
 Princess Anne riding behind him. Even such a 
 service was not, however, remembered to his ad- 
 vantage under the new regime, and the coveted 
 Archbishopric never reached him ; though he lived 
 to be of the trio who, in 1710, could say that the 
 Cathedral of St. Paul had been built under one 
 Bishop, one architect, and one clerk of the works. 
 In his later years he retned altogether to Fulham, 
 and here, in 1713, he was bm*ied m the chm-chyard, 
 imder a plain tomb bearing a Greek inscription, 
 below the east window of the chancel. He had 
 said what many generations failed until om- ovm. 
 day to impress, that the church was for the living, 
 the chm-chyard for the dead ; and his good example 
 was constantly followed in after years. A long 
 array of episcopal monuments towers on either side 
 of his modest tomb, Bishoii Lowth and Bishop 
 Sherlock occupymg the highest places in the goodly 
 company; afar off, m a retned comer over- 
 shadowed by trees, in earth which he had himself
 
 FULHAM. 175 
 
 consecrated, is the grave of ]3isliop Blomficld, wliilo 
 a simple tablet in the porch is erected by his friends 
 and neighbours, and close to it is the little monu- 
 ment he had placed to the memory of his sou, lost 
 at sea. 
 
 Nine of the Bishops sleep in the churchyard, 
 including Gibson, Hayter, Eobinson, and Eandolph. 
 Bishop Porteus was bm-icd at Sundridge, among 
 the Kentish hills. He was the com'tly prelate who 
 replied to Queen Charlotte's question, " May I knot 
 on Smiday ?" with the polite ambiguity, " You may 
 not ;" and is remembered with gratitude both at 
 Fulham and Sundridge, for to his successors in the 
 see he gave his valuable library, and to the poor 
 of the country parish a handsome sum for the 
 dowry of the village maidens and the pension of the 
 widowed matrons. 
 
 The church itself, which is only separated fi-om 
 the Episcopal demesne by the chm-chyard, although 
 singularly miattractive outside, is worth a visit. 
 The tower alone is ancient, but has been recently 
 repah-ed with such success that there is little air of 
 antiquity remaining to it. The body of the chm-ch 
 is not older than the reign of Queen Anne, and is 
 oppressed with heavy galleries and proprietary 
 pews. But the monuments, which are numerous, 
 are worthy of inspection, the largest of them bemg 
 in the porch mider the tower, while two more are in 
 the chancel, and the only ancient brass to be seen 
 is beside the vestry door. Lady Legh, with her
 
 176 
 
 FULHAM. 
 
 twins, is a good example of the seventeentb-centuiy 
 taste ; and we ask in vain, as we read her ej^itaph, 
 whether she is the heroine of the nursery rh}Tne ? 
 The great structui-e which commemorates Lord 
 Mordamit, with a mendacious pedigree at one side, 
 and gauntlets, coronets, and shields all around, and 
 which resembles so closely a fountain with a statue 
 in the centre, is m the porch, and opposite to it the 
 tablet of Sir William Butts, " Gulielmi Buttii," the 
 physician of Hemy VIII . 
 
 In the chm-chyard, besides the gi-aves of the 
 Bishops, there are some interesting monuments. 
 
 vvi.axit cuuBcn.
 
 FULHAM. 177 
 
 One in the south-east comer is decorated with the 
 insignia of a lord mayor, and, though sadly neg- 
 lected, covers the founder of the Child family and 
 the first possessor of Ostcrley Park. Near it is what 
 we are disposed to consider one of the two oldest 
 relics remainmg at Fulham, either in the Manor 
 House or the church ; this is a brick archway in 
 the wall, and a door which formerly led towards 
 the Thames, but by the accumulation of centuries 
 it is now buried more than half its original height. 
 A similar doorway is in the garden wall, and has 
 over it the arms of Bishop FitzJames. A pleasant 
 aisle of limes arching overhead conducts the visitor 
 from the church to the street past the handsome 
 row of almshouses and the vicarage ; or if he turn 
 his back on these it will lead him to the river side 
 and the Bishop's Walk, along the moat and gardens 
 past the house, and so back to the entrance ; while 
 overhead the rooks caw in the trees in which their 
 forefathers built w4ien the place received its name 
 of the Fowls' Home, a thousand years ago or more. 
 
 M
 
 KNOLE. 
 
 GA.BDEX FBONT, KNOLB. 
 
 w-*=>t^F we take a map of the south-eastern 
 E^Jf counties, and mark the names of some six 
 or seven places between Lambeth on the 
 west and Canterbury on the east, we 
 shall be able to trace at a glance the progress of an
 
 KNOLE. 179 
 
 Archbishop from his to^ii house to the seat of the 
 Metropolitan see, passing in order by the manor 
 houses or granges at Croydon, Otford, Ivnole, Maid- 
 stone, and Charing. The greatest distance for one 
 stage is that from Croydon to Otford ; and a long 
 rest seems usually to have been made there, or in 
 the immediate neighbourhood. Three miles from 
 Otford to the east was Wrotham, two miles to the 
 south was linole ; but Wrotham and Knole did not 
 exist together as archiepiscopal residences. Wrot- 
 ham was pulled down before 1366, and Ivnole built 
 after 1456 ; but a third seat was then a short way 
 off — Mayfield, which lay between Sevenoaks and 
 Tunbridge. 
 
 Of all these so-called palaces but one remains 
 entire. Yet Knole owes its preservation to no un- 
 usual train of circumstances. It has passed tln'ough 
 the same vicissitudes of ownership as the others, — 
 has been granted and regranted by the Crown, leased 
 to irresponsible tenants, sold by spendthi-ifts, visited 
 by Puritan commissioners, and even partially burnt ; 
 but it still exists, and seems likely to exist for ages 
 to come, one of the most interesting and j^crfect 
 examples of an ancient English residence which our 
 country possesses. The walls are substantially as 
 they were left by the Archbishops, patched in places 
 and adapted, but in reality little altered ; and 
 although few of the rooms are in exactly their ori- 
 ginal condition, enough remains to satisfy the most 
 ardent investigator. Situated little more than 
 
 m2
 
 180 KNOLE. 
 
 twenty miles from London, in the centre of one of 
 the noblest parks in England, sm-rounded by much 
 of the best scenery in Kent, a morning's drive from 
 Maidstone or Timbridge Wells, and in the imme- 
 diate neighbom-hood of the convenient little country 
 tovra of Sevenoaks, it has long been a favourite with 
 sightseers and picnic parties, and has also had more 
 than its share of antiquarian visitors and such 
 gatherings as that which a short time ago filled the 
 hall and com'ts at the annual meetmg of the Kent 
 Ai'chffiological Societ}'. 
 
 Trains run to Sevenoaks m about an hour, at 
 frequent intervals throughout the da}^ fi'om Lud- 
 gate-hill, Charing-cross, and Victoria. Tuesdays, 
 Thm'sdays, and Saturdays, on which Ivnole is 
 sho-^Ti, bring the greatest crowds ; but as the park 
 is always open and the outside of the house nearly 
 as interesting as the interior, every summer day 
 has its scores of visitors. The long hill up from 
 the railway station is rather trying in the sun, but 
 a " 'bus," in the shape of a superannuated carriage, 
 conveys us to the park-gate for an almost nominal 
 sum. Entering the pleasant little town from the 
 north-west, the secret of its unrivalled healthiness 
 is at once apparent ; for not only is it placed 500 
 feet above the sea level, but upon a deep stratum of 
 porous sandstone. One or two "half-timbered" 
 houses catch the eye, an Elizabethan bay window 
 on the right, and a couple of red brick buildings of 
 Queen Aime's time on the left, whilst, opposite the
 
 KNOLE. 181 
 
 fine Perpendicular chm-cli with its lofty tower,' a 
 modest swing-gate gives admittance to Knole. Wo 
 descend a pleasant sandy avenue between high 
 banks crowned with trees and higher walls, over 
 which roses and ivy peep alternately, and, passing 
 a second gate, enter the park. Long reaches of 
 valley stretch right and left, dotted here and there 
 on the green slopes with bright-lmed parties of 
 pleasure, or banner-bearing Sunday-schools from 
 the far city, distributed in groups ; while imme- 
 diately before us rises a bank of the richest foliage, 
 pierced below by the j'ellow avenue which leads to 
 the house. Entering the wood and turning slightly 
 toward the right, a paved way, which may have 
 echoed often to the footstep of some amblmg mule, 
 bearing the sacred person of an Archbishop, mounts 
 the hill, and emerging from the shade displays at 
 one view the north front of the venerable house, its 
 quaint gables and fro^\^lmg entrance tower, partly 
 hidden by the dark sycamores of which Walpole 
 was so enamom'ed a hundi'ed years ago or more. 
 Before applying for admission at the wicket we 
 resolve on a walk round the exterior, little thinking 
 what a jom-ney is before us. Turning along the 
 front towards the east, and descending a slope, we 
 are opposite the arched gateway of the stable court. 
 Two or three pointed wdndows, now built up, are in 
 a gable above, and the vast barn of the Archbishops 
 to the left of the gateway. We pass under its great 
 walls, the buttresses standing out like the ribs of a
 
 182 KNOLE. 
 
 giant skeleton, and tm-n to the south ; the house, 
 bristlinf; with chimnej's, and lookmg more like a 
 whole village than one residence, being on the right ; 
 and on the left the open park, bounded apparently 
 at the horizon by the blue Ime of hills, at whose 
 feet nestle Otford and Wrotham, with their smaller 
 share of archiepiscopal remams. Centenary and 
 bi-eentenary oaks, whole avenues of them, acres of 
 fern, sprinkled here and there with bu'ch, beeches 
 which rival Bm-nham, lawns of smooth sward wdiich 
 has never been distm-bed since the makmg of the 
 world, fitly ornamented with herds of deer, — to all 
 these and many other beauties we tmii an antiqua- 
 rian cold shoulder, and entering a narrow passage 
 between two walls, find om'selves in the Wood Com-t. 
 It is bounded on one side by the house itself, on the 
 others by offices, which include a gaol for the proper 
 correction of the numerous servants of so vast an 
 establishment. From a stand-point on the grass- 
 plot in the centre may be seen specimens of every 
 style of architecture which has prevailed in England 
 for four centuries at least. Lookmg with our faces 
 towards the west, we have on the extreme right the 
 fine square towers of the first Archbishop, towards 
 the centre the roof of the vast kitchen, the quaint 
 double staircase, and the innumerable little gables 
 of various offices, brewhouses, bakehouses, and scul- 
 leries. Fm-ther towards the left, Stuart work begms 
 to show itself — and one great three-light wmdow 
 bears the unmistakeable impress of the classical taste
 
 KNOLE. 183 
 
 which prevailed when George III. was king. Here 
 and there [^ovcr the square Gothic hattlements peep 
 Elizabethan|gahles ; while some of the stone mul- 
 lioned^windows have been removed bodily, and then- 
 place supplied with the plate-glass and sashes of 
 the reign of Queen Victoria. Leaving this musemn 
 of architecture reluctantly, we continue our cu-cum- 
 ambulation. A wall shuts in the " pleasaunce " 
 which lies on the south and west sides of the house; 
 but threading om* way through a long avenue of 
 beeches we reach the hill-top, when the wall, no- 
 where very high, suddenl}^ ceases, and an open-work 
 fence allows a glance at the paradise within : trim 
 yew hedges, bordering trimmer walks ; dark thickets 
 of evergreens, groves of roses, smooth clipped lawns 
 of turf, here and there an antique statue, — all these 
 things pass for a moment before the eye. Then, 
 crossing the south side of this imier park (for it is 
 no less), and having paused awhile to inspect some 
 ancient hollow trees, and to take a long look do^m 
 a grassy avenue at the yellow gables of the south 
 front and the grey stonework below on which they 
 stand, while visions of scarlet cardinals and black- 
 robed priests seem to pass in and out of the pomted 
 doorway m the centre, we hm-ry on, and reaching 
 the west side, skht the garden by another avenue of 
 beeches, — with a view here and there of the Seven- 
 oaks Church tower on one hand, and an occasional 
 vista, closed by the ivy-colom-ed towers of the house, 
 on the other, — and emerge at length fi-om a thicket
 
 184 KXOLE. 
 
 of beeches, opposite the great gate again, and under 
 the shadow of the dark sycamores. After a few 
 moments' rest on an inviting seat, and a short appli- 
 cation to Murray and a note -book, we approach 
 the gate and knock at the wicket. The knocker 
 alone is worth coming to see ; it resembles an iron 
 boot-jack, and is but badly calculated for double 
 knocks. 
 
 The entrance gateway which admits to the Green 
 Court is part of the work of Archbishop Bourchier. 
 The roof is not vaulted, but there are indications of 
 its age in the chambers above. Two sides at least 
 of the court itself are of the same antiquity ; but 
 a wall formerly stretched right and left from the 
 gate, where now a picturesque row of gables 
 forms one of the most characteristic features of 
 the place. Over this wall, and from the windows 
 of the tower above, the warders watched for the 
 coming of the Cardinal Morton from Otford in 
 October, 1500. It requu-es little imagination to 
 picture to oneself the long procession of horses and 
 sumpter-mules, of soldiers and priests, of servants 
 and pages, winding through the autumn trees, while 
 in their midst a cross of silver is borne before the 
 litter in which the Archbishop lies racked with an 
 ague, caught in the marshes at Otford. He comes 
 to Kjiole to die, but his place is speedily filled. 
 
 Facing us is another noble gate-tower, flanked on 
 either side by a series of bay windows surmounted 
 by battlements. The flattened arch of this inner
 
 KNOLE. 185 
 
 gateway supports a noble oriel, the upper part of 
 "wbicli is cimously fitted to the machicolations, so 
 as to give at fii-st sight the impression that the 
 window is later than the tower itself. This idea is 
 dissipated by an examination of the masonry. The 
 oriel lights a fine chamber not usually shown to 
 visitors, and now a nursery, in which the corbels 
 of an arched roof yet remain. They are caiTcd 
 with the device of Ai'chbishop Bom-chier, by whom 
 the estate had been purchased in 1456 ; and in a 
 little compartment of stained glass in the head of 
 the window occm-s the " falcon vulned in the wings " 
 w^hich was one of the supporters of his paternal 
 shield. But the ceiling is now flat and white- 
 washed ; for in 1745 the louvre which bore the 
 clock over the great hall began to sink, and the clock 
 was moved hither and j)laced in a curious upper 
 story of the kind of Gothic to be expected from the 
 date ; while the pointed roof of the Archbishop's 
 chamber had to make way for the pendulum and 
 weights. The arched gate below is vaulted, and 
 leads to the Stone Com-t, which seems older than 
 the guide-books make it. It is generally dated fi'om 
 the water-pijDes of the roof, which bear the name 
 and arms of the " poet " Earl of Dorset, 1G05 ; but 
 a few minutes' examination of the stonework suffices 
 to show that the leadwork was added long after the 
 court itself was built. A colonnade worthy of William 
 III. and Hampton Court faces the gateway, and gives 
 entrance to the great hall. The hall blazes with
 
 18G KNOLE. 
 
 heraldry, and the gallery' and roof are of the seven- 
 teenth century ; but the lo-wer walls are of the Arch- 
 bishop's time, and under the gallery are still to be 
 seen doors which led to the kitchen when the 
 kitchen was nearly twice its present length, and was 
 supplied with three or four fireplaces at the least. 
 The dais remains in the hall, but it is occupied by a 
 statue of Demosthenes, and the eye seeks in vain 
 for any sign of the merry doings of old days. The 
 Commonwealth had not left the old house un- 
 touched, nor the loyal family which o\Mied it : smart 
 fines had the Sackvilles to pay for their loyalty, and 
 not only fines but banishment, like other great nobles 
 of the time ; but in the garrets are still to be seen 
 the vast brass-studded trmiks which tell by the date 
 1660, in nails on their lids, of a great coming home 
 when the King received his o-^n again, and the Earl 
 retm-ned to Knole. Those were the prosperous days 
 of the hall. A hundred retainers feasted before 
 then- lord, from "Mr. Mathew Caldecott, my lord's 
 favourite," to " Thomas Marockoe, a blackamoor." 
 But this same hall saw a different sight in the 
 spring of 1815, when the body of the young Duke, 
 the sole hope of the house, just come of age, was 
 brought home from Ireland to lie here in state on 
 its way to the sepulchre of his fathers at Withyham, 
 in Sussex. Old men still employed at luiole remem- 
 ber that homecoming, — the hall draped in black, the 
 hatchments, the feathers, the hearse, the mother 
 Aveeping for the untimely end of her only son, who
 
 KNOLE. 187 
 
 liad gone forth in the morning full of strength, and 
 was borne back at evening shattered and senseless. 
 Of the wonders of the interior much has been 
 said and may be said. A very full account is in all 
 the guide-books, both of the furniture and the 
 pictures. There is no need to go through the lists 
 here, but a few things may be noted. The Long 
 Gallery, which is now hung with four copies of 
 Eaphael's cartoons, was formerly decorated with 
 beautiful tapestry, which still remains on the other 
 side of the wall in a corridor not shown to 
 visitors. The Cartoon Gallery is ninety feet long 
 and looks low, though it is fifteen feet high. There 
 is fine tapestry also to be seen in the Organ Eoom 
 and the Chapel, but the best is in a room called the 
 Venetian Bedroom, said to have been fitted up for 
 the reception of Niccolo Molina, the Venetian am- 
 bassador ; while another authority states that 
 James II. slept in it, which seems probable, as his 
 monogram is on the bed. The tapestry bears the 
 name of "Franciscus Springius," who was probably 
 a Flemish manufacturer, and deserves to be better 
 known to posterity. But the history of tapestry as 
 a fine art has yet to be written. Another charm- 
 ing room is known as Lady Betty Germaine's, where 
 in addition to many objects worth observing, such 
 as a Persian table-cover, a beautifully designed door 
 key, and some heraldic window-glass, we must not 
 fail to notice the Mortlake tapestry, and the por- 
 traits worked on it of Vandyke, the j)ainter, and
 
 188 KNOLE. 
 
 another character, said hy some to be Crane, by 
 whom the Mortlake works were established, and by 
 others. Lord Gowrie, the father-in-law of Vandyke. 
 But no enumeration of pictures or furnitm-e gives 
 any idea of the subtle charm of visiting a house like 
 this. The visitor can hardly keep his attention alive 
 to the explanations of the attendant : he finds him- 
 self absently speculating at every step on the scenes 
 which some of these old portraits have looked down 
 upon, in which some of their originals have taken 
 pai-t. His eye is constantly stramed in the vague 
 hope of seeuag a ghostly bishop, or a tight-vested 
 Elizabethan, or a powdered belle in brocaded sack 
 cross the fiurther end of each long gallery, or hastily 
 disappear through a distant door. Artists are copy- 
 ing pictures, or composing new ones in some of the 
 rooms ; architects studying the ceilings or the fur- 
 nitm-e in others ; and when by virtue of a special 
 pass we ascend to the garrets, more are found at work 
 even there, and we arc pleased to acknowledge a libe- 
 rality which makes so much treasm*e available for 
 art. The chapel, the chaplain's room, with bene- 
 DiCTUS DEUS on the stone mantelpiece, the tapestry, 
 the crypt, the pictm-esque little courts, the myste- 
 rious windows which seem to belong to no room of 
 the interior, the turfed and terraced garden, all and 
 each might be treated of; but at last, dizzy with 
 ascending and descending even a tithe of the eighty 
 staircases, of threading his way through lonely and 
 interminable attic galleries, with here and there a
 
 KNOLE. 189 
 
 sudden peep into a flowery garden, or a com-t glow- 
 ing with the summer sunshine, the traveller gladly 
 finds himself again under the Archbishop's oriel, 
 and remarks, with the eye more of a moralist than 
 a critic, that the gladiator which adorns the centre 
 of a grass-plot has the arms of the Sackvilles on his 
 shield, and the motto, Honl soit qui mal y i)ense. 
 He probably accepts the words, and making up his 
 mind that m such a place no anachronism seems 
 more absm'd than that he should visit it in the nine- 
 teenth century, betakes himself through the sunset 
 and the trees to the little to^vn, the railway station, 
 and the great modern city.
 
 IXGATESTOXE. 
 
 ^HE virtues of the Vicar of Bray, whose 
 consistent life is celebrated in a "well- 
 knowTi song, were emulated, if not sur- 
 passed, by those of Sir William Petre. 
 This worthy seems to have been able to swallow 
 any oaths imposed by Tudor tyrann}', to have made 
 up his mind to keep his place whatever king or 
 queen might reign, and to have resolved, if possible, 
 to be honest, but in any case to be rich. In an age 
 when men were burned for the turning of a sentence, 
 and hanged for a misinterpreted exclamation, and 
 when it seems to us as if no one who had any mind 
 of his own could follow the dictates of conscience, 
 the dictates of parliament, and the dictates of self- 
 interest at the same time, it is wonderful and 
 nothing less to find Sir William Petre serving 
 Wolsey and Henry, Somerset and Northumberland, 
 Mary and Elizabeth, successively, without incurring 
 half a dozen attainders at least. Nine lives, if he 
 had them, might have been jeopardied in the eflfort. 
 Yet he succeeded, and we can only conclude that he 
 knew how to be silent when others spoke, how to
 
 t
 
 ING ATE STONE. 101 
 
 refrain when others declared, how to wait when 
 others hastened. As if to add to the difiiculties 
 which surrounded him, the very nature of his 
 possessions brought him into direct contact with 
 the Pope himself, and in 1555 he received a hull 
 from Paul IV. in which he was specially authorised 
 to keep the estates which had been granted to him 
 or which he had pm'chased, and which had formerly 
 belonged to the monasteries that he had taken so 
 large a part in destroying. It is said that he 
 obtained this bull on the tacit understanding that 
 by preserving the estates himself, he might bo 
 the better able to endow afresh the despoiled 
 abbeys, but this was the voice of scandal. It is 
 only certain that he retained the lands, that the 
 monasteries were never restored, and that an 
 almshouse, which is now the first old building 
 we see as we leave Ingatestone station, was, 
 apparently, the only institution he ever endowed. 
 Nor did he in this case exceed his habitual pru- 
 dence, for, considering the immense revenues he 
 received from conventual estates, the petty sum of 
 £90 13s. 4d. annually was a moderate income to 
 assign to it. 
 
 The almshouses were originally in the track of 
 the railway, and were removed to their present site 
 and rebuilt by the late Lord Petre. Sir Wilham's 
 endowment does not seem very magnificent, but we 
 must remember that he also founded eight fellow- 
 ships at Exeter College, Oxford.
 
 192 
 
 INGATESTONE. 
 
 He, moreover, added considerablj' to the parish 
 chui-ch, chiefl}' in chapels for his family, and his 
 initials appear in the brickwork on one of the 
 gables. A magnificent altar-tomb, on which he lies 
 in full armom- by the side of his second wife, may 
 still be seen in the chancel. He died full of years 
 and honours in 1571, and his son obtained in the 
 first year of James I. the peerage still enjoyed by 
 his descendants. The Lords Petre have shown in 
 successive centuries a different kind of consistency 
 from any displayed by the founder of their for- 
 tunes, and are still reckoned among the so-called 
 " Catholic " houses which have adhered to the faith 
 
 G^IBWAT, L!rai.IESI05^E EA.LL.
 
 INGATESTONE. 193 
 
 of the ages before the Eeformation. A Piomanist 
 chapel is still a prominent feature of the buildings 
 at Ingatestone Hall, and a little colony of that per- 
 suasion is maintained under the shelter of tho 
 house which Sir William built. 
 
 Ingatestone Hall is not what it was, yet few more 
 picturesque examples of Tudor architecture remain 
 in England. Leaving the station, which is about 
 twenty miles from London, by a road down hill to 
 the south, we pass a modern lodge, and enter what 
 was once a quadi-angle through an old archway. 
 The tall and ancient trees set off with most har- 
 monious greens a red brick court, clad here and 
 there in ivy, and boasting at one side the finest 
 Westeria, perhaps, in England. The old hall is 
 now divided into separate tenements, in one of 
 which is the residence of a priest, and in another 
 that of the land agent of the Petre estate. In the 
 centre is a modern-looking porch, supported on 
 classical columns, by which entrance is given to the 
 chapel, the eastern end of which has recently been, 
 extended by the addition of an apse, and a bell 
 turret. An ancient turret is in the corner of the 
 court, and windows filled with armorial glass peep 
 out here and there from under the ivy. The red. 
 brick of the sixteenth century is patched in many 
 places with modern building; lofty roofs of tile, and 
 dormer windows of the utmost quaintness, rise high 
 above ; chimneys of many shafts tower over the 
 gables, and the waters of a pond reflect the various
 
 194 IXGATESTONE. 
 
 hues of red and brown in their sombre depths, and 
 are bordered by an avenue of limes on the other 
 side, from which the most charming views of the 
 old house may be obtained. 
 
 Our visit was in summer, when the fresh green 
 leaves seemed almost out of place beside the ancient 
 buildings, but the air of seclusion and even of sad- 
 ness, which pervaded the old hall, was not dissipated 
 by the glowing sunshine. No great effort of the 
 imagination was required to people the grassj' slope 
 with com'tiers and ladies in the gorgeous costumes 
 of three centm-ies ago, or to see peeping from the 
 mullioued lattices heads covered with velvet and 
 fea^iers, though the roar and whistle of a passing 
 train speedily recalled us from the silent past to 
 the bustling present. A modern novelist has laid 
 ihe scene of a sensational novel at Ingatestone Hall; 
 and, in truth, no more appropriate situation can 
 anywhere be found for a picture requiring decayed 
 splendour and gloom}" magnificence for a back- 
 ground. 
 
 The residence to which access is obtained through 
 ti modern door in the ivy-clad turret contams some 
 fine tapestry : Noah and his family entering the 
 ark ; Moses as an infant pulling off Pharaoh's crown, 
 while the King stoops to caress him ; the murder 
 of the oppressor of his brethren ; the Golden Calf 
 in Horeb ; and the breaking of the Two Tables, — 
 many such scenes may be made out in one room ; 
 in another, we see the Espousals of Josejih and
 
 INGATESTONE. 195 
 
 Mary, and the Adoration of the ]\Iagi. In this hist 
 picture a long procession of knights and attendants 
 with richly-caparisoned horses and camels wind 
 along the road in the back-ground, and the view is 
 such as might have been presented in the six- 
 teenth century by the neighbourhood of Ingate- 
 stone. 
 
 But perhaps the most curious part of the house 
 is a priest's hiding-place, which was discovered in 
 1855 to be in one of the projections of the south 
 side. Its entrance is in a small room on the middle 
 floor, where a trap about two feet square admits by 
 a ladder to a little chamber about fourteen feet long 
 by two feet wide and ten high. It is on the level of 
 the ground, and in the sand of which the floor is 
 composed chicken bones were found, the remains 
 probably of some food secretly supplied to an occu- 
 pant. A curious trunk or chest was discovered at 
 .the same time. It had, no doubt, been used for 
 storing the Altar fm^nitm-e and other necessaries for 
 the secret celebration of mass. It is strange that 
 all knowledge of this hiding-place had died out. A 
 packing-case addressed to one Lady Petre in old 
 writing was found in the dungeon, and must have 
 lain there nearly a hundred years. It was about a 
 century ago that the family finally left Ingatestone, 
 and in the interval all memory of the mysterious 
 closet had faded away. 
 
 Ingatestone Hall was once a grange or summer 
 residence of the Abbess of Barking. Some parts 
 
 N 2
 
 196 INGATESTONE. 
 
 of it, therefore, may be older than the time of Sir 
 "William. It must have originally been a double 
 square. But onl}^ three sides of one court and the 
 gateway, much modernised, now remain. The barn, 
 and perhai)s some of the adjoining buildings, look 
 even older than the house, and were probably erected 
 to contain the tithes and rents in kind received bv 
 the abbess. The collector paid annually for the 
 manor the sum of xlviij s. to the Cellaress of the 
 Abbey. 
 
 The little town of Ingatestone is said to derive 
 its name from one of the miliary stones of a Roman 
 road, which here passed by on its wa}^ to Colchester. 
 Eoman brick is built into the rubble walls of the 
 chm-ch, and Roman remains have been found in the 
 immediate neighbourhood. The Red Lion Inn, in 
 the village street, is still pointed out as the place 
 where the milestone once stood : and in ancient 
 documents the place is spoken of in Latin as " Ing 
 ad Petram," the meadow by the stone. It is also 
 sometimes named Ing Abbess, from the nunnery of 
 Barking, to which it belonged, until Hemy VIII., 
 having taken possession, sold it to Sii' William 
 Petre for i,*849 12s. Gd. Twelve other manors are 
 named in the papal bull of which mention has 
 already been made, but this one had belonged to 
 Barkmg Abbej' from time immemorial, and is spoken 
 of in the Domesday Survey as being held ever by 
 St. Mary, " Semper Sancta Maria." The name of 
 the adjoining parish of Butsbury is given in old
 
 INGATESTONE. 197 
 
 deeds as " Ging-Joybcrd," or " Yng-Joybcrd," 
 pointing to another " Ing " or pasture in the pos- 
 session of an individual or family called " Joyherd." 
 The sm-name is not yet unknown in Essex, Another 
 parish close by is Margaretting, or St. Margaret's 
 Ing, and a third bears a family name, as Mount- 
 ney's Ing, or Mountnessing. 
 
 The tall red tower of the parish church is a con- 
 spicuous object in every view of Ingatestone. Its 
 beauty makes us wish modern Gothic architects 
 ■were not so devoted to stone for their towers. 
 A very good view of it is given in Buckler's 
 Churches of Essex, in wliich also there is a sketch 
 •of part of the hall, and some account of the interior. 
 The church tower dates from the fifteenth century, 
 and contains more than half a million In'icks. A 
 projection on the south side contains the staircase 
 to the roof. It is of the winding sort, and is made 
 of large bricks. In the chamber above, there are 
 five bells, dated respectively 1610, IGGO, 1701, and 
 two in 1758. One of these last bears a quaint in- 
 scription : — 
 
 " The founder he has played his part, 
 Which shows him master of liis art. 
 So hang me well and ring me true, 
 And I will sound your praises due." 
 
 The interior of the church is spacious and light. It 
 has been recently "restored," and, strange to say, 
 is not much, if at all the w^orse. In the chancel, 
 at the south side, is the tomb of Sir William Petre,
 
 198 INGATESTONE. 
 
 of which mention has abeady been made. Near it 
 is a tablet to the memory of his brother, Eobert, 
 which tells us that he was Eeceiver of the Exchequer 
 to the " moste famous Queen Eliza." In the north 
 chapel, which serves as a vestry-room, are several 
 tombs ; and below, in a vault, twenty coffins are 
 laid side by side. The Petres now bm-y their dead 
 at Thorndon, where a beautiful mortuar}^ chapel 
 has been erected. Among the monuments here at 
 Ingatestone is one to the memory of John, the first 
 Lord Petre, an immense structm-e of the time of 
 Charles I. It contains, mider a classical colonnade, 
 statues of the baron and his wife, as weU as of the 
 second Lord and his wife. The epitaph, which we 
 may presume was composed by the second Lord, is 
 in Latin, very long, and concluding thus, " William, 
 Lord Petre, his inconsolable son, who inherits his 
 estate (I wish I could say his vii'tues), erected this 
 monument to the memory of so deserving a father." 
 And the epitaph on Catherine, Lady Petre, the said 
 Lord "William's wife, is equally quaint. It sets 
 forth her goodness, and goes on to say that " being 
 more desu-ous of a mansion in the skies, than of a 
 longer life, she departed {migravit) on the 30th 
 October, 1624, aged 49. It is a question whether 
 she w'as most w^orthy of heaven or of earth {coelone 
 dignior an mundo lis est).'"
 
 BERKHAMSTED. 
 
 EAVELLEES on the London and North- 
 western Eailway may observe, shortly 
 after emerging from the great cuttings and 
 the tmmel at Boxmoor, a thick wood on 
 the right of the Hne and facing the long straggling 
 town which occupies a slope on the left. The 
 town is Berkhamsted, or as it is sometimes spelt, 
 Berkhampstead ; indeed some fifty other ways of 
 spelling the name are given in Mr, Cobbe's History 
 and Antiquities of Berkhamsted. Just as we pass 
 the railway-station, two fragments of a double wall 
 standing parallel to each other near the edge of the 
 wood catch the eye for a moment. In another 
 moment the wood is out of sight, and the open 
 country, pleasantly undulating, extends to a distant 
 horizon on both sides. But those two little fragments 
 of flint masonry have a history worth pausing over- 
 They have their place even in the history of the 
 nation. To keep the passage between them was 
 once a charge worthy of the greatest subject in the 
 realm. Through the gateway whose place they 
 mark, in peace or war many a noble procession has
 
 200 BERKHAMSTED. 
 
 passed. They admitted iu turn, John of England, 
 and Louis of France ; John of France and 
 Eicliard King of the Eomans. Here the Black 
 Prince lived, and here, in the dsijs of his son, 
 Chaucer was clerk of the works. Froissart was 
 here with the Queen in 13G1. But all the glory is 
 now departed ; except the site, little is left, and it 
 looks to-day probably much as it did when, in 1087, 
 Eobert of Mortaigne came at the Conqueror's bid- 
 ding to build the castle. The earthworks and the 
 mound were there then as they are now, but hardly 
 anything beside, unless some wooden sheds for the 
 shelter of the soldiers. At what date the mound 
 was made, and the ditches were first opened, it is not 
 possible to say. When the Conqueror came they 
 were there, and his coming is jDerhaps the first 
 authentic eyent in the history of Berkhamsted, un- 
 less we accept it as the scene of St. Brithwald's 
 Coimcil in G97, and not rather Bh'sted near Maid- 
 stone, or Brasted near Sevenoaks. But if authentic 
 history is silent, tradition is not. St. Paul was here 
 when he had jom*neyed into Spain, and, according 
 to the same authority, he signalised his visit by an 
 act of exorcism similar to that, some three centuries 
 later, performed by St. Patrick in Ii'eland. Both 
 serpents and lightning have visited the parish since, 
 and seem to regard the exorcism from the sceptical 
 point of view which seems now generally appro- 
 priate to the pleasant fables of local tradition. We 
 only know that before the Conquest, Berkhamsted
 
 BERKHAMSTED. 201 
 
 was a place of importance, — perhaps on account of 
 its military position; and because, as Mr. Clark 
 pointed out to the Ai'cha3ological Institute dm-ing 
 their recent visit, it is one link of a complete chain 
 of fortresses, which surrounded and guarded the 
 valley of the Thames. Though it had previously 
 been inhabited, and possibly strengthened, by the 
 Kings of Mercia, and afterwards by the successors 
 of Alfred, it owes its first regular fortification to 
 William, whose military genius recognised it as one 
 of the series of which Kochester, Guildford, Farn- 
 ham, Windsor, and Wallingford were the other 
 members. He was here before he reached London, 
 and, as we have seen, he probably found here 
 already the cone on which the keep of his castle 
 was to rise, as similar cones had been found and 
 turned to account at four out of five of the other 
 places. In some respects the Berkhamsted keep 
 may have resembled that of Windsor, being 
 surromided by a moat of its own, partly within 
 the moat of the whole fortress and partly con- 
 terminous with it. The mound was used to sup- 
 port a hollow shell of masonry, as at Cardiff, but 
 only the saucer-like configuration of the summit 
 now remains to indicate its existence. And all 
 the rest of the buildmgs which made up the Castle 
 have shared the fate of the keep. There was 
 once a chapel near the foot of the moimd, one 
 of three with which the Castle was sanctified. 
 Of it there only remains a broken candlestick,
 
 202 BERKHAMSTED. 
 
 discovered lately on the site. The two decaying 
 ^Yalls near the railway station are all that is left 
 of the entrance gateway, and a key dug up when 
 the road was made all that is tangible of the gate 
 itself. 
 
 Whether the builder of Berkhamsted Castle was 
 ever Earl of Cornwall, is more a matter of nomen- 
 clatm-e than of actual historical question ; but it is 
 certain that from his time the Castle has followed 
 the fortunes of the Earls and Dukes of Cornwall. 
 The Prince of Wales now o-^ns it. To the first 
 duke, better known as the Black Prince, it was a 
 favomite residence ; here, in 1361, he took his last 
 leave of his mother, when Froissart was told of the 
 prophecy of Merlin that the crown would never 
 rest on the heads of Edward or the next prince, 
 Lionel, but descend to the son of the third brother 
 John. While living at Berkhamsted, before the sad 
 days which closed his father's glorious reign, he fell 
 ill, and when but haK recovered set out from here 
 to meet the Parliament at AVestminster, only a few 
 days before his death. Of older memories than 
 these, the Castle has no lack. We may choose 
 between such names as those of the FitzPiers and 
 the Mandevilles, Lords of Berkhamsted; of Thomas 
 Becket, sometime its custodian ; of King John, 
 who granted the town its first charter ; of Louis of 
 France, his siege of the Castle, and the fruitless 
 bravery displayed by the defenders ; but the two 
 most interesting names in the list of its occupants
 
 BERKHAMSTED. 203 
 
 are perhaps those of Richard King of the Eomans, 
 and of Cicely Duchess of York. 
 
 Eichard seems in a kind of way to have succeeded 
 to the title which his father had sometime home. 
 As Earl of Cornwall, he lived much at Berkhamsted. 
 From it he set out on his expeditions, first to the 
 Holy Land, and afterwards on a scarcely less unreal 
 errand : this was to Germany, in quest of the 
 crown of the Romans, which, when he had lavished 
 much of the treasm-e gathered from the English 
 Jews, he obtained in 1257. As King of the Romans, 
 he lived and died here ; and here he brought suc- 
 cessively his three wives. The first was one of the 
 co-heiresses of the Marshalls, Earls of Pembroke, 
 and the widow of Gilbert de Clare. She died in 
 child-bed at Berkhamsted, and perhaps it was owing 
 to his grief that he assumed the cross. On his 
 retm-n, after three years' widowhood, he married 
 Sanchia, one of the four queens, daughters of Ray- 
 mond, Count of Provence. After sixteen years' 
 exile from the sunny skies of her native land, she 
 too died at Berkhamsted, having lost all her children 
 successively except one, Edmimd, who sm-vived his 
 father but eventually died childless. The Iving's 
 third wife was perhaps better suited to the climate 
 of Hertfordshire. According to most accoimts, she 
 was the niece of Archbishop Conrad, of Cologne, 
 and she sm-vived her husband. In April 1272, the 
 body of Richard, King of the Romans, Count of 
 Poictou, and Earl of Cornwall, was carried from
 
 204 BERKIIAMSTED. 
 
 Berkliamstccl to Hales Abbey for interment, and 
 bis heart to the cbui-eh of the Friars Minor 
 at Oxford. In 1300, bis only son died, and tbe 
 coimty of Cornwall, ^yitb the castle of Berkbam- 
 sted, reverted to tbe CroAMi. Edward I. made it 
 tbe dower of bis second wife, and is fm-tber post- 
 humously comiected with tbe place, because one of 
 tbe letters of Edward IIL, dated fi'om this castle, 
 relates to tbe renewal of tbe cerecloth of bis grand- 
 father, — " de cera renovanda cu-ca corpus Edwardi 
 Primi." Six picked men from Berkbamsted served 
 at Crecy, but this reign is signalised in tbe annals 
 of the town by an event of a different character. In 
 1291, John of Berkbamsted, a native, was elected 
 Abbot of St. Albans. During his rule it was that 
 the remains of Queen Elinor rested at St. Albans 
 on theu' long jomney fi'om " Herdeby " to West- 
 minster, and he was tbe Abbot who, in 1295, suc- 
 ceeded in obtaining for tbe clergy protection from 
 tbe additional taxes levied to support tbe King's 
 wars. Of Abbot John we shall have occasion to 
 speak more at length in our chapter on St. Albans. 
 Under Edward III., the Castle attained its 
 greatest splendour, or rather imder his son tbe 
 Black Prince, of whose tenure of it we have akeady 
 spoken. Pdchard II. gave it to his favourite Vere, 
 but on his attainder it retm'ned to tbe Crown. 
 Edward IV. gave the town a fresh charter, which 
 was of more real importance to the inhabitants than 
 even the presence of Chaucer and Froissart. It is
 
 BERKHAMSTED. 205 
 
 not many years since the exemption of the trades- 
 men from serving on jm-ies was acknowledged by 
 the law com-ts, in accordance with the privileges of 
 this charter. And thus we reach the name of the 
 King's mother, the last and one of the greatest of 
 the denizens of the Castle. This was Cicely, 
 Duchess of York, the daughter of the head of the 
 Nevilles, the niece of Henry IV., the aunt of the 
 King-maker, sister of five peers of the realm, 
 mother of two kings, and for many 3'ears the 
 greatest lady in the land. "Proud Cis " has passed 
 into a proverb, and no one can wonder if she was 
 proud. Whether she was or not, one thing is cer- 
 tain : she was a woman of sufficient talent to keep 
 her high position all her life, and of sufficient 
 strength to survive the misfortunes which in those 
 days seemed appropriate to high rank. Her husband, 
 her brother, and her second son, all perished after 
 the fatal field of Wakefield ; yet she survived to see 
 another son put to death by his own brother, and a 
 third slain in battle. She outlived Bosworth nearly 
 eleven years. Before her death she saw her eldest 
 son's heiress on the throne, and the young Henry — 
 who after bearing for a time the title which had been 
 her husband's, was destined to extinguish in the blood 
 of her granddaughter the last fading glimmer of the 
 great Plantagenet name — had reached the age of 
 five years. She lived and regulated her household, 
 at Berkhamsted, until 1496, when, after seeing her 
 granddaughter's husband put her grandson to death.
 
 206 BERKH.UISTED. 
 
 and her daughter take up the cause of an impostor, 
 she died, full of honoui's and of all the attendants of 
 honour*, after a life which, viewed in the perspective 
 of four centuries, appears, according to the light 
 turned upon it, either such a long tragedy, or else 
 such a course of prosperity', as is unexampled in 
 om* annals. 
 
 After her death the Castle fell to dccav, and her 
 descendant Queen Elizaheth granted it, at the 
 annual rent of a red rose to he paid on the feast 
 of St. John the Baptist, to Sir Edward Carey, the 
 father of the first Lord Falkland, and cousin of the 
 Queen's cousin Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon. It 
 was ah'eady ruined, as Leland describes it, and 
 when Su* Edward huilt the house on the hill just 
 above it, the old walls no doubt formed a convenient 
 quarry for the supply of building stone. 
 
 After it had thus mounted the hill piecemeal its 
 connection with great folk and great events con- 
 tinued as before the translation. Here Lucius, 
 Lord Falkland, spent much of his boyhood ; and 
 Avhen the Careys ceased to live here the house was 
 occupied by some of the household of James I. 
 Prince Charles was here in IGIG, and as Duke of 
 Cornwall ol^tained from his father a charter for the 
 towTi by which its privileges were enlarged and a 
 bailiff and Ijurgesses appointed. Camden granted 
 the corporation a coat of arms, in which the Castle 
 figm-es prominently "within a border of Cornewall, 
 viz. Sables, bezanted." But after lasting less than
 
 BERKHAMSTED, 207 
 
 fifty years, the trouble of electing and siistainrng a 
 corporation grew too great for the sleepy little towTi, 
 and though they still claim some of theii- privileges, 
 as we have seen, the charter has long been a dead 
 letter to the bm-gesses of Berkhamsted. Under the 
 Commonwealth, the house which had succeeded the 
 Castle was again prominent. Dm-ing the Protecto- 
 rate it was occupied by Colonel Axtel, the Eegicide ; 
 after the Eestoration, by Weston, Earl of Poi-tland, 
 the Chancellor, in whose day the greater part of it 
 was destroyed by fire. In its reduced state it was 
 rented by John Saj^er, who, as his epitaph in the 
 church informs us, had been " Archimagii-us," or 
 chief-cook, to Charles II. It still belongs to the 
 Duchy of Cornwall, and is now mider a lease, 
 with the Castle, or its site in the vaUey below, 
 to the owner of the neighbom*mg park of Ash- 
 ridge. 
 
 The Castle and its successive occupants have left 
 less mark upon the chm-ch of Berkliamsted than 
 might have been expected. None of the royal and 
 princely folk seem to have selected it as a bm-ial- 
 place, and the only monuments which connect it 
 with the Castle ai'e those of King Charles's cook, as 
 already mentioned, and of Eobert Incent, "late 
 s'vant unto the noble princesse lady Cecj-le duchesse 
 of Yorke, and mother imto the worthy King Edward 
 the IIII and Eiehard the thjTde, whych sayd Eobert 
 Incent dyed of the gi'ete swet}*ng sykenesse the fii-st 
 yere of the Eeygne of King Henry the VII."' Dean
 
 208 
 
 BERKHAMSTED. 
 
 Incent was bis son, and founded the Grammar- 
 school in 1541 ; dj'ing in 15-45, he was bm-ied in 
 the chm-cb, but his monument is no longer extant. 
 The name of Incent or Innocent still lingers in the 
 parish, and the quamt arms of the Dean are still 
 to be seen on stained glass in the Head-master's 
 parlom-. They are alluded to in lines preserved 
 by AVeever, but now no longer to be seen ; and 
 the description, " Ai-gent, on a bend gules an 
 Innocent or," seems to mean an infant holding a 
 rose. 
 
 The last event connecting Bcrkhamsted and 
 roj^alty seems to have been the residence here of 
 
 ./,- \ 
 
 ■-afo^l 
 
 BEBEHAMSIED CEUBCH.
 
 BERKnAMSTED. 209 
 
 Peter the Wild Boy, which commenced ahoiit 1730 
 and lasted till his death in 1785. The collar with 
 his guardian's name and address is still at Ashridgo, 
 *' Peter the Wild man from Hanover. Whoever will 
 bring him to Mr. Fenn, at Berldiamsted, Hertford- 
 shire, shall ho paid for their trouble." But the 
 modern traveller will be more interested by another 
 and worthier association. In the Ecctory House 
 was born, in 1731, the great Christian poet, William 
 Cowper, and in the east window of the church, 
 recently filled with stained glass in honour of his 
 memory, we may see him depicted, and at his feet 
 the three tame hares which he immortalised.
 
 ON THE SURREY HILLS. 
 
 ^^^*^^^^HE long reach of the chalk hills lvUO\ni 
 '^^^ as the North Downs enters Surrey near 
 
 Guildford, and crossing the country 
 fi-om west to east, passes into Kent 
 between Tatsfield and Chevening. It attams its 
 greatest width in Sm-rey, a little way south of Croy- 
 don. The railway here plunges into a long tunnel 
 and emerges high up among the downs, at an anony- 
 mous place fi-om which the branch line diverges to 
 Caterham. Catcrham itself is some five miles off 
 in a valley to the east. A bleak down, crowned 
 with a Gothic asylum, of the most staring pattern, 
 its brick walls blushing crimson as if at their ex- 
 posed situation, is on the right ; while, straight on 
 along the line a glimpse may be obtamed, between 
 two rounded banks of chalk, of the valley to the 
 south, in which Merstham, Gatton, and so many other 
 pleasant places are spread out in the siunmer smi- 
 shine. This valley lies between the two ranges : the 
 chalk on the north and the sand hills on the south. 
 We are in the heart of the chalk. A vast cliff close 
 to the Junction dazzles the cjts with its whiteness.
 
 ON THE SURREY HILLS. 211 
 
 The trees are all down in the valley, except a few 
 young firs which defy the east wind around the 
 asylum ; and if it were not for the distant views of 
 Caterham on one side, and of the Merstham valley 
 on the other, the scene ahout the railway station 
 would be almost unbearable in its bleakness. Yet, 
 behind the mipromising front of the downs, some- 
 thing may be found worth the seeking. Each great 
 billow has a valley between it and its neighbom-. 
 Five or six distinct waves of chalk may be counted 
 before the comparative flatness of the Merstham 
 district is reached. The inner life of these hills was 
 almost unknown till a few years ago. The little 
 churches, hidden from the wind in wooded nooks ; 
 the ancient houses, sometimes manors, sometimes 
 farms ; the quiet parsonages, the great bare fields 
 with theh scattered sheep, the sheltered valleys full 
 of corn, the wooden windmills cro^\^ling each hill, 
 had all a kind of mdependent existence apart from 
 the world, and so shut out from the reach of 
 strangers that it was not imtil some fifteen years ago 
 that there were any roads in Chaldon, the parish 
 whose church is the prmcipal object of interest in 
 om* present excm'sion. 
 
 The seclusion of Chaldon, great as it has been, 
 has not been so great that the chm-ch has escaped 
 restoration. Even to this corner of the earth have 
 the disciples of Sir Gilbert Scott penetrated. For 
 once then: visit has been productive of good. 
 Perhaps it would be safer to say, partly in spite of 
 
 n ^ 
 
 O -i
 
 212 ON THE SURREY HILLS. 
 
 tbcm has a great discovery been made and a real 
 restoration effected. The allegorical painting which 
 remains at Chaldon belongs to a series, and this 
 one only has been rescued. The others, alas ! 
 perished mider the hands of the restorer before 
 assistance could arrive. 
 
 An excursion to Chaldon and its surroundings 
 has several strong recommendations for the sight- 
 seer. It is within easy reach of London. The 
 country is eminently healthful ; more than suffi- 
 ciently pictm*esque, full of antiquarian mterest ; and 
 withal so far unexplored that even "Murray, "the ubi- 
 quitous, dismisses it m a sentence. He recommends 
 the visitor to approach fi'om the north, and passing 
 Coulsdon to climb " a steep hill to Chaldon Church, 
 a plain rm-al buildmg of which the older portion is 
 E.E., but most -pnvi j^^^'P- The clim'ch stands in 
 a secluded and picturesque nook, and all around 
 are tempting rambles." So far the " Handbook." 
 But would it sm'prise the compiler to Icam that the 
 chm-ch contains, in addition to "E.E." and "perp,," 
 examples also of Noi*man, Decorated, Elizabethan, 
 Stuart, and so on ? — and that a mile further on is 
 one of the finest views over the weald and the sand 
 hills that can be pointed out in the wiiole county ? 
 We say nothing of the painting, which was only 
 discovered two or three years ago. 
 
 We disobey "Murray," however, in our excursion. 
 A return ticket to Merstham, a walk from Merstham 
 over the hills to Caterham Junction through Chaldon
 
 ON THE SURREY HILLS. 213 
 
 and Coiilsdon, and a " tempting ramble " thri)U;^li 
 the woods by the wa}^ — this is om: programme. Its 
 merits are chiefly these. There are two or three 
 trains at Caterham Junction for one at Merstham. 
 We thus find om-selves able to return without too 
 long a delay at the station whenever we may arrive 
 there. Further, we visit the churches and chief 
 objects of interest while we are still fresh in the 
 early part of the walk ; and, lastly, we have the sun 
 behind us on the hills, and not shining in our eyes, 
 a matter of no small importance in the glare of a 
 chalk district. 
 
 Merstham Church will repay a visit. It is reached 
 from the railway station by the village street, and 
 a pretty walk through a kind of little glen, with a 
 rickety bridge over one of those mysterious ponds 
 which, connected in their history with the iron 
 trade of the middle ages, are yet more strangely 
 connected, geologically, with their famous neigh- 
 bour, the burrowing Mole. The chm-ch stands on 
 the first "escarpment" of the chalk. A foretaste 
 of the view to be seen above may here be obtained 
 from the i^arapet of the wall on th6 south side of 
 the chm-chyard. An Early English west door has 
 suffered restoration ; but other specimens of the 
 same date remain untouched. A brass or two, a half 
 defaced recumbent figure, some handsome and taste- 
 ful modern monuments, a little bit of old stained 
 glass, and clerestory windows which, owing to the 
 roof of the side aisles having been raised, are within
 
 214 ON THE SURREY HILLS. 
 
 the cliurch, occupj^ a few miiiutes ; and then, leaving 
 the churchj-ard at the eastern end, we commence to 
 clunb the hill, passing on om* way a great quarry 
 and a row of melancholv-looking workmen's houses. 
 The summit of the hill is soon reached, and imme- 
 diately we are in a different region. Everything is 
 changed. Behind us in the valley, to the south and 
 west, village after village, orchard after orchard, 
 park after park, stretch away towards Eedhill and 
 Eeigate. The sand hills are clothed with trees to 
 then- summits, here and there church spu*es and 
 red-roofed villas rise agamst the sky line, while at 
 intervals a ga^D shows the Weald of Kent beyond, 
 and in the farthest distance the Sussex downs and 
 the blue line of hills in which Tunbridge "Wells and 
 Frant are concealed. The view is worthy of Bh-ket 
 Foster. Nay, one feels assured he must have studied 
 it already to his advantage. 
 
 Turning om* backs upon the valley we plunge into 
 the hills. Here the scene is cnthely different. It 
 is not bleak, nor bare, nor ugly ; but somehow it is 
 not so pleasing. The wind seems always to blow, 
 the trees look as if they were all inclined one way : 
 the fields are very large, the houses very few and 
 very small. But a pleasant lane among the corn- 
 fields, with elms almost meeting overhead, and then 
 a breezy common, covered with furze and heather, 
 then a path through a ploughed field, bristling with 
 flints, then a steep ascent along a dark wood into 
 which the pheasants run as leisurely as if the
 
 ON THE SURREY HILLS. 215 
 
 " First" will not be for months to come, and the 
 top of another hill is reached, and Chaldou Chm-ch, 
 with its spu'e, just shows itself among the trees in 
 front. At the foot of a green lawn dotted with elms 
 is the rectory ; a little to the left is an old farm- 
 house, formerly the " Court ; " woods and corn- 
 fields interspersed form the background of a cncum- 
 scribed but pretty landscape ; the an of retnement 
 and the absolute stillness being in a kind of nega- 
 tive way the most striking features. A dog at tlie 
 the farm, dozing in the sun on the top of his kennel, 
 begms to bark at sound of footsteps : the sudden 
 noise is almost painful to the car, but the profound 
 stillness, once broken, is not to be recalled. The 
 visitor leaves his musings, and rousing himself to 
 obtain the keys, enters the church3-ard and the 
 church. 
 
 I have brought with me a very elaborate and in- 
 teresting paper, which Mr. J. G. Waller read for the 
 Sm-rey Ai'chseological Society some years ago. It 
 relates to the then recently discovered painting on 
 the west wall of Chaldon Chm-ch. Mr. AValler's 
 paper must be my guide in endeavom-ing to describe 
 it. He has not only explained the subject and 
 meaning of the painting itself, but has illustrated his 
 explanation by a reduced "fac-simile" drawing; 
 and has given examples of each part of the design in 
 a carefull}^ chosen series of extracts from the "Le- 
 genda Aurea," the " Acta Sanctoriun," and other 
 recondite som'ces of monkish lore. The paper
 
 216 ON THE SURREY HILLS. 
 
 is printed iu the Transactions of the Sui-rey 
 Society. 
 
 Ai-med, then, with the keys of the church, and 
 with Mr. Waller's key to the painting within, we 
 may enter. The church is only forty feet long at 
 most, yet it consists of a nave, two side aisles, a 
 chancel, and a side chapel. The basement is Nor- 
 man, and does not answer in all respects to the plan 
 of the present building. The earlier chm-ch was 
 wider, probably, and shorter. The greater part of 
 what we see now is Early English : one or two of the 
 windows are Perpendicular, one or two Decorated. 
 A chapel on the north side was evidently removed, 
 and a Perpendicular window inserted in the aisle, 
 when a large fiat arch was made and built up in 
 the chancel wall. It looks as if it had never contained 
 a window, and may be of fifteenth-century work. 
 The tower and spii-e were added some forty or fifty 
 years ago. The pulpit bears a name and date, 
 "Patience Lambert, 1657," and a cm-ious tablet in 
 a style worthy of John of Padua and the Renais- 
 sance in England, and dated 1562, has a quaint in- 
 scription which commences thus : — " Good Eedar, 
 warne all men and woomen whil they be here to be 
 ever good to the poore and nedy." It bears initials 
 and a semi-heraldic badge, but no name. The 
 tombstones are not remarkable ; the register com- 
 mences in 1564. The church is dedicated to St. 
 Paul; though it is sometimes spoken of as St. 
 Peter's, and in a will dated 1440, as St. Peter and
 
 ON THE SURREY HILLS. 217 
 
 St. Paul's. This "would perhaps bo the right desig- 
 nation. 
 
 But the most remarkable thing in the church is 
 a " tempera " painting on the west wall, facing the 
 chancel arch. It is about seven feet from the ground, 
 and forms a band, chiefly of a deep brown or choco- 
 late colom-, divided across with a strip of conven- 
 tional bordering, and vertically in the centre by a 
 portion of the design. The subject, according to 
 Mr. Waller, and he is no doubt right, is the " Lad- 
 der of the Salvation of the Human Soul, and the 
 road to Heaven," — in short a " scala cfeli." The 
 two bands represent respectively Heaven and Hell. 
 The ladder rises from the lower to the upper. It is 
 crowded with little figm-es : some climbing, others 
 falling off ; some stopping by the way, others ap- 
 parently being helped up by angels. On the right, 
 in the lower division, are figm*es of demons, tortm-es 
 great and small, the punishment of usmy, of in- 
 ebriety, of luxm'y, and other horrible conceptions, 
 whilst at the end is the Tree of Knowledge and the 
 serpent in its branches. To the left of the ladder 
 other evil spirits stir up a blazing caldron full of 
 souls, and little scenes of retribution are enacted in 
 every dh-ection. In the upper division, to the left, 
 IMichael is weighing the candidates for heaven, 
 while others are welcomed by angels from the sum- 
 mit of the ladder ; on the right Enoch and Elijah 
 are seen ascending outside the ladder : a nimbus, 
 between the sun and moon, appears at the top ; and
 
 218 ON THE SURREY HILLS. 
 
 to the extreme right, ahove the forbidden tree, is a 
 representation of the descent into Hell, treated 
 according to the usual method. 
 
 As examples of the stories current in the thir- 
 teenth centm-y and here placed before the eyes of 
 the faithful, Mr. Waller gives some extracts. Wo 
 may take one as a specimen. Among the most 
 conspicuous of the strange figures is that of the 
 " Usurer ;" a name which was applied not only to 
 a man who lent money at high or exorbitant rates 
 of interest, but also to a covetous or miserly person. 
 There are many horrible stories in the monks' 
 books of the end of such people. According to one 
 of them, which occurs in the Chronicle of Matthew 
 Paris, a monk of Evesham had a vision in 1196 of 
 Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise ; and saw among 
 other sights a goldsmith being tormented on 
 account of frauds committed in his lifetime. In 
 the picture we see the method of punishment clearly 
 illustrated. The tongue hangs out, and coins drop 
 from the mouth. Bags of money are about the 
 waist and neck. He is compelled to count a heap 
 of red-hot monej', and sits on a flaming seat. With 
 regard to some of the other figures, we have less un- 
 pleasant readings from ancient authors. Some of 
 the figm'es are represented as undergoingtemptation, 
 and Mr. Waller takes occasion to speak of the early 
 Christian doctrine of good and bad spirits attendant 
 on the soul of man. From the "Shepherd" of Hermas 
 he makes a beautiful quotation. He tells us : —
 
 ON THE SURREY HILLS. 219 
 
 " There are two angels with man — one of 
 
 righteousness, the other of iniquity The 
 
 angel of righteousness is mild, and modest, and 
 gentle, and quiet. When, therefore, lie gets into 
 thy heart he talks with thee of righteousness, of 
 modesty, of chastity, of bountifulness, of forgive- 
 ness, of charity, and piety. When all these things 
 come into thy heart, know then that the angel of 
 righteousness is with thee. . . . Learn also the 
 works of the angel of iniquity. He is first of all 
 bitter, and angry, and foolish ; and his works are 
 pernicious and overthrow the servants of God. 
 AVhen therefore these things come into thy heart, 
 thou shalt know by his works that this is the angel 
 of iniquity. . . . When anger overtakes thee or 
 bitterness, know that he is in thee. As also when 
 the desire of many things, and of the best meats, 
 and of drunkenness, w^hen the love of what belongs 
 to others, pride, and much speaking, and ambition, 
 and the like things come upon thee. When there- 
 fore these things come into thy heart, know that the 
 angel of iniquity is with thee." 
 
 But of all the old authors, Tundale best illustrates, 
 in his celebrated "Vision," the scenes here depicted. 
 The date of the poem is about 1149, so that it is 
 just a little older than the painting if we accept, as 
 we safely may, Mr. Waller's estimate. Tundale 
 was an Irishman by birth, of noble rank, who 
 having died suddenly in a fit of passion, is con- 
 ducted by his guardian angel through Hell, Purga-
 
 220 ON THE SURREY HILLS. 
 
 tory, and Paradise, as Dante describes himself in 
 the Divina Commcdia. The poem was exceedingly 
 popular, and exists in several languages and 
 dialects, including English. In it the " long nar- 
 row bridge," which forms so remarkable a feature 
 of the Chaldon painting, is minutel}' described : 
 " Two mile of length it was seeming, and scarcely 
 of the breadth of a hand," so we read, modernising 
 the language. " It was grievous for to feel," being 
 all made of " sharp pikes of iron and steel ; and 
 no one could cross it without great pain and suffer- 
 ing. It passed over a lake in which were "hideous 
 beasts," that di'cw near the bridge to make a prey 
 of the souls that fell off. Tundale sees "one stand 
 on the bridge, weeping 
 
 " With a doleful cr}'. 
 And plained his sin full piteously ; 
 The pikes his feet piked full sore : 
 He dreaded the beasts much more." 
 
 Tundale asks his angel the meaning of this. 
 
 " The angel answered thus again : — 
 For him is ordained this pain, 
 That robbed men of their riches 
 Or any goods that theirs is." 
 
 He goes on to say that the figure on the bridge so 
 sorely weeping is that of one who had stolen from 
 " Holy Chyrche." 
 
 "With regard to the style and execution of the 
 picture, it is worth while to refer to Mr.Waller more 
 at length, because similar pictures have been found
 
 ON THE SURREY HILLS. 221 
 
 of late years in many other cliurches, and consider- 
 able interest has been excited about them. Mr. 
 Waller notices that there is no filling-up of the 
 features, and that where two cross each other the 
 outlines of both appear, by which no doubt the 
 painter meant to indicate that they were ghosts, 
 and semi-transparent. The outlines show great 
 case and a ready hand. The attitudes are well 
 contrasted, "and throughout they are designed with 
 great simplicity, always following the end in view, 
 without the slightest affectation." The picture is 
 painted in tempera, and not in fresco. AU medieval 
 church painting was done in tempera ; that is, the 
 colours were mixed with a kind of glue or size made 
 from shreds of parchment. The colours used are red 
 and yellow ochre, a little native cinnabar and white. 
 Another painting was on the south side of this 
 one, on the face of the respond supporting the first 
 arch. This was destroyed in the restoration of the 
 chm-ch, during the temporary absence of the rector. 
 Had it not been for his vigilance all would have 
 been effaced. ^Vho knows how much we have lost 
 in other places ? This departed pictm'e, even though 
 departed, is of the utmost importance. From it 
 and from the conventional foliage of the Tree of 
 Knowledge at the north end of the west wall, Mr. 
 Waller is able to approximate by no means vaguely 
 to the date of the painting. The aisles are, as 
 we have seen. Early English, and cannot therefore 
 be earlier than the end of the twelfth centmy. On
 
 222 ON THE SURREY HILLS. 
 
 the other hand, the " Tree " cannot he much later. 
 We thus arrive at a date between 1170 and 1190. 
 With regard to the painter and the style of his art, 
 Mr. Waller makes some interesting observations, 
 from which we gather that the design was not un- 
 known in the Greek Chm-ch ; that this example is 
 very strictly in accordance with Bj-zantine rules for 
 such a work ; that certain accessories are of a kind 
 to point to a French origin ; but that on the whole, 
 if "William the Englishman" was worthy to succeed 
 William de Sens as architect of Canterbury Cathe- 
 di-al, there is no reason an English painter should 
 not have been found to execute this elaborate design. 
 
 But the afternoon wanes rapidly as we sit ques- 
 tioning Mr. Waller, and diving into the "Vision " 
 of Tundale and the " Promptuarium Exemplorum." 
 There will be no time to visit Coulsdon Church or 
 the Reedham Asylum. So one more look at a 
 painting nearly two hundi-ed years older than Or- 
 cagna, and we commit om'selves to a pleasant lane 
 through the hollow, emerging at length on the open 
 down, actually in sight of the Crystal Palace. We 
 had forgotten that London itself was only some 
 fifteen miles away at most. "Mm-ray" mentions a 
 very steep hill up from Coulsdon. Going in the 
 opposite dhection, it is very steep down ; but the 
 up hill at the other side, though he does not mention 
 it, is twice as long and quite as steep. 
 
 The ascent ceases at the summit of another wave 
 of the chalk. This one comprises the parish of
 
 ON THE SURREY HILLS. 223 
 
 Coulsdon. But there is no painting in Coulsdon 
 Chm-ch, and altbougli it is, or was at the time 
 of our visit, happily unrestorcd and in fair- order, 
 I only delay to i^otice an epitaph mentioned in 
 the *' Handbook," and again descending reach 
 another valley, clothed with thickets of hazel, 
 fi'iiitful in nuts ; and tm-n to the left at last into a 
 bridle road, each winding of which brings us nearer 
 to the Caterham Junction, and the busy haunts of 
 men. On the right is the Keedham Asylum, a not 
 impleasmg building high on the hill, and after a 
 short delay we cross the railway through an arch 
 and pursue the tm-npike road between Croydon and 
 Eedhill, until we arrive at the station. This last 
 half-mile along the dusty highway is, we find, more 
 fatiguing than any other part of our pleasant three 
 hom-s of hill and dale ; but we fortunately get in 
 exactly two minutes before a train stops, and a 
 comparatively early return to London is secured. 
 
 In looking back upon the afternoon's excm-sion, I 
 find a few items to note which may be of service to 
 futm-e travellers. The key of Merstham Church is 
 kept in the village, between the station and the 
 church, and should be obtained on the way. If a 
 visit to Chaldon only is contemplated the little town 
 of Caterham will be found more convenient, and 
 vehicles may be had there at reasonable fares. The 
 drive from Caterham is almost as beautiful as the 
 walk from Merstham, and '* Murray " need not be 
 read backwards.
 
 ST. ALBANS. 
 
 ^^^^HE modem traveller from London to St. 
 
 rX=. !t\_^ Albans will conveniently, if unwittingly, 
 follow the footsteps of a personage of 
 whom it may safely bo said that while 
 
 w 
 
 few in England are so ignorant tl)at they do not 
 know her name, still fewer are so wise that thev 
 know anj'thing more. The semi-fabulous deeds of 
 Boadicea begin and end with a battle at St. Pancras 
 and a massacre at Verulam. The name of Verulam 
 is now lost in the modern name of St. Albans, if 
 anything so ancient can even comparatively be 
 called modem ; and the fame of Battle Bridge is 
 obscured in Penfconville-road and King's-cross, al- 
 though this last appellation has been taken by some 
 to refer to a victory of King Alfred himself. 
 
 But an equally convenient route is by Euston and 
 the North-Western Bail way through Watford. By 
 this line the visitor will find himself deposited at the 
 foot of the hill on which the Abbey stands, and within 
 a few hundred yards of the most prominent relic of 
 the Roman city. Ho will probably make for the 
 Abbey at once, postponing his visit to the older if
 
 ST. ALBANS. 225 
 
 less interesting remains ; and crossing the river from 
 which the ancient Verulam, or Gwerllan derived its 
 name, he will ascend Holywcll-hill, remarking, as 
 he passes, the lane which leads on the right to the 
 ruins of Sopwell Nunnery, where flourished the 
 strong-minded Prioress, Juliana Berners, of sporting 
 and heraldic celebrity. If he wishes for something 
 to occupy his mind during the ascent, he may dis- 
 cuss with himself the truth of the story by which the 
 name is accounted for, and wonder if the first two 
 sisters did really sop their dry bread in the waters of 
 the holy well. The street is uninteresting, few of the 
 houses being ancient ; and after the first view of the 
 Abbey, which is obtained from the railway station, 
 there is little to attract until a narrow passage on the 
 left suddenly reveals the glories of the east end, the 
 Lady-chapel, the south transept, the great tower, 
 and, as if pm'posely to contrast with the ruddy tones 
 of the ancient brickwork, a magnificent cedar, re- 
 newing its youth in a green and flourishing old age. 
 The Decorated windows of the Lady-chapel, although 
 unglazed and dilapidated, the flat Eoman tile of 
 which the walls are built, the heavy Norman arches, 
 and the general absence of pimiacles or flying but- 
 tresses, all give a singular character to the build- 
 ing, and will impress the beholder with a sense of 
 the real unity of the heterogeneous pile. There is, 
 notwithstanding the prevalent decay, a business-like 
 air about it all. Strength, massiveness, complete- 
 ness, were the objects of the builders, — not ornament. 
 
 p
 
 226 ST. ALBANS. 
 
 The abbots were too busj'' with politics, the monks 
 too busy with literature, to have time to spend on 
 mere frivolity ; and if this impression is not fully 
 borne out by a fm-ther examination of the chui-ch, it 
 is at least one which will be shared in at the first 
 sight by almost every visitor. 
 
 Passing through an archway which leads from the 
 ■south side to the north between the sanctuary on the 
 left and the Lady-chapel on the right — a modem ar- 
 rangement similar to that by which Wolsey's Chapel 
 is divided from the chon at St. George's at Wmdsor — 
 a lane which leads back to the street will be reached, 
 and a fine view obtained of the most remarkable 
 featm-e of the Abbey; for almost without end toward 
 "the west stretches, arch after arch, l)a3^ after bay — 
 first Norman then Early English — the long-di'awn 
 perspective of the nave. The north closely resembles 
 the south transept, both bemg mainly of Norman 
 construction, and both having an immense Perpen- 
 dicular window at the end. A good view of the 
 same side may be obtained by entering an archway 
 adjoining a baker's shop m George-street, on the 
 left hand, after leaving the market-place, into which 
 the visitor will have emerged from the passage. An 
 ancient tower formerly stood opposite the street en- 
 trance to this passage, and marked the site of the 
 royal palace of Kingsbury; but the clock tower 
 itself has been utterly restored within the last few 
 years, and j)resents notlimg but its name to interest 
 the archaeologist. In order to walk round the Abbey
 
 ST. ALBANS, 227 
 
 before visiting the interior, it will be necessary to 
 pass through George- street from the market-place, 
 and descending a hill to reach the open space at the 
 western extremity of the chm-ch, which still goes by 
 the suggestive name of Rome Land. 
 
 Passing between the churchyard of the Abbey on 
 the left, and a triangular piece of ground — also a 
 cemetery — on the right, the road leads through the 
 only portion of the Abbey buildings which remains. 
 It is an Early English gateway, smTQOunted by a Per- 
 pendicular building which for centuries had been used 
 as a prison, but is now the site of King Edward the 
 Sixth's Grammar-school, removed from the Lady- 
 chapel, which it had long desecrated — a good thing 
 in the wrong place. The bibliographical visitor 
 will perhaps stop here to £ee the Caxtons unearthed 
 in an old cupboard in the chapel by Mr. Blades in 
 1857 ; otherwise he will pm-sue his way towards the 
 east, along a narrow path between the grassy 
 mounds which mark the site of the cloisters, the 
 chapter-house, the refectory, the dormitories, and 
 all the other buildmgs of a great monastery, of 
 which now not a vestige remains. Dr. Stukeley tells 
 of then- destruction in 1722, and a drawing or two 
 at the British Museum and the Society of Antiqua- 
 ries testify to their greatness. The marks of the 
 roofing of the cloisters remain in the south wall of 
 the nave, and the rest of the buildings which were as 
 usual placed around them. From the top of the great 
 tower, and especially in dry weather, theii' plan may 
 
 p2
 
 228 ST. ALBANS. 
 
 be traced by the colour of the grass and the general 
 direction of the moimds which mark then* site. The 
 great length of the nave, at this side chiefly of 
 pointed work, shows well from the cloister ; and the 
 low building m front of the south transept recalls 
 the chapel of St. Blaize at Westminster Abbey, and 
 points to the site of the chapter-house. The path 
 leads under the turrets of the transept to the east 
 side, where it reaches the foot of the yew-tree akeady 
 mentioned near the Lady-chapel, and the door by 
 which at present the chm-ch is usually entered. This 
 was the door of the sacristy, which lay parallel to the 
 south transept, but has now entirely disappeared. 
 
 Once within the Abbey a feeling of despair comes 
 over the visitor. The impossibility of noticing 
 everything worthy of notice, the vastness of the 
 edifice, the seemingly puny efforts of modem art to 
 rival or even to sustain the wonders of old time, the 
 memories which crowd upon the brain, and the mere 
 physical fatigue induced by traversing the long 
 aisles and ascending the almost inaccessible tower, 
 — all these produce a confusion of mind fi'om which 
 it takes some time to rally. The present building 
 or collection of buildmgs began to be made in the 
 days of Eadmer, the ninth Abbot, towards the close 
 of the tenth century. He collected materials for 
 rebuilding the church of Offa ; and he seems to have 
 set the example, so extensively followed in later 
 times, of usmg the materials of the Koman Verulam 
 for the constmction of the English abbey. But it was
 
 ST. ALBANS. 229 
 
 not until tlic incumbency of Paul, the first Norman 
 Abbot, that any part of the present building was 
 begun, and carried out so effectually that the tower, 
 the transepts, and the easternmost bays of the nave, 
 attest his industry to this day. Some of the pillars 
 in the transepts present features usually assigned 
 to the semi-mythical Saxon period of om* architec- 
 ture, but it is hardly possible that these are part of 
 the materials either of an older building or of the 
 collections of Eadmer. The most prominent interior 
 defect is the want of vaulting ; for although in parts 
 a barrel vault, and in others a wooden arched roof 
 are to be seen, the flat ceiling, or boarding, of the 
 latest period, is unsatisfactory in the extreme. The 
 mediaeval builders were probably aware, that not- 
 withstanding the great thiclmess of the walls, the 
 material of which they were constructed and the 
 method of construction pursued would not bear the 
 thrust of a heavy vaulting ; and their fears are 
 justified by the very insecure appearance now of the 
 south wall of the nave, with its beautiful Early 
 English and Decorated details. It is the eastern end, 
 with its chapels and its sanctuary, which has suffered 
 most in the lajjse of ages. The chapels are gone ; 
 a public path crosses behind the altar ; the Lady- 
 chapel has been till lately a grammar-school ; and 
 of the magnificent marble shrine of the saint him- 
 self nothing remains but the marks in the floor of 
 the sockets of the marble pillars by which it was 
 elevated to such a height that it might be seen even
 
 230 ST. ALBANS. 
 
 from the liigli altar of the choir and over the lofty- 
 screen.* The glory of all this has departed, and 
 much else that was glorious with it ; yet it must not 
 be supposed that St. Albans suffered at the dissolu- 
 tion a tithe of the destruction which fell upon Malmes- 
 bury, or Glastonbury, or Woburn. Sir "William 
 Petre, of whom we have given some account in our 
 notes of a visit to Ingatestone, was associated with 
 Thomas Leigh, another commissioner of Henry 
 VIII. and his minister, Cromwell; to whom, no 
 doubt, much of the destruction commonly attributed 
 to another Cromwell and his Ironsides, properly 
 belongs. They report that, having visited St. 
 Albans Abbey during the absence of the Abl)ot in 
 London, they summoned him before them, and en- 
 deavoured to persuade him to surrender. He 
 seems to have been very unwilling to do so, and 
 said he would rather have to beg his bread all the 
 days of his life. However, whether his resolution 
 failed, or whether he was tempted by handsome 
 offers, he at length, as we know, sm-rendered peace- 
 fully, was well pensioned, and afterwards himself 
 became by pm-chase the possessor of the ancient 
 precincts, finally yielding them to Queen Mary, in 
 contemplation of her intention of restormg him as 
 Abbot and renewing the greatness of the Abbey. This 
 intention was never carried out, but the church was 
 saved. Its destruction had almost begun. The first 
 
 * Several portions have been recovered since these hnes 
 were written.
 
 ST. ALBANS. 231 
 
 grantee of the site had pulled down the parish 
 church of St. Andrew, which stood on the north side 
 in the chui'chyard, as St. Margaret's yet stands at 
 Westminster ; and hut for Boreman's timely inter- 
 ference all would also have heen ruined. 
 
 The Abbey of St. Albans is itself so closely wound 
 up with our national history, that any detailed 
 account of it would be a mere cento fi'om the chro- 
 nicles. Yet, viewed from various points, it will be 
 found a curious and instructive commentary. A 
 series of scenes, more or less real, more or less 
 authentic, more or less connected one with the other, 
 are presented successively, whilst, like the hero of an 
 old romance, the proto-martyr of Britain — or, as the 
 monks seem usually to have called him, in defiance 
 of history, the proto-martyr of England — comes into 
 prominence over and over again, living or dying, 
 dead, buried, or dug up again, until, by the mere 
 force of reiteration, the story becomes true, if it 
 wanted truth before, and the effects of the legend 
 are greater than the subject of the legend itself. 
 Tradition is a weak staff to lean upon ; yet it was 
 the tradition of five centuries upon which Offa 
 II. was content to fomid his Abbey and estab- 
 lish his colony of Benedictines. Alban suffered in 
 the fom'th century, when, according to the St. 
 Albans Chronicle, in MS. at Lambeth, quoted by 
 Dr. Nicholson, " was gret persecution of Christen 
 pepell by the tyrant Diocletian." Amphibalus, by 
 whom he had been converted, was put to death at
 
 232 ST. ALBANS. 
 
 Eedboiu'ne, not far off, and bis relics, having been 
 discovered in the reign of Henry II., were brought to 
 the Lady-chapel and interred near those of the friend 
 from whom he had been separated for seven hundred 
 years or more. Gildas and Bede are the earliest 
 historians by whom St. Alban is mentioned. All 
 the more minute particulars of his martyrdom must 
 be apocryphal. Tradition says that the exact spot 
 on which he suffered was where the north transept 
 now stands, and that a tablet was placed on the wall 
 of the Eoman city in the valley below detailing the 
 crime and the punishment as a warning to future 
 offenders. That his remains were not bm*nt accord- 
 ing to the Eoman rule, but were buried where he 
 fell, we owe to the piety of his disciples : that they 
 were discovered hidden under the turf — " sub 
 cespite diu absconditum," as Matthew Paris puts 
 it — must be acknowledged a miracle. Nor was 
 his mart}Tdom the last which his city witnessed. 
 An interval of twelve hundred and fifty-thi-ee 
 years and two months separates it from that 
 of George Tankerville, who, under the regime of 
 Bishop Bonner, was bm-nt alive on the triangular 
 plot of land to westward of the Abbey, and m 
 .front of the Abbey gateway of which we have 
 already spoken. His persecutors no doubt took care 
 that no futm'e Offa should discover his remains ; 
 but when the flames which consumed him died out, 
 Avith them died the last hope of restoring the system 
 .whose si)lendid results, towering above and around
 
 ST. ALBANS. 233 
 
 his stake, must have seemed hateful to his latest gaze. 
 The spot on which he suffered reminds us of the 
 scene of Hooper's execution at Gloucester; the same 
 west window seems to look down on hoth, and the 
 story of the Abbey of St. Mary resembles not dis- 
 tantly that of the Abbey of St. Alban, up to the 
 point at which one became the seat of an episcopal 
 see, and the other, less fortunate though not less 
 deserving, became, by the generosity of a private 
 individual, a parish chm-ch. Master Stump, a rich 
 clothier of the town, bought it for £400 and pre- 
 sented it for ever to his fellow-parishioners of St. 
 Andrews. The advowson was, until recent times, m 
 private hands, but ho,ving been purchased by the 
 late venerated rector. Dr. Nicholson, it was be- 
 queathed to the see of Eochester. 
 
 The story of the relics of St. Alban is a tj^pical 
 example of what may be called the hony of history. 
 According to one account, the body of the martyr 
 was early transferred to Kome. According to a 
 second, and equally good authority, it was re- 
 moved to Cologne. According to a third, it was 
 preserved at Ely. According to a fourth, it never 
 left the scene of the martyrdom. All these accounts 
 cannot be true, nor can all the minor legends which 
 crop up here and there in the mediseval books. A 
 correspondence which took place in the Guardian in 
 1871, threw some light on the subject, and from it I 
 ventm*e to epitomise the following notes on the 
 shrine and relics.
 
 234 ST. ALBANS. 
 
 We find then that, to take the earliest story first, 
 the tomb of St. Alban was known at Verulam 125 
 years after his martyrdom, when it was visited by 
 St. Germanus, who, it will be remembered, held a 
 council at Verulam in 429 to combat the opinions of 
 Pelagius. St. Germanus was presented with a por- 
 tion of the relics as a token of gratitude for his exer- 
 tions in healing the womids of the British Chm-ch. 
 These relics, according to Constantius, consisted 
 only of a lump of earth saturated with the blood of 
 the martyr. According to Molanus ("Martyro- 
 logia Usuardi," Antwerp, 1583), they consisted of St. 
 Alban's head and the upper portion of his body. 
 Constantius is very minute in his description of a 
 sod, " in qua apparebat, cruore servato rubere, mar- 
 tyrum csedem, persecutore pallente." Now Constan- 
 tius, we must bear in mind, was the contemporary of 
 Germanus. His is the earliest authority for the 
 mart}Tdom of St. Alban ; but for the after-legend, 
 it only proves that his tomb was shown at Verulam 
 in the fifth century. 
 
 St. Germanus transported the relic, whatever it 
 was, to Eavenna, where he died in 448, when it was 
 removed to Eome. There is next a mention in 731 
 by Bede of the thaumaturgic powers of the martyr's 
 tomb at Verulam, "to this very day." Next, 
 in 793, Offa founded the Abbey ; but the tomb was 
 unknown and the bones lost. Sixty-two years of 
 disturbance and war must be taken to account for 
 so strange a fact. A dream was needed to reveal
 
 ST. ALBANS. 235 
 
 the secret. Offa, at Bath, had the requh-ed dream, 
 searched m a cemetery on the hill above Verulam, 
 and, we are not surprised to hear, discovered there 
 a body, which a mu-acle further identified as that of 
 St. Alban. Offa surrounded the skull with a golden 
 cu-clet, on which, in defiance of history, he wrote, 
 "Hoc est caput Sancti Albani Anglorum proto 
 martyris." The building of the Abbey went on 
 from this with various interruptions for four hun- 
 dred years. Meanwhile, the Empress Theophania, 
 wife of Otho II., visited Eome in 989. She visited 
 the shrines of SS. Peter and Paul, and was pre- 
 sented by the Pope with the relics of St. Alban, 
 which St. Germanus had brought to Eavenna 550 
 years before. The following year she carried them 
 with her to Mentz, where, by the advice of the 
 Archbishop, she changed her saint's name to 
 Albinus, there being already another St. Alban in 
 the neighbourhood. She went on to Cologne, where 
 she finally deposited the relics with the Order of St. 
 Pantaleon, and, to use the words of Dr. Back, in 
 his Heilige Koln, as we have them translated by 
 Mr. Eabbetts, " according to the venerable traditions 
 of the St. Pantaleon's Order, the relics which are 
 enshrined in the above-mentioned magnificent shrine 
 were no doubt always considered and adored as the 
 earthly remains of that martyr St. Alban who had 
 obtained the palm of martyrdom, as the first martyr 
 and Christian hero of the faith on English soil at 
 Yerula, in England, Hardfordshire (Hertfordshire),
 
 236 ST. ALBANS. 
 
 at the time of the Emperor Diocletian, about the 
 year 303." Now, as to the rest of the story of the 
 English relics. 
 
 In the tenth centmy, according to Matthew Paris, 
 St. Albans was visited by the Danes and the relics 
 carried to Denmark, where they were for some time 
 venerated in an abbey of Black Monks, till, by a 
 special intervention of the saint himself, they were 
 restored to the coimtry "where he shed his blood 
 for Chi-ist." {Vitce Ahhatum, p. 992.) At the 
 time of the Norman Conquest (here we quote fi'om 
 Mr. King's letter) "the relics of St. Alban were, it 
 was asserted, removed to Ely for greater secmity. 
 The Liher Eliensis declares that they were never 
 restored, and that they always formed one of the 
 treasures of Ely. Matthew Paris asserts that the 
 Abbot of St. Albans concealed the true relics in the 
 wall of his own chm'ch (whence they were removed 
 and enshrined when the country had become safer), 
 and substituted for them some ordinar}- bones, which 
 were sent in all honour to El}'. 
 
 ** At the later translation, in the reign of Hemy 
 III., the bones of the mart3T were carefully num- 
 bered, and, with the exception of one small relic 
 which was known to be in Spain, were found perfect. 
 This was done because 'quoddam .Collegium in 
 Dacia ' — no doubt the Benedictine monastery to 
 which the Danish plunderers had carried the relics 
 — and also the monastery of Ely, 'mendaciter 
 asserebant ' that they were in possession of the
 
 ST. ALBANS. 237 
 
 tiTio remains (Matthew Paris, Vita Ahhatum, p. 
 1010)." 
 
 Next, we read in the St. Albans Chronicle the 
 relics were carried round the town in 1429, together 
 with the shrines of two other saints, " when the 
 weather, which had been cloudy and dark, became 
 bright and clear as soon as the reliquary was borne 
 forth, though the day following was marked by a hail- 
 storm."* In 1431 the same means were taken 
 to produce a contrary effect, and with equal success. 
 And so on, until the dissolution. We must now 
 return to Cologne, with Dr. Nicholson, who went to 
 visit the shrine in that city. We quote from Mr. 
 Lloyd : — 
 
 " In 1850 the Eev. Dr. Nicholson, rector of the 
 Abbey, read a paper [afterwards printed] before the 
 Architectural and Archaeological Society of St. 
 Alban, in which he said that the above statement 
 had raised in him a desire to pm'sue some inquiry 
 into the subject, and he proceeded to narrate how, 
 after consulting many ponderous folios for histories 
 of the saint, he had lately remained a day at 
 Cologne, and had been permitted to see in St. 
 Mary's Church that shrine whose roof, gables, and 
 sides he describes as having upon them numerous 
 figures, &c., in silver-gilt, and also tlm-ty-three 
 Latin verses, two of them being those quoted by 
 Mr. Thompson." 
 
 * Riley's Chron. Mon. S. Alb., p. 30.
 
 238 ST. ALBANS. 
 
 Mr. K. J. Kiiig has thus summed up the questions 
 at issue : — 
 
 " All that can be said is, that the remains sent to 
 Cologne by the Empress Theophania were probably 
 as genuine as those so long reverenced in their 
 magnificent shrine at St. Albans. It is joossible 
 that Offa, diggmg in the neighbom-hood of Verula- 
 mium, may have lighted on an ancient sepulchre 
 contaming human remains. The belief that any 
 relics so discovered were those of St, Alban rests on 
 evidence altogether ' supra historicam.' 
 
 "Messrs. Buckler, in then- account of St. Albans, 
 assert that the relics contained m the shrine were 
 carried to Eome after the dissolution ; and that 
 they are still preserved there." 
 
 So that if the real relics are anj^where they are 
 at St. Albans ; the relics found b}^ Offa perhaps at 
 Eome ; those carried away by Germanus at Eavenna ; 
 those presented to Theophania at Cologne. 
 
 Fragments of the shrine itself have been found 
 during the progress of the work of restoration, built 
 into various modern walls, and have been replaced 
 where they formerly stood. 
 
 I retm-n to the history of the Abbey itself. Many 
 remarkable events of the fourteenth and fifteenth 
 centm'ies took place at St. Albans. 
 
 It was here in 1357, and afterwards, that the 
 Black Prince lodged his royal captive, during the 
 incumbency of Abbot de la Mare ; and the story of 
 the concealment of treasui'e by Sir John de Molins,
 
 ST. ALBANS. 239 
 
 of which I spoke in my chapters on " London Four 
 Centuries Ago" (p. 87), probably relates to the same 
 Abbot. Here, in 1381, Jack Straw and his followers 
 hesieged the monks. Here the first conspiracy 
 against Eichard II. was hatched at the table of 
 Abbot de la Motte. Here the Duke of Lancaster 
 and the King lodged on the way to the deposition 
 scene at Westmmster ; while the bold Bishop who 
 protested against Hemy' s usurpation was here com- 
 mitted to the Abbot's custody ; and, not long after, 
 the Abbot attended the funeral of Eichard at King's 
 Langley, and was buried himself within the year. 
 Here, forty-six years later, "good" Duke Humplu-ey 
 was bm*ied.. From the eastern gallery of the tower 
 the monks watched anxiously in 1455, while the 
 battle in the Key Field, near the Sopwell Nunnery, 
 was decided against the family of then- patron : 
 they could see the wounded creeping down to the 
 river to quench their burning thirst and wash thek 
 wounds, and theii- companions searching the town 
 till the King was captured in the house of Sir 
 Edmund Westby, bailiff and tamier. But in 1459 
 the same King comes in state to St. Albans, and, 
 having been the guest of the Abbot durmg the 
 Easter week, leaves his best goTVTi to the Prior as a 
 present. Once more at least was he at St. Albans, 
 this time to be again captm-ed, but by his own party. 
 The battle was fought at Bernard's Heath, beyond 
 St. Peter's Church, on a snowy Shrove Tuesday, m 
 14G1 ; and the King, Queen, and Prince of Wales
 
 240 ST, ALBANS. 
 
 attended at the Abbe}' on Asli Wednesday, not for 
 humiliation, but to give thanks for their victory. 
 Yet the Queen did not prevent her army fi-om sack- 
 ing the Abbey immediately after, and the Abbot 
 and monks, who had previously favoured the Lan- 
 castrians, beheld with pleasure the proclamation of 
 Edward IV. in the following month. Between the 
 date of the two battles the tomb of Duke Humphrey 
 of Gloucester was made, in a place of honom*, close 
 to the shrine of St. Alban himself, and surmounted 
 by the care of Abbot Wheathamp stead with sculp- 
 tured canopies and delicate carving, which far sur- 
 pass those of his own monument in the choir. The 
 coffin of Duke Humphrey may be viewed through a 
 grated door, but the cm-ious fresco, or distemper 
 painting rather, which formerly decorated the wall, 
 is almost obliterated. 
 
 But it is chiefly for its services to literatm-e that 
 St. Albans deserves well of the men of this genera- 
 tion. It was early a seat of learning ; and retained 
 its reputation imtil after the invention of printing. 
 Abbot ^Ifric, in the reign of King Edgar, translated 
 parts of the Old Testament into the vernacular, 
 and left among other writings a Latin and Saxon 
 Glossary. He became Archbishop of Canterbury in 
 995, and died in 1005. A long succession of names 
 represent the men who in after ages sustained the 
 honour of the genius loci which he had evoked. 
 Such were another /Elfric, the eleventh Abbot ; 
 Piobert de Gorham, who is said to have refused ad-
 
 ST. ALBANS. 241 
 
 mission to one Nicholas Breakspere, on account of 
 the insufficiency of his learning, although this ^Yas 
 that Nicholas who afterwards reached at Eome the 
 Chair of St. Peter and remains as Adrian IV., the 
 only Englishman who ever sat in it ; Symon, who 
 is best known by his connection with Becket, and 
 who repah'ed and enlarged the scriptormm, and built 
 a library adjoining the south aisle of the nave ; 
 Wallingford, the clockmaker, twenty-eighth Abbot ; 
 above all, "Wlieathampstead, in whose incumbency 
 the scriptorium attained its highest excellence, up- 
 wards of eighty books having been transcribed in 
 his time ; and Wallingford, under whose patronage 
 a press was set up, and the first book printed at St. 
 Albans as early as 1483. As might be expected this 
 was a chronicle, for the Abbey had always been famous 
 for its chroniclers ; and Matthew Paris, William Kish- 
 anger, Thomas Walsingham, Pioger Wendover, John 
 of Tynemouth, and Thomas Piamrydge, afterwards 
 Abbot, were all historians, whom modern historians 
 can well afford to honour. Of all, the first is the 
 most remarkable. Matthew, the chronicler, accord- 
 ing to recent researches, was Matthew Paris, and 
 though a distinction has been made between him 
 and another Matthew, surnamed of "Westminster," 
 it seems probable now that there was only one 
 Matthew, and that he was the monk of St. Albans 
 of whom we speak. His own original manuscript 
 is in the British Museum,* and contains his 
 - Royal MS. 14. c. vii. 
 Q
 
 242 ST, ALBANS. 
 
 portrait, reiiresenting liim as kneeling before the 
 Blessed Virgin and her Son. He is in the monastic 
 dress, and over his head his name is written in 
 Latin. The Look contains a history of England 
 from 1067 to 1253, almost entirely in the hand- 
 writing of Matthew himself. John of Basingstoke 
 was a deacon of St. Albans ; and Nicholas, a chap- 
 lain, was the assistant of Grosseteste ; indeed, a list 
 of the literary men who flom:ished here would alone 
 occui^y all om- space. 
 
 Attempts have been made to trace the fate of the 
 great library which must have accumulated here 
 before the dissolution. Many of the books have 
 been identified. In the British Museum, in the 
 Bodleian, in private collections, these old treasures 
 are now scattered about to tell both of the industry 
 and of the taste of the St. Albans Scriptorium. Of 
 all these books there are few more interesting than 
 a folio volume in the National Librar}-, part of the 
 famous Cottonian collection. Like the rest of Sir 
 Eobert Cotton's books it is classified by the name of 
 one of the Twelve Caesars, and is best known to 
 antiquarians under the title of Nero I). 7. It con- 
 tains a catalogue of benefactors to the Abbey who 
 had been admitted to the fraternity of St. Alban 
 before the year 14G3, together with their portraits, 
 painted in a rough but efiective style. The greater 
 part of the book was compiled by Thomas Walsing- 
 ham in 1380, but there are additions which bring 
 it down a hundred years later. In a list of the
 
 ST. ALBANS. 243 
 
 abbots we have portraits, more or less conjectural 
 of the early ones, and some very elaborate paintings 
 representing Abbot Whcathampstead, and of two of 
 the others. But most of the pictures are not so 
 highly finished. One of them, which shows us 
 Abbot John of Berkhamstede, who appears in some 
 way to have offended his monks, is very curious. 
 The following is a translation of what the bio- 
 grapher tells us about him : — * 
 
 " Since he did nothing memorable in his life we 
 shall place nothing respecting him in the present 
 page ; but we warn the reader that he be converted 
 to works of piet}^ and pour forth prayers to the 
 Omnipotent for his soul." One would hardly gather 
 from this that Abbot John had been so distinguished 
 for his efforts to emancipate the monks from the 
 King's control ; and the picture represents him 
 not only with a deplorable countenance, but in an 
 attitude admirably expressive of remorse. 
 
 It is curious to note, regarding this picture, that 
 though it was painted so many centuries ago, we 
 know the name of the painter, and several other- 
 circumstances relating to the history of the book. 
 In a list of the monks at that time in the abbey we 
 are told of Thomas de Walsingham that he "com- 
 piled this book and jn'ocured from John de Bed- 
 ingham and Christiana his wife seven marks of 
 
 * Some further particulars regarding Abbot Jolin of Bert- 
 liamsted will be found at p. 204. 
 
 q2
 
 244 , ST, ALBANS. 
 
 money for the work of the new gate," His success 
 in begging is thus put to his credit. A little further 
 on we have the name of the scribe who vrrote the 
 book out fair: it was "Willelmus de Wylum." 
 And near the end we have the illuminator's name. 
 He seems to have done more than merely work 
 himseK. We read of him, "Alan Strayler worked 
 much upon the i)ainting of this book, and gave 
 three shillings and four pence, which was owed to 
 him for colours." Alan adds a little couplet in 
 rhyming Latin expressive of his satisfaction, and of 
 his pious hope that with the celestial choirs he may 
 be everlastingly associated. Beside the verses he 
 favours the reader with his likeness. This book 
 came b}^ some means into the possession of Queen 
 Mary ; it was next owned by the great Lord Yerulam, 
 Francis Bacon, whose residence and whose grave 
 ■are not beyond the sound of the Abbey bells. He 
 gave it in 1623 to Sir Kobert Cotton, and it happily 
 •escaped the fire which destroj-ed so many of its 
 companions. 
 
 The monastery, notwithstanding the mollifying 
 influence of the arts, oppressed the town with an 
 iron hand. Twice during the eighteen years of 
 Eversden's incumbency was the Abbey besieged by 
 the burghers. They gained by the King's si:)ecial 
 interference some alleviation of their bondage, but 
 even the strong rule of Edward III. was unable to 
 prevent Wallingford from resuming the charter, and 
 forbidding the town even to send its representatives
 
 ST. ALBANS. 245 
 
 to Parliament. The pride, too, of these spiritual 
 peers is constantly evinced in their contests for the 
 j)recedence accorded to them by Adrian IV., and the 
 rivalry and jealousy of the Abbot of the royal 
 foundation of Westminster. Another questionable 
 feature is the importance of an officer Avhose very 
 existence is capable of a sinister construction. 
 Time after time was the Cellarer elected Abbot ; 
 na}^ John de la Moote, one of the most eminent of 
 the line, when Cellarer, before his election, ^Yas put 
 into the stocks, as we read, at Luton, by Philip de 
 Limbm-g, in hatred to the Abbot and "utter con- 
 tempt of religion." 
 
 The history of the Abbey after the dissolution offers 
 few features of interest. The general absence of 
 seventeenth- century tombs and of eighteenth-century 
 tablets is worthy of remark. A few flat stones 
 commemorate parochial oflicers; but the monuments, 
 after the brasses, or their marks on so many graves, 
 have been examined, leave hardly anything of note. 
 Of the later inscriptions which occur perhaps the 
 most remarkable is that of John Jones, Master of 
 the Grammar-school, which was as follows : — * 
 ''Here lies John Jones, a Welshman, Master of the 
 School of St. Albans, a most learned man, who 
 when this church was repaired in 1684 at the 
 public expense, carved for himself also a monument 
 
 "-•= H. S. E. lohanues lones Wallus, Scliolao S. Albanensis 
 Hypodidscalus literatissimus, qui clum ecclia. l)a.'C Ao. 1G64
 
 246 ST. ALBANS. 
 
 for that he wrote * The Fane of St. Alban,' a poem 
 in heroic verse, which will last longer than this 
 slab, than even this building or the very age itself." 
 Another has often been quoted for its quaintness: — 
 " In memory of Thomas Sheppard, son of Thos. 
 and Mary Sheppard, died Feb. y'= 15"' 1766 Aged 
 XXX years. 
 
 " Great was my Grief, I could not Pi est, 
 God called me hence, lie thought it best; 
 Unhappy marriage was mj' fate : 
 I did repent when it was too late." 
 
 And one or two of the Abbots' tombs still bear 
 jmrt at least of their brass inlaying : among them 
 are a couple of fragmentary inscriptions. On a 
 stone in the sanctuary is the brass of Eobert 
 Beamier, a monk, with the words from the fifty-first 
 psalm, "Cor mundum in me crea Deus " — " Create 
 a clean heart in me, God, " and a short epitaph 
 stating the date of his death, 1470, and the fact that 
 for forty years he had filled various minor oflices in 
 the abbey. Not far off is another stone, from which 
 everything has been torn except the scroll which 
 issued from the mouth of a vanished monk, whose 
 figure, as may be seen by the marks of the brass, 
 once knelt at the foot of a crucifix by which stood 
 
 publicis impensis instauraretur exsculpsit sibi quoq. monu- 
 Kientum quod inscripsit " Fanura S. Albani " poema carmina 
 lieroico, hoc lapide, hue etiam aide, revoq. perennius omni. 
 Obijt Ao. lt)b(i.
 
 ST. ALBANS. 247 
 
 tli€ Virgin and St. John. On the scroll is this 
 verse from an old hymn of the Sariim Breviary: — 
 
 " Salva liedemptor plasma Tuum nobile, 
 Signatum Sancto vultus Tui lumine, 
 Nee lacerari sinas fraude da;nionum 
 Propter quos mortis exsolvisti pretium ;" 
 
 which may be translated — 
 
 '• Save, Lord, the work Thy hands have wrought, 
 The face illumined by Thy smiles ; 
 Nor sufTer those Thy blood has bought 
 To perish through the devil's wiles. " 
 
 Near these are the despoiled gravestones of Abbot 
 Stoke, Abbot John of Berkhamsted, and of another 
 Abbot who cannot now be identified, although the 
 inscription remains, for it runs thus : — 
 
 " Hie quidem terra tegitur, peccati solvens debitum, 
 Cui nomen noa imponitur, in libro vitae sit couscriptum." 
 
 It is hardly possible to give the beauty of these 
 lines in an English version, but the following 
 attempt has been made : — 
 
 One here is laid, who dying paid 
 
 In death the debt of sin ; 
 His name, not here, may yet appear 
 
 The Book of Life within. 
 
 According to Mr. Haines it is the brass of Abbot 
 John Moote. Koyalists were imprisoned here, as 
 appears from a name cut upon the wall of the 
 sacrarium, " Hugh Lewis souldier in his Ma'" 
 army taken prisoner at Eavensfield, Northampton- 
 shire, June 1645."
 
 248 ST, ALBA^'S. 
 
 The repairs contemplated, and iu part already- 
 carried out, are of a very thorough kind. The great 
 tower, 140 feet in height, and open to the church 
 almost from roof to floor, was in a tottering condi- 
 tion. The Eoman bricks of which it is built, or 
 rather heaped up, have yielded to the weight of two 
 thousand years, and a settlement at the southern 
 side threatened its very existence. The fees for 
 viewing the chm-ch go to increase the fund ; but 
 they are so moderate, and the number of visitors so 
 small, that little aj^preciable influence is exerted on 
 the total sum required. The whole, or nearly the 
 whole, of the chm-ch has been covered with white- 
 wash, and its removal, and the restoration of the 
 ancient painted plaster work, is an expensive 
 process. The walls of the south aisle lean per- 
 ceptibly outward ; and though something might 
 be done by buttressing to remedy their inclination, 
 yet the unity of the building would be seriously 
 compromised, and Sir Gilbert Scott may have 
 no choice but to pull down and rebuild the whole 
 side. The chief repairs provided since the Abbey 
 became a parish chm'cli have been of a temporary 
 character. James I., it is true, took an interest in 
 the place, but his exertions were of the vicarious 
 kind which he usually employed. He took much 
 credit to himself for the translation of the Bible, for 
 which others had to pay ; and at St. Albans, 
 though he granted leave to his Queen and her maids 
 to search in the ruins for treasure, his chief con-
 
 ST. ALBANS. 249 
 
 ti'ibiition towards the repairs was a brief permitting 
 his subjects to subscribe. 
 
 Much perraancnt benefit may be expected to re- 
 sult from the repairs, so far, carried out. But it is 
 impossible not to regret that the look of antiquity 
 should in any way be rubbed off. When we look at 
 the delicate iridescence and rich hues with which the 
 old bricks seem to be colom-ed, at the creeping 
 lichens and many-toned weather-stains which lend 
 a harmonious and subtle tintmg to the venerable 
 walls and crumbling stones, we feel a kind of 
 trembling hope that the architect will deal tenderly 
 with the ancient pile, and perhaps, for old times' 
 sake, 
 
 '' Be to its faults a little blind, 
 And to its failings not unkind." 
 
 In the town of St. Albans the visitor will find little 
 to interest him. The absence of ordinary sanitary 
 arrangements will remind him of the state of many 
 pictm'esque continental cities ; but here it is the 
 more unpleasant, from the want of the compensating 
 attractions. Yet a walk should be talien through 
 the market-place to St. Peter's Church, half of 
 which, with the tombs of those w4io fell at Bernard's 
 Heath and the Key Field, the knights and mighty 
 men of old, w'as destroyed dm'ing the prevalence of 
 an improving mania in the early years of the pre- 
 sent century. A long street leads past Eome Land 
 and the Abbey gate down to the river's edge and up 
 the opposite slope to St. Michael's Chm-ch, whose
 
 250 
 
 ST. ALBANS. 
 
 quaint half-timbered gables and flint -svalls derive a 
 double interest fi'om the tomb of Francis, Lord 
 Verulam and Viscount of St. Allmns, ^Yllich they 
 contain. On leaving the grave of Bacon, the visitor 
 should descend to the river again, and, keeping on 
 its right bank by a footpath, should see the remains 
 of a Eoman Avail and the marks of Eoman fortifica- 
 tions in the meadows on his v/av, and so retm-n to 
 
 DOOEWAT, NOETH TBANSEPT, iX. Al.BAXS ABBEY.
 
 ST. ALBANS. 251 
 
 the station. We were at St. Albans in the early 
 autumn, and at tliis season such a walk should by 
 no means be omitted. The gleam of the setting sun 
 on the tower of the Abbey, and the ruddy glow with 
 which the old brickwork answers back, the dark green 
 of the elms lower on the hill, the shadows creeping 
 across the meadows by the river and gradually 
 rising to the Abbey itself, all go to form a picture 
 not easily forgotten ; and so the weary sightseer is 
 whirled back towards London through the cornfields 
 and pastures of Hertfordshire, and finds himself 
 repeating half-miconsciously the misspelt motto on 
 Abbot Wheathampstead's tomb : — Vallcs habunda- 
 bunt. 
 
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