Old and New London, A Narrative of its History, its People and its Places. Illustrated with Numerous Engravings from the Most Authentic Sources. vol 3
Thornbury, Walter
1872-78
Chapter LVII:The Sanctuary and the Almonry.
Chapter LVII:The Sanctuary and the Almonry.
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writes Pennant, The right of sanctuary, Stow tells us, extended not only to the church itself, but to the churchyard and close adjoining, and even to a considerable distance. he writes, This lane is now absorbed in , between and the . | |
A short account of the privilege of sanctuary may be of interest here. It appears that under our Norman kings this privilege was of a twofold character, protecting both debtors and criminals from arrest---the general, and belonging to all churches; the other peculiar and particular, granted to sundry places by royal charter. Among such places in London were the and St. Katharine's Hospital, near the Tower; and , near ; Whitefriars, between and the Thames; the old Mint in ; and the neighbourhood of the Abbey. | |
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A sanctuary might (if such privilege were granted by the king's charter) afford a place of refuge even to those who had committed high or petty treason; and a person escaping thither might, if he chose, remain undisturbed for life. He still, however, had the option of taking the oath of abjuration and quitting the realm for ever. Sanctuary, however, seems in neither case to have been allowed as a protection to those who escaped from the sheriff after having been delivered to him for execution. | |
says Mr. Timbs,
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Formerly, as we learn from Blackstone's
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Henry VII. wrote to Pope Alexander, desiring him to exercise his authority in prohibiting sanctuary to all such as had once enjoyed it; and to adjudge all Englishmen who fled to the sanctuary for the offence of treason, to be enemies to the Christian faith. as Baker in his tells us,
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The Sanctuary is thus noticed in Capgrave's in :--
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Whatever may have been the advantages and benefits resulting from the right of sanctuary to the weaker classes in a rude and lawless age, it must be owned that in the course of time the charitable charter of Edward the Confessor became a curse to the metropolis; the sanctuary at becoming the home and head-quarters of all that was low and disreputable, and indeed a very sink of iniquity. It grew into an asylum for vagabonds, debtors, thieves, highwaymen, coiners, and felons, who could defy the law as long as they remained within its precincts. Here they formed a community of their own, adopted a common language and a code of habits, and demoralised each other and their neighbours as well. | |
Dean Stanley observes, respecting the right of sanctuary at , that it The grim old fortress, which was still standing in the century, is itself a proof that the right reached back, if not to the time of Edward the Confessor, at least to the period when additional sanctity was imparted to the whole Abbey by his canonisation in ; and the right professed to be founded on charters by King Lucius. | |
Some instances of its use may be of interest here. To the Sanctuary at Judge Tresilian . Richard II.) fled for refuge, but was dragged thence to Tyburn, where he was hanged. In the Duchess of Gloucester fled thither, being accused of witchcraft and high treason, but the wonted privilege was denied to her; and the same lot shortly afterwards befell Thomas Barret, a gallant soldier who had served under the Duke of Bedford in the French wars, for he was In the Protector (the Duke of York), the Earl of Warwick, and others, In Lord de Scales, as he was on his way to seek shelter at , was killed in crossing the Thames. It is known to every reader of history how [extra_illustrations.3.485.1] , the Queen of Edward IV., in the year , escaped from the Tower, and registered herself and her companions here as and how here, she gave birth to Edward V., who was She is described by Sir Thomas More as sitting here in her grief and distress. Here the unhappy queen was induced by the Duke of Buckingham and the Archbishop of York to surrender her little son, Edward V., to his uncle Richard, who carried him to the Tower, where the children shared a common fate. | |
In the year , during the pontificate of Innocent VIII., a bull was issued, by which a little restraint was laid on the privileges of sanctuary here. It provided that if thieves, murderers, or robbers, registered as sanctuary men, should sally out, and commit fresh crimes, which they frequently did, and enter again, in such cases they might be taken out of their sanctuaries by the king's officers; and also, that as for debtors, who had taken sanctuary to defraud their creditors, their persons only should be protected; but that their goods out of sanctuary should be liable to seizure. As for traitors, the king was allowed to appoint keepers for them in their sanctuaries to prevent their escape. | |
Long before this these privileged places had become great evils, and Henry VII. had applied to the Pope for a reformation of the abuses connected with them, but he could obtain only the concession here recorded, a concession which was confirmed by Pope Alexander VI. in . | |
In the Sanctuary died the poet Skelton, tutor and poet Laureate to Henry VIII. He had fled thither to escape the vengeance of Cardinal Wolsey, whom he had lampooned in verses which show more dulness than malice. | |
The old sanctuaries and continued in full force till the dissolution of the religious houses under Henry VIII., when several statutes were massed regulating, limiting, and partly abolishing the privilege of refuge, though it was not until the of James I. that the latter was wholly swept away--in theory at least. The change introduced by Henry, as we learn from history, was followed by what has been termed the for when the poorer classes, who had grown up in dependence on the old abbeys and monasteries, came to be suddenly deprived of the means of subsistence by the stoppage of their alms, society had to suffer--not altogether undeservedly--for the change which the tyrannical king had brought about. It became necessary, therefore, to enact further laws for the punishment of sturdy and wilful beggars, and ultimately to bring in sundry to meet the case of the other large population which had been reduced to poverty by the stoppage of the alms on which they had lived. How far these measures tended to the happiness and social improvement of the lower orders it is not difficult for any reader of history to judge. | |
At the Reformation these places of sanctuary began to sink into disrepute. They were, however, still preserved, and though none but the most abandoned resorted to them, the dread of innovation, or some other cause, preserved them from demolition, till, in the year , the evils arising from them had grown so enormous that it became absolutely necessary to take some legislative measures for their destruction. | |
The privilege of sanctuary caused the houses within the precinct to let for high rents, but this privilege was totally abolished by James I., though the bulk of the houses which composed the precinct was not taken down till . | |
It may be questioned how far it was politic to invest any place with such sanctity as that it should shelter a murderer against the strong hand of the law; for it will be remembered that the in the Old Testament were appointed for the benefit of none but those who had killed a neighbour by mischance (see Deut. iv. ). Taking sanctuary was well understood among the ancient Jews. There were cities of refuge on the east and on the west side of Jordan. The Rabbins say that the high roads leading to these cities were kept free and in good repair, that finger-posts pointed in the direction leading to them, and that every facility was given to the refugee to make his escape from the hands of the avenger of blood. The Rev. Mr. Nightingale, in the says,
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As a proof of the extent to which the privilege of sanctuary was used in the Middle Ages, it may be mentioned here that the Rev. A. G. L'Estrange, the author of the work states that at Beaulieu Abbey, near | |
p.486 | Southampton, in the year , there were no less than He adds that the sanctuary at Beaulieu was held in such reverence that even monarchs dared not violate it. It is said that after the rough work of the Reformation had been carried out in London the great church in the royal city of Lancaster was specially reserved by Henry VIII. as conferring that privilege on murderers. |
In Machyn's (written in ) is the following amusing description of a procession of Sanctuary men:--
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We have given at the commencement of this chapter Dr. Stukeley's description of the Sanctuary. There were, however, here really sanctuaries, the Great and the Little; or rather, perhaps, branches of the same institution. At the west end of the latter, in the time of Maitland, towards the end of the, reign of George II., there were remains of This fabric originally had but entrance or door below, and that in the east side, with a window hard by, which seems to have been the only below the height of feet of the building, where the walls were reduced to feet in thickness, and contained windows on the south side. continues Maitland, | |
p.487 p.488 | The walls of this building, says Mr. Mackenzie Walcott, were of Kentish rag-stone, cemented with mortar made of the same material.
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Stow, in his description of , says, with reference to this ancient structure,
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This strong tower, or a part of it, was afterwards converted into a tavern, which bore the sign of the and its vaults served the purposes of a wine-cellar. The church was demolished about the year , and on part of its site a meat-market was subsequently built. The market was removed early in the present century, and in its place was erected the present , or , of which we shall have more to say when dealing with the modern memories of . | |
In the Great Sanctuary was formerly a tavern called the Pepys, on the , informs us that he dined at an ordinary called the --a somewhat unusual godfather for a sinful tavern. This house was pulled down only in the beginning of the present century to make way for an extension of the market-place, which in its turn has made room for a new , as above mentioned. The last landlord opened a new public-house in Thieving Lane, and adorned the doorway of this house with twisted pillars decorated with vine-leaves, brought from the old tavern. Mr. J. T. Smith has given a view of this house in the additional plates to his
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Close to the Sanctuary, and indeed adjoining its western side, was the Eleemosynary or , where the alms of the Abbey were daily doled out to the poor and needy. But it is far more memorable on quite another account-namely, as the place in which a printing-press was set up in England. This was, says Pennant, in the year , when William Caxton, encouraged by the learned Thomas Milling, then abbot, produced here
he adds,
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The was a building, analogous to our more prosaic modern alms-houses, erected by King Henry VII. and his mother, the Lady Margaret, to the glory of God, for poor men and poor women. The building was afterwards converted into lodgings for the choir-men of the Abbey, and called Choristers' Rents. These were pulled down at the beginning of the present century. Hard by stood the Chapel of St. Anne, now commemorated by St. Anne's Lane. This lane occupies part of the ground covered by the orchard and fruit-gardens of the Abbey; and close to the present gate were Across the court ran the granary, parallel with what was the prior's lodging. | |
We have already stated that the was divided into parts; and from Mr. Mackenzie Walcott's we learn that
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[extra_illustrations.3.488.2] , of which we have spoken in the preceding chapter as opening into , adjoined the , and was once the principal approach to the Monastery itself. It stood at the western entrance of , and dated from the time of Edward III. Walter Warfield, is stated to have been its builder. Many distinguished prisoners have been immured within its walls. Many of the royalists during the Civil Wars were confined here; among them was [extra_illustrations.3.488.3] , the gay and gallant cavalier | |
p.489 | poet, who presented the petition of the Kentish men to the for the restoration of the king to his rights. He is reported to have been a sort of of his day, and, in the language of of his friends, Be this, however, an exaggeration or not, it is certain that here, in the long tedious hours of his he wrote that exquisite poem, entitled in which occurs the stanza :--
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It is sad to learn that the writer of such lines should have died in poverty, or, at all events, in dependence on the bounty of others, in the neighbourhood of . | |
Dr. Goodman, Bishop of Gloucester, was another inmate of this prison in the century, being committed by the Primate on his refusal to sign the Canons of the Church of England. In , a notorious impostor, called the was incarcerated here, for having enticed a citizen's son into marriage; she afterwards became an actress, and in the end was hanged at Tyburn for a robbery. After the Restoration, the famous Court dwarf, Jeffrey Hudson, here ended his days, having, after a life of continued misfortune, been imprisoned for his presumed complicity in the Sir Walter Scott has made his readers familiar with Jeffrey Hudson in his the brush of Vandyck has immortalised his dwarfish appearance; and his clothes were long preserved as articles of curiosity in Sir Hans Sloane's Museum. | |
Once more, in , the Kentish men sent to representatives, deputy-lieutenants of the county, to remonstrate against the proceedings of the . This petition being considered these gentlemen were entrusted to the custody of the Serjeant-at-Arms; and we are told that they were confined in the Gate House Prison until the close of the session. | |
In , Mr. Harley, uncle of the Earl of Oxford, and Ambassador at Hanover, was imprisoned here for prevarication in certain answers about his foreign negotiations; here too, was incarcerated Jeremy Collier, the author of a valuable Ecclesiastical History; and Richard Savage, the poet, who lodged in , was committed to this gaol for taking part in a lamentable street quarrel in which Mr. James Sinclair was killed. Among state prisoners, however, there were none sent hither more illustrious than Sir Walter Raleigh, who passed within its walls the night preceding his execution. Here his loving wife took her sad farewell of him, at the same time telling him that his judges had granted to her his body. said he, smiling, At midnight, after her departure, he calmly sat down and wrote these lines :
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The old Gate House Prison was held by lease, under the Dean and Chapter, as a speculation; the keeper obtaining fees, but being responsible for the safe keeping of his prisoners, and also for the good behaviour of his warders. In the middle of the last century, the building had fallen into such a dangerous state of decay, that it was shored up completely from the bottom to the top; and in an order was made by the Dean and Chapter, directing its demolition, with the adjacent almshouses, and the lead and iron to be sold by direction of the surveyor of the church. The building in its latter years was used almost wholly as a debtors' prison: as we learn from Mr. Mackenzie Walcott's the debtors
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Adjoining to the Gate House, on the east side, was another building of about the same age, which was used for and close by this prison was over which Queen Maud, the consort of Henry I., erected a bridge leading to and the . | |
As we have stated above, the constant tradition is that it was in [extra_illustrations.3.489.2] where [extra_illustrations.3.489.3] set up the printing-press in England, under the auspices of the then abbot, Thomas Milling. Caxton was a native of the Weald of Kent, and born about the year . He came to London, and resided in , being apprenticed to a Gladstone at Caxton Celebration, 1877 | |
p.490 | mercer, and supporting his parents in his house until their death. He was left by his master a legacy of , and spent some years abroad engaged in mercantile and diplomatic business. In he was employed by Edward IV. to negotiate a treaty with Philip, Duke of Burgundy. At Cologne he had printed and published or books, now so rare that scarcely a copy is known even to German bibliographers; and returning to England about , set up a printing-press, as already mentioned, within the precincts of the Abbey. By some writers it has been thought not wholly improbable that at he erected his press near of the little chapels attached to the aisles of the Abbey, or in the ancient Scriptorium. There is some little doubt as to which was the of the books that he printed here, whether or the of these works Caxton himself had translated from the French, and the copies of it bore date . In Timbs' we find that It is, however, certain that Caxton soon found patrons of his new craft in Henry VII., and the royal family and many of the nobility. or of his works, including were translated for his press by Anthony, Earl Rivers, under-governor to the Prince of Wales. It would be impossible to give here a full list of the works which in their turn came from Caxton's press.
(both translated by Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester), the the
and Chaucer's For Chaucer's memory Caxton had a special veneration, as he showed by ordering a long epitaph to be written on the poet at his own expense, and inscribed on of the pillars near his grave in the south aisle of the Abbey. |
Stow, in his says that Whether Caxton's press was at actually within the walls of the Abbey Church, or merely in a small chapel near the Abbey, has always been a doubtful point; but be that as it may, we may state, for the benefit of the uninitiated, that the word is to this day known in connection with printing-offices, and that the chief officer is called the and each member of it a Thomas Milling was Abbot of in , at the time when Caxton is stated to have established the art of printing in , and Islip did not succeed to the abbacy till some years ; so it is clear, judging from the above quotation, that Stow, wonderfully accurate as he was, still was not infallible. | |
Caxton appears to have carried on his business as a master printer to the very last, and to have taken also an active part as a parishioner of , in the churchwardens' books of which parish his name occurs constantly as an auditor of the accounts. He died at his house in the , or (as he spells it) the in -, and was buried in , to which he left by will a bequest of books, long since lost and dispersed. Though his work was confessedly not equal to the printing executed on the Continent during the same period, yet there was at the time when he lived no whose talents, habits, and character were so well fitted to introduce and establish the art of printing in England. To record the fact that he succeeded in such an enterprise, the benefits of which we are all still enjoying, is praise enough, for it is an assertion of his claim to be regarded as of the greatest benefactors of his country. It may here be remarked, in passing, that until the year it was never doubted that Caxton was the introducer of printing into this kingdom; but at that time a dispute happening to arise between the Stationers' Company and some private persons respecting a patent for printing, the case was formally argued in a court of law, and in the course of the pleadings the credit was proved incontestably to belong to William Caxton. | |
The following testimony to Caxton's character as both editor and printer is borne by Mr. Thomas Wright, F.S.A.:--
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The art of printing speedily gained high repute, and found followers accordingly, for previous to Caxton's death we find Wynkyn de Worde and other foreigners, and another Englishman, Thomas Hunt, established as printers in the metropolis. | |
We have already mentioned the tradition that it was in or near the Abbey that the printingpress in England was set up by Caxton; but a placard printed in Caxton's largest type, and preserved in the library of Brasenose College, Oxford, fixes the as the scene of his labours; for in this placard Caxton invites customers to the name by which, as Mr. John Timbs tells us in his was known the house in which Caxton is said to have lived. It stood in Little , on the north side of the , with its back against that of a house on the south side of , or what is now the space between and the Palace Hotel. Bagford describes this house as of brick, with the sign of the it was pulled down in , before the removal of the other buildings in the . The house had a somewhat picturesque appearance: it was built partly of brick, and partly of timber and plaster; it was storeys in height, the last storey having a wooden gallery or balcony resting on the projecting windows below, and doors leading out of it. The illustration given on page , copied from an engraving published in , shows the house as it stood in the half of the present century. | |
Footnotes: [extra_illustrations.3.485.1] Elizabeth Woodville [] Facsimile of Caxton's Print and Illustration [extra_illustrations.3.488.2] The Gate House [extra_illustrations.3.488.3] Colonel Richard Lovelace [] Caxton Celebration, 1877 [extra_illustrations.3.489.2] the Almonry [extra_illustrations.3.489.3] William Caxton |
