Old and New London, A Narrative of its History, its People and its Places. Illustrated with Numerous Engravings from the Most Authentic Sources. vol 2
Thornbury, Walter
1872-78
Chapter XXXIII: Canonbury.
Chapter XXXIII: Canonbury.
The manor of Canonbury, so called from a mansion of the Prior of the Canons of St. Bartholomew, was given to the priory by Ralph den Berners, not long after the Conquest. At the dissolution it fell into the receptive hands of Cromwell, the Lord Privy Seal, and at his execution an annuity from the manor was bestowed on ill-favoured Anne of Cleves. In Canonbury was granted by Edward VI. to John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, from whom it passed to the ill-starred Duke of Northumberland, only a few months before his beheadal. In Lord Wentworth, to whom Queen Mary had granted the manor, alienated it to Sir John Spencer, who figures so often in the civic history of Elizabeth's reign. | |
Sir John was an alderman and clothworker of London, sheriff in -, and Lord Mayor in . He appears to have been a public-spirited honest man, and often stood forward boldly in defence of the Privileges of the city. On occasion we find him protesting against the great Bridge House granaries of London being taken as storehouses for the navy; and on another, resisting an attempt to force a new recorder on the city. He also helped actively to suppress a riot of London apprentices, of whom were hung on . The wealth of Sir John was so notorious, that it is said a Dunkirk pirate once contrived a plot, with of his men, to carry him off, in hopes of obtaining as ransom. The men came in a shallop to Barking Creek, and hid themselves in ditches near a field-path leading to Sir John's house, but luckily for Sir John he was detained in London that night, and so the plot was frustrated. The residence of this citizen at Crosby House, where, in , he entertained the French ambassador, the Marquis of Rosny, afterwards better known as the Duke of Sully, we have alluded to in a former chapter. Sir John's only daughter, Elizabeth, tradition says, was carried off from Canonbury House in a baker's basket, by the contrivance of her lover, young Lord Compton, and Mr. Lewis says this story is confirmed by a picture representing the fact preserved among the family paintings at Castle Ashby, a seat of the Comptons, in Northamptonshire. An old vestry-clerk has preserved an anecdote about this curious elopement. Sir John, incensed at the stratagem, discarded his daughter, till Queen Elizabeth's kind interference effected a reconciliation. The wily queen, watching her opportunity, requested the knight to stand sponsor to the offspring of a young discarded couple. Sir John complied, honoured and pleased at the gracious request, and her Majesty dictated his own surname for the Christian name of the child. The ceremony over, Sir John declared, as he had discarded his undutiful daughter, he would adopt the boy as his son. The queen then told him the truth, and the old knight, to his surprise, discovered that he had adopted his own grandson, who ultimately succeeded Sir John died in , and in St. Helen's there is still his monument, with his daughter kneeling at the feet of his effigy. At his funeral about a persons, clad in black gowns, attended, and poor men had each a basket given them, containing a black gown, of. beef, loaves of bread, a little bottle of wine, a candlestick, a pound of candles, saucers, spoons, a black pudding, a pair of gloves, a dozen points, red herrings, white herrings, sprats, and eggs. | |
Lord Compton's mind was so shaken by the vast wealth he inherited at his father-in-law's death, that he became for a time insane. He died in , of a fit produced by bathing in the Thames, after supping at . A curiously imperious letter of his wife to her lord was published in the of . It begins with loving tyranny, and demands the most ample pin-money
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She then calmly requires additional for charitable works. horses for her own saddle, | |
p.270 | mounted gentlewomen, or gentlemen, -horse coaches lined with velvet and cloth, and laced with gold and silver, coachmen, a horse for her gentleman usher, and footmen, gowns a year, a purse of to pay her debts, to buy jewels, and as she is so reasonable, schooling and apparel for her children, and wages for her servants, furniture for all her houses, and when he is an earl, more and double attendance. In truth these citizens' daughters knew their rights, and exacted them. Lord Compton was created an earl in . The earl, a brave soldier, was killed during the Civil War, at the battle of Hopton Heath, in -. |
Canonbury House is generally supposed to have been built in , years after Edward III. had exempted the priory of St. Bartholomew from the payment of subsidies, in consequence of their great outlay in charity. Stow says that William Bolton (prior from to ) rebuilt the house, and probably erected [extra_illustrations.2.270.1] , as Nichols, in his mentions that his rebus, a bolt in a tun, was still to be seen cut in stone, in places, on the outside facing | |
Well's row. The original house covered the whole of what is now , and had a small park, with garden and offices. Prior Bolton either built or repaired the priory and church of St. Bartholomew, and, according to tradition, as Hall says, in his chronicle, fearing another flood, he built a tower on Harrow Hill, and victualled it for months. Stow, however, redeems the prior from ridicule, by telling us that the supposed tower proved to be only a dove-house. | |
The mansion was much altered by Sir John Spencer, who came to reside there, in splendour, about , and it is now divided into several houses, having absorbed the grand old residence, and portioned out its relics of bygone grandeur. A long range of tiled buildings, supposed to have been the stables of the old mansion, but which had become an appendage to the Tavern, was pulled down in . A tradition once prevailed at that the monks of St. Bartholomew had a subterranean communication from Canonbury to the priory at . This notion had arisen from the discovery of brick archways in Canonbury, which | |
p.271 | seem to have been only conduit heads, and had really served to lead water to the priory. |
After the Spencers, the Lord-Keeper Coventry rented this house. In we find the Earl of Derby detained here, and prevented from reaching St. James's by a deep snow; and in the Earl of Denbigh died here. About it seems to have been let as lodgings. In it was advertised as a suitable resort for invalids, on account of the purity of the air of Canonbury, and the convenience of a sixpenny stage every hour to the city. It then became a resort for literary men, who craved for quiet and country air. Amongst those who lodged there was Samuel Humphreys, who died here from consumption, produced by over- | |
work, in . This Humphreys was a secondrate poet, who sang the glories of the Duke of Chandos's seat at Canons, and whose verse Handel praised for its harmony. Ephraim Chambers, the author of of the earliest cyclopaedias, also died here, in . Among other lodgers at Canonbury House were Onslow, the Speaker; Woodfall, who printed Deputy Harrison, many years printer of the , and Mr. Robert Horsfield, successor to Messrs. Knapton, Pope's booksellers. | |
But the special glory of the old house is the fact that here Oliver Goldsmith for a time lodged and wrote, and also came here to visit his worthy friend and employer, Mr. John Newbury, the | |
p.272 | goodnatured publisher of children's books, who resided here, having under his protection the mad poet, Christopher Smart. We know for certain that at the close of , Goldsmith lodged at , at the house of a Mrs. Elizabeth Fleming, to whom he paid a year. This choleric and strictly just landlady had her portrait taken by Hogarth, as tradition says, when he paid a visit to Goldsmith. Goldsmith frequently mentions in his writings, and his jovial were frequently made in this neighbourhood. The poet and or of his favourite friends used to breakfast at his Temple chambers about a.m., and at they proceeded by the and through the fields to dinner at Highbury Barn. About in the evening they adjourned to White Conduit House to tea, and concluded the evening by a merry supper at the Grecian or the Globe. |
says Lewis, | |
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The latter part of this inscription is erroneous, says Mr. Lewis, as neither the Dennys nor Weston family was there before the dissolution, and the carving is of a much later date. | |
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Footnotes: [extra_illustrations.2.270.1] the well-known brick tower |