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 XLII: Smithfield.Burning of Badby Burning of Lambert Burning of St. John's Monastery Old Houses in Long Lane
Chapter XLII: Smithfield.Burning of Badby Burning of Lambert Burning of St. John's Monastery Old Houses in Long Lane
[extra_illustrations.2.339.5] , or to follow the true derivation, was from the earliest times a memorable spot in old London. Bartholomew Fair, established in the reign of Henry II., in the neighbourhood of the priory and hospital founded by Rayer, the king's worthy jester, brought annually great crowds of revellers to the same place where, in Mary's cruel reign, so many of her victims perished. , in the reign of the early Edwards, was a chosen place for tournaments, and here many a spear was splintered on breastplate and shield, and many a stout blow given, till armour yielded or sword shattered. | |
In Edward III., then , enamoured of Alice Pierce, held a days' tournament in , for her amusement. She sat beside the old man, in a magnificent car, as the Lady of the Sun, and was followed by a long train of plumed knights, careless of the disgrace, each leading by the bridle a beautiful palfrey, on which was mounted a gay damsel. | |
In that young prodigal, Richard II., wishing to rival the splendid feasts and jousts given by Charles of France, on the entry of his consort, Isabella of Bavaria, into Paris, invited knights to a tilt in , commencing on the Sunday after Michaelmas Day. This tournament was proclaimed by heralds, in England, Scotland, Hainault, Germany, Flanders, and France. The Sunday was the feast of the challengers. About m. came the procession from the Tower -- barbed. coursers, in full trappings, each attended by a squire of honour, and after them ladies of rank, mounted on palfreys, and each leading by a silver chain a knight, completely armed for tilting, minstrels and trumpeters attending the procession to . Every night there was a magnificent supper for the tilters at the bishop's palace, where the king and queen were lodged, and the dancing lasted till daybreak. On Tuesday King Edward entertained the foreign knights and squires, and the queen the ladies. On Friday they were entertained by the Duke of Lancaster, and on Saturday the king invited all the foreign knights to Windsor. | |
That great historical event, [extra_illustrations.2.339.6] , we have elsewhere described, but it is necessary here to touch upon it again. Wrongs, no doubt, his followers had, but they were savage and cruel, and intoxicated with murder and plunder. They had beheaded the Archbishop of Canterbury, and held London in terror for days. Wat Tyler's insolent behaviour at the meeting in () greatly alarmed the king's friends. He came towards Richard, throwing his dagger in the air, and he even ventured to hold the king's bridle. , in the alarm of the moment, ran his sword into the rough rebel's throat, and at the same instant a squire stabbed Wat in the side. It was then that [extra_illustrations.2.339.7] , where the mayor and a men soon scattered them to the winds. | |
was frequently chosen as the scene of mediaeval duels, and of the ordeal by battle. The combat, in the reign of Henry VI., between the master arid the 'prentice, who had accused him of treason, will be remembered by all readers of Shakespeare. The ordeal was, perhaps, hardly fairly tried in this case, as the poor armourer had been plied with liquor by his over-zealous friends; but there is comfort, according to the poet, he confessed his treason in his dying moments. . | |
was, at time, a place of torture peculiarly in favour with theologians. Here that swollen Ahab, Henry VIII., burnt poor wretches who denied his ecclesiastical supremacy; here Mary burnt Protestants, and here Elizabeth burnt Anabaptists. In (Henry VIII.) Forest, an Observant friar, was cruelly burnt in , for denying the king's supremacy, the flames being lit with an idolatrous image from Wales. Latimer preached patience to the friar, while he hung by the waist and struggled for life. And here, too, was burnt Joan Boucher, the Maid of Kent, for some theological refinement as to the incarnation of Christ, Cranmer almost forcing Edward VI. to sign the poor creature's death-warrant. said Edward, | |
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Of the last moments of the martyrs, Foxe, their historian, has left a narrative, so simply told, so pious in tone, and so natural in every detail, as to guarantee its truth to all but partisans. A few passages from Foxe will convey a perfect impression of these touching scenes, and of the faith wherewith these good and brave men embraced death. Speaking of Roger Holland, a Protestant martyr, Foxe says, with a certain exultation:--
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The end of more of the holy army Foxe thus gives:--
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Of the heroic death of John Rogers, the protomartyr in the Marian persecution, Foxe gives the following account:-- | |
he says, | |
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The chosen place for executions before Tyburn was , , between which, according to Stow, began to be built on in the reign of Henry V. The gallows seems to have been removed to Tyburn about the reign of Henry IV. In Stow's time none of the ancient elms remained. Here that brave Scotch patriot and guerilla chief Sir William Wallace, was executed, on St. Bartholomew's Eve, . After many cruel reprisals on the soldiers of Edward I., and many victories, this true patriot was betrayed by a friend, and surrendered to the conquerors. He was dragged from the Tower by horses, and then hung, and, while still conscious, quartered. Here also perished ignominiously Mortimer, the cruel favourite of the queen, the murderess of her husband, Edward II. Edward III., then aged eighteen, seized the regicide, Mortimer, at Nottingham Castle, and he was hung at , the body remaining on the gibbet, says Stow,
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The history of Bartholomew Priory and of Bartholomew Fair, so admirably narrated by Mr. Henry Morley, is an interesting chapter in the history of . The priory was founded by Rayer, a monk, who had been jester and revel-master to Henry I., a specially superstitious monarch. Rayer was converted by a vision he saw during a pilgrimage to Rome, where he had fallen grievously sick. In his vision Rayer was borne up to a high place by a beast with feet and wings, from whence he saw the mouth of the bottomless pit. As he stood there, crying out and trembling, a man of majestic beauty, who proclaimed himself St. Bartholomew the Apostle, came to his succour. The saint said that, by common favour and command of the celestial council, he had chosen a place in the suburbs of London where Rayer should found a church in his name. Of the cost he was to doubt nothing; it would be his (St. Bartholomew's) part to provide necessaries. | |
On Rayer's return to London he told his friends and the barons of London, and by their advice made his request to the king, who at once granted it, and the church was founded early in the century. It was an unpromising place, though called the King's Market, almost all marsh and dirty fens, and on the only dry part stood gibbet. Rayer, wise in his generation, now feigned to be halfwitted, drawing children and idlers together, to fill the marsh with stones and rubbish. In spite of his numerous enemies, many miracles attended the building of the new priory. At evensong a light appeared on the new roof; a cripple recovered the use of his limbs at the altar; by a vision Rayer discovered a choral book which a Jew had stolen; a blind boy recovered his sight. In the year of his prelacy Rayer obtained from King Henry a most ample charter, and leave to institute a days' fair on the Feast of St. Bartholomew, forbidding. any but the prior levying dues on the frequenters of the fair during those days. Fairs, as Mr. Morley has most learnedly shown, generally originated in the assembling of pilgrims to church festivals, and St. Bartholomew's Fair was no exception to the rule. | |
Rayer, after witnessing endless miracles, and showing a most creditable invention, and a true knowledge of his old juggler's art, died in , leaving a little flock of monks, living very well on the oblations of the rich Londoners. The miracles continued very well. The saint became a favourite with seamen, and the sailors of a Flemish ship, saved by prayers to the saint of , presented a silver ship at his altar. The saint appeared to a sailor on a wreck, and led a wrecked Flemish merchant to land in safety. He cured madmen, and was famous in cases of fires and possession by devils. | |
Fragments of the old Norman priory of Rayer still exist in , and the dim passage called Middlesex Passage. This latter place is a fragment of the old priory, overhung by the wreck of the great priory hall, now broken up, divided into floors, and turned into a tobaccofactory. On each side of this passage there is | |
p.342 | access to separated portions of the crypt. In pickle-store there are pointed Norman arches under a high vaulted ceiling. The entrance to the crypt used to be by a descent of feet, until the floor was raised for business convenience. There is a tradition that at the end of this long subterranean hall there used to be a door opening into the church; now the visitor to the shrine will only find, through an alley a door and bit of church wall hemmed in between factories. The present church is the choir of the old priory, and the nave is entirely gone; the last line of the square of cloisters had been turned into a stable, and fell down some years ago. The apse is shorn off, and a base brick wall closes that forlorn space. says Mr. Morley, The walls and aisles on either side of the church are still nearly as when Rayer's sham miracles and pious trickeries were all over, and he took a last glance at the great work of his singular life, and the house raised to God and the builder's own vanity. The high aspiring columns and solid |
arches, the zig-zag ornaments of the early Normans, are still as when Rayer eyed them with crafty triumph. | |
The site of the priory was chosen with a true monkish wisdom. The saint had included in his wishes a piece of the king's Friday Market, and horses, oxen, sheep, and pigs would all bring grist, in way or another, to the omnivorous monastic mill. Already was the great horsemarket of London, as it continued to be for many long centuries. On Shrove Tuesday every schoolboy came here to play football; and it was also the of the horsemen of the Middle Ages. It was the great Campus Martius for shamfights and tilts. It was a ground for bowls and archery; the favourite haunt of jugglers, acrobats, and posture-makers. There were probably, in early times, says Mr. Morley, Bartholomew Fairs, held in , and within the priory bounds. The real fair was held within the priory gates, and in the priory churchyard; where, too, on certain festivals, schoolmasters used to bring their boys, to hold in public logical controversies. The churchyard fair seems from the to have been chiefly a draper's and clothiers' | |
p.343 p.344 | fair; and the gates were locked every night, and guarded, to protect the booths and stands. |
The English kings did not forget the hospital. In we find that King Henry III. gave an old oak from Windsor Forest as fuel for the infirm in the Hospital of St. Bartholomew, the generous grant to be renewed every year. In (Henry III.) a disgraceful religious brawl occurred at the very gate of the Priory. Boniface, the Provencal Archbishop of Canterbury, came to visit Rayer's friars, and was received with solemn procession. The bishop was rather angry at the state, and told the canons that he passed not for honour, but to visit them as part of the duties of his office. The canons, irritated at his pride, replied that having a learned bishop of their own, they desired no other visitation. The archbishop, furious at this, smote the sub-prior on the face, crying, Then, bursting with oaths, this worthy ecclesiastic fell on the unfortunate sub-prior, tore his rich cope to shreds, trampled them under foot, and then thrust the wearer back with such force against a chancel pillar as nearly to kill him. The canons, alarmed at this furious onslaught, pulled the archbishop on his back, and in so doing discovered that he was armed. The archbishop's Provencal attendants, seeing their master down, fell in their turn on the canons, beat them, rent their frocks, and trod them under foot. The canons then ran, covered with blood and mire, to the king, at , but he refused to interfere. The citizens, by this time roused, would have rung the common bell, and torn the foreign archbishop to pieces, had he not fled over the water to . They called him a ruffian and a cruel brute, and said he was greedy for money, unlearned and strange, and, moreover, had a wife. | |
The early miracle plays seem to have been often performed at . In the London parish clerks played interludes in the fields at Skinner's Well, for consecutive days to Richard II., his queen, and court. In (Henry IV.) the parish clerks played for consecutive days ; after which followed jousts. In those early times delegates of the merchant tailors, with their silver measure, attended Bartholomew Fair, to try the measures of the drapers and clothiers. | |
From the earliest times of which there is record, says Mr. Morley, whose wide nets few odd facts escape, [extra_illustrations.2.344.1] , which has jurisdiction over offences committed in the fair, was held within the priory gates, the prior being lord of the fair. It was held, indeed, to the last, close by, in . After the city claimed to be joint lord of the fair with the prior, and aldermen were always appointed as keepers of the fair and of the Court of Pie-poudre. | |
Footnotes: [extra_illustrations.2.339.5] Smithfield [extra_illustrations.2.339.6] the death of Wat Tyler [extra_illustrations.2.339.7] Richard II. courageously, and with great presence of mind, led off the rebels to Islington Fields [extra_illustrations.2.340.1] Burning of Anne Askew &c. [extra_illustrations.2.344.1] the Court of Pie-poudre |