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 LVII: Ely Place.
Chapter LVII: Ely Place.
A little north of St. Andrew's, , and running parallel to , stand rows of houses known as Ely Place. To the public it is of those unsatisfactory. streets which lead nowhere; to the inhabitants it is quiet and pleasant; to the student of Old London it is possessed of all the charms which can be given by centuries of change and the long residence of the great and noble. The present Ely Place, and a knot of neighbouring tenements, streets, and alleys, occupy the site of the town house, or of the Bishops of Ely. And to the history of the old mansion, and its sometimes gay and sometimes sober inmates, we shall devote the following chapter. | |
The earliest notice of Ely Place belongs to the close of the century. John de Kirkeby, Bishop of Ely, died in the year , and left to his successors in the see a messuage and cottages in . His intention was to found a London residence for the Bishops of Ely, suitable to their rank. Previous to this time they had their London residence in the Temple, but things do not seem to have gone smoothly with them there. In Bishop Balsham was denied entrance there by the master, when Hugh Bigod was Justiciary of England. He insisted, however, on the rights which his predecessors had enjoyed, from the Conquest, of using the hall, chapel, chambers, kitchen, pantry, buttery, and wine-cellar, with free ingress and egress, by land and water, whenever he came to London, and he laid his damages' at . The master not being able to overthrow the claim, the bishop won the case. But this was not an agreeable way of obtaining town lodgings, so no wonder John de Kirkeby was induced to bequeath the property for the benefit of his successors. The next bishop, William de Luda, probably built the chapel of St. Etheldreda, and we find him adding a further grant to the bequest of John de Kirkeby, accompanied by the condition that in the chapel there. The next benefactor to the episcopal residence was John de Hotham, another bishop, who added a vineyard, kitchen-garden, and orchard, and, altogether, seems to have given the finishing touch to the premises; so that Camden speaks of Ely Place as Other and subsequent prelates did their duty by building, altering, and repairing, and conspicuous amongst these was the well-known Arundel, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, who erected a large and handsome towards , in the stone-work of which his arms remained in Stow's time. Thus Ely Place, by the liberality of many successive prelates, came to be of the most magnificent of metropolitan mansions. | |
In the reign of Elizabeth, Sir Christopher Hatton was the occupant of Ely Place; and we shall tell in a few words the interesting story of his coming in, and the bishop's going out. Meanwhile-pursuing our rapid notice of the history of the house-let us only say that Sir Christopher died, in Ely Place, in , and was succeeded in his estates by his nephew, Newport, who took the name of Hatton. When he died, his widow, who married Sir Edward Coke, the famous lawyer, held the property. The Bishops of Ely, upon her death, came in again, though in what appears a confused and unsatisfactory sort of way; and the subsequent history has been thus summarised by Mr. Peter Cunningham :--
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In Ralph Aggas's map of London, in the reign of | |
p.515 | Elizabeth, we see the vineyard, meadow, kitchengarden, and orchard of [extra_illustrations.2.515.1] , extending northward from to the present and , and east and west from to nearly the present . Except a cluster of houses-Ely Rents-standing on , the surrounding ground was about that time entirely open and unbuilt upon. In the names of , , Turnmill and Vine Streets, we get a glimpse of the rural past. In the Sutherland View () the gate-house, banqueting-hall, chapel, &c., of this house are shown. |
During the imprisonment of Bishop Wren by the Long Parliament, most of the palatial buildings were taken down, and upon the garden were built , Great and Little Kirby Streets, , , and . The present Ely Place was not built till about . We find a fragment of the old episcopal residence preserved in, and giving its name to, , which leads from Ely Place to . Here, worked into the wall of a tavern known as is a bishop's mitre, sculptured in stone, Mr. Timbs conjectures,
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A writer in Knight's has been at the pains to put together, from existing material, a description of Ely Place as it existed immediately before the bishop's residence was levelled to the ground. he says, | |
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Having now got an idea of the appearance of Ely Place, and a notion of, at least, the skeleton of its history, we may proceed to add to our information, and to tell of the characters who have lived in it, and the incidents of which it has been the scene. | |
A famous character in English history- --resided here at the close of his eventful life. He died here in . How this came to be his residence is unknown: it is conjectured by Cunningham, and with some show of probability, that the bishops occasionally let the house-or rather, perhaps, the greater part of it--to distinguished noblemen. Certainly John of Gaunt stood at this time in need of a town-house, for his palace of the Savoy had been burned to the ground by the insurgents during Wat Tyler's rebellion. Froissart thus speaks of his death:--
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Shakespeare, in his play of ., Act ii., sc. i, represents the dying nobleman in Ely House admonishing with his last breath his dissipated nephew, the king:--
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Another nobleman who at time resided in Ely Place was Henry Radclyff, Earl of Sussex. We find him writing to his countess to tell her of. the death of Henry VIII. And in Ely Place-then the residence of the Earl of Warwick (afterwards Duke of Northumberland--the council met and planned the remarkable conspiracy which resulted in the execution of the Protector Somerset. | |
The pleasant gardens which surrounded Ely House rejoiced in the growth of fine strawberries, and it is in connection with this fruit that the name of Ely Place has' been enshrined in the memory of all readers of Shakespeare. No needs to have recalled the scene in the Tower which ended in the execution of Hastings. Buckingham, Hastings, the Bishop of Ely, and others, are talking together | |
of the coronation of the young King Edward V. The Duke of Gloucester, afterwards Richard III., enters, and after a few words exchanged with Buckingham, turns-possibly to conceal his deep and bloody design--to the bishop:--
He goes out, and shortly returning, finds Gloucester gone.
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Ill-judging Hastings! Little did he guess that a few minutes after he would hear the Lord | |
p.517 | Protector thundering out, with reference to himself, After the execution the cold-blooded Gloucester likely enough sat down with relish to a dessert of the bishop's strawberries. |
How closely in this scene Shakespeare followed the historical truth we may see in this passage from Holinshed :-- | |
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In the time of Richard III., it may be added, strawberries were an article of ordinary consumption in London. In Lydgate's poem of we learn as much:--
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To make clear the connection existing between Lord Chancellor Hatton and Ely Place, to which we alluded at the beginning of this chapter, it will be necessary to give a short sketch of that worthy man who, says Malcolm, was He was the youngest of sons of William Hatton, of Holdenby, a gentleman of good family. In early life he was entered at of the inns of court, where he studied law, but as a gentleman lawyer only, and not with the view of deriving any advantage from it as a profession. Whilst engaged in this way he had the good fortune to attract the notice of Queen Elizabeth, and became in turn Gentleman Pensioner- | |
p.518 | Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, Captain of the Guard, Vice-Chamberlain, Member of the Privy Council, and Lord Chancellor. It seems he was possessed of many graces of person, and had great ability as a dancer. Elizabeth's fancy for him grew; to such a height, that Leicester did his best to make his rival ridiculous, by offering to introduce to the queen a dancing-master whose abilities far excelled those of Hatton. But his project was not successful. said Elizabeth, She abandoned herself to her extravagant passion, and Hatton and she corresponded in the most fond and foolish style, of which there exists plenty of proof on the shelves of the State Paper Office. |
But it can hardly be said that by dancing alone he skipped up to position and influence. He had many good mental qualities, and his advancement is of the numerous proofs the queen gave of her penetration in the choice of great State officers. On his becoming Lord Chancellor, the lawyers were unable to stifle their indignation. Some of the serjeants-at-law even refused to plead before him. But Hatton, though deficient in reading and practice as a lawyer, had common sense enough to hold his place, and at the same time to prove himself qualified for it. In all doubtful cases he was in the habit of consulting or learned legal friends, and the result was that his decisions were by no means held in low repute in the courts of law. | |
In , to oblige Queen Bess, Richard Cox, Bishop of Ely, granted to her Majesty's handsome Lord Chancellor the gate-house of the palace (excepting ), the courtyard within the gatehouse, the stables, the long gallery, with the rooms above and below it, and some other apartments. Hatton also obtained acres of ground, and the keeping of the gardens and orchards; and of this pleasant little domain he had a lease of twentyone years. The rent was not a heavy . A red rose was to be paid for the gate-house and garden, and for the ground loads of hay and sterling per annum. The grumbling bishop had to make the best of a bad bargain; and the only modification he could obtain in the terms was the insertion of a clause giving him and his successors free access through the gate-house, and, the right to walk in the garden, and gather baskets of roses yearly. | |
Once in possession of this property, Hatton began building and repairing, and soon contrived to expend (about of our money), part of which amount, we may as well say here, was borrowed from his royal mistress. As he went on, his views expanded, and, not satisfied with what he had, he petitioned Queen Elizabeth to alienate to him the whole house and gardens. This, in days when sovereigns laid greedy hands on so many acres of rich Church property, was no unusual request, and the queen wrote to the bishop. requesting him to demise the lands to her till such time as the see of Ely should reimburse Sir Christopher for the money he had laid out, and was still expending, in the improvement of the property. The bishop wrote an answer befitting the dignity of his position. he said, And he concluded by telling her that he could scarcely justify those princes who transferred things appointed for pious purposes to purposes less pious. | |
But arguments and moral reflections were thrown away on the queen, and the bishop had to consent to a conveyance of the property to her Majesty, who was to re-convey it to Hatton, but on condition that the whole should be redeemable on the payment of the sum laid out by Sir Christopher. | |
On the death of Dr. Cox, his successor, Dr. Martin Heton, seemed extremely unwilling to carry out this agreement, and in a fit of fury the queen sat down and wrote him of her most characteristic epistles :--
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According to some writers, this letter was addressed to Bishop Cox; but it is of no great consequence: the sender is of more interest here than the receiver. | |
The debt of the Lord Chancellor to the Queen had now reached some . His prudence had fallen asleep when he allowed her Majesty to become his principal creditor. She required a settlement of their account, and poor Hatton was unable to produce the necessary funds. It killed him. There is something pathetic in the | |
p.519 | quaint account which Fuller gives of the close of his prosperous life and fortunes. says the biographer of the
He died in Ely House in . |
The scenes in Ely Place during Hatton's days must often have been gay enough. So Gray, in his wrote of Hatton in his manor house of Stoke Pogis; and in his town residence we can picture him quite as eager as in the country to shake the light fantastic toe, and cutting quite as quaint a figure as there. | |
It was in Ely House that Sir Edward Coke courted the rich widow, Lady Hatton, relict of the nephew of Sir Christopher, Queen Elizabeth's Lord Chancellor. The lady was young, beautiful, eccentric, and, it would seem, possessed of a most vixenish temper. As she was rich, she had no scarcity of wooers, and among them were celebrated men, Coke and Bacon. Many a curious scene must Hatton House have witnessed, as those rivals in law pursued their rivalry in love, and cherished their long-felt enmity towards each other. Bacon's ever-faithful friend, the unfortunate Earl of Essex, pled his cause hard with the enchanting widow and with her mother. To the latter he says, in of his letters, and in another epistle he adds, However, Sir Edward Coke carried off the prize, such as it was, and bitterly did he afterwards repent it. | |
That the marriage was not a happy we have already told when speaking of thee entries in the register-books of St. Andrew's Church, . After her quarrel with her husband, Lady Hatton betook herself again to Ely House, and there she effectually repelled the entrance of Sir Edward. In Howell's we catch a sight of her in of her peculiar humours. He is speaking of Gondomar, the Spanish Ambassador. he says,
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The as she is called by Howell,
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During the anxious period of the civil war, Ely Place was turned to good account, and made use of both as an hospital and a prison. We may show this by the following extracts from the Journals of the :-- | |
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Malcolm gives a lamentable account of the inconvenience and mortification to which the bishops were in succession subjected in consequence of the unfortunate lease given to the Hatton family. | |
p.520 | He is speaking of the latter part of the century:-- |
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Some of the most memorable of feasts have been held here, the Bishops of Ely, in the true spirit of hospitality, having apparently been in the habit of lending their hall for the festive gatherings of the newly-elected serjeants of law. No doubt the halls of the Inns of Court were often too small to accommodate the number of guests. We shall notice of these serjeants' merry-makings. The took place in Michaelmas Term, , and is noticeable for the fact that the Lord Mayor took great offence at a slight which the learned gentlemen unthinkingly put upon him. He came to the banquet, and found a certain nobleman- Grey of Ruthin, then Lord Treasurer of England --preferred before him, and sitting in the seat of state. That seat, by custom, he held, should have been occupied by himself; so, in high dudgeon, his lordship marched off, with his following of aldermen, to his own house, where he compensated his faithful adherents by a splendid entertainment, including all the delicacies of the season. He was wonderfully displeased, says Stow, at the way in which he had been treated,
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Another banquet took place in and on this occasion Henry VII. was present, with his queen. This was of the occasions, it has been pointed out, when the victor of Bosworth strove to correct a little the effect of his sordid habits, his general seclusion, and his gloomy, inscrutable nature, which altogether prevented him from obtaining the popularity which is agreeable to most monarchs-even to those the least inclined to purchase it at any considerable cost. says his great historian, Bacon,
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But the last feast we shall mention was the most splendid of all. serjeants had been created in , and it was resolved to celebrate the event on an unparalleled scale of magnificence. The entertainment lasted days, and on the day the proceedings were graced by the presence of Henry VIII. and his queen, Catherine of Aragon; but these dined Stow parenthetically observes. At this very time the final measures were in progress for the divorce of the unfortunate queen, and Henry's marriage with Anne Boleyn. Besides these distinguished personages, the foreign ambassadors were there, and they also had a chamber to themselves. In the hall, at the chief table, sat Sir Nicolas Lambard, Lord Mayor of London, and with him were the judges, Barons of the Exchequer, and certain aldermen. The Master of the Rolls and the Master of the Chancery were supported at the board on the south side by many worshipful citizens, and on the north side of the hall there were other aldermen and merchants of the city. The remainder of the company, comprising knights, esquires, and gentlemen, were accommodated in the gallery and the cloisters, and, there being, apparently, a great scarcity of room, even in the chapel. | |
says Stow, to set down all and he hints that no would believe him if he did. To excite the wonder and the appetite of his readers, however, he gives a few particulars. There were or oxen, at each, and at s; at ; at ; or boars, at ; pigs, at ; dozen at ; dozen and at ; dozen at ; innumerable pullets, at and ; pigeons, at the dozen; larks, at the dozen; and dozen swans at a price not mentioned. And the feast, says the honest historian,
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No doubt it was at Ely Place that a ludicrous scene took place between the Bishop of Ely and bailiffs, about the close of the century--the conclusion of an adventure with the celebrated comedian, Joe Haines. Haines (who died in ) was always indulging in practical jokes and swindling tricks, and meeting with | |
p.521 | comical adventures. day he was arrested by bailiffs for a debt of , just as the Bishop of Ely was riding by in his carriage. Quoth Joe to the bailiffs, The bishop ordered his carriage to stop, whilst Joe-quite a stranger to him-whispered in his ear,
replied the bishop. So, calling to the bailiffs, he said, The bailiffs bowed, and went their way. Joe, tickled in the midriff, and hugging himself with his device, took himself off. The next morning the bailiffs repaired to Ely Place. said his lordship,
replied they, The bishop, to prevent any further scandal to his name, immediately paid all that was owing. |
A scene almost without a parallel was once arranged in Ely Place. This was a famous masque, with its attendant anti-masque, which came off during the brilliant part of the reign of the ill-fated Charles I. it has been observed, This last was Whitelock, the learned and estimable lawyer, who, during the period preceding, comprising, and following the Commonwealth, enjoyed the respect of all parties, and has left us of the most valuable records of the momentous events he witnessed and in which he took a part. That his heart was in this masque and anti-masque is evident from the enthusiasm with which he describes both, and the space which he devotes to them in his great work. | |
The year before this gorgeous display, the irrepressible Mr. Prynne had published his in which he discharged a perfect broadside of abuse against plays and players, masques and masquers, and generally against all kinds of sport and pastime. The Queen Henrietta Maria, not long before, had engaged in some sort of theatrical performance with her maids of honour. The book was therefore offensive to the whole court, and no doubt to this circumstance the writer owed in part the infamous severity of his punishment. But before he took his turn in the pillory, and lost his ears, the members of the Inns of Court designed a masque, It was whispered to them from the court that it would be well taken from them; and some held it the more seasonable, because this action would manifest the difference of their opinion from Mr. Prynne's new learning, and serve to confute his against interludes. It was therefore agreed by the benchers to have the solemnity performed in the most nobly and stately manner that could be invented. | |
A committee was formed, consisting of members from each House; among the committee-men being Whitelock himself, Edward Hyde (who afterwards became Lord Clarendon), and the famous Selden. They set to work, and Whitelock's part in the arrangements was to superintend the music. This he did with energy. he says, He goes on to tell what meetings he had of At last everything was arranged, and Candlemas, in the afternoon, And here we can picture to ourselves the crowded streets, the enthusiastic spectators, the loyal lawyers, and Prynne and his sympathisers scowling and muttering in the background, all on a sharp evening in . | |
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Other anti-masques followed, and then came chariots with musicians, chariots with heathen gods and goddesses, then more chariots with musicians, and going immediately before the grand masquer's chariot. This Its colours were silver and crimson: Similar chariots, similarly occupied, followed from each of the other Inns of Court, the only difference being in the colours. And in this manner the procession reached , where the king, from a window of the Banqueting House--it might possibly be the very out of which he stepped to the scaffoldsaw, with his queen Henrietta Maria, the whole pageant pass before him. The royal spectators were so pleased with the show, that they sent a message to the marshal requesting him to conduct his following round the Tilt Yard opposite, that they might see it a time. This done, they entered the palace, where the masque, to which all this gorgeous spectacle was but a preliminary, began, and, says Whitelock, it was Henrietta Maria was so charmed, that she resolved to have the whole | |
p.525 | repeated shortly afterwards. The festivities concluded with dancing, when the queen and her ladies of honour were led out by the principal masquers. The expense of this spectacle was not less than . Some of the musicians had apiece for their blowing and fiddling. |
The last represented in England was that of in the reign of James I., which, Prynne tells us, was
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This incident suggests or facts relating to the performance in England of miracle-plays and mysteries. These were founded on the lives of the saints, and on those parts of the Scriptures best represented by the latter term. About the earliest mention of a miracle-play is of the date of , when was performed in the Abbey of St. Albans. Whether Geoffrey, a learned Norman, who composed this religious drama, then introduced the custom of acting such pieces, is by no means certain. London had plays representing the working of miracles and the sufferings of the saints about the year ; so we learn from the monk Fitz-Stephen. That these exhibitions says Malcolm, in his They were, it is certain, introduced into England from the Continent. | |
As an interesting specimen of the we may take the play of , preserved in the Towneley collection. It will serve as an example of the corrupt and not very reverent manner in which the events of Scripture history were, during the Middle Ages, communicated to the common people. When Noah carries to his wife the news of the impending Flood, she is introduced abusing him for his credulity, sneering at him as an habitual bearer of bad tidings, and complaining of the hard life she leads with him. He tells her to but she only becomes more abusive, till he is provoked to strike her. She. returns the blow with interest, and they fall to fighting, till Noah has had enough of it, and runs off as hard as he can to his work. When the ark is finished there is another quarrel, for Noah's wife laughs at the structure, and declares she will never go into it. But the water rises fast, and the danger becomes so great, that she changes her mind and jumps on board, only, however, to pick another quarrel with her husband. They fight again, but this time Noah comes off victorious, and his partner complains of being beaten whilst their sons lament over the family discord. | |
The chapel of Ely Place, still standing, was dedicated to St. Etheldreda. And who was she? She was the daughter of Anna, King of the West Angles, and was born in Suffolk, about the year . She took part in the erection of the cathedral of Ely, and in course of time was elected to fill the position of its patron saint. She died, in , the abbess of the convent of Ely. Sometimes St. Etheldreda is called by the more homely name of St. Audry; and from this appellation is derived the familiar adjective . It is a digression, but we may as well tell how this came about. At the fair of St. Audry, at Ely, in the olden time, a description of cheap necklaces used to be sold, which under the name of were long very popular. In process of time the epithet came to be applied to any piece of glittering tinsel or shabby magnificence. | |
The builder of the chapel is unknown, but Malcolm conjectures that it is to Thomas Arundel that we are indebted for this beautiful but solitary fragment,
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says Mr. J. Saunders, in , There are windows in the length. As for the west and east windows, the former differs from the latter, but it is at present hidden from view by a gallery and a small organ. The diarist, Evelyn, has notices of Ely Place chapel which may be worth our attention. The runs thus:-- The other is of a domestic character, and gives us a pleasant glimpse of the kindly parental feelings of this estimable man :
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The chapel was at time leased to the National Society for a school-room, after which it remained for a while untenanted; but on the , it was opened for the service of the Established Church in the Welsh language, being the service of the kind ever attempted in London. In it was bought by the Roman Catholic Church. | |
An amusing incident took place in Ely Chapel on the arrival of the news of the defeat of the young Pretender by the Duke of Cumberland, in . The clerk allowed his loyalty to overcome his devotion, and struck up a lively ditty in praise of the reigning family. Cowper thought this worthy of notice in his -
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Footnotes: [extra_illustrations.2.515.1] Ely Place |