Old and New London, A Narrative of its History, its People and its Places. Illustrated with Numerous Engravings from the Most Authentic Sources. vol I
Thornbury, Walter
1872-78
Heralds' College.
Heralds' College.
Turning from the black dome of St. Pauls, and the mean archway of Dean's Court, into a region of gorgeous blazonments, we come to that quiet and grave house, like an old nobleman's, that stands aside from the new street from , like an aristocrat shrinking from a crowd. The original Heralds' College, House, founded by Richard II., stood in Poultney Lane, but the heralds were turned out by Henry VII., who gave their mansion to Bishop Tunstal, whom he had driven from . The heralds then retired to Ronceval Priory, at (afterwards ). Queen Mary, however, in gave Gilbert Dethick, Garter King of Arms, and the other heralds and pursuivants, their present college, formerly Derby House, which had belonged to the Earl of Derby, who married Lady Margaret, Countess of Richmond, mother to King Henry VII. The grant specified that there the heralds might dwell together, and
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The College of Arms, on the east side of St. , was swept before the Great Fire of ; but all the records and books, except or , were preserved. The estimate for the rebuilding was only , but the City being drained of money, it was attempted to raise the money by subscription; only was so raised, the rest was paid from office fees, Sir William Dugdale building the north-west corner at his own charge, | |
295 296 | and Sir Henry St. George, Clarencieux, giving . This handsome and dignified brick building, completed in , is ornamented with Ionic pilasters, that support an angular pediment, and the was formerly considered a curiosity. The central wainscoted hall is where the Courts of Sessions were at time held; to the left is the library and search-room, round the top of which runs a gallery; on either side are the apartments of the kings, heralds, and pursuivants. [extra_illustrations.1.296.1] |
we are told,
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of the earliest instances of the holding an heraldic court was that in the time of Richard II., when the Scropes and Grosvenors had a dispute about the right to bear certain arms. John of Gaunt and Chaucer were witnesses on this occasion; the latter, who had served in France during the wars of Edward III., and had been taken prisoner, deposing to seeing a certain cognizance displayed during a certain period of the campaign. | |
The system of [extra_illustrations.1.297.1] , when the pedigrees of the local gentry were tested, and the arms they bore approved or cancelled, originated in the reign of Henry VIII. The monasteries, with their tombs and tablets and brasses, and their excellent libraries, had been the great repositories of the provincial genealogies, more especially of the abbeys' founders and benefactors. These records were collected and used by the heralds, who thus as it were preserved and carried on the monastic genealogical traditions. These visitations were of great use to noble families in proving their pedigrees, and preventing'disputes about property. The visitations continued till (James II.), but a few returns, says Mr. Noble, were made as late as . Why they ceased in the reign of William of Orange is not known; perhaps the respect for feudal rank decreased as the new dynasty grew more powerful. The result of the cessation of these heraldic assizes, however, is that American gentlemen, whose Puritan ancestors left England during the, persecutions of Charles II., are now unable to trace their descent, and the heraldic gap can never be filled up. | |
instances only of the degradation of knights are recorded in centuries' records of the Court of Honour. The was that of Sir Andrew Barclay, in ; of Sir Ralph Grey, in ; and of Sir Francis Michell, in , the last knight being convicted of heinous offences and misdemeanours. On this last occasion the Knights' Marshals' men cut off the offender's sword, took off his spurs and flung them away, and broke his sword over his head, at the same time proclaiming him
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The Earl Marshal's office--sometimes called the Court of Honour--took cognizance of words supposed to reflect upon the nobility. Sir Richard Grenville was fined heavily for having said that the Duke of Suffolk was a base lord; and Sit George Markham in the enormous sum of , for saying, when he had horsewhipped the huntsman of Lord Darcy, that he would do the same to his master if he tried to justify his insolence. In the legality of the court was tried in the Star Chamber by a contumacious herald, who claimed arrears of fees, and to King James's delight the legality of the court was fully established. In (Charles I.) Mr. Hyde (afterwards Lord Chancellor Clarendon) proposed doing away with the court, vexatious causes multiplying, and very arbitrary authority being exercised. He particularly cited a case of great oppression, in which a rich citizen had been ruined in his estate and imprisoned for merely calling an heraldic swan a goose. After the Restoration, says Mr. Planche, in Knight's the Duke of Norfolk; hereditary Earl Marshal, hoping to re-establish the court, employed Dr. Plott, the learned but credulous historian of Staffordshire, to collect the materials for a history of the court, which, however, was never completed. The court, which had outlived its' age, fell into desuetude, and the last cause heard concerning the right of bearing arms (Blount Blunt) was tried in the year (George I.). In the old arbitrary times the Earl Marshal's men have been known to stop the carriage of a , and by force deface his illegally assumed arms. | |
Heralds' fees in the Middle Ages were very high. At the coronation of Richard II. they received , and at that of the queen. On royal birthdays and on great festivals they also required largess. The natural result of this was that, in the reign of Henry V., William Burgess, Garter King of Arms, was able to entertain the Emperor Sigismund in sumptuous state at his house at Kentish Town. | |
The escutcheons on the south wall of the college -- bearing the legs of Man, and the other the eagle's claw of the House of Stanley--are not ancient, and were merely put up to heraldically mark the site of old Derby House. | |
In the Rev. Mark Noble's elaborate we find some curious stories of worthy and unworthy heralds. Among the evil spirits was Sir William Dethick, Garter King at Arms, who provoked Elizabeth by drawing out treasonable emblazonments for the Duke of Norfolk, and James I. by hinting doubts, as it is supposed, against the right of the Stuarts to the crown. He was at length displaced. He seems to have been an arrogant, stormy, proud man, who used at public ceremonials to buffet the heralds and pursuivants | |
298 | who blundered or offended him. He was buried at , in , near the grave of Edward III.'s herald, Sir Pain Roet, Guienne King at Arms, and Chaucer's father-in-law. Another black sheep was Cook, Clarencieux King at Arms in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, who was accused of granting arms to any for a large fee, and of stealing or heraldic books from the college library. There was also Ralph Brooke, York Herald in the same reign, a malicious and ignorant man, who attempted to confute some of Camden's genealogies in the He broke open and stole some muniments from the office, and finally, for felonies, was burnt in the hand at Newgate. |
To such rascals we must oppose men of talent and scholarship like [extra_illustrations.1.298.1] . This grave and learned antiquary was the son of a painter in the , and, as master of School, became known to the wisest and most learned men of London, Ben Jonson honouring him as a father, and Burleigh, Bacon, and Lord Broke regarding him as a friend. His is invaluable, and his are full of the heroic and soaring spirit of that great age. Camden's house, at Chislehurst, was that in which the Emperor Napoleon has recently died. | |
SirWilliam Le Neve (Charles I.), Clarencieux, was another most learned herald. He is said to have read the king's proclamation at Edgehill with great marks of fear. His estate was sequestered by the Parliament, and. he afterwards went mad from loyal and private grief and vexation. In Charles II.'s reign we find the famous antiquary, Elias Ashmole, Windsor Herald for several years. He was the son of a Lichfield saddler, and was brought up as a chorister-boy. That impostor, Lilly, calls him the that was ever known or read of in England; for he excelled, in music, botany, chemistry, heraldry, astrology, and antiquities. His formed no doubt part of his studies at the College of Arms. | |
In the same reign as Ashmole, that great and laborious antiquary, Sir William Dugdale, was Garter King of Arms. In early life he became acquainted with Spelman, an antiquary as profound as himself, and with the same mediaeval power of work. He fought for King Charles in the Civil Wars. His great work was the volumes folio, which disgusted the Puritans and delighted the Catholics. His was considered a model of county histories. His contained many errors. In his visitations he was very severe in defacing fictitious arms. | |
Francis Sandford, Rouge Dragon Pursuivant, and then Lancaster Herald (Charles II., James II.), published an excellent and curious accounts of the funeral of General Monk and the coronation of James II. He was so attached to James that he resigned his office at the Revolution, and died, true to the last, old, poor, and neglected, somewhere in Bloomsbury, in . | |
Sir John Vanbrugh, the witty dramatist, for building Castle Howard, was made Clarencieux King of Arms, to the great indignation of the heralds, whose pedantry he ridiculed. He afterwards sold his place for , avowing igno- France of his profession and his constant neglect of his official duties. | |
In the same reign, to Peter Le Neve (Norroy) we are indebted for the careful preservation of the invaluable of the reigns of Henry VI., Edward IV., and Richard III., purchased and afterwards published by Sir John Fenn. | |
Another eminent herald was John Anstis, created Garter in (George I.), after being imprisoned as a Jacobite. He wrote learned works on the Orders of the Garter and the Bath, and left behind him valuable materials-his MS. for the now preserved in the library. | |
[extra_illustrations.1.298.2] , jovial friend of Burns, was Richmond Herald for many years, but he resigned his appointment in , to become Adjutant and Paymaster of the Hampshire Militia. Grose was the son of a Swiss jeweller, who had settled in London. His helped to restore a taste for Gothic art. He died in . | |
Of [extra_illustrations.1.298.3] , that eccentric antiquary, who was Norroy King at Arms in the reign of George II. --the Duke of Norfolk having appointed him fromthe pleasure he felt at the perusal of his Grose gives an amusing account:-- | |
says Grose,
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The following pretty anacreontic, on a fly drinking out of his cup of ale, which is doubtless well known, is from the pen of Oldys :--
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The Rev. Mark Noble comments upon Grose's text by saying that this story of the crown must be incorrect, asthe coronet at the funeral of a princess is always carried by Clarencieux, and not by Norroy. | |
In , eminent heralds, Benjamin Pingo, York Herald, and John Charles Brooke, Somerset Herald, were crushed to death in a,. crowd at the side door of the . Mr. Brooke had died standing, and was found as if asleep, and with colour still in his cheeks. | |
Edmund Lodge, Lancaster Herald, who died in , is chiefly known for his interesting series of accompanied by excellent genealogical and biographical memoirs. | |
During the Middle. Ages heralds were employed to bear letters, defiances, and treaties to foreign princes and persons in authority; to proclaim war, and bear offers of marriage, & c.; and after battles to catalogue the dead, and note their rank by the heraldic bearings on their banners, shields, and tabards, In later times they were allowed to correct false crests, arms, and cognizances, and register noble | |
300 | descents in their archives. They conferred arms on those who proved themselves able to maintain the state of a gentleman, they marshalled great or rich men's funerals, arranged armorial bearings for tombs and stained-glass windows, and laid down the laws of precedence at state ceremonials. Arms, it appears from Mr. Planche, were sold to the as early as the reign of King Henry VIII., who wished to, make a new race of gentry, in order to lessen the power of the old nobles. The fees varied then from to . |
In the old times the heralds' messengers were called knights caligate. After years they became knight-riders (our modern Queen's messengers); after years more they became pursuivants, and then heralds. In later times, says Mr. Planche, the herald's honourable office was transferred to nominees of the Tory nobility, discarded valets, butlers, or sons of upper servants. Mr. Canning, when Premier, very properly put a stop to this system, and appointed to this post none but young and intelligent men of manners and education. | |
Among the many curious volumes of genealogy in the library of the College of Arms-volumes which have been the result of centuries of exploring and patient study--the following are chiefly notice- | |
able :--A book of emblazonment executed for Prince Arthur, the brother of Henry VIII., who died young, and whose widow Henry married; the Warwick Roll, a series of figures of all the Earls of Warwick from the Conquest to the reign of Richard III., executed by Rouse, a celebrated antiquary of Warwick, at the close of the century; and a tournament roll of Henry VIII., in which that stalwart monarch is depicted in regal state, with all the In the gallery over the library are to be seen the sword and dagger which belonged to the unfortunate James of Scotland, that chivalrous king who died fighting to the last on the hill at Flodden. The sword-hilt has been enamelled, and still shows traces of gilding which has once been red-wet with the Southron's blood; and the dagger is a strong and serviceable weapon, as no doubt many an English archer and billman that day felt. The heralds also show the plain turquoise ring which tradition says the French queen sent James, begging him to ride a foray in England. Copies of it have been made by the London jewellers. These trophies are heirlooms of the house of Howard, whose bend argent, to use the words of Mr. Planche, received the honourable augmentation of the Scottish lion, in testimony of the prowess displayed by the gallant soldier who | |
301 | commanded the English forces on that memorable occasion. Here is also to be seen a portrait of Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury (the great warrior), from his tomb in Old ; a curious pedigree of the Saxon kings from Adam, illustrated with many beautiful drawings in pen and ink, about the period of Henry VIII., representing the Creation, Adam and Eve in Paradise, the building of Babel, the rebuilding of the Temple, & c. & c.; MSS., consisting chiefly of heralds' visitations, records of grants of arms and royal licences; records of modern pedigrees (i.e., since the discontinuance of the visitations in ); a most valuable collection of official funeral certificates; a portion of the Arundel MSS.; the Shrewsbury or Cecil papers, from which |
Lodge derived his well-known notes, & c., made by Glover, Vincent, Philpot, and Dugdale; a volume in the handwriting of the venerable Camden ( ); the collections of Sir Edward Walker, Secretary at War (. Charles I.). | |
The Wardrobe, a house long belonging to the Government, in the Blackfriars, was built by Sir John Beauchamp (died ), whose tomb in Old was usually taken for the tomb of the good Duke Humphrey. Beauchamp's executors sold it to Edward III., and it was subsequently converted into the office of the Master of the Wardrobe, and the repository for the royal clothes. When Stow drew up his Sir John Fortescue was | |
302 | lodged in the house as Master of the Wardrobe. What a royal ragfair this place must have been for rummaging antiquaries, equal to Madame Tussaud's and all the ragged regiments of put together! |
says Fuller, (Fuller's ) | |
We mentioned before that Shakespeare in his will left to his favourite daughter, Susannah, the Warwickshire doctor's wife, a house near the Wardrobe; but the exact words of the document may be worth quoting:-- | |
says the poet,
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After the Great Fire the Wardrobe was removed, to the Savoy, and afterwards to , in . The last master was Ralph, Duke of Montague, on whose death, in , the office, says Cunningham, was,
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, near the Wardrobe, reminds us of the Beauchamps, for the swan was the cognizance of the Beauchamp family, long distinguished residents in this part of London. | |
In the Council Register of the , there may be seen It is therein said that
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In Great stood the old Bell Inn, whence, in , Richard Quyney directs a letter --the only letter addressed to Shakespeare known to exist. The original was in the possession of Mr. R. B. Wheeler, of Stratford-upon-Avon. | |
Stow mixes up the old houses near with Rosamond's Bower at Woodstock. | |
he says,
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St. Anne's, within the precinct of the Blackfriars, was pulled down with the Friars Church by Sir Thomas Cawarden, Master of the Revels; but in the reign of Queen Mary, he being forced to find a church to the inhabitants, allowed them a lodging chamber above a stair, which since that time, towit in the year , fell down, and was again, by collection therefore made, new built and enlarged in the same year. | |
The parish register records the burials of Isaac Oliver, the miniature painter (i ), Dick Robinson, the player (), Nat. Field, the poet and player (-), William Faithorn, the engraver ( ); and there are the following interesting entries relating to Vandyck, who lived and died in this parish, leaving a sum of money in his will to its poor:-- | |
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The child was baptised on the very day her illustrious father died. | |
A portion of the old burying-ground is still to be seen in Church-entry, Ireland Yard. | |
says Stow,
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Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, was lodged in this house, then called Berkeley's Inn, in the parish of St. Andrew, in the reign of Henry VI. | |
St. Andrew's Wardrobe Church is situated upon rising ground, on the east side of Hill, in the ward of Castle Baynard. The advowson of this church was anciently in the noble family of Fitzwalter, to which it probably came by of the office of Constable of the Castle of London (that is, Baynard's Castle). That it is not of a modern foundation is evident by its having had Robert Marsh for its rector, before the year . This church was anciently denominated from its vicinity to that palace. | |
says Stow,
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Linacre's house in was given by him to the , and used as their place of meeting till the early part of the century. | |
In his student days [extra_illustrations.1.303.2] had been patronised by Lorenzo de Medicis, and at Florence, under Demetrius Chalcondylas, who had fled from Constantinople when it was taken by the Turks, he acquired a perfect knowledge of the Greek language. He studied eloquence at Bologna, under Politian, of the most eloquent Latinists in Europe, and while he was at Rome devoted himself to medicine and the study of natural philosophy, under Hermolaus Barbarus. Linacre was the Englishman who read Aristotle and Galen in the original Greek. On his return to England, having taken the degree of M.D. at Oxford, he gave lectures in physic, and taught the Greek language in that university. His reputation soon became so high that King Henry VII. called him to court, and entrusted him with the care of the health and education of his son, Prince Arthur. To show the extent of his acquirements, we may mention that he instructed Princess Katharine in the Italian language, and that he published a work on mathematics, which he dedicated to his pupil, Prince Arthur. | |
His treatise on grammar was warmly praised by Melancthon. This great doctor was successively physician to Henry VII., Henry VIII., Edward VI., and the Princess Mary. He established lectures on physic (says Dr. Macmichael, in his amusing book, ), and towards the close of his life he founded the Royal , holding the office of President for years. Linacre was a friend of Lily, the grammarian, and was consulted by Erasmus. The met in at Linacre's house (now called the Stone House), , and which still belongs to the society. Between the centre windows of the floor are the arms of the college, granted --a hand proper, vested argent, issuing out of clouds, and feeling a pulse; in base, a pomegranate between demi fleurs-de-lis bordering the edge of the escutcheon. In front of the building was a library, and there were early donations of books, globes, mathematical instruments, minerals, & c. Dissections were permitted by Queen Elizabeth, in . As soon as the lectures were founded, in , a spacious anatomical theatre was built adjoining Linacre's house, and here the great [extra_illustrations.1.303.3] gave his course of lectures; but about the time of the accession of Charles I. the College removed [extra_illustrations.1.303.4] , at the bottom of , where they planted a botanical garden and built an anatomical theatre. During the civil wars the Parliament levied a week on the College. Eventually sold by the Puritans, the house and gardens were purchased by Dr. Harvey and given to the society. The great Harvey built a museum and library at his own expense, which were opened in , and Harvey, then nearly , relinquished his office of Professor of Anatomy and Surgery. The garden at this time extended as far west as the , and as far south as . Harvey's gift consisted of a convocation room and a library, to which Selden contributed some Oriental MS., Elias Ashmole many valuable volumes, the Marquis of Dorchester ; and Sir Theodore Mayerne, physician to kings--viz., Henry IV. of France, James I., Charles I., and Charles II.--left his library. The old library was turned into a lecture and reception room, for such visitors as Charles II. who in attended here the anatomical praelections of Dr. Ent, whom he knighted on the occasion. This building was destroyed by the Great Fire, from which only folio books were saved. The College never rebuilt its premises, and on the site were erected the houses of residentiaries of . Shortly after a piece of ground was purchased in , and the new building opened in . A similar grant | |
304 | to that of Linacre's was that of Dr. Lettsom, who in the year gave the house and library in Bolt Court, which is at the present moment occupied by the Medical Society of London. |
The view of Linacre's House, in , which we give on page , is taken from a print in the an amusing work to which we have already referred. | |
Footnotes: [extra_illustrations.1.296.1] New Record Room 1843 [extra_illustrations.1.297.1] heraldic visitations [extra_illustrations.1.298.1] the great Camden [extra_illustrations.1.298.2] Francis Grose, that roundabout [extra_illustrations.1.298.3] Oldys [extra_illustrations.1.303.2] Linacre [extra_illustrations.1.303.3] Dr. Harvey [extra_illustrations.1.303.4] to a house of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's |
