In was the milk-market of Mediaeval London. That good and wise man, Sir Thomas More, was born in this street.

The brightest man,

that ever shone in that

via lactea

.

This pious, wise, and consistent man is described

Alas, Meg,

it pitieth me to remember to what misery poor soul she will shortly come. These dances of hers will prove such dances that she will sport our heads off like foot-balls; but it will not be long ere her head will dance the like dance.

It is to be lamented that with all his wisdom, ore was a bigot. He burnt Frith for denying the corporeal presence; had James Bainton, a gentleman of the Temple, whipped in his presence for heretical opinons; went to the Tower to see him on the rack, and then hurried him to .

Verily,

he was a very notable tyrant, and plagued and tormented innocent Christians like an executioner.

[extra_illustrations.1.375.2] [extra_illustrations.1.375.1]  was established in for the sons of respectable persons engaged in professional, commercial, or trading pursuits; and partly founded on an income of a year, derived from certain tenements bequeathed by John Carpenter, town-clerk of London, in the reign of Henry V.,

for the finding and bringing up of

four

poor men's children, with meat, drink, apparel, learning at the schools, in the universities, & c., until they be preferred, and then others in their places for ever.

caused, with great expense, to be curiously painted upon a board, about the north cloister of Paul's, a monument of Death, leading all estates, with the speeches of Death, and answers of every state.

Times

In stood the small parish church of , destroyed in the Great Fire. It was repaired and beautified at the charge of the parish in . All the chancel window was built at the proper cost of Mr. Benjamin Henshaw, Merchant Taylor, and of the City captains.

This church was burnt down in the Great Fire, and was not rebuilt. amusing epitaph has been preserved:--

HERE LIETH THE BODY OF SIR WILLIAM STONE, KNT.

As the Earth the Earth doth cover, So under this stone Lyes another; Sir William Stone, Who long deceased, Ere the world's love Him released; So much it loved him, For they say, He answered Death Before his day; But, 'tis not so; For he was sought Of One that both him Made and bought. He remain'd The Great Lord's Treasurer, Who called for him At his pleasure, And received him. Yet be it said, Earth grieved that Heaven So soon was paid.

Here likewise lyes Inhumed in one bed, Dear Barbara, The well-beloved wife Of this remembered Knight; Whose souls are fled From this dimure vale To everlasting life, Where no more change, Nor no more separation, Shall make them flye From their blest habitation. Grasse of levitie, Span in brevity, Flower's felicity, Fire of misery, Wind's stability, Is mortality.

Honey Lane,

is so called not of sweetness thereof, being very narrow and small and dark, but rather of often washing and sweeping to keep it clean.

On the site of All Hallows' Church, destroyed in the Great Fire, a market was afterwards established.

There be no monuments,

in this church worth the noting; I find that John Norman, Maior, 1453, was buried there. He gave to the drapers his tenements on the north side of the said church; they to allow for the beam light and lamp 13s. 4d. yearly, from this lane to the Standard.

This church hath the misfortune to have no bequests to church or poor, nor to any publick use.

There was a parsonage house before the Great Fire, but now the ground on which it stood is swallowed up by the market. The parish of St. Maryle-Bow (to which it is united) hath received all the money paid for the site of the ground of the said parsonage.

All Hallows' Church was repaired and beautified at the cost of the parishioners in .

derives its name from the church of St. Lawrence, at its north end.

Antiquities,

in this lane I find none other than among many fair houses. There is

one

large inn for receipt of travellers, called

Blossoms Inn,

but corruptly

Bosoms Inn,

and hath for a sign

St. Lawrence, the Deacon,

in a border of blossoms or flowers.

St. Lawrence Bosoms

The curious old tract about Bankes and his trained horse was written under the assumed names of

John Dando, the wier-drawer of Hadley, and Harrie Runt, head ostler of Besomes Inne,

St. Lawrence Church is situate on the north side of ,

and is denominated,

from its dedication to Lawrence, a Spanish saint, born at Huesca, in the kingdom of Arragon; who, after having undergone the most grievous tortures, in the persecution under Valerian, the emperor, was cruelly broiled alive upon a gridiron, with a slow fire, till he died, for his strict adherence to Christianity; and the additional epithet of Jewry, from its situation among the Jews, was conferred upon it, to distinguish it from the church of St. Lawrence Pulteney, now demolished.

This church, which was anciently a rectory, being given by Hugo de Wickenbroke to Baliol College in Oxford, anno 1294, the rectory ceased.; wherefore Richard, Bishop of London, converted the same into a vicarage; the advowson whereof still continues in the same college. This church sharing the common. fate in 1666, it has since been beautifully rebuilt, and the parish of St. Mary Magdalen, ilk Street, thereunto annexed.

Here lyeth the great Sir Richard Gresham, Knight, some time Lord Maior of London; and Audrey, his first wife, by whom he had issue, Sir John Gresham and Sir Thomas Gresham, Knights, William and Margaret; which Sir Richard deceased the 20th day of February, An. Domini 1548, and the third yeere of King Edward the Sixth his Reigne, and Audrey deceased the 28th day of December, An. Dom. 1522.

There is also this epitaph:--

Lo here the Lady Margaret North,

In tombe and earth do lye;

Of husbands four the faithfull spouse,

Whose fame shall never dye.

One Andrew Franncis was the first,

The second Robert hight,

Surnamed Chartsey, Alderman;

Sir David Brooke, a knight,

Was third. But he that passed all,

And was in number fourth,

And for his virtue made a Lord,

Was called Sir Edward North.

These altogether do I wish

A joyful rising day;

That of the Lord and of his Christ,

All honour they may say.

Obiit 2 die Junii, An. Dom. 1575.

In , inhabited by ironmongers Edward I., is [extra_illustrations.1.376.1]  an interesting building.

The Mercers, though not formally incorporated till the of Richard II. (), are traced back by Herbert as early as . Soon afterwards

the fraternity of Mercers,

Brothers of St. Thomas à Becket.

Mercers were at general dealers in all small wares, including wigs, haberdashery, and even spices and drugs. They attended fairs and markets, and even sat on the ground to sell their wares--in fact, were little more than high-class pedlers. The poet Tower talks of

the depression of such mercerie.

The mercers' station, in Henry II.'s reign, was in that part of Cheap on the north side where Mercers' Hall now stands but they removed afterwards higher up on the south side. The part of between Bow Church and became known as the Mercery. Here, in front of a large meadow called the

Crownsild,

In (Edward III.), the Mercers grew jealous of the Lombard merchants, and on Midsummer Day mercers were sent to the Tower for attacking Lombards in the . The mercers in this reign sold woollen clothes, but not silks. In , John Barnes, mercer, mayor, gave a chest with locks, with therein, to be lent to younger mercers, upon sufficient pawn and for the use thereof. The grateful recipients were merely to say

De Profundis,

In the reign of Henry VI. the mercers had become great dealers in silks and velvets, and had resigned to the haberdashers the sale of small articles of dress. It is not known whether the mercers bought their silks from the Lombards, or the London silk-women, or whether they imported them themselves, since many of the members of the Company were merchants.

years after the murder of Becket, the murdered man's sister, who had married Thomas

Fitz Theobald de Helles, built a chapel and hospital of Augustine Friars close to , . The hospital was built on the site of the house where Becket was born. He was the son of Gilbert Becket, citizen, mercer and portreve of London, who was said to have been a Crusader, and. to have married a fair Saracen, who had released him from prison, and who followed him to London, knowing only the English word

Gilbert.

St. Thomas of Acon,

In , Thomas Falconer, mercer and mayor, lent Henry V., towards his French wars, upon jewels.

In , Joan Bradbury, widow of Thomas Bradbury, late Lord Mayor of London, left the Conduit Mead (now ), to the Mercers' Company for charitable uses. In pursuance of the King's grant on this occasion, the Bishop of Norwich and others granted the Mercers' Company acres of land in Marylebone, acres in , and St. Giles, and St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, of the annual value of , and in part satisfaction of the said a year. The Company still possess acres and a half of this old gift, forming the north side of and the adjacent streets, of which bears the name of the Company. was described in a parliamentary survey in to have long gardens reaching down to Cock and Pye Ditch, and the site of Dials. In the Greshams (at the time the Companies were appealed to) lent Henry VIII. upon mortgaged lands In , the wardens of the Mercers' Company were summoned before the Queen's Council for selling their velvets, satins, and damasks so dear, as English coin was no longer base, and the old excuse for the former high charges was gone. The Mercers prudently bowed before the storm, promised reform, and begged her Majesty's Council to look after the Grocers. At this time the chief vendors of

During the civil wars both King and Parliament bore heavily on the Mercers. In Charles I. half forced from them a loan of , and in the Parliament borrowed , and arms from the Company's armoury, valued at . They afterwards gave further arms, valued at , and advanced as a loan . The result now became visible. In , hoping to clear off their debts, the Mercers' Company engaged in a ruinous insurance scheme, suggested by Dr. Assheton, a Kentish rector. It was proposed to grant annuities of per cent. to clergymen's widows according to certain sums paid by their husbands.

Pledging the rents of their large landed estates as security for the fulfilment of their contracts with usurers, the Mercers entered on business as life assurance agents. Limiting the entire amount of subscription to £ 100,000, they decided that no person over sixty years of age should become a subscriber; that no subscriber should subscribe less than £ 50-i.e., should purchase a smaller contingent annuity than one of £ 15 ; that the annuity to every subscriber's widow, or other person for The Swan With Two Necks, Lad Lane (see page 374). whom the insurance was effected, should be at the rate of £ 30 for every £ 100 of subscription. It was stipulated that subscribers must be in good and perfect health at the time of subscription. It was decided that all married men of the age of thirty years or under, might subscribe any sum from £ 50 to £ 1,000; that all married men, not exceeding sixty years of age, might subscribe any sum not less than £ 50, and not exceeding £ 300. The Company's prospectus further stipulates that no person that goes to sea, nor soldier that goes to the wars, shall be admitted to subscribe to have the benefit of this proposal, in regard of the casualties and accidents that they are more particularly liable to. Moreover, it was provided that in case it should happen that any man who had subscribed should voluntarily make away with himself, or by any act of his occasion his own death, either by duelling, or committing any crime whereby he should be sentenced to be put to death by justice; in any or either of these cases his widow should receive no annuity, but upon delivering up the Company's bond, should have the subscription money paid to her.

The Mercers' operations soon gave rise to more business-like companies, specially created to secure the public against some of the calamitous consequences of death. In 1706, the Amicable Life Assurance Office-usually, though, as the reader has seen, incorrectly, termed the First Life Insur- Dance Office--was established in imitation of the Mercers' Office. Two years later, the Second Society of Assurance, for the support of widows and orphans, was opened in Dublin, which, like the Amicable, introduced numerous improvements upon Dr. Assheton's scheme, and was a Joint-Stock Life Assurance Society, identical in its principles with, and similar in most of its details to, the modern insurance companies, of which there were as many as one hundred and sixty in the year 1859.

Large sums were subscribed, but the annuities

The petition showed that the Mercers were indebted more than . The annuities then out amounted to per annum, and the subscriptions forfuture amounts reached a year; while to answer these claims their present income only amounted to per annum. The Company was therefore empowered by Act of Parliament, George III., to issue new bonds and pay them off by a lottery, drawn in their own hall. This plan had the effect of completely retrieving their affairs, and restoring them again to prosperity.

Strype speaks of the mercers' shops situated on the south side of as having been turned from mere sheds into handsome buildings or storeys high.

Mercers' Hall and Chapel have a history of their own. On the rough suppression of monastic institutions, Henry VIII., gorged with plunder, granted to the Mercers' Company for the church of the college of St. Thomas Acon, the parsonage of St. Mary Colechurch, and sundry premises in the parishes of St. Paul, , St. Stephen, , St. Martin, , and St. Stephen, . Immediately behind the great doors of the hospital and Mercers' Hall stood the hospital church of St. Thomas, and at the back were court-yards, cloisters, and gardens in a great wide enclosure east and west of and the .

St. Thomas's Church was a large structure, probably rich in monuments, though many of the illustrious mercers were buried in Bow Church, , Soper Lane, St. Antholin's, , and St. Benet Sherehog. The church was bought chiefly by Sir Richard Gresham's influence, and Stow tells us

it is now called Mercers' Chappell, and therein is kept a free grammar school as of old time had been accustomed.

great old chapel of St. Thomas,

The old hospital gate, which forms the present hospital entrance, had an image of St. Thomas A Becket, but this was pulled down by Elizabethan fanatics. The interior of the chapel remains unaltered. There is a large ambulatory before it supported by columns, and a stone staircase leads to the hall and court-rooms. The ambulatory contains the [extra_illustrations.1.380.1]  Mercer, dressed in a fur gown and ruff. He was a great benefactor to the Company, and died in (James I.).

Many eminent citizens were buried in St. Thomas's, though most of the monuments had been defaced even in Stow's time. Among them were Mercer mayors and sheriffs, grocers (probably from , their special locality), Sir Edward Shaw, goldsmith to Richard III., Earls of Ormond, and Stephen Cavendish, draper and mayor (), whose descendants were ancestors of the ducal families' of Cavendish and Devonshire.

William Downer of London, gent., by his last will, dated , gave orders for his body to be buried within the church of St. Thomas Acon's, of London, in these terms :--

So that every year, yearly for evermore, in their foresaid churche, at such time of the year as it shal happen me to dy, observe and keep an

obyte

, or an anniversary for my sowl, the sowles of my seyd wyfe, the sowles of my fader and moder, and al Christian sowles, with

placebo

and dirige on the even, and mass of requiem on the morrow following solemnly by note for evermore.

Previous to the suppression; Henry VIII. had permitted the Hospital of St. Thomas of Acon, which wanted room, to throw a gallery across into a garden which the master had purchased, adjoining the Grocers' Hall, and in which Sir Robert Clayton afterwards built a house, of which we shall have to speak in its place. The gallery was to have windows, and in the winter a light was ordered to be burned there for the comfort of passers-by. In , Henry VIII. and his queen, Jane Seymour, stood in the Mercers' all, then newly built, and saw the

marching watch of the City

In the reign of James I., Mercers' Chapel became a fashionable place of resort; gallants and ladies crowded there to hear the sermons of the learned Italian Archbishop of Spalatro, in Dalmatia, of the few prize converts to Protestantism. In we look in and find among his auditors the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, the Earls of Arundeland Pembroke, and Lords Zouch and Compton. The chapel continued for many years to be used for Italian sermons preached to English merchants who had resided abroad, and who partly defrayed the expense. The Mercers' School was held in the hospital and then removed to the mercery.

The present chapel front in is the central part alone of the front built after the Great Fire. Correspondent houses, storeys high, formerly gave breadth and effect to the whole mass.

The entrance most used is in , where is a small court, with offices, apparently the site of the ancient cloister, and which leads to the principal building. The hall itself is elevated as anciently, and supported by Doric columns, the space below being open side and forming an extensive piazza, at the extremity whereof is the chapel, which is neatly planned, wainscoted, and paved with black and white marble. A high flight of stairs leads from the piazza to the hall, which is a very lofty apartment; handsomely wainscoted and ornamented with Doric pilasters, and various carvings in compartments.

In the hall, besides the transaction of the Company's business, the Gresham committees are held, which consist of aldermen, including the Lord Mayor , and of the City corporation, with whom are associated a select number of the assistants of the Mercers. In this hall also the British Fishery Society, and other corporate bodies, were formerly accustomed to hold their meetings.

The chief portraits in the hall are those of Sir Thomas Gresham (original), a fanciful portrait of Sir Richard Whittington, a likeness of Count Tekeli (the hero of the old opera), Count Panington; Dean Colet (the illustrious friend of Erasmus, and the founder of school); Thomas Papillon, Master of the Company in , who left to the Company, to relieve any of his family that ever came to want; and Rowland Wynnes Master of the Company in . Wynne gave towards the repairing of the hall after the Great Fire.

In Strype's time (), the Mercers' Company gave away a year in charity. In the Company's money legacies amounted to , out of which the Company paid annually In , the lapsed legacies of the Company became the subject of a Chancery suit; the result was that money is now lent to liverymen or freemen of the Company requiring assistance in sums of , and not exceeding , for a term, without interest, but only upon approved security.

The present Mercers' School, which is but lately finished, is a very elegant stone structure, adjoining St. Michael's Church, , on the site of Whittington's Almshouses, which had been removed to Highgate to make room for it.

The school scholarship is in the gift of the Mercers' Company, and it must not be forgotten that Caxton, the great English printer, was a member of this livery.

Subsequently to the Great Fire, says Herbert, there was some discussion with Parliament on rebuilding the Mercers' School on the former site of St. Mary Colechurch. That site, however, was ultimately rejected, and by the Rebuilding Act, Charles II. (), it was expressly provided that there should be a plot of ground, on the western side of the ,

set apart for the Mercers' School.

The great value of ground on the above spot, and a desire to widen, as at present, the entrance to the , occasioned the temporary removal of the Mercers' School, in , to No. , , about yards from (a house of the Company's, which was afterwards burnt down). In it was again temporarily removed, to No. , , ; and from thence, in , to its present situation on . The latter premises were hired by the Company, at the rent of. , and the average expense of the school was The salary of the master is , and gratuity, with a house to live in, rent and taxes free Writing, arithmetic, and merchant's accounts were added to the Greek and Latin classics, in ; and a writing-master was engaged, who has a salary of , and a gratuity of , but no house. There are exhibitions belonging to the school.

With the Mercers' Hospital, in the Middle Ages, many curious old City customs were connected. The customary devotions of the new Lord Mayor, at St. Thomas of Acon Church, in the Catholic times,

after dinner

,

was wont to go from his house to the Church of St. Thomas of Acon, those of his livery going before him; and the aldermen in like manner being there met together, they came to the Church of St. Paul, whither, when they were come, namely, in the middle place between the body of the church, between

two

little doors, they were wont to pray for the soul of the Bishop of London. William Norman, who was a great benefactor to the City, in obtaining the confirmation of their liberties from William the Conqueror, a priest saying the office

De Profundis

(called a dirge); and from thence they passed to the churchyard, where Thomas à Becket's parents were buried, and there, near their tomb, they said also, for all the faithful deceased,

De Profundis

again. The City procession thence returned through

Cheapside

Market, sometimes with wax candles burning (if it was late), to the said Church Sanctas Thomae, and there the mayor and aldermen offered single pence, which being done, every

one

went to his home.

On all saints' days, and various other festivals, the mayor with his family attended at this same Church of St. Thomas, and the aldermen also, and those that were

of the livery of the mayor, with the honest men of the mysteries,

The Mercers' election cup, says Timbs, of early century work, was silver-gilt, decorated with fret-work and female busts; the feet, flasks; and on the cover is the popular legend of an unicorn yielding its horn to a maiden. The whole is enamelled with coats of arms, and these lines-

To elect the Master of the Mercerie hither am I sent,

And by Sir Thomas Leigh for the same intent.

The Company also possess a silver-gilt wagon and tun, covered with arabesques and enamels, of century work. The hall was originally decorated with carvings; the main stem of deal, the fruit, flowers, & c., of lime, pear, and beech. These becoming worm-eaten, were long since removed from the panelling and put aside; but they have been restored by Mr. Henry Crace, who thus describes the process:--

The carving is of the same colour as when taken down. I merely washed it, and with a gimlet bored a number of holes in the back, and into every projecting piece of fruit and leaves on the face, and placing the whole in a long trough, fifteen inches deep, I covered it with a solution prepared in the following manner :--I took sixteen gallons of linseed oil, with 2 lbs. of litharge, finely ground, i lb. of camphor, and 2 lbs. of red lead, which I boiled for six hours, keeping it stirred, that every ingredient might be perfectly incorporated. I then dissolved 6 lbs. of bees'-wax in a gallon of spirits of turpentine, and mixed the whole, while warm, thoroughly together.

In this solution the carving remained for twentyfour hours. When taken out, I kept the face downwards, that the oil might soak down to the face of the carving; and on cutting some of the wood nearly nine inches deep, I found it had soaked through, for not any of the dust was blown out, as I considered it a valuable medium to form a substance for the future support of the wood. This has been accomplished, and, as the dust became saturated with the oil, it increased in bulk, and rendered the carving perfectly solid.

The Company is now governed by a master, wardens, and a court of or more assistants. The livery fine is The Mercers' Company, though not by any means the most ancient of the leading City companies, takes precedence of all. Such anomalous institutions are the City companies, that, curious to relate, the present body hardly includes mercer among them. In Henry VIII.'s reign the Company (freemen, householders, and livery) amounted to persons; in it had almost quadrupled. Strype () only enumerates mayors who had been mercers, from to ; this is below the mark. Halkins over-estimates the mercer mayors as up to . Few monarchs have been mercers,yet Richard II. was a free brother, and Queen Elizabeth a free sister.

Half our moder nobility have sprung from the trades they now despise. Many of the great mercers became the founders of noble houses; for instance-Sir John Coventry (), ancestor of the present Earl of Coventry; Sir Geoffrey Bullen, grandfather of Queen Elizabeth; Sir William Hollis, ancestor of the Earls of Clare. From Sir Richard Dormer () sprang the Lords Dormer; from Sir Thomas Baldry () the Lords Kensington (Rich); from Sir Thomas Seymour () the Dukes of Somerset; from Sir Baptist Hicks, the great mercer of James I., who built Hicks' Hall, on , sprang the Viscounts Camden;

The costume of the Mercers became fixed about the reign of Charles I. The master and wardens led the civic processions,

faced in furs,

In

Ironmonger Lane

,

is the small parish church of St. Martin, called Pomary, upon what occasion certainly I know not; but it is supposed to be of apples growing where now houses are lately builded, for myself have seen the large void places there.

[extra_illustrations.1.375.2] The City of London School Milk Street

[extra_illustrations.1.375.1] New Buildings, City of London School

[extra_illustrations.1.376.1] Mercers' Hall

[extra_illustrations.1.380.1] recumbent figure of Richard Fishborne,