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
The Lord Mayors Of London.David Salomons, Lord Mayor, 1855 John Thomas Thorp L.M. 1820, 21 John Carter 1859 John Staples 1885 Charles Whetham James Shaw 1806 George Scholey 1813
The Lord Mayors Of London.David Salomons, Lord Mayor, 1855 John Thomas Thorp L.M. 1820, 21 John Carter 1859 John Staples 1885 Charles Whetham James Shaw 1806 George Scholey 1813
The modern Lord Mayor is supposed to have had a prototype in the Roman prefect and the Saxon portgrave. The Lord Mayor is only and by courtesy, and not from his dignity as a Privy Councillor on the demise or abdication of a sovereign. | |
In , Richard I. elected [extra_illustrations.1.396.8] , a draper of London, to be mayor of London, and he served years. He is supposed to have been a descendant of Aylwyn Child, who founded the priory at in . He was buried, according to Strype, at St. Mary | |
397 | Bothaw, , a church destroyed in the Great Fire; but according to Stow, in the Holy Trinity Priory, . There is a doubtful half-length oil-portrait or panel of the venerable Fitz Alwyn over the master's chair in Drapers' Hall, but it has no historical value. But the formal mayor was Richard Renger (), King John granting the right of choosing a mayor to the citizens, provided he was presented to the king or his justice for approval. Henry III. afterwards allowed the presentation to take place in the king's absence before the Barons of the Exchequer at , to prevent expense and delay, as the citizens could not be expected to search for the king all over England and France. |
The presentation to the king, even when he was in England, long remained a great vexation with | |
the London mayors. For instance, in , Gerard Bat, chosen a time, went to Woodstock Palace to be presented to King Henry III., who refused to appoint him till he (the king) came to London. | |
Henry III., indeed, seems to have been, chronically troubled by the London mayors, for in , on the mayor and aldermen doing fealty to the king in , the mayor, with blunt honesty, dared to say to the weak monarch,
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These were bold words in a reign when the heading block was always kept ready near a throne. In , the same monarch seized and imprisoned the mayor and chief aldermen for fortifying the City in favour of the barons, and for years the [extra_illustrations.1.397.1] [extra_illustrations.1.397.2] [extra_illustrations.1.397.3] [extra_illustrations.1.397.4] [extra_illustrations.1.397.5] [extra_illustrations.1.397.6] | |
398 | tyrannical king appointed custodes. The City again recovered its liberties and retained them till (Edward I.), when Sir Gregory Rokesley refusing to go out of the City to appear before the king's justices at the Tower, the mayoralty was again suspended and custodes appointed till the year , when Henry Wallein was elected mayor. Edward II. also held a tight hand on the mayoralty till he appointed the great goldsmith, Sir Nicholas Farindon, mayor Farindon gave the title to Farringdon Ward, which had been in his family years, the consideration being as a fine, and clove or a slip of gillyflower at the feast of Easter. He was a warden of the Goldsmiths, and was buried at St. Peter-le-Chepe, a church that before the Great Fire stood where the plane-tree now waves at the corner of . He left money for a light to burn before our Lady the Virgin in St. Peter-le-Chepe for ever. |
The mayoralty of Andrew Aubrey, Grocer (), was rather warlike; for the mayor and of his officers being assaulted in a tumult, of the ringleaders were beheaded at once in Chepe. In , Henry Picard, mayor of London, was an honoured man, for he had the glory of feasting Edward III. of England, the Black Prince, John King of Austria, the King of Cyprus, and David of Scotland, and afterwards opened his hall to all comers at cards and dice, his wife inviting the court ladies. | |
[extra_illustrations.1.398.1] a fishmonger, who was mayor in (Edward III.) and . (Richard II.), was that prompt and choleric man who somewhat basely slew the Kentish rebel, Wat Tyler, when he was invited to a parley by the young king. It was long supposed that the dagger in the City arms was added in commemoration of this foul blow, but Stow has clearly shown that it was intended to represent the sword of St. Paul, the patron saint of the Corporation of London. The manor of belonged to the family of this mayor, who was buried in the Church of St. Michael, Crooked Lane, the parish where he had resided. Some antiquaries, says Mr. Timbs, think the prefix of is traceable to (ist Richard II.), when there was a general assessment for a war subsidy. The question was where was the mayor to come. was the suggestion; so the right worshipful had to pay , about of our present money. | |
And now we come to a mayor greater even in City story and legend than even himself, even the renowned [extra_illustrations.1.398.2] the hero of our nursery days. He was the son of a Gloucestershire knight, who had fallen into poverty. The industrious son, born in (Edward III.), on coming to London, was apprenticed to Hugh Fitzwarren, a mercer. Disgusted with the drudgery, he ran away; but while resting by a stone cross at the foot of Highgate Hill, he is said to have heard in the sound of Bow Bells the voice of his good angel, What a charm there is still in the old story As for the cat that made his fortune by catching all the mice in Barbary, we fear we must throw him overboard, even though Stow tells a true story of a man and a cat that greatly resembles that told of Whittington. Whittington married his master's daughter, and became a wealthy merchant. He supplied the wedding trousseau of the Princess Blanche, eldest daughter of Henry IV., when she married the son of the King of the Romans, and also the pearls and cloth of gold for the marriage of the Princess Philippa. He became the court banker, and lent large sums of money to our lavish monarchs, especially to the chivalrous Henry V. for carrying on the siege of Harfleur, a siege celebrated by Shakespeare. It is said that in his last mayoralty King Henry V. and Queen Catherine dined with him in the City, when Whittington caused a fire to be lighted of precious woods, mixed with cinnamon and other spices; and then taking all the bonds given him by the king for money lent, amounting to no less than , he threw them into the fire and burnt them, thereby freeing his sovereign from his debts. The king, astonished at such a proceeding, exclaimed, to which Whittington, with court gallantry, replied,
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Whittington was really times mayor-twice in Richard II.'s reign, once in that of Henry IV., and once in that of Henry V. As a mayor Whittington was popular, and his justice and patriotism became proverbial. He vigorously opposed the admission of foreigners into the freedom of the City, and he fined the Brewers' Company for selling bad ale and forestalling the market. His generosity was like a well-spring; and being childless, he spent his life in deeds of charity and generosity. He erected conduits at Cripplegate and ; he founded a library at the Grey Friars' Monastery in (now ); he procured the completion of the , a book of City customs; and he gave largely towards the library. He paved the , restored the hospital of St. Bartholomew, and by his will left money to rebuild Newgate, and erect almshouses on | |
399 | (now removed to Highgate) He died in (Henry VI.). Nor should we forget that Whittington was also a great architect, and enlarged the nave of for his knightly master, Henry V. This large-minded and munificent man resided in a grand mansion in , up a gateway a few doors from . A very curious old house in Sweedon's Passage, Grub Street, with an external winding staircase, used to be pointed out as Whittington's; and the splendid old mansion in , , pulled down in , and replaced by offices and warehouses, was said to have cats'-heads for knockers, and cats' heads (whose eyes seemed always turned on you) carved in the ceilings. The doorways, and the brackets of the long lines of projecting Tudor windows, were beautifully carved with grotesque figures. |
In (Henry V.) Sir William de Sevenoke was mayor. This rich merchant had risen to the top of the tree by cleverness and diligence equal to that of Whittington, but we hear less of his charity. He was a foundling, brought up by charitable persons, and apprenticed to a grocer. He was knighted by Henry VI., and represented the City in Parliament. Dying in , he was buried at , Ludgate. | |
In (Henry VI.) Sir John Rainewell, mayor, with a praiseworthy disgust at all dishonesty in trade, detecting Lombard merchants adulterating their wines, ordered butts to be stove in and swilled down the kennels. How he might wash down London now with cheap sherry! | |
In (Henry VI.), Sir Simon Eyre. This very worthy mayor left to the Company of Drapers, for prayers to be read to the market people by a priest in the chapel at . | |
It is related that when it was proposed to Eyre at that he should stand for sheriff, he would fain have excused himself, as he did not think his income was sufficient; but he was soon silenced by of the aldermen observing This assertion excited the curiosity of the then Lord Mayor and all present, in consequence of which his lordship and of the aldermen, having invited themselves, accompanied him home to dinner. On their arrival Mr. Eyre desired his wife to This she would fain have refused, but finding he would take no excuse, she seated herself on a low stool, and, spreading a damask napkin over her lap, with a venison pasty thereon, Simon exclaimed to the astonished mayor and his brethren, Soon after this Sir Simon was chosen Lord Mayor, on which occasion, remembering his former promise he, on the following Shrove Tuesday, gave a pancake feast to all the 'prentices in London; on which occasion they went in procession to the , where they met with a cordial reception from Sir Simon and his lady, who did the honours of the table on this memorable day, allowing their guests to want for neither ale nor wine. | |
In Sir John Norman was the mayor who rowed to . The mayors had hitherto generally accompanied the presentation show on horseback. The Thames watermen, delighted with the innovation so profitable to them, wrote a song in praise of Norman, lines of which are quoted by Fabyan in his and Mr. Rimbault, an eminent musical antiquary, thinks he has found the original tune in John Hilton's (). | |
The deeds of Sir Stephen Forster, Fishmonger, and mayor (Henry VI.), who by his will left money to rebuild Newgate, we have mentioned elsewhere (p. ). Sir Godfrey Boleine, Lord Mayor, (Henry VI.), was grandfather to Thomas, Earl of Wiltshire, the grandfather of Queen Elizabeth. He was a mercer in the , and left by his will to the poor householders of London, and to the poor householders in Norfolk (his native county), besides large legacies to the London prisons, lazar. houses, and hospitals. Such were the citizens, from whom half our aristocracy has sprung. Sir Godfrey Fielding, a mercer in , Lord Mayor in (Henry VI.), was the ancestor of the Earls of Denbigh, and a privy councillor of the king. | |
In Edward IV.'s reign, when the Lancastrians, under the bastard Falconbridge, stormed the City in places, but were eventually bravely repulsed by the citizens, Edward, in gratitude, knighted the mayor, Sir John Stockton, and , of the aldermen. In (the same reign) Bartholomew James (Draper) had Sheriff Bayfield fined (about of our money) for kneeling too close to him while at prayers in , and for reviling him when complained of. There was a pestilence raging at the time, and the mayor was afraid of contagion. The money went, we presume, to build City conduits, then much wanted. The Lord Mayor in , Sir Thomas Coke (Draper), | |
400 | ancestor of Lord Bacon, Earl Fitzwilliam, the Marquis of Salisbury, and Viscount Cranbourne, being a Lancastrian, suffered much from the rapacious tyranny of Edward IV. The very year he was made Knight of the Bath, Coke was sent to the Compter, afterwards to the Bench, and illegally fined to the king and to the queen. aldermen also had their goods seized, and were fined . In this greedy king sent to Sir William Hampton, Lord Mayor, to extort benevolences, or subsidies. The mayor gave , the aldermen , the poorer persons each. In , King Edward sent the mayor, William Herriot (Draper), for the good he had done to trade, harts, bucks, and a tun of wine, for a banquet to the lady mayoress and the aldermen's wives at Drapers' Hall. |
At Richard III.'s coronation (), the Lord Mayor, Sir Edmund Shaw, attended as cup-bearer with great pomp, and the mayor's claim to this honour was formally allowed and put on record. Shaw was a goldsmith, and supplied the usurper with most of his plate. Sir William Horn, Lord Mayor in , had been knighted on Bosworth field by Henry VII., for whom he fought against the This mayor's real name was Littlesbury (we are told), but Edward IV. had nicknamed him Horn, from his peculiar skill on that instrument. The year Henry VII. landed at Milford Haven London mayors died. In (Henry VII.), Sir Henry Colet, father of good Dean Colet, who founded School, was mayor. | |
Colet chose John Percival (Merchant Taylor), his carver, sheriff, by drinking to him in a cup of wine, according to custom, and Perceval forthwith sat down at the mayor's table. Percival was afterwards mayor in . Henry VII. was remorseless in squeezing money out of the City by every sort of expedient. He fined Alderman Capel ; he made the City buy a confirmation of their charter for ; in he threw Thomas Knesworth, who had been mayor the year before, and his sheriff, into the Marshalsea, and fined them ; and the year after, he imprisoned Sir Lawrence Aylmer, mayor in the previous year, and extorted money from him. He again amerced Alderman Capel (ancestor of the Earls of Essex) , and on his bold resistance, threw him into the Tower for life. In (Henry VII.) John Matthew earned the distinction of being the , but probably not the last, bachelor Lord Mayor; and a cheerless mayoralty it must have been. In Sir John Shaw held the Lord Mayor's feast for the time in the | |
; and the same hospitable mayor built the kitchen at his own expense. | |
Henry VIII.'s mayors were worshipful men, and men of renown. To and Whittington was now to be added the illustrious name of Gresham. Sir Richard Gresham, who was mayor in the year , was the father of the illustrious founder of the . He was of a Norfolk family, and with his brothers carried on trade as mercers. He became a Gentleman sher Extraordinary to Henry VIII., and at the tearing to pieces of the monasteries by that monarch, he obtained, by judicious courtliness, no less than successive grants of Church lands. He advocated the construction of an Exchange, encouraged freedom of trade, and is said to have invented bills of exchange. In he was nearly expelled the Common Council for trying, at Wolsey's instigation, to obtain a benevolence from the citizens. It is greatly to Gresham's credit that he helped Wolsey after his fall, and Henry, who with all his faults was magnanimous, liked Gresham none the worse for that. In the interesting (Henry VI.), there are letters of of Gresham's Norfolk ancestors, dated from London, and the seal a grasshopper. Sir Richard Gresham died (Edward VI.), at , and was buried in the church of St. Lawrence Jewry. Gresham's daughter married an ancestor of the Marquis of Bath, and the Duke of Buckingham and Lord Braybrooke are said to be descendants of his brother John, so much has good City blood enriched our proud Norman aristocracy, and so often has the full City purse gone to fill again the exhausted treasury of the old knighthood. In , Sir Martin Bowes (Goldsmith) was mayor, and lent Henry VIII., whose purse was a cullender, the sum of . Sir Martin was butler at Elizabeth's coronation, and left the Goldsmiths' Company his gold fee cup, out of which the Queen drank. In our history of the Goldsmiths' Company we have mentioned his portrait in Goldsmiths' Hall. Alderman William Fitzwilliam, in this reign, also nobly stood by his patron, Wolsey, after his fall; for which the King, saying he had too few such servants, knighted him and made him a Privy Councillor. When he died, in the year , he was Knight of the Garter, Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. He left to dower poor maidens, and his best to his brethren, the Merchant Taylors. In the King invited the Lord Mayor, Sir Raphe Warren (an ancestor of Cromwell and Hampden, says Mr. Orridge), the aldermen, and of the | |
401 | principal citizens, to the christening of the Princess Elizabeth, at Greenwich; and at the ceremony the scarlet gowns and gold chains made a gallant show. |
In Edward VI.'s reign, the Greshams again came to the front. In , Sir John Gresham, brother of the Sir Richard before mentioned, obtained from Henry VIII. the hospital of St. Mary Bethlehem as an asylum for lunatics. | |
In this reign the City Corporation lands (as being given by Papists for superstitious uses) were all claimed for the King's use, to the amount of per annum. The London Corporation, unable to resist this tyranny, had to retrieve them at the rate of years' purchase. Sir Andrew Judd (Skinner), mayor in , was ancestor of Lord Teynham, Viscount Strangford, Chief Baron Smythe, & c. Among the bequests in his will were then let for a few pounds a year, now worth nearly per annum. In Sir Thomas White (Merchant Taylor) kept the citizens loyal to Queen Mary during Wyatt's rebellion, the brave Queen coming to and personally re-assuring the citizens. White was the son of a poor clothier; at the age of he was apprenticed to a London tailor, who left him to begin the world with, and by thrift and industry he rose to wealth. He was the generous founder of College, Oxford. According to Webster, the poet, he had been directed in a dream to found a college upon a spot where he should find bodies of an elm springing from root. Discovering no such tree at Cambridge, he went to Oxford, and finding a likely tree in Gloucester Hall garden, began at once to enlarge and widen that college; but soon after he found the real tree of his dream, outside the north gate of Oxford, and on that spot he founded College. | |
In the reign of Elizabeth, many great-hearted citizens served the office of mayor. Again we shall see how little even the best monarchs of these days understood the word and how the constant attacks upon their purses taught the London citizens to appreciate and to defend their rights. In , Sir William Hewet (Clothworker) was mayor, whose income is estimated at per annum. Hewet lived on , and day a nurse playing with his little daughter Anne, at of the broad lattice windows overlooking the Thames, by accident let the child fall. A young apprentice, named Osborne, seeing the accident, leaped from a window into the fierce current below the arches, and saved the infant. Years after, many great courtiers, including the Earl of Shrewsbury, came courting fair Mistress Anne, the rich citizen's heiress. Sir William, her father, said to and all, And so Osborne did, and became a rich citizen and Lord Mayor in . He is the direct ancestor of the Duke of Leeds. There is a portrait of the brave apprentice at Kiveton House, in Yorkshire. He dwelt in , in his father-in-law's house, and was buried at St. Dionis Backchurch, . | |
In Lord Mayor Lodge got into a terrible scrape with Queen Elizabeth, who brooked no opposition, just or unjust. of the Queen's insolent purveyors, to insult the mayor, seized capons out of destined for the mayor's table. The indignant mayor took six of the fowls, called the purveyor a scurvy knave, and threatened him with the biggest pair of irons in Newgate. In spite of the intercession of Lord Robert Dudley (Leicester) and Secretary Cecil, Lodge was fined and compelled to resign his gown. Lodge was the father of the poet, and engaged in the negro trade. Lodge's successor, Sir Thomas Ramsay, died childless, and his widow left large sums to [extra_illustrations.1.401.1] and other charities, and to each of City Companies; also sums for the relief of poor maimed soldiers, poor Cambridge scholars, and for poor maids' marriages. | |
Sir Rowland Heyward (Clothworker), mayor in . He was an ancestor of the Marquis of Bath, and the father of children, all of whom are displayed on his monument in St. Alphege, . | |
Sir Wolston Dixie, (Skinner) was the mayor whose pageant was published. It forms the chapter of the many volumes relating to pageants collected by that eminent antiquary, the late Mr. Fairholt, and bequeathed by him to the Society of Antiquaries. Dixie assisted in building Peterhouse College, Cambridge. In , Sir John Spencer (Clothworker)- as he was called-kept his mayoralty at Crosby Place, Bishopsgate. His only daughter married Lord Compton, who, tradition says, smuggled her away from her father's house in a large flap-topped baker's basket. A curious letter from this imperious lady is extant, in which she only requests an annuity of , a like sum for her privy purse, for jewels, her debts to be paid, horses, coach, and female attendants, and closes by praying her husband, when he becomes an earl, to allow her more with double attendance. These young citizen ladies were somewhat exacting. From this lady's husband the Marquis of Northampton is descended. At the funeral of persons followed in mourning cloaks and gowns. | |
402 | He died worth, Mr. Timbs calculates, above in the year of his mayoralty. There was a famine in England in his time, and at his persuasion the City Companies bought corn abroad, and stored it in the Bridge House for the poor. |
In , Sir Thomas Campbell (Ironmonger), mayor, the City show was revived by the king's order. In , Sir William Craven (Draper) was mayor. As a poor Yorkshire boy from Wharfedale, he came up to London in a carrier's cart to seek his fortune. He was the father of that brave soldier of Gustavus Adolphus who is supposed to have privately married the widowed Queen of Bohemia, James I.'s daughter. There is a tradition that during an outbreak of the plague in London, | |
Craven took horse and galloped westward till he reached a lonely farmhouse on the Berkshire downs, and there built Ashdown House. The local legend is that avenues led to the house from the points of the compass, and that in each of the walls there was a window, so that if the plague got in at side it might go out at the other. In , Sir John Swinnerton (Merchant Taylor), mayor, entertained the Count Palatine, who had come over to marry King James's daughter. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, and many earls and barons were present. The Lord Mayor and his brethren presented the Palsgrave with a large basin and ewer, weighing ounces, and great gilt loving pots. The bridegroom | |
403 404 | elect gained great popularity by saluting the Lady Mayoress and her train. The pageant was written by the poet Dekker. In this reign King James, colonising Ulster with Protestants, granted the province with Londonderry and Coleraine to the Corporation, the great and old Companies taking many of the best. In , Sir Thomas Middleton (Goldsmith), , brother of Sir Hugh Middleton, went in state to see the water enter the at , to the sound of drums and trumpets and the roar of guns. In , Sir Sebastian Harvey (Ironmonger) was mayor: during his show Sir Walter Raleigh was executed, the time being specially chosen to draw away the sympathisers as Aubrey says, [extra_illustrations.1.404.1] |
In Sir Richard Gurney (Clothworker), and a sturdy Royalist, entertained that promise-breaking king, Charles I., at the . The entertainment consisted of dishes. Gurney's master, a silk mercer in , left himhis shop and . The Parliament ejected him from the mayoralty and sent him to the Tower, where he lingered for years till he died, rather than pay a fine of , for refusing to publish an Act for the abolition of royalty. He was president of . His successor, Sir Isaac Pennington (Fishmonger), was of the king's judges, who died in the Tower; Sir Thomas Atkins (Mercer), mayor in , sat on the trial of Charles I.; Sir Thomas Adams (Draper), mayor in , was also sent to the Tower for refusing to publish the Abolition of Royalty Act. He founded an Arabic lecture at Cambridge, and a grammarschool at Wem, in Shropshire. Sir John Gayer (Fishmonger), mayor in , was committed to the Tower in as a Royalist, as also was Sir Abraham Reynardson, mayor in . Sir Thomas Foot (Grocer), mayor in , was knighted by Cromwell; of his daughters married knights, and baronets. Earl Onslow is of his descendants: Sir Christopher Packe (Draper), mayor in , became a member of Cromwell's as Lord Packe, and from him Sir Dennis Packe, the Peninsula general, was descended. | |
Sir Robert Tichborne (Skinner), mayor in , sat on the trial of Charles I., and signed the death warrant. Sir Richard Chiverton (Skinner), mayor in , was the Cornish mayor of London. He was knighted both by Cromwell and by Charles II., which says something for his political dexterity. Sir John Ireton (Clothworker), mayor in , was brother of General Ireton, Cromwell's son-in-law. | |
The period of the Commonwealth did not furnish many mayors worth recording here. In , the year of Marston Moor, the City gave a splendid entertainment to both Houses of Parliament, the Earls of Essex, Warwick, and Manchester, the Scotch Commissioners, Cromwell, and the principal officers of the army. They heard a sermon at , , and went on foot to . The Lord Mayor and aldermen led the procession, and as they passed through , some Popish pictures, crucifixes, and relics were burnt on a scaffold. The object of the banquet was to prevent a letter of the king's being read in the Common Hall. On the Lord Mayor gave a banquet to the , Cromwell, and the chief officers, to commemorate the rout of the dangerous Levellers. In , the year Cromwell was chosen Lord Protector, he dined at the , and knighted the mayor, John Fowke (Haberdasher). | |
The reign of Charles II. and the Royalist reaction brought more tyranny and more trouble to the City. The king tried to be as despotic as his father, and resolved to break the Whig love of freedom that prevailed among the citizens. Loyal as some of the citizens seem to have been, King Charles scarcely deserved much favour at their hands. A more reckless tyrant to the City had never sat on the English throne. Because they refused a loan of on bad security, the king imprisoned of the principal citizens, and required the City to fit out ships. For a trifling riot in the City (a mere pretext), the mayor and aldermen were amerced in the sum of . For the pretended mismanagement of their Irish estates, the City was condemned to the loss of their Irish possessions and fined . aldermen were imprisoned for not disclosing the names of friends who refused to advance money to the king; and, finally, to the contempt of all constitutional law, the citizens were forbidden to petition the king for the redress of grievances. Did such a king deserve mercy at the hands of the subjects he had oppressed, and time after time spurned and deceived? | |
In , the year after the Restoration, Sir John Frederick (Grocer), mayor, revived the old customs of Bartholomew's Fair. The day there was a wrestling match in , the mayor and aldermen being present; the day, archery, after the usual proclamation and challenges through the City; the day, a hunt. The Fair people considered the days a great hindrance and loss to them. Pepys, the delightful chronicler of these times, went to this Lord Mayor's dinner, | |
405 [extra_illustrations.1.405.1] |
where he found
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Amidst the factions and the vulgar citizens of this reign, [extra_illustrations.1.405.2] (Grocer), mayor in , stands out a burning and a shining light. hen the dreadful plague was mowing down the terrified people of London in great swathes, this brave man, instead of flying quietly, remained at [extra_illustrations.1.405.3] enforcing wise regulations for the sufferers, and, what is more, himself seeing them executed. He supported during this calamity discharged servants. In (the Great Fire) the mayor, Sir Thomas Bludworth (Vintner), whose daughter married Judge Jeffries, is described by Pepys as quite losing his head during the great catastrophe, and running about exclaiming, and holding his head in an exhausted and helpless way. | |
In Sir George Waterman (mayor, son of a vintner) entertained Charles II. at his inaugural dinner. In the pageant on this occasion, there was a forest, with animals, wood nymphs, & c., and in front negroes riding on panthers. Near end was a platform, on which [extra_illustrations.1.405.4] , the great rope-dancer of the day, and his company danced and tumbled. There is a mention of Hall, perhaps on this occasion, in the :--
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In Sir Robert Vyner (Goldsmith) was mayor, and Charles II., who was frequently entertained by the City, dined with him. says a correspondent of Steele's (, ),
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Sir Robert Clayton (Draper), mayor in , was of the most eminent citizens in Charles II.'s reign. The friend of Algernon Sidney and Lord William Russell, he sat in Parliaments as representative of the City; was more than years alderman of Cheap Ward, and ultimately father of the City; the mover of the celebrated Exclusion Bill (seconded by Lord William Russell); and eminent alike as a patriot, a statesman, and a citizen. He projected the Mathematical School at , built additions there, helped to rebuild the house, and left the sum of towards its funds. He was a director of the , and governor of the Irish Society. He was mayor during the pretended Popish Plot, and was afterwards marked out for death by King James, but saved by the intercession (of all men in the world!) of Jeffries. This as Evelyn calls. him, had been apprenticed to a scrivener. He lived in great splendour in , where Charles and the Duke of York supped with him during his mayoralty. There is a portrait of him, worthy of Kneller, in Drapers' Hall, and another, with carved wood frame by Gibbons, in the Library. | |
In , when the reaction came and the Court party triumphed, gaining a verdict of against Alderman Pilkington (Skinner), sheriff, for slandering the Duke of York, Sir Patience Ward (Merchant Taylor), mayor in , was sentenced to the ignominy of the pillory. In (Sir William Pritchard, Merchant Taylor, mayor), Dudley North, brother of Lord Keeper North, was of the sheriffs chosen by the Court party to pack juries. e was celebrated for his splendid house in , and Macaulay tells us
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In Sir John Shorter (Goldsmith), appointed mayor by James II., met his death in a singular manner. He was on his way to open Bartholomew Fair, by reading the proclamation at the entrance to , . It was the custom for the mayors to call by the way on the Keeper of Newgate, and there partake on horseback of a of wine, spiced with nutmeg and sweetened with sugar. In receiving the tankard Sir John let the lid flop down, his horse started, he was thrown violently, and died the next day. This custom ceased in the mayoralty of Sir Matthew Wood, . Sir John was maternal grandfather of Horace Walpole. Sir John Houblon (Grocer), mayor in (William III.), is supposed by Mr. Orridge to have been a brother of Abraham Houblon, Governor. of the , and Lord of the Admiralty, and great-grandfather of the late Viscount Palmerston. Sir Humphrey Edwin (Skinner), mayor in , enraged the Tories | |
406 | by omitting the show on religious grounds, and riding to a conventicle with all the insignia of office, an event ridiculed by Swift in his
and Pinkethman in his comedy of (), where he talks of In the Mayor was Sir Thomas Abney (Fishmonger), of the Directors of the , best known as a pious and consistent man, who for years kept [extra_illustrations.1.406.1] , as his guest and friend, in his mansion at Stoke . remarks Mr. Timbs,
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In , Sir Samuel Dashwood (Vintner) entertained Queen Anne at the , and his was the last pageant ever publicly performed, for the show of being stopped by the death of Prince George of Denmark the day before. says Mr. J. G. Nicholls, A daughter of this Dashwood became the wife of the Lord Brooke, and an ancestor of the present Earl of Warwick. Sir John Parsons, mayor in , was a remarkable person; for he gave up his official fees towards the payment of the City debts. It was remarked of Sir Samuel Gerrard, mayor in , that of his name and family were Lord Mayors in queens' reigns-Mary, Elizabeth, and Anne. Sir Gilbert Heathcote (mayor in ), ancestor of Lord Aveland and Viscount Donne, was the last mayor who rode in his procession on horseback; for after this time, the mayors, abandoning the noble career of horsemanship, retired into their gilt gingerbr.ead coach. | |
Sir William Humphreys, mayor in (George I.), was father of the City, and alderman of Cheap for years. Of his Lady Mayoress an old story is told relative to the custom of the sovereign kissing the Lady Mayoress upon visiting . Queen Anne broke down this observance; but upon the accession of George I., on his visit to the City, from his known character for gallantry, it was expected that once again a Lady Mayoress was to be kissed by the king on the steps of the . But he had no feeling of admiration for English beauty. says a writer in the , This is of the earliest stories connecting the City with an idea of vulgarity and purse pride. The stories commenced with the Court Tories, when the City began to resist Court oppression. | |
A leap now takes us on in the City chronicles. In (the year George I. died), the Royal | |
407 | Family, the Ministry, besides nobles and foreign ministers, were entertained by Sir Edward Becher, mayor (Draper). George II. ordered the sum of to be paid to the sheriffs for the relief of insolvent debtors. The feast cost . In (George II.), John Barber-Swift, Pope, and Bolingbroke's friend--the Jacobite printer who defeated a scheme of a general excise, was mayor. Barber erected the monument to Butler, the poet, in , who, by the way, had written a very sarcastic Barber's epitaph on the poet's monument is in high-flown Latin, which drew from Samuel Wesley these lines:--
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In (George II.) Sir Micajah Perry (Haberdasher) laid the stone of the . [extra_illustrations.1.407.1] (mayor in ), kinsman of the London historian, died of gaol fever, caught at Newgate, and which at the same time carried off an alderman, judges, and some disregarded commonalty. The great bell of tolled on the death of the Lord Mayor, according to custom. Sir Christopher Gascoigne (), an ancestor of the present Viscount Cranbourne, was the Lord Mayor who resided at the . | |
In that memorable year () when Sir Samuel Fludyer was elected, King George III. and Queen Charlotte (the young couple newly crowned) came to the City to see the Lord Mayor's Show from Mr. Barclay's window, as we have already described in our account of ; and the ancient pageant was so far revived that the Fishmongers ventured on a St. Peter, a dolphin, and mermaids, and the Skinners on Indian princes dressed in furs. Sir Samuel Fludyer was a Cloth Hall factor, and the City's scandalous chronicle says that he originally came up to London attending clothier's pack-horses, from the west country; his wife was granddaughter of a nobleman, and niece of the Earl of Cardigan. His sons married into the Montagu and Westmoreland families, and his descendants are connected with the Earls Onslow and Brownlow; and he was very kind to young Romilly, his kinsman (afterwards the excellent Sir Samuel). The says Fludyer died from vexation at a reprimand given him by the Lord Chancellor, for having carried on a contraband trade in scarlet cloth, to the prejudice of the East India Company., Sir Samuel was the ground landlord of , , cleared away for the new . | |
In and again in that bold citizen, William Beckford, a friend of the great Chatham, was Lord Mayor. He was descended from a Maidenhead tailor, of whose sons made a fortune in Jamaica. At School he had acquired the friendship of Lord Mansfield and a rich earl. Beckford united in himself the following apparently incongruous characters. He was an enormously rich Jamaica planter, a merchant, a member of Parliament, a militia officer, a provincial magistrate, a London alderman, a man of pleasure, a man of taste, an orator, and a country gentleman. He opposed Government on all occasions, especially in bringing over Hessian troops, and in carrying on a German war. His great dictum was that under the House of Hanover Englishmen for the time had been able to be free, and for the time had determined to be free. He presented to the king a remonstrance against a false return made at the Middlesex election. he king expressed dissatisfaction at the remonstrance, but Beckford presented another, and to the astonishment of the Court, added the following impromptu speech: | |
are said to have been the concluding remarks of the insolent citizen, At these words the king's countenance was observed to flush with anger. He still, however, presented a dignified silence; and accordingly the citizens, after having been permitted to kiss the king's hand, were forced to return dissatisfied from the presence-chamber. | |
This speech, which won Lord Chatham's and was inscribed on the pedestal of Beckford's statue erected in , has been the subject of bitter disputes. Isaac Reed boldly asserts every word was written by Horne Tooke, and that Home Tooke himself said so. Gifford, with his usual headlong partisanship, says the same; but there is every reason to suppose that the words are those uttered by Beckford with but slight alteration. Beckford | |
408 | died, a short time after making this speech, of a fever, caught by riding from London to Fonthill, his Wiltshire estate. His son, the novelist and voluptuary, had a long minority, and succeeded at last to a million ready money and a year, only to end life a solitary, despised, exiled man. of his daughters married the Duke of Hamilton. |
The Right Hon. Thomas Harley, Lord Mayor in , was a brother of the Earl of Oxford. He turned wine-merchant, and married the daughter of his father's steward, according to the scandalous chronicles in the He is said, in partnership with Mr. Drummond, to have made by taking a Government contract to pay the English army in America with foreign gold. He was for many years
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Harley rendered himself famous in the City by seizing the boot and petticoat which the mob were burning opposite the , in derision of Lord Bute and the princess-dowager, at the time the sheriffs were burning the celebrated . The mob were throwing the papers about as matter of diversion, and of the bundles | |
fell, unfortunately, with considerable force, against the front glass of Mr. Sheriff Harley's chariot, which it shattered to pieces. This gave the alarm; the sheriffs retired into the , and a man was taken up and brought there for examination, as a person concerned in the riot. The man appeared to be a mere idle spectator; but the Lord Mayor informed the court that, in order to try the temper of the mob, he had ordered of his own servants to be dressed in the clothes of the supposed offender, and conveyed to the Poultry Compter, so that if a rescue should be effected, the prisoner would still be in custody, and the real disposition of the people discovered. However, everything was peaceable, and the course of justice was not interrupted, nor did any insult accompany the commitment; whereupon the prisoner was discharged. What followed, in the actual burning of the seditious paper, the Lord Mayor declared (according to the best information), arose from circumstances equally foreign to any illegal or violent designs. For these reasons his lordship concluded by declaring that, with the greatest respect for the sheriffs. and a firm belief that they would have done their duty in spite of any danger, he should put a negative upon | |
409 | giving the thanks of the City upon a matter that was not sufficiently important for a public and solemn acknowledgment, which ought only to follow the most eminent exertions of duty. |
In Brass Crosby (mayor) signalised himself by a patriotic resistance to Court oppression, and the arbitrary proceedings of the . He was a Sunderland solicitor, who had married his employer's widow, and settled in London. He married in all wives, and is said to have received by the . Shortly after Crosby's election, the issued warrants against the printers of the and the , for presuming to give reports of the debates; but on being brought before Alderman Wilkes, he discharged them. The House then proceeded against the printer of the , but Crosby discharged him, and committed the messenger of the House for assault and false imprisonment. Not long after, Crosby appeared at the bar of the House, and defended what he had done; pleading strongly that by an Act of William and Mary no warrant could be executed in the City but by its ministers. Wilkes also had received an order to attend at the bar of the House, but refused to comply with it, on the ground that no notice had been taken in the order of his being a member. The next day the Lord Mayor's clerk attended with the Book of Recognisances, and Lord North having carried a motion that the recognisance be erased, the clerk was compelled to cancel it. Most of the Opposition indignantly rose and left | |
the House, declaring that effacing a record was an act of the greatest despotism; and Junius, in Letter , wrote: Soon after this act, on the motion of Welbore Ellis, the mayor was committed to the Tower. The people were furious; Lord North lost his cocked hat, and even Fox had his clothes torn; and the mob obtaining a rope, but for Crosby's entreaties, would have hung the Deputy Sergeant-at-Arms. The question was simply whether the House had the right to despotically arrest and imprison, and to supersede trial by jury. On the the session terminated, and the Lord Mayor was released, The City was illuminated at night, and there were great rejoicings. The victory was finally won. says Mr. Orridge,
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At his inauguration dinner in , there was a superabundance of good things; notwithstanding which, a great number of young fellows, after the dinner was over; being heated with liquor, got upon the hustings, and broke all the bottles and glasses within their reach. At this time the Court and Ministry were out of favour in the City; and till the year , when Halifax took as the legend of his mayoralty no member of the Government received an invitation to dine at . | |
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Footnotes: [extra_illustrations.1.396.8] Henry Fitz Ailwyn [extra_illustrations.1.397.1] Sir William Staines-1801 [extra_illustrations.1.397.2] George Bridges-1819 [extra_illustrations.1.397.3] Sir Reginald Hanson-1886 L.M. [extra_illustrations.1.397.4] Richard Clark-Chamberlain of London [extra_illustrations.1.397.5] Sir John Silvester-Recorder of London [extra_illustrations.1.397.6] Thomas Skinner-1808 [extra_illustrations.1.398.1] Sir William Walworth [extra_illustrations.1.398.2] Richard Whittinton [extra_illustrations.1.401.1] Christ's Hospital [extra_illustrations.1.404.1] title page of Thomas Adams 1620 [extra_illustrations.1.405.1] Lady Vyner [extra_illustrations.1.405.2] Sir John Lawrence [extra_illustrations.1.405.3] his house in St. Helen's Bishopsgate [extra_illustrations.1.405.4] Jacob Hall [extra_illustrations.1.406.1] Dr. Watts [extra_illustrations.1.407.1] Sir Samuel Pennant |