London, Volume 3

Knight, Charles

1842

LXXIV.--Ely Place.

LXXIV.--Ely Place.

 

 

 

Pausing the other day on to mark the gallant efforts of a team of horses to draw some more than usually heavy load up the steep acclivity, and wondering if this dangerous nuisance would ever be removed, our eyes, as they turned away from the contemplation of the painful and apparently hopeless task, fell upon a printed notice, which stated that divine worship was duly performed at certain periods in Chapel. The notice was attached to the iron gates enclosing the quiet and respectable-looking locality known as Ely Place, immediately opposite St. Andrew's Church and Churchyard, where rests in death poor Chatterton. And who was St. Etheldreda? A Saxon saint? And why had a modern Chapel been dedicated to such an antique personage? Or was the Chapel of St. Etheldreda a relic of the once famous Palace of the Bishops of Ely? We may here observe that it is a peculiarity of London, that whilst few cities are richer with the

spoils of time,

there are none which, having such wealth, present to the cursory glance fewer evidences of it. The progress of street improvements, the rage for building wherever a vacant space could be pounced upon, and the little reverence felt for edifices having no claims of the strictly useful kind to put forward, have all conspired to destroy a

370

interesting vestiges of the past, and to shut up the remainder in all sorts of corners and bye-ways. In passing from extremity of London to another, say from Whitechapel to , or from Common to , scarcely sees half a dozen edifices that directly remind us of events above a century or old; but, at the same time, let us suddenly stop in almost any part of our wanderings, and inquire what memories of an older time do hang about the neighbourhood, and we are almost sure to find it rife with associations of the deepest interest; and if we step into the next solitary-looking street or alley, there is a very fair chance of our lighting upon some building which, however previously unfamiliar to the material eye, has often risen upon our imagination, crowded with the actors in a memorable story.

In looking on St. Etheldreda's Chapel which stands a little back from the houses, near the centre on the left hand, we perceive very plainly in its age and the beauty of the single but very large window which forms the front before us, that its antique name is no pretence, and that it is doubtless the episcopal and palatial building. But how altered in every other respect is the entire aspect of the neighbourhood, even from what it was only years ago! Let us imagine ourselves entering the precincts from at some such period. The original gate-house, where the Bishop's armed retainers were wont to keep watch and ward in the old style, was now gone, and we entered from at once upon a small paved court, having on the right various offices supported by a colonnade, and on the left a wall dividing the court from the garden. The garden of Ely Place! Does not that word recall to our readers the incident which, having found its way into the pages of our great poet, has made Ely Place a household word, and given to the locality a charm that will outlive all local changes, and make it still famous when not stone shall remain upon another of anything that belonged to Ely Place? We allude of course to Richard III. (then Duke of Gloucester) and the strawberries. How closely Shakspere followed the historical truth, we see in the following passage from Holinshed, where he describes the scene in the Tower which ended in the sudden execution of Hastings:--

On the Friday (being the

13th of June

) many lords assembled in the Tower, and there sat in council, devising the honourable solemnity of the King's (the young Edward V.'s) coronation, of which the time appointed then so near approached, that the pageants and subtleties were in making day and night at

Westminster

, and much victuals killed therefore, that afterwards was cast away. These lords so sitting together communing of this matter, the Protector (Gloucester) came in amongst them,

first

about

nine

of the clock, saluting them courteously, and excusing himself that he had been from them so long, saying merrily, that he had been a sleeper that day. After a little talking with them, he said unto the Bishop of Ely,

My lord, you. have very good strawberries at your garden in Holborn; I require you let us have a mess of them.

Gladly,

my lord, quoth he;

would God I had some better thing as ready to your pleasure as that!

And therewithal, in all haste, he sent his servant for a mess of strawberries :

a curious preliminary to the murderous act which the Protector was then meditating. The Bishop himself was that same morning arrested with Lord Stanley and others by the strawberry-loving Gloucester. This garden seems to have been altogether an object of care with the episcopal owners; for, at a later period, we

371

shall find the Bishop, when obliged to grant it on a lease to Sir Christopher Hatton, stipulating for the right of walking in it, and of gathering bushels of roses yearly.

Passing from the court we reached the entrance to the great hall, which extended along in front and to our left. This fine edifice, measuring about feet in height, in breadth, and in length, was originally built with stone, and the roof covered with lead. The interior, lighted by fine Gothic windows, was very interesting. It had its ornamental timber roof, its tiled and probably originally chequered floor, its oaken screen at end, and its dais at the other; and when filled with some of the brilliant and picturesque-looking crowds that have met under its roof, must have presented a magnificent spectacle. Here

old John of Gaunt,

when driven from the Savoy by Wat Tyler and his associates, who burnt it, exercised no doubt the hospitality common to the great barons of the feudal ages, in all its prodigality: he died in the palace/in . And here have been held some of the most memorable of feasts: those formerly given by the newly-elected-serjeants of law. The of Michaelmas Term, , is only noticeable from the circumstance, that when the Lord Mayor came to the banquet, and found a certain nobleman, Grey of Ruthin, then Lord Treasurer of England, advanced to the chief seat of state, instead of himself, as according to custom he conceived ought to have been done, he marched off with all his aldermen to his own :house, where he compensated his faithful adherents by a splendid banquet. But some of the other serjeants' feasts at Ely Place were attended by features of greater interest. Thus at the which took place in , Henry VII. was present with his quoteueen. This was of the occasions on which the victor of Bosworth strove to correct a little the effect of his sordid habits, his general seclusion, and his gloomy, inscrutable nature, which altogether prevented him from obtaining the popularity which is agreeable to most monarchs, even to those the least inclined to purchase it at any considerable cost.

The King,

says his great historian Bacon,

to honour the feast, was present with his quoteueen at the dinner; being a prince that was ever ready to grace and countenance the professors of the law; having a little of that that as he governed his subjects by his laws, so he governed his laws by his lawyers.

The last incident of this kind that we shall mention was also of the most splendid; and the particulars preserved in connection with it afford some curious glimpses of the economy of a great dinner in those days. In new serjeants were made at once, and it was determined that the feast should be proportionably splendid. As Stow remarks, it were

tedious

to set down the entire

preparation of fish, flesh, and other victuals spent in this feast, and would seem incredible

if we did: we therefore extract a few only of the items which composed this gigantic bill of fare; and which are interesting as showing how the relative value of money and provisions have altered. There were

great beefs,

or oxen, at each, and at ;

fat muttons,

at ;

greatveals,

at ;

porks

(or boars), at ; pigs; at ; dozen capons of Greece of poulter, d; dozen and capons of Kent, at ; innumerable pullets, at and , pigeons at d, and larks the dozen; and, lastly, there were doze swans at a price not mentioned. The entertainment lasted days; and on Monday, the principal

372

day (), the King, Henry VIII., and his quoteueen, Catherine, dined with the Serjeants,

but in two chambers

,

parenthetically remarks Stow. At this very time the final measures were in progress for the divorce of the unhappy quoteueen, and the marriage with Anne Boleyn. Besides these distinguished personages, the foreign ambassadors honoured the Serjeants with their presence, who had also a chamber to themselves. In the hall sat, at the chief table, Nicholas Lambard, the Lord Mayor; the question of precedency having evidently been decided in favour of the civic dignitary. With him were the Judges, Barons of , and certain Aldermen. The Master of the Rolls and the Master of the Chancery were supported at the board on the south side by numerous worshipful citizens; whilst on the north side of the hall sat more aldermen, with merchants and others. And these filled the lower part of the hall. The remainder, comprising knights, esquires, and gentlemen, were placed in the gallery, in the cloisters, which extended round a large quadrangle behind the hall, and, still more room being demanded, in the chapel. At the same time all the different crafts of London banqueted in their halls; whilst, curious enough, the parties chiefly concerned, the Serjeants of Law and their wives, kept in their own chamber.

Animating and picturesque as must have been the hall of Ely Place at such times, there was yet other period. when it must have exhibited a scene almost without parallel. Here were arranged all the details of that famous masque, with its attendant anti-masque, which we have already briefly noticed in our account of [n.372.1]  (reserving the detailed description of its principal features --the arrangement and the procession--for the present paper), and from hence it departed. Not the least interesting circumstances attending this splendid pageant are the character and position of the men who, as we shall presently perceive, had the management of the affair, and of him who has made himself its historian. This is Whitelock, the learned and estimable lawyer, who, during the period preceding, comprising, and following the Commonwealth, enjoyed the respect of all parties, and has left us of the most valuable records of the momentous events he witnessed and participated in. His heart was evidently in this masque and anti-masque, from the pains he takes to describe it, and the space he devotes to it in his great work. The year before the getting up of the masque Prynne had published his

Histrio-Mastix,

just mentioned a tremendous invective against plays and players, masques and masquers, and generally against sport and amusement of every kind. The quoteueen Henrietta. Maria, about the same time, acted a part in a play or pastoral with her maids of honour, so that Prynne's remarks told personally against the court; and to this circumstance, as well as to his being in Laud's hands, may be attributed the infamous severity of Prynne's punishment. But before that punishment took place, the members of the Inns of Court designing a masque

as an expression of their love and duty to their majesties,

it was whispered to them from the court

that it would be well taken from them; and some held it the more seasonable, because this action would manifest the difference of their opinion from Mr. Prynne's new learning, and serve to confute his

Histrio-Mastix

against interludes.

So the benchers

agreed to have this solemnity performed in the noblest and most

stately manner that could be invented.

members from each house were accordingly chosen to form together a committee, among whom were Whitelock himself, Edward Hyde (afterwards Lord Clarendon), and Selden. These set to work; each member undertaking some particular portion of the important whole, Whitelock's share being the music, and very indefatigable in his vocation, as well as proud of it, he seems to have been. He thus shows us how he performed his task. I made choice,

he says,

of Mr. Simon Ivy, an honest and able musician, of excellent skill in his art, and of Mr. Lawes (a name familiar to every lover of Milton), to compose the airs, lessons, and songs for the masque, and to be master of all the music under me.

He goes on to say what meetings he had of

English, French, Italians, Germans, and other masters of music; lutes at time, beside other instruments in concert.

At last, all being prepared,

one

Candlemas day in the afternoon,

the masquers, horsemen, musicians, dancers, and all that were actors in this business, according to order, met at Ely House in ; there the grand committee sat all day to order all affairs; and when the evening was come, all things being in full readiness, they began to set forth in this order down to . In reading the following description, we must not forget to keep in view all through it the dark background of a winter evening, and the crowds of spectators lining the whole way from the gates of Ely House to those of :--

The

first

that marched were

twenty

footmen in scarlet liveries, with silver lace, each

one

having his sword by his side, a baton in

one

hand, and a lighted torch in the other: these were the Marshal's men, who made way, and were about the Marshal, waiting his commands. After them, and sometimes in the midst of them, came the Marshal, then Mr. Darrel, afterwards knighted by the King: he was of

Lincoln's Inn

, an extraordinary handsome proper gentleman. He was mounted upon

one

of the King's best horses and richest saddles, and his own habit was exceeding rich and glorious; his horsemanship very gallant; and, besides his Marshal's men, he had

two

lackeys who carried torches by him, and a page in livery that went by him carrying his cloak. After him followed

one hundred

gentlemen of the inns of court,

five

-and-

twenty

chosen out of each house, of the most proper and handsome young gentlemen of the societies; every

one

of them was mounted on the best horses and with the best furniture that the King's stables and the stables of all the noblemen in town would afford, and they were forward on this occasion to lend them to the inns of court. Every

one

of these

hundred

gentlemen was in very rich clothes, scarce anything but gold and silver lace to be seen of them; and each gentleman had a page and

two

lackeys waiting on him in his livery by his horse's side: the lackeys carried torches, and the page his master's cloak. The richness of their apparel and furniture, glittering by the light of a multitude of torches attending on them, with the-motion and stirring of their settled horses, and the many and various gay liveries of their servants, but especially the personal beauty and gallantry of the handsome young gentlemen, made the most glorious and splendid show that ever was beheld in England. After the horsemen came the anti-masquers, and, as the horsemen had their music--about a dozen of the best trumpeters proper for them, and in their livery, sounding before them,--so the

first

anti-masque, being of cripples and beggars on horseback, had their music of keys and tongs, and the

like, snapping, and yet playing in a concert before them. These beggars were also mounted, but on the poorest, leanest jades that could be gotten out of the dirt-carts or elsewhere: and the variety and change from such noble music and gallant horses as went before them, unto their proper music and pitiful horses, made both of them more pleasing. The habits and properties of these cripples and beggars were most ingeniously fitted (as of all the rest) by the committee's direction, wherein (as in the whole business) Mr. Attorney Noy, Sir John Finch, Sir Edward Herbert, Mr. Selden, those great and eminent persons, and all the rest of the committee, had often meetings, and took extraordinary care and pains in the ordering of this business, and it seemed a pleasure to them,. After the beggars' anti-masque came men on horseback, playing upon pipes,/whistles, and instruments sounding notes like those of birds of all sorts, and in excellent concert, and were followed by the anti-masque of birds. This was an owl in an ivy bush, with many several sorts of other birds in a cluster about the owl, gazing as it were upon her: these were little boys put into covers of the shapes of those birds, rarely fitted, and sitting on small horses, with footmen going by them with torches in their hands, and there were some besides to look unto the children; and this was very pleasant to the beholders. After this anti-masque came other musicians on horseback, playing upon bagpipes, hornpipes, and such kind of northern music, speaking the following anti-masque of projectors to be of the Scotch and northern quarters; and these, as all the rest, had many footmen with torches waiting on them.

First

in this anti-masque rode a fellow upon a little horse with a great bit in his mouth, and upon the man's head was a bit,, with headstall and reins fastened, and signified a projector, who begged a patent that none in the kingdom might ride their horses but with such bits as they should buy of him. Then came another fellow, with a bunch of carrots upon his head and a capon upon his fist, describing a projector, who begged a patent of monopoly as the

first

inventor of the art to feed capons fat with carrots, and that none but himself might make use of that invention and have the privilege for

fourteen

years, according to the statute. Several other projectors were in like manner personated in this anti-masque; and it pleased the spectators the more because by it an information was covertly given to the King of the unfitness and ridiculousness of these projects against the law; and the Attorney Noy, who had most knowledge of them, had a great hand in this anti-masque of projectors.

After this and the rest of the anti-masques were passed followed chariots with musicians, chariots with heathen gods and goddesses, then more chariots with musicians,

playing upon excellent and loud music,

and going immediately next before the grand masquer's chariot. This

was not so large as those that went before. but most curiously framed, carved, and painted with an exquisite art, and purposely for this service and occasion.

Its colours were silver and crimson,

the chariot was all over painted richly. with these colours, even the wheels of it, most artificially laid on, and the carved work of it was as curious for that art, and it made a stately show. It was drawn with

four

horses, all on breast, and they were covered to their heels al over with cloth of tissue of the colours of crimson and silver, huge. plumes of red and white feathers on their heads and buttocks; the coachman's cap and feather, his long coat, and his very whip and cushion of the same stuff and

colour. In this chariot sat the

four

grand masquers of

Gray's Inn

, their habits. doublets, trunk-hose, and caps of most rich cloth of tissue, and wrought as thick with silver spangles as they could be placed, large white silk-stockings up to their trunk-hose, and rich sprigs in their caps, themselves proper and beautiful young gentlemen. On each side of the chariot were

four

footmen in liveries of the colour of the chariot, carrying huge flambeaux in their hands, which with the torches gave such a lustre to the paintings, the spangles, and habits, that hardly anything could be invented to appear more glorious.

Similar chariots similarly occupied followed from each of the other inns of court, the only difference being in the colours. And thus the procession reached , where the king, from a window of the Banqueting House, (perhaps the very through which he passed afterwards to the scaffold,) beheld, with his queen, the whole pageant pass before him; and so delighted were the royal spectators, that a message was sent to the marshal, requesting him to conduct the procession round the Tilt Yard opposite, that they might have a view. This done they entered the palace, where the masque, to which all this was but as a preliminary, began;

and,

says Whitelock;

was incomparably performed in the dancing, speeches, music, and scenes; the dances, figures, properties;. the voices, instruments, songs, airs, and composure; the words and actions were all of them exact, and none failed in their parts.

Henrietta Maria was so charmed with everything, that she determined to have the whole repeated shortly after. The night, or rather, we presume, morning, ended with dances, in which the queen and her ladies of honour were led out by the principal masquers. The expenses of this spectacle were not less than ;

some of the musicians had

100l.

a-piece, so that the whole charge of the music came to about

1000l.

Continuing our view of the palatial remains as they were years ago:-

376

beyond the hall, and touching it at the north-west corner, were the cloisters, enclosing a quadrangle nearly square, of great size, and having in the midst a small garden, made perhaps after the grant of the principal garden to Hatton. Over the cloisters were long, antique-looking galleries, with the doors and windows of various apartments appearing at the back: in the latter traces of painted glass, the remnants of former splendour, were still visible. Lastly, at the north-west corner of the cloisters, planted with trees and surrounded with a wall, stood the chapel, now the only remain of all that we have. described, and of the still more numerous buildings that at time constituted the palace of the Bishops of Ely. From this description we perceive the changes that years have wrought; and we may here observe, as a passing illustration of the general history of the neighbourhood, that in the maps of London, of the date of , we see on this side of only a single row of houses with gardens at the back; we see , as a lane, merely opening to the fields ; whilst stands in a fair meadow, with a footpath across it, and bounded by Turnmill Brook and the wall of the garden of Ely Place.

The subjects that have hitherto engaged our attention--the feasts and the masque--were incidental occurrences in the records of the Palace, having no connexion with any of the objects of its foundation. These we have accordingly dismissed , and may now pursue, without interruption, the more direct history.

The earliest notice of Ely Place refers to the concluding part of the century. John de Kirkeby, appointed Bishop of Ely in , left by will a messuage and cottages to form the foundation of a residence for his successors, suitable to their rank. The next bishop, De Luda, who died in , still further carried out the views of his predecessor, and most probably erected the chapel; as we find that a bequest, contained in his will, was accompanied with the condition that his immediate successor should give for the support of chaplains: De Luda himself left houses for them, The cha. pel was dedicated to St. Etheldreda, the patron saint of the cathedral church of Ely, and a noticeable personage. She was the daughter of Anna, King of the West Angles, and was born about in Suffolk. She had husbands, her being Tonbert, an East Anglian nobleman, her Egfrid, King of Northumberland; but she persevered,

with both husbands, to live in a state of virginity.

Having obtained Egfrid's consent to her retirement from court, she took the veil; and, when her husband again brought her to his home, she fled to the Isle of Ely, part of her dower with her husband, Tonbert. Here she began the erection of the cathedral, assisted by her brother Adulphus, King of the East Angles.

Bede informs us that from Etheldreda's entering upon her office as abbess, she never wore any linen, but only woollen garments; that she usually ate only once a-day, except on the greater festivals, or in times of sickness; and, if her health permitted, she never returned to bed after matins, which were held at midnight, but continued her prayers in the church till break of day. Her sanctity, and the discipline observed in her monastery, recommended this austerity of life to the. esteem of many, and gained abundance of converts. Persons of the noblest families, and matrons of the highest rank, devoted themselves to religion under her government; and some even of royal state thought

proper to quit their high station to become members of her society: as her eldest sister, Sexburga, quoteueen of Kent; Ermenilda, the daughter of Sexburga, quoteueen of Mercia; and Wurburga, the daughter of Ermenilda; all of whom are stated to have been members of the monastery in the lifetime of Etheldreda, and to have succeeded her in their order as abbesses of Ely.

[n.377.1]  She died, as good a saint as she had lived, of a contagious disorder, which she had foretold would carry away herself and a certain number of her household; and was buried, by her express orders, in a wooden coffin, in the common cemetery of the nuns.

Bishop Hotham was the next benefactor to the episcopal residence, and by him the whole appears to have been brought into a state of completeness. Camden speaks of Ely Place as

well beseeming bishops to live in; for which they were beholden to John de Hotham, Bishop of Ely under King Edward III.

Among the other and subsequent prelates who have contributed largely to its extension or improvement is the well-known Arundel, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, who expended great sums here in repairing and adorning the whole, and who erected a handsome and large front towards , in the stone-work of which his arms remained in Stow's time. And thus by various individuals, and at different times, was Ely Place at last made of the most splendid of metropolitan mansions. And now, following the usual course of most history, which, as soon as it has described the rise and complete prosperity of its subject, whether empires, institutions, or, as in the present case, an individual edifice, has immediately to trace the successive steps of the decline and fall, we pass on to narrate the proceedings which form the most interesting portions of the history of Ely Place.

At the commencement of the reign of Elizabeth an act was passed, empowering the quoteueen, on any episcopal or archiepiscopal vacancy, to take any lands belonging to the see, paying the value in tenths and impropriate rectories. This bill was opposed by various ecclesiastics, and among them who was destined to be a victim to the exercise of the power. This was Dr. Cox, afterwards Bishop of Ely. Whilst this prelate held the see, there came day to court, in a masque, a gentleman who attracted Elizabeth's particular attention, it is said for his elegant person and graceful dancing, but also, probably, for the vivacity and entertainment of his conversation. This was a young Templar, who had already distinguished himself among his companions, as of the authors of the tragedy of

Tancred and Gismund,

performed by the society to which he belonged before the quoteueen in . Elizabeth now made him of her Pensioners, next a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, then Captain of the Guard, Vice- Chancellor, and Privy Counsel; and, lastly, to the astonishment of every body, Sir Christopher Hatton appeared as Lord Chancellor. The lawyers were unable to stifle their indignation. They thought, with Fuller,

he rather took a bait than made a meal at the inns of court, whilst he studied the laws therein;

and yet he was raised to the highest honours of the profession! Some of the serjeants at law refused to plead before him. But Hatton, though neither a deeply read nor an eminently practical lawyer, had sagacity and firmness enough to hold at

378

once his. place, and prove himself in effect qualified for it. In all doubtful cases he was accustomed to have the advice of or legal friends who possessed what he was deficient of; and the result was, after all, that Lord Chancellor Hatton's decisions held by no-means a low reputation in the courts of law. It was whilst Sir Christopher was in the high road to prosperity, but some years before he attained the Chancellorship, that he took a fancy to a portion of Ely Place as a residence, and induced the quoteueen to be his negotiator. Bishop Cox was unwilling, but who can say

No

to a quoteueen, unless, indeed, in the last extremity? So, on the , Sir Christopher's heart was gladdened with a, grant of

the gatehouse of the palace (except

two

rooms used as prisons for those who were arrested or delivered in execution to the bishop's bailiff, and the lower rooms used for the porter's lodge); the

first

court-yard within the gate-house to the long gallery, dividing it from the

second

; the stables there; the long gallery, with the rooms above and below it, and some others;

fourteen

acres of land; and the keeping the gardens and orchards for

twenty-one

years, paying at Midsummer Day a red rose for the gate-house and gardens, and for the ground

ten

loads of hay and

ten pounds

per annum; the bishop reserving to himself and his successors free access through the gate-house, walking in the gardens, and to gather

twenty

bushels of roses yearly.

Sir Christopher immediately entered upon possession, bought some little tenements near it, and laid out nearly in the improvement of the estate. This done, Sir Christopher thought he should very much like to have the property in perpeuity, instead of by the tenure of a few years' lease, so he once more goes to the quoteueen, and desires her good offices. The mode in which

good quoteueen Bess

set to work is very striking: she simply wrote to the bishop, modestly desiring him to demise the premises to her, till he or his successors should pay to Sir Christopher (the sum he ha, expended), as well as whatever he might afterwards expend on the property. The bishop's answer was straightforward, and befitting the dignity of his position. He said

that they should want an orchard and ground, and that they should be, too much straitened; but that in his conscience he could not do it, being a piece of sacrilege. That when he became Bishop of Ely, he had received certain farms, houses, and other things, which former pious princes had judged necessary for that place and calling. These he received by the quoteueen's favour from his predecessors; and that of these he was to be a steward, not a scatterer. That he could not bring his mind to be so ill a trustee for his successors, nor to violate the pious wills of kings and princes, and, in effect, rescind their last testaments. He put the quoteueen in mind of that rule of nature and of God, not to do that to another which

one

would not have done to

one

's self; and that the profit of

one

is not to be increased by the damage of another-nay, he told her that he could scarcely justify those princes which transferred things appointed for pious uses unto uses less pious.

[n.378.1]  He was, however, obliged to submit to a conveyance of the property to the quoteueen, who was to re-convey it to Hatton, but on the condition that the whole should be redeemable on the payment of the sum laid out by Hatton. And this was all the bishop would do: no amount of persecution (and he was subjected to so

379

much that he more than once besought leave to resign) could bend him into a final alienation of the property. Sir Christopher, however, had succeeded to a certain extent. in obtaining his wishes, and during the remainder of his life continued, when convenient, to reside here. Gray's picture of Hatton in his manorhouse at Stoke Pogis would, no doubt, be equally applicable to many a scene in Ely House before the royal favour began to change.

Full oft within the spacious walls, When he had fifty winters o'er him, My grave lord-keeper led the brawls, The seal and maces danc'd before him. His bushy beard and shoe-strings green, His high-crown'd hat, and satin doublet, Mov'd the stout heart of England's queen, Though Pope and Spaniard could not trouble it.

But Elizabeth, among a few other unamiable qualities, possessed more than a touch of avarice; and the Lord Chancellor being injudicious enough to put her love for him in the scale, and a debt of some in the other, was at once cured of any conceit that her numerous favours might have generated. There is a touch of homely pathos in the passage in, which Fuller alludes to the close of the Chancellor's fortunes and life, which makes forget, the apparently inherent weakness of character then exhibited. The quaint but excellent biographer of the

Worthies,

says,--

It broke his heart that the quoteueen (which seldom gave loans, and never forgave due debts) rigorously demanded the present payment of some arrears which Sir Christopher did not hope to have remitted, but did only desire to be forborne; failing herein in his expectation, it went to his heart, and cast him into a mortal disease. The quoteueen. afterwards did endeavour what she could to recover him, bringing, as some say, cordial broths unto him with her own hands, but all would not do. Thus no pulleys can draw up a heart once cast down, though a. quoteueen herself should set her hand thereunto.

His death took place in Ely House in .

The quoteueen had had much trouble in inducing Cox to consent to the arrangement we have mentioned, and his successor in the see, Dr. Martin Heton, seemed: equally disinclined to fulfil it when it was made; so in a fit of fury the Virgin quoteueen, sat down and penned of the most characteristic of epistles. It was short, but it is difficult to see how more could have been expressed in the longest epistle.

Proud Prelate!

You know what you was before I made you what you are now if you do not immediately comply with my request, by G--d I will unfrock you.

.

The exact nature of the request here referred to, or of the answer, does not seem to be recorded; but we find, during the term of the good Bishop Andrews, who was translated from Ely to Winchester, some attempt was made to pay off the mortgage; and finally Bishop Wren, the uncle of the illustrious architect, tendered the money and obtained a sentence in the Court of Requests against the

380

then possessor of the property, Lady Elizabeth Hatton, the widow of the Chancellor's nephew, who had inherited his estates and title. But this was in the time of the Long Parliament, before which Wren was impeached; and this arrangement (for Lady Hatton agreed to deliver up the property on payment of the sums laid out), coming to its knowledge, was stopped, and a resolution passed that

the estate of the Lady Hatton, being good in law, is not redeemable in equity, nor subject to the said pretended trust.

Wren was imprisoned for nearly years, during which time almost the whole of the palatial buildings, with the exception of those described in the early part of this paper as standing in the lest century, were pulled down, and the famous garden built into the present . In the same period certain parts of the edifice had been used by the parliament both as a prison and a hospital; so that when Bishop Wren, at the Restoration, was freed from prison and returned to his home here, we may imagine the desolate appearance of everything. He had begun his residence at Ely Place with the hope of restoring entire to the see the half-alienated Hatton property; he ended it with the conviction that it was not only for ever lost, but that the remainder of the property was so injured as to be really unfit any longer for its purposes. He commenced a lawsuit, which, after dragging its slow length along through the remainder of his life and the term of the next bishops, was only settled in that of the bishop, Patrick, by the latter consenting to accept a fee farm rent of the value of a-year.

We have incidentally referred to Lady Elizabeth Hatton, but that lady must not be dismissed so summarily. Ely Place, or rather the portion of it which she occupied, and which was called Hatton House, possesses some memorable recollections in connexion with her history. At the death of her husband, Sir William Newport, who on the death of his uncle took the name of Hatton, she was young, very beautiful, of eccentric manner, and a most vixenish temper. She was rich withal, and wooers were numerous. Among them came remarkable men, already rivals in their profession, and now to be rivals in a tenderer pursuit: these were Coke and Bacon. And some noticeable scenes must have no doubt taken place in Hatton House during the progress of this remarkable courtship. How Lady Hatton's distinguished lovers hated each other we know, before this new fuel was added to the flame. Both were powerfully supported. Coke had been already appointed Attorney-General by the quoteueen, in spite of the most powerful efforts of the ill-fated Earl of Essex to obtain the appointment for Bacon, so that he was already on the high road to fortune; on the other hand, Bacon's ever-faithful friend-alas! that it should have to be remembered how ungratefully he was rewarded!--Essex, pleaded personally his cause with the beautiful widow and with her mother. To the latter he says in of his letters,

If she were my sister or my daughter, I protest I would as confidently resolve to further it as I now persuade you;

and again in another,

If my faith be anything, I protest, if I had

one

as near me as she is to you, I had rather match her with him than with men of far greater titles.

Essex, in these last words, had hit the right mark; it was the

greater titles,

most probably, that at last decided Lady Hatton to accept Coke, and, like many other clever people, lived no doubt to repent of a choice formed on

381

such considerations, when she found she had rejected a Chancellor. And what a marriage it was! After many years of continued quarrel and recrimination, a circumstance occurred which made them at once bitter enemies. In Coke, by his unbending judicial integrity, lost the favour of James, and with it the Chief Justiceship which he then held: his mode of obtaining a restoration of the , and an equivalent for the , stands in strange contrast. This was the marriage of his daughter to Sir John Villiers, afterwards Viscount Purbeck, brother to the haughty favourite, then supreme at Court. It is to Lady Hatton's credit that she determinedly refused, as long as she could with any prospect of utility, to consent to this bargain and sale of her child, then only in her year, and who had a great aversion to the match. At the mother and daughter ran away, and secreted themselves at Oatlands, where Coke, having discovered their retreat, came armed with a warrant, and broke open door after door till he found the fugitives. The Privy Council were now inundated with appeals and counter-appeals, and disturbed with brawls when the parties were before them. Mr. Chamberlain, writing to Carleton (), says,

The Lord Coke and his lady have had great wars at the Council-table. The

first

time she came accompanied with the Lord Burghley and his lady, the Lord Danvers, the Lord Denny, Sir Thomas Howard and his lady, with I know not how many more, and declaimed so bitterly against him, and so carried herself, that divers said Burbage could not have acted better.

We have also a glimpse of the domestic history of Hatton House at this period, in of her appeals to the Council, where she speaks of her husband entering upon all her goods, breaking into Hatton House, seizing her coach and coach-horses, nay, her apparel, which he detained; thrusting her servants out of the doors without wages or any consideration, &c. However, she at last consented to the match, which was the principal cause of these unseemly proceedings, although she continued to live at Hatton House, separated from her husband; and, this unpleasant business settled, she returned, with as great a zest as ever, to the amusements she chiefly delighted in. Some years before she had played a conspicuous figure in the performance of Ben Jonson's

Masque of Beauty,

when of the choicest Court beauties had been selected as actors for the solace of royalty; and now again, in , we find her at the same vocation, in the representation of the

Metamorphosed Gipsies,

at Burley-on-the-Hill-James again being the chief spectator. In this piece the gipsy is made thus to address her:--

Mistress of a fairer table

Hath no history, no fable;

Others' fortunes may be shown-.

You are builder of your own;

And whatever Heaven hath given you,

You preserve the state still in you.

That which time would have depart,

Youth, without the help of art,

You do keep still, and the glory

Of your sex is but your story.

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As a specimen of the vixenish temper of this lady, we may observe that Lady Hatton, for a considerable period, had Gondomar,[n.382.1]  the Spanish ambassador, for her next-door neighbour-he occupying, we presume, the palatial portion of the building. Howel, in a letter to Sir James Crofts, , says,

Gondomar has ingratiated himself with divers persons of quality, ladies especially, yet he could do no good upon the Lady Hatton, whom he desired so lately that, in regard he was her next-door neighbour (at Ely House), he might have the benefit of the back gate to go abroad into the fields, but she put him off with a compliment; whereupon in a private audience lately with the king, among other passages of merriment, he told him my Lady Hatton was a strange lady, for she would not suffer her husband, Sir Edward Coke, to come in at her fore-door, nor him to go out at her back-door; and so related the whole business.

We need not pursue her career any farther, as we have already noticed that she was still flourishing at the period of the sitting of the Long Parliament, when Hatton House was decided to be her own. Her daughter's marriage turned out as might have been expected: Viscount Purbeck went abroad only years after, and she led a life of profligacy that had once narrowly brought her to the chapel of the Savoy to do penance in a white sheet.

The condition of the episcopal portion of Ely Place, after the final loss of that originally granted to Hatton, became more and more deplorable. In the Harleian MSS.[n.382.2]  is the record of a statement which appears to have been made by of the bishops about the period to which we allude. It declares that now, instead of the

spacious dwellings, house and manor, with gardens, closes, outhouses, and all conveniences, pleasantly situated,

which originally belonged to them,

the greatest part of the dwelling-house is pulled down,

and the bishops are

confined to less than half. Several cellars are possessed brothers, even under those rooms of the house which the bishop hath now left to dwell in, and they are intermixed with the cellars he uses, having lights and passages into the cloisters; and the most private parts of the house, even half of the vault or burying place under the chapel, is made use of as a public cellar, or was so very lately, to sell drink in, there having frequently been revellings heard during divine service.

Under these circumstances any attempts at reparation seem to have been thought useless, and the buildings gradually fell into decay. In , during the time of Dr. Edmund Keene, Bishop of Ely, an act of parliament was obtained, enabling the see to transfer the property to the crown for , which, with due for dilapidations from the family of the preceding bishop, was to be expended in providing a new town residence. And thus was founded the present episcopal mansion in . An annuity of was also settled by the crown on the Bishops of Ely as a part of the arrangement. The property was resold by the crown, when the hall, cloisters, &c. were pulled down, and the present Ely Place built. The chapel alone was reserved, the lease of which, after passing through various hands, was purchased in the present century, and presented to the National Society, by Mr. Joshua Watson, its treasurer, for the use of the children of its central school in

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. This arrangement being given up, the chapel was for some time closed, but of late years it has again been re-opened, and is now regularly used. In spite of patching and modernisings, St. Etheldreda's Chapel retains much of its original aspect. On looking at the exterior (as shown in the engraving on our page), if we shut our eyes to the lower portion, where a part of the window has been cut away and an entrance made where evidently none was ever intended to exist, we perceive the true stamp of the days when men built the cathedrals; works which no modern art has rivalled, and--which yet seemed so easy to them, that the names of the architects have failed to be preserved. And in the interior the effect of the windows, alike in general appearance, yet differing in every respect in detail, is magnificent, although the storied panes which we may be sure once filled them are gone. The bold arch of the ceiling, plain and whitewashed though now be its surface, retains so much of the old effect, that,,though we miss the fine oak carvings, we do not forget them. The noble row of windows on each side are in a somewhat similar condition; all their exquisite tracery has disappeared, but their number, height, and size tell us what they must have been in the palmy days of Ely Place; and, if we are still at a loss, there is fortunately ample evidence remaining in the ornaments which surround the upper portions of the windows in the interior, and divide them from each other. We scarcely remember anything more exquisite in architecture than the fairylike workmanship of the delicate pinnacle-like ornaments which rise between and overtop these windows. Of the original entrances into the chapel only remains, which is quite unused, and is situated at the south-west corner of the edifice. Stepping through the doorway into a small court that encloses it, we perceive that it has been a very beautiful, deeply-receding, pointed arch, but now so greatly decayed that even the character of its ornaments is but partially discoverable. Here too is a piece of the wall of of the original buildings of the palace--a stupendous piece of brickwork and masonry; and, on looking up, of the octagonal buttresses, with its conical top, which ornamented the angles of the building, is seen. Descending a flight of steps, we find a low window looking into the crypt, the place which was so desecrated, according to the bishop's complaint. It is now filled with casks; and we can but just catch a glimpse of the enormous chestnut posts and girders with which the floor of the chapel is supported.

The chapel, like all the other parts of Ely Place, has its memories, though none of those recorded are of a very extraordinary character.--Evelyn has notices worthy of extraction on the subject. The runs thus:--

Nov. 14, 1668

. In London. Invited to the consecration of that excellent person the Dean of Ripon, Dr. Wilkins, now made Bishop of Chester. It was at Ely House: the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Cosin (Bishop of Durham), the Bishops of Ely, Salisbury, Rochester, and others officiating. Dr. Tillotson preached. Then we went to a sumptuous dinner in the hall, where were the Duke of Buckingham, Judges, Secretaries of State, Lord Keeper, Council, noblemen, and innumerable other company, who were honourers of this incomparable man, invariably beloved by all who knew him.

The other notice refers to a more personal matter, and

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is interesting for that very reason, as connected with an estimable man:--

27th April, 1693

. My daughter Susanna was married to William Draper, Esq., in the chapel of Ely House, by Dr. Tenison, Bishop of Lincoln, since Archbishop. I gave her in portion

4000l.

Her jointure is

500l.

per annum. I pray Almighty God to give his blessing to this marriage.

Lastly,. we may notice an amusing circumstance that occurred at the time of the defeat of the young Pretender by the Duke of Cumberland, in , and which Cowper thought worthy of notice in his

Task :

So in the chapel of old Ely House

When wandering Charles, who meant to be the Third,

Had fled from William, and the news was fresh,

The simple clerk, but loyal, did announce

And eke did rear right merrily two staves

Sung to the praise and glory of King George.

 
 
Footnotes:

[n.372.1] Vol. 1. p. 354.

[n.377.1] Monasticon vol. i. p. 467.

[n.378.1] Maitland, vol. ii. p. 978.

[n.382.1] Prynne, in his famous work, notices Gondomar's residence at Ely House; and his witnessing, with thousands of other persons, the performance of Christ's Passion in the hall, probably the last of the dramatic mysteries exhibited in England.

[n.382.2] No. 3789