Walks in London, vol. I
Hare, Augustus J. C.
1878
Chapter IX: In the Heart of the City.
Chapter IX: In the Heart of the City.
The labyrinthine but most busy streets which form the centre of the City of London to the south of the are filled with objects of interest, though of minor interest, amid which it will be difficult to thread our way, and impossible to keep up any continuous connection of associations. The houses, which have looked down upon so many generations of toilers, are often curious in themselves. The City churches for the most part are dying a slow death; their congregations have ebbed and will never flow back. Very few are worth visiting for their own sakes, yet almost every contains some tomb or other fragment which gives it a historic interest. Dickens vividly describes their general aspect and the kind of thoughts which are awakened by attending a service in of these queer old churches. | |
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The great new street which leads out of to the S.W. is , originally Candlewick Street, the head-quarters of the wax-chandlers who flourished by Roman Catholicism. In the formation of the new street, many old buildings were destroyed, the most interesting being Gerard's (Gisor's?) Hall in , with a noble crypt probably built by Sir John Gisors, Mayor in : in which a gigantic firpole was shown as the staff of The figure of the giant, which adorned the outside of the house, is now in the museum of the . , near the entrance of on the right, leads to . Here are the (, the church finished by Wren after the Fire, and the , another of Wren's works, rather good in its proportions. In the vestibule is a brass rescued from the old church, with the date , and the inscription- As a monument saved from a church burnt in the Great Fire this deserves notice. | |
324 | |
, which opens hence to the west, is supposed to derive its name from the processions of knights riding from to tournaments in Smithfield. No. was the house of the great physician Linacre, bequeathed by him to the . | |
is now crossed by , so called from the market in which bakers of and Stratford-le-Bow were forced to sell their bread before the reign of Edward I., being forbidden to sell it in their houses. On the right is , of Wren's worst rebuildings, dedicated to a Saxon princess who was abbess of Minster. It is wretched externally, but has an elegantly supported dome. The pulpit is attributed to Grinling Gibbons. An interesting monument commemorates Sir Nicholas Crisp, the indefatigable agent of Charles I., who at time would wait for information at the water's edge dressed as a porter, with a basket of fish on his head, and at another would disguise himself as a butterwoman and carry his news out of London mounted between panniers. His epitaph tells how
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In , at the sign of the Spread Eagle, the armorial ensign of his family, John Milton was born, , being the son of a scrivener. His birthplace was destroyed in the Great Fire of , before the publication of The poet was baptised in the old at the corner of Bread | |
325 | Street and . It was destroyed in the Fire, but rebuilt by Wren. The church was condemned to destruction in , the same year which witnessed the demolition of the house in which was the last remaining of Milton's many London homes. In the register of All Hallows his baptism is recorded, and he was commemorated on the church wall towards in the inscription, which city waggoners often lingered to decipher-
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John Milton was born in on Friday the , And was baptised in the parish church of Allhallows, , on Tuesday the . | |
In the old church was buried Alderman Richard Reed, who refused to pay his contribution to the Northern Wars of Henry VIII. and was sent down to serve as a soldier, at his own cost, He was taken prisoner by the Scotch and obliged to purchase his ransom for a large | |
326 | sum. In the vestry of the later church was a monumental tablet inscribed John Howe, the eminent nonconformist divine, author of &c., was buried here in . Some of the fine oak carving from All Hallows is preserved at . |
-so called from the Saxon word Atheling, -is part of the old from London to Dover. As we look down it we see of the most picturesque views in the City. The tower on the right belongs to Wren's restoration of the , formerly called from its position at the south-west gate of the precincts of , of the gates by which the old cathedral was approached. says Strype, Beyond rises the great dome, [n.326.1] In is the central station of the | |
The or St. Mary the Elder, | |
327 | in (right), which crosses to the east, occupies the site of the church dedicated to the Virgin in the City. The present building (restored -) is Gothic (Perpendicular) in spite of its being of Wren's restorations (in ), for he was forced by a bequest of in aid of the rebuilding to make the new church a copy of its predecessor, which had been built c. by Sir Henry Keeble, a grocer, Lord Mayor in , called, in his epitaph in the old building-
The monuments from St. Antholin's have been placed in the tower. Stow says that : this was the father of Geoffrey Chaucer, the poet. |
St. , on the left of , leads to a quiet little churchyard, where, an inscription says,
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(on the left of ) now marks the site of an old Royal Palace, inhabited by King Stephen and restored by Queen Philippa, after which it was known as the It was here that the Fair Maid of Kent, widow of the Black Prince, was living during the Wat Tyler invasion, when the rebels terrified her by breaking in, and piercing her bed with their swords, but-- | |
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Riley derives the name of from a street built in the century by merchants of the Vintry, who imported wine from the town of La Reole near Bordeaux. The of was granted to the Duke of Norfolk- --by Richard III. It afterwards became a and was gradually destroyed. | |
On the left, between the end of and , so called from sellers of Budge (lamb-skin) fur, was St. Antholin's or St. Anthony's, of Wren's churches, destroyed by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in , and its site built over. Great intercession was vainly made for the preservation of the tower, built -, which was a noble work of the great City architect, and might have been the greatest ornament to the new street and utilised as a clock-tower. It only occupied square yards and in no way interfered with the traffic, but the impossibility of doing without the rent of this space in the most richly endowed square mile of the whole territory of the Church was considered a sufficient excuse for its destruction! The Commissioners from the Church of Scotland were lodged close by St. Antholin's, with a gallery opening from their house into the church, where their own chaplains preached, | |
329 | of whom Alexander Henderson was the chief. says Clarendon, [n.329.1] says Dugdale [n.329.2] The Puritanical piety of St. Antholin's is much ridiculed by contemporary poets. |
Facing , opposite the Railway Station, is the , rebuilt by Wren, in the Roman Renaissance style, but remodelled as a mongrel Gothic church in . In the old church Dryden had been married to Lady Elizabeth Howard, . | |
Built into this church, facing the Station, is the famous , now encased in masonry and only visible through a circular opening with an iron grille. It is supposed by Camden to have been a Roman Milliarium--the central terminus whence all the great Roman roads radiated over England, and which answered to the Golden | |
330 | Milestone in the Forum at Rome. It is probably now a mere fragment of its former self. Stow says, speaking of - |
London Stone seems to have been looked upon as a kind of palladium in London, as the Coronation Stone was in Scotland. As such, the adventurous Kentish rebel, Jack Cade, seems to have regarded it, for when, in , in the time of Henry VI., he entered London with royal honours, calling himself John Mortimer, it was straight to London Stone that he rode, and, striking upon it with his sword, cried, Shakspeare makes him say- | |
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Dryden alludes to this in his fable of the --
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The brick church of (from Up-church, being on rising ground), finished , is externally of Wren's ugliest rebuildings, but internally of peculiar and beautiful design. Its cupola, painted by is supported by arches and pendentives. The altar-piece is an exquisite work of , and the fontcover a fine piece of Renaissance work. Here are monuments to Sir Patience Ward, the Lord Mayor () under whom the Monument was built (of whom the Merchant | |
332 | Tailors' Company have a fine portrait); Edward Sherwood, ; and Alderman Perchard. In Crooked Lane, at the end of on the right, was St. Michael's Church (now destroyed), where Sir William , who slew Wat Tyler, was buried, with the epitaph--
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falls into opposite the statue of William IV. Behind the junction of and Grace is the , of Wren's restorations. In the old church Bishop Pearson (. ) was rector.. His exposition of the Creed is dedicated
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The name of this church is now the only relic of the street of , swallowed up in . It was once the especial mart of the Butchers, afterwards removed to Leadenhall.
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Grace takes its name.from the demolished church of St. Benet, called from the adjoining herb-market. The name was formerly written In White Hart Court, opening from this street, was the Quakers' Meeting House, in which George Fox, the founder of the Quakers, preached days before his death, and in the house of Henry Goldney in the same court he died, in . | |
Leaving; for the present, we must now make an inner circle, and turn up the broad new nearly as far as the . | |
Here, on the right, in the junction of and , is the grotesque [n.333.1] designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor, the of Sir Christopher Wren, in . The niches and windows at the sides are tolerably bold imitations of century Italian work. The interior is quadrangular, with odd wooden decorations against the walls, and gaudily painted pillars. Over the entrance hang the helmet, | |
334 | gloves, sword, spurs, and coat of Sir Martin Bowes, Lord Mayor in , whose portrait is at the Goldsmiths' Hall. Against the north wall is a monument to John Newton, the friend of Cowper, author of the and and of many of the He was for years Rector of Olney, and for years rector of this parish, where he died . The tablet is inscribed with an epitaph from his own pen-- |
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Let us now turn down. -the street of Bankers, which derived its name from the Italian merchants who frequented it before the reign of Edward II. Jane Shore, the beloved of Edward IV., was the wife of a | |
335 | goldsmith in this street; Guy, the founder of , was a bookseller here; and here, where his father was a linen-draper, the poet Pope was born in amongst the merchants and money-makers. At No. was Sir Thomas Gresham's banking office and goldsmith's shop, once surmounted by a huge gilt grasshopper. On the right, leads by the churchyard of St. Nicholas Acon, never rebuilt after the Great Fire. On the left is the English King and Martyr, which now also serves for the parishes of St. Benet, Grace Church, and St. Leonard, . It is of Wren's restorations. In the old church on this site was buried John Shute (), who published of the English architectural works- Opposite this church a court till lately led to a Quakers' Meeting House, where Penn and Fox frequently preached. (left) was formerly Burchover Lane, from its builder, In
(right) the quaint sign of existed till the house it adorned (No. ) was let to lawyers who felt it personal and had it plastered over. |
On the left of is another poor work of Wren, the . The church is of Saxon foundation and is mentioned in records of . It is now called so completely is it concealed by houses, and this is no loss. In the interior is some good wood-carving. | |
From , leads to , taking its name from the fenny ground caused by the overflowings of the Lang Bourne, a clear brook of sweet water which ran down Fen and as | |
336 | far as St. Mary Woolnoth, where it broke into several small rills which flowed southward to the Thames. Many of the buildings in this street bear a date immediately after the Great Fire, in which it was consumed. Pepys saw At the corner of (so called from the lime-burners--the neighbouring and having the same origin) is the (dedicated to the Athenian, who is called St. Denys in France), rebuilt by Wren after the Fire. Its name indicates its position. St. Gabriel (of which no trace remains), standing close by, was called from its position in the centre of . St. Dionis is now () condemned. It contains the monument of Sir Arthur Ingram, , from whom Ingram Court, which we have just passed on the left, derives its name; and in the vestry are preserved specimens of the earliest type of fire-engines-large syringes, feet long, fastened by straps round the body of the man who works them. The in (No. ) contains a curious portrait of William Smallwood, Master of the Company in the time of Henry VII. |
On the right of , records its ownership by Sir John Philpot, grocer and mayor under Richard II. Hard by, in , the next turn on the right, is the , rebuilt by Wren, and so named The church contains a good deal of handsome carving. Dr. Thomas Birch (), author of the &c., was rector of this church and was buried in the chancel. | |
(right) is named from houses which belonged to the Minchuns or nuns of St. Helen's. Near the entrance of the lane, on the left, an iron gate is the entrance to the , whose badge is a ram. About poor men and the same number of women are clothed throughout by this Company, and receive a guinea each after attending a service at of the neighbouring churches on the . The Hall is very handsome, with stained windows and curious gilt statues of James I. and Charles I. saved from the Great Fire. The cash-books of the Company exist, from . The garden of the Company is formed by the , in which most of the tombs have been ruthlessly buried under the shrubs and gravel. Elizabeth is said to have attended a thanksgiving service here on the day of her deliverance from the Tower, before dining at the Queen's Head. The church is demolished, and the churchyard ruined by gravel and silly rockwork, but the fine old tower, which escaped the Fire, is retained. All Hallows Staining claims to be the earliest stone church in the City. | |
To this churchyard has been removed a fragment of the beautiful , which was pulled down in , when the chapel built above it by William Lambe the Clothworker (-) was removed from Cripplegate to . It has low zig-zag Roman arches. | |
Returning to , on the left is the , rebuilt in , on the site of a tavern which was | |
338 | of great interest, because, being a massive house built of solid stone, it alone resisted the Great Fire, and the flames, which tore swiftly through the timber buildings of this part of London; left it standing smoke-begrimed and flame-blackened, but sufficiently uninjured to give a shelter to numbers of the homeless inhabitants of the houses |
which were swept away. William Hogart, who afterwards changed his name to Hogarth, came to lodge in this house, in , soon after the death of his father, who kept a small school in the , and here for a long time he earned a hand-to-mouth subsistence by selling his engravings on copper. he says, Sometimes, however, the plates accumulated unsold till the artist was glad to sell them at half-a-crown the pound to Mr. Bowles of the Black Horse at . It was in , while he was living here, that Hogarth made a tapestry design for Morris the upholsterer, for which he was refused payment, and vainly sued for it in the Courts. It is believed that this loss induced him to run so far into debt with his landlord that he consented to wipe off the score with his brush by caricaturing on the wall of the Elephant taproom the parochial authorities who had insulted his landlord by removing the scene of their annual orgie to a tavern (Henry the 's Head) opposite, and insulted himself by omitting to send his accustomed invitation. The famous picture of was the result, in which every phase of riotry and intoxication was represented,[n.339.1] and which delighted the landlord by attracting half London to his house. The host of the Elephant was only too glad to obliterate a score for the picture of the in which , as it then was, was represented; and to these greater pictures the paintings of Harlequin and Pierrot, and of Harlow Bush Fair, were afterwards added, so that the Elephant became a little gallery of the best works of Hogarth.[n.339.2] | |
The next house is the incorporated by a charter of Edward IV. At the foot of | |
340 | their staircase is an ancient wooden statue of St. Lawrence, their patron saint, and an ostrich, the bird which digests iron. Their picturesque is hung with pictures and banners, and decorated with the arms of the Masters, from those of the Master, Capel de Cure, in . The portraits include-
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No. on the opposite side of was the Queen's Head Tavern, pulled down in . In it were preserved the metal dish and cover used by the Princess Elizabeth when she dined here on pork and peas upon her release from the Tower in . The modern building erected on the site of the old tavern bears a commemorative statue of Elizabeth. On the left, in , is the truly hideous , occupying the site of an ancient garden called Coleman Haw. | |
(right) is of the busiest streets in London. It was originally [n.340.1] In the reign of Edward IV. | |
341 | basket-makers, vine-dressers, and other foreigners were permitted to have shops in the manor of Blanch Appleton and nowhere else in the City. |
Descending , we find, on the left, , where ( doors from ) stood the richly ornamented timber house called where, with the same generosity shown by the Fuggers at Augsburg, the princely Lord Mayor burnt the royal bond for a debt of , when Henry V. and his queen came to dine with him. Henry is said to have exclaimed, when Whittington replied,
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The interesting , is dedicated to a Norwegian who came to England and fought on behalf of Ethelred II. against the Danes.--Being afterwards himself made king of Norway, he became a Christian, which irritated his subjects, who invited Canute to supplant him, by whom he was defeated and slain in . Several churches were dedicated to him in England and in London, on account of the assistance he had given to the Saxons against the Danes. This church[n.341.1] escaped the Great Fire, and is full of interest. It is the so frequently mentioned in his by Samuel Pepys, whose parish church it was, and who is buried here () with his wife and his brother Tom () The interior is highly picturesque, and its monuments and relics of old iron-work have been respected in its though the usual follies of shiny tiles are introduced. Making the round of the building from the left, we see- | |
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Devereux, Earl of Essex, the Parliamentary general, was baptised in this church, , by Lancelot Andrews, afterwards Bishop of Winchester. Its churchyard was of those used for burial during the Plague, a fact commemorated in the skulls over its picturesque and grimy gateway, which is surmounted by a curious of ancient ironwork. Pepys, writing on -, says- | |
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The gateway looks out upon , where Pepys lived during the last years of his life, being here during the Great Fire, which this street escaped. Sir Francis Walsingham and his son-in-law the Earl of Essex lived here in a house built by Sir John Allen, Lord Mayor in the time of Henry VIII. | |
The Convent of Crossed or Crouched Friars () in , founded by Ralph Hosier and William Saberner in , has given a name to the neighbouring street of . Here, in , were Sir John Milbome's Almshouses (lately removed to Sisters Road, Holloway), built in , in honour of God and of the Virgin, where, having strangely survived Puritan iconoclasm, a relief of the Assumption of the Virgin remained to the last over the entrance gate. Near this was an early , inhabited by the Earl of Northumberland, who was slain at the Battle of St. | |
345 | Alban's, and his son the Earl, who fell, sword in hand, at the Battle of Towton. In are the vast buildings of the Indigo Warehouse. |
Returning to , we pass, on the left, , formerly from the bellfounders, though Stow says it was formerly leads into , where occupies the site of a famous well dedicated to St. Michael the Archangel. Close by stood a little Chapel of St. Michael, which belonged to the neighbouring monastery of the Holy Trinity, where wayfarers to the eastern counties sought the divine protection for their journey. The chapel is destroyed, but its beautiful still exists beneath the pavement of , though the approaches to it have been recently blocked up. | |
was of the great gates of the City, and the chief outlet to the eastern counties from the time of the Romans to its destruction in . Its antiquity is shown in the name of Aeld or Old gate. It was rebuilt in the reign of John by the Barons, with money robbed from the coffers of the monks and stone taken from the houses of the Jews, for they feared that others might not experience more difficulty than they had done themselves, in entering the City on this side. The dwelling-house above the gate was leased by the corporation in ( Edward III.) to the poet Chaucer for life, though he was not allowed to underlet any portion of the building to others. In was attacked by Thomas Nevill, the who succeeded in effecting an entrance, but, the portcullis being let down, was surrounded and slain with | |
346 | his men. In was hung from the top to the bottom with streamers to welcome Mary I., as she entered London in triumph, after the fall of the partisans of Lady Jane Grey. The gate built by the Barons was pulled down in and rebuilt in . This last bore on its east side a gilded statue of James I. with a lion and unicorn chained at his feet, and on the west side gilded |
statues of Peace, Fortune, and Charity. It was used after the Fire for the prisoners who had been lodged in the Poultry Compter. | |
The name of just outside the site of is an odd corruption of commemorating the district which Stow describes as which was given by King Edgar to and was formed by them into the liberty called Knighten Guild, which still exists as | |
Stow, the antiquary, lived in , and here witnessed the death of the Bailiff of Romford, who was executed on an accusation of having taken part in a rising in the Eastern Counties. This accusation was brought by Sir Stephen, Curate of St. Andrew , the popular agitator whose silly sermon at Paul's Cross led to the destruction of the parish Maypole. The bailiff died, protesting his entire innocence. says Stow, and the popular indignation was so great that the Curate was forced to take flight from the City. | |
, on the left, commemorates Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, who married the heiress of the property on this site. On the right is (leading into ), called even in Stow's time But the great settlement of Jews here was in , under Cromwell, when they came to England in such numbers that there was no room for them in and . | |
The ugly , was built by George Dance in on the site of an earlier church, for there were churches to this popular saint at of the gates-Billingsgate, Aldersgate, Bishopsgate, and . Retained from the older church are the curious painted bust of Robert Dow, merchant tailor, , and a figure in | |
348 | a shroud on the tomb of Sir Nicholas and Lady Elizabeth Carew, with their son-in-law Lord Darcy of the north and their grandson Sir Arthur Darcy. Almost opposite St. Botolph's is an old house decorated with Prince of Wales's feathers, the Fleur-de-lis of France, the Thistle of Scotland, and Portcullis of . |
The (left) near St. Botolph's is mentioned in Defoe's History of the Plague. It takes its name of the nuns of the Minorite convent which gave its name to the opposite street of the . | |
The name of (on the left) has been ludicrously changed into ; it is the of Stow. In , close by, stood, till , where Gondomar is said to have once lived. In another house near this, which belonged to Hans Jacobsen, jeweller to James I., John Strype was born, and his name, horribly perverted, remains in I [n.348.1]
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now falls into the poverty-stricken district of . The name of (left) commemorates Thomas Wentworth, Lord Chamberlain to Edward VI. On the right of the main street is the ,, which once occupied an important position, as before the time of railways most of the great roads into the eastern counties and all the coast lines on this side of London were measured from which [n.349.1] | |
The church was rebuilt -, with a spire feet high in the place of a hideous building of Charles I.»s time. It is of the few churches in which, | |
350 | as the churchyard had frequently been used for open-air preaching, an outside pulpit has been added. The original name of the church, is derived from the Syriac word Matfel, meaning a woman who has recently given birth to a son. There is, in St. Alban's Abbey, a picture of the Last Supper which was painted by Sir J. Thornhill for this church, but which the Bishop of London caused to be removed as a scandal; because Kennett, Dean of , was therein represented as Judas Iscariot. |
On the st of , a man named Charles Brandon was buried in this churchyard-- His entry in the Burial Register is- and a rare tract entitled, describes how, as his corpse was being carried to the churchyard, the people cried out, while others pressed upon him, saying they would quarter him for executing the king, so that his body had to be rescued by force. Brandon was succeeded in his horrible office by Dunn, who was followed by Jack Ketch, whose name has been transmitted to his successors for years. | |
[From Whitechapel the long broad thoroughfare of the leads (right) to -the Stibbenhidde or Stebenheth of early deeds: the affix indicating the or haeredium of a Saxon freeman. We must turn here to the left down , past the Radcliffe Schools, | |
351 | founded in , and adorned with quaint figures of the charity children of that date, to where
stands in its great churchyard, a beautiful green oasis amid the ugly brick houses. Colet was vicar of this church before he was Dean of . He was followed by Richard Pace, also Dean of , described by Erasmus, who was his intimate friend and addressed many of his letters to him, as , and by Stow as In he was sent as ambassador to Venice. Afterwards he lost the royal favour through the influence of Wolsey, and was imprisoned for years in the Tower. On his release, he lived in retirement at Stepney and was buried near the altar of the church. William Jerome, who was presented to the vicarage of Stepney soon after the death of Pace, was executed for heresy in . |
St. Dunstan's is a handsome perpendicular building,. and contains a number of monuments, chiefly Jacobean. In the porch is a stone inscribed-
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On the right, on entering the church, is the monument of Dame Rebecca Berry, , wife of Sir John Berry, and | |
352 | afterwards of Thomas Elton of Stratford-le-Bow, which is regarded with much popular favour, though there are those who declare that Dame Rebecca has only been connected with the ballad of or by the coat-of-arms upon the tomb--which is heraldically speaking --paly of on a bend mullets (Elton) impaling a fish; and in the dexter chief point an annulet between bends wavy. The legend tells that a knight learned in the stars was present at her birth, and, reading her horoscope, knew that she was fated to become his wife. He tried various means for her destruction, and finally attempted to drown her by throwing her from a rock into the sea, but relented at the last moment, and threw a ring into the waves instead, bidding her never see his face again unless able to produce it. She. became a cook, and having found the ring in a codfish she was dressing, presented it to the knight and was married. The knight can have had nothing to regret if we believe the epitaph-
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On the left of the altar is the handsome canopied tomb of Sir Henry Colet, Knight, , twice Mayor of London, the father of Dean Colet. Sir Thomas Spert, founder of the Trinity House and Comptroller of the Navy under Henry VIII., is also buried here. In the churchyard is the altar-tomb of Admiral Sir John Leake, , who raised the siege of Londonderry. The great variety of curious epitaphs in this churchyard, is described in No. of the Stupidly covered by gravel, in the path leading to , is the tomb of Roger Crab, , described in the pamphlet called He served for years in the Parliamentary army, and suffered much in the cause, but nevertheless was unjustly imprisoned by Cromwell. Soon after his release he literally followed the precept of the Gospel by distributing all his goods to the poor, except a cottage at Ickenham, where he lived entirely on herbs-
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Stepney was the scene of a parliament under Edward I., and the Bishops of London had a country palace and park here till the reign of Elizabeth. There is a tradition that all children born at sea are parishioners of Stepney-
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We may return from to the Exchange through . On the left is , so called from--the manor of Sir Hugh Nevile, by whom it was founded.
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On the north (right) of the street is the , rebuilt , interesting because its interior was the work executed by Inigo Jones, after his return from Italy, and as having been consecrated (in the place of an older church) by Laud, as Bishop of London (), with ceremonies which were afterwards made a principal accusation of Popery against him, and were greatly conducive to his death. Hans Holbein, who died of the plague at the Duke of Norfolk's house in , , was buried in the old church. The south-eastern porch of the existing building was the gate of the watchhouse. It bears an inscription stating that Above--a strange memento mori to the ever-moving flow of life through the street beneath--is the ghastly figure of the donor, a skeleton in a shroud, lying on a mattress. | |
The church contains the tomb of Sir Nicholas Throgmorton, , Chief Butler of England (the father-in-law of Sir Walter Raleigh), from whom takes its name. His effigy in armour is interesting as that of who played a conspicuous part in the reigns of the Tudors. Having been server to Henry VIII., he followed the fortunes of the queen-dowager, Katherine Parr, resided with her as | |
355 | cup-bearer throughout her brief married life with Seymour, and was with her at her death. He afterwards served in Scotland under the Protector Somerset, who sent him to bear the news of the victory of Pinkie to London. Edward VI. appointed him privy-councillor, and he was present at the young king's death at Greenwich. In February, IS, he was arrested on a charge of being concerned in Sir Thomas Wyatt's conspiracy, and was tried in the , but was acquitted, after a fierce cross-examination, owing to his own presence of mind and his spirited defence, though the jury were fined for releasing him. For the time present at a royal death-bed, he fulfilled the request of Elizabeth by taking the wedding-ring given by Philip from the dead finger of Mary, and delivering it to the new queen. In the words of his epitaph he became He was also the ambassador sent to remonstrate with Mary, Queen of Scots, on- her intended alliance with Darnley. But in the close of his life he intrigued for the marriage of Mary with the Duke of Norfolk, and was sent a time to the Tower. Though released, he never regained the favour of Elizabeth, and died of a broken heart, not without suspicion of poison, at the house of the Earl of Leicester, , .
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The epitaph of R. Spencer, a Turkey Merchant, records his death in after he had seen
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which is still occasionally preached in this church, commemorates an adventure of Sir John Gayor, Knight and Merchant of London, who, while travelling in Arabia, became separated from his caravan, and, while wandering alone in the night, was attacked by a lion. Falling on his knees, he vowed his fortune for his deliverance. The lion turned aside, and, with other charitable bequests, Sir John left to the parish of St. Catherine Cree, on condition of his escape being sometimes described in a sermon. | |
, which runs along the western wall of the church, once led to the magnificent Priory of Holy Trinity, also called , which was founded by wife of Henry I., on the persuasion of Archbishop Anselm. The Mayor of London, the draper Henry Fitz-Alwyn, who continued years in office, was buried in its church in . The fact that this was of the richest monasteries in the kingdom was probably the cause of its being of the to be attacked. Henry VIII. gave it to Thomas Dudley, afterwards Lord Chancellor. His daughter married Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, who, after Audley's death, lived here in great state at His son, the Earl of Suffolk, sold the property to the City of London for a large sum, which he expended in the building of Audley End. | |
We now reach, on the right (at the entrance of the ancient street called , where the famous surgeon Sir Astley Cooper commenced practice), the , so called, says Stow, The shaft of the Maypole was higher than the steeple. It was pulled down on in the reign of Henry VIII., but continued hanging on hooks in Shaft Alley till the year of Edward VI., when it was sawn in pieces and | |
burnt by the people after a sermon at Paul's Cross, in which the preacher told them that it had been made an idol of, inasmuch as they had named their parish church The church, which has a picturesque many-turreted tower, is a good specimen of Perpendicular (-). In the east window are portraits of Edward VI., Elizabeth, James I., | |
358 | Charles I., and Charles II. On the north wall is a monument to Sir Hugh Hammersley, , with effigies of him and his wife kneeling under a tent, and standing figures at the sides, attributed to Thomas Madder. Close by, a curious little specimen of a painted monument, is that of Alice Bynge, who had At the end of the north aisle is the striking terra-cotta tomb (never painted) of John Stow the famous antiquary (-), author of the to which all later writers on the city are so much indebted. The venerable old man is represented sitting at his table with a book, and a pen in his hand. He was a |
359 | tailor by trade and resided near the well in . He describes how the compilation of his works, printed and manuscript, In his old age he fell into great poverty, but all he could obtain in his eightieth year from James I. for his great literary services was His collections for the now in the , occupy quarto volumes. But the same misfortunes which attended him in life were suffered to follow after death, and his remains were disturbed, if not removed, in . |
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Opposite St. Andrew is an Elizabethan house from whose boldly projecting stories the inmates must have watched the erection of the Maypole and the dances around it. The , hard by, are an ambitious modern imitation by of old street architecture. | |
On the opposite side of , at the | |
360 | northwest corner of , was the House of the East India Company, The Company was incorporated in , and leased these premises from Lord Craven, who was born in the old house on this site. The was several times rebuilt, and finally pulled down in , when its most valuable contents were transferred to the Indian Museum in . Charles Lamb was a clerk in the House. he said,
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joins (so called from a cornmarket) where the conduit-fountain called the Standard (built ) formerly stood like a high round tower. also had its may-pole, which was of prodigious size, for Chaucer, writing of vain-boasters, says that they look as if they could Gray the poet was born (, ) in , where his father was an Exchange Broker, at a house on the site of No. , which was destroyed by fire in , and rebuilt by him. No. , the offices of Messrs. King the publishers, rebuilt in , stand opposite the place where the fountain known as stood, at which the Great Fire stopped. The old house, while occupied by Messrs. Smith and Elder, was interesting from its association with Leigh Hunt, Thackeray, Mrs. Gaskell, Charlotte Bronte, and others. It was here that Charlotte and Anne Bronte presented themselves in , to prove their separate identity to the publishers who imagined, as all the world did then, that Currer, Acton, | |
361 | and Ellis Bell were the same person. Hence also issued the with Thackeray as its editor. |
, is of the churches built by Wren after the Fire. Robert Fabyan, Alderman and Sheriff, who wrote the (), and the father and grandfather of John Stow the historian were buried in the old church. The marked feature of the present building is its great Perpendicular tower, a bad imitation of that of Magdalen College at Oxford. There is a rich modern door with a relief of St. Michael weighing souls. The interior is covered with foolish decorations in polychrome. seats at the end of the nave are set apart as--the Royal pew, Diocesan, Corporation, Drapers', Merchant Tailors' and Rector's pews. | |
-hideous outside- of Wren's rebuildings and a singularly bad specimen of his work, claims to stand on the earliest consecrated ground in England, and to take precedence of Canterbury itself for there (according to a tablet preserved in the vestry) King Lucius was baptized years before the coming of Augustine and the conversion of Ethelbert, when he made it the metropolitan church of the whole kingdom. The wood screen in this church was set up by Bishop Beveridge (of St. Asaph), who was rector here --, and is mentioned in of his sermons. A touching monument by Ryley commemorates the children of Mr. and Mrs. Woodmason, burnt in their beds in their father's house in , . The cherub heads upon the monument are known from a beautiful engraving by Bartolozzi. | |
(formerly Exchange Alley), leading into , was the chief centre of the money transactions of the last century, when the Stock Exchange was held here at It was the great scene of action in the South Sea Bubble of , by which so many thousands of credulous persons were ruined. | |
Another Coffee House in this alley which played a great part in the same time of excitement was so called from Garway its original proprietor. It was here that tea was sold in London.
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Now we reach the , whence we set forth, | |
Footnotes: [n.326.1] Hawthorne. [n.329.1] Clarendon's Hist. of the Rebellion, ed. 1820, i. 33r. [n.329.2] Dugdale's Troubles in England, fol. 1681, p. 37. [n.333.1] The origin of this name is unknown. [n.339.1] Orator Henley, the famous but eccentric and profligate preacher, who was the orator of brazen face and lungs of Pope's Dunciad, was introduced here. [n.339.2] See The Builder, Sept. ii, 1875. [n.340.1] Edinburgh Review, No. 267 [n.341.1] The keys are to be found near-at 10, Gould Square, Crutched Friars, [n.348.1] The Builder, May ii, 1877. [n.349.1] Saturday Review, Feb. 1?, 1877 [] See The Trial of Charles I., The Family Library, No, xxxi. |