This priory and hospital were founded by Walter Brune and Roesia his wife, for canons regular of the order of Augustine. Walter, archdeacon of London, laid the stone, in the

This hospital was surrendered the of Henry VIII., and its revenues amounted to per ann. Besides ornaments of the church, and other goods pertaining to the hospital, there were found standing an beds, well furnished, for receipt of the poor of charity; for it was an hospital of great relief. Sir Henry Plesington, knight, was buried there A. D. .

The site of the priory now occupied by Stewart and Duke-streets, was granted Hen. VIII. to Stephen Vaughan.

On the site of this hospital was the residence of a famous Italian merchant and ambassador, much employed by queen Elizabeth, namely, sir Horatio Pallavicini. And in the same house, in the year of king James I. the ambassador from the archduke of Austria was lodged, with his company.

Queen Elizabeth, in the month of , came in great state from St. Mary Spital, attended with a men in harness, with shirts of mail, and corslets, and morris-pikes, and great pieces carried through London unto the court, with drums, flutes, and trumpets sounding, and morns-dancers; and in a cart white bears.

A part of the large church-yard pertaining to this hospital, and severed from the rest with a brick wall, was for a long time remaining, with a pulpit cross therein (somewhat like to that was in church-yard); against which, on the south side, before the charnel and chapel of St. Edmund the bishop, and , was a handsome house of stories high, for the mayor, aldermen, sheriffs, and other persons of distinction to sit in, to hear the sermons preached in the Easter holidays. In the part over them stood the bishop of London, and other prelates; afterwards the aldermens' ladies used to stand or sit at a window there.

It was for a long time a custom,

on Good Friday in the afternoon, for some learned man, by appointment of the prelates, to preach a sermon at Paul's Cross, treating of Christ's passion; and upon the

three

next Easter holidays, Monday,

Tuesday, and Wednesday, other learned men, by the like appointment, used to preach in the forenoon at the said Spital, to persuade the articles of Christ's resurrection: and then, on Low-Sunday, before noon, another learned man, at Paul's-Cross, was to make rehearsal of those

four

former sermons, either commending or reproving them, as to him (by judgment of the learned divines) was thought convenient: and, that done, he was to make a sermon of himself; which in all were

five

sermons in

one

. At these sermons, so severally preached, the mayor, with his brethren the aldermen, were accustomed to be present in their violets at

St. Paul's

on Good-Friday, and in their scarlets, both they and their wives, at the Spital in the holidays, except Wednesday in violet; and the mayor, with his brethren, on Low-Sunday, in scarlet, at Paul's- Cross. The pulpit was broken down in the grand rebellion. Since the Restoration these sermons are continued by the name of the Spital sermons at

St. Bride's

, with the like solemnity, on Easter Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, every year.

The Spital sermons are now preached at Christ-church, Newgate street.

Respecting the antiquity of this custom, it appears in the year , king Richard having procured from Rome confirmation of such statutes and ordinances as were made in the parliament begun at and ended at Shrewsbury, he caused the same confirmation to be read and pronounced at Paul's Cross, and at St. Mary Spital, in the sermons before all the people. Philip Malpas, of the sheriffs in the year , the eighteenth of Henry VII. gave by the year to the preachers at the Spital. Stephen Forster, mayor, in the year , gave to the preachers of Paul's Cross and Spital. The aforesaid house, wherein the mayor and alderman sat at the Spital, was built (for that purpose) out of the goods, and by the executors of Richard Rawson, alderman, and Isabel his wife, in the year .

In the year , this pulpit, being old, was taken down, and a new set up, the preacher's face turned towards the south, which before was towards the west. Also a large house (on the east side of the said pulpit) was then built for the governors and children of to sit in; and this was done out of the goods of William Elkins, alderman: but, within the year, the same house decaying, and like to have fallen, was again, with great cost repaired at the city's charge.

[] Which was founded by W. Evesham. citizen and pepperer, about 1391.