Paul's Cross
This interesting open-air pulpit stood on a site near the north-eastern angle of the choir of the cathedral church. It was used not only for the instruction of mankind, by the doctrine of the preacher, but for every purpose political or ecclesiastical—for giving force to oaths; for promulgating laws, or rather royal pleasure; for the emission of papal bulls; for anathematising sinners; for benedictions; for exposing penitents under censure of the Church; for recantations; for the private ends of the ambitious; and for the defaming of those who had incurred the displeasure of crowned heads.
The Society of Antiquaries of London possesses an interesting painted diptych, showing two views of Old St. Paul's on one side, and another, in which the cathedral church occupies only a minor place, on the other side.
One of those three pictures is of peculiar value for the present purpose inasmuch as it gives a vivid and, in a way, realistic representation of Paul's Cross and its surroundings in the year 1620. There are certain features in the picture which are obviously inaccurate. The view which is taken from the north-west of the cathedral is, for example, made to include the great east window of the choir by, as Sir George Scharf remarked, "an unwarrantable straining of the laws of perspective." Again, the nave and choir are improperly made to appear shorter than the north and south transepts. But with regard to the cross itself, which forms the chief object in the foreground, the details are represented in a manner and with a completeness which suggest accuracy.
The representation of the actual cross is probably the best in existence, and has furnished the data upon which artists have largely depended in the various attempts to reconstruct the great historical scenes which took place long ago at Paul's Cross. The pulpit proper was covered by a rather gracefully shaped roof of timber covered with lead and bearing representations of the arms of Bishop Kempe at various points. Above the roof, and indeed rising out of it, was a large and slightly ornamental cross. The brickwork enclosing the cross, which is known to have been erected in 1595, is clearly shown in the picture.
So numerous are the great public events which have taken place at Paul's Cross that it is not possible to give details of them in this article.
Old Wooden Houses, near the Temple Gate, Fleet Street.
The date of the demolition of Paul's Cross is stated by Dugdale to have been 1643, but the late Canon Sparrow Simpson produced evidence which clearly proves that it was pulled down before 1641, and probably before 1635. In the charge-books of the cathedral there is an entry under June, 1635, which shows that labourers were employed in carrying away "the lead, timber, etc., that was pull'd downe of the roomes where the Prebends of the Church, the Doctors of the Law, and the Parishioners of St. Ffaith's did sett to heare sermons at St. Paul's Crosse." Succeeding entries in the same volume render it highly probable that the cross had previously been taken down, and that preparations were being made for its re-erection.
The Great Fire probably destroyed any other traces which may then have been remaining of this extremely interesting old preaching-cross. The foundations alone have been preserved. These were discovered by the late Mr. C. F. Penrose, the surveyor to the cathedral, in the year 1879, and they are now indicated by an octagonal outline of stones on the ground-level close to the north-east corner of the present cathedral church.
Steps are now being taken to build another cross on the site of Paul's Cross, a legacy of five thousand pounds having been left for that purpose by the late H. C. Richards, M.P.
THE LIVES OF THE PEOPLE
By the Editor
A study of contemporary documents enables us to picture to ourselves the appearance of Old London in mediæval times, and to catch a glimpse of the manners and customs of the people and the lives they led. The regulations of the city authorities, the letter-books, journals, and repertories preserved in the Record Room at Guildhall, which show an unbroken record of all events and transactions—social, political, ecclesiastical, legal, military, naval, local, and municipal—extending over a period of six centuries; the invaluable Liber Albus of the city of London; the history and regulations of the Guilds; the descriptions of Stow, Fitzstephen, and others—all help to enable us to make a sketch of the London of the Middle Ages, which differs very widely from the city so well known to us to-day.
The dangers of sieges and wars were not yet over, and the walls of Old London were carefully preserved and guarded. The barons in John's time adopted a ready means for repairing them. They broke into the Jews' houses, ransacked their coffers, and then repaired the walls and gates with stones taken from their broken houses. This repair was afterwards done in more seemly wise at the common charges of the city. Some monarchs made grants of a toll upon all wares sold by land or by water for the repair of the wall. Edward IV. paid much attention to the walls, and ordered Moorfields to be searched for clay in order to make bricks, and chalk to be brought from Kent for this purpose. The executors of Sir John Crosby, the wealthy merchant and founder of Crosby Place, also did good service, and placed the knight's arms on the parts that they repaired. The City Companies also came to the rescue, and kept the walls in good order.
South View of Old St. Paul's when the Spire was standing.
From an old print.
Within these walls the pulse of the city life beat fast. The area enclosed was not large, only about the size of Hyde Park, but it must have been the busiest spot on earth; there was life and animation in every corner. In the city the chief noblemen had houses, or inns, as they were called, which were great buildings capable of housing a large retinue. We read of Richard, Duke of York, coming in 1457 to the city with four hundred men, who were lodged in Baynard's Castle; of the Earl of Salisbury with five hundred men on horseback lodging in the Herber, a house at Dowgate belonging to the Earl of Warwick, who himself stayed with six hundred men at his inn in Warwick Lane, where, says Stow, "there were oftentimes six oxen eaten at a breakfast." Eight hundred men were brought by the Dukes of Exeter and Somerset, and one thousand five hundred by the Earl of Northumberland, the Lord Egremont, and the Lord Clifford. The houses of these noble owners have long since disappeared, but the memory of them is recorded by the names of streets, as we shall attempt to show in a subsequent chapter. Even in Stow's time, who wrote in 1598, they were ruinous, or had been diverted from their original uses. The frequent visits of these noble persons must have caused considerable excitement in the city, and provided abundant employment for the butchers and bakers.
The great merchants, too, were very important people who had their fine houses, of which the last surviving one was Crosby Hall, which we shall describe presently, a house that has been much in the minds of the citizens of London during the present year. Stow says that there were many other houses of the same class of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and that they were "builded with stone and timber." In such houses, which had a sign swinging over the door, the merchant and his family lived and dined at the high table in the great hall, his 'prentices and servants sitting in the rush-strewn "marsh," as the lower portion of the hall was anciently named. These apprentices played an important part in the old city life. They had to serve for a term of seven years, and then, having "been sworn of the freedom" and enrolled on the books of the city, they were allowed to set up their shop or follow their trade. They were a lively, turbulent class of young men, ever ready to take to their weapons and shout "Clubs! Clubs!" whereat those who lived in one merchant's house would rush together and attack the apprentices of a rival merchant, or unite forces and pursue the hated "foreigners"—i.e., those who presumed to trade and had not been admitted to the freedom of the city. Boys full of high spirits, they were ever ready to join in a fight, to partake in sports and games, and even indulged in questionable amusements—frequented taverns and bowling alleys, played dice and other unlawful games, for which misdemeanours they were liable to receive a good flogging from their masters and other punishments. They had a distinctive dress, which changed with the fashions, and at the close of the mediæval period they were wearing blue cloaks in summer, and in winter blue coats or gowns, their stockings being of white broadcloth "sewed close up to their round slops or breeches, as if they were all but of one piece." Later on, none were allowed to wear "any girdle, point, garters, shoe-strings, or any kind of silk or ribbon, but stockings only of woollen yarn or kersey; nor Spanish shoes; nor hair with any tuft or lock, but cut short in decent and comely manner." If an apprentice broke these rules, or indulged in dancing or masking, or "haunting any tennis court, common bowling alley, cock-fighting, etc., or having without his master's knowledge any chest, trunk, etc., or any horse, dog or fighting-cock," he was liable to imprisonment. Chaucer gives an amusing picture of the fondness of the city apprentices for "ridings"—i.e., for the processions and pageants which took place when a king or queen entered the city in state, and such like joyful occasions—and for similar diversions:
"A prentis whilom dwelt in our Citie,
And of a craft of vitaillers was he;
At every bridale would he sing and hoppe;
He loved bet the taverne than the shoppe.
For whan ther any riding was in chepe,
Out of the shoppe thither would he lepe,
And till that he all the sight ysein,
And danced well, he would not come agein;
And gathered him a many of his sort,
To hoppe and sing, and maken such disport."
The presence of large companies of these somewhat boisterous youths must have added considerable life and animation to the town.
We have seen the noble in his town house, the merchant in his fine dwelling. Let us visit the artizan and small tradesman. The earliest historian of London, Fitzstephen, tells us that the two great evils of his time were "the immoderate drinking of foolish persons and the frequent fires." In early times the houses were built of wood, roofed with straw or stubble thatch. Hence when a single house caught fire, the conflagration spread, as in the reign of Stephen, when a fire broke out at London Bridge; it spread rapidly, destroyed St. Paul's, and extended as far as St. Clement Danes. Hence in the first year of Richard I. it was enacted that the lower story of all houses in the city should be built with stone, and the roof covered with thick tiles. The tradesman or artizan had a small house with a door, and a window with a double shutter arrangement, the upper part being opened and turned outwards, forming a penthouse, and the lower a stall. Minute regulations were passed as to the height of the penthouse, which was not to be less than nine feet, so as to enable "folks on horseback to ride beneath them," and the stall was not to project more than two and a half feet. In this little house the shoemaker, founder, or tailor lived and worked; and as you passed down the narrow street, which was very narrow and very unsavoury, with an open drain running down the centre, you would see these busy townsfolk plying their trades and making a merry noise.
A very amusing sketch of the appearance of London at this period, and of the manners of the inhabitants, is given in Lydgate's London's Lickpenny. A poor countryman came to London to seek legal redress for certain grievances. The street thieves were very active, for as soon as he entered Westminster his hood was snatched from his head in the midst of the crowd in broad daylight. In the streets of Westminster he was encountered by Flemish merchants, strolling to and fro, like modern pedlars, vending hats and spectacles, and shouting, "What will you buy?" At Westminster Gate, at the hungry hour of mid-day, there were bread, ale, wine, ribs of beef, and tables set out for such as had wherewith to pay. He proceeded on his way by the Strand, at that time not so much a street as a public road connecting the two cities, though studded on each side by the houses of noblemen; and, having entered London, he found it resounding with the cries of peascods, strawberries, cherries, and the more costly articles of pepper, saffron, and spices, all hawked about the streets. Having cleared his way through the press, and arrived at Cheapside, he found a crowd much larger than he had as yet encountered, and shopkeepers plying before their shops or booths, offering velvet, silk, lawn, and Paris thread, and seizing him by the hand that he might turn in and buy. At London-stone were the linendrapers, equally clamorous and urgent; while the medley was heightened by itinerant vendors crying "hot sheep's feet, mackerel," and other such articles of food. Our Lickpenny now passed through Eastcheap, which Shakespeare later on associates with a rich supply of sack and fat capons, and there he found ribs of beef, pies, and pewter pots, intermingled with harping, piping, and the old street carols of Julian and Jenkin. At Cornhill, which at that time seems to have been a noted place for the receivers of stolen goods, he saw his own hood, stolen at Westminster, exposed for sale. After refreshing himself with a pint of wine, for which he paid the taverner one penny, he hastened to Billingsgate, where the watermen hailed him with their cry, "Hoo! go we hence!" and charged him twopence for pulling him across the river. Bewildered and oppressed, Master Lickpenny was delighted to pay the heavy charge, and to make his escape from the din and confusion of the great city, resolving never again to enter its portals or to have anything to do with London litigation.
Then there was the active Church life of the city. During the mediæval period, ecclesiastical, social, and secular life were so blended together that religion entered into all the customs of the people, and could not be separated therefrom. In our chapter upon the City Companies we have pointed out the strong religious basis of the Guilds. The same spirit pervaded all the functions of the city. The Lord Mayor was elected with solemn ecclesiastical functions. The holidays of the citizens were the Church festivals and saints' days. In Fitzstephen's time there were no less than one hundred and twenty-six parish churches, besides thirteen great conventual churches. The bells of the churches were continually sounding, their doors were ever open, and the market women, hucksters, artizans, 'prentices, merchants, and their families had continual resort to them for mass and prayer. Strict laws were in force to prevent men from working on saints' days and festivals, and if the wardens or searchers of a company discovered one of their trade, a carpenter, or cobbler, or shoemaker, working away in a cellar or garret, they would soon haul him up before the court of the company, where he would be fined heavily.
The life of the streets was full of animation. Now there would be ridings in the Cheap, the companies clad in gay apparel, the stands crowded with the city dames and damsels in fine array; pageants cunningly devised, besides which even Mr. Louis Parker's display at the last Lord Mayor's procession would have appeared mean and tawdry; while the conduits flowed with wine, and all was merry. Now it is Corpus Christi Day, and there is a grand procession through the streets, which stirs the anger of Master Googe, who thus wrote of what he saw:
Then doth ensue the solemne feast
Of Corpus Christi Day,
Who then can shewe their wicked use
And fond and foolish play.
The hallowed bread with worship great
In silver pix they beare
About the Churche or in the citie,
Passing here and theare.
His armes that beares the same, two of
The wealthiest men do holde:
And over him a canopy
Of silke and clothe of golde.
Christ's passion here derided is
With sundry maskes and playes.
Fair Ursley, with her maydens all
Doth passe amid the wayes.
And valiant George with speare thou killest
The dreadfull dragon here,
The devil's house is drawne about
Wherein there doth appere
A wondrous sort of damned spirites
With foule and fearfull looke.
Great Christopher doth wade and passe
With Christ amid the brooke.
Sebastian full of feathered shaftes
The dint of dart doth feel,
There walketh Kathren with her sworde
In hand and cruel wheele.
The Challis and the Singing Cake
With Barbara is led,
And sundrie other pageants playe
In worship of this bred....
The common wayes with bowes are strawne
And every streete beside,
And to the walles and windows all
Are boughes and braunches tide.
And monkes in every place do roame,
The nunnes abroad are sent,
The priests and schoolmen loud do rore
Some use the instrument.
The straunger passing through the streete
Uppon his knees doth fall,
And earnestly uppon this bred
As on his God, doth calle....
A number grete of armed men
Here all this while do stand,
To look that no disorder be
Nor any filching hand.
For all the church goodes out are brought
Which certainly would be
A bootie good, if every man
Might have his libertie.
Verily Master Googe's fingers itched to carry off some of this "bootie good," but we are grateful to him for giving us such a realistic description of the processions on Corpus Christi Day.
Religious plays were also not infrequent. These the city folk dearly loved. Clerkenwell was a favourite place for their performance, and there the Worshipful Company of the Clerks of London performed some wonderful mysteries. In 1391 A.D. they were acting before the King, his Queen, and many nobles, "The Passion of our Lord and the Creation of the World," a performance which lasted three days. At Skinners' Well, the Company of the Skinners "held there certain plays yearly"; and in 1409 the Clerks performed a great play which lasted eight days, when the most part of the nobles and gentles in England were present. Originally these plays were performed in the churches, but owing to the gradually increased size of the stage, the sacred buildings were abandoned as the scenes of mediæval drama. Then the churchyards were utilised, and in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the people liked to act their plays in the highways and public places as at Clerkenwell, which, owing to the configuration of the ground, was well adapted for the purpose.
Strange scenes of savage punishment attract the attention of the unfeeling crowd in the city streets, who jeer at the sufferers. Here is a poor man drawn upon a hurdle from the Guildhall to his own house. He is a baker who has made faulty bread, and the law states that he should be so drawn through the great streets where most people are assembled, and especially through the great streets that are most dirty (that is especially laid down in the statutes), with the faulty bread hanging from his neck. There stands the pillory, and on it, with head and hands fast, is another baker, who has been guilty of a second offence. Blood is streaming from his face, where cruel stones have hit him, and rotten eggs and filth are hurled at him during the one hour "at least" which he has to remain there.
But there were less savage amusements than the baiting of bakers. Jousts and tournaments periodically created unwonted excitement, as when, in 1389, there was a mighty contest at Smithfield. Froissart tells us that heralds were sent to every country in Europe where chivalry was honoured, to proclaim the time and place, and brave knights were invited to splinter a lance, or wield a sword, in honour of their mistresses. Knights and nobles from far and near assembled. London was thronged with warriors of every clime and language. Smithfield was surrounded with temporary chambers and pavilions, constructed for the accommodation of the King and the princes, the Queen and the maidens of her court; and when the solemnity was about to commence, sixty horses, richly accoutred, were led to the lists by squires, accompanied by heralds and minstrels; after which, sixty ladies followed on palfreys, each lady leading an armed knight by a chain of silver. The first day the games commenced with encounters of the lance, the two most skilful combatants receiving as prizes a golden crown and a rich girdle adorned with precious stones; after which, the night was spent in feasting and dancing. During five days the contest lasted, and each evening called the knights and dames to the same joyous festivities and pastimes. The 'prentices and citizens enjoyed the spectacle quite as much as the combatants, and the young men used to copy their betters and practise feats of war, riding on horseback, and using disarmed lances and shields. Battles, too, were fought on the water, when young men in boats, with lance in rest, charged a shield hung on a pole fixed in the midst of the stream. This sport provided great amusement to the spectators, who stood upon the bridge or wharf and neighbouring houses, especially when the adventurous youths failed and fell into the river. Leaping, dancing, shooting, wrestling, casting the stone, and practising their shields were the favourite amusements of the London youths, while the maidens tripped to the sound of their timbrels, and danced as long as they could well see. In winter, boars were set to fight, bulls and bears were baited, and cock-fighting was the recognised amusement of schoolboys.
When the frost covered the great fen on the north side of the city with ice, good Fitzstephen delighted to watch "the young men play upon the ice; some, striding as wide as they may, do slide swiftly; others make themselves seats of ice as great as millstones; one sits down, many hand in hand do draw him, and one slipping on a sudden, all fall together; some tie bones to their feet and under their heels, and, shoving themselves by a little picked staff, do slide as swiftly as a bird flieth in the air, or as an arrow out of a crossbow. Sometimes two run together with poles, and, hitting one another, either one or both do fall, not without hurt; some break their arms, some their legs; but youth desirous of glory in this sort exerciseth itself against the time of war." Lord Roberts and other patriots would like to see the youth of the present day, not breaking their arms and legs, but exercising themselves against the time of war. The citizens used also to delight themselves in hawks and hounds, for they had liberty of hunting in Middlesex, Hertfordshire, all Chiltron, and in Kent to the water of Cray. The game of quintain, which I need not describe, was much in vogue. Stow saw a quintain at Cornhill, where men made merry disport, and the maidens used to dance for garlands hung athwart the streets. Time would fail to tell of the May-day junketings, of the setting up of the May-pole in Cornhill before the church of St. Andrew, hence called Undershaft; of the Mayings at early dawn, the bringing in of the may, the archers, morris dancers and players, Robin Hood and Maid Marian, the horse races at Smithfield, so graphically described by Fitzstephen, and much else that tells of the joyous life of the people.
Life was not to them all joy. There was much actual misery. The dark, narrow, unsavoury, insanitary streets bred dire fevers and plagues. Thousands died from this dread malady. The homes of the artizans and craftsmen were not remarkable for comfort. They were bound down by strict regulations as regards their work. No one could dwell where he pleased, but only nigh the craftsmen of his particular trade. But, on the whole, the lot of the men of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was by no means an unhappy one. They were very quick, easily aroused, turbulent, savage in their punishments, brutal perhaps in their sport; but they had many sterling qualities which helped to raise England to attain to her high rank among the nations of the world, and they left behind them sturdy sons and daughters who made London great and their country honoured.
THE TEMPLE
By the Rev. Henry George Woods, D.D.
Master of the Temple
"On the 10th of February in the year from the Incarnation of our Lord 1185, this Church was consecrated in honour of the Blessed Mary by the Lord Heraclius, by the grace of God Patriarch of the Church of the Holy Resurrection, who to those yearly visiting it granted an Indulgence of sixty days off the penance enjoined upon them."
So we may render the ancient Latin inscription, formerly on the wall of the Round Church, which supplies the earliest definite date in the history of the Temple. Originally settled near the Holborn end of Chancery Lane, the Templars had apparently been in occupation of the present site (still called "the New Temple" in formal documents) for some considerable time before the Round Church was consecrated. There is evidence, at any rate, that "the Old Temple" in the parish of St. Andrew's, Holborn, had been sold as a town house for the Bishops of Lincoln before 1163. We must suppose that a temporary church was used during this interval—perhaps St. Clement's, which had been granted to the Order in 1162 by Henry II. The performance of the consecration ceremony by Heraclius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, and the presence at it of Henry II. and his court, show that the headquarters of the Templars in England were felt to be of national importance. Never, indeed, since its foundation were the services of the Order more needed. The Templars in Palestine were being sorely pressed by Saladin, and Heraclius had come to England to obtain help. When absolution for the murder of Thomas à Becket was granted to Henry, he had promised to lead an army into Palestine, as well as to maintain two hundred Templars there at his own cost. This personal service he now found himself unable to perform. Fabyan (died 1513) gives a quaint version of the King's conversation with the Patriarch:
"'I may not wende oute of my lande, for myne own sonnes wyll aryse agayne me whan I were absente.' 'No wonder,' sayde the patryarke, 'for of the deuyll they come, and to the deuyll they shall go,' and so departyd from the kynge in great ire."
Two years later Jerusalem surrendered to Saladin, and Henry, after conferring with the King of France, arranged for the collection of a "Saladin tithe" to meet the cost of the new crusade.
The Temple Church: Exterior View.
"The poor fellow-soldiers of Jesus Christ of the Temple of Solomon"—for such was the full designation of the Templars in commemoration of the quarters assigned them within the area of the former Jewish Temple—naturally had their thoughts turned towards Jerusalem, wherever they were stationed. The design of the church which Heraclius consecrated was determined by the circular chapel which stood on the site of the Old Temple in Holborn, and the prototype of both buildings was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, with which English Templars must have been familiar from the earliest days of the Order. The travels of Templars and Crusaders undeniably influenced English architecture. One such influence we find in the constructive use of the pointed arch, which is said to have been introduced about 1125 from the South of France—a route which Norman Crusaders frequently followed. For many years after that date pointed and round arches were used almost indifferently in Norman work, so that the strongly pointed arches of the Round Church are not in themselves decisive of the date of the building. It is not till about 1170 that the real transition from Norman to Early English can be said to have begun. In the interior of the Round Church this movement is in full swing. The lower arcade has been inaccurately restored and must not be taken as evidence, but in the decorative band of arcading on the upper wall which frames the openings into the triforium we see how the intersection of two semi-circular arches gives the pure lancet form. The crucial point, however, is the absence of the massive Romanesque columns which invariably mark true Norman work. In their place we have columns of comparative slenderness, each consisting of four almost insulated shafts of Purbeck marble, two smaller and two larger. These columns must be among the earliest examples of their kind in England. There is a somewhat similar treatment (two shafts only, as originally designed) in the Galilee of Durham Cathedral, built a few years later, whereas in the choir of Canterbury Cathedral, which was rebuilt only a few years before 1185, the Romanesque columns are still retained, though the style of the capitals is modified.
The historical interest of the church is not confined to its architecture. The eight small half-length figures between the capitals outside the west door, though sadly defaced and only reproductions of the originals, stand in close relation to the consecration ceremony. In 1783, according to a writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, they were "very perfect," and were believed to represent on the north side Henry II. with three Knights Templars, and on the opposite side Queen Eleanor with Heraclius and two other ecclesiastics. This identification is in the main correct. The king and queen are farthest from the door. He is holding a sceptre, or possibly a roll containing a grant to the Order. One of the figures by his side—it is difficult to see whether they are bearded, as Knights Templars would have been—is certainly holding a roll, perhaps the royal licence for the building of the church. Others have their hands folded in prayer.
The unique and most successfully restored series of nine marble effigies on the floor of the church is also of great antiquity. Six are cross-legged, but not necessarily on that account to be regarded as Crusaders. One of them has been supposed to represent the notorious Geoffrey de Magnaville, Earl of Essex, who died excommunicate in 1144, ten years before the accession of Henry II. Three others probably represent William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke (died 1219), Protector of England during the minority of Henry III., and his two sons, William (died 1231) and Gilbert (died 1241). The figure which lies apart cannot be older than the latter half of the thirteenth century, and according to tradition is a Lord de Ros. Of the others nothing is known. It seems certain, however, that the series contains no effigy of an actual Knight of the Order, since none of the figures are represented as wearing the red cross mantle. Men of wealth and position were often admitted to the privileges of the Order without taking the vows, under the title of "Associates of the Temple." The special exemption from interdicts which the Templars enjoyed, and the sanctity of their churches as burial-places, made this associateship attractive to devout men, who willingly gave benefactions in return for it. It is one of fate's ironies that of the many Knights Templars buried in the church not a single name or monument should have been preserved in situ. No separate graves are now marked by the effigies, but during the 1841 restorations stone and leaden coffins containing skeletons were found below the pavement. These remains have been reburied in a vault in the middle of the church.
Doorway of the Temple Church.
The outline of the Round Church was never probably a perfect circle. Excavations have been made, and some foundations have been discovered underground on the east side of the church, which seem to shew that an apse existed nearly fifty feet long. This, of course, contained the altar. Even so, however, the church must often have been inconveniently crowded, and the spaciousness of the later addition shows how much this inconvenience had been felt. The middle opening between the two churches is probably the original arch by which the apse was entered, since it does not, like the two side arches, break into the line of arcading. In passing from the earlier to the later church, we pass from Transitional Norman to a pure example of Early English style, the details of which closely remind us of Salisbury Cathedral. That cathedral, which was not finished till 1258, was begun in 1220, and the foundations of the Temple choir cannot have been laid very long after this. Matthew Paris (died 1259) tells us that "the noble church of the New Temple, of a construction worthy to be looked at," was consecrated on Ascension Day, 1240, in the presence of Henry III. and many great men of the realm. As the king looked round the new church during the consecration ceremony, it is quite conceivable that he turned over in his mind the idea of rebuilding the east end of Westminster Abbey in this same style—a design which he proceeded to put into execution five years later. The combination of the two Temple Churches into one harmonious whole is a stroke of genius on the part of the unknown architect. It might have been a failure had there been any violence of contrast. As it is, we feel that we are only moving one step forward in the evolution of church-building. The general effect of the columns and arches is much the same throughout, and the view from either church into the other pleases the eye.
To realise the full beauty of this great choir we must in thought sweep away the present seats and pulpit, and reconstruct the two side altars dedicated to St. John and St. Nicolas, which flanked the high altar dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Traces of this original arrangement are still to be seen in the restored aumbreys and piscina on the north and south walls. The height of these niches seems to show that the side altars were some four or five steps above the level of the present floor. The three aumbreys over the high altar are unfortunately hidden by the incongruous reredos which was put up in 1841. In these locked cupboards some of the church plate was kept. The inventory of 1307 contains various priced items of silver-gilt plate, together with numerous relics, unpriced—among them "the sword with which the Blessed Thomas of Canterbury was killed, and two crosses of the wood on which Christ was crucified." The safe custody of these treasures must have been a source of anxiety. Opening out of the staircase which leads to the triforium a small chamber has been constructed in the thickness of the wall, lighted by two loop-holes, one of which looks towards the altar, the other across the church. This has been supposed to be a penitential cell for disobedient Templars, but it was more probably a watcher's chamber, used as a safeguard against possible theft. The three altars seem to have been at first entirely open to the body of the church, the idea being that the whole building was a chancel or choir. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, however, the space round the high altar seems to have been enclosed by a screen with gates, thus forming a separate chancel. The side altars were presumably removed soon after the Reformation, and in Puritan days the communion table was for a time brought down from the east end and placed longitudinally on the floor in the body of the church. Probably about this time the old stained glass was wrecked, and the marble columns were white-washed. The only pre-Reformation monument which has survived in the choir is the recumbent figure of a bishop, supposed to be Silvester de Everdon, Bishop of Carlisle, who was killed by a fall from his horse in 1254. A good many brasses seem to have disappeared. "Divers plates of brass of late times have been torn out," says Dugdale (1671), who gives one or two epitaphs in French. Of post-Reformation monuments but two now remain in the body of the church—those of Richard Hooker (died 1600) and John Selden (died 1654). The rest have been placed in the triforium.
Little else of the Templars' work now survives. Below the pavement outside the south wall of the Round Church are the remains of the crypt of St. Ann's Chapel, built about 1220. There is enough left to show that the building was in the Early English style, and corresponded in its details with the choir church. Parts of the upper chapel still existed in a ruined state, hidden among encroaching buildings, as recently as 1825. On the west side of the Inner Temple Hall, which occupies the site of the Templars' Refectory (or perhaps, we should say, one of their refectories, for in the inquisition of 1337 two halls are mentioned), are two ancient chambers, one above the other, the roofs of which are supported by intersecting arches, rising from the four corners of the floor. This work is perhaps a little older than the Round Church. The lower chamber has been supposed to be what is called in the records "the Hall of the Priests." With these exceptions the church alone remains as a monument of the greatness and the glory of the Templars. For a century and a half at the New Temple they were a power in the land. Men deposited treasure in their custody. Popes conferred upon them exceptional privileges. They stood high in royal favour. Henry II. and Richard were benefactors. John was a frequent guest. It was while he was holding his court at the Temple on the Epiphany feast of 1215 that the Barons came before him in full armour to announce their ultimatum, and his signing the Magna Carta was partly due to the influence of the then Master of the Temple. Henry III. at one time intended to be buried in the Temple Church. His subsequent change of mind perhaps marks some decline in the popularity of the Templars. But their downfall in England (1308) was mainly owing to Papal pressure. Edward II. resisted as long as he could, and the more serious charges against them, which were based on confessions extracted by torture, are now generally regarded by historians as unfounded.
The premises of the Temple were eventually (1340) granted to the Knights Hospitallers, the rivals and bitter enemies of the fallen Order. They held the property for two hundred years, but they had their own settlement at Clerkenwell, and the Temple did not mean to them what it had meant to the Templars. About 1347 they leased all but the consecrated buildings and ecclesiastical precincts to "certain lawyers," who had already become tenants of the Earl of Lancaster and others, on whom in the first instance Edward II. had bestowed the premises. Great interest attaches to this settlement of lawyers, but much remains obscure about it. Some of the early documents may have been destroyed during Wat Tyler's insurrection (1381). A manuscript (quoted by Dugdale) describes the scene in the law-French of the day.
"Les Rebells alleront a le Temple ... et alleront en l'Esglise, et pristeront touts les liveres et Rolles de Remembrances que furont en lour huches deins le Temple de Apprentices de la Ley, et porteront en le haut chimene et les arderont."
This, however, is not the full extent of the loss which has been sustained. The records of the following 120 years up to 1500 are missing, both in the Inner and the Middle Temples.[73] One result of these losses is that there is nothing to show when the two Inns became separate societies, on the assumption that they were not independent bodies from the outset. Chaucer's well-known description (about 1390) of "a gentil manciple of the [or perhaps the true reading is 'a'] Temple" is not decisive.
"Of maisters had he mo than thries ten
That were of lawe expert and curious,
Of which there was a dosein in that hous
Worthy to ben stewardes of rent and lond
Of any lord that is in Englelond."
An entry in the books of Lincoln's Inn incidentally mentions the Middle Temple in 1422, and in one of the Paston Letters, dated 1440, we read "qwan your leysyr is, resorte ageyn on to your college, the Inner Temple." It is generally admitted now that neither society can establish any claim of priority or precedence over the other. Appeal has been made to the badges, but they throw no light on the question. The Agnus of the Middle Temple is apparently not mentioned till about 1615, and the Pegasus of the Inner Temple not before 1562. It is still a matter of dispute whether the Templars' emblem of a horse with two knights on its back can have been altered into a horse with two wings by the ignorance or ingenuity of some workman.
We try in vain to reconstruct with any fullness the life of the lawyers and their apprentices at the Temple in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. But it is clear that, together with the buildings, they inherited some of the traditions. The old church remained their place of worship. In the old refectory they were served by "panier-men" on wooden platters and in wooden cups, as the Templars had been before them. The penalties inflicted for small misdemeanours, such as being "expelled the hall" and "put out of commons," were much the same as those prescribed in the "Rule" of the Templars, as drawn up by St. Bernard.
It is a curious coincidence that not long after the coming of the lawyers a change was introduced in the legal profession which recalls the organisation of the old military brotherhood. In 1333, according to Dugdale, the judges of the Court of Common Pleas received knighthood, and so became in a sense successors of the Knights Templars. The creation of sergeants-at-law (now abolished) goes further back, but it has been suggested that they were representatives of the frères serjens, the fratres servientes, of the old Order. Had the white linen coif worn by sergeants the same symbolical meaning as the Templars' white mantle? Was it, as some say, the survival of a linen headdress brought back by the Templars from the East? These are disputable points. At any rate, the common life at the Temple, with the associations which it recalled, cannot have been without its influence on the lawyers. Their numbers grew apace. By 1470 courses of legal studies had been organised, and each of the two Inns at the Temple had more (perhaps considerably more) than two hundred students—numbers amply sufficient to resist successfully any attempts on the part of the Lord Mayor, backed by the city apprentices, to enforce an illegal jurisdiction over the precincts. In the absence of maps and records we cannot trace with certainty the gradual extension of the buildings. Such names as Elm Court and Figtree Court suggest that in byegone days open spaces and garden plots were interspersed among the chambers. Not least among the amenities of the lawyers' goodly heritage was the large garden by the river side with its pretty fifteenth century story of the red and white roses. It has been said that Shakespeare in his well-known scene refers to the smallness of the hall in the phrase which he assigns to Suffolk:
"Within the Temple Hall we were too loud;
The garden here is more convenient."
But do the words imply more than the obvious contrast between being indoors and in the open air, as regards noise? We have a companion picture to Shakespeare's garden-scene in Spenser's river-piece. Some people see in it a reference to "Brick Buildings" which stood on the site of what is now Brick Court:
"Those bricky towers
The which on Themmes brode aged back do ride
Where now the studious lawyers have their bowers;
There whilome wont the Templer Knights to bide,
Till they decayed through pride."
In 1540, on the dissolution of the Order of Knights Hospitallers, the two societies became yearly tenants of the Crown, and took over the charge of the fabric of the church. No change, however, was made in the ecclesiastical staff, John Mableston, sub-prior, William Ermestede, master of the Temple, and the two chaplains of the house being continued in their offices. There were modifications, of course, in the services of the church; but nowhere probably in London did the Reformation cause less interference with established custom. Dr. Ermestede, indeed, bridges over the critical interval between 1540 and 1560 in a remarkable way, for on Mary's accession he went back to the old form of worship, and then accepted a third change of religion under Elizabeth. The building of the beautiful Middle Temple Hall, soon after Elizabeth's accession, is associated with the name of Edmund Plowden (died 1585), whose fine monument stands in the triforium of the church. The work was begun during his treasurership in 1561, and in 1571 he "offered his account for the new buildings." In 1575 the fine carved oak screen was put up. Towards the cost of this contributions were made by the masters of the bench, the masters of "le Utter Barre," and other members of the society. In this hall took place the interesting Shakespearean performance recorded by John Manningham, barrister, in his diary (1601-2). "At our feast wee had a play called Twelve Night or what you will, much like the Commedy of Errores or Menechmi in Plautus, but most like and neere to that in Italian called Inganni. A good practise in it to make the steward beleeve his lady widdowe was in love with him," etc. The halls of the Inns of Court lent themselves very conveniently for dramatic representations at a time when there were no theatres in London. In 1561-2 "Gorboduc," one of the earliest of English plays, written by Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton, members of the Inner Temple, was performed in the Inner Temple Hall before Queen Elizabeth, and in 1568 she was also present there at the performance of "Tancred and Gismund." Masques were frequently given in the halls of both societies during the early part of the seventeenth century, and with these some interesting literary names are connected, such as Francis Beaumont, William Browne, Michael Drayton, and John Selden.
The Interior of the Temple Church before it was restored.
The reign of James I. is of special importance in the history of the Temple, because the patent granted by him in 1608 relieved the two societies from what had been a somewhat precarious tenure of their property. As a mark of gratitude they spent £666 (about £3,500 at present value) on a gold cup for the king, which was subsequently pawned in Holland by Charles I. The outbreak of the Civil War in 1642 checked for a time the prosperity of the Temple. For two years the buildings were practically deserted, and readings and exercises ceased till the Commonwealth was established. From 1651 to 1654 every barrister and master of the bench before opening his lips in court had to take what was called "the engagement"—"I do declare and promise that I will be true and faithful to the Commonwealth of England, as it is now established without a king or a house of lords." Soon after the Restoration there came further troubles from plague and fire. Twelve deaths from the plague are recorded in the Burial Register for 1665, and the buildings were again for a time deserted. The great fire of 1666, the flames of which, after destroying King's Bench Walk, licked the east end of the Temple Church, was followed in 1678 by another fire which did much damage to the buildings of the Middle Temple, burned down the old cloisters (afterwards replaced by Wren's somewhat commonplace colonnade) and threatened the south-west angle of the church. A bird's-eye view made in 1671 and John Ogilby's plan of 1677 enable us to follow the process of reconstruction after the great fire, and at the same time call attention to the disfigurement of the church by the mean shops and small houses which had been built against its walls and even over its porch. It seems as if for a time all appreciation of the beauty of the buildings was lost. The Round Church, not being used for Divine service, became, like Paul's Walk, a rendezvous for business appointments, and the font was often specified in legal documents as the place where payment was to be made to complete some transaction. That is why the lawyer consulted by Hudibras advises his client while getting up his case to
"Walk the Round with Knights o' th' Posts[74]
About the cross-legged Knights their hosts."
Still, in spite of its shortcomings, the seventeenth century has at least one claim upon the gratitude of those who worship in the Temple Church. The organ of Bernard Schmidt (Father Smith), purchased in 1686, still survives as the foundation of the modern instrument. The story of the Battle of the Organs has been often told. The masters of the bench were anxious to secure by competition the best possible make, and rival organs were set up in the church by Smith and Harris. The decision was eventually left to Judge Jeffreys, not apparently on account of his musical knowledge, but because he was Lord Chancellor at the time. The beautiful music of the Temple Church is thus strangely linked with a name not usually associated with sweetness or harmony.
A few only of the Temple buildings are named after eminent men, and the choice of names has been to some extent capricious or accidental. Among lawyers thus commemorated, no one will dispute the claims of Edmund Plowden, already mentioned. Hare Court preserves the memory not of Sir Nicholas Hare, Master of the Rolls in Mary's reign (died 1557), but of a nephew of his, a comparatively unknown Nicholas Hare, who rebuilt the chambers on the south side of the court. The present Harcourt Buildings replace earlier chambers erected during the treasurership of Sir Simon Harcourt, afterwards Lord Chancellor (died 1727). The eponymus of Tanfield Court was Sir Lawrence Tanfield, a well-known judge in his day, who resided there. We cannot but regret that more of the greatest legal names have not in this way been handed down as household words to posterity. Two great literary names do thus survive, but in neither case was the existing building the home of the man. Dr. Johnson's Buildings, rebuilt in 1857, recall nothing but the site of the chambers in which Johnson lived for a few years from 1760. Goldsmith Building, erected in 1861, stands in no relation to the poet save that it is near the stone which serves to mark (not very exactly) his burial place. Pious pilgrimages are still made yearly to that stone on November 10, the anniversary of his birth. Goldsmith died in the Temple in 1774, and from 1765 onwards he occupied chambers which still exist at 2, Brick Court. A commemorative tablet recently placed there raises the question whether the rooms on the north or on the south side of the staircase are properly described as "two pair right." Some years before Oliver Goldsmith removed to Brick Court, the Temple was the residence of another poet—William Cowper. His attempted suicide there in 1763 shows how bad for his melancholy temperament was a solitary life in chambers. Charles Lamb, on the other hand—as we see, for instance, from his essay on the Old Benchers of the Inner Temple—delighted in the Temple and all its ways. The sense of its charm may be said to have been born and bred in him, for he was born and spent his childhood in Crown Office Row. In later life, for seventeen years from 1800, he and his sister occupied chambers now no longer in existence, first in Mitre Court Buildings, and afterwards in Inner Temple Lane, from the back windows of which he looked upon the trees and pump in Hare Court. Lamb Building, of course, has nothing to do with Charles Lamb. It belongs to an earlier time, and its name is derived from the Agnus of the Middle Temple over its doorway. Within fifteen years of Lamb's departure from the Temple Thackeray was settled for a short time in the chambers in Hare Court, which were immortalised some twenty years later, in Pendennis. "Lamb Court," in which he places the chambers of George Warrington and Arthur Pendennis, is the result of a combination of Lamb Building and Hare Court. Other reminiscences of his life at the Temple may be found by the student of Thackeray in some of his other works. Dickens, though he never lived at the Temple, also betrays the influence of its charm. No one can walk through Fountain Court without thinking sometimes of Ruth Pinch.
Of the great lawyers who have occupied chambers in the Temple nothing can here be said. The settlement of the lawyers has now lasted for nearly six hundred years—almost four times as long as the tenure of the Knights Templars, and for the greater part of that time we find in every generation legal names which still survive in history, and which have been concerned with the making of history. The lists which have been compiled of distinguished members of the Inner and the Middle Temple are of great interest and importance. But even more important is the long, continuous history of the two societies. It has preserved for us such memorials of the Knights Templars as still survive. If the lawyers had never settled in the Temple, the Temple Church would probably have met with the fate which overtook the Church of St. Bartholomew the Great, and all that could now be done would be to restore a ruin. There have been times, no doubt, in its past history when the church has suffered from neglect and ignorance, but on the whole the lawyers have shown a large-minded appreciation of their responsibilities. The last restoration of the building in 1841, in spite of one or two mistakes, was wonderfully successful. It was one of the earliest and best examples of the "Gothic revival" which was just beginning to set in over England. We owe to it, among other things, two interesting works on the Knights Templars and on the Temple Church by C. G. Addison (died 1866), who was one of the first lawyers in modern times to study the history of the Temple in connection with the original documents. During the last few years a great advance has been made in this direction, mainly by the labours of lawyers. The Calendar of the Inner Temple Records, with its full and learned introductions by F. A. Inderwick, K.C., Master of the Bench (died 1904), is never likely to be superseded; and the same may be said of The Middle Temple Records, with Index and Calendar, edited by C. Hopwood, K.C. (died 1904), Master of the Bench of that society. To these must be added A Catalogue of Notable Middle Templars, by Mr. John Hutchinson, and a privately printed list of Masters of the Bench of the Inner Temple from 1450 to 1883, with Supplement to 1900. Judge Baylis, K.C., Master of the Bench of the Inner Temple, has given much valuable information in his well-known work on the Temple Church, which has gone through several editions. More recently, Mr. H. Bellot, of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at-Law, has aimed at recording the legal, literary, and historic associations of the Inner and Middle Temple, and in a Bibliography appended to his book gives some idea of the immense mass of material which has accumulated round the history of the Temple. May "the two Learned and Honourable Societies of this House"—as they are designated in the Bidding Prayer used every Sunday in the Temple Church—long continue to be the home, not merely of professional learning, but of general culture.
HOLBORN AND THE INNS OF COURT AND CHANCERY
By E. Williams
Just as Holland denotes the hollow land, so Holborn, or Holeburn, implies the hollow bourne—the bourne or river in the hollow. This once forcible little stream descended four hundred feet in a journey of six miles, taking its rise in Ken Wood, the beautifully timbered estate of the Earls of Mansfield at Highgate. After passing through several ponds, skirting the existing Millfield Lane, it crossed the foot of West Hill and continued its course through what is now known as the Brookfield Stud Farm, till, somewhat to the north of Prince of Wales' Road at Kentish Town, it encountered another stream of almost equal rapidity, the birthplace of which was in the Happy Valley at Hampstead. The united current then rolled on through Camden Town and St. Pancras towards Battle Bridge at King's Cross, from whence it flowed through Packington Street, under Rosebery Avenue, into Farringdon Street, creating steep banks on its flanks, which still remain the measure and evidence of its ancient energy; until, finally, it debouched into that tidal estuary from the Thames mediævally known as the Fleet. Holborn Viaduct, at a much higher altitude, now spans the hollow where once stood Holeburn Bridge, at the wharves on either side of which "boats with corn, wine, firewood, and other necessaries" would unload. But in 1598 John Stow knew of this burn only as Turnmill Brook. Now it no longer exists; the damming of its waters for the erection of mills in the Middle Ages, and its more recent absorption by the water companies, have led to its complete disappearance.
The Manor of Holeburn, which was bounded on the east by the southern part of the Farringdon Street portion of this stream, included both sides of Shoe Lane; but how far west or north it originally extended is not known. In the year 1300, Saffron Hill, Fetter (or Faytour) Lane, and Fleet Street were all outside its bounds. Shoe Lane was known as Sho Lane, at one end of which was a well, called Show Well, from which the neighbourhood drew its water.[75]
It was here that the Dominicans, or Black Friars, made their first settlement in 1222;[76] their monastery was in Shoe Lane, and in 1286, when they moved to the eastern side of the Fleet, by Baynard's Castle, Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, who was lord of the manor and a justiciar, bought their old houses and established the first Lincoln's Inn.[77] Two other inns of that name, one next to Staple Inn and one in Chancery Lane, came into existence later, as we shall see presently. Here the earl died in 1311, and he was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral. By his will, proved in the Court of Hustings at the Guildhall, he directed that the houses which he had acquired from the monks should be sold;[78] but the inheritance of the manor of Holeburn descended to his son-in-law, Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, the King's cousin and Steward of the kingdom. Legal business was certainly transacted at his Inn. The yearly accounts of the Earldom of Lancaster for that period show that at his house in Shoe Lane, from Michaelmas, 1314, to Michaelmas, 1315, the amount of £314 7s. 4½d. was spent for 1,714 lbs. of wax, with vermilion and turpentine to make red wax, and £4 8s. 3¼d. for one hundred and twenty-nine dozen of parchment, with ink.[79] He was beheaded in 1322, leaving no issue, and his widow, Alesia de Lacy, married secondly Ebulo Lestrange,[80] in whose family the manor remained until 1480, when it passed by marriage to the Stanleys, Earls of Derby.[81] In 1602 it was sold by the widow of Ferdinando, fifth earl, to Lord Buckhurst,[82] afterwards Earl of Dorset, under whose immediate successor it was broken up for building purposes.
The street of Holborn was at first simply the King's Street; afterwards it acquired the name of Holebourne-Bridge-strate. From Newgate to a little way west of St. Sepulchre's Church the high-road was known as "la Baillie"; from thence it bore the same name as the river, being carried over the bridge on to the ridge along which the Romans had built their military stone-way, known as Watling Street, out of which, in the year 1300, there turned two streets towards the south, namely, Scho Lane and Faitur Lane, and two towards the north, one called "le Vrunelane,"[83] afterwards Lyverounelane, then Lyver Lane, now Leather Lane, and the other called Portpool Lane, now Gray's Inn Road.
The justiciars, clerks in Chancery, and serjeants had frequent cause to protest against the manner in which the stream of Holeburn was being defiled. In the Parliament of Barons held in 1307, the Earl of Lincoln, whose Inn was in close proximity, complained that
"whereas formerly ten and twelve ships were wont to come to Flete Bridge and some of them to Holeburn Bridge, now, by the filth of the tanners and others, by the erection of wharfs, especially by them of the New Temple for their mills without Baynard's Castle, and by other impediments, the course was decayed so that ships could not enter as they were wont."[84]
Later on, in 1371, a writ was issued by Edward III. to the mayor and sheriffs to the effect that
"Upon the open information as well of our Justiciars and our Clerks in Chancery and our other Officers, as of other reputable men now living in Fletestrete, Holebourne and Smythfeld, we have heard that certain butchers of the said city, giving no heed to our Ordinance, have slain large beasts within the said city and have thrown the blood and entrails thereof in divers places near Holbournebrigge and elsewhere in the suburb aforesaid, from which abominations and stenches, and the air affected thereby, sicknesses and very many other maladies have befallen our Officers aforesaid and other persons there dwelling to the no small damage of the same our Officers and others," etc.[85]
Political exigencies had led these justiciars, clerks in Chancery, and "our other officers," to settle outside the city walls. London had been a free city in Saxon times, and William the Conqueror had allowed its privileges when, by issuing his famous charter, six inches by one of parchment, he granted its burghers to be all "law-worthy."[86] Successive monarchs had put their seal to further charters, renewing and enlarging previous concessions, so that none of the King's men, whether knight or clerk, might lodge within the city walls, nor might lodging be taken by force, and all pleas of the Crown were to be determined elsewhere. In 1191 the burghers obtained a "sworn Commune," after the pattern of that of Rouen, and it became a boast that "come what may, the Londoners shall have no King but their Mayor."[87]
Henry III., jealous of political control, constantly endeavoured, by irritating Ordinances, to cripple the powers previously conferred. On December 2nd, 1234, he issued a
"Mandate to the Mayor and Sheriffs of London that they cause proclamation to be made through the whole city firmly forbidding that any should set up schools in the said city for teaching the laws there for the time to come; and that if any shall there set up such schools they cause them to cease without delay."
Whatever the reason of this mandate may have been, the result was that the Inns of the apprentices-at-law became fixed in the suburb.
At that date, namely, 1234, the principal officer of the Crown was Ralph Nevill, Bishop of Chichester, the King's Chancellor, who held land on both sides of New Street, afterwards known as Chancery Lane, and who had succeeded to the power and influence previously enjoyed by the justiciar, Hubert de Burgh. This once powerful minister, who had been Regent during Henry's minority, had himself held land in New Street. But upon his disgrace and dismissal in 1232 he was deprived of it, and it was granted
"to the House which the King has founded in the street called Newstrate, between the Old Temple and the New Temple, for the support of the brethren converted, and to be converted, from Judaism to the Catholic faith, saving the garden which the King has already granted to Ralph, Bishop of Chichester, his Chancellor."[88]
This house became the Rolls Office, and in after times, when the Master of the Rolls became head of the Chancery clerks, the street became known as Chancery Lane.
The Old Temple was in Holborn, and the property extended from the north-eastern corner of Chancery Lane to Staple Inn, and possibly further. The Knights Templars sold it about the year 1160 to the Bishopric of Lincoln. Their round chapel, of which the round of the present Temple Church is a replica, still retained its chaplain in 1222, and its ruins were still existing in Queen Elizabeth's reign, quite close to Staple Inn. In 1547 the bishopric had to resign the property to John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, Great Chamberlain of England, afterwards Earl of Northumberland,[89] who conveyed it in 1549 to the Chancellor, Thomas Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. The eastern part of the property was built upon in 1580 by William Roper, of Lincoln's Inn; and in 1638 the then Earl received licence to demolish his house to make way for eighty smaller houses and one tavern. The rotunda of the Birkbeck Bank occupies the site of what was once Northumberland Court, and Southampton Buildings now cover the grounds of Southampton House.
On the west side of Chancery Lane, or New Street, Ralph Nevill, the Bishop of Chichester, possessed a house which became part of the third and present Lincoln's Inn; but his garden was on the east side of Chancery Lane, and was bounded on the north by a ditch, known in 1262 as Chanceleresdich. This ditch separated his garden from certain property, occupied one hundred years later by serjeants and apprentices of the law, which may be conveniently designated the second Lincoln's Inn. It was situated to the east of Staple Inn, where now is Furnival Street.
Dugdale describes Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, as a person well affected to the study of the laws, who had gathered around him numbers of students. This statement is probably correct, for in 1292, only six years after the earl had bought the houses of the Black Friars, Edward I. urges the same course upon his Chief Justice of Common Pleas. He enjoins John Metyngham and his fellows, et sociis suis, to provide a certain number of every county of the better and more legally and liberally learned for the purpose of being trained to practise in the Courts.[90] If the Earl of Lincoln had already brought students to London, we may be fairly certain that many of them would have come from his lands in Lincolnshire and North Wales. The second Lincoln's Inn appears to have been much connected with the one, and Davy's Inn with the other.
In the year 1252, Adam de Basing, then Mayor of London, held a block of land, about 100 yards wide by 220 yards long, on the east side of Staple Inn, part of which was leased to Roger the Smith, and part to Geoffrey the Wheelwright. In 1269, Simon Faber, son and heir of Roger, granted a portion of it, lying next to Staple Inn, to Simon the Marshall, "being in breadth at the King's street on the north 12 ells of the iron ell of King Henry," and 48 ells long, "for the yearly rent, to Thomas, son of Adam de Basing, and his heirs, of 10s. sterling, and to Simon Faber and his heirs one rose at the feast of the nativity of St. John Baptist."[91] But Simon the Marshall accepted this grant only to make a feoffment of the property at once to Gilbert de Lincoln, known also as Gilbert de Haliwell and as Gilbert Proudphoet, a dealer in parchment, parmentarius, who held it for thirty-three years; his wife, after his death, holding it for another five. In 1307, William le Brewere and William atte Gate, executors of Gilbert de Lincoln, sold the property, with the buildings thereon, to John de Dodyngton, variously described as parmentarius and skinner, pelliparius, for the sum of one hundred shillings.[92] Within five years, in 1312, John de Dodyngton transferred it to Robert le Hende de Worcester, also parmentarius and pelliparius, who held it for twenty years; from whom it descended in the female line to James Gylot, who in 1369 enfeoffed of it Roger de Podyngton, and Joan his wife, "to hold to Roger and Joan, and the heirs and assigns of Roger, of the chief lords of that fee by the accustomed services for ever."[93] In the same year Roger and Joan "gave" it to Walter de Barton, citizen and cordwainer of London, to hold under the same conditions, in whose possession it remained for seventeen years, when he granted a feoffment of it to Robert de Cherlton, Chief Justice of Common Pleas, Richard the Mauncyple, John Sutton, John Aldurley, and John Parkere,[94] who in the same year transferred it to the Abbot of Malmesbury. By an Inquisition, ad quod damnum, held in May of that year, for the purpose of determining whether the gift might be legally made, it was stated that the property was held in burgage—i.e., town tenure—of the King, and there are no means between the King and the said Robert, etc.[95] The abbot allowed Walter de Barton and his successors to remain in occupation, the monastery receiving the rents.
Though for thirty-three years it had been held by Gilbert de Lincoln, this property did not form a part of what was called Lyncolnesynne. It was partly a brewery and partly a hostel, and remained such until the reign of Henry VIII.
The property east and south of this was, in the year 1262, held by Geoffrey the Wheelwright. That part of it lying east had been leased direct from Adam Basing; it extended from the King's Street to the "land of the Conversi," and was 12 ells in width at the north, 10 ells in width at the south, and 220 yards long. That part lying south had been granted to Geoffrey by Simon Faber; it contained
"in length from the ditch called Chaunceleresdich towards the Church of the Conversi on the south as far as Simon's own curtilage on the north 31 perches of the perch of Henry III., whereof each perch contains 16½ feet,"
and in width 11 ells of the said King;
"to hold to Geoffrey, his heirs and assigns, of Adam Basing, for 2s. 8d. rent paid in the name of Simon, his heirs and assigns, and one rose at the nativity of S. John Baptist to Simon and his heirs."[96]
Adam de Basing gave this property to his daughter, Avice, wife of William de Hadestok, Alderman of Tower Ward.[97] They had a daughter, Joan, who married Adam Bidic, the King's tailor and custodian of the assize of cloth,[98] who in 1291 granted it to William le Brewere and Alice his wife.[99] It was described as stretching from the King's Street on the north to the tenement of the Bishop of Chichester on the south;
"to hold to William and Alice, their heirs and assigns, for the yearly rent of two marks and for suits of court and all other services wont to be done by Geoffrey, le Whelwriste, in the time of Adam Basing, formerly citizen of London."
The widow of William le Brewere, in 1315, granted the property to Robert le Hende de Worcester, who already held the brewery on the west.[100] In 1334 the executors of Robert sold the property (exclusive of the brewery) to Thomas de Lincoln of the Common Bench, the King's serjeant, who is described as son of Thomas de Lincoln.[101] Three years before, in 1331, Thomas de Lincoln had acquired from John de Totel de Lincoln other property to the east of this, and in 1332 a garden also, to the south-east, from Andrew Courtays, the Coupere. These three combined properties formed the inn which came to be known as "Lyncolnesynne." On the 11th January, 1348, Thomas Bedic, grandson of Adam de Bedic, granted all his rights of lordship in this property to Thomas de Lincoln, who thus became entire owner of it.
After holding it for thirty-two years, Thomas de Lincoln, on Sunday, 1st December, 1364, granted it to John Claymond, Justice for County Lincoln, Peter Turke, and Robert de Ditton, "to hold to them, their heirs and assigns, of the chief lords of that fee by the accustomed services."[102] These feoffees, two years afterwards, granted it to William de Worston, Justice of County Wilts., Thomas Coubrigge, William Camme, Vicar of Westport, Malmesbury, and Robert de Cherlton, Chief Justice of Common Pleas; and they, two years later still, in 1369, received letters patent of Edward III, granting them licence to assign it to the Abbot and Convent of Malmesbury,
"to hold to the Abbot and Convent and their successors of the King, the chief lord of that fee, by the services belonging to those houses for ever."[103]
To the east of this property of Lincoln's Inn there was, in 1295, "a tenement with buildings thereon, and a curtilage adjacent," belonging to the Knights Templars, which was then held by Simon le Webbe de Purtepol, Bailiff of the Commonalty of the Guild of Weavers. Upon his death it came into the possession of John Wymondeswolde, chaplain and pelliparius, who in 1328 granted it to Robert the Marshall, citizen and goldsmith of London
"to hold to Robert, his heirs and assigns, of the chief lords of that fee, namely, the Prior of the Hospital of S. John of Jerusalem in England and the Brethren of the Hospital, by reason of the annulling of the Order of the Knights of the Temple, by the service of ten shillings yearly."[104]
This rent was reduced in 1336 to 6s. 8d., because the tenement was ruinous, Robert the Marshall promising to rebuild it. Eventually, in the year 1361, it came into the hands of Gaillard Pete, or Pecche, and eighteen years afterwards he granted it to Robert de Cherlton, Chief Justice of the Common Bench, John atte Mulle, chaplain, Thomas de Worston, and William Camme, their heirs and assigns, "to hold of the chief lord of that fee for the accustomed services."[105] They demised it to the same Gaillard and Agnes his wife for their lives, with remainder to Roger, son of Gaillard, for his life. And eight years afterwards the Chief Justice and his fellow feoffees granted this property also to the Abbot of Malmesbury.[106] In the Inquisition ad quod damnum already quoted, it is stated that "the messuage and garden are held of the King by Gailard Pete," which seems to imply that the Chief Justice and his fellows had been acting all along as trustees; and it is also stated that
"they are worth yearly according to their true value 13s. 4d. and not more because they are charged yearly to the Master of the Church of the New Temple within the Bar of London in 6s. 8d. quit rent."
The Abbot of Malmesbury had now become possessed of three properties in Holborn: the tenement of Walter Barton, next to Staple Inn, acquired in 1387; Lyncolnesynne, acquired in 1369; and the tenement of Gailard Pete, acquired, like that of Walter Barton, in 1387. In the reign of Henry VIII., at the dissolution of the monasteries, there was still at this spot a chapel, a hall, a kitchen, and a "great garden," where the monks had "liberty to walk" when they came to London; and the brewery also was still in existence.[107]
In 1399 a rental of the property of the Convent of Malmesbury was drawn up, in which the following items appear[108]:—
| "De Firmario novi hospicii apud Londoniam vocati Lyncolnesynne ad iiiior terminos solvendo per annum | VIII li. pro missa Abbatis |
| De tenemento quondam Gaillardi Poet in Holbourne | XX s |
| De tenemento quondam Walter Bartone Allutarii | XIII s IIII d" |
Written in a different hand, with different coloured ink, at the bottom margin of the page, and certainly of a later date, the following remarks have been added:—
| "London | Hospicium Armigeri jam magnum hospitiumquod est ruinosum reddit per annum | XL s |
| Tenura | Celda proxima annexa hospicio reddit per annum | IX s |
| tenencium | Secunda celda reddit per annum | X s |
| infra silvam | Tertia celda reddit per annum | VIII s |
| magni hospicii | Quarta celda que est ..." | |
| [Here the page is cut away.] | ||
The "Inn of the Esquire ... which is ruinous" of the marginal note is obviously the same as the "Lyncolnesynne" of the original entry, with the rent reduced from £8 to 40s. per annum. It is not possible to date this note, but it was probably made in the fifteenth century. In 1422 the Society of Lincoln's Inn took what is believed to be their first lease of the Bishop of Chichester property on the west side of Chancery Lane; but the society existed before that date, as in the Corporation letter books Thomas Broun is described as Maunciple of Lincoln's Inn, under date of 1417. In 1466 the society was paying 9s. yearly to the prior of St. Giles' Hospital for Lepers for another part of its property; and no other rents, apparently, were being paid for any other part on the west side of Chancery Lane. But in the Black Books of that Inn (vol. i., p. 8), under a date only sixteen years later than that of their lease of the Bishop's Inn, the following entry occurs:—
"In the vigil of the Apostles Peter and Paul 16 Henry VI. (1438) John Row delivered to John Fortescue and others in the name of the Society to be paid to ... Halssewylle for the farm of Lyncollysyn in arrear for the 15th year (Henry VI.) in the time of Bartholomew Bolney then Pensioner in full payment 40s. out of money received by him."
The yearly rent for the farm of Lyncollysyn is the same, therefore, as was paid for the ruinous "Hospicium Armigeri"; and in the fourteenth century, as Foss has pointed out, the term "esquire" was often used as a synonym for "serjeant." The Black Books also show that in 1457 a payment was made by the society to the gardener of Staple Inn, from which Inn access could be easily obtained to the "great garden" in which the "Hospicium Armigeri" was situated. It would seem not improbable, therefore, that the second and third Lincoln's Inns may, in the year 1438, have been coexistent and under the same rule. But there is at present no evidence that this same society was connected with the Inn in Shoe Lane, which 130 years earlier had belonged to Henry de Lacy.
John Fortescue, who received the 40s. for payment to Halssewyll, became serjeant in 1441 and Chief Justice of the King's Bench in 1442. In 1465 he wrote his famous work, De Laudibus Legum Angliæ, in which he says:
"The laws are taught in a certain place of public study nigh to the King's Courts.... There are ten lesser houses or Inns (and sometimes more) which are called houses of Chancery, and to every one of them belongeth 100 students at least, who, as they grow to ripeness, are admitted into the greater Inns, called Inns of Court, of which there are four in number, and to the least of which belongeth 200 students or more."
It is clear, then, that the difference between the Inns of Court and Inns of Chancery was recognised in 1465, and it is also certain that one of those four Inns of Court was that to which he himself had belonged, namely, Lincoln's Inn. The others were undoubtedly Gray's Inn and the Inner and Middle Temples. We have seen that in 1387 Lincoln's Inn in Holborn was held directly of the King; we shall find that the other Inns of Court came to be similarly held.
In the year 1294, Reginald de Grey, a member of one of the leading administrative and legal families, was Justiciar of Chester. He received in that year from the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's a feoffment of the manor of Portpool, which they had received in mortmain from Richard de Chyggewell, alderman and mercer of London. It is doubtful whether Reginald de Grey lived here; it is more likely that he acquired the property for the training of his clerks, having found himself under much the same necessity as his contemporaries, Sir John de Metyngham and the Earl of Lincoln. In 1296 he was in association with Prince Edward, as one of the Regency, during the expedition of Edward I. to Flanders. In 1307 he died, when an inquisition was taken, at which the jurors reported that Reginald le Grey was seized at Purtepol of a certain messuage with gardens and one dove house worth 10s. a year, 30 acres of arable land worth 20s. a year, price 8d. the acre, and a certain windmill worth 20s. all held of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's.[109]
In 1316 his successor, Sir John de Grey, created a rent-charge on the property in favour of the prior and convent of St. Bartholomew, in Smithfield, to provide a chaplain to perform daily service in the chapel of the manor; and at an inquisition held in that year, at the Stone Cross in the parish of the Blessed Mary at the Strand, to know whether it would be to the King's damage if he granted the necessary permission, the jurors reported that the property was
"holden of Robert de Chiggewelle by the service of rendering to the same Robert one rose yearly, and the same Robert holds the tenements, together with others, of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, and the said Dean and Chapter hold the same of the king in pure and perpetual alms."[110]
The grandson of Sir John de Grey, another Reginald, died in 1370, and was succeeded by Henry de Grey, under whom the first feoffment-in-trust of this property that we know of took place. For when he died in 1397 it was found by inquisition that Henry, Lord Grey de Wilton, held no land in Middlesex, because by deed he had enfeoffed Roger Harecourt, Justice for Co. Derby; John de Broughton, Escheator for the counties of Bucks and Beds; William Danbury; John Boner, rector of the Church of Shirland (one of the manors of the De Greys), and others, of his manor of Portpoole, called Gray's Inn.[111] This was probably in 1371. Similar feoffments-in-trust were made by successive Lords de Grey until 1506, when Edmund, Lord de Grey of Wilton, sold the manor to Hugh Denys, verger of Windsor Castle, and others, the said Hugh's feoffees.[112]
Hugh Denys died in 1511, and by his will he desired that all such persons as had been feoffed of his manor of "Greysynte" should be seized of it to the use of his heirs, "until such time as the Prior and Convent of the Charterhouse at Shene, in the county of Surrey, have obtained of the king's grace sufficient licence for the amortisement" of the manor to them.[113] And five years later the necessary authority was granted, the manor being described as having escheated to the King, "by the death of Robert de Chiggewell without an heir," to be held to the annual value of £6 13s. 4d.
At the dissolution of the monasteries the Benchers of Gray's Inn had to pay this amount to the Crown, instead of to the Charterhouse at Shene. Charles II. sold the rent to Sir Philip Matthews, and in 1733 the Benchers purchased it from parties deriving title from his co-heirs.[114] The hall of Gray's Inn dates from 1560; the chapel is of unknown, but of ancient date.
The New Temple was in occupation by the Knights Templars before 1186. They were bankers for the King, who sometimes lodged there. Their chapel was the muniment house of the rolls of chancery; there the treasure and regalia were stored; and there Parliaments and Courts, both criminal and civil, were held. Naturally, they needed their own fratres servientes, who were provided with food "at the clerks' tables," and yearly robes at Christmas "of the suit of the free servants of the house."[115]
The chief lord was the Earl of Lancaster. But when the Knighthood was suppressed, in 1308, their clerks were pensioned, and Edward II. granted the property to Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, he receiving the issues, but holding the manor of the lord, to whom, however, he made a "quit claim" in October, 1314, the Pope having granted the possessions of the Templars to the Knights of St. John. Upon the execution and attainder of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, in 1322, the King gave the lordship to Hugh le Despencer, who also obtained from the Prior of St. John's a feoffment of the houses and appurtenances,[116] and on the attainder of Hugh le Despencer, in 1327, the lordship and also the ferm came into the hands of Edward III., who put William de Langeford, clerk of the Prior and "chief servitor of the King's religion," in charge as "fermor" at £24 yearly. He repaired the old houses for the King's clerks to occupy;[117] and for some years following litigants coming into chancery would take their oaths in the Temple Church; though sometimes at this period they would attend in the church of St. Andrew in Holborn, Thomas de Cotyngham, one of the Chancery clerks, then being rector there. It was William de Langeford who, in 1335, took a lease from the mayor and commonalty of "a piece of land" without Newgate "for making a hall and three fit chambers at his own expense, for the sessions of the Justices appointed to deliver Newgate Gaol."[118] This early Sessions House is described as being in the King's high street, on the way towards Holebourne. It would have stood at the north-west corner of the present Newgate Street.
The Temple contained an inner consecrated area, which was occupied by the Knights, and some houses adjacent on the west owned by them, but not improbably occupied by students of the law. It appears that when the manor was handed over to the Knights of St. John the King retained part of it, which, however, in 1338, he allowed them to purchase for £100, and from that date we read no more of the chancery being held in the Temple Church. In gratitude to William de Langeford, whose services had secured to the Order the restitution of their property, the prior granted him a lease of "all their messuages and places of the sometime Temple lying from the lane called Chauncellereslane to the Templebarre without the gates of the New Temple." This lease was dated June 11th, 1339,[119] and the lawyers have held the property ever since.
The consecrated and secular areas may, perhaps, be the origin of the division of the property into two Inns of Court; for the lease of 1339 obviously refers only to what is now known as the Middle Temple.
There is a tradition that the students of the Inner Temple came from Davy's Inn, which could hardly have existed at that time under that name, but it may be noted that in the records of that Inn it is stated, under date of 1525, that "Master Barnardston is pardoned the office of Steward because he executed the office of Principal of Davy's Inn at the instance of this Society,"[120] thus showing that this Inn of Court had the right in that year of supplying one of its own members to that office.
In 1521 the Prior of St. John's made complaint that the Society of the Inner Temple was occupying his lands against his will; but at the dissolution of the religious houses in 1541, the rentals became due to the Crown; and James I., in his sixth year, granted the property to the Benchers of the Middle and Inner Temples in perpetuity for a fixed rental of £20,[121] their several moieties of which Charles II. allowed them to purchase in 1673 and 1675 respectively.[122]
The "round" of the church was completed in 1185, the choir in 1240, and the whole building was "restored" in 1842 at a cost of £70,000. The hall of the Middle Temple was built in 1572, that of the Inner Temple in 1870.
The property on the west side of New Street, or Chancery Lane, had been granted to, or acquired by, the Knights Templars. Henry III.'s Chancellor, Ralph Nevill, Bishop of Chichester, died at his house there in 1244, and the King arbitrarily authorised his Treasurer, William de Haverhill, to secure the property upon the Chancellor's death, so that neither the Templars nor any other person should lay hands on it.[123] To the north of it was a garden once held by William Cottrell, which he had given to the Knights of St. John, who in turn had given it to St. Giles' Hospital for Lepers.[124] In the year 1310, when Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, died, another Bishop of Chichester, John de Langton, was Chancellor, and was occupying the Inn of the see, whilst the hospital of St. Giles was still receiving rent for Cottrell's garden. No Black Friars house, therefore, ever existed here, nor did Henry de Lacy die here; and all traditions to the contrary can be disproved.
In 1422 the Society of Lincoln's Inn, coming probably from Holborn, took a lease of the Bishop of Chichester's property, and afterwards a lease of Cottrell's garden. In 1537 Bishop Sampson sold the house and land belonging to the see to William and Eustace Sulyard, members of the Inn, from whom it descended to Edward Sulyard, who sold it in 1579 to the society. Subscriptions for this purchase were received by the Benchers, as is evident from the will of Sir Roger Cholmeley, dated 1565, who gave to certain trustees a house in Newgate Market "to hold to them and their heirs for ever towards the purchase of Lincoln's Inn and in the mean season towards the repairs of the same."[125] The hall of this Inn was pulled down and rebuilt in 1489; but since then, in 1845, a new hall, Gothic in character, and of great dignity and beauty, has been erected. The chapel, by Inigo Jones, dates from 1621, and the fine old gateway from 1518.
The Inns of Chancery were at first independent of the four Inns of Court, but, inasmuch as serjeants were chosen only from the latter, it became the custom for students in the lesser Inns, when "they came to ripeness," as Fortescue puts it, to enter one of the higher Inns if they desired advancement. Gradually each Inn of Court took special interest in certain of the lesser Inns, by sending to them Readers and by other marks of patronage, until an impression came to exist, which was much strengthened by various Orders in Council, that a certain governorship of one over the other was a normal, legal, and time-honoured institution. And in a few instances the Inns of Court put the coping stone to this theory by purchasing the property of those lesser Inns, of which they were the patrons. Thus Lincoln's Inn bought Furnival's on December 16th, 1547, having previously held a lease of it, and Davy's on November 24th, 1548; and the Inner Temple bought Lyon's Inn in 1581, which they sold in 1863, the Globe Theatre being built upon its site.
It is doubtful whether Furnival's Inn was ever occupied by the Lords Furnival. In 1331 the property belonged to Roger atte Bowe, a wool-stapler, who died in that year, leaving his tenements in Holbourne and a garden in Lyverounelane to his children. How or when it came into the hands of the De Furnivals is not known; but in 1383 an inquisition post mortem was taken by the Mayor, at which the jurors recorded that
"William Furnyvall, knight, did not die seised of any lands or tenements in the city of London nor in the suburbs thereof. But that in his life time he was seised of two shops and 13 messuages with appurtenances in the street called Holbourne in the suburb of London situated between a tenement of Jordain de Barton on the east (he was a Chauff-cier, i.e., an officer of Chancery who prepared the wax for the sealing of writs to be issued) and a tenement of John Tonyngton on the west and which formerly belonged to Roger atte Bogh. And William de Furnyvale enfeoffed William Savage, parson of the church of Handsworth and John Redesere, chaplain, of the aforesaid messuages and shops to hold to them, their heirs and assigns for ever and they are still thereof seised. And the messuages and shops are worth 100s. and are held in free burgage of the king by the service of 11s. 4d. for all services. William Furnyvall died 12th April last past. Joan his daughter, wife of Thomas Nevill, is his nearest heir, aged 14 years and 6 months."[126]
William de Furnival had succeeded his brother in 1364. Six years before he died—namely, in 1377—he was reported to be feeble and infirm, and it seems most probable from the above inquisition that his Inn was occupied by clerks. Maude, the heiress of Thomas de Neville, married John Talbot, Lord Strange of Blackmere, who was summoned to Parliament as Lord Furnival in 1442, and created Earl of Shrewsbury in 1446. His son, John Talbot, second Earl, was also Treasurer of England. The fifth Earl, Francis Talbot, sold the property in 1547, then in a ruinous condition, to the Society of Lincoln's Inn,[127] who, after holding it for nearly 340 years, sold it to the Prudential Assurance Company, in 1888, who demolished it for their present offices. John Staynford was principal of the Inn in 1425, and John Courtenay in 1450. It was sometimes called an Inn of Court,[128] and had its own chapel, which, however, was in St. Andrew's Church.[129] A coloured drawing of its quaint little Hall, built in 1588, is in the Guildhall Library.
Barnard's Inn, situated to the east of the second Lincoln's Inn, and opposite to Furnival's Inn, was so named from one Lionel Barnard, who was in occupation of it in 1435. But the real owner was John Mackworth, who was Dean of Lincoln from 1412 to 1451. He had inherited it probably from his brother, Thomas Mackworth, of Mackworth, co. Derby, who in 1431 became owner, having married Alice de Basing.[130] At an inquisition ad quod damnum held February 2nd, 1454, permission was given to Thomas Atkyn, citizen of London,
"An executor of the will of John Macworthe, Dean of Lincoln Cathedral, to assign a messuage in Holbourne called Macworth Inne, now commonly called Barnard's Inne, to the Dean and Chapter of the aforesaid Cathedral towards this work, extraordinary fees were raised, and divine service in the Chapel of St. George, in the southern part of the said church, where the body of the said John is buried, for the soul of the said John for ever, in part satisfaction of £20 of land which Edward III. licenced the said Dean and Chapter to acquire. The said messuage is held of the king in free burgage as is the whole city of London and is worth yearly beyond deductions six marks (£4) and there is no mean between the king and the said Thomas Atkyn; whether he has enough of lands, &c., to support all dues and services, &c., remaining after the said donation and assignment or whether he will be able to be sworn on assizes as before this donation the jurors are thoroughly ignorant; but the country will not by this donation in defect of the said Thomas be burdened."[131]
This Inn became attached to Gray's Inn. In 1894 the Dean and Chapter of Lincoln Cathedral sold it to the Mercers' Company for the Mercers' School, and the old hall of the Inn is now used as a dining-room for the boys.
Brooke House, to the west of Furnival's Inn, stood where now is Brooke Street, and was probably at one time an Inn for lawyers. In the reign of Henry V. it was held by John Gascoigne, who demised it to Justice Richard Hankeford,[132] who died in 1431, and whose heir, Thomasina, married Sir William Bourchier, brother of the Treasurer Henry, Earl of Essex. In 1480 his descendant, Fulk Bourchier, died, and it was found that he had enfeoffed John Sapcote and Guy Wollaston, esquires of the King's body (pro corpore domini Regis), and others, of his property in Holborn.[133] His descendant, John Bourchier, was created Earl of Bath in 1536, and in 1623 Bath House passed into the possession of Lord Brooke and took his name.
The earliest evidence yet obtained respecting the name of Staple Inn is in the will of Richard Starcolf, a wool-stapler, which was proved in the Court of Hustings on February 14th, 1334, and dated July 22nd, 1333, wherein he bequeaths his tenement in Holborn, called le Stapled halle, to be sold for pious uses.[134] No less than four stapled halles are known to have been in existence, at this time, at various trade gates of the city, and the meaning of the title has been much discussed.
Lincoln's Inn Gate, Chancery Lane.
From an old print published in 1800.
Richard Starkulf was a Norfolk man of Danish origin, and was admitted to the freedom of the city of London in 1310. He is described as a mercer, but no mercer could carry on his trade in those days without belonging to a staple. After his death, as his son Thomas was still a minor, his lands were placed in the custody of William de Hampton, of Shrewsbury, controller of the customs in the King's staple there, and to Richard de Elsyng, another mercer. But the tenement of le Stapled halle, which he directed should be sold, came into the hands of William de Elsyng,[135] also a wool-stapler, a brother of Richard, and the founder of St. Mary's Hospital, commonly known as Elsyng Spital. Five years later, when William de Elsyng made further gifts to the hospital, an inquisition was held to know if the gift might be made without injury to anyone, and thereat some interesting particulars respecting his Holborn property were recorded. We are told that
"there remains to William a tenement in the parish of St. Andrew of Holbourne which is worth yearly in all its issues 100s.; thence should be subtracted 3s. 4d. quit rent yearly to the church of St. Paul, London, and 6s. 8d. for yearly repairs, the clear value thus being £4 10s.; which tenement (with others), remaining after the aforesaid assignment are held of the king in free burgage as is the whole of the aforesaid city and are sufficient for the maintenance of all dues and services and William can be put on assizes, juries and recognisances as before his assignment."[136]
The next person to hold Staple Inn was Thomas de Brenchesle.[137] No record of his appointment to any duties at Holborn Bars has been discovered, but on April 12th, 1343, he was ordered to "attach" Thomas Tirwhitt, of Pokelynton,
"who has taken without the realm twelve sarples of wool uncustomed and uncoketed (i.e., unsealed), as the king is certainly informed, and bring him before the council with all speed to answer for his contempt."[138]
And on April 1st, 1349, Thomas de Brynchesle was ordered,
"upon pain of forfeiture, to be at Westminster with all the evidence in his possession for the time when he was appointed with others to supervise the state of the king's staple in Flanders, before the king and his council on the morrow of the close of Easter next, to inform them of things that will be set forth to him."[139]
It seems apparent, then, that Staple Inn was not unconnected in those days with the staple of wool.
The Ordinance of the Staple was issued in 1313,[140] but there are good grounds for believing that long before this date the site was already in use as a custom house and wool court. The ordinance was embodied in a statute of the realm in 1353.[141] London was no longer mentioned as a staple, Westminster being substituted, the bounds of which were defined as commencing at Temple Bar, and ending at Tothill.[142] But it is likely that the Inn at Holborn Bars was still occupied by attorneys who practised for their patrons of the Staple, and that the Merchants for Wools still had their meetings there. In 1401 Hamond Elyot sued a plaint of debt against Martyn Dyne, of Haydon, Norfolk, for the sum of £26 2s. 3d., in the Court of Staple at Westminster;[143] and one hundred years later, John Dyne, his descendant, also of Haydon, Norfolk, was a member of Staple Inn. In his will, proved 1505, he gives the names of the company of the Inn. Edmund Paston, grandson of the Judge, was a member in 1467, and we learn from one of his letters that the Inn had a Principal at that date.
In 1529, John Knighton and Alice, his wife, daughter of John Copwode of the Remembrancer's Office of the Exchequer, sold the inheritance of the Inn to the Ancients of Gray's Inn, after which there were other feoffments in trust, the last of which, that we know of, dated June 4th, 1622, being that of Sir Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, to Edward Moseley, Attorney of the Duchy of Lancaster and others, Readers of Gray's Inn, "to hold to them, their heirs and assigns of the chief lords of that fee by the services thence due and of right accustomed."[144] The society eventually became its own master, and in 1811 had no connection whatever with Gray's Inn. It was dissolved in 1884, when its property was sold to a firm of auctioneers, who parted with it in the same year, the Government buying the southern portion for an extension of the Patent Office, and the Prudential Assurance Company the remainder. The lawyers still congregate there; the only difference being a change of landlords, though the hall has been leased to the Institute of Actuaries. The frontage of the Inn dates from 1570 and 1586, the hall from 1581.
Middle Temple Hall.
Davy's Inn is most probably the correct name of the Inn, which for three centuries past has unaccountably, possibly through Stow's mistake, gone by the name of Thavies Inn. No record has yet been found earlier than the reign of Queen Elizabeth in which the name of this Inn is any other than Davy's or David's. The will of John Davy was proved in the Court of Hustings in 1398.[145] He desired to be buried in the church of St. Andrew. To Alice, his wife, he left his lands and tenements in Holborn for life, with remainder to John Osbern and his wife, Emma, testator's daughter, in tail; with remainder in trust for the maintenance of a chantry in St. Mary's Chapel in the church of St. Andrew. The annual proceeds of this latter bequest were still being received by the church in the reign of Henry VIII. The testator was an attorney, and his name occurs in many legal documents relating to Holborn in the reign of Edward III.; he was also associated with others of the neighbourhood in various pavage commissions. It is quite possible, however, and probable, that the Inn which bore his name was an Inn long before his time. It was bought by Lincoln's Inn in 1548, and sold in 1769. It has since been demolished.
New Inn, in the Strand, also called St. Mary's Inn, was a guest Inn, says Sir George Buck, writing in 1615, hired by Sir John Fineux, Chief Justice of King's Bench, in the reign of Edward IV., for £6 per annum, to place therein those students who were lodged in "la Baillie," in a house called St George's Inn, near the upper end of St. George's Lane. In the year 1348 the will of John Tavy, armourer, was proved in the Court of Hustings.[146] He therein orders that after the decease of his wife an Inn, where the apprentices were wont to dwell, should be sold, and the proceeds devoted to the maintenance of a chantry. These apprentices are not in the original will described as ad legem, but these words have crept into a subsequent transcription. The testator was, in 1342, one of the four members of the Company of Armourers appointed by the mayor and aldermen, and sworn to observe and supervise the then new regulations respecting the making and selling of armour.[147] He would certainly have had his apprentices, and it may be he referred to them in his will. He would have been a member of the Fraternity or Guild of St. George of the men of the Mistery of Armourers, St. George being the Armourers' patron saint. This fact seems to suggest that his Inn became St. George's Inn, which would have stood not far from the Sessions House, built by William de Langeford.
The Six Clerks Inn, formerly Herfleet's Inn, and then Kidderminster Inn, was on the west side of Chancery Lane, opposite the Rolls Office, and was probably an Inn of Chancery, though unattached, at a very early date. In 1454 Nicholas Wymbyssh, one of the clerks of the King's Chancery, assigned it to the prior of Necton Park, co. Lincoln, to hold of the King in free burgage.[148] It was then in the parish of St. Dunstan. It acquired the name of Kidderminster Inn from John Kidderminster, one of the society, who purchased it at the time of the dissolution of the monastery. In the eighteenth century the Six Clerks Inn Society moved to the north-western end of Chancery Lane. Stone Buildings, part of Lincoln's Inn, now occupies the site.
Cursitors' Inn, also in Chancery Lane, was sometimes known as Bacon's Inn, having been founded, in 1574, by Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. In 1478 it was known as the Bores hedde, and then consisted of one tenement and a large garden, about two and a half acres in extent, bounded on the north by the grounds of the Old Temple and of Staple Inn; on the east by that property of the Convent of Malmesbury which had formerly been known as "Lyncolnesynne"; and on the south by a lane now known as Cursitor Street. The rent was then being paid to the Corporation of the City of London, who were probably feoffees of the bishopric of Lincoln; but in 1561 they purchased it of Edward VI., into whose hands it had come at the dissolution of chantries and chapels; and they, in 1574, granted it to Sir Nicholas Bacon,[149] who there housed the cursitor clerks. There were twenty-four cursitor clerks—i.e., Clerks of the Course—whose business was to draw up the writs. The Cursitor Baron administered the oaths to the sheriffs, bailiffs, and officers of the Customs, etc. Cursitor Street perpetuates the name of the Inn.
Clifford's Inn, adjacent to, and south of, the House of Converts, came into the hands of Edward I. in 1298, for the debts of Malcolm de Harley, Escheator on this side Trent. The Earl of Richmond was placed in custody of it, but in 1310 Edward II. gave it to Robert de Clifford, a customs' officer of the Wool Staple, and Marshal of England.[150] When he died in 1316 a third of it only was granted to his widow. During the nonage of the heir in 1345, Edward III. put his clerk, David de Wollore, who was also Keeper of the Rolls of Chancery, in charge of the property.[151] It is said to have possessed its society at this period. It passed from the Clifford family in June, 1468, when a grant was made to "John Kendale, Esq., and his heirs male, of Clifford Inne, late of John Clifford, knight, late Lord Clifford, by reason of forfeiture."[152] The Society of Clifford's Inn was the last of the Inns of Chancery to dissolve.
Clement's Inn, an Inn of Chancery attached to the Inner Temple, was divided within recent years from New Inn, which belonged to the Middle Temple, only by iron railings with a gate. Its origin is unknown, but its name connects it either with St. Clement's Church, or St. Clement's Well. It was certainly in existence before the time of Henry VII.
Lyon's Inn is said to have been an Inn of Chancery in the time of Henry V., but the evidence on this point is uncertain. It was situated in Newcastle Street, Strand, and was attached to the Inner Temple, who bought it in 1581. The Aldwych improvements have wiped out the Globe Theatre which had succeeded it.
Besides the Inns of Court and Chancery, there existed also Inns for Judges and Serjeants, of which the most important were Scrope's Inn, opposite to St. Andrew's Church, in Holborn, and the two Serjeants' Inns in Chancery Lane and Fleet Street, which, however, cannot be treated of here.
Documents of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries make it quite clear that Staple Inn, Furnival's Inn, Brooke House, and, of course, the old Inn of the Earl of Lincoln, in Shoe Lane, were all within the city boundaries. It was not until December, 1645, that the House of Lords passed a resolution that the Inns of Court were to form a province by themselves,[153] and the resolution was interpreted to cover also their Inns of Chancery dependencies, so that Furnival's Inn and Staple Inn became cut off from the city, and all the Inns became extra-parochial.
It will have been noticed that the properties of the Inns of Court, and most of the Inns of Chancery, came to be held directly of the King. The legal artifice of feoffment to "uses" was adopted in regard to most of these properties; but though the feoffees were chiefly legal persons, they did not apparently always represent the societies; nor is it quite clear whom they did represent; but the societies had no security of tenure until they purchased their respective properties.
Lincoln's Inn Hall: the Lord Chancellor's Court.
From a drawing by T. H. Shepherd.
It has been shown that the deep hollow, at the bottom of which flowed the stream of Holborn, formed a natural barrier between the walled city and its suburb. It also divided the guilds and trade associations of London from that plexus of schools of laws which at first radiated from Holborn Bars. The guilds recognised the leading of the Mayor and Commonalty; the schools of law looked for direction chiefly to the law officers of the Crown. In Florence, and other cities of the Middle Ages, the associations of judges, attorneys, and wool-merchant lawyers were as much a part of civic and communal life as any other guild; the different conditions which existed in England led to different consequences.
But the hold which the King's officers obtained, both over the machinery of the Courts and over the voluntary societies of law students, was the cause, no doubt, of the attempts which were made during the Tudor and early Stuart periods to organise all the Inns of Court and Chancery into a University of Law. Those attempts failed; chiefly through the lack of wisdom displayed in issuing arbitrary and meddlesome Orders in Council, instead of allowing unification to mature on those natural and voluntary lines which had already been laid down.
Now the Inns of Chancery have practically vanished, leaving the Inns of Court to monopolise all the glory of the great future which undoubtedly still lies before them.
THE GUILDHALL
By Charles Welch, F.S.A.
Guildhall, the home of civic government and the battle-ground of many a hard-won fight for civil and religious liberty, was built anew by the self-denying efforts of a generation of London citizens just five hundred years ago. This great work took ten years and more in building, and, like its sister edifices of still earlier days, the Tower of London, London Bridge, and Westminster Hall, tested to the utmost the energy and resources of the Londoners of those times. We learn from Fabyan, the alderman chronicler, that the building was begun in the year 1411 by Thomas Knowles, then mayor, and his brethren the aldermen. He tells us:—
"The same was made of a little cottage a large and great house as now it standeth, towards the charges whereof the companies gave large benevolences; also offences of men were pardoned for sums of money church for the maintenance of a chaplain to celebrate fines, amercements, and other things employed."
The Guildhall.
King Henry V., in 1415—the year of his famous victory at Agincourt—granted the City free passage for four boats by water, and as many carts by land, to bring lime, ragstone, and freestone for the work at Guildhall. Private citizens also came forward with contributions. The executors of Sir Richard Whittington, in 1422-3, gave two sums of £60 and £15 for paving the hall with Purbeck stone, and glazed some of the windows, placing in each the arms of Whittington. The rest of the windows in the hall and many of those in its various courts were glazed by various aldermen. So much of this ancient glass as survived the iconoclasm of the Commonwealth period was swept away by the Great Fire. The two handsome louvres which formed such conspicuous objects on the roof of the building were given by Alderman Sir William Hariot during his mayoralty in 1481. The mayor's chamber, council chamber, and several rooms above were built in 1425-6. An important part of the building was still wanting, for the mayors could not keep their feasts at the Guildhall until the time of Sir John Shaa. Under his leadership, and by the help of the Fellowships of the City, wealthy widows, and other well-disposed persons, the kitchens and other necessary offices were completed for use at his mayoralty feast in 1501. Since that year these famous banquets, which had till then been held in Merchant Taylors' Hall, or Grocers' Hall, have regularly taken place at the Guildhall.
On Tuesday, 4th September, 1666, in the course of the Great Fire, the Guildhall was ablaze, and its oak roof entirely destroyed. Vincent describes its appearance in his little book, God's Terrible Voice to the City:
"That night the sight of Guildhall was a fearfull spectacle, which stood the whole body of it for several hours together, after the fire had taken it without flames (I suppose because the timber was such solid oake) in a bright shining coale as if it had been a palace of gold or a great building of burnished brass."
After the Fire the original open roof was not rebuilt, but the walls were raised an additional storey, the ceiling covering this being flat and square panelled; eight circular windows on each side were added. This poor substitute for a roof was built, as Elmes states, "in haste and for immediate use, and evidently a temporary covering." It lasted, nevertheless, nearly two hundred years, until in 1861 the plans for a new open roof corresponding with the original design of the Guildhall were approved by the Corporation. The dimensions of this magnificent building are 152 feet in length, 49 feet 6 inches in width, and 89 feet in height, from the pavement to the ridge of the roof.
In the angles at the west end of the hall, on lofty pedestals, are the celebrated figures of the giants Gog and Magog. They have been believed by some to be Gogmagog and Corinæus, two mystical personages who were said to have fought together in some of those imaginary conflicts between the Trojans and the early inhabitants of Britain, which are recorded by monkish chroniclers of the Middle Ages. These figures were made by Captain Richard Saunders, a noted carver in King Street, Cheapside, and were put up about the year 1708. They took the place of two old wicker-work giants, which it had formerly been the custom to carry in procession at the mayoralty pageants.
The basement of the Guildhall consists of two crypts, which extend beneath the full length of the hall above. The eastern crypt is entirely vaulted and divided into three aisles by two rows of clustered columns of Purbeck marble, the intersections of the vaulting being covered with a most curious series of carved bosses representing flowers, heads, and shields. This crypt, which, fortunately, escaped the Great Fire, is the finest and most extensive undercroft remaining in London, and for excellence of design and sound preservation may be considered a unique example of its kind. For many years it was neglected and choked with rubbish, which covered its floors to the depth of several feet. In 1851 it was restored to its original condition, and was used as a supper-room for H.M. Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort on the 9th July, when the Corporation entertained the leading persons associated with the Great Exhibition held in that year. On that occasion it was fitted up as a baronial hall, the valuable plate lent by the City Companies being displayed upon an oak sideboard. Around each of the columns stood men clad in armour brought from the Tower of London, each holding a torch of gas for lighting the crypt. A charming feature of the decoration was the treatment of the passage in the western crypt—this was filled with trees and flowers of various kinds, and hundreds of singing birds were let free, thus giving the appearance of a forest glade in summer-time. There is no evidence that this crypt was appropriated to any special use in former times, but to-day it serves the useful, if unromantic, purpose of a kitchen for preparing the mayoralty banquet on the historic ninth of November.
The western crypt, which is separated from that just described by a massive wall of contemporary date, has a roof of arched brickwork dating, probably, from the period of the Great Fire. It is doubtful whether it ever formed an open chamber, and it is now, with the exception of its central passage, entirely devoted to cellarage. In one of its deeply-recessed windows were discovered, in 1902, together with some mediæval stone coffin-lids, some portions of the famous Cheapside cross, which was pulled down by order of the Long Parliament in 1643. These fragments, which were removed to the Guildhall Museum, bear the sculptured arms and badges of King Edward I. and his consort Queen Eleanor. The cross was taken down at the request of the Corporation, and, doubtless, by their officials, the mutilated fragments being removed to Guildhall, where these two pieces evidently lay for over 250 years.
On the south side of the Guildhall, and providing an entrance to it from Guildhall Yard, is a large Gothic porch, or archway. This last addition to the hall, erected in 1425, was one of its most beautiful features, and has been preserved, practically uninjured, to the present day. The porch consists of two bays of groined vaulting, the walls having deeply-recessed moulded and traceried panelling, and being provided with a convenient seat throughout their length on either side. The front of the porch was materially altered in the reign either of Elizabeth or James I., so that we cannot form a complete idea of its magnificent appearance. It was ornamented with seven finely sculptured statues, representing at the top our Saviour, a little below Law and Learning, and lower still, flanking the doorway on either side, Discipline, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance. The statue of our Saviour disappeared at an early date, but the other six figures may still be in existence, for they were presented by the Corporation, in 1794, to Banks the sculptor, at whose death, in 1809, they were purchased for £100 by Henry Bankes, M.P. for Corfe Castle. The present front of the Guildhall, of which the east wing was removed in 1873, was built by George Dance, the City Architect, in 1789.
Gray's Inn Hall and Chapel.
Guildhall Chapel, or College, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalen and All Saints, stood in the north-east corner of Guildhall Yard, immediately adjoining the Guildhall. The chapel is said to have been built at the end of the thirteenth century, when Adam Franceys and Peter Faulore obtained licence from Edward III. to convey a piece of land for the erection of houses for the custos and chaplains of this college. The original building became in course of time too small for the requirements of the citizens, and in 1429, when the new Guildhall was nearing completion, a new chapel was built. This beautiful building, though injured and defaced, was not destroyed in the Great Fire of London, and continued to be used as a chapel until the latter part of the eighteenth century, when its religious services were discontinued. The chapel was then devoted to secular use, and became the Court of Requests until its final demolition in 1822 to make room for the new Law Courts. The great charm of this building was its beautiful western front, which faced the Guildhall Yard. This was adorned with three canopied niches containing statues of Edward VI., Elizabeth, and Charles I. (now preserved in the Guildhall Library), and with a glorious west window of seven lights, a perfect example of the Perpendicular style. Adjoining the chapel on the south was Blackwell Hall, which was for so many centuries the great Cloth Mart of the city.
Among the religious services which formed so bright a feature in ancient civic life those of the Guildhall Chapel held an important place. Besides their attendances at the Cathedral, at Paul's Cross, and at the 'Spital, the Lord Mayor and his brethren, with the City officers, attended Divine service at this chapel on Michaelmas Day before the election of a new Lord Mayor, and on many other occasions throughout the year. The sermons preached on these occasions were printed, and form quite a large body of civic homiletics, many of the preachers being men of great fame and reputation. The practice of attending the Mass of the Holy Spirit (for which a celebration of Holy Communion with sermon is now substituted) was revived, if not originated, by the celebrated Sir Richard Whittington on the day of his own election as Lord Mayor in 1406.
Another of the good deeds of this worthy mayor was the foundation, through his executor, of a library to be attached to the Guildhall College, under the custody of one of its chaplains. This was duly carried out in 1425 by the erection of a separate building of two floors, well supplied with books "for the profit of the students there, and those discoursing to the common people." This public library, which appears to have been the first of its kind in England, had, unfortunately, but a brief existence, all of its books having been "borrowed" in 1550 by the Duke of Somerset, Lord Protector, by whom, as we learn from Stow the historian, they were never returned. The loss has since been, to some extent, supplied by the present library, founded at Guildhall in 1824, and rebuilt in 1873.
In the reign of Henry VI., after the completion of the great hall, other apartments, such as "the mayor's chamber, the council chamber, with other rooms above the stairs," were built. Of these no trace at present remains, and two Common Council chambers have since been erected. The first of these was a picturesque apartment, its walls being covered with statuary and paintings, the latter being chiefly presented to the Corporation by Alderman John Boydell. A new council chamber, of handsome and commodious design, was erected by the Corporation in 1884, from the designs of Sir Horace Jones, City Architect. The Court of Aldermen's present chamber was built in the latter half of the seventeenth century, and is a small but handsome room. The ceiling is painted with allegorical figures of the City of London—Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Fortitude—executed by Sir James Thornhill, who was presented by the Corporation with a gold cup of £225 7s. in value. Around the walls and in the windows are shields containing the arms of most of the Lord Mayors of the last 127 years.
The Guildhall.
Engraved by R. Acom, 1828.
The artistic decoration of the Guildhall and its various apartments includes monuments, busts, and portraits of men whom the City has delighted to honour. In the great hall are the monuments to Admiral Lord Nelson, by J. Smith; to the "Iron Duke," by J. Bell; to the Earl of Chatham, by Bacon, with inscription by Burke; to the younger Pitt, by Bubb, with Canning's inscription; and to Alderman Beckford, by Moore. On Beckford's monument is inscribed, in letters of gold, the speech which that famous citizen addressed, or is said to have addressed, as Lord Mayor, to King George IV. on his throne. Around the hall were formerly hung portraits of twenty-two judges who assisted in the special Court of Judicature appointed to decide the disputes which arose as to sites of property in the City after the Great Fire. These portraits, which are now hung in the old Common Council chamber, were painted at the Corporation's expense by Michael Wright, Sir Peter Lely having declined the commission because the judges refused to wait upon him at his house for the necessary sittings. In the vestibule of the council chambers are a series of portrait-busts of statesmen, philanthropists, warriors, and men of high eminence in the general estimation of their fellow-countrymen. The decoration of the outer lobby was executed as a memorial of his shrievalty in 1889-90 by the late Alderman Sir Stuart Knill, Bart., and exhibits the Corporation and the City Livery Companies in a very pleasing symbolical design.
At the west end of the great hall are two law courts, where the City judges, the Recorder, and the Common Sergeant administer justice in the Mayor's Court. The aldermen sit in rotation as magistrates in the Police Court in the Guildhall Yard, and in Guildhall Buildings is the City of London Court (anciently the Sheriff's Court), over which two judges preside for the Poultry and Giltspur Street Compters respectively.
Besides the courts above mentioned, there are the departments of the various officers of the Corporation, chief in importance among them being that of the Chamberlain. The court over which this officer presides deals with admission to the freedom of the City and the oversight of apprentices. The Freedom of London was a much-coveted privilege in former times, as without it no one was allowed to carry on business in the City. The benefits now are wholly of a posthumous nature, the children and widows of deceased freemen being eligible for election respectively to benefits of an educational and charitable kind. There is, however, an inner circle of honorary freemen, whose names have been enrolled on the City's Roll of Fame. This highly-prized distinction is reserved for those who, in the unanimous judgment of the Corporation, have rendered conspicuous services to their country in their various callings. The roll was reserved almost exclusively in former times for eminent statesmen and naval and military commanders. In more modern times the claims of great explorers, scientific discoverers, philanthropists, social reformers, etc., have been freely admitted, and the honour is bestowed without distinction of politics or creed. In January, 1900, the Honorary Freedom was conferred upon every member of the City Imperial Volunteers before the departure of the regiment for active service in the South African War. The Chamberlain also deals with disputes between masters and their apprentices, and has power to commit refractory apprentices to Bridewell for imprisonment. There was formerly attached to his office a little prison-cell, known as "Little Ease," which exercised a wholesome dread upon the turbulent 'prentices of days gone by. In addition to his judicial duties the Chamberlain has the responsibility of receiving and disbursing the City's cash, and all other moneys which the Corporation administers.
Inner Temple Hall.
The great purpose of the Guildhall as a place of meeting for the citizens is well seen in its use on various official occasions. Here are held the meetings of the Court of Common Hall, that court being an assemblage of all the liverymen of the various guilds. The Common Hall on Midsummer Day is for election by the liverymen of the two Sheriffs and various minor officials. The Sheriffs thus elected are admitted into office in the Guildhall on Michaelmas Eve, and preside on the following day at the Common Hall held for the election of Lord Mayor. The Lord Mayor Elect is formally installed in office at Guildhall, with a quaint and dignified ceremony, on November 8th, and enters upon his duties after a further ceremony at the Royal Courts of Justice on the following day. The Livery also meet in Guildhall to take part in and to hear the result of elections of Members of Parliament for the City. On all these occasions an elevated hustings is raised at the east end of the hall, and strewn with sweet-smelling herbs, the civic party being also provided with nosegays. This old custom is supposed to have originated in the days when the City was ravaged by pestilence, the herbs and flowers being employed as prophylactics.
Now taking leave of the building, it is time to glance very briefly at some of the important events which have taken place within these historic walls. It was here, in 1483, that the Duke of Buckingham, sent by Richard Duke of Gloucester, with his persuasive tongue, prevailed with the citizens to hail the usurper as King Richard III. A different scene was enacted in 1546, when Guildhall was the scene of the trial of the youthful and accomplished Anne Askew, which ended in her condemnation, her torture on the rack, and her martyrdom in Smithfield. The next year saw the trial of the Earl of Surrey, one who was distinguished by every accomplishment which became a scholar, a courtier, and a soldier, and who, to gratify the malice of Henry VIII., was convicted of high treason. This unhappy period also saw the tragic trial and condemnation, in 1553, of the ill-fated Lady Jane Grey and her husband. The trial of Sir Nicholas Throgmorton at Guildhall in 1554, for taking part in Sir Thomas Wyatt's rebellion, had a different result. This trial is one of the most interesting on record for the exhibition of intellectual power, and is remarkable for the courage displayed by the jury in returning a verdict of "acquittal" in opposition to the despotic wishes of the court, though at the expense of imprisonment and fine. In 1642 Charles I. attended at a Common Council and claimed the Corporation's assistance an apprehending the five members whom he had denounced as guilty of high treason, and who had fled to the City to avoid arrest. This incident is commemorated by an inscription affixed to one of the pillars in the new council chamber. During the Civil War and the Commonwealth period the Guildhall became the arena of many an important incident connected with the political events of the times. At a later period, when, in 1689, the Government of James II. had become so intolerable that he was forced to abdicate, Guildhall was the spot where the Lords of Parliament met and agreed on a declaration in favour of the assumption of regal authority by the Prince of Orange, afterwards William III.
Guildhall has been famous also for the many sumptuous entertainments which have been given in it to royalty and other personages of distinction at various times, apart from the annual festivity which marks the entry into office of each Lord Mayor. From the banquet given in 1421 to Henry V. and his Queen, on the successful termination of his campaigns in France—when Sir Richard Whittington, in addition to the luxuries provided for his royal guests, is said to have gratified and astonished the King by throwing into the fire bonds for which he was indebted to the citizens to the amount of £60,000—down to the reign of his present Majesty, nearly every sovereign of this country has honoured the City by accepting its hospitality in the Guildhall. Charles II. showed so much fondness for the civic entertainments that he dined there as many as nine times in the course of his reign.
The Old Guildhall.
Apart from its strictly official use, the Guildhall is the place of meeting for the citizens generally when any important public question calls for the expression of their views. During the reign of George III. the views of the citizens were in frequent conflict with those of the Ministry of the day. Special meetings of Common Hall were summoned, at which addresses to the King were voted, praying His Majesty to dismiss his Ministers, and terminate the conflict with the American Colonies. More than once the citizens have been in conflict with the House of Commons: for the liberty of the press in 1770, when Brass Crosby, the Lord Mayor, was committed to the Tower; and in 1805, when the liverymen in their Common Hall supported Sir Francis Burdett, who was upholding against the House of Commons the cherished right of liberty of speech. In the long struggle connected with the Reform Bill the City supported the cause of Reform, and, on the Passing of the Reform Act of 1832, entertained in the Guildhall Earl Grey and his principal supporters in both Houses of Parliament.
The voice of the City sounding far and wide from its ancient Guildhall has similarly supported the great causes of Catholic Emancipation, the removal of Jewish Disabilities, and the Abolition of the Slave Trade. In modern times the character of the gatherings at the Guildhall has been still more varied. Foreign sovereigns have been entertained: the allied monarchs in 1814, the Emperor and Empress of the French (1855), the Sultan of Turkey (1867), the Shah of Persia (1889), Alexander II., Czar of Russia (1875), the King of the Hellenes (1881); indeed, almost every crowned head in Europe and the civilised world has been sumptuously received at Guildhall. In 1886, the year of the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, the representatives of our Colonies were warmly welcomed. Then followed the Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887, and the Diamond Jubilee in 1897, each occasion being celebrated by entertainments of a memorable character.
The two great windows in the Guildhall have also memories of the deepest interest. That at the west end was placed there by the Corporation in 1869 to recall the many virtues and the "high and spotless character" of the Prince Consort. The window at the east end was subscribed for by the Lancashire operatives in 1868 in gratitude for the help extended to them during the distress occasioned by the Cotton Famine. Of unique interest was the Jubilee Anniversary of Penny Postage, celebrated on the 16th May, 1890, at Guildhall, when the scene within its ancient walls resembled a huge post-office and telegraph-office combined.
Among its many services to humanity at large the Guildhall has voiced, more than once, the outcry against Jewish persecution in Russia. A working-classes industrial exhibition, bazaars and concerts for charitable objects, International congresses of scientific and social bodies, Christmas entertainments to poor and crippled children: these are some of the present-day uses of the Guildhall. It only remains to add the furtherance of religious effort which it has afforded by welcoming such gatherings as those of the Sunday School Centenary, the mission of Canon Aitken, and the yearly meeting of the British and Foreign Bible Society, when one of the youngest collectors present (some small personage of four or five years) cuts the Society's birthday cake after some hearty words of welcome from the Lord Mayor, as the genial host of the City's Guildhall.
THE CITY COMPANIES OF LONDON
By P. H. Ditchfield, M.A., F.S.A.
In these days of change, which have obliterated most of the old landmarks of the city, when the County Council has almost transformed London, and high warehouses and glaring shops have replaced the old picturesque buildings of our forefathers, it is refreshing to find some institutions which have preserved through the ages their ancient customs and usages, and retain their ancient homes and treasures. Such are the Livery Companies of the City of London, the history of which teems with vivid pictures of bygone times and manners, and the accounts of their pageantries, their feasts, and customs furnish us with curious glimpses of ancient civic life. When we visit the ancient homes of these venerable societies, we are impressed by their magnificence and interesting associations. Portraits of old city worthies gaze at us from the walls and link our times with theirs, when they, too, strove to uphold the honour of their guild and benefit their generation. Many a quaint old-time custom and curious ceremonial usage linger on within the old walls, and there, too, are enshrined cuirass and targe, helmet, sword and buckler, which tell the story of the past and of the part which the companies played in national defence, or in the protection of civic rights. Turning down some little alley and entering the portals of one of these halls, we are transported at once from the busy streets and din of modern London into a region of old-world memories, which has a fascination that is all its own. We see the old city merchants resplendent in their liveries of "red and white with the connuzances of their mysteries embroidered on their sleeves," or when fashions changed, then dominating the sterner sex as it now does only the fair, clad in "scarlet and green," or "scarlet and black," or "murrey and plunket," a "darkly red," or a "kind of blue," preparing to attend some great State function, or to march in procession through the streets to their guild services. Again, the great hall is filled with a gallant company. Nobles and princes are the guests of the company, and the mighty "baron" makes the table groan, and "frumentie with venyson," brawn, fat swan, boar, conger, sea-hog, and other delicacies crown the feast, while the merry music of the minstrels or the performance of the players delights the gay throng. Pictures of ancient pageantry, their triumphs, their magnificent shows and gorgeous ceremonies, flit before our eyes when we visit the halls of the companies.
Model of Barge formerly used by the Clothworkers' Company in Civic Procession.
Staples Inn Hall.
From a drawing by T. H. Shepherd in 1830.
There was a grand procession in 1686, when Sir John Peake, mercer, was Lord Mayor. The master, wardens, and assistants, dressed in their gowns faced with foins and their hoods, marched first, followed by the livery in their gowns faced with satin, and the company's almsmen, each one bearing a banner. Then came the gentlemen ushers in velvet coats, each wearing a chain of gold, followed by the bachelors invested in gowns and scarlet satin hoods, banner-bearers, trumpeters, drummers, the city marshals, and many others, while the gentlemen of the Artillery Company, led by Sir John Moore, brought up the rear. From the hall of the Grocers' Company, which was the usual rendezvous on account of its convenient situation or its size, they marched to the Guildhall, the lord mayor, sheriffs, and aldermen riding on horseback. Thence they went to Three-cranes Wharf and took barge to Westminster. On their return the pageants met them at St. Paul's Churchyard. These were most gorgeous. The first consisted of a rock of coral with sea-weeds, with Neptune at the summit mounted on a dolphin which bore a throne of mother-of-pearl, tritons, mermaids, and other marine creatures being in attendance. But the most magnificent of all was the maiden chariot, a virgin's head being the arms of the company. Strype tells us that
" ... when any one of this company is chosen mayor, or makes one of the triumph of the day wherein he goes to Westminster to be sworn, a most beautiful virgin is carried through the streets in a chariot, with all the glory and majesty possible, with her hair all dishevelled about her shoulders, to represent the maidenhead which the company give for their arms. And this lady is plentifully gratified for her pains, besides the gift of all the rich attire she wears."
The chariot in which she rode was
"... an imperial triumphal car of Roman form, elegantly adorned with variety of paintings, commixed with richest metals, beautified and embellished with several embellishments of gold and silver, illustrated with divers inestimable and various-coloured jewels of dazzling splendour, adorned and replenished with several lively figures bearing the banners of the kings, the lords mayor, and companies."
Upon a throne sits the virgin in great state, "hieroglyphically attired" in a robe of white satin, richly adorned with precious stones, fringed and embroidered with gold, signifying the graceful blushes of virginity; on her head a long dishevelled hair of flaxen colour, decked with pearls and precious gems, on which is a coronet of gold beset with emeralds, diamonds, sapphires, and other precious jewels of inestimable value. Her buskins are of gold, laced with scarlet ribbons, adorned with pearls and other costly jewels. In one hand she holds a sceptre; in the other, a shield with the arms of the right honourable the Company of Mercers.
Such is the gorgeous being who presides over the maiden's chariot. But she rides not in solitary state. Fame perched on a golden canopy blows her trumpet; Vigilance, Wisdom, Charity, Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance, Faith, Hope, Charity, Loyalty, and the nine muses, attend upon her. She has eight pages of honour dressed in cloth of silver walk by her side, and Triumph acts as charioteer. The whole machine is drawn by nine white Flanders horses, each horse ridden by some emblematical personage—such as Victory, Fame, Loyalty, Europe attended by Peace and Plenty, Africa, Asia and America. The foot attendants are numerous—eight grooms, forty Roman lictors in crimson garb, twenty servants to clear the way, and twenty "savages" or green men throwing squibs and fireworks to keep off the crowd, and a crowd of workmen ready to repair any part of the cumbersome chariot which might, as was not unlikely, get out of order during its progress through the city.
Beside such magnificent pageants, our present Lord Mayors' processions seem poor and insignificant. We might go back to an earlier day and see Henry V. returning from his victorious campaign in France, and being greeted by his loyal subjects at Blackheath, the mayor and brethren of the City Companies wearing red gowns with hoods of red and white, "well mounted and gorgeously horsed with rich collars and great chains, rejoicing in his victorious returne." The river, too, was often the scene of their splendour, as when Elizabeth, the Queen of King Henry VII., was crowned. At her coming forth from Greenwich by water
"... there was attending upon her then the maior, shrifes, and aldermen of the citie, and divers and many worshipful comoners, chosen out of evry crafte, in their liveries, in barges freshly furnished with banners and streamers of silke, rechly beaton with the arms and bagges of their craftes; and in especiall a barge, called the bachelors' barge, garnished and apparelled, passing all other, wherein was ordeyned a great redd dragon, spowting flames of fyer into the Thames; and many other gentlemanlie pagiaunts, well and curiously devised, to do Her Highness sport and pleasure with."