A LOOKER-BACK.
"For as he forward mov'd his footing old
So backward still was turn'd his wrinkled face."—Faerie Queene.
II.
Leaving Christ's Hospital, and rambling on, one soon comes to a church partly covered with ivy, in a yard filled with shrubbery and autumn flowers. It is S. Sepulchre's, the burial-place of Captain John Smith, the Virginia pioneer. It is almost a sacred duty to pay a passing tribute to his memory, notwithstanding a lifelong grudge against him for not rounding off his romantic career by wedding the dusky Pocahontas. The clock of this church has the sad distinction of regulating the hanging of criminals at Newgate. The tower has four pinnacles, each one bearing a vane with its own notions as to rectitude, which has given rise to the saying that "unreasonable people are as hard to reconcile as the vanes of S. Sepulchre's tower, which never looked all four upon one point of the heavens."
In old times, the bell of this church was tolled as criminals passed to Tyburn, and the bell-man cried: "All good people, pray heartily unto God for these poor sinners, who are now going to their death;" for which he received the sum of one pound, six shillings, and eight pence. A hand-bell was likewise rung for them to stop for a nosegay of flowers. It must have been a great consolation to them! And yet who knows but such silent messengers of God might not have spoken to many a heart inaccessible to human tongue?
In the XVIIth century a legacy of fifty pounds was left to S. Sepulchre's on condition that, before execution-day, some one should go to Newgate in the dead of night, and give twelve solemn tolls with a hand-bell by way of calling attention to the following appeal:
"All you that in the condemned hole do lie,
Prepare you, for to-morrow you must die:
Watch, all, and pray, the hour is drawing near
That you before the Almighty must appear:
Examine well yourselves, in time repent,
That you may not t' eternal flames be sent;
And when S. Sepulchre's bell to-morrow tolls,
The Lord have mercy on your souls!
Past twelve o'clock!"
Plucking an ivy-leaf from the wall of S. Sepulchre's, our pilgrim kept on his way. West Smithfield at the corner of a street brought our friend Fox and his martyrs to mind, and he turned down towards the square where John Rogers met his fate. A tablet of Scotch granite fastened to the wall of S. Bartholomew's Hospital marks the spot. This tablet is protected by a grating, the upright rods of which terminate in gilded flames of most portentous brightness. He did not see any such tablet around London recording the numberless Catholic martyrs of Henry VIII. and Queen Elizabeth's time.
No dispassionate reader of history can regard the church as responsible for the sufferings of the so-called "Marian Martyrs." But let us thank God that such severe penalties are now obsolete in Catholic and Protestant lands alike!
Smithfield was the ordinary place of execution before Tyburn was used. The patriot Wallace was executed here on S. Bartholomew's eve, 1305. Shakespeare makes Henry V. say: "The witch in Smithfield shall be burned to ashes." In Henry VIII.'s time, poisoners were here boiled to death, as the old chronicles of the Grey Friars testify. Here is one quotation: "The x day of March was a mayde boyllyd in Smythfelde for poysing of divers persons." Evelyn records as late as 1652: "Passing by Smithfield, I saw a miserable creature burning, who had poisoned her husband."
But there are pleasanter memories connected with Smithfield, or Smoothfield, as it was originally called. It was once a famous tilting-ground. Froissart tells us how in 1393 "certain lords of Scotland came into England to get worship by force of arms in Smithfield." Here Edward III. celebrated the victories of Cressy and Poitiers by jousts and feats of arms; and Richard II., at the time of his marriage, ordered here a tournament of three days.
Passing through Smithfield market, one soon comes to the Charter House (a corruption of the French word Chartreuse), the old monastery of the Carthusians. The arched gateway is the original entrance into the realm of silence of those old monks. Over it two lions grotesquely carved support an en-tablature. The lion is typical of solitude and the wilderness, and is often found represented beside the hermits of the desert. A porter leads the way at once to the chapel by a passage paved with tombstones and hung with memorial tablets. One familiar name on the wall makes the heart leap, though a modern name:
Gulielmus Makepeace Thackeray, Carthusiani Carthusiano.
H. M. P. C.
Natus, MDCCCXI. Obiit, MDCCCLXIII.
Alumnus, MDCCCXXII-MDCCCXXVI.
Beside this white marble slab is one precisely like it in memory of John Leech.
The Elizabethan chapel is solemn and interesting with its dark oaken pews, its arched roof, on the keystones of which are carved the Charter House arms, and the monumental tombs here and there. A bright coal-fire in an open grate gives it a comfortable, homelike aspect that must be grateful to the aged pensioners. And there are hassocks of straw for them all to kneel upon. Over one of the doors is an arch of modern stained glass, but with colors of unusual richness, or seemed so, coming in from the neutral tints of a dense fog. There is Magdalen with her golden hair, and the other Maries, with beautiful faces and purple, red, and amber robes.
At the north of the chancel is the tomb of Thomas Sutton, the founder of the Charter House Hospital, in the style of James I.'s reign. He lies, cut in marble, on a marble tomb, with ruff and long gown, and hands folded palm to palm as peacefully as if they never itched to acquire riches. Two men in armor support an inscription attesting his beneficence. Some persons of a qualifying turn do say that he was, like many others who are very charitable with their money when they see the impossibility of keeping it any longer in their grasp, guilty of what has been called the "good old gentlemanly vice of avarice," and was the original of Volpone the Fox. However that may be, the many who are sheltered here have reason to roar as loudly as they can, and as we are told they do, on the 12th of December, with cracked voices and half-palsied tongues, the chorus of the Carthusian melody:
"Then blessed be the memory
Of good old Thomas Sutton,
Who gave us lodging—learning,
And he gave us beef and mutton."
Catholics, however, cannot forget that when young he took part in the Italian wars, and was present at the sacking of Rome. At a later period he commanded a battery as a volunteer at the siege of Edinburgh, when that city held out for poor Queen Mary. And he aided in the expedition against the Spanish Armada by fitting out a ship named Sutton for himself, which captured a Spanish vessel worth twenty thousand pounds. When he came to London to reside, it was reported that his purse was fuller than Queen Elizabeth's exchequer, and in time he became the banker of London, and had the freedom of the city.
On the 12th of December there is a great festival here in honor of the Fundator, and before it is over the pensioners and school-boys assemble in the chapel, which is lighted, as Thackeray tells, "so the founder's tomb, with its grotesque carvings, monsters, and heraldries, darkles and shines with the most wonderful shadows and lights."
At the south end of the chapel is a fine statue of Lord Ellenborough by Chantrey, in a sitting posture, robed as chief-justice. He was buried here at his own request, having been educated in the Charter House, and one of its governors.
As at Christ's Hospital, the visitor is allowed to wander alone through cloisters and quadrangles, as hushed and peaceful as when occupied by the Carthusians themselves. The pensioners (the school has been removed) seem to lead a kind of friar-life here, and in their seclusion ought to taste something of the peace of the cloister. They only lack the consecration of religion. One of them in cloak and cap came up, bowing with remarkable flexion of body considering his years, and politely offered to show the way with quite an air of proprietorship. His manner was gentlemanly, and he looked as if he might be some "disabled invalide from the campaign of vanity." In these days, when old people are apt to be regarded as unduly persistent about living, it is delightful to feel there are places of refuge for them like this, which confer a kind of dignity on fallen fortunes and declining life which is always a certain going down in the world.
We wonder if there is any service in the English ritual when these old gentlemen take shelter here. There surely ought to be. Some Vade in pace ought to follow them under these arches, dying away little by little with the hours and fragrance of life, and leaving behind silence and repose of soul.
There is a touching custom here of giving the bell at night a number of strokes corresponding to the number of pensioners; and when one of them dies, his decease is notified by one stroke less than on the preceding evening. It was at the evening hour, as the chapel-bell began to toll, that Col. Newcome lifted up his head, said Adsum with a smile, and died.
A bell like this must always have a knell-like solemnity of tone. It is a kind of curfew-bell, reminding the brothers that the evening of life has come, and its fires must be put out before lying down to rest. We can fancy them counting the strokes one by one every night, to learn if some light is for ever extinguished. The thought often occurs how we old people will find heaven—whether a place all youth, and freshness, and beauty. Are there to be no shades and gradations in Paradise, no stars differing from one another in glory, or faces in sweetness and serenity? Are the very angels that are to minister to us there all so full of grace and loveliness, and perfection of form, and crowned with everlasting youth? "Will there not be some comforting ones, shabby and tender, whose radiance does not dazzle nor bewilder; whose faces are worn perhaps, while their stars shine with a gentle, tremulous light more soothing to our earth-bound hearts than the glorious radiance of brighter spirits?" Who that is old and sorrow-stricken, or belongs to the poor and unloved ones of this world, does not feel the need of some such spirits to greet him there—need of some shadowy, sequestered spot where the brightness and love of that ineffable region will be tempered for us who have had but little cheer on earth, at least till our unaccustomed souls are fitted for loftier heights?
Many such—perhaps too human—dreams of heaven flitted across the mind while sitting on a bench beside some old graves in a yard at the Charter House that gloomy afternoon. Weary with climbing old staircases, going through old passages and old halls, where one only breathed the atmosphere of old times, perhaps the soul had become infected by the gloom of the place.
Borders of dull chrysanthemums grew along the gravelled walks—apparently a favorite flower in England, for they are to be found everywhere. A few trees with blighted leaves, instead of bright autumn foliage as in America, stood around with nothing in the world to do but look well, any more than Voltaire's trees, but, like many poor mortals, did not succeed very well. They looked weary of the struggle, and had a certain bowed, resigned look that was pathetic. How could anything look fresh and vigorous in that field of death? One cannot imagine the place peopled with boys full of life and fun, as it used to be.
The land on which the Charter House stands was a graveyard at the time of the great plague, five hundred years ago, being consecrated to that purpose by Bishop Stratford, of London, in 1348. Distressed that so many of his flock should be buried out of consecrated ground during the prevalence of the plague, he bought three acres of land called "No Man's Land" for a burial-ground, and erected a chapel thereon, where Masses could be said for the repose of the dead. The place became known as Pardon Churchyard and Chapel. We read of an early instance of lynching on No Man's Land previous to this time. A wealthy merchant, one Anthony of Spain, so exasperated the public by an excessive duty on wine that a mob dragged him barefoot to this spot, and here beheaded him, in November, 1326—doubtless on just such a dismal, foggy day as this, supremely adapted to give one desperate views, and aggravate the natural ferocity of the human animal.
The plague continuing to increase, the churchyard was enlarged through the charity of Sir Walter Manny, of knightly fame, who purchased a piece of land adjoining. An old ballad says:
"Thou, Walter Manny, Cambray's lord,
The bravest man those times record,
Didst pity take on the wand'ring ghosts
Of thy departed friends,
Didst consecrate to the Lord of Hosts
Thy substance for religious ends."
The next Bishop of London, Michael de Northburg, when he died, in 1361, bequeathed two thousand pounds, with all his leases, rents, and tenements, towards the foundation of a Carthusian monastery at Pardon Churchyard, together with an enamelled vessel of silver for the Host, another for holy water, a silver bell, and all his theological works. Sir Walter Manny, desirous of co-operating in this work, petitioned for a royal license to build a monastery here, to be called "The House of the Salutation of the Mother of God," and gave to it the land he had bought for a graveyard, consisting of thirteen acres and one rod. Sir Walter's charter was witnessed by the Earl of Pembroke, Edward Mortimer, Earl of March, and others. The monastery was completed in 1370, and was the fourth of the Carthusian Order in England.
The London Charter House was furthermore endowed by several other persons. Two hundred and sixty marks were bestowed in perpetual frank-almoign to build a cell for a monk who should offer daily suffrages for the souls of Thomas Aubrey and Felicia his wife, as well as all the faithful departed. Richard Clyderhowe, in 1418, gave up, "from reverence to God and the Blessed Virgin Mary, and for the health of his own soul and that of his wife Alicia, who was buried in the church of the convent, a lease of land he held in Rochester, that these religious might, in their orisons, remember him, his soul, the soul of his wife, the souls of his relations, children, and all his benefactors, and devoutly recommend them to God."
It is pleasant to find the Charter House interchanging charitable offices with its neighbor, the priory of S. John of Jerusalem. They exchange lands, and the prior of the Charter House offers a trental of Masses "that the soul of Brother William Hulles, Prior of the Hospital of S. John of Jerusalem, might the sooner be conveyed, with God's providence, into Abraham's bosom."
In the XVth century the Charter House became, for the space of four years, the residence of Sir Thomas More, who here gave himself up to devotion and prayer without taking upon himself any vow.
This monastery flourished about three centuries with a constant reputation for strict observance of the rules of the order and for holiness of life. It was during the time of Prior John Houghton, in 1534, that it was visited by the royal commissioners appointed by Henry VIII. to inspect all the monasteries of the kingdom, and draw up an account of their rules, customs, and revenues.
Most of the monks refused to subscribe to the king's supremacy, and the prior and procurator were committed to the Tower. They afterwards yielded to advice which they respected, but, suspected of disaffection, were summoned to renew the oath, and the prior was arraigned for speaking too freely of the king's proceedings, and, with two other Carthusians, was condemned to be hung, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn for refusing to acknowledge the king head of the church in England. As they were leaving the Tower to be executed, they were perceived by Sir Thomas More, imprisoned there for the same reason, who said to his favorite daughter, as if envying them: "Lo, dost thou not see, Meg, that these blessed fathers be now as cheerfully going to their deaths as bridegrooms to their marriage?" This was not long before his own martyrdom. There is at the South Kensington Museum a painting of Sir Thomas and his daughter, depicting this very scene. He stands looking down through the grated window. Margaret, tall and stately, with her father's left hand in hers, has her deep violet eyes raised steadfastly to heaven with the most appealing expression; her whole face calm and holy, but inexpressibly sad.
The heads of these monks were suspended over London Bridge—a bridge built, too, by religious—and Prior Houghton's mangled body was hung up over the gate of the Charter House. The next month three more monks of this house were executed for a like reason, and the remainder were called upon three times in one year to take the oath of supremacy—a proof that they were regarded as specially loyal to the pope. Of the ten who had subscribed two years before, nine now refused, and were committed to prison at Newgate, where they were chained in a filthy dungeon and starved to death. Their end was announced to Cromwell as "by the hand of God." Their keeper, Bedyll, gave him a list of these poor martyrs, adding: "There be one hole." This whole one survived an imprisonment of four years, only to be executed at last.
All this did not take place without some supernatural manifestations to fortify the poor monks. It is recorded that "unearthly lights were seen in their church," and, at the burial of one of their number, all the lamps of the church were miraculously lighted, and one of the deceased brethren appeared to the monk who had nursed him in his last illness, saying that "the angells of pease did lamment and murn wtowt measur," and that my "lord of Rochester" and "or Father" (Houghton) were "next unto angells in hevyn."
The remainder of the English Carthusians went to Bruges, where they remained till the accession of Mary, who, at the suggestion of Philip, it is said, invited them back, and gave them the old Carthusian monastery at Shene, near Richmond. They were exiled again in Elizabeth's reign, and returned to Belgium.
The south wall of the present chapel formed part of the old church in which were buried Sir Walter Manny, and Margaret his wife, and many other knights and dames. Prior Houghton's remains are supposed to be buried somewhere within the wall now marked by a cross and a huge I. H. It is recorded of him that he was so meek and humble that if any one addressed him as "my lord," or with any unusual deference, he immediately rebuked him, saying: "It is not lawful for poor Carthusian monks to make broad their phylacteries, or to be called rabbi by their fellow-men."
The Charter House was given to John Bridges, yeoman, and Thomas Hale, groom, as a reward for the safe keeping of the king's tents and pavilions which had been deposited here, but it afterwards passed through several hands. While owned by Lord North, Queen Elizabeth spent four days here, which so diminished his lordship's resources that he was obliged to live in retirement the rest of his life. James I. also passed a few days here when it was in possession of Lord Thomas Howard, in order to show his respect for a family that had aided and suffered for his mother. While here, he knighted more than eighty gentlemen—let us hope less awkwardly than he knighted Sir Richard Monopilies, of Castle Collop!
The Charter House was finally purchased by Thomas Sutton, the founder of the hospital. It is delightful to step from the noise and bustle of the streets into these secluded courts with grass-plots to refresh the eye, lime-trees to give shade, here a fountain in the midst of a garden, and there some old tombs, perhaps of the monks; on this wall some holy symbol left here ages ago, but not in vain, for it still speaks to the heart; and scattered around are seats for the pensioners to enjoy the sun and air.
The kitchen fireplace is capacious enough to roast fifteen surloins. What extensive means are always used to provide for the body which perisheth! If at least equal provision were made, as in the times of the old monks, to supply the needs of the soul! Does that get its three meals a day, and now and then a lunch or some refreshing draught? Are there none who labor day after day to supply the soul's hunger, as multitudes do to satisfy the cravings of the body? Yes, thank God! there is still an army of such spiritual people in the cloister and in the world, who only live to feed their higher natures. If they care for the body, it is merely enough to enable it to serve the soul. The world may call them "drones," but they are necessary in order to preserve the moral balance of the world, as an offset to the materiality of the day. Yes, the hermit, the contemplative, contributes in his degree to sustain the world, and this is why the suppression of such a class is an irreparable loss to society.