CHAPTER VI
LINCOLN’S INN AND THE DEVIL’S OWN
It was probably the removal of the Knights Templars to the New Temple that gave rise to the construction of New Street. Some thoroughfare connecting their old property in Holborn with their new premises and the river was necessary to their convenience and their trade. Thus, probably through their instrumentality, New Street, or, as we now call it, Chancery Lane, came into existence, and, connecting two of the main arteries leading from the western suburbs into the City, and cutting through the very heart of the area occupied by the Inns of Court, it soon developed into what Leigh Hunt described as ‘the greatest legal thoroughfare in England.’[48] Chancery Lane, or Chancellor’s Lane, as the name appears in its earlier form, is said to have been called after a Bishop of Chichester, who was Chancellor of England at the end of the thirteenth century. A house and garden, near the southern end of Chancery Lane, was, we know, the town residence of the Bishops of Chichester. Here dwelt St. Richard, Bishop of Chichester (1245-1253), ‘in true possession thereof in right of his Church of Chichester.’ The name of Chichester Rents perpetuated the memory of this episcopal habitation. Possession of this town residence of the Bishops of Chichester was finally acquired by the lawyers about the middle of the sixteenth century. A few years later (1580) they obtained the freehold of the open space known as Coney Garth, or Cotterell’s Garden. But it is not at all clear how the Society of Lincoln’s Inn came into occupation of these premises, or how its name had come to be attached to property properly belonging to the See of Chichester and St. Giles’s Hospital. In the absence of any other obvious explanation, we must look back for the origin of the Society of Lincoln’s Inn to a group of lawyers housed in an Inn belonging to the Earl of Lincoln, and must try to account for their presence on their present property by the theory of a migration from their first hostel. This theory fortunately presents no difficulty, and it is supported by various facts and indications.
The parent house of Lincoln’s Inn would appear to be the Inn of the great Justiciar Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, which stood to the south-east of St. Andrew’s Church. It was natural and necessary for the great Administrators of the Law to gather about their Courts a following of trained lawyers to help them to enunciate the theory, and to perform the business thereof. As the followers of Le Scrope, the great Justice of King’s Bench, settled in Scrope’s Inn, and the followers of De Grey, the Justiciar of Chester, in Grey’s Inn, so about the residence of the great Justice Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, in his Manor of Holborn, congregated the forerunners of the Society of Lincoln’s Inn, students of law and practisers in the Justiciar’s Court.
The hostel of the Earl of Lincoln stood at the north end of Shoe Lane, near Holeburn Bridge. The buildings were erected upon the ruins of the Monastery of the Blackfriars. The Blackfriars had settled themselves in Holborn, west of the north end of Chancery Lane, and gradually amassed property that reached down to the house of the Bishops of Chichester. But presently they followed the example of the Knights Templars, and moved nearer the River to the site of what is still called Blackfriars, just within the City Wall. Their Holborn property they sold a few years later (1286) to the Earl of Lincoln, who undertook to pay 550 marks, in instalments, to the Friars, ‘for all their place, buildings and habitation near Holeborn.’[49]
Now, of Henry, Earl of Lincoln, tradition says that he developed his new estate by cultivating the gardens and orchards upon it, and that he made large sums by selling the fruit grown there. But it was, no doubt, to the labours of the former monkish owners, the preceding Blackfriars, that the gardens and orchards of the Earl of Lincoln owed their so rich and wonderful harvests.
Lincoln, it is said, had so great a love for Lawyers that his house was filled with students of the Law. He had already arranged, according to this tradition, to transfer his house to them entirely, when, in 1311, he died. Such, according to Dugdale, was the story current ‘among the antients here.’ This tradition represents the fact that the Justiciar gathered about him a nucleus of men conversant with the Law, who should be capable of transacting the business of his Court, and who would naturally make it part of their business to train others to their trade. Equally naturally such Lawyers of Lincoln’s Inn would, in accordance with the almost invariable custom of medieval times, form themselves into a Guild, the Society of Lincoln’s Inn. It is probable, then, that the students ‘apt and eager,’ whom the Earl had gathered about him, formed themselves into the very Society which still exists, though it has changed its habitation. That change did not take place immediately after the Earl of Lincoln’s death. Through Lincoln’s daughter and heiress, Alesia, all his property passed to Thomas, Earl of Lancaster. The great quantities of wax and parchment recorded, among his household expenses,[50] as used in his Hostel at Shoe Lane, would seem to indicate that the legal business was still carried on here in 1314. Before entering upon the inheritance of Alesia, the Earl of Lancaster had already acquired the property of the Knights Templars, which included not only the New Temple, but also nearly the whole of the western side of New Street or Chancery Lane. Upon the attainder of the Earl of Lancaster in 1321, all his property, including Lincoln’s Inn in Shoe Lane, became the escheat of the King. This was subsequently restored to Alesia, who was known as Countess of Lincoln.
The business of the Law had by this time become centred round Chancery Lane, and the Society of Old Lincoln’s Inn may well have deemed it desirable to migrate southwards. In such case it would be natural to find them settling upon a site which was likewise part of the property of the Earldom afterwards the Duchy, of Lancaster.
Once in full possession of their property, the Lawyers turned with great energy to the business of building. They began to enclose their domain with lofty brick walls. The great Gateway, a Hall, a Library, and a Chapel were begun in the reign of Henry VII. The material chosen was the native red brick of London, so admirably suited to the Town, and the style adopted was that Tudor treatment of brick so admirably suited to the material. The Lawyers were guided in their choice, no doubt, by the possession of a Brick-field in the Coney Garth (= Searle’s Court, now New Square).
One of the chief features of Lincoln’s Inn is the Tudor Gateway, which forms the main entrance into Chancery Lane. The liberality of Sir Thomas Lovell, one of the Benchers of the Society, and Treasurer of the Household of Henry VII., was chiefly responsible for its erection. This magnificent Gatehouse, with its flanking Towers of brick, built in 1518, whilst Wolsey was Chancellor, narrowly escaped destruction, in obedience to the imperious will of Lord Grimthorpe and his Gothic followers.
Fortunately it has survived, and, with the exception of the magnificent Gatehouses of Lambeth Palace and St. James’s Palace, remains almost alone as a specimen of this period of architecture in London, when the Gothic was yielding place to the Palladian style.