Bygone London

by Frederick Ross

It was in the autumn of the year 1347, that a storm-shattered vessel might be seen threading its way up the Thames. Its single broad sail was rent in divers places, its single mast broken, and considerable portions of its lofty poop and its high pointed stem reft away. It had come from Calais, and in mid-channel had encountered a terrific tempest, every soul on board deeming himself lost, and offering up heartfelt prayers to the Virgin or his favourite saint for succour, or for intercession in case of death. Nevertheless, like English mariners in every after, and indeed former age, the crew depended not on prayers alone, but battled manfully with the winds and the waves, and at length with great difficulty succeeded in getting their vessel into the river, and slowly ascended its reaches, with their rent sail fluttering in the still boisterous wind.

It was said of one our Norman monarchs, when he desired to pass over into Normandy, whilst a storm was raging and the seamen represented the perilous nature of the attempt, "Who ever heard of a King being lost at sea? go I will, and at once, storm or no storm," and he did go, arriving safely at his destination. Perchance the fact of this Calais ship having a king aboard, with the immunity of kings from shipwreck, may have had something to do with its escape from destruction, at any rate it did survive the peril, and its having done so was the cause of the establishment of the Abbey of St. Mary of Graces.

The royal personage who passed through the peril of the Straits was none other than the victor of Creci and Calais, the illustrious Plantagenet, Edward the Third. The three sons of Philip IV. of France having successively died without issue, his nephew, Philip of Valois. according to the Salique law, became his successor, but Edward of England claimed the throne as son of the daughter of Philip IV., and entered France to assert his claim. He met his rival, Philip VI., at Creci, with 36,000 men, opposed to the French army of 130,000, and obtained a great victory, 36,000 of the French being slain and the rest taking to flight. He then marched to Calais, which he invested and took after a most obstinate defence of twelve months, on August 4th 1347, after which occurred the famous historic incident of the six brave burghers of Calais presenting themselves before the victor in their shirts, and with ropes round their necks, as voluntary victims to sate the vengeance of the king and save their town, and their subsequent pardon at the intercession of the Queen. Notwithstanding the obstinate defence of the town, the King could scarcely do less than accede to Philippa's request, since within its walls she had presented him with a fair daughter, afterwards called Margaret of Calais.

His Queen and the newly-born princess were with him in the frail bark when it was tossed hither and thither, and its timbers riven by the storm, and in the midst thereof he prostrated himself and made a solemn vow, calling upon the nobles and ecclesiastics who accompanied him to bear witness thereto, that if God in His mercy should permit him to land safely in England, he would build and endow on the spot where he landed a monastery to the honour of God and our Lady of Graces.

At length, after beating up the river as well as they were able with their broken rudder and shattered sails, the mariners drew the vessel alongside the shore a little to the east of East Smithfield, when the royal party landed, and passed, amid the acclamations of the few people congregated on the river bank, to the Tower, and offered up thanks in the chapel for their deliverance.

Very different in aspect was the district eastward of Aldgate and the Tower when King Edward and his retinue landed there, from what it presents at present, with its docks, wharves, and warehouses, its stately ships and steam-vessels, to which the ship of King Edward might have served as a boat slung on davits by their side; its wilderness of houses, countless miles of the squalid homes of wretchedness, poverty, and crime; with multitudes of lofty chimneys, belching forth volumes of black smoke rising from the midst, and railways traversing it in every direction, accompanied by the incessant thunder of rushing trains, and the screeching whistle of the locomotive.

The scene that presented itself to the monarch when stepping upon the river bank from his vessel was that of a flat expanse of pasture land and marshes, stretching away northward and eastward, protected from inundation by the embankment of the river, the work of the Romans, which, however, was not always effectual, as the Thames frequently overflowed defective portions of the bank and laid the land under water. There were also many rills and streamlets meandering along from the high lands of the north, which lost themselves in the marshes or found an outlet into the river.

Scattered here and there on the more elevated parts were a few hamlets, mere clusterings of a few cottages, claybuilt, with cross timberings and straw-thatched roofs, with holes for chimneys, and in the walls latticed openings to admit light to the interiors. These were the abodes of cowherds, who tended their masters' cattle in the marshes, swineherds who drove their charges into the neighbouring forest to pick up the fallen acorns, fishermen who plied their daily toil on the river, and a few artizans, carpenters, smiths, and wrights, such as are now met with in remote country villages. These people were wretchedly poor, half-starved, ill-clad, and profoundly ignorant, the slaves of monkish superstition, and the downtrodden serfs of the nobles. Yet had they within them the old Saxon instinct of freedom and liberty, and they were the men who in the following reign ranged themselves under the banners of Wat Tyler and Jack Straw.

Westward stood the Tower of London, frowning grimly on the river bank—at once a palace, a fortress, and a prison. Stretching northward therefrom, was the eastern wall of the City terminating in Aldgate, whence ran the road into Essex. Within the gate, with its tower overtopping the wall, might be seen the magnificent Priory of the Holy Trinity, founded by Matilda, the Saxon Queen of Henry I., in the year 1108, and outside, along the road now called the minories, the humbler and more lowly built convent of the Nuns Minoresses of the Order of St. Clare, founded in 1239, by Edmund, Earl of Lancaster. And hard by, close to the gate, was the Church of St. Botolph, formerly belonging to the knights of the Cnighten guild, now to the Holy Trinity Priory. Close by the landing place was the hospital of St. Katherine, founded in 1148, by Matilda, Queen of Stephen, for the repose of the souls of her children—Baldwin and Matilda; refounded in 1273 by Eleanor, widow of King Henry III. Eastward was St. Chad's Well, round which grew up a hamlet, so called, since corrupted to Shadwell. Further on lay the hamlet of Stebenhithe (Stepney), with its low broad-towered church. North-westward of it, in the Essex Road, was the chapel of St. Mary Matfellon, whose name has given rise to much discussion, without any satisfactory result. Afterwards it was called the White Chapel, and hence it gave the name to the line of road running from Aldgate. Northward might be discerned the priory and hospital of St. Mary Spittle, a timber building with an angle turret, founded by Walter Brune and his wife, in the year 1197; and not far distant, on the west, the priory of St. Helen, with its hall, hospital, cloisters, and crypt, founded in 1210 by William Fitz-William, and dedicated to the Holy Cross and St. Helen, mother of the Emperor Constantine.

Here, then, on the north side of St. Katherine's Hospital, and eastward of Little Tower Hill, King Edward laid the foundations of the monastery, and made it subject to the monastery of Beaulieu, in France, of which he was the founder. It was called also East Minster, or New Minster without the walls.