In the Chapter House, Westminster, there is an impression of the seal of the abbey, appended to an indenture for the foundation of Henry VII.'s Chapel. In the centre is the Virgin with the infant Jesus, with a royal personage—probably Edward III.—kneeling in prayer on the dexter side, and a group of figures on the left. Underneath is a shield of the Royal arms, and the legend, SIGIL LUM COMVNE MONASTERIJ BEATE MARIE DE GRACIIS.
The Barons Fitzwalter of Baynard's Castle.
It was with mutterings of discontent and gloomy forebodings that Saxon London beheld, soon after the victory at Hastings, the erection of a fortress at the east end of their city—replaced soon after by the earliest portion of the present Tower of London—and two huge castles to the west, ostensibly to guard, really to keep the City in awe. Duke William, after the Battle of Hastings, knowing how important it was to hold possession of the largest and most influential city in the kingdom, hastened up to London. The citizens, who felt not disposed to surrender their liberty to a foreigner, and who, influenced by Archbishop Stigand, had caused Eadgar the Atheling to be proclaimed king, crossed the river to oppose his advance but were repulsed; nevertheless, the Conqueror did not follow up his success by entering London, but burnt Southwark and went to subjugate the western counties. During his absence, the citizens deeming it the best policy to submit, at any rate for the present, tendered their homage to him at Berkhamstead. Suspicious, however, of their loyalty, he caused the castles to be erected, and to conciliate the citizens granted them a charter of four and a half lines written in Saxon, on a piece of parchment six and a half inches long and one broad. This laconic charter ran thus:—"William the King salutes, with friendly greeting, William the Bishop, and Godfrey the Portreve, and all the burgesses within London, both French and English, and I declare that I grant you to be all law-worthy as you were in the days of King Edward; and I grant that every child shall be his father's heir, after his father's days; and I will not suffer any person to do you wrong. God keep you."
The two western castles were built, at the confluence of the Fleet with the Thames. The one by the Baron Montfichet, soon afterwards destroyed by fire, stood at the bottom of Addle Hill, where the Carron Wharf is now located, and its western walls were washed by the Fleet, whose course was afterwards diverted further westward to make a site for the Dominican Friary.
It was built by the Norman, Ralph Baynard, feudal baron of Little Dunmow, Essex, who had followed the Conqueror to England, and was rewarded for his services at Hastings with grants of land in Essex and Middlesex, and, in connection with Baynard's Castle, the military governorship of London, as castellan and standard-bearer of the City.
William, third lord, sided with Helias, Earl of Maine, in his attempt to throw off his allegiance to King Henry I., for which he was attainted, and his estates and honours given to Robert Fitz Richard, fifth son of Richard de Tonbridge, descended by the bend sinister from the Dukes of Normandy.
The church of St. Andrew, on the east side of Puddle-dock Hill, is supposed to have been built by Ralph Baynard, and was called "St. Andrew juxta Baynard Castle" until the erection, near by, of the King's Wardrobe, when it came to be called "St. Andrew by the Wardrobe." It was repaired by the parishioners in 1627, destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, and rebuilt in 1672. The advowson was held by the Fitzwalters, and after passing through various hands came to the Crown in 1633.