Episodes in the Annals of Cheapside.
There are many famous streets in the capitals of the world—the Rue de Rivoli, Paris; the Nevski Prospekt, St. Petersburg; the High Street, Edinburgh; the Broadway, New York; the Joseph Platz, Vienna; the High Street, Oxford; and the Via Sacra of Old Rome, with many others. All these are renowned for various characteristics of picturesque beauty, architectural grandeur, or as the scenes of important events in bygone times. In an æsthetic point of view, Cheapside is inferior to many of these, although architecturally it is now rapidly improving, and in a few years will be able to show ranges of buildings equal to those of any street in the world; but of all the streets mentioned above, excepting, perhaps, those of Edinburgh and Rome, there is not one that can compare with it for its historical associations, and for the grand series of events of national and world-wide importance which it has witnessed during the thousand years of its existence. We purpose to bring before the reader a few of the more striking and picturesque of these events, which have occurred at different periods of its history, which will have a certain amount of value as serving to illustrate the modes of living, the customs and amusements, the fluctuations of opinion in politics and religion, the relations between king and people, and the ancient municipal glories of the citizens of London in bygone centuries.
Wondrously different was the Westchepen of the eleventh century when the Norman Conqueror granted his brief and pithy charter to the citizens of London, from that of the nineteenth, with its stately edifices, its asphalted pavement, and its rush and roar of never ceasing traffic. It was then somewhat like an ill-tended country road, in the summer rough and uneven and full of deep holes, and in winter a quagmire of mud and filth knee deep, with better beaten causeways at the sides for pedestrian traffic. It is recorded by Stow that in 1091, a terrible hurricane passed over London, when 600 houses were blown down, and the roof of the Church of St. Mary-le-Bow, erected a few years previously, was lifted off, carried some distance, and dashed into the street with such violence that four of the rafters, twenty-five feet in length, were driven into the earth, "the ground being of a moorish nature," leaving only four feet exposed, "which were fain to be cut even with the ground, because they could not be plucked out." The houses stood apart from each other like cottages in a village, and were thatched with straw, which was the cause of many fires, one occurring two years after the great storm, in which nearly the whole of the remaining houses were consumed; and so did the citizens continue to rebuild their habitations after each successive fire, until 1245, when it was ordained that for the future they should be covered with tiles or slates, instead of straw, in the chief streets, "especially those close together, which were but few in number, for in Cheapside was a void place called Crown Field, from the Crown Inn which stood at the end of it." This field was at the end of Soper's Lane, by Bucklersbury, and upon it were erected stages for spectators of pageants. It was sold, 2 Ed. IV., to Sir Richard Cholmley, but does not appear to have been utilized immediately for building purposes, as we hear it spoken of in the time of Henry VII.
The curfew bell was tolled from the tower of St. Mary, and on the top lanterns were suspended and lighted at night, "whereby travellers to the City might have the better sight thereof, and not miss their ways."
For the supply of water there was a great standard or conduit at the east end, where the Poultry commences, and a smaller one opposite Old Change, by Paul's Gate, and opposite Wood Street stood one of the Eleanor Crosses, erected in 1290, which having become decayed by time, was re-edified by John Hatherley, Lord Mayor, who added to it a fountain. These conduits were the frequent scenes of punishments for misdeeds and executions. Wat Tyler beheaded Sheriff Lyon at the western standard, and there Jack Cade chopped off the head of Lord Say; there also Stapleton, Bishop of Exeter, and treasurer to Edward II., was beheaded in 1326 "by the burgesses of London." In the same localities also was the pillory erected, where Prynne, Burton, and Bastwick, had their ears lopped off, and there Defoe and a multitude of other less known defenders of public rights and freedom of conscience have been exposed, sometimes to the derision, at others to the sympathy, of the mob.
In the Plantagenet and Tudor eras Cheapside had assumed a different and more street-like aspect. Continuous lines of houses, with gables forming a vandyke sky line, with crossed timberings and latticed windows, ran down each side, with the steeple of St. Mary-le-Bow, which had fallen in 1271, and "slain many people, men, women, and children," and been restored gradually until the finishing stone was placed in 1469, standing proudly in the centre of the southern line. At the eastern end, between Laurence Lane and a house, called the "cage," was West Chepe Market, the goods being exposed for sale on stalls, which were let at 13s. 4d. the standing, causing much bickering between the street-sellers and the shopkeepers, in front of whose doors they stood, and whose goods were often seized and burnt at the standards for deficiencies in weight, or for inferiority in quality. The Eleanor Cross, which had been rebuilt in 1441, and the eastern and the western conduits still gave forth their supplies of water. The appearance of the cross is indicated in an old print of the procession of Edward VI. to his coronation in 1547; and again, with one of the conduits, in La Serre's view of Cheapside, with the procession of Catharine de Medicis, temp. Charles I. The shops were open in front like modern butchers' shops, and the goods exposed for sale on bunks. Lydgate, in his "Lackpenny" ballad, thus speaks of them: —
"Then to the Chepe I gan me drawn,
Where much people I saw for to stand,
One offered me velvet, silk, and lawn,
Another he taketh me by the hand,