The Three Horseshoes are not uncommon; and the single shoe may be met with in many combinations, arising from the old belief in its lucky influences: thus the Horse and Horseshoe was the sign of William Warden, at Dover, in the seventeenth century, as appears from his token. The Sun and Horseshoe is still a public-house sign in Great Tichfield Street, and the Magpie and Horseshoe may be seen carved in wood in Fetterlane; the magpie is perched within the horseshoe, a bunch of grapes being suspended from it. The Horns and Horseshoe is represented on the token of William Grainge in Gutterlane, 1666,—a horseshoe within a pair of antlers. The Lion and Horseshoe appears in the following advertisement of a shooting match:—
“ON Friday the 16th of this instant, at two in the afternoon, will be a plate to be (sic) shot for, at twenty-five guineas value, in the Artillerie Ground near Moorfields. No gun to exceed four feet and a half in the barrel, the distance to be 200 yards, and but one shot a piece, the nearest the centre to win. No person that shoots to be less than one guinea, but as many more as he pleases to compleat the sum. The money to be put in the hands of Mr Jones, at the Lion and Horseshoe Tavern, or Mr Turog, gunsmith in the Minories. Note, that if any gentleman has a mind to shoot for the whole, there is a person will shoot with him for it, being left out by mistake in our last.”[248]
The Hoop and Horseshoe on Towerhill, was formerly called the Horseshoe. This, like every old tavern, has its murder to record:—
“The last week one Colonel John Scott took an occasion to kill one John Buttler, a hackney coachman, at the Horse Shoe Tavern on Tower Hill, without any other provocation ’tis said, but refusing to carry him and another gentleman pertaining to the law, from thence to Temple Bar for 1s. 6d. Amongst the many pranks that he hath played in other countries ’tis believed this is one of the very worst. He is a very great vindicator of the Salamanca Doctor. He is a lusty, tall man, squint eyed, thin faced, wears a peruke sometimes and has a very h—— look. All good people would do well if they can to apprehend him that he may be brought to justice.”[249]
The Horseshoe and Crown is named in the following handbill, which is too characteristic to curtail:—
“Daughter of a Seventh daughter.
Removed to the sign of the Horseshoe and Crown in Castle Street, near the 7 Dials in St Giles.Liveth a Gentlewoman, the Daughter of a Seventh Daughter, who far exceeds all her sex, her business being very great amongst the quality, has now thought fit to make herself known to the benefit of the Publick.
She resolves these questions following:—As to Life whether happy or unhappy? the best time of it past or to come? Servants or lodgers if honest or not? To marry the person desir’d or who they shall marry and when? A Friend if real or not? a Woman with child or not, or ever likely to have any! A friend absent dead or alive, if alive when return? Journey by Land or voyages by Sea, the Success thereof. Lawsuits, which shall gain the better? She also Interprets Dreams. These and all other lawful questions which for brevity sake are omitted, she fully resolves.
Her hours are from 7 in the Morning till 12, and from 1 till 8 at Night.”[250]
These quack “gentlewomen” were as much the order of that day as the broken-down clergymen who advertise medicines for nervous and rheumatic complaints are in our own time. Heywood, in his play of “the Wise Woman of Hogsden,” enumerates the following occupations as their perquisites:—
“Let me see how many trades have I to live by: First, I am a wise woman and a fortuneteller, and under that I deale in physick and fore-speaking, in palmestry and things lost. Next I undertake to cure madd folks; Then I keepe gentlewomen lodgers, to furnish such chambers as I let out by the night; Then I am provided for bringing young wenches to bed; and for a need you see I can play the matchmaker.”
Generally they proclaimed themselves the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, a relationship that is still thought to be accompanied by powers not vouchsafed to ordinary mortals. This belief in the virtue of the number 7 doubtless originated from the Old Testament, where that number seems in greater favour than all others. The books of Moses are full of references to it; the creation of the world in 7 days, sevenfold vengeance on whosoever slayeth Cain; Noah had to take 7 males and females of every clean beast, 7 males and females of every fowl of the air, for in 7 days it would begin to rain; the ark rested in the 7th month, &c., &c. From this the middle ages borrowed their predilection for this number, and its cabalistic power.[251]