At the castles of the nobility the weary traveller formerly found food, shelter, and good “herborow;” the lower hall was always open to the adventurer, the tramp, the minstrel, and the pilgrim; the upper hall to the nobleman, the squire, the wealthy abbot, and the fair ladies. It was natural, then, that the Castle should at an early period have been adopted as a sign of “good entertainment for man and beast.” Such a sign became historical in the Wars of the Roses; for the Duke of Somerset, who had been warned to “shun castles,” was killed by Richard Plantagenet, at an ale-house, the sign of the Castle.
“For underneath an ale-house’ paltry sign,
The Castle in Saint-Albans, Somerset
Hath made the Wizard famous in his death.”
2 Henry VI., ac. v., sc. 2.
According to Hatton,[687] in 1708, the Castle Tavern in Fleet Street had the largest sign in London; next to it came the White Hart Inn, on the east side of the Borough, in Southwark.
In the reign of George I., the Castle, near Covent Garden, was a famous eating-house, kept by John Pierce, the Soyer of his day. Here the gallant feat was performed of a young blood taking one of the shoes from the foot of a noted toast, filling it with wine, and drinking her health, after which it was consigned to the cook, who prepared from it an excellent ragout, which was eaten with great relish by the lady’s admirers.
The Castle and Falcon (probably a combination of two signs, as there is a Falcon Court close by,) is the sign of an inn in Aldersgate, which house, or one on its site, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, was occupied by John Day, the most considerable printer and publisher of his time. In after years the house became a famous coaching inn, and its reputation spread to all parts of England, whence we meet, at present, with Castles and Falcons in various towns, as at Birmingham, Chester, &c. Although we incline to the opinion that the sign arose from a combination, still it is worthy of remark, that the crest of Queen Catherine Parr was a crowned falcon, perched on a castle, and of course represented as large as the castle.
The Three Old Castles occurs at Mandeville, near Somerton; the Castle and Banner at Hunny Hill, Carisbrooke, originating in the banner floating from the castle turret, when the Lord of the Manor was residing there. Castles in the Air is to be seen at Lower Quay, Fareham; the origin seems to be an allusion to the ordinary sign swinging in mid-air—a piece of humour on the part of the landlord. The Castle and Wheelbarrow, at Rouse Lench, was, doubtless, another innkeeper’s notion of suggestive humour—but he was a dull wit.
Perhaps the most patriarchal of all signs is the Chequers, which may be seen even on houses in exhumed Pompeii. On that of Hercules, for instance, at the corner of the Strada Fullonica, they are painted lozenge-wise, red, white, and yellow, and on various other houses in that ancient city, similar decorations may still be observed. Originally it is said to have indicated that draughts and backgammon were played within. Brand, in his “Popular Antiquities,” ignorant of any existence of the sign in so remote a period as that mentioned, says that it represented the coat of arms of the Earls of Warenne and Surrey, who bore checqui or and azure, and in the reign of Edward IV., possessed the privilege of licensing ale-houses. A more plausible explanation, and one which is not set aside by the existence of the sign in Pompeii, is that given by Dr Lardner:—
“During the middle ages, it was usual for merchants, accountants, and judges, who arranged matters of revenue, to appear on a covered banc, so called from an old Saxon word, meaning a seat, (hence our Bank.) Before them was placed a flat surface, divided by parallel white lines, into perpendicular columns; these again divided transversely by lines crossing the former, so as to separate each column into squares. This table was called an Exchequer, from its resemblance to a chess-board, and the calculations were made by counters placed on its several divisions, (something after the manner of the Roman abacus.) A money-changer’s office was generally indicated by a sign of the chequered board suspended. This sign afterwards came to indicate an inn or house of entertainment, probably from the circumstance of the innkeeper also following the trade of money-changer—a coincidence still very common in seaport towns.”[688]
Chaucer’s Merry Pilgrims put up in Canterbury, at the sign of the “Checker of the Hope,” (i.e. the Chequers on the Hoop.)