In the reign of Queen Elizabeth there was a White Hart Inn in the Strand, mentioned in a copy of an indenture of lease, from the Earl of Bedford to Sir William Cecil (7th September 1570) of a portion of pasture in Covent Garden, “beinge thereby devyeded from certayne gardens belonginge to the Inne called the Whyte Heart, and other Tenements scituate in the high streate of Westm’ comunly called the Stronde.” It is not improbable that this inn gave its name to Hart Street and White Hart Yard, in that neighbourhood.
There was another inn of this name in Whitechapel, connected with the name of a rather curious character, Mrs Mapp, the female bone-setter. “On Friday, several persons who had the misfortune of lameness, crowded to the White Hart Inn in Whitechapel, on hearing Mrs Mapp, the famous bonesetter, was there. Some of them were admitted to her, and were relieved as they apprehended. But a gentleman who happened to come by declared Mrs Mapp was at Epsom, on which the woman thought proper to move off.”[142] The genuine Mrs Sarah Mapp was a female bone-setter, or “shape mistress,” the daughter of a bonesetter of Hindon, Wilts. Her maiden name was Wallis. It appears that she made some successful cures before Sir Hans Sloane, in the Grecian Coffee-house. For a time she was in affluent circumstances, kept a carriage and four, had a plate of ten guineas run for at the Epsom races, where she lived, frequented theatres, and was quite the lion of a season. Ballads were made upon her, songs were introduced on the stage, in which the “Doctress of Epsom” was exalted to the tune of Derry Down; in short, she was called the “Wonder of the Age.” But, alas! the year after all this éclat, we read in the same Grub Street Journal, that had recorded all her greatness—“December 22, 1737. Died last week at her lodgings, near the Seven Dialls, the much-talked of Mrs Mapp, the bonesetter, so miserably poor, that the parish was obliged to bury her.” Sic transit gloria mundi!
Lastly, we must mention the White Hart, at Scole, in Norfolk, as most of all bearing upon our subject, for that inn had certainly the most extensive and expensive sign ever produced. It is mentioned by Sir Thomas Brown, March 4, 16634—“About three miles further, I came to Scoale, where is a very handsome inne, and the noblest sighnepost in England, about and upon which are carved a great many stories as of Charon and Cerberus, Actæon and Diana, and many others; the signe itself is a White Hart, which hanges downe carved in a stately wreath.” A century later, it is again mentioned. Speaking of Osmundestone, or Scole, Blomefield says—“Here are two very good inns for the entertainment of travellers. The White Hart is much noted in these parts, being called by way of distinction Scole Inn; the house is a large brick building adorned with imagery and carved work in several places, as big as the life; it was built in 1655 by James Peck, Esq., whose arms impaling his wife’s are over the porch door. The sign is very large, beautified all over with a great number of images of large stature carved in wood, and was the work of Fairchild; the arms about it are those of the chief towns and gentlemen in the county.” “There was lately a very round large bed, big enough to hold 15 or 20 couples, in imitation (I suppose) of the remarkable great bed at Ware. The house was in all things accommodated at first for large business; but the road not supporting it, it is much in decay at present.” A correspondent in Notes and Queries says:—“I think the sign was not taken down till after 1795, as I have a recollection of having passed under it when a boy, in going from Norwich to Ipswich.” We obtain full details of this wonderful erection from an engraving made in 1740, entitled:—
“The North East side of ye sign of ye White Heart at Schoale Inn in Norfolk, built in the year 1655 by James Peck, a merchant of Norwich, which cost £1057. Humbly Dedicated to James Betts, Gent., by his most obt servt, Harwin Martin.”
The sign passed over the road, resting on one side on a pier of brickwork, and joined to the house on the other; its height was sufficient to allow carriages to pass beneath. Its ornamentation was divided into compartments, which contained the following subjects according to the numbers in the engraving:—1. Jonah coming out of the fish’s mouth. 2. A Lion supporting the arms of Great Yarmouth. 3. A Bacchus. 4. The arms of Lindley. 5. The arms of Hobart. 6. A Shepherd playing on his pipe. 7. An Angel supporting the arms of Mr Peck’s lady. 8. An Angel supporting the arms of Mr Peck. 9. A White Hart [the sign itself] with this motto,—“Implentur veteris Bacchi pinguisque ferinæ. Anno dom. 1655.” 10. The arms of the Earl of Yarmouth. 11. The arms of the Duke of Norfolk. 12. Neptune on a Dolphin. 13. A Lion supporting the arms of Norwich. 14. Charon carrying a reputed Witch to Hades. 15. Cerberus. 16. A Huntsman. 17. Actæon [addressing his dogs with the words “Actæon ego sum, dominum cognoscite vestrum.”] 18. A White Hart couchant [underneath, the name of the maker of the sign, Johannes Fairchild, struxit.] 19. Prudence. 20. Fortitude. 21. Temperance. 22. Justice. 23. Diana. 24. Time devouring an infant [underneath, “Tempus Edax rerum.”] 25. An Astronomer, who is seated on a “circumferenter, and by some chymical preparations is so affected that in fine weather he faces that quarter from which it is about to come.” There is a ballad on this sign in “Songs and other Poems,” by Alexander Brome, Gent. London, 1661, p. 123.
This herd of white harts has led us over a large tract of ground, but we will now return to other royal badges, and note the Hawk and Buckle, which occurs in Wrenbury, Nantwich, Cheshire; Etwall, Derby; and various other places. This is simply a popular rendering of the Falcon and the Fetterlock, one of the badges of the house of York. The Hawk and Buck, which appears to be only another version of the last corruption, occurs at Pearsly Sutton Street, St Helens, Lancashire; the Falcon and Horse-shoe, a sign in Poplar in the seventeenth century, (see [Trades’ Tokens],) may have had the same origin, whilst the Bull and Stirrup, in Upper Northgate, Chester, probably comes from the Bull and Fetterlock, another combination of badges of the house of York.
From this family are also derived the [Blue Boar] and the White Boar. One of the badges of Richard, Duke of York, father of Edward IV., was “a blewe Bore with his tuskis and his cleis and his membres of gold.”[143] The heraldic origin of this sign, of which there are still innumerable instances all over England, is now so completely lost sight of, that in many places it passes under the ignoble appellation of the Blue Pig.
The White Boar was the popular sign in Richard the Third’s time, that king’s cognizance being a boar passant argent, whence the rhyme which cost William Collingborne his life:—
“The Cat, the Rat, and Lovell our Dogge,
Rulen all England vnder an Hogge.”[144]
The fondness of Richard for this badge appears from his wardrobe accounts for the year 1483, one of which contains a charge “for 8000 bores made and wrought upon fustian,” and 5000 more are mentioned shortly afterwards. He also established a herald of arms called Blanc Sanglier, and it was this trusty squire who carried his master’s mangled body from Bosworth battle-field to Leicester.