“In our street,” says Pepys, “at the Three Tuns Tavern, I find a great hubbub; and what was it but two brothers had fallen out, and one killed the other. And who should they be but the two Fieldings. One whereof, Bazill, was page to my Lady Sandwich, and he hath killed the other, himself being very drunk, and so is sent to Newgate.”[194]
There seems to have been a kind of fatality attached to this sign, for the London Gazette for September 15-18, 1679, relates a murder committed at the Three Tuns, in Chandos Street, and in this same house, Sally Pridden, alias Sally Salisbury, in a fit of jealousy stabbed the Honourable John Finch in 1723. Sally was one of the handsomest “social evils” of that day, and had been nicknamed Salisbury, on account of her likeness to the countess of that name. For her attempt on the life of Finch she was committed to Newgate, where she died the year after, “leaving behind her the character of the most notorious woman that ever infested the hundreds of old Drury.”[195] Her portrait has been painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller.
Sometimes the sign of the One Tun may also be seen. It occurs in the following newspaper item:—
“Last Thursday four highwaymen drinking at the One Tun Tavern near Hungerford Market in the Strand, and falling out about dividing their booty, the Drawer overheard them, sent for a constable, and secured them, and next day they were committed to Newgate.”—Weekly Journal, December 6, 1718.
That these fellows meant mischief is evident from a subsequent article. They had a complete arsenal about them, viz., two blunderbusses, one loaded with fifteen balls, the other with seven, and five pistols loaded with powder and shot.
The Golden Cup, from the form in which it was generally represented, seems to have been derived from the Goldsmiths’ arms, which are quarterly azure, two leopards’ heads or, (whence the mint mark,) and two golden cups covered between two buckles or. It was a sign much fancied by booksellers, as: Abel Jeff’s in the Old Bailey, 1564; Edward Allde, Without Cripplegate, from 1587 until 1600; and John Bartlet the Elder, in St Paul’s Churchyard; whilst the Three Cups was a famous carriers’ inn in Aldersgate in the seventeenth century.
The Ram and Teazel, Queenshead Street, Islington, is a part of the Clothworkers’ arms, which are sable, a chevron ermine between two habicks in chief arg., and a teasel in base or. The crest is a ram statant or on a mount vert.
The Hammer and Crown appears from a trades token to have been the sign of a shop in Gutter Lane, in the seventeenth century. It was a charge from the Blacksmiths’ arms: sable, a chevron between three hammers crowned or. The Lion in the Wood was a tavern of some note a hundred years ago in Salisbury Court, Fleet Street. It seems originally to have been the Woodmongers’ arms, whose crest is a lion issuing from a wood. At the present day it is the sign of a public-house in the same locality, namely, in Wilderness Lane, Dorset Street, Fleet Street.
To these Corporation arms we may add two belonging to companies. During the South Sea mania the South Sea Arms was a favourite sign; in 1718, the very year that Queen Anne had established the company and granted them arms, they appeared as the sign of a tavern near Austin Friars: they are a curious heraldic compound. “Azure, a globe representing the Straights of Magellan and Cape Horn, all proper. On a canton the arms of the United Kingdoms of Great Britain, and in sinister chief two herrings salterwise arg., crowned or.”
The Sol’s Arms, Sol’s Row, Hampstead Road, immortalised by Dickens in “Bleak House,” derives its name from the Sol’s Society, who were a kind of freemasons. They used to hold their meetings at the Queen of Bohemia’s Head, Drury Lane, but on the pulling down of that house the society was dissolved.