“Here lieth graven vnder this stone,
Thomas Knowles, both flesh and bone;
Grocer and alderman, yeares fortie,
Shiriffe, and twice maior truly.
And for he should not lie alone,
Here lieth with him his good wife Joan.
They were togither sixtie yeare,
And ninteene children they had in feere,” etc.
Thomas Holland, mercer, was there buried 1456; Thomas Windent, mercer, alderman, and Katherine his wife; Thomas Hind, mercer, 1528; he was a benefactor to this church, to Aldermarie church, and to Bow; Hugh Acton, merchant-tailor, buried 1520; he gave thirty-six pounds to the repairing of the steeple of this church. Simon Street, grocer, lieth in the church wall toward the south; his arms be three colts, and his epitaph thus:
“Such as I am, such shall you be,
Grocer of London sometime was I,
The king’s wayer more then yeares twentie,
Simon Streete called in my place,
And good fellowship faine would trace;
Therefore in heaven, everlasting life,
Jesu send me, and Agnes my wife:
Kerlie Merlie, my words were tho,
And Deo gratias I coupled thereto:
I passed to God in the yeare of grace,
A thousand foure hundred it was,” etc.
William Dauntsey, mercer, one of the sheriffs, buried 1542. Henry Collet, mercer, mayor, a great benefactor to this church; the pictures of him, his wife, ten sons, and ten daughters, remain in the glass window on the north side of the church; but the said Henry Collet was buried at Stebunhith. Henry Halton, grocer, one of the sheriffs, deceased 1415; Thomas Spight, merchant-tailor, 1533; and Roger Martin, mercer, mayor, deceased 1573. John Grantham and Nicholas Bull had chantries there.
Next on the south side of Budge row, by the west corner thereof, and on the east side of Cordwainer street, is one other fair church called Aldemarie church, because the same was very old, and elder than any church of St. Marie in the city, till of late years the foundation of a very fair new church was laid there by Henry Keble, grocer, mayor, who deceased 1518, and was there buried in a vault by him prepared, with a fair monument raised over him on the north side the choir, now destroyed and gone: he gave by his testament one thousand pounds towards the building up of that church, and yet not permitted a resting-place for his bones there. Thomas Roman, mayor 1310, had a chantry there. Richard Chawcer,[191] vintner, gave to that church his tenement and tavern, with the appurtenance, in the Royal street, the corner of Kerion lane, and was there buried 1348. John Briton; Ralph Holland, draper, one of the sheriffs, deceased 1452; William Taylor, grocer, mayor, deceased 1483: he discharged that ward of fifteens to be paid by the poor. Thomas Hinde, mercer, buried in St. Anthonies, gave ten fodder of lead to the covering of the middle aisle of this Aldemarie church. Charles Blunt, Lord Montjoy, was buried there about the year 1545; he made or glazed the east window, as appeareth by his arms: his epitaph, made by him in his lifetime, thus:
“Willingly have I fought, and willingly have I found
The fatall end that wrought thither as dutie bound:
Discharged I am of that I ought to my country by honest wound,
My soule departed Christ hath bought, the end of man is ground.”
Sir William Laxton, grocer, mayor, deceased 1556, and Thomas Lodge, grocer, mayor 1583, were buried in the vault of Henry Keble, whose bones were unkindly cast out, and his monument pulled down;[192] in place whereof monuments are set up of the later buried. William Blunt, Lord Mountjoy, buried there 1594, etc.
At the upper end of Hosier lane, toward Westcheape, is the fair parish church of St. Mary Bow. This church, in the reign of William Conqueror, being the first in this city built on arches of stone, was therefore called New Marie church, of St. Marie de Arcubus,[193] or Le Bow, in West Cheaping; as Stratford bridge being the first built (by Matilde the queen, wife to Henry I.) with arches of stone, was called Stratford le Bow; which names to the said church and bridge remaineth till this day. The court of the Arches is kept in this church, and taketh name of the place, not the place of the court; but of what antiquity or continuation that court hath there continued I cannot learn.
This church is of Cordwainer street ward, and for divers accidents happening there, hath been made more famous than any other parish church of the whole city or suburbs. First, we read, that in the year 1090, and the 3rd of William Rufus, by tempest of wind, the roof of the church of St. Marie Bow, in Cheape, was overturned, wherewith some persons were slain, and four of the rafters, of twenty-six feet in length, with such violence were pitched in the ground of the high street, that scantly four feet of them remained above ground, which were fain to be cut even with the ground, because they could not be plucked out (for the city of London was not then paved, and a marish ground).
In the year 1196, William Fitz Osbert, a seditious tailor, took the steeple of Bow, and fortified it with munitions and victuals, but it was assaulted, and William with his accomplices were taken, though not without bloodshed, for he was forced by fire and smoke to forsake the church; and then, by the judges condemned, he was by the heels drawn to the Elms in Smithfield, and there hanged with nine of his fellows; where, because his favourers came not to deliver him, he forsook Mary’s son (as he termed Christ our Saviour), and called upon the devil to help and deliver him. Such was the end of this deceiver, a man of an evil life, a secret murderer, a filthy fornicator, a pollutor of concubines, and (amongst other his detestable facts) a false accuser of his elder brother,[194] who had in his youth brought him up in learning, and done many things for his preferment.