CHAPTER XVI.

LAMBETH PALACE.—ST. SAVIOUR’S—LONDON BRIDGE

n Milton’s day, London Bridge, over the narrowest part of the Thames, was the only bridge that spanned the silent highway between the Tower and Lambeth. The venerable pile of buildings which then, as now, was the chief point of interest on the southern bank, was usually reached by one of the many barges that plied up and down and across from shore to shore. In Milton’s boyhood its gray towers had already marked for three centuries the residence of the Archbishops of Canterbury. It has now been the home of more than fifty primates. The student of English history will find no building, with the exception of the Tower and the Abbey, which brings him so closely into connection with the whole history of England as does Lambeth Palace. It lies low upon the site of an ancient marsh overflowed by the Thames at this, its greatest width, this side of London Bridge. As late as Milton’s boyhood the shore between Lambeth Church and Blackfriars was a haunt of wild fowl and a royal hunting-ground. A grove stood then on the site of the long line of St. Thomas’s Hospital. Lambeth Bridge, so called, was at that time simply a landing-place. As every schoolboy remembers, it was here that on a December night in 1688, Mary of Modena, the fair queen of James II., alighted on her flight from Whitehall, disguised as a washerwoman; under the shelter of the tower of Lambeth she cowered, awaiting the coach that was to rescue her, while in an agony of fear she embraced the parcel of linen which held concealed the infant who was to be known in history as the “Pretender.”

The visitor to Lambeth will find it worth his while to pause a few minutes before presenting his letter of permission to enter the palace, and spend the brief time in Lambeth Church, if only to see the quaint old window of the peddler and his dog, a memorial of the peddler who centuries since gave an almost worthless acre of land to Lambeth, from which it has since drawn large revenues. There is a peal of eight bells in the old gray tower—the music of the bells was one that our forefathers loved apparently more than other folk. “The English are vastly fond of great noises that fill the air,” wrote Hentzner shortly before Milton’s birth, “such as firing of cannon, beating of drums, and ringing of bells. It is common that a number of them who have got a glass in their heads do get up into some belfry, and ring bells for hours together, for the sake of exercise. Hence this country has been called ‘the ringing island.’”

In Milton’s time the buildings of Lambeth were less extensive than they are to-day. Its beautiful, lofty gateway known as “Morton’s,” which was built in 1490, is of red brick with stone trimmings, and has an arched doorway under a large window in the middle portion. It is perhaps the largest and best specimen of the early Tudor work that now remains in England. It is flanked by two massive square towers five stories high. At this gate, from earliest times until recently, a dole of money, bread, and provisions was weekly given to thirty poor parishioners of Lambeth. In earlier times the hospitality that was offered was excessive and encouraged beggary. Stow tells us of the gifts of farthing loaves which amounted to the sum of £500 a year. At present the doles amount to about £200 a year and are given only to well-known persons. In addition to these doles, huge baskets of fragments from the three tables in the long dining-halls sufficed, as Strype tells us, “to fill the bellies of a great number of hungry people that waited at the gate.” Some conception of the size of Cranmer’s establishment may be gathered from the authentic list of his household: “Steward, treasurer, comptroller, gamators, clerk of the kitchen, caterer, clerk of the spicery, bakers, pantlers, yeomen of the horse, ushers, butlers of wine and ale, larderers, squilleries, ushers of the hall, porter, ushers of the chamber, daily waiters in the great chamber, gentlemen ushers, yeomen of the chamber, carver, sewer, cupbearer, grooms of the chamber, marshal groom ushers, almoner, cooks, chandler, butchers, master of the horse, yeomen of the wardrobe, and harbingers.” Over such a rich and splendid household did the Establishment place the man above all others who was to be to England its highest embodiment of the spirit of the young Carpenter of Nazareth. To-day the Archbishop of Canterbury is given two residences, and a salary of £15,000, that he may keep up these establishments; that of the average curate is about £100.

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IN LAMBETH PALACE

From an old print.