Rahere’s establishment was originally of considerable extent; it included the Close of St. Bartholomew, le Fermery, le Dorter, le Feuter, les Cloysters, les Galleries, le Hall, le Kitchen, le Buttery, le Pantry, le Olde Kitchen, le Woodhouse, le Garner, and le Prior’s Stable, the Prior’s House and Mulberry Garden. It was entirely enclosed with walls; the North Wall ran from Smithfield, along the south side of Long Lane to the East Wall near Aldersgate Street; and the West Wall from the south-west corner of Long Lane, along Smithfield to the Gate House, now the principal entrance to Bartholomew Close. The South Wall commenced at this Gate, ran east to Aldersgate Street, forming an angle, and joined the corner of the Eastern Wall, which ran parallel with Aldersgate Street.
How little of the original building now remains. At the time of its suppression by Henry VIII. it was nearly demolished for the value of the materials. Fortunately Rahere did not see its destruction, or even imagine that the Faith he had laboured so hard to spread would one day be superseded by a pure one; and all the pomp and ceremony of his ritual by a simple, reformed service.
For we are told that the Prior, with his officers and satellites waving censers, cross, relique, and banners, issued forth from the gate to offer the hospitality of his poor house to the King and his nobles when they attended the jousts and tournaments, so frequently held in the open space of Smithfield.
In Edward III.’s reign there was a tournament which lasted several days, and the King with his mistress, Alice Piers, was present.
In 1396, Richard II. on his marriage held a tournament, when sixty knights, accompanied by ladies, were to tilt for two days at Michaelmas. Heralds were sent through England, Scotland, France, Hainault, Germany, and Flanders. It began at three o’clock on Sunday after Michaelmas Day; sixty horses, richly caparisoned and surmounted by an Esquire of honour, proceeded in great state from the Tower; sixty ladies of rank, richly dressed, followed on their palfreys, and leading by a silver chain a Knight completely armed for tilting; minstrels and trumpets accompanied them. The Queen and her fair train received them. They tilted at each other till dark, then partook of a sumptuous banquet; and dancing was kept up till they were all fatigued. During the next two days the warlike sport was continued; the nights being spent in the same manner as before. The pomp and state must have been of the most magnificent description. All this took place just outside the Priory, on the spot that Rahere had been at so much trouble to level and fill up when Henry I. gave it him, and which was afterwards called “Smoothfield,” from his success in levelling it, and subsequently “Smithfield,” from the smith’s furnace used here.
We now introduce one of the celebrated executions that took place in Edward I. reign. Wallace was betrayed and arrested, brought to London, dragged in chains to Smithfield, hung on the gallows (which stood under the elms on the spot now called Cow Lane), taken down before he was dead, disembowelled, his head struck off by the executioner, and his body quartered and distributed over the kingdom. This happened in 1305.
We pass on to a scene enacted after the Reformation, in Queen Mary’s reign. An attempt was made to restore the Catholic religion here, by presenting the church to the Black Friars. When the great bell of St. Bartholomew’s tolled the crowd separated, the military cleared the way, and the sheriff, riding up to the gate of the Priory, claimed the bodies of those condemned in the Chapter-house; the spiritual delivering them to the sheriff, the representative of the temporal power, who delivered them to the executioner, when they were bound to that cursed post cased with iron to be devoured in the ruthless flames. The spot is now marked by a memorial nearly opposite the gateway which forms the entrance to the Church, and which still retains much of the ancient beauty of its arch; a representation of which forms the title page of this book.
