‘Thence to Islington, at Lion,
Where a juggling, I did spy one,
Nimble with his mates consorting,
Mixing cheating with his sporting.’
There is a curious allusion in Pepys’ ‘Diary,’ January 21, 1667-8: ‘It seems, on Thursday last, he (Joyce) went sober and quiet, and behind one of the inns, the White Lion, did throw himself into a pond.’[42] This Anthony Joyce was cousin to Pepys; he had lost money by the Great Fire, and afterwards kept the Three Stags, Holborn Conduit. He was got out of the pond before life was extinct, but died soon afterwards. Pepys was afraid that his estate would be taken from his widow and children, on the ground that he had committed suicide, the legal consequences of which might have been forfeiture of goods and chattels to the Crown; but the coroner’s jury returned a verdict that he had died of a fever. A trade-token gives the name of the landlord at the time:
O. christopher.bvsbee.at = A lion passant.
R. whit.lion.in.islington. = his.half.peny. 1668.
Busby’s Folly, a house of entertainment, marked in the old maps of Clerkenwell, and of which there is an engraving in a rare volume called ‘Views of divers Noted Places near London,’ 1731,[43] possibly, as Burn suggests, originated with the issuer of this token. T. Cromwell, in his ‘History of Clerkenwell,’ published in 1828, gives us the following information: ‘The White Lion, now a public-house and wine-vaults, at the south-east corner of the street of the same name, was originally an inn much frequented by cattle-drovers and others connected with the trade of Smithfield. It then comprised the two dwelling-houses adjoining, and extended also in the opposite or northward direction, until the latter portion was pulled down to make an opening to White Lion Row, as it was then called, being that part of the existing White Lion Street which was built between 1770 and 1780. Where Mr. Becket’s shop now is was the gateway of the inn-yard, over which a lion rampant, executed in relief and painted white, was inserted in the front of the building.’ Nelson tells us that the carriage-way was immediately under the lion, and so continued till, the trade of the inn declining, the building was converted into a private house. The White Lion, one would think, must first have been used as a sign by some retainer of the Howards, who, by marriage with Lady Margaret Mowbray, inherited, as a badge, the blanch lion of the Mowbray family.
From the lion to the unicorn seems a natural transition. A stone bas-relief of the latter animal supporting a shield was formerly to be seen in Cheapside, two doors east of the Chained Swan, and opposite to Wood Street; but disappeared some years ago, when the house to which it belonged was rebuilt. Peter Cunningham, usually so accurate, described it as a Nag’s Head. It seems that Roger Harris (not Sir Roger Harrison, as stated by Archer), who died in the year 1633, had owned the property, and by will endowed the church of St. Michael’s, Crooked Lane, with a rent-charge on it of £2 12s. for the purchase of bread for the poor, which was to be distributed every Sunday in the form of one penny loaf for each one of twelve poor men or widows in the parish. This amount is still paid annually by the tenant of No. 39, Cheapside, which stands on the site of the Unicorn; under the present arrangement, it is administered by the trustees of the London Parochial Charities. The sign was of old standing. In Machyn’s ‘Diary’ the entry for 1 May, 1561, records the fact that ‘at afternoone dyd Mastyr Godderyke’s sune the goldsmyth go hup into hys father’s gylding house, toke a bowe-strynge and hanged ymselff at the syne of the Unycorne, in Chepsyd.’[44]
The unicorn first became a supporter of the royal arms in James I.’s time, when it displaced the red dragon of Wales, introduced by Henry VII. Unicorns had been supporters of the Scottish royal arms for about a century before the union of the two crowns. A representation of the unicorn often appeared in City shows. Cooke, in his ‘City Gallant,’ 1599, makes a City apprentice exclaim: ‘By this light I doe not thinke but to be Lord Mayor of London before I die, and have three pageants carried before me, besides a ship and an unicorn.’ This fabulous creature should have the tail of a lion, the legs of a buck or goat, the head and body of a horse, and a single twisted horn in the middle of its forehead. It was used as a sign by chemists and goldsmiths: by the former, because the horn was considered an antidote to all poisons; by the latter, on account of the immense value put upon it. ‘Andrea Racci, a Florentine physician, relates that it had been sold by the apothecaries at £24 per ounce, when the current value of the same quantity of gold was only £2 3s. 6d.’ (Larwood and Hotten, p. 160.) The horn thus esteemed was probably narwhal’s horn. The arms of the Apothecaries’ Company are supported by unicorns.
