It is, however, generally thought that the tower, as we see it, was built under the direction of Sir John Spencer, the wealthy merchant, afterwards the purchaser of Crosby Hall, who bought this place from Thomas Lord Wentworth in 1570. Eleven years afterwards Queen Elizabeth visited him here, and towards the end of the century he made great alterations in the building. Two of the rooms attached to Canonbury Tower are finely panelled from floor to ceiling; the very handsome carved chimney-piece in the upper room bears the arms of Sir John Spencer. Canonbury House is now occupied by a Constitutional Club. Parts of the building have been modernized of late years, but the panelled rooms are still much in their original state. The pretty strip of garden at the back contains fruit-trees which Goldsmith may have seen, when he lodged here in the summer of 1767.
We must not forget that the original building occupied a considerable part of Canonbury Place. We have evidence of this in Prior Bolton’s rebus at No. 6; and traces of Sir John Spencer’s work are to be seen in this and the adjoining houses, where there are no less than five richly-stuccoed ceilings, two of them with the date 1599. Here also, inside the entrance, are the arms[66] of Sir Walter Dennys, carved in oak. They were formerly over a fireplace, and when moved to their present position, many years ago, the following inscription was placed underneath:
‘These were the arms of Sir Walter Dennys of Gloucestershire, who was made a Knight by bathing at the creation of Arthur, Prince of Wales in Nov. 1489, and died Sept. 1, 21 Henry VII., and was buried at the church of Olviston in Gloucestershire. He married Margaret, daughter of Sir Rich Weston, Knt., to which family Canonbury House formerly belonged. The carving is therefore 280 years old.’
The latter part of the inscription is clearly erroneous, as the manor-house was not in lay hands till after the dissolution. Mr. Nelson thought that these arms were placed here by some descendant of the Dennys or Weston family, who might afterwards have lived at Canonbury—perhaps one of the Comptons, Joan, a daughter of Sir Walter, having married into that family. The Comptons did not come into possession till 1610, when William, the second lord, succeeded Sir John Spencer, having married Elizabeth, his daughter and sole heiress. I need hardly say that they were the direct ancestors of the present Marquis of Northampton, who still owns the property.
A famous galleried inn, the Old Bell,[67] Holborn, now almost unique of its kind, has, imbedded in the front, the sculptured arms of Fowler of Islington, namely, azure, on a chevron argent, between three herons or, as many crosses formée gules. They are surmounted by an esquire’s helmet, with a crest, which seems to be an eagle’s head with a sprig of some sort in its beak. The first man of this family who made any mark was Thomas Fowler, lord of the manor of Bernersbury[68] or Barnsbury, Islington, in 1548. From him descended Sir Thomas Fowler, knight, Deputy Lieutenant of the county of Middlesex, and apparently one of the jurors at the trial of Sir Walter Raleigh, at Winchester, in 1603. If the tradition of Sir Walter’s residence at Islington is true, they must have lived within a stone’s throw of each other at one time. Before being knighted, Thomas Fowler had married Jane, daughter of Gregory Charlet, citizen and tallow-chandler, who bore him two sons. His second wife, to whom he was married at St. James’s Church, Clerkenwell, on March 17, 1604, was Mary, widow of Sir John Spencer, of Althorp—not to be confused with his neighbour the rich merchant of Crosby Place and Canonbury, who lived on till 1609. His elder son, also Thomas, was made a baronet, but the title died out with him in 1656.
The Fowlers dwelt in a house in Cross Street, Islington, a little beyond the church, which still existed a generation ago. The ceiling of a room on the first-floor was decorated with the arms and initials of Queen Elizabeth, also the initials f t i. At the end of the garden, which had been of considerable extent, there was a small brick building,[69] intended, perhaps, for a summer-house or porter’s lodge. It had on the west side, cut in stone, the Fowler arms, bearing an esquire’s helmet, apparently similar in all respects to those I have described, except that no mention is made of a crest. In another part of the building were the arms of Sir Thomas Fowler the younger, with his initials and the date 1655. They were distinguished by having an escutcheon charged with a sinister hand, couped at the wrist—the arms of Ulster and ensign of baronetcy. It is curious that the daughter and heiress of this Sir Thomas Fowler married a Fisher, to whom descended the manor of Barnsbury, and that the first Fowler who settled in Islington had married a Herne or Heron. The arms of that family appeared in a window of the old house in Cross Street.
When visiting the Guildhall Museum, not long since, I was reminded of another Islington family, not distinguished, but still perhaps worthy of mention. A stone tablet, said to be from an old house in Upper Street, Islington, has on it the inscription: nri rvffords bvildings 1688, and a similar inscription is still to be seen on No. 1a, Compton Street, Clerkenwell. The fact is, there were two groups of houses thus named, both of which were built by Captain Nicholas Rufford, who was churchwarden at Islington in 1690, and died in 1711, aged seventy-one. Nelson mentions inscriptions to him and several of his family in the churchyard. In the Islington Rufford’s Buildings Dr. W. Berriman lived for some years. He was a famous divine, and became Fellow of Eton College. His death took place in 1749-50.
Some pages back, in my description of the sign of the Two Negroes’ Heads, I had occasion to allude to Clare Market. Before that neighbourhood is quite transformed, I should like to say a few words about it and its connection with the Holles family. An old coat of arms and an old inscription will serve as pegs on which to hang my story. In Seymour’s ‘Survey,’ 1754 (written by John Mottley), we are told that Clement’s Inn[70]—the fancied scene of Shallow’s exploits—descended to the Earls of Clare from their ancestor Sir William Holles, or Hollis—as he spells it—Lord Mayor of London in 1539. The name of John, Baron Holles of Houghton, appears as a parishioner of St. Clement Danes in the rate-book for the year 1617. In 1624 he was created Earl of Clare. There seems to have been no concealment about the fact that his titles were bought: the first, obtained through the influence of the Duke of Buckingham, had cost him no less a sum than £10,000; for the second he is said to have paid an additional £5,000. It is curious that this latter dignity had some years before been refused to Robert Rich, afterwards created Earl of Warwick, who had set his heart on it (and is said to have also paid money for his earldom), the Crown lawyers having solemnly declared that it was a title peculiar to the Royal Family, and not to be borne by a subject. The princely mansion of John Holles,[71] second Earl, was at the end of Clare Court, or Clare House Court, on the east side of Drury Lane, next to Blackmore Street. In Hatton’s time (1708) it had been turned into tenements. This second Earl founded Clare Market,[72] which stands, or stood, on what was previously called Clement’s Inn Fields. License had already been granted by Charles I. to Thomas York in 1640, and to the antiquary Gervase Holles[73] in 1642, to make streets and to erect houses on this property. One of the provisions in the Act[74] passed in 1657, ‘for the Preventing of the Multiplicity of Buildings in and about the Suburbs of London,’ expressly states that John, Earl of Clare, having erected several new buildings and improved the property, ‘from henceforth for ever hereafter, on every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, in every week, there shall be a common open and free market, held in Clement’s Inn Fields aforesaid, where the said buildings useful for a market are erected, and in the places near unto adjoining, and to enjoy all liberties, customs and emoluments incident usually and of right belonging and appertaining to markets.’ It seems, from the ‘Harleian Miscellany,’ that the City authorities at one time began a lawsuit laying claim to this property, but they failed in their attempt. The market was at first usually called the New Market.
The streets in this neighbourhood are several of them named after the family of the former possessors: as Clare Street, where, on Saturdays, there is still something like a market; Denzell Street, Holles Street, Houghton Street, Vere Street, and Gilbert Street and Passage. On a squalid house at the corner of this narrow opening, and facing the space lately cleared in what was the market, I have observed with interest a fine stone bas-relief of the Holles arms, surmounted by an earl’s coronet, namely, ermine, two piles in point sable, and the motto ‘Spes audaces adjuvat,’ the supporters being a lion and that nondescript beast, a heraldic tiger, which is supposed to have a dragon’s head. The date beneath is 1659, showing that they were put up for John Holles, second Earl of Clare, no doubt on a building in the market-place. Another curious relic is to be seen let into the wall of a public-house called the Royal Yacht, at the corner of Denzell Street and Stanhope Street. This is a stone tablet, the inscription on which is here given, and which speaks for itself.
