With this cursory glance at the work of the great historian of the district, we close our chapter on the subjects suggested by the “Old Market-place.” The sketches have been necessarily superficial, but they afford proof that its chronicles include a variety of matter and incident that may interest almost every class of mind.
CHAPTER V.
guildhall.
The Guildhall.—Visit to its dungeons.—Bilney.—St. Barbara’s chapel.—Legend of St. Barbara.—Assize court.—Old document.—Trial by Jury.—Council chamber.—Old record room.—Guilds.—St. George’s company.—History of St. George.—Legend of St. Margaret.
Our rambles have now brought us to the threshold of that quaint, but beautiful old “studwork” chamber, the guildhall; the seat of civic honour, power, and glory, with its many appendages of courts and cells, the witnesses of those multiplied alternations of tragedy, comedy, and melodrama, that may be looked for to have been enacted during centuries, beneath a roof covering a council chamber, an assize court, and a prison. Once again, we avow that we aim not to be complete topographers, or guides to all the strange old carvings, and grotesque remains of ancient sculpture, that may be found in such rich abundance around the pathways of a venerable city, neither do we profess to furnish all the historic details
that may be gleaned concerning these relics of antiquity; are they not chronicled elsewhere, in many mighty tomes, readable and unreadable, in “guides,” and “tours,” and manifold “directories?” We look and think, and odd associations weave our thinkings sometimes, perhaps, into a queer mottled garb, though we would solemnly aver the woof through which the shuttle of our fancy plays is every fibre of it truth.
Such a preface is needed to our sketch of this fine old ornament of the city’s market-place, lest disappointment should attend the hopes of the inquisitive investigator of sights and relics.
The guildhall, once like the municipal body it represents, was but a tiny little thing compared with what it since has grown, and when bailiffs and burgesses were the only distinctive titles and offices, a simple chamber thatched, and commonly used to collect the market dues, sufficed for the seat of civic government; but when, in the reign of the third Henry, the citizens received from him a charter for a mayor and sheriffs, they took off the thatched roof of their little toll-booth, and built upon it, and round about it, spacious rooms and courts, to accommodate and do honour to their newly acquired municipal dignitaries; for which purpose a warrant was obtained, to press all carpenters, builders, and bricklayers, into active service, from eight o’clock in the morning until
eight o’clock at night, as long as occasion might require; and by such compulsory process, the design was completed some fifty years from the date of its commencement. The tower, wherein was the treasury, fell down in Bluff King Harry’s reign, whose matrimonial exploits have given him notoriety, in addition to the grand event of history, the Reformation, with which they bore so intimate a connection. Decay, renovation, change, and reformation, have been so busy with this seat of government, from the era of its infancy until the present time, that no small degree of ingenuity must be needed to unravel the twistings and turnings, and comprehend the inharmonious groupings that have sprung up about it, the divers offsprings of various ages, that mark the progress and growth of the municipal constitution.
Without doubt, the first claim to antiquity is justly assigned to the lower dungeons and cells, some of which still serve as lock ups for offenders awaiting magisterial examination; and a remarkably unpleasant situation must the individual find himself in, who is there for ever so brief a space in “durance vile;” the convicted transgressor certainly makes an exchange for the better, when he reaches his ultimate destination, the city prison cell; dark, damp, underground coal-cellars, may be deemed fair illustrations of the accommodation there offered to those whom the “law deems innocent”, as it professes to
do all unconvicted persons. One degree darker, and more horrible, are the dungeons, which receive no light whatever, save from a jet of gas without the gratings of the doors; into these refractory guests are stowed, that their rebellious sounds may not disturb the ears of any passers-by above ground.