At the bottom of Bennet’s-hill stood Paul’s-wharf—a famous landing-place before the Great Fire; the church still bears the name of St. Bennet, Paul’s-wharf. Here Knightrider-street and Carter-lane extend in the line of the river. Carter-lane has become classic ground, through one Richard Quyney having directed a letter from the Bell Inn, which formerly stood there, to Shakspeare. Little did Quyney dream how much the handwriting of the poet he was then addressing would one day be valued—of the hundreds of pilgrims who would visit the adjoining Court to see the will of Shakspeare. The society which bears his name are doing “good service” by hunting up and publishing such records as these, for they throw a charm around the old poetical neighbourhood of Blackfriars Bridge, and give to such places as Carter-lane an interest which they never before possessed;
“For there is link’d unto a poet’s name
A spell that can command the voice of fame.”
Knightrider-street, Stowe tells us, derived its name from the knights of old riding through it on their way from the Tower to Smithfield to hold their jousts and tournaments. It was in Knightrider-street that the mace was found which was stolen from the Lord Chancellor’s closet, in Great Queen-street, on Tuesday night, February 6th, 1676. A small quarto pamphlet, of eight pages, published in 1676, bears the following title:—“A perfect Narrative of the Apprehension, Trial, and Confession of the five several persons who were confederates in stealing the Mace and the two Privy Purses from the Lord High Chancellor of England, as it was attested at the Sessions held at Justice Hall, in the Old Bailey, the seventh and eighth of March, anno 1676.” The following extract is curious, as a picture of the old London thieves, and also of the lodging-house keepers, many of whom still inherit the gift of “opening the lock with a knife,” or any thing that first comes to hand:—“The manner of their apprehension was thus: some of the head of the gang had taken a lodging in Knightrider-street, near Doctors’ Commons, and there, in a closet, they had lodged the mace and purses. The woman’s daughter of the house going up in their absence to make the bed, saw some silver spangles, or some odd ends of silver, scattered about the chamber, which she with no small diligence picked up, not knowing from whence such riches should proceed. In this admiration she paused awhile, and it was not long before her fancy led her, like the rest of her sex, to pry into and search the furthermost point of this new and strange apparition; and directing her course to the closet-door, she through the keyhole could discern something that was not commonly represented to her view, which was the upper end of the mace, but knew not what it was; however, she thought it could not be amiss to acquaint her beloved mother with what she had beheld; and with this resolve she hastens down stairs, and with a voice betwixt fear and joy she cries out, ‘O mother, mother! yonder is the king’s crown in the closet. Pray, mother, come along with me and see it.’
“The admiring mother being something surprised at her daughter’s report, as also having no good opinion of her new lodgers, makes haste, good woman, and goes to the closet-door, and opening the lock with a knife, she entered into the closet, where she soon discerned it was not a crown but a mace, and having heard that such a thing was lost, sends immediately away to acquaint my Lord Chancellor that the mace was in her house; upon which information a warrant was soon granted, and officers sent to Mr. Thomas Northy, constable of Queenhithe ward, who, with a sufficient assistance, went into Knightrider-street to their lodging, and very luckily found them, being five in number, and of both sexes, viz. three men and two women, whom they carried before the Right Worshipful Sir William Turner, who, after examination, according to justice, committed them to the common jail of Newgate.”
It was only five years before that Colonel Blood had attempted to steal the crown from the Tower, but he—more fortunate than Sadler—escaped with his life, while the latter was hanged at Tyburn; the only one, we believe, who was executed for stealing the Lord Chancellor’s mace and purses.
What melancholy processions passed through Knightrider-street, as prisoners to the Tower, the old historian Stowe mentions not: like many another ancient street, it was often the highway of merriment and misery.
St. Paul’s School was founded by the venerable Dean Colet about the year 1500, who made the Company of Mercers his trustees. The present building was erected in 1824. At the commencement of June, when Anne Boleyn passed through the City on her way from the Tower to Westminster, to be crowned, we find, in Hall’s Chronicle, that “at St. Paul’s School, on a scaffold, stood two hundred children, well appareled, who recited various English versions of the ancient poets, to the honour of the king and queen, which her grace highly commended.”
To the church of St. Austin, or Augustin, Old Change and Watling-street, was united that of St. Faith under St. Paul’s, after the Fire. The present church was built by Wren. The church of St. Faith stood in the crypt of old St. Paul’s, beneath the choir. Fuller called it the “babe of old St. Paul’s.” The author of the Ingoldsby Legends, who has never been surpassed in the art of grafting modern incident on the stem of old ballad lore, was the rector of St. Augustin’s.
To see this closely-crowded neighbourhood thoroughly would require many “ups and downs.” Old Fish-street was formerly the great fish-market of London, when Queenhithe rivalled Billingsgate, and was the greatest landing quay in the City; the church of St. Mary Somerset, built by Wren, stands here. The former church was called St. Mary’s Mounthaut, or Mounthaw, as I find it spelt in an old pamphlet, which states that Mr. Thrall was “sequestered and shamefully abused” when the clergymen of London had to make room for the Puritans. Old Fish-street-hill had then two churches, but after the Great Fire that of St. Mary’s Mounthaw was not rebuilt. This is the old Saxon name of the berry of the hawthorn, and there was a time when Old Fish-street-hill was celebrated for its hawthorns, when it was called Hagthorn-hill or Mounthaw, long before old St. Mary’s was built upon it. The pamphlet I have alluded to was printed in 1661, and is entitled, “A general Bill of the Mortality of the Clergy of London, or a brief Martyrology and Catalogue of the learned, grave, religious, and painful Ministers of the City of London, who have been imprisoned, plundered, and barbarously used, and deprived of all livelihood for themselves and their families, in the late Rebellion, for their constancy in the Protestant religion established in this kingdom, and their loyalty to the king under that grand Persecution. London: printed against Bartholom’ Day.” This pamphlet, as the date shews, was issued soon after the restoration of Charles II., no doubt with the view of giving him a broad hint that their loyalty and sufferings ought not to be forgotten in the then “good time coming.” Whether or not any thing was done for them by the “Merry Monarch,” we have no means of ascertaining. We shall occasionally refer to this curious list, to shew the sufferings of the clergy during the period of the Commonwealth.