The great city is always changing its appearance, and travellers who have not seen it for several years scarcely know where they are when visiting some of the transformed localities. But however great the change, the city still exercises its powerful fascination on all who have once felt its strangely magnetic force, its singular attractiveness. Though the London County Council have effected amazing "improvements," constructing a street which nobody wants and nobody uses, and spending millions in widening Piccadilly; though private enterprise pulls down ancient dwellings and rears huge hotels and business premises in their places—it is still possible to conjure up the memories of the past, and to picture to ourselves the multitudinous scenes of historic interest which Old London has witnessed. Learned writers have already in these volumes enabled us to transport ourselves at will to the London of bygone times—to the mediæval city, with its monasteries, its churches, its palaces, its tragedies; to Elizabethan London, bright and gay, with young life pulsing through its veins; to the London of Pepys, with its merry-makings, its coarseness, and its vice. In this concluding chapter we will recall some other memories, and try to fill the background to the picture.
Westminster, the rival city, the city of the court, with its abbey and its hall, we have not attempted to include in our survey. She must be left in solitary state until, perhaps, a new volume of this series may presume to describe her graces and perfections. The ever-growing suburbs of the great city, the West End, the fashionable quarter, Southern London across the river, with Lambeth and its memories of archbishops—all this, and much else that deserves an honoured place in the chronicles of the metropolis, we must perforce omit in our survey. Some of the stories are too modern to please the taste of those who revel in the past; and if the curious reader detects omissions, he may console himself by referring to some of the countless other books and guides which the attractions of London are ever forcing industrious scribes to produce.
Christ's Hospital
Many regrets were expressed when it was found necessary to remove this ancient school from London, and to destroy the old buildings. Of course, "everything is for the best in this best of possible worlds." Boys, like plants, thrive better in the open country, and London fogs are apt to becloud the brain as well as injure health. But the antiquary may be allowed to utter his plaint over the demolition of the old features of London life. The memorials of this ancient school cannot be omitted from our collection.
Christ's Hospital.
We are carried back in thought to the Friars, clad in grey habits, girt with cord, and sandal shod, who settled in the thirteenth century on the north side of what we now call Newgate Street, and, by the generosity of pious citizens, founded their monastery. Thus John Ewin gave them the land in the ward of Farringdon Without, and in the parish of St. Nicholas Shambles; William Joyner built the choir; William Wallis the nave; William Porter the chapter house; Gregory Bokesby the dormitories, furnishing it with beds; Bartholomew de Castello the refectory, where he feasted the friars on St. Bartholomew's Day. Queen Margaret, the second wife of Edward I., was a great benefactor of the order, and advanced two thousand marks towards the cost of a large church, which was completed in 1327, and was a noble structure, 300 feet in length, 89 feet in breadth, and 74 feet high. "Dick" Whittington built for the friars a splendid library, which was finished in 1424. The church was the favoured resting-place of the illustrious dead. Four queens, four duchesses, four countesses, one duke, two earls, eight barons, and some thirty-five knights reposed therein. In the choir there were nine tombs of alabaster and marble, surrounded by iron railings, and monuments of marble and brass abounded. The dissolution of monasteries came with greedy Henry, and the place was rifled. The crown seized the goodly store of treasure; the church became a receptacle for the prizes taken from the French; and Sir Martin Bowes, Mayor of London, for the sum of £50, obtained all the beautiful tombs and brasses, marble and alabaster, which were carted away from the desecrated shrine.
But Henry's conscience smote him. The death of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, the King's boon companion, moved him "to bethink himself of his end, and to do some good work thereunto," as Fuller states. The church was reopened for worship, and Bishop Ridley, preaching at Paul's Cross, announced the King's gift of the conventual grounds and buildings, with the hospital of St. Bartholomew, for the relief of the poor. Letters patent were issued in 1545, making over to the Mayor and Commonalty of London for ever "the Grey Friars' Church, with all the edifices and ground, the fratry, library, dortor, chapter-house, great cloister, and the lesser tenements and vacant grounds, lead, stone, iron, etc.; the hospital of St. Bartholomew, West Smithfield, the church of the same, the lead, bells, and ornaments of the same hospital, with all messuages, tenements, and appurtenances."
It was a poor return to the Church for all of that the King had robbed her. Moreover, he did not altogether abandon a little profit. He made the monastic church, now called the Christ Church, do duty for the parishes of St. Nicholas in the Shambles, St. Ewins, and part of St. Sepulchre, uniting these into one parish, and pulling down the churches of the first two parishes. It would be curious to discover what became of the endowments of these parishes, and of the fabrics.
