The History of Sir Richard Whittington

by Unknown

Now to cut off all circumstances and come close to the matter, we may easily find what this man was, by the pious and religious acts done in his life to the Cities present grace, use and benefit, and to his own blessed memory for ever.

In the Vintry-ward he built a church and dedicated it to S. Michael calling it Pater Noster in the Royal, and added to it a Colledge founded to St. Mary, and placed therein a President and four fellows which ought to be masters of arts, besides other yearly allowance to clerks and young schollars, near which he erected an Hospital which he called God’s house, for thirteen poor men, and there according to the devout superstition of those days were to pray for the souls of his father-in-law Hugh Fitzwarren and Dame Molde his wife, for whom he erected a fair tomb in the church he before built, leaving also a place for himself and Dame Alice his lady when it should please God to call them. In which place they were afterwards both of them according to their degree very honourably interred, great mourning and much lamentation being made for him by the Commons of the City in regard he was a man so remarkable for his charity.

He builded another brave structure which he called after his own name Whittington Colledge, with a perpetual allowance for Divinity Lectures to be read there for ever, leaving good land for the maintenance thereof.

And on the west side of the City he built that famous gate and prison to this day called Newgate, and thereupon caused the Merchants arms to be graven in stone. He added to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in Smithfield and was at the charge of repairing thereof.

Further at the Grey-Fryars in London he erected a Library as a testimony of the great love he had to Learning, which he began in the year of our Lord 1421 and finished it in the year following. Moreover that place which is called the Stocks to this day, betwixt Cheapside and Cornhill, a good house of stone, which for a flesh market and a fish market greatly beneficial to the City.

Besides he enlarged Guild Hall and glazed most or all of the windows at his own costs or charges, paving the Hall and contributing largely to the Library, adding to those places a conduit which yieldeth store of sweet and wholesome water to the general good and benefit of the City.

In the year 1497, when Sir Richard Whittington was first elected Lord Mayor, that rebel Sir John Oldcastle was taken in the territories of the Lord Powess, not without danger and hurt of some that took him, at which time all the States of the realm were assembled at Parliament in London, therein to provide the King of a subsidy and other aid of money and ammunition, who took great pains beyond the seas in France. These Lords and others when they heard that the publick enemy was taken they agreed all not to dissolve the Parliament, until he were examined, and heard to answer in the same. Whereupon the Lord Powess was sent for to fetch him up with power and great aid, who brought him to London in a lyter wounded very much having received seventeen wounds and also a clerk which he called his Secretary with him that was of his counsel in all his secrecy. As soon as the aforesaid Sir John Oldcastle was brought into the Parliament before the Earl of Bedford who was then left Regent and Governour of the Realm in the time of the King’s absence being in France and other Lords and States, his indictment being read before him of his forcible insurrection against the King and State in St. Gyles’s Fields, and other treasons and outrages by him committed, the question was asked how he could excuse himself and show why he should not be judged to dye according to the law. But he seeking other talk and discourse of the mercies of God, and that all mortal men that would be followers of God ought to prefer mercy above judgment and that vengeance pertained only to the Lord, and ought not to be practised by them that worship, but to be left to God alone, with many other words to protract the time, until the Lord Chief Justice admonished the Regent not to suffer him to spend the time so vainly, in molesting the nobles of the Realm, whereupon the Duke of Bedford, Regent, commanded him to answer formally and punctually to the matter laid to his charge.

Then said Sir John, being thus urged at last after deliberation taken, he said, It is the least thing that I account of to be judged by you as of man’s judgment, and again he began to talk, but nothing to the purpose until the Chief Justice commanded him again to answer finally, and to answer them if he could, why he should not suffer death according to his desert. To which he stoutly answered that he had no judge amongst them, so long as his liege Lord King Richard was alive and in his realm of Scotland, which answer when he had made, because there needed no further witness, he was then presently censured to be drawn and hanged on a gallows and then to be burnt hanging upon the same, which judgment was executed upon him the thirtieth day of December in St. Gyles’s Fields, where many honourable persons were present, and the last words that he spake were to Sir Thomas Upingham, adjuring him that if he saw him rise from death to life again the third day he would procure that his sect which he had raised might be in peace and quiet. He was hanged by the neck in a chain of iron and after consumed by fire.

Moreover it is recorded that in the time of this worthy pretor Sir Richard Whittington the glorious city of Constantinople was taken by Mahomet the Second, Prince of the Turks, whose souldiers sacked it with all extremity and omitted no manners of cruelty by violence to either virgins, aged women, or sucking babes. This Sir Richard Whittington had traffick from thence by his factors which there abode, and were then taken prisoners, so that he lost near upon fifteen thousand pounds, which when he heard of never was so much as cast down or dismayed, but said God will send more; yea such was the incessant practice of the Turkish tyranny upon this imperial city, as it exceeded the damage, rapes and spoyls of other cities. They also beheaded at the same time Constantine, sticking his head upon a launce, and with derision caused it to be carried thorow the Turkish camp.

In the space of a week after, there hapned a horrible tempest of thunder and lightning which burned almost eight hundred houses and spoiled three thousand people at the sacking of the aforesaid city by the said Mahomet. The Turks found therein so much treasure that they wondred that the citizens would not spend it in souldiers for their own defence, but so dotingly to spare the true spending thereof to become an enticing prey for their irreconcileable enemies, for indeed it was thought that if the State would have hired souldiers, and given them good pay they might have raised the siege of the Turks. It is an old and true saying, Covetousness is the mother of ruine and mischief.