Rowland Taylor, before being burned for heresy, was taken to the Woolpack, an inn without Aldgate, and kept there.
A curious story is told concerning the Duke of Buckingham in 1663. “When the Duke came from Newmarket he stayed at an Inn by Aldgate. Here a fellow told him his fortune, saying that he would die unfortunately, as his father did, or that a similar attempt would be made upon him by the 1st of April. On the Tuesday prior to the date of the letter, the usher of the duke’s hall went to bed about 9 at night and rose again about one in the morning and came up at the back and private way to the duke’s chamber where only he, his lady, and a maid were talking. The maid opened the door at his knock and the usher rushed in with a naked sword, at which the maid squeaking gave my lord an alarm and he turning back snatched up a knife and by his boldness daunted the fellow so that he got within him, became master of his sword, and by that time company came in. The duke sent after the fortune-teller but the writer did not know whether he had heard of him.”
Northward of Aldgate, Mitre Street leads to Mitre Square which is surrounded by large new buildings belonging to merchants. The ward school is reached through a rounded tunnel-like entry and proves a pleasant surprise. In itself it is only a square old brick house without an atom of style or ornament, but before it is a garden plot where lilac bushes grow, and over the blackened bricks of the house and adjoining wall climb big trees, hiding the dinginess. From here we get a view of the old red-tiled roofs of the houses in Duke Street. In the school there is free education, and 110 children are clothed at the expense of the charity.
At the back of the ward school stood, until 1874, St. James’s, Duke’s Place (see p. [165]).
ST. BOTOLPH, ALDGATE
St. Botolph, Aldgate, stands at the junction of Aldgate Street and Houndsditch, and is said to have been originally founded about the reign of William the Conqueror. The old building remained standing till 1741, when it was pulled down and the present one erected under the direction of the elder Dance and completed in 1744. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1362. The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Prior and the Canons of Holy Trinity, London; Henry VIII.; Robert Halywell, by grant of Elizabeth; George Puttenham, granted by Elizabeth in the 30th year of her reign; Francis Morrice, by James I., in the 7th year of his reign, since which time it has been held by several private persons, but is now in the hands of the Bishop of London. The benefice, which had been previously united with that of St. Katherine by the Tower, was in 1899 united with that of Holy Trinity Minories.
Houseling people in 1548 were 1530.
The present church is built of brick, with stone dressings. It includes two side-aisles separated from the central portion by Tuscan columns, supporting a flat ceiling. There are a great many windows, mostly filled with stained glass. The tower stands at the south, facing Aldgate High Street, and is surmounted by a small spire.
Chantries were founded here: For John Romeney, at the Altar of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to which Humphrey de Durham was admitted chaplain, June 3, 1365; by Thomas Weston, whose endowment fetched £5 : 6 : 8 in 1548; by Alex. Sprot and John Grace, whose endowments yielded £22 : 15 : 8 in 1548.
The most interesting monument in this church is a tomb inscribed to the memory of Thomas, Lord Darcy and Sir Nicholas Carew, both of whom were concerned in the Roman Catholic plots against Henry VIII. and beheaded on Tower Hill, the former in 1537 and the latter in 1538. The memory of Robert Dowe, the charitable Merchant Taylor, is preserved by a monument erected by his Company, originally affixed to a pillar in the chancel, but now removed to the east gallery.