For history see p. [292].
The earliest date of an incumbent is 1355.
The patronage of the church has always been in the hands of the Crown; it was constituted a rectory with a rector and three chaplains by Edward III., February 10, 1353-54.
The chapel consists of a nave and chancel and an aisle on the north side, separated from the nave by columns of the Decorated period of architecture. It is 66 feet in length, 54 feet in width, and 25 feet in height.
In this church are buried: Anne Boleyn; Katherine Howard; Sir Thomas More; Cromwell, Earl of Essex; Lady Shrewsbury; Admiral Lord Seymour; the Protector Somerset; John Dudley, Earl of Northumberland; Lady Jane Grey; Lord Guilford Dudley; Sir Thomas Overbury; Sir John Elcot; Okey the Regicide; the Duke of Monmouth; Lords Lovat, Kilmarnock, and Balmerino, and others of lesser note.
The Minories lies within Portsoken Ward. Stow says:
“This Portsoken which roundeth as much as the Franchise at the gate, was sometime a guilde and had this beginning as I have reade. In the dayes of King Edgar more than 600 yeres since, there were thirteen knights wellbeloved to the king and realme (for service by them done) which requested to name a certain portion of land on the east part of the Citte, left desolate and forsaken by the inhabitants by reason of too much servitude. They besought the king to have this land, with the Libertie of a guilde for ever; the king granted to their request with conditions following that is that each of them should victoriously accomplish three combates, one above the ground, one under ground, and the thirde in the water, and after this at a certaine day in East Smithfield they should run with speares against all commers, all which was gloriously performed.”
Of the Minories, Stow says:
“From the west part of this Tower Hill towards Ealdegate being a long continual street amongst other smaller buildings in that row there was sometimes an abbey of Nunnes of the order of St. Clare called the Minories.”
This abbey was founded in 1293 by Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, King Edward I.’s brother, and was suppressed in 1539. For account see Mediæval London, vol. ii. p. 329.