There was a great deal of trouble with the butchers. They were an unruly class—we have seen how one of them was put to shame for impudence; they persisted in pouring the blood from the shambles down the gutters; they carried the offal through the streets, and threw it into the river at the Temple. In 1369 strict ordinances were passed that animals should be slaughtered outside the walls. As the butchers disobeyed the law it was again proclaimed two years later, with the exception for the butchers of East Chepe and the Stocks. I do not think, however, that the slaughter of beasts was ever carried on without the walls. The market stood all along Newgate Street, with a “Middle Row” of sheds, under which were the stalls for the sale of grain, cheese, butter, poultry, etc., besides that of meat. The butchers also had their stalls in Butchers’ Lane. The Middle Row became like that in Holborn—a row of houses over shops. This Middle Row must have made Newgate Street narrow and intolerably dark and close. The Great Fire swept it away, and among the improvements made after the Fire it was ordered “that the Ground where the Middle Row of the Shambles stood and the ground of the four late houses in Newgate Market between Warwick Lane End and the Bell Inn there shall be laid into the streets” (Maitland).

Those who can remember Newgate Street before the butchers’ shops were taken to Smithfield, can bear witness to the horrible appearance of the street, lined as it was with butchers’ shops, where the passenger, who never went through the street if he could avoid it, was jostled by greasy blue smocks, and saluted on the cheek with ribs and legs of bleeding ox flesh. The end of Newgate Street and of Paternoster Row facing Cheapside was, in 1720, called Jackanapes Row, a modern name given for some unknown reason. Passing along Newgate Street on the north side we come to Christ’s Hospital.

CHRIST’S HOSPITAL

When we pass from the pre-Reformation schools to the great institution of Christ’s Hospital, which has become indissolubly associated with the name of Edward VI., the first Protestant king of England, we might expect to find that we passed from darkness to light; from groping in the dark after fragmentary hints of evidence, to an era of charters and documents well known and well understood. Yet there is no great school the history of which has been more misunderstood or misrepresented than that of Christ’s Hospital. In 1898, at the laying of the foundation stone of the new buildings at Horsham, Sussex, which are destined to convert Christ’s Hospital from a London school into a “non-local” public school, the Duke of Cambridge, as Chairman of the Governors of Christ’s Hospital, gave the layer of the stone, the Prince of Wales, a succinct version of the story of its origin.

“It was founded,” he said, “by the saintly King Edward the VIth, who, besides assigning it a site in the City of London, with his own hands inserted in the charter power to take lands in mortmain, which has enabled the munificence of subsequent benefactors to provide for nearly three and a half centuries for the nurture and education of children.”

So the historian of Cambridge University, Mr. J. Bass Mallinger,[[13]] speaking of Edward VI. had said: “Upwards of 30 Free Grammar Schools founded at this time have permanently associated the name of Edward VI. with popular education”; and among the thirty free grammar schools founded by him, he includes Christ’s Hospital.

Carlisle, in his Endowed Grammar Schools, made a more cautious statement.

“The precise endowment of the institution by the Royal Founder is not known. It is certain that part of the premises which it now comprises, commonly called Grey Friars and the Cloisters, with a part of the building, were given by Edward VI.”

A closer examination of the facts will show us that Christ’s Hospital was not founded as a grammar school; that neither site nor buildings were given by Edward VI.; and that he did not inscribe a licence in mortmain with his own hand. Christ’s Hospital was founded as a Foundling Hospital and Ragged School for gutter children of both sexes, by the inhabitants of London, by means of public subscriptions and rates, on a site and in buildings already acquired by the City from Henry VIII., and Edward VI.’s contribution to it consisted of a piece of parchment, some confiscated church linen, and his name.

Perhaps the most startling revelation to those who have heard so often of the magnificence of the foundation of Edward VI., is to find that Christ’s Hospital at first had no endowments beyond its sites and buildings, and never received a penny of income from the property comprised in Edward’s charter.