“None. The people are forgetting fast. Only old men sometimes speak of what they remember; when the last stones have been taken away, the very names will tell them nothing. Even the names are changing. Soon all will be lost and forgotten. Strange! Four hundred years those monks lived among us, and after fifty years they are already clean forgotten as much as if they had never lived.”
At Bishopsgate, Stow pointed northward. “Houses,” he said, “are stretching along the northern road, but slowly. Among the ruins of Holywell stands a Play house, and outside it is another. What will be the end of this passion for the theatre, I know not. Formerly, an interlude in an Inn yard, a masque in a Company’s Hall, and so enough. Now have ye every day a play set forth upon a stage, with songs and music, and boys dressed up as women.”
He shook his head and led on, still following the Wall. Within the City on this north side there were many large and fair gardens, some belonging to Companies which here have their Halls, and some to merchants’ houses, and some that once belonged to the Monastic Houses. They were set with fruit-trees and with beds of flowers and sweet herbs. Among the gardens stood collections of craftsmen’s cottages and workshops, and the churches with their small green churchyards were almost hidden by the trees. This part of London truly had a rural look by reason of these gardens.
We passed Moorgate, the old church of the Papey close to the Wall, and further along, also close to the Wall, the church of All Hallows; we came to Cripplegate with its church outside the Wall. And passing a bend to the south, continued our walk. On the other side of the ditch was another double line of houses. “This is Aldersgate,” said Stow. “The way leads to the Charter House and beyond to the village of Iseldon. You can now see the ruins of the House of the Knights Hospitallers; their noble gate yet stands, and part of their church. Beyond was the Priory of St. Bartholomew. From the Wall you may behold their cloisters; the chancel of their church is now a parish church. Close at hand is Smithfield. What things have been done at Smithfield! I was thirty years of age when Queen Mary burned her martyrs. There had been burnings before her time, but she outdid them all. Sir, she was ill-advised: she thought to make the people go back to the old Religion through fear. She might have led them back through love. I have seen the burning of those stubborn folk. Old and young, men and women, nay children, have I seen standing in the faggots, praying aloud while the flames mounted up and licked their hands and their faces. Mostly they died quickly, being smothered with the smoke; but sometimes the flames were blown away, and we saw the blackened body still in agony, and the lips that moved to the end in prayer. And we saw how the Lord answered, giving fortitude to endure or even, if we knew it, painlessness in the midst of fire. To see father, brother, neighbour, so die without fear, and as if joyously enduring torture in order to reach the gates of Heaven,—Believe me, sir, this it was that made the people what they are, and completed Henry’s work.”
We came to Newgate. “Behold!” he said, “the cat, emblem of Whittington, who rebuilt this gate and prison. Here is Christ’s Hospital, which once was the House of the Grey Friars. It is London’s chiefest glory: here shall you find boys ruled with wisdom and taught godliness, who would otherwise have joined the throngs of the masterless, and roamed about the streets and roads.” And so on to Ludgate, where we left the Wall. “See,” said Stow, “there are houses with many palaces of nobles all the way from Bridewell to the King’s House at Westminster. And now, good sir, we leave the Wall, and we will visit the City within the Wall.”
ST. PAUL’S CHURCH
From Visscher’s Panorama of London.
He led me by Ludgate into the precinct of St. Paul’s, surrounded by a stone wall; the Cathedral looked battered and worn by the tooth of time; the spire, once the glory of the City, was gone never to be replaced; the stonework was black in parts from the smoke of the sea coal; the tracery was mouldering; about the towers of the west flew the swifts crying. “There are kites on the roof,” said Stow, “which keep the City clean and devour the offal.”
LATIMER PREACHING BEFORE EDWARD VI. AT WESTMINSTER
E. Gardner’s Collection.