The magnates of London, from generation to generation, showed far more wisdom, tenacity, and clearness of vision than can be found in the annals of Venice, Genoa, or any other mediæval city. Above all things, they maintained the city liberties and the rights obtained from successive kings; yet they were always loyal so long as loyalty was possible; when that was no longer possible, as in the case of Richard II., they threw the whole weight of their wealth and influence into the other side. If fighting was wanted, they were ready to send out their youths to fight—nay, to join the army themselves; witness the story of Sir John Philpot, Mayor in 1378. There was a certain Scottish adventurer named Mercer. This man had gotten together a small fleet of ships, with which he harassed the North Sea and did great havoc among the English merchantmen. Nor could any remonstrance addressed to the Crown effect any redress. What was to be done? Clearly, if trade was to be carried on at all, this enemy must be put down. Therefore, without much ado, the gallant Mayor gathered together at his own expense a company of a thousand stout fellows, put them on board, and sallied forth, himself their admiral, to fight this piratical Scot. He found him, in fact, in Scarborough Bay with his prizes. Sir John fell upon him at once, slew him and most of his men, took all his ships, including the prizes, and returned to the port of London with his spoils, including fifteen Spanish ships which had joined the Scotchman. Next year the king was in want of other help. The arms and armor of a thousand men were in pawn. Sir John took them out. And because the king wanted as many ships as he could get for his expedition into France, Sir John gave him all his own, with Mercer's ships and the Spanish prizes.
GERRARD'S HALL.
To treat adequately of the foreign trade of the city during these centuries would require a volume. It has, in fact, received more than a single volume.[12] The English merchantman sailed everywhere. There were commercial treaties with Brittany, Burgundy, Portugal, Castile, Genoa, and Venice. English merchants who traded with Prussia were empowered by Henry IV. to meet together and elect a governor for the adjustment of quarrels and the reparation of injuries. The same privilege was extended to those who traded with Holland, Zealand, Brabant, Flanders, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. The Hanseatic merchants enjoyed the privileges on the condition—not always obtained—that English merchants should have the same rights as the Hanseatic League. It is easy to understand what commodities were imported from these countries. The trade was carried on under the conditions of continued fighting. First the seas swarmed with Scotch; French and Flemish ships were always on the lookout for English merchant vessels—there was no peace on the water. Then there were English pirates known as rovers of the sea, who sailed about, landing on the coasts, pillaging small towns, and robbing farms. Sandwich was burned, Southampton was burned. London protected herself with booms and chains. The merchant vessels for safety sailed in fleets. Again, it was sometimes dangerous to be resident in a foreign town in time of war; in 1429 Bergen was destroyed by the Danes, and the English merchants were massacred; about the same time English seamen ravaged Ireland and murdered the Royal Bailiff; reprisals and quarrels and claims were constantly going on. Yet trade increased, and wealth with it. Other foreign merchants settled in London besides the Hansards. Florentines came to buy wool, and to lend money, and to sell chains and rings and jewelled work. Genoese came to buy alum and woad and to sell weapons. Venetians came to sell spices, drugs, and fine manufactured things.
The grete galleys of Veness and Fflorence
Be wel ladene with thynges of complacence,
All spicerye and of groceres ware,
Wyth swete wynes alle manere of cheffare.
Apes and japes and marmettes taylede,
Trifles—trifles, that lytel have avaylede.
And thynges with wyche they fetely blere our eye,
With thynges not enduring that we bye.
Ffor moche of thys cheffare that is wastable,
Myght be forebore for diere and dissevable.
Towards the end of the fourteenth century began the first grumblings of the great religious storm that was to burst upon the world a hundred years later. The common sort of Londoners, attached to their Church and to its services, were as yet profoundly orthodox and unquestioning. But it is certain that in the year 1393 the Archbishop of York complained formally to the king of the Mayor, Aldermen, and Sheriffs—Whittington was then one of the Sheriffs—that they were male creduli, that is, of little faith; upholders of Lollards, detractors of religious persons, detainers of tithes, and defrauders of the poor. When persecutions, however, began in earnest, not a single citizen of position was charged with heresy. Probably the Archbishop's charge was based upon some quarrel over tithes and Church dues. At the same time, no one who has read Chaucer can fail to understand that men's minds were made uneasy by the scandals of religion, the contrast between profession and practice. It required no knowledge of theology to remark that the monk who kept the best of horses in his stable and the best of hounds in his kennel, and rode to the chase as gallantly attired as any young knight, was a strange follower of the Benedictine rule. Nor was it necessary to be a divine in order to compare the lives of the Franciscans with their vows. Yet the authority of the Church seemed undiminished, while its wealth, its estates, its rank, and its privileges gave it enormous power. It is not pretended that the merchants of London were desirous of new doctrines, or of any tampering with the mass, or any lowering of sacerdotal pretensions. Yet there can be no doubt that they desired reform in some shape, and it seems as if they saw the best hope of reform in raising the standard of education. Probably the old monastery schools had fallen into decay. We find, for instance, a simultaneous movement in this direction long before Henry VI. began to found and to endow his schools. Whittington bequeathed a sum of money to create a library for the Grey Friars; his close friend and one of his executors, John Carpenter, Rector of St. Mary Magdalen, founded the City of London School, now more flourishing and of greater use than ever; another friend of Whittington, Sir John Nicol, Master of the College of St. Thomas Acon, petitioned the Parliament for leave to establish four schools; Whittington's own company, the Mercers, founded a school—which still exists—upon his death. The merchants rebuilt churches, bought advowsons and gave them to the corporation, founded charities, and left doctrine to scholars. Yet the century which contains such men as Wycliff, Chaucer, Gower, Occleve, William of Wykeham, Fabian, and others, was not altogether one of blind and unquestioning obedience. And it is worthy of remark that the first Master of Whittington's Hospital was that Reginald Pecock who afterwards, as Bishop of Chichester, was charged with Lollardism, and imprisoned for life as a punishment. He was kept in a single closed chamber in Thorney Abbey, Isle of Ely. He was never allowed out of this room; no one was to speak with him except the man who waited upon him; he was to have neither paper, pen, ink, or books, except a Bible, a mass-book, a psalter, and a legendary.
BRIDEWELL PALACE, ABOUT 1660, WITH THE ENTRANCE TO THE FLEET RIVER, PART OF THE BLACK FRIARS, ETC.