London

by Walter Besant

ARMS GRANTED TO THE CRAFT OF THE IRONMONGERS OF LONDON BY LANCASTER KING OF ARMS, A.D. 1466

For instance, it was once discovered that wholesale robberies were carried on by certain bakers who made holes in their moulding-boards, and so filched the dough. These rogues in the last century would have been flogged unmercifully. Robert de Bretaigne, Mayor A.D. 1387, was satisfied by putting them in pillory till after vespers at St. Paul's, with dough hung about their necks, so that all the world might know why they were there. When certain "tapicers" were charged with selling false blankets, that is, blankets which had been "vamped" in foreign parts with the hair of oxen and cows, the blankets were ordered to be burned. On the other hand, highway robbery, burglaries, and some cases of theft were punished by hanging. The unhappy Desiderata de Torgnton, for instance, in an evil moment stole from a servant of the Lady Alice de Lisle thirty dishes and twenty-four salt-cellars of silver. The servant was bound by sureties that he would prosecute for felony, and did so, with the result that Desiderata was hanged, and her chattels confiscated; but of chattels had she none.

For selling putrid meat the offender was put in pillory, and the bad meat—dreadful addition to the sentence—burned beneath his nose. The sale of "false" goods—that is, things not made as they should be made, either of bad materials or of inferior materials—was always punished by destruction of the things.

GUILDHALL, KING STREET, LONDON

What should be done to a man who spoke disrespectfully of the Mayor? One Roger Torold, citizen and vintner, in the year of grace 1355, and in the twenty-eighth year of our Sovereign Lord King Edward III., said one day, in the presence of witnesses, that he was ready to defy the Mayor; and that if he should catch the Mayor outside the City, then the Mayor should never come back to it alive. These things being reported, the Mayor caused him to be brought before himself, the Aldermen, and Sheriffs at the Guildhall. The prisoner confessed his crime, and put himself upon the favor of the Court. He was committed to prison while the Court considered what should be done to him. Being brought to the bar, he offered to pay a fine of one hundred tuns of wine for restoration to the favor of the Mayor. This was accepted, on the condition that he should also make a recognizance of £40 sterling to be paid if ever again he should abuse or insult the name or person of the Mayor. For perjury, the offender was, for a first crime, taken to the Guildhall, and there placed upon a high stool, bareheaded, before the Mayor and Aldermen. For the second offence he was placed in pillory. For women, the thew was substituted for the pillory. One Alice, wife of Robert de Causton, stood in the thew for thickening the bottom of a quart-pot with pitch, so as to give short measure. The said quart-pot was divided into two parts, of which one half was tied to the pillory in sight of the people, and the other half was kept in the Guildhall.

Death by hanging or pillory. These were almost the only punishments. The cases before the Mayor's Court remind us of the remarkable resemblance we bear to our ancestors. They are monotonous because they read like the cases in a modern Police Court. Giles Pykeman goes in terror of his life, because certain persons threaten him, but they find surety for good behavior. John Edmond Commonger, convicted of passing off bad oats for good—pillory. John William, for passing off rings of latten as rings of gold—pillory. Nicolas Mollere, for spreading false news—pillory, with a whetstone round his neck to mark the offence. Heavens! if this offence were again made penal. John Mayn, indicted for being a leper—banished out of the city. Robert Brebason, stock fish-monger, charged with assault in presence of the Mayor. Not a case for pillory this: let him be imprisoned for a year and a day in Newgate. Alice Sheltoir, charged with being a common scold—to the thew. John Rykorre, cordwainer, for forging a bond—pillory.

As an illustration of the times I give the story of William Blakeney. He was a shuttle-maker by trade, but a pilgrim by profession. He dressed for the part with long hair, long gown, and bare feet. He loitered about in places where men resorted—taverns and such—and there entertained all comers with travellers' tales. He had been everywhere, this pious and adventurous pilgrim. He had seen Seville, city of sacred relics; Rome, the abode of his Holiness the Pope; he had even seen the Pope himself. He had been to the Holy Land, and stood within the very sepulchre of our Lord. And what with the strange creatures he had met with in those far-off lands, and the men and women among whom he had sojourned, and the things he could tell you, and the things which he postponed till the next time, the story would fill volumes. For six years he lived in great comfort, eating and drinking of the best, always at the expense of his hearers. This man must have been an unequalled story-teller. Six years of invention ever fresh and new! Then he was found out—he had never been a pilgrimage in his life. He had never been out of sight of the London walls. So he stood in pillory—this poor novelist, who would in these days have commanded so much respect and such solid rewards—he stood in pillory, with a whetstone round his neck, as if he had been a common liar! And then he had to go back to the dull monotony of shuttle-making, and that in silence, with nobody to believe him any more. Well, he shortly afterwards died, I am convinced, of suppressed fiction. But perhaps his old friends rallied round him, and by the light of the fire he still beguiled the long evenings by telling for the hundredth time of the one-eyed men, and the men with tails, and the men who have but one leg, and use their one foot for an umbrella against the scorching sun—all of whom he had seen in the deserts on the way from Jerusalem to Damascus, where St. Paul was converted.