VI
TUDOR
I. SPRING-TIME AMONG THE RUINS
If the London of the Third Edward was a city of palaces, that of Queen Elizabeth was a city of ruins.
Ruins everywhere! Ruins of cloisters, halls, dormitories, courts, and chapels, and churches. Ruins of carved altar-pieces, canopies, statues, painted windows, and graven fonts. Ruins of old faiths and old traditions. Ruins everywhere. Only consider what became of the monastic buildings. King Edward's Cistercian House, called the New Abbey, or Eastminster, was pulled "clean down," and in its place storehouses for victuals and ovens for making ships' biscuits were set up. On the abbey grounds were erected small tenements for poor working-people, the only inhabitants of that neighborhood where is now the Mint. Sir Arthur Darcie it was who did this. The Convent of St. Clare, called the Minories, was similarly treated, its site converted into storehouses. The old buildings are always said to have been entirely pulled down, but their destruction was never thorough. Walls were everywhere left standing, because it was too much trouble to pull them down. For instance, the north wall of the present mean little Church of the Holy Trinity, Minories, ugliest and meanest of all modern London churches, was formerly part of the wall of the nuns' chapel.
BOAR IN EASTCHEAP
More fortunate than the other monastic churches, that of the Austin Friars was allowed to remain standing. The nave was walled off and assigned to the Dutch residents, with whom it has continued to this day. You may attend the service on Sunday, and while the preacher in the black gown addresses his scanty audience in the language which, though it sounds so much like English, you cannot understand, you may look about you, and think of the Augustine Brothers who built this church. In their time it was filled with monuments, of which not a single one now remains. The nave was greatly damaged by a fire in 1862, but the walls and columns of the ancient church remain. The rest of the church, including the finest and most beautiful spire in the whole city, was all pulled down by the Marquis of Winchester, who broke up and sold the whole of the monuments for £100. In this church were buried, among other illustrious dead, the great Hubert de Burgh; Edmund Plantagenet, half brother to Richard II.; the barons who fell at the battle of Barnet; Richard FitzAlan, Earl of Arundel, beheaded 1397; the Earl of Oxford, beheaded 1463; and Edward Strafford, Duke of Buckingham, beheaded 1521. Winchester House, which stood till fifty years ago, was built on part of the abbey grounds; Cromwell House, on a site where now stands the Drapers' Hall, on another part.
The Priory of the Holy Trinity, granted to Sir Thomas Audley, fared worse still, for the whole church—choir, transepts, nave, steeple, and all—was, with great labor, pulled down, and the whole materials and monuments sold for paving or building stones at sixpence a cart-load. The ring of nine bells was divided between Stepney Church and St. Katherine Cree, where, I believe, they still hang and do their duty. So much, and that is all, is left of this proud foundation. Sir Thomas Audley, who obtained the precinct by gift of the King, built a house upon it. His daughter and heiress marrying the Duke of Norfolk, the house and grounds were named after their new owner. Duke's Place and Duke Street preserve the new name. The former, now a mean square, crowded with Jews engaged in the fruit trade, is certainly the site of one of the courts of the old priory. It is at the back of St. Katherine Cree Church in Leadenhall Street. Strange, that of this most rich and splendid house not a vestige should remain either of name, or building, or tradition.