On the north bank of the river, between Bridewell and the Temple, stood the House of the White Friars—Fratres Beatæ Mariæ de Monte Carmeli,—first founded by Sir Richard Gray in the year 1241. King Edward the First gave them ground in Fleet Street; their House was enlarged and beautified in 1350 by Hugh Courtenay, Earl of Devon. John Lovekyn, Mayor of London, gave them a lane running from Fleet Street to the river, in order to extend the west end of their church. Sir Robert Knowles, in the reign of Henry the Fourth, rebuilt the church. The London House of White Friars was always a house of humble pretensions and small consideration, although from time to time it received the patronage of wealthy benefactors.
The buildings of the House were apparently of no great account. After the Dissolution they became ruinous and were pulled down. A small part of the crypt, apparently, of the church was discovered a few years ago to be still in existence. It is beside the cellar of a house in a small court.
I find in an old and very scandalous story that one John le Moigne, together with William Portehors, of the Carmelite Friars, London, and others were accused of slaying by night a certain Friar Gilbert de Stretton of the Order, and afterwards breaking open the treasury and stealing £300 belonging to Sir Eustace de la Hacha. John le Moigne was found not guilty. There appear to have been two other trials in the same case. In the first of these two one William Crepyn took the place of John le Moigne, the other prisoners being the same. In the second case Bartholomew Portehors, one supposes a brother of the Friar, stood his trial with the same set of prisoners and was acquitted. Nothing is said of Friar William and the others. We may hope that their innocence was also fully proven.
Trials were occasionally heard at this House. In 1313 John de Ely, for taking gifts from men of London and hindering the King’s right, was tried before the King’s Council at the Carmelite Friars, convicted, and sent to Newgate.
The Rolls of Chancery were for some time kept in this House. In the Paston Letters two of the family desire to be buried in the Church of the “Fryers Preachers”; Sir John Paston, however, in his will, desired to be buried in the church of the White Friars.
The White Friars surrendered their House in 1538. It was valued with their property at £62: 7: 3. There seems to have been no delay in pulling down the church and buildings of this House, and very shortly after the suppression, according to Stow, noblemen and others built upon the site. Sir John Cheke, tutor to Edward the Sixth, lived in one of the new houses. Unfortunately the right of Sanctuary, which belonged to the Precinct while it was a Monastic establishment, continued to be claimed after it became secularised. In the year 1609 the right was formally granted by a charter of James the First, not only to this Precinct but to that of Blackfriars. This privilege, which transformed Whitefriars into the notorious Alsatia, continued till the year 1697, when it was finally abolished. Part of the House was allowed to remain, and become the residence of some of the Greys. John Selden, jurist and author, lived in it 1651 to 1654, when he died.
CRYPT OF OLD WHITEFRIARS’ PRIORY
At A a modern building intrudes which is not shown in the drawing.
The buildings were so entirely destroyed that all trace of them above ground had vanished apparently in Stow’s time. Nor was it until the other day known where the church of the Friars actually stood. In the autumn of 1895, however, a discovery was made which seems to throw light on the matter. On the west side of Whitefriars Street, low down, is a small court called Britten’s Court, containing half a dozen houses, apparently about two hundred years old. One of these, Number 4, was placed in the hands of Messrs. Lumley, Land Agents and Auctioneers, 22 St. James’s Street, for sale. On examining the house, Mr. Lumley found that it contained a small cellar under the court itself. This cellar, nearly filled up with rubbish, had been used as a storehouse for wood and coal. On examination, it turned out to be a crypt, in dimensions a square of 12 feet 3, with a height of 8 feet above the present level of the excavation, and a height from the crown of the vault to the pavement of the court of about 2 feet 6 inches. The crypt belongs to late fourteenth-century work. Eight ribs meet in a rose in the centre. The roof is of church stone, such as was used in the construction of Westminster Abbey. In the north-west corner is an old doorway.