40. ELIZABETHAN LONDON.
PART I.
A map of Elizabethan London, drawn by one Agas, which is almost a picture as well as a map, shows us very clearly the aspect of the City. Let us lay down the map before us. First of all, we observe the wall of the City; it is carefully drawn of uniform height, with battlements, and at regular intervals, bastions. Outside the wall there is the ditch, but it is now, as Stow describes it, laid out in gardens—cows are grazing in some parts of it—and there are mean houses built on the other side of it. There is a single street of houses with large gardens outside Aldgate, which is now Whitechapel. The north side of Houndsditch is already built. A street of houses runs north of Bishopsgate. No houses stand between this street and two or three streets outside Cripplegate. Moorfields are really fields. There are windmills, gardens with summer-houses, pasture-fields with cows, a large 'dogge house,' and fields where women appear to be laying out clothes to dry. Really, they are tenter fields, i.e. fields provided with 'tenters,' or pegs, by means of which cloth could be stretched. North of Moorfields is indicated rising ground with woods. There can be no doubt at all as to the course of the wall, which is here marked with the greatest clearness. On the east of the Tower there is already a crowded quarter in the Precinct of St. Katherine's: and a few buildings mark the former site of the great monastery of Eastminster. In the Minories a group of new houses marks the site of the nunnery which stood here. London Bridge is covered with houses: on Bank Side, Southwark, there are two round buildings, 'The Bearebayting' and 'The Bullebayting.' There is also, opposite to Blackfriars, Paris Garden, a very favourite place of resort for the citizens. But as yet there are no theatres. Along the river outside the walls we find, beyond Bridewell Palace, an open space where was formerly Whitefriars. Here presently grew up a curious colony called Alsatia, which claimed to retain the right of Sanctuary once belonging to the monastery. Arrests for debt could not be made within its limits. That is to say, it was so claimed by the residents, who resisted any attempt to violate this privilege by force of arms. It was a notorious place in the seventeenth century, filled with rogues and broken-down gamblers, spendthrifts and profligates. As yet (when this map was drawn) there are very few houses between Whitefriars and the Temple. Beyond the Temple there are marked Arundel Place, Paget Place, Somerset Place, the Savoy, York Place. Duresme—i.e. Durham—Place, and 'the Court'—i.e. Whitehall—of which the map gives a plan, which gives us a clear idea of the plan and appearance of this palace, of which only the Banqueting Hall remains. The Savoy, at the time (1561) was a hospital. Henry VII. made a hospital of it, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, receiving 100 poor people. At the Dissolution of the Monasteries it was suppressed. Queen Mary restored it, and it continued as a hospital till the year 1702, when it was finally suppressed. Like Whitefriars, and for the same reason, it claimed the right of Sanctuary: therefore it became the harbour of people described as 'rogues and masterless men.' In the City itself there are many large gardens and open spaces. The courts of the Grey Friars, now a school, are still standing: there are gardens on the site of the Austin Friars' monastery and gardens between Broad Street and Bishopsgate Street. We must not think of London as a city crowded with narrow lanes and courts, the houses almost touching their opposite neighbours. Such courts were only found beside the river: many streets, it is true, were narrow, but there were broad thoroughfares like Cheapside, Gracechurch Street, Canwicke (now Cannon Street) Tower Street, and Fenchurch Street. The river is covered with boats: one of them is a barge filled with soldiers, which is being tugged by a four-oared boat: packhorses are being taken to the river to drink: below bridge the lighters begin: two or three vessels are moored at Billingsgate: the ships begin opposite the Tower: two or three great three-masted vessels are shown: and two or three smaller ships of the kind called ketch, sloop, or hoy. Along the river front of the Tower are mounted cannon. The ditch of the Tower is filled with water. On Tower Hill there stands a permanent gallows: beside it is some small structure, which is probably a pillory with the stocks.
Such is a brief account of London from this map. The original is the property of the Corporation and is kept in the Guildhall Library. A facsimile reprint has been made.
41. ELIZABETHAN LONDON.
PART II.
We have passed over two hundred years. We left London under the Three Edwards. We find it under Elizabeth. It was a City of Palaces—monasteries, with splendid churches and stately buildings: town houses of bishops, abbots, and noble lords, every one able to accommodate a goodly following of liveried retainers and servants: the mansions of rich City merchants, sometimes as splendid as those of the lords: the halls of the City Companies: the hundred and twenty City churches. Look at London as Shakespeare saw it. Everywhere there are the ruins of the monasteries: some of the buildings have been destroyed with gunpowder: some have been pulled down: where it has been too costly to destroy the monastic chapels they are used as storehouses or workshops: the marble monuments of the buried Kings and Queens have been broken up and carried off: the ruins of refectory, dormitory, library, chapter house stand still, being taken down little by little as stones are wanted for building purposes: some of the ruins, indeed, lasted till this very century, notably a gateway of the Holy Trinity Priory, at the back of St. Catharine Cree, Leadenhall Street, and some of the buildings of St. Helen's Nunnery, beside the church of Great St. Helen's. One would think that the presence of all these ruins would have saddened the City. Not so. The people were so thoroughly Protestant that they regarded the ruins with the utmost satisfaction. They were a sign of deliverance from what their new preachers taught them was false doctrine. Moreover, there were other reasons why the citizens under Queen Elizabeth could not regret the past.
COACHES IN THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH.
(From 'Archcæologia.')
The parish churches were changed. The walls, once covered with paintings of saints and angels, were now scraped or whitewashed: instead of altars with blazing lights, there was a plain table: there were no more watching candles: there were no more splendid robes for the priest and the altar boys: the priest was transformed into a preacher: the service consisted of plain prayers, the reading of the Bible, and a sermon. In very few churches was there an organ. There was no external beauty in religion. Therefore external beauty in the church itself ceased for three hundred years to be desired. What was required was neatness, with ample space for all to be seated, so arranged that all might hear the sermon. And whereas under the Plantagenets every other man was a priest, a friar, or some officer or servant of a monastery, one only met here and there a clergyman with black gown and Genevan bands.