Westminster

by Walter Besant

Here was held the ordeal of battle. Stow relates one such trial. The dispute was about a manor in the Isle of Harty. The plaintiffs, two in number, appointed their champion, and the defendant his. The latter was a “Master of Defense,” which does not seem quite fair upon the other, who was only a “big, broad, strong set fellow.” Before the day appointed for the fight an agreement was arrived at between the parties; only, “for the defendant’s assurance,” the order for the fight should be observed, the plaintiffs not putting in an appearance, so that the case should be judged against them in default. The lists were twenty-one yards square, set with scaffolds crowded with people—for who would not go out to see two men trying to kill each other? The Master of Defense, to whom the proceedings were an excellent advertisement, rode through London at seven in the morning in splendid attire, having the gauntlet borne before him; he entered Westminster Hall, but made no long stay there, going back to King Street, and so through the Sanctuary and Tothill Street to the lists, where he waited for the Judge. At ten the Court of Common Pleas removed to the lists. Then the combatants stood face to face, bare-footed, bare-legged, bare-headed, with their doublet sleeves turned back, ready for the fight; and all hearts beat faster, and the ladies caught their breath and gasped, and their color came and went. Then the Judge gave order that every person must keep his place and give no help or encouragement by word or by weapon to the combatants. Next—this was the last of the tedious preliminaries: when would they begin?—each champion took oath: “This hear you Justices, that I this day neither eate, drunk, nor have upon me neither bone, stone, nor glasse, or any enchantment, sorcerie, or witchcraft, where-through the power of the word of God might be increased or diminished and the devil’s power increased; and that my appeal is true, so help me God, and His saints, and by this booke.”

Alas! instead of giving the word to fight it out, the Lord Chief Justice remarked that the plaintiffs were not present; that there could be no fight without them; and that the estate consequently went to the defendant. Then with sad faces and heavy hearts the company dispersed. No fight, after all—nobody killed! To be sure, the Master of Defense invited the “big, broad, strong set fellow” to play with him half a score blows; but the latter refused, saying he had come to fight and not to play.

A great Fair was held in these Fields on St. Edward’s Day (October 12), and for fifteen days afterward. It was instituted by Henry III., in the hope of doing some mischief to the City of London. The Fair continued, but after the first year it seems to have done no harm to the trade of London. It continued, in fact, into the present century, when it was an ordinary fair of booths and shows, with Richardson’s Theater—like Greenwich Fair or Portsdown Fair. All these Fairs were alike. The two latter I can remember. Unfortunately my visits to these renowned Fairs took place in the afternoon; the real fun of the Fair, I believe, took place in the evening. I remember a great crowd pushing and fighting and springing rattles on each other; and I remember the performers outside Richardson’s marching about in magnificent costumes; the band playing; the clown tumbling; the columbine, a true fairy if ever there was one, gracefully pirouetting; then all forming into line for a dance; and after the dance the play in the tent behind. Such a Fair was that of Tothill Fields, at night the resort of all the ruffians of Westminster and Lambeth and half London. At least, however, while they were at the Fair they were out of other mischief. The exact site on which this Fair was held does not appear; but since it continued for the first quarter of this century at least, we may look for the place which was the last to be built upon. In Crutchley’s map of 1834 there are fields between the Vauxhall Bridge Road and James Street—that is, northwest of Rochester Row. There are also fields south of Vauxhall Bridge Road toward Chelsea. The former site seems the more probable.

Of course so fine a situation as Tothill Fields for the favorite diversions of a sporting people could not be neglected. Hither resorted all the lovers of those old English games, cock-fighting, bear-baiting, bull-baiting, cock-throwing, dog-fighting, and prize-fighting. There were horse races. These sports were continued well into this century. The Earl of Albemarle in his “Recollections” speaks of these sports. The Westminster boys of his time haunted the houses called the Seven Chimneys or the Five Houses,—they were the old pesthouses,—which were the resort of the bullbaiters, the dog-fanciers, and other gentry of cognate pursuits. Among them was the unfortunate Heberfield, commonly known as “Slender Billy,” who seems to have been a good-tempered, easy-going person, without the least tincture of morals. The following is the strange and shameful story of his end:

THE WESTMINSTER SNUFFBOX.

He got into trouble for assisting the escape of a certain French general who was on parole; took him probably to the south coast,—Lyme Regis, Rousdon, or Charmouth,—and introduced him to a smuggler who ran him across. He was caught, tried, and sentenced to imprisonment in Newgate. Unhappily for him, the Bank of England was just then suffering heavy losses from forgeries. They badly wanted to hang somebody,—no matter who,—somebody, in order to deter others from forging notes. The story is quite amazing, as Lord Albemarle tells it. Can we conceive the Governing Body of the Bank of England meeting together and resolving to entrap some miserable wretch into passing the forged notes, so that by getting him hanged others would be deterred? This is what Lord Albemarle says they did:

“The Solicitors of the Bank accordingly took into their pay a confederate of Heberfield’s named Barry. Through this man’s agency Heberfield was easily inveigled into passing forged notes provided by the Solicitors of the Bank themselves. On the evidence of Barry, Heberfield was found guilty and sentenced to death. He was hanged at Newgate for forgery on January 12, 1812.”

The saddest of all the memories connected with Tothill Fields is that of the triumphal entry of Cromwell into London after the “crowning mercy” of Worcester. He brought with him the miserable prisoners he had taken on that field. There were four thousand of them in all. They camped at Mile End Green when Cromwell drove into London; the next day they were marched right through the City and along the Strand to Westminster, and so to Tothill Fields. On the way they received alms, oatmeal, and biscuit from any who were moved of their pity to bestow something upon them. So they lay in the marshy fields, where many died, until they were sold as slaves to the merchants of Guinea. In Mr. J. E. Smith’s “History of the Church of St. John the Evangelist” there is an entry which tells its own story. It is from the Church-wardens’ Accounts of 1652-53: