children, would give us another company of four thousand. But some of the servants in the kitchen might be women. Then we have the gardeners, the barbers, who were also blood-letters, the bonesetters (a very necessary body), the trumpeters, messengers, bedesmen, grooms, and stable-boys—no one can reckon up their number. Add to these the lavenders or laundry-women who embroidered, did fine needlework, made and mended, weaved and spun—many of these were doubtless the wives and daughters of the servants. A step higher brings us to the chaplains, the College of St. Stephen, the minstrels, the clerks and accountants, the scribes and illuminators, the heralds and pursuivants. Another step, and we come to the judges and the head officers, with all their staff, clerks, and servants. Next the archbishops, bishops and abbots, some of whom were always with the king. Then we come to the great officers of state: viz., the Grand Seneschal Dapifer Angliæ or Lord High Steward, who was head and chief of every department, next to the king; the High Justiciary or Lord Chief Justice; the Seneschal, Dapifer Regis, or Steward of the Household; the Constable, the Marshal, the Chamberlain, the Chancellor, and the Treasurer.[2] Lastly, there was the royal household with its officers: the Clerks of the Wardrobe, the King’s Remembrancer, the Keeper of the Palace, the Queen’s Treasurer, the Maids of Honor (domicellæ), the Gentlemen Ushers and the pages, and (which we must again set down) the King’s regiment of four thousand archers.
I think it is now made plain that the people attached to a stationary Court numbered not hundreds, but many thousands; it is not too much to estimate the number of inhabitants within the walls of Westminster Palace in the reign of Richard II. at twenty thousand—all of whom had “bouche of court” (i. e., rations, pay, arms, lodging, and living). It was, therefore, a crowded city, complete in itself, though it produced nothing and carried on no trade; there were workshops and forges and the hammering of armorers and blacksmiths, but there were no stalls, no chepe, no clamor of those who shouted their goods and invited the passengers to “buy, buy, buy.” This city produced nothing for the country; it received and devoured everything—it was not an idle city, because the people earned their daily bread; but for all their labor they never increased the wealth of the country. Listen to the voice of the poet—it is Harding who speaks of King Richard’s Court:
Truly I herd Robert Ireliffe say,
Clerk of the Green Cloth, that to the household
Came every daye, for moost partie alwaye,
Ten thousand folke by his messe is told,
That followed the hous, aye, as thei would;
And in the kechin three hundred servitours,
And in eche office many occupiours.
And ladies faire, with their gentilwomen,
Chamberers also and lavenders,
Three hundred of them were occupied there:
Ther was greate pride among the officers,
And of all menne far passing their compeers,
Of riche arraye, and muche more costious
Than was before or sith, and more precious.
The ten thousand do not include the women and children.
We have ceased to desire a Court magnificent with outward splendor and lavish expenditure. There has been, in fact, no such Court among us since that of Charles II.; and the splendor of his Court was but a poor thing compared with the splendor of the Third Edward, who was magnificent—or of Richard II., who was profuse. Let us remember that in our time we cannot make any show, or festival, or pageant—we have lost the art of pageantry—which can compare with the shows which our forefathers saw daily: the shows of magnificent trains, queens and princesses in such raiment as the greatest lady of these times would be afraid to put on, lords and knights and gentlemen of the livery, streets with their gabled houses hung with crimson and scarlet cloth; minstrels and music everywhere; mysteries and pageants and allegories, with fair maidens and giants, angels and devils; lavish feasts at which conduits ran with wine for long hours and all the world could get drunk if it pleased. And there was never anything more splendid than Richard II. himself. The time of great shows vanished, like the spirit of Chivalry, during the Wars of the Roses.
What kind of quarters were given to the king’s courtiers and his army and his servants? This is a question to which one can give no satisfactory answer. We hear of many rooms and buildings, but there does not exist any description or plan of the palace as it was. It must certainly have contained a vast number of buildings for the accommodation of so many thousands. The fact that these buildings existed was proved after the fire of 1834, when a most extensive range of cellars and vaults was found to exist under the burned buildings round St. Stephen’s. The old buildings had long before been destroyed and modern houses had taken their places; but the vaults and cellars remained, showing by their strength and solidity the importance of the halls and chambers that had been built upon them.
It was the first duty of the mediæval builder to provide a wall of defense. This was done at Westminster. The wall, as indicated on the plan, entirely surrounded the Palace; it was provided with a water gate at the King’s Bridge or King’s Stairs; a postern at the Queen’s Stairs; a gate leading into the Abbey precinct east of St. Margaret’s Church; a subway by which the king could enter the Abbey, at Poet’s Corner; and a gate opposite the Great Hall leading into the Wool Staple.
A BIT OF THE OLD WALL FROM BLACK DOG ALLEY.