Old and New London, Volume I / A Narrative of Its History, Its People, and Its Places

by Walter Thornbury

"The Eye of London," as Stow affectionately calls the first Royal Exchange, rapidly became a vast bazaar, where fashionable ladies went to shop, and sometimes to meet their lovers.

Contemporary allusions to Gresham's Exchange are innumerable in old writers. Donald Lupton, in a little work called "London and the Country Carbonadoed and Quartered into Severall Characters," published in 1632, says of the Exchange:—"Here are usually more coaches attendant than at church doors. The merchants should keep their wives from visiting the upper rooms too often, lest they tire their purses by attiring themselves.... There's many gentlewomen come hither that, to help their faces and complexion, break their husbands' backs; who play foul in the country with their land, to be fair and play false in the city."

"I do not look upon the structure of this Exchange to be comparable to that of Sir Thomas Gresham in our City of London," says Evelyn, writing from Amsterdam in 1641; "yet in one respect it exceeds—that ships of considerable burthen ride at the very key contiguous to it." He writes from Paris in the same strain: "I went to the Exchange; the late addition to the buildings is very noble; but the gallerys, where they sell their pretty merchandize, are nothing so stately as ours in London, no more than the place is where they walk below, being only a low vault." Even the associations which the Rialto must have awakened failed to seduce him from his allegiance to the City of London. He writes from Venice, in June, 1645: "I went to their Exchange—a place like ours, frequented by merchants, but nothing so magnificent."

During the Civil War the Exchange statue of Charles I. was thrown down, on the 30th of May, 1648, and the premature inscription, "Exit tyrannorum ultimus," put up in its place, which of course was removed immediately after the Restoration, when a new statue was ordered. The Acts for converting the Monarchy into a Commonwealth were burnt at the Royal Exchange, May 28, 1661, by the hands of the common hangman.

Samuel Rolle, a clergyman who wrote on the Great Fire, has left the following account of this edifice as it appeared in his day:—"How full of riches," he exclaims, "was that Royal Exchange! Rich men in the midst of it, rich goods both above and beneath! There men walked upon the top of a wealthy mine, considering what Eastern treasures, costly spices, and such-like things were laid up in the bowels (I mean the cellars) of that place. As for the upper part of it, was it not the great storehouse whence the nobility and gentry of England were furnished with most of those costly things wherewith they did adorn either their closets or themselves? Here, if anywhere, might a man have seen the glory of the world in a moment. What artificial thing could entertain the senses, the fantasies of men, that was not there to be had? Such was the delight that many gallants took in that magazine of all curious varieties, that they could almost have dwelt there (going from shop to shop like bee from flower to flower), if they had but had a fountain of money that could not have been drawn dry. I doubt not but a Mohamedan (who never expects other than sensual delights) would gladly have availed himself of that place, and the treasures of it, for his heaven, and have thought there was none like it."

In 1665, during the Plague, great fires were made at the north and south entrances of the Exchange, to purify the air. The stoppage of public business was so complete that grass grew within the area of the Royal Exchange. The strange desertion thus indicated is mentioned in Pepys' "Notes." Having visited the Exchange, where he had not been for a good while, the writer exclaims: "How sad a sight it is to see the streets empty of people, and very few upon the 'Change, jealous of every door that one sees shut up, lest it should be the Plague, and about us two shops in three, if not more, generally shut up."

At the Great Fire the King and the Duke of York, afterwards James II., attended to give directions for arresting the calamity. They could think of nothing calculated to be so effectual as blowing up or pulling down houses that stood in its expected way. Such precautions were used in Cornhill; but in the confusion that prevailed, the timbers which they had contained were not removed, and when the flames reached them, "they," says Vincent, who wrote a sermon on the Fire, "quickly cross the way, and so they lick the whole street up as they go; they mount up to the top of the highest houses; they descend down to the bottom of the lowest vaults and cellars, and march along on both sides of the way with such a roaring noise as never was heard in the City of London: no stately building so great as to resist their fury; the Royal Exchange itself, the glory of the merchants, is now invaded with much violence. When the fire was entered, how quickly did it run around the galleries, filling them with flames; then descending the stairs, compasseth the walks, giving forth flaming vollies, and filling the court with sheets of fire. By and by the kings fell all down upon their faces, and the greater part of the stone building after them (the founder's statue alone remaining), with such a noise as was dreadful and astonishing."

In Wren's great scheme for rebuilding London, he proposed to make the Royal Exchange the centre nave of London, from whence the great sixty-feet wide streets should radiate like spokes in a huge wheel. The Exchange was to stand free, in the middle of a great piazza, and was to have double porticoes, as the Forum at Rome had. Evelyn wished the new building to be at Queenhithe, to be nearer the waterside, but eventually both his and Wren's plan fell through, and Mr. Jerman, one of the City surveyors, undertook the design for the new Bourse.

For the east end of the new building the City required to purchase 700 or 800 fresh superficial feet of ground from a Mr. Sweeting, and 1,400 more for a passage. It was afterwards found that the City only required 627 feet, and the improvement of the property would benefit Mr. Sweeting, who, however, resolutely demanded £1,000. The refractory, greedy Sweeting declared that his tenants paid him £246 a year, and in fines £620; and that if the new street cut near St. Benet Fink Church, another £1,000 would not satisfy him for his damage. It is supposed that he eventually took £700 for the 783 feet 4 inches of ground, and for an area 25 feet long by 12 wide.

Jerman's design for the new building being completed, and the royal approbation of it obtained, together with permission to extend the south-west angle of the new Exchange into the street, the building (of which the need was severely felt) was immediately proceeded with; and the foundation was laid on the 6th of May, 1667. On the 23rd of October, Charles II. laid the base of the column on the west side of the north entrance; after which he was plentifully regaled "with a chine of beef, grand dish of fowle, gammons of bacon, dried tongues, anchovies, caviare, &c., and plenty of several sorts of wine. He gave twenty pounds in gold to the workmen. The entertainment was in a shed, built and adorned on purpose, upon the Scotch Walk." Pepys has given some account of this interesting ceremony in his Diary, where we read, "Sir W. Pen and I back to London, and there saw the King with his kettle-drums and trumpets, going to the Exchange, which, the gates being shut, I could not get in to see. So, with Sir W. Pen to Captain Cockes, and thence again towards Westminster; but, in my way, stopped at the Exchange, and got in, the King being nearly gone, and there find the bottom of the first pillar laid. And here was a shed set up, and hung with tapestry, and a canopy of state, and some good victuals, and wine for the King, who, it seems, did it."