"Life makes the soul dependent on the dust;
Death gives her wings to mount above the spheres."
The angles at the top of the mean square tower are bevelled off to allow of a short octagonal spire and an octagonal balustrade.
The following epitaphs are quoted by Strype:—
John Rogers, died 1576.
"Like thee I was sometime,
But now am turned to dust;
As thou at length, O earth and slime,
Returne to ashes must.
Of the Company of Clothworkers
A brother I became;
A long time in the Livery
I lived of the same.
Then Death that deadly stroke did give,
Which now my joys doth frame.
In Christ I dyed, by Christ to live;
John Rogers was my name.
My loving wife and children two
My place behind supply;
God grant them living so to doe,
That they in him may dye."
George Bolles, Lord Mayor of London, died 1632.
"He possessed Earth as he might Heaven possesse;
Wise to doe right, but never to oppresse.
His charity was better felt than knowne,
For when he gave there was no trumpet blowne.
What more can be comprized in one man's fame,
To crown a soule, and leave a living name?"
Founders' Hall, now in St. Swithin's Lane, was formerly at Founders' Court, Lothbury. The Founders' Company, incorporated in 1614, had the power of testing all brass weights and brass and copper wares within the City and three miles round. The old Founders' Hall was noted for its political meetings, and was in 1792 nicknamed "The Cauldron of Sedition." Here Waithman made his first political speech, and, with his fellow-orators, was put to flight by constables, sent by the Lord Mayor, Sir James Sanderson, to disperse the meeting.
Watling Street, now laid open by the new street leading to the Mansion House, is probably the oldest street in London. It is part of the old Roman military road that, following an old British forest-track, led from London to Dover, and from Dover to South Wales. The name, according to Leland, is from the Saxon atheling—a noble street. At the north-west end of it is the church of St. Augustine, anciently styled Ecclesia Sancti Augustini ad Portam, from its vicinity to the south-east gate of St. Paul's Cathedral. This church was described on page 349.
Tower Royal, Watling Street, preserves the memory of one of those strange old palatial forts that were not unfrequent in mediæval London—half fortresses, half dwelling-houses; half courting, half distrusting the City. "It was of old time the king's house," says Stow, solemnly, "but was afterwards called the Queen's Wardrobe. By whom the same was first built, or of what antiquity continued, I have not read, more than that in the reign of Edward I. it was the tenement of Simon Beaumes." In the reign of Edward III. it was called "the Royal, in the parish of St. Michael Paternoster;" and in the 43rd year of his reign he gave the inn, in value £20 a year, to the college of St. Stephen, at Westminster.
In the Wat Tyler rebellion, Richard II.'s mother and her ladies took refuge there, when the rebels had broken into the Tower and terrified the royal lady by piercing her bed with their swords.