They also complained that the said Mayor and aldermen had taken upon them to turn out of the Common Council men at their pleasure; and that the Mayor and superiors of the City had deposed Walter Henry from acting in the Common Council, because he would not permit the rich to levy tollages upon the poor, till they themselves had paid their arrears of former tollages; upon which Sir John Gisors, some time Lord Mayor, and divers of the principal citizens, were summoned to attend the said justices, and personally to answer to the accusations laid against them; but, being conscious of guilt, they fled from justice, screening themselves under the difficulty of the time.
How long Sir John Gisors remained absent from London does not appear; but probably on the dethronement of Edward II. and accession of Edward III., he might join the prevailing party and return to his mansion, without any dread of molestation from the power of ministers and favourites of the late reign, who were at this period held in universal detestation. Sir John Gisors died, and was buried in Our Lady's Chapel, Christ Church, Faringdon Within (Christ's Hospital).
Later in that century the house became the residence of Sir Henry Picard, Vintner and Lord Mayor, who entertained here, with great splendour, no less distinguished personages than his sovereign, Edward III., John King of France, the King of Cyprus, David King of Scotland, Edward the Black Prince, and a large assemblage of the nobility. "And after," says Stow, "the said Henry Picard kept his hall against all comers whosoever that were willing to play at dice and hazard. In like manner, the Lady Margaret his wife did also keep her chamber to the same effect." We are told that on this occasion "the King of Cyprus, playing with Sir Henry Picard in his hall, did win of him fifty marks; but Picard, being very skilled in that art, altering his hand, did after win of the same king the same fifty marks, and fifty marks more; which when the same king began to take in ill part, although he dissembled the same, Sir Henry said unto him, 'My lord and king, be not aggrieved; I court not your gold, but your play; for I have not bid you hither that you might grieve;' and giving him his money again, plentifully bestowed of his own amongst the retinue. Besides, he gave many rich gifts to the king, and other nobles and knights which dined with him, to the great glory of the citizens of London in those days."
Gerard Hall contained one of the finest Norman crypts to be found in all London. It was not an ecclesiastical crypt, but the great vaulted warehouse of a Norman merchant's house, and it is especially mentioned by Stow.
"On the south side of Basing Lane," says Stow, "is one great house of old time, built upon arched vaults, and with arched gates of stone, brought from Caen, in Normandy. The same is now a common hostrey for receipt of travellers, commonly and corruptly called Gerrarde's Hall, of a giant said to have dwelt there. In the high-roofed hall of this house some time stood a large fir-pole, which reached to the roof thereof, and was said to be one of the staves that Gerrarde the giant used in the wars to run withal. There stood also a ladder of the same length, which (as they say) served to ascend to the top of the staff. Of later years this hall is altered in building, and divers rooms are made in it; notwithstanding the pole is removed to one corner of the room, and the ladder hangs broken upon a wall in the yard. The hostelar of that house said to me, 'the pole lacketh half a foot of forty in length.' I measured the compass thereof, and found it fifteen inches. Reasons of the pole could the master of the hostrey give none; but bade me read the great chronicles, for there he had heard of it. I will now note what myself hath observed concerning that house. I read that John Gisors, Mayor of London in 1245, was owner thereof, and that Sir John Gisors, Constable of the Tower 1311, and divers others of that name and family, since that time owned it. So it appeareth that this Gisors Hall of late time, by corruption, hath been called Gerrarde's Hall for Gisors' Hall. The pole in the hall might be used of old times (as then the custom was in every parish) to be set up in the summer as a maypole. The ladder served for the decking of the maypole and roof of the hall." The works of Wilkinson and J.T. Smith contain a careful view of the interior of this crypt. There used to be outside the hotel a quaint gigantic figure of seventeenth century workmanship.
In 1844 Mr. James Smith, the originator of early closing (then living at W.Y. Ball and Co.'s, Wood Street), learning that the warehouses in Manchester were closed at one p.m. on Saturday, determined to ascertain if a similar system could not be introduced into the metropolis. He invited a few friends to meet him at the Gerard's Hall. Mr. F. Bennock, of Wood Street, was appointed chairman, and a canvass was commenced, but it was feared that, as certain steam-packets left London on Saturday afternoon, the proposed arrangement might prevent the proper dispatch of merchandise, so it was suggested that the warehouses should be closed "all the year round" eight months at six o'clock, and four months at eight o'clock. This arrangement was acceded to.
St. Mary Woolchurch was an old parish church in Walbrook Ward, destroyed in the Great Fire, and not rebuilt. It occupied part of the site of the Mansion House, and derived its name from a beam for weighing wool that was kept there till the reign of Richard II., when customs began to be taken at the Wool Key, in Lower Thames Street. Some of the bequests to this church, as mentioned by Stow, are very characteristic. Elyu Fuller: "Farthermore, I will that myn executor shal kepe yerely, during the said yeres, about the tyme of my departure, an Obit—that is to say, Dirige over even, and masse on the morrow, for my sowl, Mr. Kneysworth's sowl, my lady sowl, and al Christen sowls." One George Wyngar, by his will, dated September 13, 1521, ordered to be buried in the church of Woolchurch, "besyde the Stocks, in London, under a stone lying at my Lady Wyngar's pew dore, at the steppe comyng up to the chappel. Item. I bequeath to pore maids' mariages £13 6s. 8d; to every pore householder of this my parish, 4d. a pece to the sum of 40s. Item. I bequeath to the high altar of S. Nicolas Chapel £10 for an altar-cloth of velvet, with my name brotheryd thereupon, with a Wyng, and G and A and R closyd in a knot. Also, I wold that a subdeacon of whyte damask be made to the hyghe altar, with my name brotheryd, to syng in, on our Lady daies, in the honour of God and our Lady, to the value of seven marks." The following epitaph is also worth preserving:—
"In Sevenoke, into the world my mother brought me;
Hawlden House, in Kent, with armes ever honour'd me;
Westminster Hall (thirty-six yeeres after) knew me.
Then seeking Heaven, Heaven from the world tooke me;
Whilome alive, Thomas Scot men called me;
Now laid in grave oblivion covereth me."
In 1850, among the ruins of a Roman edifice, at eleven feet depth, was found in Nicholas Lane, near Cannon Street, a large slab, inscribed "Num. Cæs. Prov. Brita." (Numini Cæsaris Provincia Britannia). In 1852 tesselated pavement, Samian ware, earthen urns and lamp, and other Roman vessels were found from twelve to twenty feet deep near Basing Lane, New Cannon Street.
According to Dugdale, Eudo, Steward of the Household to King Henry I. (1100-1135), gave the Church of St. Stephen, which stood on the west side of Walbrook, to the Monastery of St. John at Colchester. In the reign of Henry VI. Robert Chicheley, Mayor of London, gave a piece of ground on the east side of Walbrook, for a new church, 125 feet long and 67 feet broad. It was in this church, in Queen Mary's time, that Dr. Feckenham, her confessor and the fanatical Dean of St. Paul's, used to preach the doctrines of the old faith. The church was destroyed in the Great Fire, and rebuilt by Wren in 1672-9. The following is one of the old epitaphs here:—