Eastcheap is mentioned as a street of cooks' shops by Lydgate, a monk, who flourished in the reigns of Henry V. and VI., in his "London Lackpenny:"—
"Then I hyed me into Estchepe,
One cryes rybbs of befe, and many a pye;
Pewter pots they clattered on a heape,
There was harpe, pype, and mynstrelsye."
Stow especially says that in Henry IV.'s time there were no taverns in Eastcheap. He tells the following story of how Prince Hal's two roystering brothers were here beaten by the watch. This slight hint perhaps led Shakespeare to select this street for the scene of the prince's revels.
"This Eastcheap," says Stow, "is now a flesh-market of butchers, there dwelling on both sides of the street; it had some time also cooks mixed among the butchers, and such other as sold victuals ready dressed of all sorts. For of old time, such as were disposed to be merry, met not to dine and sup in taverns (for they dressed not meats to be sold), but to the cooks, where they called for meat what them liked.
"In the year 1410, the 11th of Henry IV., upon the even of St. John Baptist, the king's sons, Thomas and John, being in Eastcheap at supper (or rather at breakfast, for it was after the watch was broken up, betwixt two and three of the clock after midnight), a great debate happened between their men and other of the court, which lasted one hour, even till the maior and sheriffs, with other citizens, appeased the same; for the which afterwards the said maior, aldermen, and sheriffs were sent for to answer before the king, his sons and divers lords being highly moved against the City. At which time William Gascoigne, chief justice, required the maior and aldermen, for the citizens, to put them in the king's grace. Whereunto they answered they had not offended, but (according to the law) had done their best in stinting debate and maintaining of the peace; upon which answer the king remitted all his ire and dismissed them."
The "Boar's Head," Eastcheap, stood on the north side of Eastcheap, between Small Alley and St. Michael's Lane, the back windows looking out on the churchyard of St. Michael, Crooked Lane, which was removed with the inn, rebuilt after the Great Fire, in 1831, for the improvement of new London Bridge.
In the reign of Richard II. William Warder gave the tenement called the "Boar's Head," in Eastcheap, to a college of priests, founded by Sir William Walworth, for the adjoining church of St. Michael, Crooked Lane. In Maitland's time the inn was labelled, "This is the chief tavern in London."
Upon a house (says Mr. Godwin) on the south side of Eastcheap, previous to recent alterations, there was a representation of a boar's head, to indicate the site of the tavern; but there is reason to believe that this was incorrectly placed, insomuch as by the books of St. Clement's parish it appears to have been situated on the north side. It seems by a deed of trust which still remains, that the tavern belonged to this parish, and in the books about the year 1710 appears this entry: "Ordered that the churchwardens doe pay to the Rev. Mr. Pulleyn £20 for four years, due to him at Lady Day next, for one moyetee of the ground-rent of a house formerly called the 'Boar's Head,' Eastcheap, near the 'George' ale-house." Again, too, we find: "August 13, 1714. An agreement was entered into with William Usborne, to grant him a lease for forty-six years, from the expiration of the then lease, of a brick messuage or tenement on the north side of Great Eastcheap, commonly known by the name of 'the Lamb and Perriwig,' in the occupation of Joseph Lock, barber, and which was formerly known as the sign of the 'Boar's Head.'"
On the removal of a mound of rubbish at Whitechapel, brought there after a great fire, a carved boxwood bas-relief boar's head was found, set in a circular frame formed by two boars' tusks, mounted and united with silver. An inscription to the following effect was pricked at the back:— "William Brooke, Landlord of the Bore's Hedde, Estchepe, 1566." This object, formerly in the possession of Mr. Stamford, the celebrated publisher, was sold at Christie and Manson's, on January 27, 1855, and was bought by Mr. Halliwell. The ancient sign, carved in stone, with the initials I.T., and the date 1668, is now preserved in the City of London Library, Guildhall.
In 1834 Mr. Kempe exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries a carved oak figure of Sir John Falstaff, in the costume of the sixteenth century. This figure had supported an ornamental bracket over one side of the door of the last "Boar's Head," a figure of Prince Henry sustaining the other. This figure of Falstaff was the property of a brazer whose ancestors had lived in the same shop in Great Eastcheap ever since the Fire. He remembered the last great Shakesperian dinner at the "Boar's Head," about 1784, when Wilberforce and Pitt were both present; and though there were many wits at table, Pitt, he said, was pronounced the most pleasant and amusing of the guests. There is another "Boar's Head" in Southwark, and one in Old Fish Street.