The History of London by Walter Besant (best classic books TXT) 📕

street and two or three streets outside Cripplegate. Moorfields are really fields. There are windmills, gardens with summer-houses, pasture-fields with cows, a large 'dogge house,' and fields where women appear to be laying out clothes to dry. Really, they are tenter fields, i.e. fields provided with 'tenters,' or pegs, by means of which cloth could be stretched. North of Moorfields is indicated rising ground with woods. There can be no doubt at all as to the course of the wall, which is here marked with the greatest clearness. On the east of the Tower there is already a crowded quarter in the Precinct of St. Katherine's: and a few buildings mark the former site of the great monastery of Eastminster. In the Minories a group of new houses marks the site of the nunnery which stood here. London Bridge is covered with houses: on Bank Side, Southwark, there are two round buildings, 'The Bearebayting' and 'The Bullebayting.' There is also, opposite to Blackfriars, Paris Garden, a very favourite place of resort for the citizens. But as yet there are no theatres. Along the river outside the walls we find, beyond Bridewell Palace, an open space where was formerly Whitefriars. Here presently grew up a curious colony called Alsatia, which claimed to retain the right of Sanctuary once belonging to the monastery. Arrests for debt could not be made within its limits. That is to say, it was so claimed by the residents, who resisted any attempt to violate this privilege by force of arms. It was a notorious place in the seventeenth century, filled with rogues and broken-down gamblers, spendthrifts and profligates. As yet (when this map was drawn) there are very few houses between Whitefriars and the Temple. Beyond the Temple there are marked Arundel Place, Paget Place, Somerset Place, the Savoy, York Place. Duresme--i.e. Durham--Place, and 'the Court'--i.e. Whitehall--of which the map gives a plan, which gives us a clear idea of the plan and appearance of this palace, of which only the Banqueting Hall remains. The Savoy, at the time (1561) was a hospital. Henry VII. made a hospital of it, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, receiving 100 poor people. At the Dissolution of the Monasteries it was suppressed. Queen Mary restored it, and it continued as a hospital till the year 1702, when it was finally suppressed. Like Whitefriars, and for the same reason, it claimed the right of Sanctuary: therefore it became the harbour of people described as 'rogues and masterless men.' In the City itself there are many large gardens and open spaces. The courts of the Grey Friars, now a school, are still standing: there are gardens on the site of the Austin Friars' monastery and gardens between Broad Street and Bishopsgate Street. We must not think of London as a city crowded with narrow lanes and courts, the houses almost touching their opposite neighbours. Such courts were only found beside the river: many streets, it is true, were narrow, but there were broad thoroughfares like Cheapside, Gracechurch Street, Canwicke (now Cannon Street) Tower Street, and Fenchurch Street. The river is covered with boats: one of them is a barge filled with soldiers, which is being tugged by a four-oared boat: packhorses are being taken to the river to drink: below bridge the lighters begin: two or three vessels are moored at Billingsgate: the ships begin opposite the Tower: two or three great three-masted vessels are shown: and two or three smaller ships of the kind called ketch, sloop, or hoy. Along the river front of the Tower are mounted cannon. The ditch of the Tower is filled with water. On Tower Hill there stands a permanent gallows: beside it is some small structure, which is probably a pillory with the stocks.

Such is a brief account of London from this map. The original is the property of the Corporation and is kept in the Guildhall Library. A facsimile reprint has been made.



41. ELIZABETHAN LONDON.

PART II.

We have passed over two hundred years. We left London under the Three Edwards. We find it under Elizabeth. It was a City of Palaces--monasteries, with splendid churches and stately buildings: town houses of bishops, abbots, and noble lords, every one able to accommodate a goodly following of liveried retainers and servants: the mansions of rich City merchants, sometimes as splendid as those of the lords: the halls of the City Companies: the hundred and twenty City churches. Look at London as Shakespeare saw it. Everywhere there are the ruins of the monasteries: some of the buildings have been destroyed with gunpowder: some have been pulled down: where it has been too costly to destroy the monastic chapels they are used as storehouses or workshops: the marble monuments of the buried Kings and Queens have been broken up and carried off: the ruins of refectory, dormitory, library, chapter house stand still, being taken down little by little as stones are wanted for building purposes: some of the ruins, indeed, lasted till this very century, notably a gateway of the Holy Trinity Priory, at the back of St. Catharine Cree, Leadenhall Street, and some of the buildings of St. Helen's Nunnery, beside the church of Great St. Helen's. One would think that the presence of all these ruins would have saddened the City. Not so. The people were so thoroughly Protestant that they regarded the ruins with the utmost satisfaction. They were a sign of deliverance from what their new preachers taught them was false doctrine. Moreover, there were other reasons why the citizens under Queen Elizabeth could not regret the past.

The parish churches were changed. The walls, once covered with paintings of saints and angels, were now scraped or whitewashed: instead of altars with blazing lights, there was a plain table: there were no more watching candles: there were no more splendid robes for the priest and the altar boys: the priest was transformed into a preacher: the service consisted of plain prayers, the reading of the Bible, and a sermon. In very few churches was there an organ. There was no external beauty in religion. Therefore external beauty in the church itself ceased for three hundred years to be desired. What was required was neatness, with ample space for all to be seated, so arranged that all might hear the sermon. And whereas under the Plantagenets every other man was a priest, a friar, or some officer or servant of a monastery, one only met here and there a clergyman with black gown and Genevan bands.

This change alone transformed London. But there were other changes. Most of the great nobles had left the City. Long before they went away their following had been cut down to modest numbers: their great barracks had become useless: they were let out in tenements, and were falling into decay: some of them had been removed to make way for warehouses and offices: one or two remained till the Great Fire of 1666. Among them were Baynard's Castle, close to Blackfriars, and Cold Harbour. A few nobles continued to have houses in the City. In the time of Charles II., the Duke of Buckingham had a house on College Hill, and the palaces along the Strand still remained.

The merchants' houses took the place of these palaces. They were built either in the form of a quadrangle, standing round a garden, with a cloister or covered way running round, of which Gresham House, pulled down in the last century, was a very fine example. But, since few merchants could afford to build over so large a piece of ground and land was too valuable to be wasted on broad lawns and open courts, the houses were built in four or five stories, with rich carvings all over the front. The house called Sir Paul Pinder's House in Bishopsgate Street, pulled down only a year or two ago, was a very fine example of such a house. The great hall was henceforth only built in great country houses: in the City the following of the richest merchants, in his private house, consisted of a few servants only; small rooms henceforward became the rule: when entertainments and festivities on a large scale are held, the Companies' Halls may be used. The inferior kind of Elizabethan house may still be seen in Holborn--outside of Staple Inn: in Wych Street: in Cloth Fair: and one or two other places. They were narrow: three or four stories high: each story projected beyond the one below: they were gabled: the windows were latticed, with small diamond panes of glass: they were built of plaster and timber. Building with brick only began in the reign of James the First. Before every house hung a sign, on which was painted the figure by which the house was known: some of these signs may still be seen: there is one in Holywell Street: one in Ivy Lane: and there are many old Inns which still keep their ancient signs.



42. ELIZABETHAN LONDON.

PART III.

The population of London at this time was perhaps, for it is not certain, 150,000. There were no suburbs, unless we call the Strand and Smithfield suburbs; the London citizen stepped outside the gates into the open country. This fact must be remembered when we think of the narrow lanes. The great danger of the City still remained, that of fire, for though the better houses were built of stone, the inferior sort, as was stated above, continued to be built of timber and plaster. There were no vehicles in the streets except carts, and the number of these was restricted to 420. When you think of London streets at this time remember that in most of them, in all except the busy streets and the chief thoroughfares, there was hardly ever any noise of rumbling wheels. The packhorses followed each other in long procession, laden with everything; there were doubtless wheelbarrows and hand carts; but the rumbling of the wheels was not yet a part of the daily noise.

The Lord Mayor was directed by Elizabeth always to keep a certain number of the citizens drilled and instructed in the use of arms. When the Spanish invasion was threatened, the Queen ordered a body of troops to be raised instantly. In a single day 1,000 men, fully equipped, were marched off to camp. Afterwards 10,000 men were sent off, and thirty-eight ships were supplied. Both men and sailors were raised by impressment. A constant danger to the peace of the City was the turbulence of the prentices, these lads were always ready to rush into the streets, shouting, ready to attack or destroy whatever was unpopular at the moment. Thus, early in the reign of Henry VIII., at a time when there was great animosity against foreign merchants, of whom there were a great many beside the Hanse merchants of the Steelyard, there was a riot in which a great many houses of foreigners were destroyed, many persons were killed, Newgate was assailed and taken, eleven rioters hanged and 400 more taken before the King with halters round their necks to receive his pardon. This was called 'Evil May Day.' The disorderly conduct of the prentices continued during Elizabeth's reign, she ordered the Provost-Marshal in order to put an end to this trouble, to hang all disorderly persons so convicted by any Justice of the Peace.

There was much complaint of extravagance in dress: rules were passed by the Common Council on the subject. Prentices especially were forbidden to dress in any but the warmest and plainest materials. The dress of the Blue Coat boy is exactly the dress of the prentice of the period, including the flat cap which the modern wearer of the dress carries in his pocket.

The punishments of this time are much more severe than had