UNKNOWN LONDON

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

FLEET STREET
IN SEVEN CENTURIES

"L

UNKNOWN LONDON

BY WALTER GEORGE BELL

F.R.A.S. WITH SEVENTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMXIX

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Printed in Great Britain
ly Turtttull &> Sjiea*:, Edinburgh

PREFACE

HEREIN you will find much concerning
those things which everybody knows
about, but nobody knows — the things
you have known about since childhood, and have
been content to leave them at that, knowing little
of what they are and still less where they are to
be found. I have dealt mostly with the big
things that London has in its keeping, such as
the Domesday Book (can you tell me off-hand
where it is to be seen ?) ; with the Confessor's
Shrine (of the crowds who enter Westminster
Abbey there is a big leaven who do not even know
that it is there) ; with the massive fragments
of London's Roman Wall that still survive ;
with that spot in Smithfield where martyrs
burnt and English history was made ; with the
Duke of Suffolk's head and its dramatic story ;
with our Roman baths ; with London Stone
and odd others — things familiar as household
words and as much apart from the average
Londoner's life as are the Pyramids of Egypt.
Incidentally, London has the bones of one of

vi UNKNOWN LONDON

those Pyramid builders. I have not gone out-
side the City save twice to our famous Abbey
and once to Wapping, for a breath from the salt
sea, a few minutes walk below Tower Bridge.
You can cover all the ground on foot on two or
three afternoons. I should lay claim to be a
successful showman, for there is no charge ;
everything to which this book may guide you
is free.

The City of London — the innermost " square
mile " — is the richest ground for historical associa-
tions in all our world Empire, and the greater
pity, therefore, that it should be unknown. The
lowest depth of ignorance of the City's historical
places, of surviving remains of its great past,
of London history that is weaved close into the
web of the nation's story — the real bottom of
the abyss — you plumb in the average City man.
He knows nothing. He is a mere child ; until
you do as I have done, take him on an adventurous
voyage of exploration, and open his eyes to all
those things that he has never seen, and tell
him what he has never taken the trouble to know.
It is much the same with the visitor from the
Empire's broad Dominions. You conduct him
to the Parks and the Royal Palace, Regent Street
and theatre-land in the West End, introduce him
to Thames beauties at Richmond ; but he knows

PREFACE vii

the City only as a place that he has been rushed
through to see The Tower of London, the Bank
of England being pointed out on the way.

The City is the kernel of London, the sole
depository of its history for centuries, when, in
fact, it was London, the rest being fields. Foot
for foot, it offers more of interest to the man or
woman of British race than any other equal area
in the world.

Much will be missed from these pages. I have
gone to work lazily, omitting most things — give
me credit for candour — picking here and there.
A solitary church has mention ; not a single
Livery Company's hall, not Guildhall nor Gog
and Magog, not that gorgeous example of Norman
builders' craft, St Bartholomew the Great, not
St Paul's, not — but the City affords material
that might fill a shelf with volumes like this.
Some things are still sealed ; and there I pick
a quarrel with the City Companies. Why are
their historic halls hermetically closed, and so are
quite unknown to Londoners ? The churches
are open for two or three hours daily, and why
not they ? The Tower of London now gives
admission to its dungeons — which are no dungeons,
but are above ground — and to the Bloody Tower,
but a prohibition, the good sense of which I have
never understood, forbids visitors from entering

viii UNKNOWN LONDON

the sad little church of St Peter ad Vincula, save
after a most troublesome and roundabout process
of getting written leave.

I owe much to the kindness of friends in
assisting me with illustrations. Canon Westlake
sent me the photograph of the sandbagged
Shrine of the Confessor ; Mr Henry Froude has
permitted the reproduction of the Shrine itself,
and also of King Charles II. in wax effigy, from
Mr Bond's Westminster Abbey. To a like
courtesy from the Clarendon Press, Oxford, I
am indebted for the block of London Stone from
the late Sir Laurence Gomme's The Making of
London ; to Knowledge for the illustration of
the Bones of Men-kau-Ra on their tray ; and
to the Trustees of the British Museum for that
of the coffin-lid of that Pharaoh. The Public
Record Office, always so helpful, granted per-
mission for a photograph to be taken of the
Domesday Book; and the Rev. J. F. Marr,
Vicar of Aldgate, allowed me to photograph
that grim memento mori which forms my frontis-
piece.

CONTENTS

PAGE

PREFACE ...... v

I. THE HEAD OF THE DUKE OF SUFFOLK . 3

II. REMAINS OF THE CITY WALL . . 19

III. THE SHRINE OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR 36

IV. GHOSTS IN THE TOWER OF LONDON . 57
V. THE DOMESDAY BOOK .... 68

VI. AN OLD CITY MERCHANT'S MANSION . 85

VII. LONDON'S ROMAN BATHS ... 98

VIII. WAPPING HIGH STREET . . . 107

IX. LONDON STONE . . . . .128

X. THE BONES OF MEN-KAU-RA . . 140

XI. THE BAGA DE SECRETIS . . 153

XII. LONDON'S LOST KING . . . .168

XIII. THE FIRES OF SMITHFIELD . . .176

XIV. WAXWORKS IN THE ABBEY . . .191

x UNKNOWN LONDON

PAGE

XV. A LOST INVENTION .... 202

XVI. LETTERS FROM LONDON DURING THE

GREAT PLAGUE . . . .213

XVII. THE BELLS OF ST CLEMENT'S . .231
XVIII. A LONDON HOUSEHOLD OF A.D. 1337 . 240

INDEX ...... 247

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

THE HEAD OF THE DUKE OF SUFFOLK . Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

MAP OF THE CITY OF LONDON INDICATING THE

CITY WALL 20

BASTION OF THE ROMAN WALL OF LONDON . 28

"THE MOST SANCTIFIED SHRINE IN OUR LAND" 38

THE SHRINE OF THE CONFESSOR . . - . 52

DOMESDAY BOOK : THE LARGE VOLUME . . 70

No. 34 GREAT TOWER STREET . . . . 86

ROMAN BATH IN STRAND LANE, STRAND . . ~ 98

WAPPING OLD STAIRS . . . . . 108

WAPPING'S FAMOUS HIGH STREET . '_-. . 116

LONDON STONE . . . . , 128

THE BONES OF MEN-KAU-RA . 142

xi

xii UNKNOWN LONDON

FACING PAGB

COFFIN-LID OF MEN-KAU-RA . . . .152

KING CHARLES II. TRAMPLING UPON OLIVER

CROMWELL ...... 168

SMITHFIELD : SITE OF THE MARTYRS' STAKE . 178
KING CHARLES II. IN WAX EFFIGY . . 192

BELFRY TOWER OF ST CLEMENT DANES, STRAND 232

UNKNOWN LONDON

THE HEAD OF THE DUKE OF SUFFOLK

YEARS ago, when Time sped past me with
less haste than he makes to-day, a curious
search took me across the City into
Portsoken Ward. The name sounds unfamiliar
since we have ceased to identify the City by its
wards, but you know the area well, lying up
against The Tower. It has the Minories as its
chief highway, along which the heavy drays
laden at the river wharves rumble on to Tower
Bridge. I turned into America Square to call
at an unpretentious house, obviously once some
small merchant's residence. London changes
rapidly with the march of improvement, but on
renewing acquaintance with America Square only
the other day it was pleasant to find the house
still standing. Still, too, it bears indications
that a school for little boys is carried on there,
for even where commerce presses most closely
about the waterside there are children dwelling
and wanting education.
My ring brought to the door a man of middle

4 UNKNOWN LONDON

age, sombrely dressed in black. Nature by some
subtle power stamps the mark of each profession
upon those who follow it. Mix in any large
gathering of doctors, of actors, lawyers, artists
or merchants, and there can be no mistaking the
calling these men represent. Here was no possi-
bility of error. Perhaps it is the constant habit
of speaking in subdued tones to visitors looking
over the church, and deferential association with
the clergy, that give unmistakable personality
to the verger.

" I want," I said, " the head of the Duke of
Suffolk."

It was not an ordinary request for one complete
stranger to make of another, calling casually at
his house. A maniac might have delivered such
a message. The recipient betrayed no token of
surprise. He would get the keys, he said. We
walked together to the Church of the Holy Trinity,
Minories, and crossing amidst the traffic I turned
towards Tower Hill to seek a glimpse among the
trees of what is assuredly the most tragic spot
in all England — those few square yards of blood-
soaked ground upon which the scaffold and the
block stood. On the scaffold raised there Suffolk
met his death, and many victims of the devious
ways and ends of statecraft, the guilty and the
guiltless, before and since Ms time. Tall ware-

HEAD OF THE DUKE OF SUFFOLK 5

houses obstructed my view. Holy Trinity is
but a few paces distant from America Square,
but perhaps is not easy to find without a guide.
It is a plain, drab structure, with stucco laid
upon its west front, and nothing to bespeak
antiquity, though still its northern wall contains
the ancient masonry of the buildings of the nuns
of St Olave, whose chapel this was. The church
had then the high old-fashioned pews. My
companion unlocked a little cupboard, and pro-
duced the relic which this City church for so
many centuries had sheltered. It was boxed
(that seems the most appropriate word) in glass
— the head of Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk.

The marks on the neck were pointed out.
There the headsman had failed, but this other
blow was true. The verger, keenly interested,
lost his air of professional sadness, and his face
lighted with animation as he talked of this
treasured if grim memento mori left in his keep-
ing ; of the man — soldier, statesman, plotter —
whose active brain had dwelt within this mummi-
fied skull. In 1554 Suffolk perished on Tower
Hill, a conspirator against the Throne. A mur-
mur as the axe fell passed through the crowd
swaying and rocking about the scaffold, that
involuntary protest of horror that comes from
all men, even the most debased, at the taking

6 UNKNOWN LONDON

of human life ; the sound must have travelled
on the cold still air of that February morning
here to the quietude about the church. The heads-
man, lifting the bleeding relic by its matted hair,
exhibited it at the four corners of the platform
with the accustomed ceremonial — " This is the
head of a traitor ! " Little might we regret
Suffolk's end had it not been that his ambition
brought to a like fate one who occupies a far
nobler place in England's history, his daughter,
the unfortunate Lady Jane Grey. One thinks
first of her, looking into this face of her father.
The long forehead, the fine nose, the mouth in
which some have yet seen lingering the curve
of the last agony, have survived the changes
after death.

Holy Trinity stands within the ancient liberties
of The Tower. The convent of nuns of the Order
of St Olave, bearing the name of their foundress,
Santa Clara of Assisi, spread wide about this
site, over ground now covered with commercial
buildings. There was many another religious
house in mediaeval London where to-day are only
City streets and commerce. These were the
" Sorores Minores," and from them the district
is still known as the Minories. The nuns' house
did not survive the suppression of the monasteries.
It was granted by King Edward VI. to Suffolk,

HEAD OF THE DUKE OF SUFFOLK 7

then climbing to those heights from which he
suffered so grievous a fall, and there he made
his town residence. The church was largely
rebuilt in the opening years of the eighteenth
century. History is silent, but one may imagine
it to have been a pious service of Suffolk's widow
— herself a daughter of Charles Brandon and that
Mary Tudor who was the younger sister of King
Henry VIII. — to save this loved head from ex-
posure on the pikes above London Bridge, and
bring it for final rest in the chapel where both
had worshipped. Suffolk's body is believed to
lie in an unknown grave in that sad little church
of St Peter ad Vincula, within The Tower.

It was in the year 1851 that the head was found
in a small vault on the south side of the altar of
Holy Trinity, bearing a thick incrustation of
oak sawdust, such as might have half-filled the
basket upon the scaffold. Tannin from oak is
a well-known preservative, and to its agency
the safe-keeping of this relic through so many
years is held to be due.

Suffolk was the most nerveless man who ever
aspired by deep conspiracy to place his child
upon a throne. Impotent to take great decisions,
and thereby stand or fall, he attached himself
to Seymour and Northumberland in turn during
the troubled years when a weak boy, King

8 UNKNOWN LONDON

Edward VI. filled the seat of the most dreaded
of Tudor male sovereigns. When the plot to
deprive Queen Mary of her inheritance ripened
he was one of the company who, three days
after Edward's death, went to Sion House,
Isleworth, to proclaim the Lady Jane Queen.
The crowded narrative of her brief reign should
be too familiar to need recapitulation. It was
Suffolk, when the citizens of London had declared
for Mary, and the plotters were beaten, who
himself despoiled his daughter of the emblems
of Royalty with which she had burdened herself
so unwillingly ; Suffolk who sought his own life,
when all else was lost, by himself proclaiming
Mary the Queen from The Tower gates. He was
arrested and taken back to The Tower a prisoner.
Mary, perhaps contemptuously, set him free,
for those of her blood had little tolerance for a
coward, giving him liberty to live on his property
at East Sheen. The intercession of Suffolk's
Duchess, who was the Queen's godmother and
enjoyed her intimate friendship, is believed to
have secured for him this last favour.

The projected marriage with Philip of Spain
a few months later set the country aflame, and
Kent and Essex rose under Sir Thomas Wyatt.
Suffolk had learnt nothing : neither to know the
limitations of his own weak, irresolute character

HEAD OF THE DUKE OF SUFFOLK 9

nor to gauge the true feelings of the English
people, torn between fear of losing the work of
the Reformation on the one hand, and the return
of internal anarchy on the other should the new
revolution succeed. He was booted and spurred
when a messenger came from the Queen summon-
ing him to appear at Court ; she desired, it has
been said, to give him the opportunity to " make
good " by accepting a command against the
rebels. He rode away from his house at Sheen —
but not to Whitehall.

Suffolk is next heard of in Leicestershire and
Warwickshire, where his extensive estates lay.
There he attempted to stir up rebellion among
the yeomen, but signally failed. Coventry closed
its gates against him and his followers. The
Duke was soon a fugitive, and taking disguise
in a serving man's clothes sought to hide himself
in dense forests. The treachery of his own servant
betrayed him for reward. He was seized when
concealed in the trunk of a hollow tree at Astley
Cooper, in Warwickshire, and with three hundred
horsemen escorting him was brought to London
and committed to The Tower.

Father and daughter were together State
prisoners in different apartments of that grim
fortress. They never met. Five days after the
execution of Lady Jane Grey on Tower Green,

io UNKNOWN LONDON

Suffolk was led out to his trial for high treason
in Westminster Hall, " who at his going out,"
says an old chronicler, " went very stoutly and
cheerfully enough, but at his returning he landed
at the water gate with a countenance very heavy
and pensive, desiring all men to pray for him."
Knowledge of his responsibility for his daughter's
untimely death must have added to the bitter-
ness of that day. We have a letter of Queen
Jane's written to her father shortly before her
execution ; the old spelling is best preserved :

" To the Duke of Suffolk.

" The Lord comforte your Grace, and that in his
worde, whearin all creatures onlye are to be comforted.
And thoughe it hathe pleased God to take away ij of
your children, yet thincke not, I most humblye beseach
your Grace, that you have loste them, but truste that
we, by leavinge this mortall life, have wunne an im-
mortal life. And I for my parte, as I have honoured
your grace in this life, wyll praye for you in another life.

" Your Gracys humble daughter,

" JANE DUDDELEY."

If atonement were possible, then Suffolk's
bearing on the scaffold should do much. In his
last hour he played the man. The little pro-
cession came upon Tower Hill on Friday, the
20th February 1554, at nine of the clock.

" Masters," he said to the people, " I have
offended against the Queen and her laws, and

thereby I am justly condemned to die, and am
willing to die, desiring all men to be obedient ;
and I pray God that this my death may be an
example to all men, beseeching you all to bear
me witness that I die in the faith of Christ, trust-
ing to be saved by His blood only, and by no other
trumpery, the which died for me, and for all men
that truly repent and steadfastly trust in Him.
And I do repent, desiring you all to pray God
for me, that when you see my head depart from
me, you will pray to God that He will receive
my soul."

Then occurred one of those farcical incidents
inseparable at times from moments of the deepest
tragedy.

A man standing in the forefront of the crowd
called out, " My lord, how shall I do for the money
that you do owe me ? "

Suffolk answered, " Alas, good fellow, I pray
thee trouble me not now, but go thy way to my
officers." He knit a handkerchief about his
eyes, laid his head upon the block, and with
arms outstretched as a signal and the words on
his lips, " Into Thy hands, O Lord," passed into
eternity. They were the words used by Lady
Jane Grey when the axe fell.

How little men are, that six small squares of
glass can enclose so much !

12 UNKNOWN LONDON

History, weighted by its great task, has dealt

severely with the Duke of Suffolk, but in the

presence of this frail relic of mortality let me

recall words told to his good. It is glorious old

Holinshed who speaks. " A man of high nobility

by birth : and of nature to his friends gentle and

courteous : more easy indeed to be led than was

thought expedient : of stomach stout and hard :

hasty and soon kindled, but pacified straight

again, and sorry if in his heat ought had passed

him otherwise than reason might seem to bear :

upright and plain in his private dealings : no

dissembler, nor well able to bear injuries : but

yet forgiving and forgetting the same, if the

party would seem but to acknowledge his fault,

and to seek reconcilement : bountiful he was

and very liberal ; somewhat learned himself,

and a great favourer of those who were learned.

So that to many he showed himself a very Maecenas.

As free from covetousness as void of pride and

disdainful haughtiness of mind : more regarding

plain meaning men than claw-back flatterers.

And this virtue he had, that he could patiently

hear his faults told him by those whom he had

in credit for their wisdom and faithful meaning

towards him. He was an hearty friend unto the

Gospel."

Sir George Scharf, a former Keeper of the

HEAD OF THE DUKE OF SUFFOLK 13

National Portrait Gallery, examined this head
carefully, and writing of it said : " The arched
form of the eyebrows, and the aquiline shape
of the nose correspond with the portrait engraved
in Lodge's series from a picture in possession of
the Marquis of Salisbury at Hatfield, a duplicate
of which is in the National Portrait Gallery."
Lord Ronald Sutherland-Gower has said of
Scharf that no better judge of an historical head,
whether on canvas or in a mummified state, ever
existed. The medical report upon the relic by
Dr F. J. Mouat, a Local Government Board
Inspector, also supports its authenticity :

" The anatomical characters of the exposed
bones show that the head belonged to a man past
the prime of life. The narrow retreating fore-
head, flattened sides and roof of the skull, and
disproportionate development of the occipital
region indicate moderate mental powers and
strong animal faculties. The whole conforma-
tion, if there be any truth in external cranial
indications of mental and moral manifestations,
tends to prove indecision of character, consider-
able self-esteem, and very moderate reasoning
powers.

" That the head was removed by rapid decapi-
tation during life admits of no doubt. A large
gaping gash, which had not divided the sub-

I4 UNKNOWN LONDON

cutaneous structures, shows that the first stroke
of the axe was misdirected, too near the occiput,
and in a slanting direction. The second blow,
a little lower down, separated the head from the
trunk below the fourth and fifth cervical verte-
brae. The retraction of the skin, the violent
convulsive action of the muscles, and the forma-
tion of a cup-like cavity with the body of the
spinal bone at the base, prove that the severance
was effected during life, and in cold weather.
The ears are small, well formed, and closely
adhering to the head ; the aperture being remark-
ably large, and the lobe clearly defined. The
eyeballs must have been full, and a little promin-
ent during life : all the hairs from the head, brows,
lips and chin have fallen out : the cheek bones
are somewhat high and the chin retreating."

Suffolk's portrait by Johannes Corvus in the
national collections at Trafalgar Square shows
the Duke in lace ruffle and jewelled flat cap and
slashed doublet and hose. I again saw this head
but the other day, and with the painted portrait
fresh in memory I must say that the one did
strongly recall the other.

There the story might well have stopped, where
it rested till recently. It is less pleasant to write
the epilogue. Holy Trinity still stands, set back

HEAD OF THE DUKE OF SUFFOLK 15

against the yards and warehouses of the London
and North Western Railway, the scene of a
furious fire that lighted the whole City one dark
night a few years ago. It has drifted out of the
life of the Minories. The church was closed in
1899, and thereupon dismantled. The fine
Pelham monument, with kneeling figures of that
stout Elizabethan knight, Sir John Pelham, and
his young son, who died near together in date,
leaving a widow and mother, herself daughter
of a Lord St John of Bletsoe, to mourn their
loss —

" Death First did strike Sir John Here Tomb'd in claye

And then Enforst His Sonne to Followe Faste

Of Pelham 's Line this Knyghte Was Chief e and Staye

By this Beholde all Fleshe Must Dye at Last

Best Bletsowes Lord thy Sister Most may Moane

Both Mate and Sonn Hathe Left Her Here Alone "

as the inscription tells — that has gone to Stanmer,
in Sussex. The pulpit went elsewhere ; but the
building still does some social service, as a mission
room and centre of philanthropic activity in this
busy part of the east -lying City. The Duke of
Suffolk's head found a new resting-place at St
Botolph's, Aldgate, to which the parish has been
annexed, and there it is to-day, in the Vicar's
cupboard. The Vicar naturally does not en-
courage mere morbid curiosity in visitors to his

16 UNKNOWN LONDON

church, but has placed no difficulty in the way
of those of historical bent of mind who come,
anxious to see the relic. My present concern is
sorely with a beadle and sexton, who held office
at Holy Trinity so long ago as 1786. Incident-
ally, to eke out his small fees, he sold coals. So
ribalds called him " Mr Smallcole."

It is a most horrible business. A neighbour
chanced to peep into the beadle's house, and to
his utter astonishment disturbed him when in
the act of dividing into lengths with a saw what
were obviously portions of coffins. He alarmed
the churchwarden. Fearing the worst, that
official ordered the beadle to give up his keys.
The bell was rung backwards, a signal in old
days of fire in the parish. Such parishioners
as answered the summons were told its true
meaning ; they formed therewith a parish meet-
ing in the aisle of the church ; then together,
with candles borne ahead, descended into the
choked vaults of Holy Trinity. The candles
burnt dimly in the close air, unwholesome with
the contagion of centuries. Coffins lay about,
violently torn open, sawn, chopped — and worse !
" It had nearer resemblance to a slaughterhouse
than a vault for the interment of our deceased
friends," said one investigator. The beadle and
sexton had made a business of supplying himself

HEAD OF THE DUKE OF SUFFOLK 17

with wood from this source, and some neighbours,
too, who were participants with him, if not actual
instigators of the crime.

The parish, " to the disgrace of all society,"
as one wrote, was content to order the beadle
to ask pardon, and on his willing undertaking
not to be guilty of the like offence again he appears
to have been allowed to continue his office. But
the scandal got out, as always foul scandal will.
Some leaflets of the day, giving expression to
just indignation, though through a vein of forced
satire and unpleasant ribaldry, the subject being
what it was, came into possession of the Rev.
E. M. Tomlinson, a former vicar of Holy Trinity
and the historian of the Minories, who has printed
them.

In the light of such facts as these, who shall
now decide ? Lady Jane Grey has left an im-
perishable memory. Many were the sufferers
in that fearful time of butchery who command
our sympathy, but none has so wholly won our
hearts as this young Queen of a nine days' reign,
and so pitiful an end. The tragedy of Suffolk
is grim enough without these port-mortem
wanderings of his head. If sawdust has preserved
this relic of frail humanity, as seems likely, was
it the dust of "Mr Smallcole's " unholy sawing ?
Is this one of his mutilations ? — not Suffolk at

i8 UNKNOWN LONDON

all. Contemporary annalists have written of
the Duke suffering death at one blow of the
axe. Here, on the neck, the marks are distinct
of two.

Yet the head and the painted portraits are
strangely like.

II

REMAINS OF THE CITY WALL

IF I say that there is a length of 120 feet of
the old City Wall of London still upright,
much of it Roman work, rising to a height
of no less than 35 feet — the height of the third
floor of a City house — I expect to be accused of
romancing. And, moreover, complete from
foundations upwards, even to the sentinel's walk
on the top and the protecting bulwark. Im-
possible ? Well, there it is. You could parade
a company of troops in the shadow. It is one
of the many things that the City manages to
conceal ; a hefty big possession this, to be tucked
away completely out of sight.

Nobody knows of it, none of the half million
people who pass in and out of the City every day
has ever seen it, or even heard of its existence —
none save some archaeologists. That is because
this surprising fragment is in private ownership,
and except to the few who may receive permission
to pay it a visit nothing of it is visible. Stay,
you get a sight of this wall, with the sunlight

19

20 UNKNOWN LONDON

upon it, as I have done, from a City parson's
back windows in a certain street, if you know
which one of the City's houses to choose for the
purpose.

It is not easy to visualize London as a city
walled round with such a wall as this, so stout
and tall, as Chester is still, and less perfectly
York, though it should be in mind every day.
The 'buses pour through the City to Ludgate,
Newgate, Cripplegate, Moorgate, Aldgate and
the rest, and a City gate means a gate in a wall,
and can mean nothing else. It is not an opening
in the air. London Wall preserves the name,
given to a street in the City's northern area where
the wall had stood. But although so much
exists to revive our remembrance, I doubt if
ever London's wall appears to the average
Londoner as a real, substantial thing.

These gates whose names are so familiar were
real, and substantial too, with guarding turrets,
pierced for defence, with battlements above, and
heavy iron portcullis to fall, and locks and bars
and chains to secure the passage against forced
assault. All such provision would have been
mere waste if the wall itself were not as strong
as were the gates. Like a chain, the strength of
a mural fortification is to be found in its weakest
link. This wall was strong, for it was the capital's

REMAINS OF THE CITY WALL 21

main defence for many centuries, and its upkeep
was a vital matter with the mediaeval Mayor
and citizens.

Nothing survives to-day of a single one of the
gates. The Corporation takes no concern in
marking sites, and only at Bishopsgate is there
a tablet telling where one has stood.

It is otherwise with the wall itself, for there
are very substantial remains of it, if only you
know where to look for them. Apart from one
considerable length exposed in the shallow and
disused churchyard of St Alphage London Wall,
nothing is to be seen from any of the main
thoroughfares. Out of sight being out of mind,
the City Wall is forgotten. I once brought up
a citizen square against a large piece of it, tower-
ing above him. He looked upon me as a con-
jurer, never having realized that London was
actually a walled town, or that the familiar gate
names required the existence of a wall.

The great piece with which I sought to excite
curiosity in my opening sentences stands very
near The Tower of London. It is built into
Barbers' Bonded Warehouses, which you enter
from Cooper's Row, Trinity Square — or more
truthfully I might say this part of the wide-
spreading vaults and floors is added to the old
City Wall. Long ago, when Barbers' premises

22 UNKNOWN LONDON

were about to rise under scaffolding, the builder
found the City Wall there standing, and I picture
him gazing at it, lost in thought, in puzzling
wonder what he should do. To have it down
with pickaxe and shovel would be a herculean
and costly task. It is immensely thick, and hard
as iron. How long ago that was I cannot tell,
but the partner of Messrs Joseph Barber & Co.
who showed me round the wall, with lamp held
at the end of a lath and lighted that I might
explore its intricacies, mentioned to me his
great-grandfather as having been a member of
the firm owning these vaults. All wine importers
that I know in the City boast a hoary antiquity,
and the partners live long. Sometimes I wonder
if ever a new agent of Bacchus sets up the vine-
leaves in London City nowadays.

Why waste a good wall ? The question had
only to be asked to be answered ; and with a
few shallow windows added at the bulwark level
and a course or two of brick, the warehouse roof
was sprung from the top. So the structure con-
tinues to do good service, as it had done sixteen
or more centuries ago, and to the builder's happy
inspiration (with the added savour of economy)
is owing the preservation of the most complete
fragment of the City Wall to-day, and one may
hope for all time, now that the Corporation are

REMAINS OF THE CITY WALL 23

beginning to realize the value of the City's
historical antiquities.

I passed in by an arch cut through the wall,
here eight feet thick, and ascending a steep stair-
way at a corner turned to obtain a view where
a bright electric lamp illuminated the wall in
all its rugged vastness. Its full span came within
compass, and in the gloom gathered at the far
distance one could imagine it continuing due
south to The Tower and the Thames bank, as
once it had done, enclosing not a wine vault
and floors, but a whole city. The height, over
20 feet, makes the wall most imposing, though
here neither foundations nor the upper rampart
can be seen. This is the inner face of the wall,
and high up in the thick mass someone, ages
ago, has cut a loophole, now filled in with glass
toned to a dirty yellow, through which penetrates
a little of London's gloom — it seems absurd to
call these dismal beams daylight. The rough
masonry visible is mostly Norman or Middle
Ages, the larger stones casting ragged lines of
shadow, and covering nearly all is a velvet of
moss, the result of exposure for many genera-
tions to the fumes given off by generous wines.
Either this moss grows black or else takes its
sable hue from the City's grime, but it is largely
pitted with a fungus of pure white, and Nature's

24 UNKNOWN LONDON

drapery of black and white makes the wall look
even more ancient than it is. What changes of
times and men this centuries' old wall has known !

We went below ground, down into abysmal
darkness, where a candle flickered feebly, and a
way was found with difficulty amid rows of casks
of wine and spirits, still with the wall in touch.
Nothing Norman or mediaeval here. We were
back farther in London's story, in a bit of Roman
London, with the wall as the Roman builders
left it, though parts of it had been cased by later
hands. I traced the bonding courses of red
tile in the wall, scratching away the clinging
fungus to bring out the deep red colour, sure
evidence of Romans' handiwork, and the Kentish
rag stones they used for facing, the hard mortar
with which the mass is bound together. A
shallow shaft had been sunk recently a few feet,
at the instance of some antiquaries, to decide
a vexed question, and examining the side so
exposed, I was left in doubt whether what I saw
was the core of the wall or the prepared founda-
tion, till I leamt that loose sand and gravel had
been reached, and there was no longer room for
doubt. This was the very bottom of the wall.

It was a climb thence to the top, 35 feet over-
head, where there was that I most wished to see,
for Roman work had become familiar elsewhere,

REMAINS OF THE CITY WALL 25

Any hole made in City ground has ever acted
as a lodestone to attract me towards a possible
find, and few opportunities have been allowed to
slip by ; the hunter's spirit, I suppose, surviving
in the townsman ; and I have climbed down
more ladders to explore the buried town than I
have toiled up City staircases. That day it was
well worth going high, for nowhere else in London
save in this one vast fragment is the top of the
City wall preserved. It proved to be still stone,
with some chalk, and thus much older than the
considerable reparation of the wall undertaken
in the year 1465, when Ralph Joceline was Mayor
of London, and the battlements where repair was
needed were replaced with brick. It stirred the
imagination to notice the sentinel's walk, with a
protecting bulwark breast high. Of course I
paced its length, the temptation being irresistible,
just as the sentinels of London had done, when
no warehouse roof intervened but the* blue sky
of heaven was open above, and there was a view
from this height over the City's narrow streets
and the red-tiled roofs of the crowded houses,
so low and mean, and the moving people, and the
Thames wound by, crossed by a single bridge,
and green fields outside the City lay at one's feet.
Left and right, to and fro, so the sentinel had
paced this walk centuries ago, and once again I

26 UNKNOWN LONDON

saw the wall as a real defence of the City. Great
butts of port which obtruded themselves, and the
smaller brandy casks, identified by the many
tapering loops in the French fashion of cooperage,
were shut out of mind, and the reality of Old
London, walled and guarded, came back as I
recalled certain orders given to the Warder of
the Gate at Ludgate which I had read in the
City Letter Books at Guildhall. They were six
centuries old (1312 A.D.) for Edward II. then
reigned in England :

" That you, together with two men of the watch,
well and fittingly armed, be at all hours of the day
ready at the gate, within or without, down below, to
make answer to such persons as shall come on great
horses,1 or with arms, to enter the City ; and that you
set a guard above the gate, upon the leads thereof, to
look out afar, that so you may be the better warned
when any men at arms approach the gate. And if any
do approach in manner aforesaid, then let the chain be
drawn up without, and answer be given in this manner :

" ' Lordlings, the King has given charge to us that
no person shall enter his city by force of arms, if he have
not special warranty from him. Wherefore, sirs, we
pray you that you will not take this amiss ; but as for
you persons, you who are upon your palfreys, and you
folks who come without bringing great horses or arms,
you may enter, as being peaceful folks.'

" And if they will not thereupon turn, then let the
portcullis be quickly lifted by those of your people
above, that so those other persons may in no way enter."

1 On war-horses, or chargers.

REMAINS OF THE CITY WALL 27

Froissart might have written those sentences.
From the rampart on which I stood the sentinel
had so looked out afar to see what bodies of men
at arms in hostile array were approaching London.

One other passage I venture, to recall this
guarded Old London. Mayor Ralph Joceline
and many City masons and tylers are busy
repairing the wall, mere human ants tinkering
with this massive and time-defying structure,
so much greater and more enduring are the works
of man than himself. John Stow, the first of
London antiquaries, is speaking : " For to bere
the charge there he caused to be graunted by
Comon Counseill, that every citezein shud pay
every sonday duryng his yere vd. And above
that, by his politik meanys caused dyvers ffely-
shippes of worship to make every ffeliship a
certayn length of the walle ; and to Encorage
theym he began wt his owne ffelyship which
made the wall from Allhalow in the wall unto
Bisshoppysgate ; and like wyse other ffelishippys
theyr partes ; and or his yere came to ende he
had made a goode parte of that is newe made
beside provysion of lyme and Bryk, which he
also provyded for in the more the same yere."
It was a considerable work, for though Joceline
was Mayor in 1465, it was not until twelve years
later that the City gave authority to sell such

28 UNKNOWN LONDON

brick and lime as remained after the repairs, and
to reimburse the patriotic mayor his expenses.

And in Henry VIII. 's reign, at the setting of
the great Midsummer Watch, the Alderman of
each ward mustered his citizen soldiers and at
their head marched out of the gates to the common
field between Mile-end and Whitechapel, where
the " battles " were assembled (they became
battalions later) and military exercises practised.

I am but a poor story-teller, thus at the outset
to have concentrated attention upon the most
perfect length of the City Wall, discounting in-
terest in others ; but there is one fragment else-
where I would put at its side, for it is impossible
to relegate it to any secondary place. It lacks
the height of the magnificent section already
described, and has not as great length, yet is
unique, for here is fine Roman work, handed
down to us without flaw from age or destruction.
A bastion almost complete, with part of the
straight Roman wall, was uncovered when the
Post Office acquired a large portion of the ground
on which Christ's Hospital had stood behind
Newgate Street for the new King Edward Build-
ing. These massive remains are concealed in
the centre of the open yard over which the mail
vans clatter. Happily the Treasury proved
human ; funds were allotted for preserving this

REMAINS OF THE CITY WALL 29

relic of our first conquerors and building a con-
crete chamber about it ; and by a written request
to the Secretary, General Post Office, E.C.i,
permission to visit it is obtained.1 I entertain
the hope that even this restriction may be found
unnecessary, and that the public may be free —
they would do no harm — to walk in at their will.
So far the public are little familiar with it.

Indeed, fortunate are we of this generation to
have this relic in our keeping, for standing before
it Roman London as a living thing (quite apart
from the unrealized creation of the books) comes
vividly to mind. This upright bastion, frowning
and impregnable, this great thickness of wall,
had a City worthy of its strength to guard ; one
knows now that Londinium is no mere fiction of
historical writers. Modern science lends its aid,
for frames of prismatic glass overhead bend the
sunlight upon the face of this old wall, which
had lain buried from the sun for so many centuries.
Its state of preservation is remarkable. Still
the stones are grey and white, stones of no mean
size in the lower courses, above smaller stones,
embedded in a hard mortar about a core of rubble.
Above, too, one may trace the rows of bonding
tiles, straight as the Roman masons laid them.

1 Owing to shortage of the Post Office staff, this privilege
is withheld till peace conditions are restored.

30 UNKNOWN LONDON

What joy to be alive to see these things !
The half circle sweep of the bastion is almost,
but not quite, complete. It seems to rise upon
the wet ditch, though in truth there is but an
inch or two of undesirable water, which some-
where wells up from the ground within the wall.

A massive relic like this, making its appeal to
the eye, tells more of the reality of Roman
London than an acre of ineffectual book-writing.
The London schoolboy ought to be brought here.
With the modern world shut out and shafts of
subdued sunlight illuminating the grey bastion
and wall, seeing nothing else, his unspoilt imagina-
tion will find a proud city behind it, and fill out
the picture, adding the human figure that is
wanting — a Roman legionary, in steel casque
and plume, peering over the top of this masonry
to watch who is approaching, and about the
battlement the symbols of Roman domination
in Britain.

Of the making of the wall there is no history.
The task must have engaged thousands of
labourers and slaves if it be true, as is surmised,
that throughout its length of nearly two miles
the wall was built complete within a short period.
It is so believed because the workmanship is
always the same, never varying, except that
here and there yellow tile takes the place of the

REMAINS OF THE CITY WALL 31

red tile. An idea that has been fostered that the
wall was built by the Romans shortly before
they abandoned Britain, to enable the citizens
to defend themselves after the withdrawal of the
conquering legions, shows but indifferent under-
standing of our first conquerors. It is almost
certainly a Roman defence against aggression
from without, raised perhaps in haste after some
experience of grave emergency. We cannot
penetrate the mists of antiquity which conceal
so much of the foundation of London.

It used to be said that the Romans walled
London about 340 A.D. to 360 A.D. There are
reasons to believe that the work is two centuries
earlier. Every old town in continuous occupa-
tion rises in level as the centuries pass, London
like the rest, and so to-day the Roman founda-
tions and lower courses of the wall lie from 12 ft.
to 19 ft. underground. The kindly soil by bury-
ing them has preserved them. A wide ditch
before the stout wall added to its strength as a
defence. Others came after, but always the
masons of the Middle Ages built upon the Roman
wall, raising it higher as necessity required but
not altering the line, and as the Romans enclosed
the City so it afterwards remained. It has had
one small extension, and one only, when King
Edward I. in the year 1278 gave permission to

32 UNKNOWN LONDON

the Dominican Friars to pull down the wall
between Ludgate and the Thames, and re-erect
it so as to enclose their settlement at Blackfriars
within the guarded city. It happens for this
reason that wherever fragments of London Wall
are seen above ground they are of mediaeval
construction, where deep below they are the
original Roman work.

There are other fragments about the City
which by using your eyes you may see any day.
The longest span above ground is that at the
churchyard of St Alphage London Wall, which
bears a board stating that it is " The Roman
Wall of London." This is strictly true for what
is unseen, but that part visible contains nothing
that can with certainty be identified as Roman.
It is the work of masons of the Middle Ages
building above the Roman fabric. The relic
is valuable for the clear indication it gives of
battlements.

Near by is the spacious churchyard of St Giles
Cripplegate — John Milton lies within the church
— which with its well-kept lawns and beds of
summer flowers is the most delightful Nature
spot that the City boasts. There in a corner
you will find a stone bastion of London Wall.
This also is mediaeval work. It is small and
insignificant, rising to a height of only a few

REMAINS OF THE CITY WALL 33

feet, but sinks deep into the ground, and is part
of a defence that in its day was considered
formidable.

Going east again, there is a portion of the old
wall seen from Trinity Square, by The Tower,
and approached by a yard known as Trinity
Place. It is a length of 40 feet, has no great
height, and its present condition, showing alternate
courses of stones and Roman tile, indicates that
it was carefully refaced in the Middle Ages —
probably in the fifteenth century restoration.
As a bit of old London history, the Society of
Antiquaries took this fragment under its care,
and persuaded the Commissioners of Woods and
Forests to fix the shelter at the top which now
guards it from weather damage.

A fifth piece of London Wall stands within
The Tower of London, on the ground between
the Norman Keep and the river. This fragment,
unfortunately, being in an exposed place, has
much weathered, and the method of its construc-
tion is by no means clear.

In Roman Wall House, No. i Crutched Friars,
is an excellent and characteristic length of the
wall in a basement office, preserved at the sacrifice
of some space by an enlightened builder (London's
benedictions be upon all such). I learn that to
the Sadlers Company gratitude is due. Its face

34 UNKNOWN LONDON

shows the rows of Roman tiles and Kentish rag
stones, so perfect in condition that it is probable
an earthen bank was raised against it as soon
as it was built. Ages old, the buried wall still
does citizen service, for along its line dozens of
City houses have been built directly upon it as
a foundation — and none better could be desired.
Two recent instances in mind are No. 16 America
Square, Minories, and No. 41-3 Ludgate Hill.
In the latter house the buried wall upon which
the rear of the building stands is visible.
" Pierced at many points for mains, torn up in
places for basements, the old wall yields slowly
and sullenly."

Till late as the middle eighteenth century
London Wall, though broken in many places,
with gaps unfilled, stood guard over the City,
coiling its length around the houses, badly dilapi-
dated— still a City Wall. In 1766 the Commis-
sioners of Sewers (a body with a soul like a sewer)
applied to Parliament for leave to take down the
ancient defence, on the plea that it was detrimental
to the health of the City by obstructing the passage
and free circulation of air, and thereafter the
housebreakers got to work upon it, though
leaving a few sections like that at Barber's Ware-
houses and some others since destroyed. The
historical gates went the same way, sold as build-

REMAINS OF THE CITY WALL 35

ing material to whoever would undertake the
charge of destroying them. A carpenter bought
Ludgate, which had been rebuilt in Elizabeth's
reign, for £148, saving the statue of the Virgin
Queen now seen over the vestry door of St
Dunstan's, Fleet Street, and the stone figures of
Lud's sons, preserved at St Dunstan's Hostel,
Regent's Park ; Aldersgate and Cripplegate went
for a mere song. London thenceforward lost its
distinction of being a walled City, but a century
and a half ago, though it might seem an age.

Ill

THE SHRINE OF EDWARD THE
CONFESSOR

ZEPPELIN nights and the Shrine of
Edward the Confessor ! — the two things
seem whole worlds of time and thought
apart. They have been brought into close rela-
tion since the European War opened astonished
eyes to the depths of barbarism that may exist
in a people hitherto deemed civilized. So four
years ago it became necessary to protect, as far
as was possible without bodily removal, the most
sanctified Shrine in our land, lest explosive
kultur, aimed earthwards out of dark skies,
should disturb the Confessor's long rest. Sand-
bags were brought into Westminster Abbey and
piled about the Shrine, and the work done re-
quired the temporary removal of its wooden
super-structure, exposing to view the cavity
which holds the coffin of the Saint.

Most curious and unexpected, and grotesque
in its association, there, dropped in upon the

coffin lid, was found lying an unposted letter.
36

SHRINE OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR 37

It had lain undisturbed well nigh two hundred
years, for the date and the handwriting were
those of the early eighteenth century. How it
got poked away in such a place, or by whom,
no one can tell. I suspect a lazy Westminster
School boy, entrusted with taking the letter to
the mail office, who while sauntering through the
Abbey conceived the idea of thrusting it through
a crevice into the Shrine, conscious that never
in his lifetime would the hallowed grave yield
up its secret. Perhaps — horrible thought ! — the
pocketing of the fee for postage was an incentive.

The letter certainly originated in the School,
for it was written by William West, the school
barber, and the endorsement outside is to Charles
Hart, at the sign of The Crown at Bridgnorth,
Shropshire. It is a venial sin to read a private
letter after this lapse of time, and to smile at the
writer's conventional phrases and quaint spelling,
for West, though he lived in a home of learning,
had absorbed little of it, and had small art hi
penmanship. His task was to practise his craft
on the shock-headed boys, for which he was given
a stipend of but 405. a year, with an additional
2os. for keeping the clock.

Thus he wrote, and quite briefly :

" Dear frend, I make bould to trouble you with
These few Lines to satisfy you I am In good health :

38 UNKNOWN LONDON

Living in hopes to see you once : in London. ... So
that I should be very g . . d : yr Frend William Cole
remembers His love to you being my Cheaf Com-
pannyion at the tombs so That I here your in good
health wich is the most of my satisfaction, desiring
to here from you, and if you can conveniantly to send
a Cock for a token against Sraftusday will drink your
health and eat him for your Saek no more at present.
But i rest your loveing frend WILLIAM WEST."

A cock and a bottle for feasting on " Sraf "
Tuesday — these, and not the great dead, were the
thoughts uppermost in the mind of the College
barber and Cole, his chief companion at the tombs.
The letter miscarried. And I laughed — shame-
faced I confess it, for 'tis a distressing thing to
do in the Abbey — as I stood at the Shrine and
thought of that depleted feast and the disappoint-
ment at not receiving the expected " token,"
while all the time the missive was lodged before
the writer's own nose.

The Confessor lies there, not in mother earth,
but raised in this Shrine high above the kneeling
pilgrims who for so many centuries have resorted
to his tomb. Their feet have worn hollow the
stone beneath the arches. Last King of the
Royal Saxon line, he passed to his rest at a time
ominous with fate for his country and his race.
A contemporary chronicler has related how when
he was stretched dying in his Palace at West-

THE MOST SANCTIFIED SHRINE IN OUR LAND
Saint Edward' s protection in thr Great Il'ar

SHRINE OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR 39

minster, " amid fruitful trees lying about it,"
he saw in delirium two holy monks, who foretold
to him the coming disasters of the realm, which
should only be ended, "when the green tree,
after severance from its trunk and removal for
the space of three acres, should return to its
parent stem and again bear leaf and fruit and
flower." 1

A horror, we are told, of great darkness filled
the whole land. The King's burial was hastened
on the morning after breath had left his frail body,
and that same day Earl Harold, his successor,
was crowned. Nine months later Saxon England
and Saxon institutions were overthrown by the
Norman Conquest.

In the upheaval of all things, the tyranny and
bondage forced upon the people by their ruthless
conquerors, the subjects of the Saxon Edward

1 " Amid fruitful trees lying about it " — that is a pleasant
glimpse snatched from past centuries of ancient Westminster.
Mr Seebohm has ingeniously suggested that only one picture
could have conjured up this otherwise unaccountable vision.
The green tree was no doubt envisaged by an actual tree,
growing out of one of the balks separating the acre strips
below Thorney Island, and the uneven glass of the King's
window-panes would be likely, as he rose in bed, to sever the
stem from its roots and transplant it higher up in the open
field, in an acre strip three acres off, restoring it again to its
root as he sank back upon his pillow. " The very delirium
of the dying King thus becomes the most natural thing in
the world when we know that all round were the open fields
and balks and acres " (English Village Community).

40 UNKNOWN LONDON

preserved the memory of their mild King with
peculiar veneration. The actual man we see only
through a web of romance which veils him,
and most imperfectly. He was almost an albino.
From youth his flowing hair was white ; his
beard grew white ; and in contrast his cheeks
of apple red and face frequently flushing gave
to him a merry aspect. The chroniclers speak
of his thin white hands and long transparent
ringers, the touch of which had miraculous power
to cure the Evil. He was a visionary and a
mystic. The legends that attach to his name
are cut in stone in the screen which King Henry VI.
built about his Shrine. You trace them one by
one, walking by ; the legends of a kindly King.

There is that of the heregelt. Edward, going
to his Royal Treasury, saw a black demon dancing
on the casks containing the gold which his subjects
were taxed to pay to maintain a fleet. His mind
awakened, he abolished the oppressive tax. In
another panel is shown the sleeping King when,
in the absence of Hugolin, the steward, a scullion
broke into the bed-chamber and rifled the Royal
money chest. Edward awoke. " Haste," he
said to the thief, " he will not leave you even a
halfpenny " ; and to Hugolin 's remonstrances he
replied, " The thief hath more need of it than we
— enough treasure hath King Edward .' "

SHRINE OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR 41

Other subjects the mediaeval sculptor has figured
are the appearance of St John to the two pilgrims,
and the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus. A wayside
beggar implored the King to bestow alms upon
him, for the love of St John. The Confessor
had no money, but drew from his hand a ring,
" large, royal, and beautiful." This he gave to the
beggar, who vanished. Afterwards two English
pilgrims making their way through Syria were
met by St John, who gave them the very ring
that Edward had bestowed upon the supposed
beggar, told them to return it to the King,
and to warn him that in six months' time he
should be with the Saint in Paradise.

The vision which Edward had of the Seven
Sleepers turning in their sleep was a warning of
the disasters that after his death were to break
upon the country.

No one of these or others of the fourteen
legends so sculptured is to be found in the
contemporary " Life " of the Confessor— the
Vita Mduuardi Regis, written for his widow-
though they were current in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries. They are growths about
the revered personality of Edward, probably
born in that century and a half while the
Norman oppression remained, and accepted with
unquestioning faith in ages less critical than ours.

42 UNKNOWN LONDON

Edward was honoured for his unfailing piety,
but none can truthfully call him a great ruler.

His word was not to be taken. " There was
nothing that he would not promise from the
exigency of the time. He pledged his faith on
both sides, and confirmed by oath anything that
was demanded of him." He was negligent as a
statesman. After the long hours he spent in
devotions, his pleasures were in hunting and the
chase ; he quarrelled with his mother Emma,
whose large treasure he seized ; he was alienated
from his wife, and sent her in disgrace to a
nunnery. Reared in a Norman Court, he
gathered Norman favourites about him, to whom
he gave place, though the open hostility of his
subjects often denied them power. His English
patriotism was doubtful. So far as we are per-
mitted to see, the character of the man was
petulant, irresponsible, at times it would seem
almost childish.

Such virtues as he had were those of the cloister
rather than the throne. Dean Stanley well said :
" Edward's claims of interment here rest not on
any act of power or fame, but only on his artless
piety, and simple goodness. He — towards whose
dust was attracted the fierce Norman and the
proud Plantagenet, the grasping Tudor and the
fickle Stuart, even the independent Oliver, the

SHRINE OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR 43

Dutch William and the Hanoverian George —
was one whose humble graces are within the reach
of every man, woman, and child of every time,
if we rightly part the immortal substance from
the perishable form."

And who shall measure the extent to which
the founding of the vast Abbey of Westminster
has contributed to building up the name and
fame of Edward the Confessor ? It has coloured
all our conceptions of him. It has fixed his
memory in the minds of all subsequent genera-
tions— the memory of a King whose personal
influence in his reign was slight. " The laws of
King Edward " came from stronger hands than
his. The reign might have passed as uneventful
but for the tragedy (we do not call it so now)
which so quickly followed its close. A little
religious house that before was standing on the
Isle of Thorney he demolished for his new founda-
tion. The Saxon Abbey was stupendous for its
time. To it Edward devoted one-tenth of all
his possessions. An arch perhaps, some founda-
tion stones, one dark, low passage and a few
courses in the claustral buildings — these alone
remain.

Edward was near his end when, fifteen years
having been spent in building, the auspicious
day appointed for the dedication came. He was

44 UNKNOWN LONDON

absent when Archbishop Stigand performed the
consecration ceremony on the 28th December
1065. For eight days longer he struggled with
mortal illness, and on the 6th January the white
corpse, attired in regal robes, with a crucifix of
gold, a gold chain round the neck and pilgrim's
ring on the finger, was laid in the ground before
the high altar within the white walls of the
Abbey, then bearing fresh marks of the mason's
tools. A plain stone sealed the sepulture — the
stone upon which later that same year the Norman
Conqueror stood and swore over the body of the
Confessor to protect his English subjects.

For eight and a half centuries the Abbey has
grown about the mortal remains of its founder,
in arcades of stone and rich carving and stately
tombs ; and more — for the great dead who have
been carried there have become as much a part
as its own walls. The Confessor's sleep is un-
disturbed, though far back in our history thrice
has the sepulture been moved, and at least on
four occasions curious eyes have beheld the
Saint's body — possibly on more. Years before
the Church's decree was given, the Confessor
was venerated as a Saint by the people, and in
the reign of the first Henry the grave was opened
by the King's order to see if, as was popularly
believed, the body remained uncorrupt. Bishop

SHRINE OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR 45

Gundulf, who stood by, then plucked out a hair
from the long white beard.

The first translation of the Confessor's remains
followed the canonization, and took place at
midnight, the date the I3th October 1163. It
was an occasion such as the monkish chroniclers
loved to dwell upon, and so, from texts in vile
Latin, we know the proceedings in considerable
detail. The brethren assembled in the vast
Abbey church, the candles lighted, leaving in
ghostly darkness the cavernous recesses of the
high roof. Psalms were sung and Litanies re-
cited. Lawrence the Abbot and the Prior, in
full vestments, tapers in their hands, albs on their
bodies, and barefooted, moved in procession to
the High Altar, two of the brethren with them,
the others continuing their chants. They re-
moved the upper stone of the coffin before the
altar, and by the light of their tapers beheld
within a man, lying in rich vestments of cloth
of gold, having on his feet buskins of purple and
shoes of great price ; his head and face were
covered with a rich covering, interwoven and
wrought with gold. The long white beard, in-
clined to curl, fell descending upon his breast.

Abbot and Prior called in the remainder of the
brethren, who with great piety and devotion
began, some to touch the head, others the feet,

46 UNKNOWN LONDON

and others the hands, which they found without
any manner of corruption. They raised the corpse
from the stone coffin in which it had lain for two
years short of a century, placed it on tapestry
upon the floor, and moved it to a wooden coffin
which had been prepared. The ring was with-
drawn from the finger and deposited in the Abbey
as a relic. A miracle was performed. Benedict,
a clerk, and John, a layman, suffering from
demoniacal possession, were led forward, and upon
sight of the chest the demons were immediately
cast out. The Saint's remains were exposed
for veneration in the choir. If a learned clerk of
a later generation does not libel, the rich funeral
vestments were removed from the body and
fashioned into three magnificent copes — a remark-
ably irreverent proceeding.

Henry II., Thomas a Becket, Henry Bishop
of Winchester and others supported the body of
St Edward as he was borne in procession to the
Shrine which the King had erected, " all glitter-
ing with gold and silver."

Henry III. built the Abbey as for the greater
part we know it, and for it conceived a new
Shrine for the founder more resplendent than
anything known in his day, which should be
the central object, focussing all attention amid
these towering masses of masonry. It is the

SHRINE OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR 47

Shrine before which we stand to-day, broken,
sadly despoiled of its decoration, the golden
feretory which had closed upon the Saint's coffin
replaced by a mere wooden tabernacle, and even
that unfinished ; still a priceless relic, unique.
In Westminster alone in England, it was long
believed, did you find the corpse of a canonized
saint preserved still in his shrine, after the pitiless
spoilation which accompanied the Reformation.1
" Petrus Romanus Civis " signed the Shrine —
Peter the citizen of Rome, thought by some to
be Peter CavaUini. His was the general design
of the whole, the marble and red periphery of
the base, the sculpture and elaborate decoration.
He did not fashion the golden top, which may
have been the task of Odo, the King's goldsmith,
and his son Edward, or perhaps of Richard Abel.
The little Shrine, its measure the length of a man,
is believed by Professor Lethaby to have cost
Henry III. the equivalent of from £60,000 to
£80,000 of our money.

While the Abbey rose tall and wide under
the hands of the masons, the preparation of the

1 It has been pointed out by Miss E. K. Prideaux (Arch.
Journal, Ixiv. 119) that there is one other instance in England
where the bones of a saint escaped the destruction which
was so horribly complete. The body of St White, or Candida,
remains undisturbed in the original shrine in the church of
Whitchurch Canonicorum, Dorset.

48 UNKNOWN LONDON

Shrine was Henry's peculiar and personal care.
It was many years in accomplishment. Early as
1241, twenty-eight years before it received the
Confessor's remains, a wooden basis for the
golden feretory was fashioned, and £258 was
spent " in the work of St Edward's Shrine."
Rarely a year passed in which the King's piety
did not make some addition to its precious
ornaments and jewels. Now it was a gold image
of St Edmund, crowned, having two great
sapphires ; again a king, with a great garnet
in his breast and other stones ; the Blessed
Virgin and her Son, set with rubies, emeralds,
sapphires and garnets ; five angels of gold ; an
image of a king with precious stones and enamelled
and jewelled crown ; a Majesty ; a figure of St
Peter, and more like. The Queen gave an image
of the Virgin, with emerald and ruby. Almost
every inch of the marble basement was covered
on its surface by mosaic, bright in colour, and
wrought in the most elaborate patterns. The
last may still be traced in places by imprints
left in the cement, where the tesserae have been
picked out by despoilers, tempted by the rich
yellow and golden tones of the cubes. Hardly a
foot of the original mosaic remains. An inscrip-
tion was carried round the frieze, formed by
larger pieces of deep blue glass, set in gold mosaic.

SHRINE OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR 49

At length Abbey church and Shrine were
ready for the translation ; the great nave still
awaited completion. That nothing might be
wanting, earth was brought from the sacred
places of Palestine, a mound was reared, tumul-
ous like, and upon its summit the Confessor's
Shrine was erected. Resplendent in colour, with
ghttering jewels and mosaics, its golden feretory
catching and reflecting the shafts of the sun,
the Shrine, centrally placed in the sanctuary of
the new minster, blazed all down its long vistas
(the screen which now so largely conceals it
dates from Henry VI.).

Like the Confessor himself, Henry had grown
old during the long years in which he watched
the building of the Abbey church of Westminster
that was to be his monument. His reign was
near its end. It is not necessary to recall here
the magnificent ceremonies on the i3th October
1269, when the coffin of St Edward was borne
by the King, his brother, and his two sons to the
spot where, save for one short interval, it has
remained ever since ; the curious may read of
them in the mediaeval chronicles. The sacred
relics of the Abbey were deposited in a chapel
near the Shrine, where now stands the Chantry
of Henry V. They included a phial containing
some drops of the Holy Blood, a stone showing

50 UNKNOWN LONDON

the marks of the Saviour's feet, and a girdle of
the Virgin.

Three years later King Henry III., laden with
years and cares, passed to his own rest, and by
his burial beside Edward's Shrine was the first
of the illustrious line of England's Kings who in
death have grouped themselves about the Confessor.

The Reformation came, and religious broil.
The monks of Westminster fled. Again the
coffin of Edward the Confessor was moved —
taken from its Shrine and buried in the ground,
though whether by the monks as a measure of
precaution before they dispersed, or by authority
of King Henry VIII. is by no means clear. Some
distinction seems to have been made for this
Saint of the line of England's Kings. The sheriffs
and magistrates of the various counties received
from Cromwell explicit orders. They were to
repair severally to the cathedrals, churches, or
chapels in which any shrine might be. The
relics, reliquaries, gold, silver, or jewels which it
contained they were to seize and send to the King.
They were charged to see with their own eyes the
shrine itself levelled with the ground, and the
pavement cleared of it. St Thomas a Becket's
shrine at Canterbury being so despoiled, the
martyr's bones were torn from the tomb, burnt
to powder, and scattered by the winds.

SHRINE OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR 51

It is probable that the substantial lower part
of Edward's Shrine at Westminster, including
the arches, was left in its place undisturbed.
For the rest, the newcomers in authority within
the Abbey, blindly hating all things papistical,
broke the Shrine, despoiled it of its jewels and
mosaics, and carried away the golden feretory,
which presumably was melted down. Gold
images of the Confessor and St John, which had
stood before the Shrine upon the twisted pillars,
still surviving, and many other figures of pure
gold, were removed to the Royal Treasury for
the same purpose.

So the Shrine remained — empty, desolate,
pitiful — till the accession of Queen Mary brought
back to Westminster the old faith. The convent
was re-established for a brief spell. Abbot
Feckenham devoted himself to building up again
the Confessor's tomb so far as limited means
allowed. The golden feretory could not be
replaced, so large an expenditure being beyond
the means of Queen or Church, and a wooden
tabernacle was raised where it had stood, rather,
it would seem, as a suggestion for something
better than with lasting intention, for it is
still unfinished. On the 2oth March 1557, with
a hundred lights, King Edward the Confessor
" was reverently carried from the place that he

52 UNKNOWN LONDON

was taken up where he was laid when the Abbey
was spoiled and robbed, and so he was carried,
and goodly singing and censing as has been seen,
and Mass sung."

Indications abound of the haste with which
the restoration of St Edward's Shrine was per-
formed. Feckenham, being unable to replace
the mosaics, filled the cavities with plaster,
which afterwards was painted over. The cornice
appears to be his own addition, and at one corner
was made from what seem to be pieces of window
tracery. A fragment of the original cornice
was recovered in 1868, built into the wall of
Westminster School, and has been returned to
its place. The twisted pillars have been mis-
placed by the Marian restorers as if intended to
help support the retabulum. Canon Westlake,
who conducted a recent examination of the
Shrine, has pointed out that two movable stones
have place in the frieze. Their purpose still
remains a puzzle, his suggestion being that they
were made so that objects brought by the
worshippers could be held in contact with the
Saint's coffin. To this day a candle held at one
side of the Shrine shows a thin ray of light above
the coffin head.

Happily the religious intolerance of the six-
teenth century, so hard and bitter, has died

THK SHRINK OK THE CONKESSOK

He C/tapel of the Kings, H estmiiisitr Abbty

SHRINE OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR 53

down. Elizabeth was content to leave the Shrine
unmolested as it was left by Mary's and Fecken-
ham's hands, doing nothing herself ; the wooden
tabernacle, the plaster filling replacing the mosaic,
and other evidences of restoration still seen are
their work. Feckenham piously rewrote the in-
scription, of which only a few letters of the
original remain.

Fate decided that once again the Confessor's
grave should be disturbed, this time by pure
accident. Workmen lowering the scaffolding in
the Abbey which had been raised for King
James II. 's Coronation in 1686 carelessly allowed
a heavy baulk of timber to fall upon the tempor-
arily uncovered Shrine. It broke a hole in the
coffin lid about six inches in length by four inches
broad, above the right breast. No attention
was paid for a space of six or seven weeks, when
report of the matter reached one Henry Keepe,
who reared up a ladder and proceeded to explore
— in plain English, to rifle the tomb. Keepe, who
writes himself " gent," was an Abbey chorister,
and author of Monumenta Westmonasteriensia, a
tiresome and inaccurate volume, but he had so
little shame in his proceeding that he actually
printed, under a pseudonym, a pamphlet about it,
now the rarest of finds for a bibliophile.

" I look't into the coffin," Keepe naively con-

54 UNKNOWN LONDON

f esses ; " and found all things answerable to
the report ; and put my hand into the hole, and
turning the bones (which I felt there) I drew
from underneath the shoulder-bones a Crucifix
richly adorned and enamelled, and a gold chain
of four and twenty inches long, unto which it
was affixed, the which I immediately show'd
to my friends, they being as much surprised and
gladly admired the same as myself. But I was
afraid to take them away with me till such time
I had acquainted the Dean as the governour and
chief Director of our church ; And thereupon
I put them into the coffin again, with a full
resolution to inform him."

The Dean was not then to be found.

" Fearing that this holy treasure might be
taken thence by some other persons, and so con-
cealed by converting it to their own use, I went
(about two or three hours after) to one of the
Quire, who immediately accompanied me back
to the monument, and from whence I again
drew the aforesaid Crucifix and Chain, and showed
them him, who beheld them with admiration. . . .

" At the time, when I took out of the coffin
the aforesaid cross and chain, I drew the Head
to the hole, and view'd it, being very sound and
firm, with the upper and nether jaws whole and
full of Teeth, with a list of gold above an inch

SHRINE OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR 55

broad in the nature of a Coronet, surrounding
the Temples ; there was also in the coffin white
linnen, and gold colour'd flowr'd silk, that
look't indifferent fresh, but the least stress put
thereunto shew'd it was well nigh perish't.
There were all his Bones, and much dust like-
wise, all which I left as I found, taking only
thence along with me the Crucifix and the Gold-
Chain."

Keepe retained these precious relics in his
possession for three weeks and five days, after
which he showed them successively to the Arch-
bishop of York, the Archbishop of Canterbury,
Sir William Dugdale and others, and eventually
the finder was permitted to present them to the
King. " And being no sooner introduced into
his Majesty's closet (where I had the honour to
kiss his Royal hand) but upon my knees I de-
livered them with my own hands to him, which
his Most Sacred Majesty was pleased to accept
with much satisfaction." Then Keepe with-
drew, " leaving them safe as being now in his
Royal possession."

How little could the finder forecast events !

These relics of the Saxon King are not
at Windsor. James assuredly appreciated their
historical value and sanctified association. Chain
and crucifix are said to have been on his person

56 UNKNOWN LONDON

when he fled from his Throne, and as he made
for the sea coast and exile they were rifled by
the Faversham fishermen. They have not since
been seen. James, however, reigned long enough
for directions that he gave for better safeguard-
ing the Confessor's tomb to be carried out. A
new outer chest was made for the Saint's coffin,
of planks of timber two inches in thickness,
having iron bands lengthways and across, and
additional clamps at the head and feet. The
cavity within the Shrine bears upon its surfaces
rough marks of mason's tools, as if it had been
enlarged to contain the enlarged coffin. Two iron
tie-bars, sealed in the stone, give additional pro-
tection, and never is the sepulture likely again
to be disturbed.

I wonder how many who pass by realize that
amidst the vast company of the dead in West-
minster Abbey Edward the Confessor lies, not
in the earth, but in his coffin raised high in this
Shrine — " like a candle upon a candlestick, so
that all who enter into the House of the Lord
may behold its light," says an old chronicler.

IV

GHOSTS IN THE TOWER OF LONDON

WHEN darkness descends upon the
Tower of London the sharp outlines
disappear, and piled masses of masonry
take new and fantastic groupings. That is the
time for testing nerves. A wind blowing un-
obstructed over the broad river reaches sings
its message among the tops of the high turrets
and through the locked gates. The tide lapping
the Thames wharves, unseen though but a few
yards distant, the occasional stir of the shipping,
and the inexplicable sounds of a great city add
to the mystery of the night. Out of a break in
storm clouds the moon peers down, searching
with a silvery light the baileys and sally-ports
and prisoners' walks guarded by these strong
walls. Then, some will tell you, the dark
shadow of an axe steals across the blood-soaked
plot of ground on Tower Green, and stands
gaunt and erect, silhouetted against the Norman
keep.

No, I have not seen the ghostly shadow myself,

57

58 UNKNOWN LONDON

nor have I found any except those who have it
on hearsay, but this is one of the traditions of
The Tower ; and there are many. If substance
there be in the belief that distracted ghosts
revisit the scenes of their great sorrows, assuredly
upon no spot on earth do they congregate more
thickly than here. Eight centuries of England's
story in tragedy and suffering are isolated with-
in The Tower's encircling walls. Sir Walter
Raleigh's phantom is reputed to have been seen
flitting noiselessly about the cells and passages
of his long captivity. Suddenly the white figure
of a woman has appeared upon the execution
ground, and as suddenly vanished — one of Henry
VIII. 's ill-fated Queens. A sentry, watchful
and alert, has fancied that he has heard proceed-
ing from the dungeons of the White Tower,
muffled by the immense thickness of the walls,
the agonized cries of Guy Fawkes, stretched in
torture upon the rack.

All these things are vague and unsubstantial,
as ghosts themselves are, grown about the grey
walls of the State prison — the results, my reason
tempts me to disbelief with the assurance, of
strained watching, of a state of expectation of
mind that gives form to just what is expected.
Indeed, considering its crowded past, the ghosts
of The Tower of London are lamentably few.

GHOSTS IN THE TOWER OF LONDON 59

Three only have I been able to track down that
stood out in circumstantial detail before those
who witnessed them. First, a Queen's ghost,
the Queen of unhappy tragedy and of undying
pathos — Anne Boleyn. Her window is still
pointed out. It lights a little room in the
Lieutenant's Lodgings, facing west, a low ceiled
apartment, for it is but eight feet high, roughly
fourteen feet square, and panelled throughout with
oak. It is kept much in the same state as when
Anne Boleyn slept therein her last night on earth.
In the year 1864, visiting rounds of the guard
within The Tower were being made when the
officer came upon the sentry posted under-
neath this window, a rifleman of the 6oth
Rifles, lying prostrate and unconscious on the
ground.

The man was court-martialled for being asleep
at his post, when he said in his defence that a
figure in white approached ; that he challenged,
but the figure came on ; that he charged it with
his bayonet, and meeting no resistance fell in a
dead faint, in which condition the visiting rounds
had found him. At the court-martial two wit-
nesses gave evidence that that night they looked
out of the window of the Bloody Tower before
going to bed. In the clear, cold moonlight they
also saw a white figure approach the sentry ;

60 UNKNOWN LONDON

they heard the sentry challenge, saw him charge
the figure with his bayonet and then fall to the
ground. The court acquitted the prisoner. For
several years thereafter other sentries on the spot
declared that they had seen the same figure, and
the post became of such evil repute that the
men tried to avoid it. General Sir George
Younghusband, to-day the Keeper of the Crown
Jewels, tells the story in his recent book on The
Tower from Within, it having come to him from
the late Major-General J. D. Dundas, then a
captain in the 6oth Rifles, and it is corroborated
very closely by Field-Marshal Lord Grenfell, who
was in the same regiment.

The others are, I fear, somewhat ridiculous ;
sadly falling short of what one has a right to
expect a ghost should be in such a place as
The Tower. They seem to plead, gibbering, for
apology. One of these happened — properly a
ghost happens — to none other than a late Keeper
of the Crown Jewels himself. Late in life, when
in his eighty-third year, Mr Edmund Lenthal
Swifte committed to paper the narrative of his
eerie experiences, thinking that it should not
pass with him to the grave. He was a public
official of merit and distinction, who held his post
from 1814 till retirement in 1842, and he played
a courageous part in saving the Regalia during

GHOSTS IN THE TOWER OF LONDON 61

a terrible fire that destroyed the Armoury in
The Tower in 1841. No one privileged to have
known this fine old gentleman, himself the soul
of honour, could have questioned the absolute
sincerity of the assurance with which he closed
his story. " To all which I have set forth," he
wrote, " as seen by myself, I absolutely pledge
my faith and my honour."

The Regalia in Ms charge was at the time safe
kept in the Martin Tower, a stronghold which
forms the north-west angle of the Inner Ward,
and there the Keeper had living rooms with his
family. How the spectre appeared to him his
own words shall tell —

" One Sunday night in October 1817, I was at
supper with my wife, our little boy, and my
wife's sister in the sitting-room of the Jewel
House, which is said to have been the ' doleful
prison ' of Anne Boleyn [it was not] and of
the ten Bishops whom Oliver Cromwell piously
accommodated there. The doors were all closed,
heavy and dark curtains were let down over the
windows, and the only light in the room was
that of two candles on the table. I sat at the
foot of the table, my son on my right, my wife
fronting the chimney piece, and her sister on the
opposite side.

" I had offered a glass of wine and water to

62 UNKNOWN LONDON

my wife, when on putting it to her lips she
paused, and exclaimed —

" ' Good God ! what is that ? '

" I looked up, and saw a cylindrical figure,
like a glass tube, something about the thickness
of my arm, and hovering between the ceiling and
the table ; its contents appeared to be a dense
fluid, white and pale azure, like to the gathering
of a summer cloud, and incessantly rolling and
mingling within the cylinder. This lasted about
two minutes, when it began slowly to move
before my sister-in-law, following the oblong
shape of the table, before my son and myself.
Passing behind my wife, it paused for a moment
over her right shoulder (observe there was no
mirror opposite in which she could then behold
it). Instantly she crouched down, and, with
both hands covering her shoulder, shrieked out,
' Oh Christ ! it has seized me.'

" Even now as I write I feel the horror of that
moment. I caught up my chair, striking at the
' appearance ' with a blow that hit the wainscot
behind her. It then crossed the upper end of the
table and disappeared in the recess of the opposite
window. I rushed upstairs to the other children's
room, and told the terrified nurse what I had
seen. Meanwhile other domestics had hurried
into the parlour, where their mistress was re-

GHOSTS IN THE TOWER OF LONDON 63

counting to them the scene, even as I was detail-
ing it above-stairs.

" The marvel — some will say the absurdity —
of all this is enhanced by the fact that neither
my sister-in-law nor my son beheld the ' appear-
ance,' though to their mortal vision it was as
apparent as it was to my wife's and mine."

A disappointing ghost, indeed, raising expecta-
tion high, but denying fulfilment. This should
have been a new Genii of The Tower, forming
mysteriously within the " tube," boiling, bub-
bling, fretting, taking form gradually before the
eyes of the horrified spectators, bursting his
bonds, growing expansive and terrible, filling
the room with his loathsome presence, like that
other genii in the famous Eastern story of the
Fisherman and the Bottle cast up by the sea.
It was an airy monster taking shape from the
agitation within a cylindrical column just in the
same mysterious way that appeared before the
Baron de Guldenstubbe, familiar to students of
the occult. What might have developed but for
that unseemly blow struck with the chair, dent-
ing the wainscotting, none can tell.

Notes and Queries discussed the matter some
half a century ago, with much learning, but the
only materialistic explanation suggested was that
of a column of fog descending a damp chimney.

64 UNKNOWN LONDON

Mr Swifte scornfully repelled the idea. "As if
(said he) the densest fog that ever descended
could have seized one of us by the shoulder ! "

The remaining ghost is still less substantial.
It appeared at the stroke of midnight — befitting
hour ! — to a sentry keeping guard before the Jewel
House door, which stood in shadow beneath a
stone archway — " as ghostly a door," says Mr
Swifte (for this apparition also occurred in his
time) " as ever was opened or closed on a doomed
man." The sentry took alarm, as well he might,
when the figure of a huge bear issued from
beneath the door. Desperate, he struck at it
with his bayonet, which stuck fast in the oaken
door ; then the man swooned, and his comrades,
hastening to the spot, carried him senseless to the
guard-room. He was neither asleep nor drunk.
But a few moments before the bear emerged he
had spoken to a fellow soldier ; he bore a high
character for bravery and good conduct. Mr
Swifte saw him next morning, trembling and
haunted by fear, a man changed beyond recogni-
tion. In a day or two the poor fellow died. The
body was interred with military honours in the
Flemish burial-ground at St Katharine's by The
Tower. Several persons to whom the man spoke
attested his tale, the details of which had fixed
themselves in his mind, and did not vary.

GHOSTS IN THE TOWER OF LONDON 65

Till less than a century ago The Tower of
London was the " Zoo " of the City, possessing
cages stored with a curious variety of wild
animals, often the gifts of foreign potentates,
here royally confined. Who shall decide whether
or not this was the shade of some ill-treated
Bruin ?

The late Keeper of the Crown Jewels, it will
be noticed, had a pleasant tolerance for ghosts.
These, such poor things as they are, are the
authenticated phantoms of The Tower of London,
and to my mind they raise a question worth
pondering over, for there are many persons
among us to-day who pin their faith on ghosts.
It is this. Not in all England's broad acres is
there another area so small that is so crowded
with the tragedy of life as is The Tower, nowhere
where the shades of men and women violently
cut off in their prime should so thickly congre-
gate— not Rome's Coliseum, not the frowning
Fortress of St Peter and St Paul in Petrograd,
no place, I question, in the world.

" In truth, there is no sadder spot on earth
than this little cemetery," wrote Lord Macaulay
of the sheltered church of St Peter ad Vincula
within The Tower. " Death is there associated,
not, as in Westminster and St Paul's, with genius
and virtue, with public veneration and with

£

66 UNKNOWN LONDON

imperishable renown ; not, as in our humblest
churches and churchyards, with everything that
is most endearing in social and domestic charities :
but with whatever is darkest in human nature
and in human destiny ; with the savage triumph
of implacable enemies, with the inconstancy, the
ingratitude, the cowardice of friends, with all
the miseries of fallen greatness and of blighted
fame. Thither have been carried through suc-
cessive ages, by the rude hands of gaolers, without
one mourner following, the bleeding relics of
men, who had been the captains of armies, the
leaders of parties, the oracles of senates, and the
ornaments of Courts."

This is no more than true, and of all that great
company of the silent who should lie uneasily —
queens, statesmen, warriors, prelates and many
whose kinship has been their only crime — there
is not one whose phantom, living again that last
bitter hour on earth, has been seen, on testimony
that can be accepted by reasoning men. Lenthal
Swifte's poor shapeless apparition is the very
quintessence of feebleness, when this ground
should have yielded ghosts so strong. The Tower
of London should be the muster ground of ghostly
battalions. There is none. It is watched and
guarded night and day, centuries in and out,
as no other place is watched. If great London

GHOSTS IN THE TOWER OF LONDON 67

cannot provide one ghostly reappearance that
will satisfy, if The Tower itself — assuredly the
testing-place, if such there can be — has none,
then I decline to be fobbed off with stories of
ghostly figures awakening sleepers in haunted
chambers of ancient country houses, or moving
noiselessly along wainscotted corridors. London
born, of three generations of Londoners, I deny
all country ghosts.

THE DOMESDAY BOOK

1. What is the name of the mansion ?

2. Who held it in the time of King Edward ?

3. Who now holds it ?

4. How many hides are there ?

5. How many teams — in demesne — of the tenants ?

6. How many villeins — bordars — slaves ?

7. How many freemen — sokemen ?

8. How much wood — meadow — pasture ? How many
mills ? How many fisheries ?

9. How much has been added or taken away ?

10. How much was the whole worth ? How much is it
worth now ?

1 1 . How much had or has each freeman or sokeman there ?
All this is to be given in triplicate ; that is, in the time of
King Edward, when King William gave it, and at the present
time.

12. And if more can be had than is had ?

THE questions are twelve in number, and
with them William the Conqueror's
Commissioners spread over the land,
and from the answers given was compiled the
Domesday Book. I much doubt if the stern
King himself ever looked into these pages of
remarkable penmanship. He had reigned twenty
years in England when at the Salisbury gemot

68

THE DOMESDAY BOOK 69

at Michaelmas, 1086, it was made known that
the inquiry was complete, leaving, one may
suppose, the vast work of digestion and arrange-
ment still to be done. In the following spring
an invasion of his territories required the
Conqueror's presence in Normandy. As he rode
through the flaming streets of Mantes, a fall from
his horse hastened his end, and he was borne
to the tomb in the Cathedral at Caen which
is sought, I boldly say, by more travelled
Englishmen — many more — than seek his great
Survey in Chancery Lane. Quite characteristic of
English indifference to our historical monuments
is the fact that Domesday Book should be lying
in the City of London, in a public place, accessible
to all without charge, and at no more trouble
than is required by signing one's name — and
nobody sees it, or even can tell where it is.

From the nobodies I except all historians and
antiquaries, dull people like myself, given to
moments of sly enjoyment in company with the
dusty records of centuries long since dead ;
travelling Americans who underline Domesday in
their guide-books before losing sight of Nan-
tukket Point and facing the open Atlantic ;
by chance a few others, but those very few.
Yet it is not a long journey to Chancery Lane,
nor is the hazard great, to the Public Record

70 UNKNOWN LONDON

Office, wherein the Domesday Book is kept, and
any week-day afternoon between the hours of
two and four will serve. The attendant at the
Record Office Museum (suppressing a yawn) will
be glad to see you. At least, he has always
gladly welcomed me, as a rare specimen of the
Englishman so seldom to be found there.

No doubt the indifference is largely due to
want of announcement, for the Record Office
Museum, with Domesday and a thousand other
historical documents of surpassing interest —
Trafalgar and Waterloo despatches, Guy Fawkes's
confession under torture, the Papal Bull which
made our Kings Defender of the Faith, and what
not else ? — does not advertise. It seems, being
Governmental, ashamed to herald its existence.
That is our Government way. The travelled
Englishman does not go into Chancery Lane,
finding it too near at hand.

There are two Domesday volumes, the large
book and the small book. They lie open under
glass, tempting interpretation, but the dull edge
of your little remembered school Latin breaks
against the text, until familiarity has been won
with the excessive contraction .that is practised
in every word, not in the Latin alone, but also
in the Saxon and Norman terms that arc used
to signify measures. If, being thus warned, you

THE DOMESDAY BOOK 71

think your learning still fresh enough for the
test, take this passage from Domesday and trans-

late it for me into running English. I have

reproduced it from the manuscript as well as
my unskilled hand allows—

f /

r /torn -7- v-W fui aa in • a n 2En<h?r
--

What object weighed with the Conqueror in
compiling Domesday none now can tell.

The great Survey has surprisingly little history,
and almost all that is known of it is drawn from
the book itself. The accident that has preserved
what is believed to be a full transcript of the
original returns of several of the Cambridgeshire
Hundreds alone has given to us the questions
asked. Much also is suggested by a study of
the Exon Domesday (once kept at Exeter, and
therefore so called) which contains a copy of the
original returns of the five western counties, and
by comparison of the contents of the separate
volumes of Domesday itself. All this, I allow,
is solid fare. " Muckle thought and deep speech

72 UNKNOWN LONDON

with his wise men " King William had before he
determined thus to map out the values of the
whole area of England that acknowledged his sway.
This at least we know, that the step excited
shuddering fear and grave suspicion among his
English subjects, and not unreasonably. They
knew their ruthless master — none better. They
were fearful lest the inquiry should forebode
new encroachments upon English liberties, and
yet further confiscations from the people. It is
written plain as day in the brief mention made
by a nameless scribe in the Saxon Chronicle,
whom I quote below —

" After this the King had muckle thought and deep
speech with his wise men about this land, how it was set,
and with what men. Then he sent his men over all
England into each shire, and let them find out how
many hundred hides were in that shire, or what the
King had himself of land or cattle in those lands, or
what rights he ought to have in the twelve month from
that shire. Also he let them write how much his arch-
bishops had, and his bishops, and his abbots, and his
earls, and, though I tell it longer, what or how much
each man had, that was landsitting in England, in land
or cattle, and how much it was worth. So very narrowly
did he let them speir it out that there was not a hide
nor a yardland, nor — it is shameful to tell, though he
thought it no shame to do — so much as an ox or a cow
or a swine was left, that was not set down in his writ :
and all these writs were brought to him afterwards."

The Royal Officers spread themselves over the
country, armed with supreme powers. No mitred

THE DOMESDAY BOOK 73

Abbot, lord of vast lands with key to Heaven
and hell, no bishop, no priest should hold himself
exempt from their inquiry, no Baron be so for-
midable that he should dare refuse answer to
their summons, nor was any man too humble
to bear his testimony if it was required. It was
the King's command they bore, which all should
obey. Their work being accomplished, the Royal
Officers embodied its results in the volumes of
Domesday, written on the parchment with black
ink and often with red initials and interlines ;
and business-like, without ornament. Then they
disappear. They did not attach their names.
They are unknown. But from documents
of a later date we regain the styles and
names of a few. It was Remigius, Bishop of
Lincoln, Henry of Ferrars, Walter Giffard, and
Adam fitz Hubert, brother of Eudo the Steward,
who " came to inquire into the counties " of
Worcester and others neighbouring with the
Conqueror's writ ; and the Bishops of Winchester
and Coutances headed the Domesday Commission
for Cambridgeshire and the East Midlands— all
men of weight, learned with the little learning
that was attainable in the eleventh century.

They went into the town of the shire and the
county, called together the great shire moot and
the county court, and read the Royal writ cloth-

74 UNKNOWN LONDON

ing them with authority. The Sheriffs attended,
officers of the King's own lands, the Barons who
held their lands direct from the King and their
French sub-tenants, all those who owed suit to
the hundred moot, and the priest, the reeve, and
six villeins from every vill, and these upon oath
gave the information the Commissioners required.
A jury was empanelled to take the evidence.
Thus the inquiry proceeded, Hundred by Hundred,
each Hundred providing its separate jury. The
questions asked I have already given. A careful
analysis by Mr Round of the names of the Cam-
bridgeshire jurors has led him to the conclusion
that one-half of them were Norman and the other
half were English. " Conquerors and conquered
were alike bound by their common sworn verdicts."
The impartial justice with which the in-
quiry was administered stands out conspicuously,
evident to the most casual observer. First come
the holdings of the King himself, then those of
the Churchmen and religious houses, then those
of the Barons, and following in order the lands of
women, of the King's Serjeants, of the few English
thegns who retained land, and so forth. The
Royal Officers questioned, and the scribes wrote
down the description of each separate estate.
They gave the measure of each, how many hides
of land it contained, what plough-land, what

THE DOMESDAY BOOK 75

meadow and pasture, what woods, what fisheries,
what number of men and ox-teams it supported,
what tax it paid. Often, as might be anticipated
in a turbulent age, and so soon after the whole-
sale confiscations which attended the conquest
of England, they found rights disputed. These
they reported. The Royal Officers held no
powers as law-givers, to do justice between the
baron and the weaker neighbour, whose land
he had wrongfully seized, to recompense the lay-
man despoiled of his possession by the Church,
or to decide as often the merits of disputes
between churchmen themselves. Their authority
was limited to inquiry and report ; and so they
were content impartially to write down the dis-
puted titles to land — the clamores — often in a
separate section, treating the people of each race
alike, leaving it to others to decide wherein the
right lay.

County by county the inquiry was made com-
plete as the Royal Officers travelled in separate
parties from one to another. Its results are con-
tained, as already said, in two volumes, the great
and the small, and the belief has been held that
the larger volume was compiled first ; its com-
panion, much less exquisite in penmanship and
somewhat confused in order, seems at first glance
to have been more carelessly done — perhaps after

76 UNKNOWN LONDON

the King's death. The small volume contains
the returns of three East Anglian counties.
Modern study has substantially agreed that this
arrangement must be reversed, and has assigned
to the small volume the earlier date.

For one thing, it contains much detail not to
be found in the larger book. It gives a census
of live stock in the three eastern counties
it surveys — Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk — assisting
to make quite a vivid picture of farm life in
England so many centuries ago ; what numbers
of hackneys, oxen, sheep, swine and goats, even
hives (then so valuable for sugar) each estate
supported. This information is not preserved
for the rest of England. In Suffolk the names
of individual freemen are given. There is much
to suggest that the small volume is practically
a complete copy of the original returns. Carried
out for all England on this scale, the work would
have bulked large, being inconvenient for refer-
ence. Perhaps a word fell from the King that
his interests were purely fiscal, and would as
well be served by a simpler plan. Whatever the
cause, the scope of Domesday has undergone
alteration. Some part of the information which
the Commissioners had been at such pains to
collect was not judged worthy of preservation,
and the result is that the large volume, as com-

THE DOMESDAY BOOK 77

pared with the small, is baldly statistical, arid
in its contents, and of considerably less interest.

How full is the picture drawn of East Anglia
an extract from the Survey of Essex will show.
These are the lands of Robert Greno at Rainham,
in the Hundred of Chafford —

" Renaham, which was held by Aluard as a manor and
as 3j hides, is held of R[obert] by Robert. Then 4
villeins ; now 5. Then and afterwards 6 bordars ;
now 4. Then 2 serfs ; now none. Then as now 2
ploughs on the demesne. Then the men had between
them 2j ploughs ; now i. Then 3 rounceys, and
14 beasts, and 6 swine, and 100 sheep ; now 4 rounceys,
and ii beasts, and 24 swine, and 80 sheep, and 12 hives
of bees. It was then worth 6 pounds ; and when
received (the same) ; it is now worth 4 pounds. And
i hide was held by i free man who afterwards forfeited
it because he committed theft ; and (it) was in the
King's hand(s). But Robert ' lascivus ' seized it as
the Hundred (court) testifies ; then i plough (was
there) ; afterwards and now none ; it is worth now as
then 20 shillings ; this is held of R[obert] by the same
Robert."1

Or again, take this land of Ranulf Peverel in
Essex — " Peverel of London," a French baron
whose power is indicated by the large numbers
of lands he held in the Eastern counties —

" Hundred of Roche fort [Rochford].
" Legra [Leigh] which was held by i free man as a
manor and as i hide, is held by R[anulf] in demesne.

1 Mr Round's translation in the Victoria County History
of Essex.

78 UNKNOWN LONDON

Then as now 2 villeins, and 2 bordars, and i plough on
the demesne, and half a plough belonging to the men,
and five bordars by the water, who hold no land. There
is pasture for 100 sheep. Then i rouncey, 5 cows,
5 calves (and) 100 sheep ; now 2 rounceys, 4 cows,
5 calves, (and) 103 sheep. It was then worth 40 shillings;
now 100."

Look back half a dozen pages. This account
above of the land of Ranulf Peverel in Leigh is
a translation of the Latin passage there set out —
" Hund de Rochefort Legra ten&," etc.

Alunid, a woman, we hear of curiously. She
had lands in Buckinghamshire which the Earl
Godric gave her to hold so long as he should
be Earl, stipulating that she taught his daughter
the craft of embroidery.

England was not all conquered. Domesday
takes no cognizance of the north-western counties
above Cheshire, save that a part of Lancashire
is grouped with Cheshire ; and the Furness
district, the south of Westmoreland and a border
area of Cumberland are similarly linked with
the West Riding of Yorkshire. This is suffi-
ciently explained by the fact that the area left
uncharted, so remote from King William's seat
of authority in the south, was not brought under
the Crown until the next reign. The omission
of Northumberland and Durham is less easily
accounted for ; though it may well be that the

THE DOMESDAY BOOK 79

wasting of the lands there by the merciless hand
of the Conqueror, the repeated inroads by the
Scots, and the vengeance taken by Odo for the
murder of Bishop Walcher in 1080, had left a
wilderness, with very little worth the trouble and
hazard of surveying.

It is doubtful, for other reasons, if the inquiry
really was complete. London is not included
in Domesday ; it is not mentioned except by
the association of certain lands outside its area.
There is an engaging mystery about a leaf left
blank before the Middlesex Domesday opens.
Was it intended for the missing survey of London ?
— an intention which has never been fulfilled.
Chester, Bedford, Oxford, and other boroughs
which give their names to shires lead off the
returns for those shires. The London survey
might have told so much that we are left wanting.
But the Royal city of Winchester, and Bristol,
Wells, and some others are not returned. They
were rich and populous with the small popula-
tions of those days. What reason can one assign
why they should purposely have been ignored ?

The craftsmanship is not always perfect. Mr
Ballard (Domesday Inquest) has pointed out that
the Oxfordshire survey was completed before
discovery was made that the lands of William
fitz Ansculf and Hascoius Musard in that county

8o UNKNOWN LONDON

were omitted. Accordingly, these lands were
written in, Ansculf's on the marginal space at
the foot of one page, and the account of
Musard's property stretches across the feet of
two other folios. The Oxfordshire estates of the
Bishop of Coutances have somehow slipped into
the Northamptonshire Domesday. Omitted lands
have occasionally been entered on the side
margins ; there are marginal references to others,
for which additional sheets have been inserted
in the book ; a marginal note indicates that
something is still to be ascertained, as at Huste-
done, rq qt terra — " inquire how many lands ? "

The Domesday Book was written at Winchester,
where for a century it was kept with other Ex-
chequer records there, then was removed to
Westminster, probably in Henry II. 's reign. It
was for long safe guarded in the Chapter House,
and since 1857 it has been the most precious
object of a priceless collection of manuscripts
at the Public Record Office in Chancery Lane
(admission free, let me once more emphasize,
between two and four o'clock afternoons, and all
are welcomed) where it is little known and entirely
neglected by the great unheeding public of the
metropolis.

Of the many problems which Domesday pre-
sents, the greatest is still the most elusive. Why

THE DOMESDAY BOOK 81

was the Survey ordered ? The title might have
informed. It has no title. Such reference to
itself as is borne on the parchment pages is merely
a writ (breve] a " survey " (descriptio) a " descrip-
tion." Later times coined for it the word Domes-
day— " the Day of Judgment " — which seems
to have been in use as early as the reign of
Henry II. Like the sentence to be pronounced
on the dreaded Last Day, this was a judgment
from which there was no appeal. The courts of
law would listen to no questioning of its authority.
In centuries when rarely was found a man who
could read or write, an almost superstitious
reverence grew up for and clothed the authority
of Domesday ; the robed Judge, seated high
above the throng in court, found in the leathern
bound volumes the decision which was unalter-
able as if taken from the Book of Fate.

Ostensibly Domesday is a taxing book, a record
of the taxable resources of the Kingdom, setting
out the extent of the cultivable land, what portion
each man holds, what it was worth in King
Edward the Confessor's time, what it was worth
when King William gave it, what worth at the
time of the Survey. And significant of its pre-
ponderatingly fiscal nature is that last question
asked of the jurors, " And if more can be had
than is had ? " The King sought to obtain
F

82 UNKNOWN LONDON

an accessible record of the holdings in land of
his subjects, that he might tell without delay
what sum a tax imposed would bring into the
Royal treasury. Each shire and county is set
out separately. The record of each is prefaced
by a list of names of the holders of land, forming
an index. With Domesday at his hand, the
King could send out instructions to his officers
at the different centres, and the tax be speedily
collected. He could compare the return with
the sum which ought to result, and see what
persons were remiss in payment. As a taxing
instrument Domesday is admirably designed,
though lacking the summaries and digest found
so useful to-day.

Obviously, too, it might serve many other
purposes, and it remains a moot question which
one was uppermost in the Conqueror's mind when
he decided to take the great Survey of his Kingdom,
which so set his subjects by the ears. This the
learned have hotly disputed. It has been repre-
sented by ancient chroniclers that the reason
for the Survey was that every man should be
satisfied with his own right, and not usurp with
impunity what belonged to another. One fears
they little knew King William, to attribute to
him so beneficent a purpose.

Later scholars have found in Domesday a

THE DOMESDAY BOOK 83

preparation for war. They visualize it as a
muster-roll of the nation ; a record which should
place in the King's hands the names of all those
who held lands under liability for military service,
and an estimate of the followers whom each
should bring in his train, the war tax which each
estate should bear, the quantity of supplies for
the Army it could provide. If that be the pur-
pose, Domesday is a pitiless revelation of the
devastation wrought by the Conquest. It has
been estimated that the total population shown
by Domesday did not exceed 270,000 families.
Oxford in the Confessor's time was a town of
721 houses ; in that of King William it had
shrunk to a hamlet with only 243 poor dwellings.
York under the Confessor contained 1607 houses ;
they had been reduced in number to 967 by
slaughter of the people in revolt and waste of
the country.

Others, again, have pointed out a wide diversity
of objects that Domesday was well calculated
to serve —

1. It would give the King exact knowledge of
the extent of his own estates in each county,
and the income that should be derived from them,
thus acting as a check upon his officers ;

2. Would tell the King if his gifts had reached
their destined recipients; if any magnate had

84 UNKNOWN LONDON

encroached upon less powerful neighbours ; were
there English who had retained possession of
their lands without his consent ;

3. Would provide the King with exact clues
as to the personal nexus of the different tene-
ments ;

4. Would enable his Exchequer to tell what
men were liable to pay tax, and what the amount
of each man ; if each man was fairly assessed,
and if not what was fair assessment.

5. It was a register to which those whose title
was disputed might appeal.

The greatness of the conception of Domesday,
and remarkable for its accomplishment at so
early an age, is that it should have efficiently
served, not one, but all these purposes.

Many are the people who, with child-like
ignorance of Domesday's scope and unbounded
faith in its authority, have turned to it for what
it does not contain. The classic instance is that
of Samuel Pepys, who wrote in his Diary for
2ist December 1661 : " There I spoke to Mr
Falconbridge, to look whether he could out of
Domesday Book give me anything about the sea,
and the dominion thereof."

VI
AN OLD CITY MERCHANT'S MANSION

WALK the City through, and you will
find few surviving of the merchants'
houses built immediately after the
Great Fire of London when, as a matter of course,
the wealthy adventurer who had ships and
freights on every sea used his cellars as a con-
venient store, and had his office on the ground
floor, and himself lived with his family in the
rooms above. He was a sober person, much
engrossed in his affairs, and little addicted to
the frivolities and licentiousness introduced with
the Restoration. His place of business and
residence reflected his own character in its plain
exterior, dependent for effect upon its studied
sense of proportion, its subdued scheme of decora-
tion, and the air of comfort unmixed with ex-
travagance with which the owner delighted to
surround himself.

The flames of 1666 drove many people west-
wards ; but the City remained what it had always

been, the great emporium of trade, for there were

85

86 UNKNOWN LONDON

no docks and tall warehouses stretching down
the river to take the goods, and the custom, un-
broken since the Middle Ages, of living over
the shop continued. The goldsmiths, with their
" running cashes," still did such banking as
there was. It was not until the middle of last
century that the last of the merchants separated
themselves entirely from their business premises,
leaving the City at night to the caretakers.

I recall my venerable friend, the late Sir
Thomas Crosby, M.D., an octogenarian when
he became Lord Mayor, telling me when over
tea-cups and dry toast at the Mansion House
we exchanged reminiscences, that in his young
days he had a considerable maternity practice
among resident City housewives.

Thousands who hurry by Allhallows Barking
Church do not know of the existence of one of
these fine old merchants' houses which stands
unharmed close at hand. No. 34 Great Tower
Street is an example of the type of mansion built
after the Restoration, as excellent as it is rare.
It lies back concealed, with only an open gateway
and a few names painted at the side to indicate
its presence. Pass into the courtyard, and you
have a welcome surprise, for here is a City corner
to be treasured. The house is just such a one
as must have been erected for a prosperous

A CITY MERCHANT'S MANSION 87

merchant — a roomy mansion, with spacious apart-
ments and panels and carvings which convey the
idea of generations of prosperity in commerce.

The house dates from about 1670. A first im-
pression is that its original surroundings must
have been very different. So fine a dwelling
would not have been shut off from the street by
a screen of mean houses. They must stand
upon what was its court or garden ; very likely
there was a garden also at the rear, perhaps with
just a glimpse of the river, though Old London
Bridge, itself then covered with houses, was too
far distant to come into the picture. All this,
however, is an illusion. Wren planned the City
on a new model, extinguishing the mediaeval
features ; but the merchants were in too much
of a hurry to wait for him, and rebuilt exactly
upon the former sites.

Some one with a few thousands of pounds
snatched out of the heat and flame which con-
sumed London built No. 34 Great Tower Street.
Ogilby's Survey, made within ten years after
the Great Fire — Ogilby died in 1676 — shows in
plan the existing house, and it is hemmed in
exactly as it is to-day. Land was too valuable
for gardens. There are many other large build-
ings, mostly modern, similarly concealed among
the City's narrow courts.

88 UNKNOWN LONDON

A picturesque flight of steps gives entrance.
The lessees, Messrs Dent, Urwick and Yeatman
have the ground floor offices over their extensive
cellarage. The firm are wine-merchants, who
came here in 1821. It was a wine-house before
them, and the atmosphere is redolent of pleasant
vintages. The counting-house is the apartment
on the right. To walk into it is to take a step
backwards to the days when periwigs were worn,
and stockings and buckled shoes, and the long
coat of figured silk half concealed the rapier.
I doubt if the room has been at all altered this
past century and a half.

Some early Georgian panelling has replaced
the original wainscot, and the arrangement is
entirely that of an old-time merchant's office,
different from the fashion that now finds favour.
The public are separated by an open iron rail,
not in the front and in the best of the light, but
at the back, though in close proximity to retiring
rooms, wherein, over a glass of old Oporto, many
a bargain in pipes and butts has been made these
past two centuries. Business was not conducted
in such fever heat when the Four Georges ruled,
but men had time to gossip over the news of the
day, and the plan seems to have realized the
necessity of this element in commercial success.

It is in keeping with its associations that the

A CITY MERCHANT'S MANSION 89

firm should have possessed a link back with the
days when the prosperous merchant resided over
his shop. Mr W. H. Urwick, the retired senior
partner, not only lived with his parents at No. 34
Great Tower Street, but was born there, and when
I talked with him shortly before his death in
1914, in his ninetieth year, he recalled many
memories of bygone City life. It is curious to
find among the firm's letters a complaint of the
noise made on the cobbled street by carriages
arriving and returning with guests attending
the merchant's dinner parties. A vast deal of
social life and entertainment has taken place
in this and other City houses, which now is en-
tirely foreign to them.

Think how different were the conditions of
business well within the old senior partner's
memory, when every hogshead and cask had to
be sent by sailing ship or along the highway.
" Jolly's Wagon " was a favourite means of con-
veyance in the late thirties of last century, but
there were many customers of the firm in places
as far inland as Leeds who preferred all the delays
of a coast journey to the risks to which the carrier
by road was exposed. There was a tremendous
deal of peculation in transit. Nothing was easier
than for some ill-doer to slip a gimlet into the side
of a wine cask, purchaser and vendor at the

go UNKNOWN LONDON

journey's end being led into an acrimonious
correspondence about short measure.

Mr Urwick told a story of a former partner, Mr
Dent, who died at the age of ninety-five a few
years ago, and in early life touted with others
for orders at the docks, when he was accosted
by a gentleman. " I was told I could buy a
pipe of port here," he said ; " but I see no sign
of wine ; can you direct me where to go ? " The
would-be purchaser proved to be the Earl of
Lovelace, who married the poet Byron's daughter.
A deal was soon effected, and a cheque was being
prepared when Mr Dent stopped the writer,
remarking that there would be discount. Lord
Lovelace glared at him. " Discount ! " he
roared. " Sir, do you take me for a tradesman ? "
and he completed the cheque for the full sum.
It was an experience not likely to be repeated
in these days.

Although it is the times and customs of the
Georges that the ground floor most readily brings
to mind, there is older material above. The
merchant's dining-room and its ante-chamber
are at the head of the staircase — with panelled
walls brown with age, and carved cornices, and
exquisite framework to the doors. Great chimney-
breasts bring the fireplaces well out, and the
mantelpieces are ornamented with bold carv-

A CITY MERCHANT'S MANSION 91

ings, deeply cut, of flowers and fruit and other
decorations. A noble dining-room is this, wherein
thirty guests might sit at table with comfort —
testimony to civic hospitality. Light floods the
place through the tall windows. It fell upon
these same panels and carvings when grave
traders of Anne and William and Mary assembled
here, and many a toast was drunk to the prosper-
ous voyage of ships driving homewards before
the wind. A counter and desks for clerks intrude
in an apartment so obviously designed for good
cheer.

Old associations linger here, too. The occu-
pants are Messrs Wilkinson and Caviller, West
India merchants — a firm whose record goes back
to the time when West India trade necessarily
meant sugar, and sugar meant slaves. Though
they came to Great Tower Street only in 1848,
their house is a century earlier. With it are
linked the fortunes of the Earls of Hare wood.
Henry Lascelles was its founder in 1743, and with
the wealth he brought from Barbadoes he pur-
chased the Harewood estate in Yorkshire, on
which his son, created Baron Lascelles in 1790,
built the present family seat.

Lascelles recalls the famous election for York-
shire. It was, perhaps, the most costly election
ever fought- -stupendous, indeed. Parliament

92 UNKNOWN LONDON

had been suddenly and unexpectedly dissolved
in 1807, and William Wilberforce, the foremost
champion of the abolition of the slave trade,
who without a contest had represented the
county for twenty-three years, was challenged
by representatives of the two noble houses of
Fitzwilliam and Harewood, namely, Lord Milton
(Whig) and Mr Lascelles (Tory).

The bribery that went on makes one gasp
for breath ! An expenditure that would almost
suffice for a General Election throughout England
under the niggardly scale now permitted was
exhausted over this one seat. Lord Milton
began his political career by letting loose a cool
£60,000 for the Whig party, and his total bill
was said to have exceeded £100,000. Mr Lascelles
drew £33,000 from his bankers to start with ;
following this up by selling out Consols, and the
Tory was not less lavish than the Whig. Lord
Harewood declared " that he was ready to spend
his whole Barbadoes property to obtain the
seat." Every voter in the county of broad
acres had to be brought into York to poll, and
in the competition for carriages the most ram-
shackle vehicle was worth a little fortune. Hordes
of attorneys, agents, and innkeepers were in the
pay of one or other of the candidates.

Alarmed, as well they might be, at this out-

A CITY MERCHANT'S MANSION 93

pouring of wealth, Wilberforce's supporters organ-
ized a national subscription to secure his election,
and in ten days £44,450 was contributed. And,
despite all, the abolitionist kept ahead during
the whole fifteen days that the contest lasted,
and won, the final return being : —

Wilberforce .... 11,806 votes.
Milton ..... 11,177
Lascelles .... 10,989 „

Mr Rutherford, to-day the senior partner,
thinking me harmless allowed me to rout about,
and in the early letter-books of the firm I found
much curious matter. What a field of history
and anecdote awaiting exploration there must
be lying on the dusty upper shelves of City
merchants' offices. The partners wrote at great
length, and mixed their business with a good
deal of current gossip of the day. As duplica-
tion was unknown, each letter was laboriously
copied by hand by a clerk, and one letter made
to serve for a dozen different readers, the parts
likely to interest being judiciously picked out.
Thus, while the sea-captain's intelligence was of
freights and sailings, and the agent on the planta-
tions heard of the partners' approval of his
management of the sugar fields and slaves, the
customer in molasses had a bit of early news
to stimulate his curiosity. A morsel of scandal

94 UNKNOWN LONDON

was judged not unwelcome, such as this of the
conduct of the cavalry at Dettingen, " especially
the Horse Bleus "—

" The Bleus at the beginning of the Battle, when
ordered to draw up to the enemy, reined back their
horses, and could not be forced to stir a step, and soon
after retreated, but were found again behind the
Infantry."

The following lines were also written upon the
occasion —

" A Courier being ask'd, from the Army what news ?
Said, the Greys were too bold, too bashfull the Bleus."

And then a loyal word for the last of our Kings
till George V., who saw war —

" His Majesty [George II.] has got great reputation
by the conduct and courage he showed, and the success
therein will be happy in its consequences. The whole
line of Stewart (sic) had not altogether so much valour
in all their actions as the King did in this one action,
and that has made him so much the idol of the people
that there is not one Tory left in the whole kingdom,
but at the same time you know our country folks very
well, and that the loss of a battle would lessen him again
in their esteem."

A letter of 1743 brings Sir Robert Walpole
before us, a splendid figure still, when, having
governed England from Westminster like a
Sovereign for an entire generation, the followers
whom he had saturated with bribes deserted
him, and he withdrew to find consolation amid

A CITY MERCHANT'S MANSION 95

the magnificent surroundings he had made
for himself at Houghton. Personally incorrupt,
though the fountain of promiscuous corruption,
he had been able, without expending a shilling
that was not honestly his own, to lay out £200,000
on buildings and land, and another £40,000 on
pictures. The correspondent had arrived from
Barbadoes, after a pleasant passage, and " saw
land that day six weeks." He tells —

" I lodged one night with Lord Orford [Sir Robert
Walpole] at his retirement at Houghton, which is a
noble House, and most magnificently furnished of any-
thing I have ever seen. I saw by the inscription upon
it, that the building was begun in 1735. . . . The
Dogkennel is a good house, and might serve a Christian
family to li ve in. The Gardens are equal to Everything
Else, and separated from a Park, where there are above
a thousand deer, by a deep Moat with a brick wall
built in the middle and no higher than the surface of
the ground, called a haugh-haw, which separation does
not appear till you come near it, and upon the said
Brick Wall are abundance of fine fruits, and for a vast
space all round there are a vast variety of beauties,
namely, Meadows, Pastures, Cornfields, Fishponds, and
great and many plantations of Trees. There's not
the appearance left of any individual thing which I
saw there 22 years ago, except the parish church, and
the whole looks like a new Creation and a second
paradise.

" The owner of all these fine things appears contented
and chearfull, and I did think his Situation happily
changed in his decline of life, from the irksome Grandeur
of the former part of it. He was, the day I saw him,
which was his birthday, arrived at his sixty-seventh

96 UNKNOWN LONDON

year, and still preserves all the faculties of mind in full
perfection."

And here is a tragedy to find among a City
merchant's letter-books —

" Dean Swift has absolutely lost his Intellects. He
had conveyed all his Estate to certain Trustees to be
disposed of after his death for charitable uses, and
they seeing the State he was fallen into and that he
would squander away his fortune, gott the guardian-
ship of him to prevent it, and now, I am told, his servants
exhibit him for a show for Money and he sitts in a great
chair in an odd dress and curses and swears incessantly.
How vain is the greatest human genius, when this Man
who laughed at the follies of all People is becoming a
laughing Stock for all the fools in Ireland."

A curiosity of this old correspondence was that
the merchant's year still began in April. Thus a
letter of 28th March 1747 is immediately followed
by one dated 3rd April 1748 — a division of time
which only the Chancellor of the Exchequer and
the Income-Tax Commissioners now keep alive.

These are a few of the associations of the house
and its occupants. Its wealth of carving and
age-browned panels recalls the earlier conditions
of its world-wide trade, and it is pleasant to learn
that there is a likelihood of No. 34 Great Tower
Street being preserved, unchanged and intact,
for at least another century. Those who explore
the house will notice the original staircase, with

A CITY MERCHANT'S MANSION 97

the characteristic twisted rail, leading to the
uppermost floor and the flat roof, whence comes,
as always from a height, an illusion of the City
very much more cramped and smaller than it
appears below.

VII
LONDON'S ROMAN BATHS

LONDON possesses two Roman baths, one
built in the City's heart and the other
in the rural surroundings of the Strand,
of which it may be said —

One certainly is Roman, but is it a bath ?
The other certainly is a bath, but is it Roman ?

A mathematician might eliminate the possible
sources of error, and state the result in these
terms —

i ROMAN — BATH

which has the advantage of stating only fact,
but archaeologists are not likely to be convinced
by this method.

The Corporation of London, wider awake now
than it was when so many remains of the former
City were allowed to be destroyed, saved this
Roman relic under the Coal Exchange in Lower
Thames Street, by Billingsgate, and specially
constructed for its^ preservation j^the chamber,

ROMAN BATH IN STRAND LANE, STRAND

Opfn to public inspection, Saturdays, na.m. to no

LONDON'S ROMAN BATHS 99

eleven feet below the road surface, in which it
may to-day be seen. Unfortunately it could not
save all that time and the Romans had left us.
In excavating for the adjoining warehouses east-
wards, further and more extensive remains were
uncovered. These were duly charted, but City
land is valuable and public funds so short that
they could not be salved, and nothing of them
survives — or, at least, nothing of them is acces-
sible. This stroke of fate is to be deplored, for
they would have given us the finest remains of
a Roman building that the City preserves, always
excepting the fragments of the great wall with
which our first conquerors encircled the City.

The plan of the entire Roman building is shown
in the accompanying drawing, for which I am
indebted to Mr John Terry. The part preserved
for inspection is that within the dotted lines.
Let me forestall disappointment by saying that,
descending to the bath, you must take your
imagination with you, for it is difficult indeed
to shift one's ideas into this place, and picture
it as a Tadema canvas, with sunlight streaming
into a stately building, and idle Roman patricians
lolling about, or the beautiful maidens of Augusta,
appropriately unattired, disporting themselves in
the clear crystal water, amid marble surround-
ings. There may have been all that in London

100

UNKNOWN LONDON

LONDON'S ROMAN BATHS 101

these many centuries ago, but there is not enough
left to make the illusion. It seems at a glance
more like a coal-hole, but that is because time
and the civic authorities have not spared us more.

Few though the fragments are, with a little
knowledge they become interesting. Assuming
that this was a bath, let us take the plan and
the shade of Vitruvius with us for a guide. A
useful man Vitruvius ; generations of posterity,
to whom his great De Architectura is a closed
and sealed book, has his shade accompanied upon
inspections of surviving Roman baths in all
parts of the world empire. Then it is not diffi-
cult to reconstruct the building. F is the
Hypocaust, with several of the Pilae not displaced
and still showing. It is of the customary shallow
depth, only i ft. 8 in. to the under-side of the
floor of the Sudatorium (C), or vapour bath,
above. In the south-east corner of this apart-
ment are seen the remains of a recessed seat.

Through a door was a room (B) which may be
taken to be the Caldarium, or warm bath, and
right and left two chambers A and D, which
should be, the former the Apoditerium, or waiting-
room, and the latter an intermediate room before
entering the Frigidarium (E). These apartments
constitute the house so far as we are able to
restore it. The extreme length of the Hypocaust

102 UNKNOWNrLONDON

from one semi-circular end to the other was
35 ft. 6 in., which with the plan gives sufficient
indication of the proportions of the whole. Red
tesselated pavements found — one fragment is
undisturbed — the tiled walls, and flues and drains
indicate that it was a building of some import-
ance in Roman London. An arched flue left in
the eastern semi-circular wall of the Hypocaust,
i ft. 6 in. high by I ft. 3 in. wide, probably in-
dicated where the fire was lighted — the Prce-
furnium — and still showed traces after all these
centuries of smoke having passed through it.

From this short description it will be seen that
these Roman remains fit in very well with the
plan of a bath, though whether it was a public
bath, or one attached to the villa of a wealthy
resident, cannot now be decided.

The non-technical public is apt to be misled
by the use of the term Hypocaust, believing it
synonomous with bath, which it is not. The
Hypocaust was a common means of warming, not
only baths, but Roman houses, the heat from
the exterior furnace lighted outside the building
being transmitted by subterranean flues and
vertical shafts carried up through the walls.
The Romans understood central heating in its
most modern application perfectly — for there is
nothing new under the sun. Thus it may be

LONDON'S ROMAN BATHS 103

that we have here a whole Roman dwelling-place,
once habited by a public official or citizen of
substance, and not merely a cleansing place,
which to my mind seems likely.

The second Roman bath is in Strand Lane, on
the river side of the Strand between the two
churches that stand out in the mid-thoroughfare.
This undoubtedly is a bath, for the spring water
still flows into it, there are steps for the bather
down into it, and it would not be at all difficult
to drown in it. What other evidence can one
want ?

It is in a curious vaulted chamber, very strongly
built, giving ample space all round the bath,
with a passage at the side, strongly arched,
which suggests that this is a fragment of what
was once a considerable building. A fair light
penetrates through the one window. You stand
shut out from the world and all its movement
and noise, and altogether, with the actual presence
of water, this is a much more satisfactory bath
than its fellow in the City. It bears legends
to which I do not necessarily subscribe, though
they would be right enough could we be sure of
any date. I believe the bath was not known
publicly till about the year 1834, but that, of
course, is no evidence against the authenticity
of its reputed origin.

104 UNKNOWN LONDON

What has annoyed me on all occasions when I
have visited there is that some person, well-
intentioned no doubt, has covered over every
trace of brick or tile or stone with cement render-
ing, so that it is quite impossible to tell, save
through the eye of faith, of what age this bath
may be. It is sunk below the surface level, and
fed by a perpetual spring — one of many found
in this ground falling sharply to the Thames.
The white marble slabs which now form its foot-
surface gives no guidance, for they were taken
out of a great bath which was in the house of
Elizabeth's favourite, the Earl of Essex, not far
distant off the Strand, that bath having been
demolished during the erection of new buildings
so recently as 1893.

" There was an old Roman Bath in those days,"
wrote Dickens 's David Copperfield, " at the
bottom of one of the streets out of the Strand —
it may be there still — in which I have had many
a cold plunge." It is there still.

A visitor seventy years ago has described the
bath as it then was. " The walls of the bath
consisted, we found, of that peculiar flat and
neat-looking aspect which certainly seemed to
imply the impress of Roman hands, divided only
by thin layers of stucco ; and the pavement of
a layer of similar brick, covered with stucco,

LONDON'S ROMAN BATHS 105

and resting upon a mass of stucco and rubble.
The construction of the pavement is made visible
by a deep hole at the end near the window, where
the spring is continually flowing up ; and in
pursuing our inquiries among those persons best
calculated to satisfy them, we were told by a
gentleman connected with the management of
the estate, who had a portion of the pavement
purposely removed, that the rubble was of that
peculiar character well known among architects
as Roman. The bricks are g| inches long, 4!
inches broad, and if inches thick." This construc-
tion is not unlike the Roman bath at Wroxeter,
where the tile is but i£ inches thick, and measures
16 inches by 12. But I should have preferred
the evidence of my own eyes.

A year before the War I took a party of
the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society
to the old Roman Bath in the Strand, missing
then the opportunity of a lifetime. It happened
that builders had been there engaged on repairs ;
much of the modern cement at the bowed end
of the bath had been chipped away, exposing —
partly dry and partly under water — portions of
the structure behind, and what certainly looked
to me (from a dry distance) to be pieces of Roman
tile or brick. The proper thing to have done
was to have gone in to see, clothes, tortoise-

106 UNKNOWN LONDON

shell specs and all — no, I would have anchored
the silk hat ashore — and so settle the matter.
There was not more than four feet of water.

It was a chilly winter afternoon, the sun setting,
and spring water is very cold. I was too much
of a coward.

And now I never pass down the Strand by this
lane without a shrug, thinking what one cold
plunge might have done ; how I would have
floored the antiquaries (or they me), and there
would have grown about my name the legend
that this man proved against all opponents the
authenticity of London's Roman Bath in the
Strand — our real, still usable Roman Bath ;
with a statue, perhaps, of myself, in Roman toga,
after the next widening of the Strand had made
sufficient clearance for a site. And I was too
much of a coward to take it !

VIII
WAPPING HIGH STREET

" Your Molly has never been false, she declares,
Since last time we parted at Wapping Old Stairs,
When I swore I still would continue the same,
And gave you the 'bacco box mark'd with my name.
When I passed a whole fortnight between decks with you,
Did I e'er give a kiss, Tom, to one of your crew ? "

NOTHING can be more significant of the
change that has overtaken Wapping
than the fact that people should ever
have written songs about the place — and so many
of them. " Wapping Old Stairs " was a show
piece with our grandmothers for two generations
or more, and now quaintly old-fashioned, still
finds a place in every well-ordered musical album.
The notes recall fading memories of dear old
ladies in ringlets and oddly grotesque gowns
who played the piece when they were themselves
young, in times which seem so curiously remote
from our own.

Wapping was vigorously alive when the melody
and words were written, now fully a century ago.

The steamships and the great docks, the rail-

107

io8 UNKNOWN LONDON

ways, the smoke, the jolt and rattle of donkey-
engines and steel hawsers, all that gives this
waterside district its present drab character,
were yet to come. Wapping brought the salt
taste, fresh from the open sea, right up to London's
gates — it lies but ten minutes' walk from The
Tower. The jolly young waterman — the song
comes again tripping on the tongue at mention
of the name — plying his wherry from the numer-
ous boat-stairs, then carried all the passengers
who did not pass by the few bridges that crossed
the river. Stout East and West Indiamen, the
monarchs of the sailing fleets, beat a way up
with wind and tide to the anchorage at Black-
wall, but the larger part of the shipping came
within hail of Wapping.

Picture a stretch of open riverside, with no
fewer than eight public stairs, and boats rowing
up at all hours of the day and night, with the
pleasant splash of oars in the water, depositing
sailors ashore. The world-famous High Street
straggled along the bank. Behind was a hive
of town dwellings, threaded by narrow alleys,
inexpressibly dirty ; and on the Thames — " the
silvery Thames," toned to brown but clearer
than it is to-day — masts and tall hulls lay out
at moorings on the tide, row upon row, far down
the broad expanse of Limehouse Reach, with

WAI'PING OLD STAIRS

WAPPING HIGH STREET 109

the breeze rattling the taut shrouds. That was
Wapping in its hey-day, a bit of Portsmouth old
town nestling against London. Old timber-built
houses occupied the front, with steep gabled
roofs, and wooden galleries — much favoured by
old salts — giving a long view over the shipping
down river, and ricketty steps descending to
the bit of gravel beach left uncovered by the
falling tide, in every condition of picturesque
dilapidation and decay, dropped down at intervals
without any ordered plan.

A few last survivals of the type may yet be
seen, squeezed between the towering warehouses
about Limehouse and Rotherhithe. Wapping was
the busiest centre of the seafaring life of the
port of London. Its nautical manners live in
Dibdin's verse, and against all rivals I count him
the historian of the place, for he alone has drawn
for us the man —

" Bold Jack, the sailor, here I come,

Pray how d'ye like my nib,
My trowsers wide, my trampers rum,

My nab, and flowing jib ?
I sails the seas from end to end

And leads a joyous life ;
In ev'ry mess I finds a friend,

In ev'ry port a wife."

You may land at the Old Stairs still, and pace
the High Street, over the stones where Spanking

no UNKNOWN LONDON

Jack and Tom Tackle, and Ben Brace and other
stout hearts home from the wars or the Eastern
Seas came ashore to spend their wages and their
prize-money, and cast saucy eyes at every pass-
ing Moll and Poll and Sally in the rollicking
days of the old wooden walls — more rollicking,
I feel certain, in fiction than ever they were
in fact. The quaintly named " Town of
Ramsgate " stands at the head of the Stairs,
where it has stood, but little changed, these
past two centuries or more for the refreshment
of sailors.

Out of the neck of a tortuous alley you emerge
into the street — it is " the Street " here, as if
none other existed — and right and left extends
what was Wapping. For the dead cities of the
world are not so dead to their past as is Wapping
dead to itself of little more than a century ago.
Near at hand, by the Globe Wharf, the off-scour-
ings of London's population gathered to witness
the hangings of pirates and seamen at Execution
Dock. With less certainty one may fix on the
spot where " Landlady Meg of Wapping," whose
charms have been sung in verse, kept her ale-
house, open night and day. It needs no
monstrous flight back over the years to fancy
oneself jostling in the crush with all those jolly
sea-dogs whom Dibdin's delightful imagination

WAPPING HIGH STREET in

has made so familiar. Dibdin, by the way, did
not write " Wapping Old Stairs."

Wapping lies downstream close against the
City of London's boundaries. You can almost
shout from Wapping to the Lord Mayor. It is
quite unknown to Londoners. No one thinks
of going there. Moreover, it is absolutely un-
recognizable. The one paved street runs beneath
the sheer walls of huge warehouses which shut
out all sight of the river, low-lying as though at
the bottom of a deep cutting. Can this be
the famous Wapping High Street ? The name
painted up alone tells you so. Wapping Wall is
here, too, but in little more than name. The
narrow road twists awkwardly around gasworks
and stores and a few workmen's tenements.

All the colour has gone with the people. Few
places have been swept so clean as Wapping.
It has been undercut for the Thames Tunnel
and the railway, dug out for the great London
Docks, until now half the parish has a water
surface. The church alone wears signs of age,
and the graveyard with its many moss-covered
tombs, wherein lie master mariners brought here
to their last anchorage.

A generation ago, when the Tichborne case
was ringing in every one's ears, and Arthur
Orton had paid that visit to the parental butcher's

ii2 UNKNOWN LONDON

shop at Wapping which contributed so much
to his undoing, it caught the public fancy to
make pilgrimages there. The butcher's shop has
now gone, like everything else. It stood by the
Wapping entrance to London Docks, adjoining a
shop where Lord Nelson was said to have bought
his outfit when first he went to sea. People who
came mildly wondered at what they saw. This
angle of the riverside world below bridge was
strange and unfamiliar. But the seven days'
wonder passed, and Wapping was left again to
the undistracted labours of the dockers and the
stevedores and the steamship carriers.

The hamlet which Dibdin has so generously
peopled is the only one of which any clear
impression survives. It shouldered London, but
formed no portion of the town. The distinction
is important. Wapping in its eminence lived
apart in its life and ways. A lawless quarter, it
stood beyond the City's jurisdiction, and as Jack
ashore acknowledged no master, it escaped even
the little effective surveillance that was exercised
over the town under the Georges. In aspect the
place might have passed for a bit of old London
before the Great Fire, much patched and repaired,
with the wide river before it and London Bridge
closing in the view upstream — not the present
London Bridge, of course, but the long, low bridge

WAPPING HIGH STREET 113

with so many stone piers, and the starlings rising out
of the river bed, and the rapids rushing between,
which was finished by King John, and was stand-
ing almost within memory of our grandfathers.

It had a glory peculiarly its own, this famous
High Street, when the life was in it. The name
was familiar wherever trade or war took British
ships into the most distant seas, and stood as a
symbol to sailors of riot and boisterous enjoy-
ment, as the old wind-j ambers threshed their
way homewards. What the Hard has been
to Portsmouth, the High Street of Wapping was
to the port of London when the sailing fleets
carried our world commerce.

With the ships dropping anchor, and home-
coming sailors putting off for the steps, the long-
shoremen waiting about the head of the stairs,
the Jews ready to cash the seamen's pay-notes
at usurious interest, the women and the numerous
other hangers-on of Jack ashore, animation was
never wanting. The ferry to Rotherhithe and
the watermen's wherries were constantly plying.
Every tavern kept open door to welcome the
mariner with wages in his pocket. From within
came the shouts and sounds of revelry, the scraping
of fiddles and the stamping of feet to the sailors'
hornpipe, and the riot and licentiousness over-
flowed into the street.
H

ii4 UNKNOWN LONDON

Of the many landing-places, the deserted Old
Stairs and the New Stairs, nearer the City, alone
survive. And, more significant than all, you
may tramp Wapping from end to end without
recognizing a sailor man.

A single fact tells more of character than pages
of description. Wapping High Street in the
days of Nelson's wars possessed upwards of one
hundred and forty ale-houses. One need say
little more. In a recent perambulation I was not
able to count ten. Together with these reeking
drink-shops, inexpressible in their squalor and
dirt, the natural home for every kind of abomina-
tion, were other houses of resort which one may
deftly pass by without too curious inquiry. In
the gloomy slum area at the back, the inner
recesses of the hive, mostly dwelt the people
who lived, quite literally, upon the sailor, and
they formed the greater part of the population
that was herded here.

Others there were who supplied, more or less
honestly, the sailors' wants ; and the shops of
the mathematical instrument sellers, the ships'
chandlers, the biscuit bakers, the tackle, block
and sail makers, and the mast yards and rope-
walks that helped to fill out the alley spaces —
all swept indiscriminately away — gave to the
place those picturesque and more pleasant associa-

WAPPING HIGH STREET 115

tions with the seafaring life which now one has
to go much farther east to find. Above the doors
and across the alleys swung the most wonderful
collection of nautical signs in the world. One
wonders what has become of them all.

But Wapping streets and taverns, the shanties
and the people, are nothing without the man for
whom alone they existed —

" I sing of that life of delight beyond measure

That tars calmly lead on the boisterous main ;
Where toil is enjoyment, where trouble's all pleasure.
And where men lose their lives a sure fortune to gain ;
Where you fear no diseases but sickness and scurvy ;
Where the water stinks sweetly by way of a zest ;
Where you walk on your legs when you're not topsy

turvy ;
And where, though you sleep soundly, you're never

at rest.
Then push round the can — oh ! you have not a

notion
Of sailors, their grog, and their sweethearts

and wives.

Ah I give me, my soul, the tight lads of the ocean,
Who, though they're so wretched, lead such
happy lives.

" What of perils, that, always the same, are so various,
And though shot-holes and leaks leave wide open

Death's doors ?

Devil a risk's in a battle, were't not so precarious ;
Storms are all gig and fun, but for breakers and

shores ;

In short, a tar's life — you may say that I told it —
Who leaves quiet and peace, foreign countries to
roam,

n6 UNKNOWN LONDON

Is, of all other lives, I'll be bound to uphold it,
The best life in the world, next to staying at home.
Then push round the can, etc."

None of this is true, but there was no denying
it. Dibdin mesmerized his own generation, and
his songs have coloured the impressions of sea
life down to this day. The damning evidence
was always accessible, but with a thousand wit-
nesses to the contrary his impetuous verse bore
all before it.

Dibdin must often have paced the Wapping
High Street, familiarizing himself with those
nautical characters he portrayed. Should his
shade chance to haunt this place you could never
mistake him — in the blue coat, cut away to dis-
play the ample waistcoat beneath, black silk
breeches and stockings, and hair fully dressed
and profusely powdered in the fashion of the day.
A big man, loose-limbed as a sailor is, with
flushed and merry face, as if pleased with all the
world and with himself. O'Keefe, the actor,
himself a generous soul, tells of Dibdin, " His
manner of coming on the stage was in happy
style ; he ran on sprightly, and with a laughing
face, like a friend who enters hastily to impart
to you some good news." The spice of a quarrel-
some nature and some domestic peccadilloes one
need not trouble about.

WAKTINCS FAMOUS HIC.H STREKT
Jim-miniitts' tt-^tk Mm- Toner Ki-iJ-r

WAPPING HIGH STREET 117

Dibdin's sailors are London types, cockneys
born within sound of Bow bells. The European
War has renewed our acquaintance with the
qualities of the London fighting man. So far
down the Thames the shipping has drifted to
an unknown dockland that we forget that London
is the greatest port as well as the greatest city
in the world. Whence arose the popular idea
that Dibdin drew his inspiration from Portsmouth
is not plain. The songs themselves give no
evidence of it, while, on the other hand, they con-
tain many references to London. The town was
always his headquarters ; there he wrote his
songs, and sang his own words to music of his
own composition. Apart from the one fact that
his brother Tom was captain of an Indiaman,
there was nothing in his life or in the family
tradition to associate Charles Dibdin with the
sea. Born in Southampton in 1745, he was the
son of a parish clerk. Tom Dibdin is immortalized
in the beautiful lines of " Tom Bowling " — lines
that are inscribed on the song-writer's own tomb
in St Martin's Churchyard, Camden Town. But
Tom, sailing in the Hope, West Indiaman, was
captured by a French seventy-four, leaving
Charles Dibdin, then a raw youngster, stranded
and friendless in London, and after his liberation
by the enemy he spent most of his remaining

n8 UNKNOWN LONDON

years in the East, and so could have given but
little aid to the sailors' song- writer.

" Blow High, Blow Low " is easily first of the
sea lyrics. It was written in a gale of wind, on
a thirteen hours' crossing from Calais. Dibdin
had gone there to escape his creditors. The
fury of a storm has never been so vividly ex-
pressed in so few lines —

" Blow high, blow low, let tempests tear

The mainmast by the board ;
My heart with thoughts of thee, my dear,

And love, well stor'd,
Shall brave all danger, scorn all fear,
The roaring winds, the raging sea.
In hopes on shore
To be once more
Safe moor'd with thee.

" Aloft while mountains high we go,

The whistling winds that scud along,
And the surge roaring from below,
Shall my signal be
To think of thee,
And this shall be my song :
Blow high, blow low, etc.

" And on that night when all the crew
The mem'ry of their former lives,
O'er flowing cans of flip renew,

And drink their sweethearts and their wives,
I'll heave a sigh, and think of thee ;
And as the ship rolls through the sea,
The burden of my song shall be :
Blow high, blow low, etc."

WAPPING HIGH STREET 119

Dibdin claimed that his sea-songs sent more
recruits into the King's Navy than all the Press
Gangs, and perhaps there is little exaggeration
in this. They were sung in the longroom on board
every ship, at every seamen's carousal in port,
and at taverns all over the country. The lilt
of the lines, the vision of a life of adventure and
pure joyousness which they created, swept the
raw country lads off their feet. Dibdin purposely
slurred over a vast deal. He avoided anything
which would fog the bright colours of the picture
that he forced the unthinking public to accept.
The men are all stalwart hearts of oak, patriotic
to the core, inflexible in duty, undaunted by peril.
Mog and Poll and Sally — the sailors' women of
Wapping High Street or the Portsmouth Hard —
are all virtuous, faithful and kind, the seaman's
true friends. In this ideal company he knows
no exceptions. Ships and sea life have much
altered. The nautical terms with which the
songs are freely interlarded have passed out of
use in our sailless vessels. Almost all has under-
gone change. Yet Dibdin's tars — Bill Bobstay,
Jack Ratlin, Tom Tough, Dick Dock, William,
and the rest — remain solid flesh and red blood,
and they will live as long as ships traverse the
ocean routes.

Many gifted song writers have pourtrayed

120 UNKNOWN LONDON

the freedom, the charm, the mystery, the resist-
less fury of the sea, but no other has given us the
sailor —

' 'Twas one day at Wapping, his dangers o'erhauling,
Jack Junk cock'd his jemmy, and broach'd a full can.
While a posse of neighbours, of each diff'rent calling,
Cried — ' Only but hear ! what a marvellous man ; '
' Avast ! ' cried out Jack, ' what's there marvellous

in it ?
When our time's come, the stoutest of hearts must

comply.'
Then like men do your duty ; we have all our

minute,

And at sea, or ashore, we shall live till we die.
Hurra ! hurra I hurra ! boys, let's live till we die.

" ' Why now, you, master Plumber, that marvels at

billows,

I shall founder at sea, and you'll die in your bed ;
What of that ? some have sods, and some waves, for

their pillows,

And 'tis likely enough we may both die of lead,
And as for the odds, all the diff'rence that's in it,
I shall pop off at once, and you'll lingering lie.'
Then like men, etc.

" And when Captain Death comes the reck'ning to settle.
You may clear ship for action as much as you like,
And behave like a man ; b'ut he's such weight of metal.
At the very first broadside the bravest must strike.
And when you have said all you can, what's there

in it ?

Who to scud 'gainst the storm but a lubber would try ?
Then like men, etc."

The charge sometimes brought against Dibdin
of writing to order has nothing in it. He received

121

his pension in 1802, tardy recognition of such
services as he had given to the British Navy in
a most critical epoch. His best work was done,
and he was fifty-seven. The truth no doubt
was that his blood was stirred, like that of all
others in those war times, and that he wrote with
a strong sense of patriotic duty. Though he
grumbled at the Government, good sterling love
of his country illuminates every verse of his sea
songs.

Some of these are purely hilarious. " Meg of
Wapping " is an instance ; the lines gallop along —

" 'Twas Landlady Meg that made such rare flip —

Pull away, pull away, hearties !
At Wapping she liv'd, at the sign of the Ship,

Where tars meet in such jolly parties.
She'd shine at the play, and she'd jig at the ball,

All rigg'd out so gay and so topping ;
For she married six husbands, and buried them all.

Pull away, pull away, pull away 1

I say ;
What d'ye think of my Meg of Wapping ? "

Four verses which follow tell of the shortened
careers of her six spouses. The first, Old Bluff,
was cast away. Then blear-ey'd Ned —

" While the surgeon his limb was a lopping,
A nine-pounder came, and smack went his head, —

Pull away, pull away, pull away !

I say ;
Rare news for my Meg of Wapping."

122 UNKNOWN LONDON

Groggy Sam lost his life when his ship blew up.
After came —

"... bold Ben, who at danger would smile,

'Till his courage a crocodile stopping,
Made his breakfast on Ben on the banks of the Nile, —
Pull away, pull away, pull away ;
I say;
What a fortunate Meg of Wapping."

Dick, the fifth husband, made a meal for
savages ; Jerry was killed in a fray he chanced
" to pop in " ; and " honest Tom Trip," the
seventh, more fortunate than all, survived the
much-married widow.

" For Meg, growing old, a fond dotart prov'd,
And must after a boy needs be hopping ;
So she popp'd off — and Tom, with the girl that he

lov'd —

Pull away, pull away, pull away !
I say ;
Spent the shiners of Meg of Wapping."

Was it all a lie ? That seems hard to credit.

I believe in the sailor, even as Dibdin pour-
trayed him ; for no one can read the plain records
of those old sea battles at close quarters, when
ships locked together fired broadsides into one
another, and chain and grape-shot swept the
decks, without realizing that it was the courage
and endurance of the British tar that made the
strength of Nelson's fleets, as of our steel-clad

WAPPING HIGH STREET 123

fleets to-day. Those are the sterling qualities
out of which Dibdin built his characters. He
exaggerates the sailors' virtues to the point of
making the men ridiculous. He shows them
all philosophers. They preach too much. And
that, after all, is the mere dressing. Strip it
off, and there stands out the fine figure of the
man.

The jovial-hearted sailor, reckless, improvident,
careless of the little troubles which worry
the landsman, engrossed when ashore with the
pleasures of to-day without a thought of to-
morrow, is a type which changed conditions have
by no means effaced. But the joyousness of the
sailor's lot when penned in the wooden ships,
the unalloyed delight that he derived from his
daily round — all that is false, and Dibdin knew
it. The truth lies nearer in the demands made
by the seamen at the Mutiny of the Nore, their
revolt against the loathsome food, the exacting
duties, the coarse brutality of their treatment,
and also is disclosed in personal letters and
memoirs of Nelson's officers, who, to their great
credit, bore uncomplainingly hardships little less
than those of the foremast hands. The King's
sailors did not ask for the abolition of " the
cat," but that at the end of a cruise they
might have shore leave, and that the nation

124 UNKNOWN LONDON

whom they guarded should have a little more
humanity towards them. One recalls Samuel
Johnson's sour description of a seaman's life —
" being in a ship is being in jail with the chance
of being drowned."

And Wapping was not at all like Dibdin
painted it.

It was the foulest, the most loathsome spot
in all London — and there were many foul spots
in London of the Georges. The sailor ashore,
made brutish by his environment, did harm to
no one but himself, but so much good cannot be
said of the rest. The vilest characters of the
town gathered at Wapping to prey upon the
seamen whose stay on land was short, and with
whom money was plentiful during the few days
it was permitted to last. Into the drink-shops
the sailors crowded as soon as the boats touched
the stairs, and the men were quickly marked
down for spoliation by the harpies who gathered
about them.

The drink-shops, bad enough in all conscience,
were not Wapping's worst places. The lanes
and winding alleys back of " the Street " were a
hotbed of every kind of crime. Men, armed
with knives and loaded bludgeons, lurked in
dark corners to attack and rob the seaman,
already well plied with drink, who stumbled

WAPPING HIGH STREET 125

about the gloomy recesses alone. Women acted
as decoys to lure sailors from the taverns into
hovels where they might be robbed at ease by
male confederates, and from which they were
afterwards flung, maimed and senseless, into
the road. " Fences " abounded, and receiving
shops wherein jewellery, much affected by sailors
and easily stolen, was at once melted down, and
other purloined goods were as quickly disposed
of. Hardly a face was to be seen among this
evil population that was not marked by a scar ;
black eyes and bound-up hands were the rule.
Women, plied with fiery spirits and quickly
quarrelsome, stripped to the waist and fought
with fist and claw to make a holiday for sailors
ashore, ringed about in the open street by a
throng as debased as themselves.

In this fearful hell children grew up, thieves
since their intelligence was sufficiently awakened
to steal, to form the next generation of criminals,
many lamed or blind by neglect. Life was short
and little valued. When every conviction of
felony, even for a shilling, meant death on the
gallows, the meanest ruffians became desperate.
Tyburn took its own toll ; but larger was the
toll claimed by the great graveyard of St George 's-
in-the-East of the sailors' women, inured to
immorality from childhood, rotten with disease

126 UNKNOWN LONDON

and dead, many of them, before adult life with
their more favoured sisters can be said to have
begun. Night followed day to the soul's damna-
tion without check in Wapping's evil life.

In times of war the Press Gang swept the
High Street from end to end. Lying off Wapping
was the hulk in which men lured into the military
service of the East India Company were kept
close prisoners till the next ship sailed out of
the Thames for the East.

Wapping had another and questionable dis-
tinction. For centuries it was the place of
execution under Admiralty jurisdiction for crimes
committed on the high seas, the gallows being
set upon the uncovered beach at low tide. It
was an imposing cavalcade that came down from
Newgate Gaol, no ordinary landsman's affair.
The condemned rode in a cart, the executioners
seated behind them. On their way they were
preceded by the Marshal of the Admiralty in
his carriage. The Deputy Marshal bore before
him the Silver Oar. The two City Marshals
followed on horseback, and numbers of marshal-
men, sheriffs' officers and others acted as escort.
By Tower Hill and Nightingale Lane they passed
to Wapping High Street, and so into sight of the
steaming, shouting crowd at Execution Dock,
impatiently awaiting its amusement. Captain

WAPPING HIGH STREET 127

Kidd was hanged there ; it was an insult to a
man of his mettle, with so many high crimes to
his account, to hang him for having killed a
common seaman on his own ship by banging him
over the head with a bucket.

I sat the other day in the little recreation
ground at Wapping that the London County
Council has made, with fresh green turf and
asphalt paths, alone, with only the hum about
the near but invisible riverside for company.

Yes, Wapping is dead ; as dead as any dead
cities there may be that lie salted at the bottom
of the Dead Sea.

IX

LONDON STONE

LONDON Stone in Cannon Street crops
up suddenly in London history so late
as the year 1450, when Jack Cade, at
the head of a shouting rabble —

" Rebellious hinds, the filth and scum of Kent,
Mark'd for the gallows " —

forced a way into the City. Lydgate, just twenty
years before Cade, in a poem speaks of a stone
standing in Cannon Street, then called London
Stone. The dates should act like an icepack to
reduce the warmth with which some theories of
its antiquity have been advocated.

Its Roman origin has passed into currency
practically unquestioned. The late Sir Laurence
Gomme so accepted London Stone, working hard
till the last to establish his cherished belief that
twentieth century London comes down to its
present possessors with unbroken continuity in
customs and government from the city colonized
by the Romans. He held it to be a boundary
stone. " Now London Stone (he remarks) has

of

Pfio.'o. fiy l-tnery U'alker

In

LONDON STONE
// of St. Swithin's Church. Ca

LONDON STONE 129

always been a remarkable centre of rites, cere-
monies and traditions, which show it to have been
held in reverence through the centuries. It
stood on the western extremity of the first Roman
London, which may perhaps point to it as one of
the stone sides of the gateway which led to the
Pomaerium " ; and in the name of the adjoining
parish — Pomroy — he fancies there may be pre-
served the word for this sacred Roman institution.
Others have seen in London Stone the milli-
arium, the one central milestone marking London
from which all the milestones raised upon the
Roman roads through England registered their
distances. These people point to its position in
the centre of the longest diameter of the second
and better known Roman London — the London
bounded by the wall running by the line of
Newgate, Cripplegate, Moorgate, Aldgate, and the
rest, of which the original citadel formed only
a part. The learned Camden, taking this view,
believed London Stone to be " a miliary." Again
quoting Sir Laurence Gomme : "If London
Stone indicated to Roman Londoners of the
second city a sacred point reminiscent of the
earlier city its later history would be largely
accounted for. Its topographical position is the
first help to such an indication, and when we have
added the undoubted sacred character attributed

130 UNKNOWN LONDON

to it throughout all later history, the conclusion
will, I think, be justified that London Stone
represents the sentiment of Roman Londoners
for the early city and camp which was enclosed
in Londinium."

Lacking Sir Laurence's great enthusiasm, I
have failed to find in " all later history " that
sacred character so postulated, or, indeed, in any
of it ; not for want of industry on my part, nor
out of the natural combativeness of antiquaries
for broken heads, but simply because it is not
there. It may be heresy to suggest that London
Stone is not Roman at all, and has had nothing
whatever to do with the Roman city.

Let us go back to Shakespeare, and that short,
boisterous scene in the Second Part of King
Henry VI., Act iv.

London. Cannon Street.

.Enter JACK CADE and the rest, and strikes his
staff on London Stone.

CADE. Now is Mortimer lord of this city ! And here,
sitting upon London Stone, I charge and command
that, of the city's cost, the pissing-conduit run nothing
but claret wine this first year of our reign. And now
henceforward it shall be treason for any one that calls
me other than Lord Mortimer.

Shakespeare is not history, and no one out
of a play-house would cite Shakespeare as an

LONDON STONE 131

historian, but the point is that the dramatist in
this passage closely follows Holinshed, except
that the chronicler represents Jack Cade as
striking London Stone with his sword, not with
his staff. Holinshed was a London citizen, a
diligent recorder of events in his own city, and
be London Stone Roman or not, Cade sitting
astride of it, and Lydgate's mention just before,
are the earliest knowledge we have of this
treasured City relic. Let me meet expert criticism
by conceding at once that the name certainly is
two and a half centuries older. It was a bigger
stone originally than is the fragment of it to-day
preserved in the outer wall of St Swithin's Church
in Cannon Street, where every passer-by may see
it. Old John Stow, who wrote in Queen Eliza-
beth's last years, says of it : "On the south
side of this high street, near unto the channel,
is pitched upright a great stone, called London
Stone, fixed in the ground very deep, fastened
with bars of iron, and otherwise so strongly set,
that if carts do run against it through negligence
the wheels be broken and the stone itself un-
shaken. The cause why this stone was set there,
the time when, or other memory is none." He
thought there was some legend of the early
Christians connected with it.
Everything, it will be noticed, points to London

132 UNKNOWN LONDON

Stone being very old, and there is significance
in the act of Jack Cade, striking it with his sword
and crying, " Now is Mortimer lord of this city ! "
as if performing a customary ceremony on taking
possession of the City.

The Guildhall archives go back to the Con-
queror's charter to London, and in them are
earlier references than these to London Stone —
the name, the place. A moot question is, how
far can we distinguish these from the actual stone
relic ? There was Henry FitzAlwin de Londone
Stane, the City's first Mayor — and he was im-
portant. He became Mayor in A.D. n8g,1 and
for twenty-three years thereafter, till his death,
the citizens acknowledged him their Mayor.
The founding of the Mayoralty is shrouded in
mystery, for not until 1214, twenty-five years
after FitzAlwin's first election, did King John
give to the Londoners a charter to elect their
Mayor. Till FitzAlwin the City had been ruled
by portreeve, or sheriff, or justiciar (there is
much dispute as to the title) appointed by the
King. It is inconceivable that the citizens
should for this long period have usurped the
Royal authority, and John's gift can only have
been an acceptance or confirmation of a state

1 An influential section of modern historians believe the
Mayoralty to have been founded in 1191.

LONDON STONE 133

of things already existing — perhaps based upon
some charter which has been lost.

Of Henry FitzAlwin of London Stone, although
so important a personage as London's first Mayor,
we know very little, unfortunately. FitzAlwin
was the son of Alwin, and of Alwin we know
nothing. What made his position so strong that
year after year for twenty-three years he, and
no one else, should have been the accepted
representative of the citizens ? Such devotion
must have been the reward for good services given.
It is most unlikely, at that time, that he was
merely a merchant or tradesman ; we probably
see in him a great burgher, owning wide lands,
powerful, wealthy, able to maintain the citizens'
interests against covetous and unscrupulous kings,
and it may be presumed that he played a leading
part in wresting from the Crown the first acknow-
ledgment of the right of the citizens to govern
their own affairs. His name has come down to
us as Henry FitzAlwin of London Stone.

Often it is the little things that should be
obvious, and are so obvious that they are quite
overlooked, that when examined give a valuable
clue in some historical puzzle. Has it ever
occurred to you that there is no stone in London ?
It has to be brought in from considerable
distances — Kent provides the nearest source.

134 UNKNOWN LONDON

" Stane " in its original meaning is a stone build-
ing, and the word survives in the City in St
Mary Staining and Allhallows Staining, stone-
built churches at a period when most of the
churches were fashioned of wooden logs. To this
day the " steining " of a well is its stone lining.
In FitzAlwin's time in the twelfth century-
King Richard Cceur de Lion was long abroad
at the Crusades — there were no roads capable
of supporting burdens over considerable dis-
tances, but there was the Thames, capable in all
weathers of bearing stone in boats into the City
for the wealthy builder choosing that enduring
material. Lesser men built of timber, then and
long afterwards. The mediaeval city substanti-
ally throughout was composed of timber-framed
houses, so that when in King Stephen's reign fire
started among them, burning amidst the wood
and thatched roofs, the flames spread from St
Paul's eastward, consuming the bridge and the
houses and churches and almost the entire city.
When John Allin died in 1272 — sixty years after
FitzAlwin — he left by will " his estate in a stone
house in Fletestrete " to Robert and Richard, his
sons. A stone house was so uncommon that
mere mention of it was sufficient without more
detailed description.

Henry FitzAlwin of London Stone, London's

LONDON STONE 135

wealthy and powerful first Mayor, built for him-
self a stone house — that is how it may be read.
It would be a significant thing among London's
poor wooden hovels. In 1240 there was a John
de Londoneston, who, by the way, murdered his
wife by stabbing her with a sword, otherwise we
might never have heard of him.

It requires no tautly stretched imagination
to conceive that Henry FitzAlwin's stone-built
house, the home of the Mayor, the most powerful
man in London, the centre of its government,
serving the uses of both Guildhall and Mansion
House, became known as " London Stone."
Just in this way St Mary's stone-built church
became known as St Mary Staining, and All-
hallows Church — of which the mediaeval tower
still stands behind Mincing Lane — as Allhallows
Staining. Of course, it does not necessarily
follow. John de Fletbrigge did not reside amidst
the open, wind-swept timbers of Fleet Bridge,
nor did that potent Mayor, Raynald de Conduit,
find a wet domicile inside the water conduit.
They lived close by those well-known landmarks
of Old London, where those who wanted them
might find them, as FitzAlwin, I frankly admit,
may have lived close by an aged and already
well-worn stone.

" A desperate fellow, this," I fancy someone

136 UNKNOWN LONDON

saying of me, "he is no respecter of our most
cherished traditions." It will be seen that I await
attack, for what is here said is rank heresy ;
and I recall words written by the late Charles
Morley. " I must confess a warm affection (said
he) for those ardent souls who devote their
wisdom and energy to the exploration of the
past. A brick or a stone, a piece of flint or a
lump of mortar, will provide them with material.
Out of it they strike the spark of truth, and it is
only the foolish who laugh at their zeal, and
deem so much study unprofitable and childish.
I, for one, have always found them the happiest
of mortals, and archaeology capable of yielding
greater and truer pleasure, possibly, than any
form of recreation or pursuit which appeals to
the meditative mind." True, but the salt of
life, the spice of it, my old friend misses — the
little quarrels which archaeologists share with
other men, and which make the dry bones laid
on the exhibits table kick again. " The late
Charles Morley," I wrote — ah, me ! how often
one writes those words, " the late."

London Stone, much worn and battered, is
hidden in a pierced stone casing that almost
encloses it, and is still further concealed by
close ironwork, which has got into a deplorable
state of rust. A coat of paint, even after war-

LONDON STONE 137

time, ought to be spared for it. The grime of
London has accumulated so thickly upon the
Stone that it is nearly impossible to tell which
is the historic relic and which the mere casing.
Some years ago members of the London and
Middlesex Archaeological Society were fortunate
enough to be present when London Stone was
uncovered. It then proved to be a piece of
oolitic building stone.

All that has gone before leads up to this. Is
there any need to assume, as so many have done,
that London Stone is a relic of the Roman city ?
There is not the smallest rag of evidence associat-
ing it with Londinium. All is vain imagining.
Not a solitary mention of the Stone itself occurs
until far down in the era of mediaeval London.
May it not be merely an honoured fragment
of FitzAl win's stone house ? Associations grew
around it. A large stone — once — perhaps a
foundation-stone, bedded deep, as Stow saw it,
it remained on the ground after the house above
it had disappeared, and the citizens had built
their noble Guildhall. It continued through the
centuries to mark the site, and as a relic of the
home of London's first Mayor, the first Guildhall
and Mansion House, the beginnings of independent
self-government for the City, I can understand
the citizens sparing it and treasuring it.

138 UNKNOWN LONDON

If that be the true story of London Stone, then,
too, I can understand Jack Cade's act of bragga-
docio and the words that accompanied it. " Now
is Mortimer lord of this city ! " The victorious
rebel, astride the historical remains of London's
first seat of self-government, considered that the
stone he thus appropriated to himself secured
to him the lordship of the City. What significance
there can have been in his striking with his sword
an old Roman stone I cannot imagine. What
should Cade and his letterless rabble know
of Roman London ? — or the fifteenth-century
citizens, for that matter ?

In Bovey Tracy, the little town on Dartmoor's
wilds, stands a stone cross, and it used to be the
custom for the Mayor, on Mayor's day, to ride
round the cross and strike it with his staff on
taking possession of his office. No suggestion of
the Romans here.

In Elizabeth's reign London Stone seems to
have had some legal associations. A character
in Pasquill and Marfarius, 1589, remarks —

" Set up this bill at London Stone. Let it be doone
sollemly with drom and trumpet and looke you advance
my cullour, on the top of the steeple right over against it."

And again —

" If it please them these dark winter nights to stikke
uppe their papers uppon London Stone."

LONDON STONE 139

London Stone was moved from its original
site on the south side of Cannon Street, where the
railway station now stands, and fixed in its
present place of security in St Swithin's Church
wall in the year 1798. If it be necessary to
take from its reputed age a thousand years, and
to see in it a building stone of the first Mayoral
mansion and Guildhall, I do not think it is thereby
the less honoured, but rather more. I am not
asserting this as an ascertained fact.

It is put up for a cock-shy, to be knocked over
by the first person who shall discover some
other John, or Alan, or Simon " de Londone
Stane " living in the lifetime of our first Mayor;
or will identify elsewhere the site of FitzAlwin's
house — which, by the way, some have found at
Salters Hall. Meanwhile, as a suggested origin
of London Stone it seems worth considering.

X

THE BONES OF MEN-KAU-RA

IDLY the people go by, for the Egyptian
rooms of the British Museum are never
without visitors, attracted there in large
part, no doubt, by that morbid curiosity in death
and its impenetrable mystery which is an in-
herited sense with most of us. Few stay to give
more than a glance at these bones, lying out
on a tray, toned to a bright yellow buff by the
process by which they have been preserved by
the embalmers, or at the broken coffin lid, with
its double row of meaningless hieroglyphics.

Meaningless ? — yes, but not to those who
know. They tell of man's fears and aspirations
long ages back towards the dawn. This is almost
the oldest piece of writing in the world that has
come down to us. Puzzle out the hieroglyphics
with the aid of some student in Egyptology, and
you will read this —

" Osiris, King of the North and South, Men-kau-Ra,
living for ever. Born of Heaven, conceived by Nut,
thou comest [of the race of the god] Seb.

THE BONES OF MEN-KAU-RA 141

" Thy mother Nut she grants that thou shalt be a god.
Never more shalt thou have enemies, King of the North
and South, O Men-kau-Ra, living for ever."

This then was a king, a Pharaoh of the
Pyramids, ruler over Egypt. Khufu and Khafra
had gone before him, and had built in stone
higher and more massively, but his tomb stands
beside theirs above the sands at Gizeh, by the
Nile, and is still accounted third of the most
wonderful tombs in the world. It will last so
long as the world lasts. The divine ruler had
willed that his remains should rest amidst that
vast heap of masonry, while through the ap-
pointed cycles of years his soul should wander in
the unknown. And here he lies, in Bloomsbury,
the least considered of this company of the dead ;
for all around the ritual of death is presented
in its most gorgeous form, with plates of beaten
gold, and bright paintings, and little ushabti
gods of a religion which perished with these
people thousands of years ago, and mummy cases
fashioned to preserve the form and features that
Nature herself is so quick to destroy.

The wayfarer who lingers here stands almost
at the beginning of things, so far as human
records are concerned. Babylon in its rise and
fall, Greece, Rome, substantially all that is known
of the human race save what is gleaned from the

142 UNKNOWN LONDON

message of chipped flints and scratchings by
prehistoric man on reindeer and ox bones, and
old human skulls in the Drift — all have had their
place and time on the world's stage and have
disappeared since these were the bones of a
living King, and this pathetic inscription, with
its longings for immortality, was deep cut on the
wooden lid of his coffin nearly sixty centuries
ago.

That modern Greek Herodotus stood at the
pyramid tomb of Men-kau-Ra — call him classic
if you will, but nearly four thousand years had
then come and gone between Herodotus and this
Egyptian King. The traveller learnt much, but
it was not history. A web of tradition had
grown about the personality of this remote and
shadowy ruler : that his reign was just and
beneficent, and that he was beloved by his people
— a belief likely to have had its origin in the
simple fact that in the building of his pyramid
tomb his oppression had been less burdensome
than that of those larger builders, his prede-
cessors. Khufu (whom the Greeks called Cheops)
erected the grandest monument that ever man
had raised to his vanity and ambition. Khafra
(Chephron) built but little smaller. The Third
Pyramid of Men-kau-Ra (Mycerinus) is but one-
tenth the mass of the Great Pyramid — so vast

THE BONES OF MEN-KAU-RA 143

and yet so small in the majestic conception of
these monuments that, with a ground surface
of little more than two acres, it might rise from
and fill a London square.

The secret of the Pyramids has been well kept.
No doubt prisoners, taken in thousands into
captivity in the wars which Egypt interminably
waged, were largely employed as slaves in the
task of building ; but is there not another and
simpler explanation of all the huge public works
carried out in Egypt ? It is found in the annual
rise of the Nile. The period of the inundation
stopped all labour, throwing the entire populations
along the river — and the river was Egypt — idle
and free to do what the Royal master willed.

Herodotus learnt more of this Pharaoh Men-
kau-Ra — that he opened the temples, and per-
mitted the people, worn down by labour by his
father Khafra to the last extremity, to return
to their employments and to sacrifices ; that he
made the most just decisions of all their kings.
That he had a daughter, an only child, concerning
whom the traveller tells two tales, one affecting
in its simplicity, the other obscene. The Pharaoh,
extremely afflicted by her death, and desiring her
burial in the most sumptuous manner, caused a
hollow wooden image of a kneeling cow to be
made, 4he image of the sacred goddess Hathor.

144 UNKNOWN LONDON

This he had covered with gold, the orb of the
Sun imitated in gold being set between the horns,
and into the body of the cow he placed the mummy
of his daughter. When dying she had entreated
her father to permit her to see the sun once every
year. And once each year, at a great religious
festival, the cow was brought from its richly
furnished chamber at Sais out into the sunshine —
that rich Egyptian sunshine, the rays emanating
from the Giver of Life, which gleamed from every
stone building and carpeted the city with velvet
black shadows of pylons and temples. In an
ante-chamber were placed wooden statues of the
King's concubines, twenty in number, all formed
naked.

That was the story told by the priests of Sais
concerning their charge. The other Herodotus
learnt from the people, that the girl was betrayed
and had strangled herself through grief, and that
her mother cut off the hands of the servants who
had betrayed her, and their images were made in
like manner to show the mutilation. The cow he
saw at Sais, and the twenty wooden images, but
his quick eye noticed that the hands had fallen
off by age and decay, and even then were lying
at the feet, so he made little of the tale.

This, too, Herodotus learnt from the priestsj
that an oracle reached the King from a^sacred city,

THE BONES OF MEN-KAU-RA 145

imparting that he had no more than six full years
to live, and he should die in the seventh. Men-
kau-Ra ventured a reproachful message to the
god, complaining that his father and uncle, who
had shut up the temples and paid no regard to
the gods, and moreover, had oppressed their
subjects, had lived long, together for one hundred
and six years. Why was it that he must die so
soon — he who had worshipped the gods and
dutifully had made sacrifices to them ? The
oracle replied that it was needful that Egypt
should be afflicted for one hundred and thirty
years. The two who were kings before him
understood this, but he did not. When the
Pharaoh thus realized that sentence was pro-
nounced against him he ordered a great number
of lamps to be raised, and having lighted them,
whenever night came on he drank and enjoyed
himself, never ceasing day or night roving about
the marshes and palm groves, whenever he could
hear of places most suited for pleasure. To this
artifice he resorted in order that by turning the
nights into days he might have twelve years of
life instead of the six allotted.

The coffin, bones, and huge sarcophagus of the
King were found in 1837 by Colonel Howard Vyse,
an English officer, when exploring under a firman
granted by the Pasha. They were in the tomb-

146 UNKNOWN LONDON

chambers cut sixty feet deep in the living rock
from which the Third Pyramid rises. Robbers
had been there before him ; indeed, there is an
Arab record of 1226 A.D., describing how the
pyramid had been attacked by treasure seekers,
who laboured at their task with axes for six
months. They at length forced an entrance, and
in the sarcophagus, alter they had broken off
the lid, saw " the decayed, rotten remains of a
man, but no treasure by his side, except some
golden tablets inscribed with characters of a
language which no man could understand."
Each robber's share of these tablets amounted
to 100 dinars — about the value of £50.

When Colonel Howard Vyse entered the pyra-
mid the basalt sarcophagus had not been displaced.
The mummy had been lifted out, and taken for
examination into an outer chamber, still within
the tomb. There it had been rifled. The rolls
of bandages, yard upon yard of almost inter-
minable length, the robbers had unwound in
order that they might ascertain if jewels or gold
plates were concealed among the swathings. If
so, they have disappeared — centuries ago. Frag-
ments of the linen told of the sacrilegious act.
In the candle light, among the debris that
littered the stone floor, was found intact only
the broken coffin and the skeleton, substantially

THE BONES OF MEN-KAU-RA 147

complete save for the head. To-day, the visitor
to the British Museum will notice that the skull
is missing.

Upon this one fact, not easily, I agree, to be
explained, an ingenious story has been woven.
These are no bones of a king. They tell of a
grim tragedy in the dark, dank stone chambers
and passages of the pyramid. Robbers, breaking
into the tomb, had quarrelled over the treasure
they found there. One they had left behind,
slain. In fear lest others coming after might
identify him, and so bring home the crime to its
authors, they had carried away the head. This
theory, however, is completely disposed of by
the fact that the bones of the legs and feet when
found were partially enveloped in coarse mummy
cloth of a yellow colour, to which a small quantity
of resinous substance and gum adhered.

Even there the misadventures that have be-
fallen the relics of this Egyptian monarch did
not end. With infinite pains the heavy sarco-
phagus— it weighed three tons — was removed
into the outer air, through passages so foul that
the flame of candles dwindled and went out, and
the air was poisonous to the workers. It was
shipped from Alexandria for London in the
autumn of the following year. A storm arose,
in which the vessel was lost off the iron-bound

148 UNKNOWN LONDON

coast near Gibraltar. The ship, her crew, and
the precious burden in their charge have never
since been heard of (some wreckage was washed
up) and only these bones and the coffin lid survive
till the sea shall give up the secrets it holds in its
bed.

The sarcophagus is lost, but we know from
the hieroglyphics so laboriously cut into the
stone of a hundred others, from inscriptions carved
in the passages of funeral chambers and pen
writings on the native papyri, amid what kind
of pictures and texts to the gods Men-kau-Ra lay
there awaiting the new life. The ritual of the
dead, changing but little, was among the oldest
of Egypt's possessions. In it we may read
the aspirations, the haunting fears, the hope of
immortality which this early Pharaoh shared.
Elsewhere in London, in the Sir John Soane's
Museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields, is the massive
sarcophagus of Seti I., father of that Pharaoh
who was the Oppressor of the Israelites. Through
the texts cut in his stone chamber the divine
ruler, struck down by Death, appeals to the
everlasting gods l —

" O thou goddess Nut, support thou me, for
I am thy son. Destroy thou the defects of my
immobility, together with those who produce
1 The text here given is that of Dr Wallis Budge.

THE BONES OF MEN-KAU-RA 149

them. Raise them me up ! I am thy son. Set
thou free him whose heart is at rest from that
which maketh it to be still. O Nut, lift thou
me up. I am thy son. Do away from me that
which maketh me to be without motion."

The great goddess of heaven, queen of the
gods, answers the prayer : " This is my son
Osiris, the King, the Lord of the North and South,
the son of Ra, proceeding from his body, who
loveth him. I have endowed him with a soul,
I have endowed him with a spirit, and I have
given him power in the body of his mother
Tefnut, I who was never born. I have come. I
have united myself to Osiris the King, the lord
of the North and South, the Son of Ra, the Lord
of Crowns, with life, stability and power. He
shall not die. I am NUT of the mighty heart, and
I took up my being in the body of my mother
Tefnut in my name of Nut ; over my mother none
hath gained the mastery. I have filled every
place with my beneficence, and I have led captive
the whole earth ; I have led captive the South
and the North, and I have gathered together
the things which are into my arms to vivify Osiris,
the King, the Lord of the North and South, the
Son of Ra, proceeding from his body, who loveth
Seker, the Lord of Crowns, the Governor of the
joyful heart. His soul shall live for ever ! "

150 UNKNOWN LONDON

The god SEB speaks : " This is my son who
loveth me. I have given unto him purity upon
earth and glory in heaven, him the Osiris, the
King."

And the company of the gods takes up the
triumphant chant, god calling to god. HAPI :
" I am Hapi. I have come that I may be among
those who protect thee. I bind together for
thee thy head, and thy members, smiting down
for thee thine enemies beneath thee, and I give
thee thy head, O Osiris, King, Son of Ra."
QEBHSENNUF : " I am thy son. I have come
that I may be among those who protect thee.
I gather together for thee thy bones and I piece
together for thee thy limbs. I bring unto thee
thy heart, and I set it upon its seat in thy body.
I make to flourish for thee thy house after thee,
O thou who livest for ever ! " ANPU : "I am
Anpu, who dwell in the funeral chamber. Mother
Isis shall come down, and shall bring unto me
swathings for the Osiris, the King."

So from the echoing chambers of death rings
down the ages the message of man's immortality.

Figures of gods and goddesses were above and
below him. Protective texts with magical power
were about him on all sides. Thus arrayed for
death, the great King believed for a certainty
in his appointed future — that his soul would pass

THE BONES OF MEN-KAU-RA 151

through the magic tunnel opening in the lofty
and unscalable mountains that compassed the
flat earth of the Egyptians, out into the Other
World wherein the souls of men were tried, and
thence, towed in its funeral boat along the sacred
river, would emerge into the Radiance beyond,
where he should dwell with Ra among the blest.
Is this the coffin and are these the actual bones
of the Pharaoh Men-kau-Ra who ruled in Egypt
so many thousands of years ago ? The greatest
of our scholars believe that they are, but on the
first point there is not universal agreement. A
suggestion has been made that the coffin lid is
a pious restoration of the rulers of a later dynasty,
this being based mainly upon certain peculiarities
in the hieroglyphics, too technical for discussion
here. Men-kau-Ra, curiously, had two pyramid
tombs. Urkhuu has told us in an inscription
that he was a priest of Men-kau-Ra, and keeper
of a place belonging to the pyramid Her —
identified as the Third Pyramid above the sands
at Gizeh. Debehen, a high official of this king,
records an inscription of the Men-kau-Ra pyramid
Neter — a small pyramid at Abu Roash, showing
conspicuously on the highest hill of the western
cliffs. At Abu Roash the King's funeral statue
was found, but not his bones ; at Gizeh bones,
but not his funeral statue. What does this

152 UNKNOWN LONDON

mean ? These tilings are among the Egyptian
mysteries.

And that greater mystery still, the mystery
of life and death, that, too, is unsolved. Much
we know of the curious beliefs of the Egyptian
in the composite nature of his being, his spiritual
body, his heart, his soul, his double, his shadow,
the intangible shining casing which encompassed
him, but nowhere do the texts tell of a belief
that his corruptible body would rise again. Yet
that such a conviction was held we feel from
the extraordinary care taken to preserve the
mummy, and the strength with which this
Pharaoh built his enduring pyramid tomb, which
still is accounted one of the world's wonders.

The cycles of years go by, the bones do not stir.
To-day they lie in prosaic Bloomsbury, far away
from his own land, and a British Governor stands
behind his throne by the Nile, ruler of the King-
doms of the North and South. But human nature
does not change. The dread of oblivion, man's
helpless longing for immortality, which are so
strong with us to-day, were just the same sixty
centuries ago when the priests of Egypt inscribed
upon this coffin lid —

" Never more shall thou have enemies, King of the
North and South, O Men-kau-Ra, living for ever ! "

COFFIN-LID OF MEN-KAU-RA
/„ ,*, W' GatUri^ British »««»«

XI
THE BAGA DE SECRETIS

THREE locks of cunning workmanship,
each one different, the shot bolts holding
fast should the possessor of a single key
attempt alone to open the jaws.

Three keys, deeply cut in varying patterns,
one held in the keeping of the Lord Chief Justice,
the second in that of the Attorney-General, and
the third by the Master of the Crown Office.

Three high officers of State, acting together,
each with his key in lock, might open the Bag
of Secrets, but none others, nor one of them
alone.

Bluebeard's cupboard was not guarded with
such care. It could disclose a story less tragical
than this of the Great Baga — less a thousand
times ! Perhaps one ought not to wonder that
with such precautions the Crown kept inviolate
against prying eyes the records which affected
the King in his most intimate and domestic
relations, the frailties of Queens, the treason of
subjects, the course of justice which too often

153

154 UNKNOWN LONDON

was injustice when the fountain itself was dis-
honourable.

Far back in our history these dim and stained
parchments go, to the reign of King Edward IV.
They are strangely intermixed, telling much of
treasons and attainders, affecting the King's
Throne more than his personal relation, till Henry
VIII. 's much troubled life sent to the Baga de
Secretis the piled documents so full of human
sadness, with their questions of guilt or innocence,
so monstrous — inconceivable, it seems — that still
we are left in doubt ; sometimes the doubt whether
we can accept the word of man or woman, though
they themselves by their plea say they are guilty
of this thing charged, and, so saying, suffer.
Anne Boleyn keeps this company, a tragical
figure, asserting her innocence ; Katherine
Howard ; later, Lady Jane Grey. Here, too,
figures Sir Walter Raleigh, a great patriot and
ill-starred adventurer, beheaded at Westminster ;
Fisher and More, prisoners in The Tower together,
sufferers for the same faith and sharing the same
fate ; Sir Thomas Wyatt, rebel against Queen
Mary ; the handsome favourite, Robert Devereux,
Earl of Essex, rebel against Elizabeth, members
of the proud ducal house of Norfolk, and states-
men from Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Warwick.
The names in hundreds, even thousands, form

THE BAGA DE SECRETIS 155

almost an epitome of England's history, but
some you miss, like Monmouth, executed upon
attainder without trial ; and, too, there is nothing
of old Simon Eraser, Lord Lovat, the last man
to suffer, in George II. 's time, decapitation upon
Tower Hill.

All the trials recorded in these papers are those
of subjects for crimes against the King. One
King was placed on trial for crime against his
subjects, but of Charles I. the Baga de Secretis
contains nothing ; the crowned State could not
acknowledge the competence of that Court sitting
in Westminster Hall to give the record inclusion
here.

Long ago the great leathern Baga itself dis-
appeared, swollen by its contents, no doubt, till
they reached such proportions that no ox-hide
could hold them. In our own age, when the Baga
was explored, it consisted of a closet in which this
collection was kept separate from other documents
of the King's Bench, still under the three keys,
held by the same three officers of State. Pouches,
or small bags, were the receptacles of many of
the ancient parchments, which generally were
in good condition as to soundness, though crushed
and crumpled in consequence of the mode in
which they had been stowed. They ranged in
shelves, row upon row, in the secret closet.

156 UNKNOWN LONDON

' The old order changeth, yielding place to the
new " — the older order that had produced these
tragical happenings. The records deal with a long
dead past.

History, enthroned in judicial calm, sits in
judgment upon these men and women, free from
those influences and prejudices and fears which
distracted judgment in their own day, searching
only for truth. Loss, not public gain, results
from concealment. All need for secrecy has
gone ; the locked jaws of the Baga de Secretis
are opened — who can be harmed ? — and to-day
its contents are distributed in their proper series
and time amongst the other documents of the
Public Record Office in Chancery Lane, accessible
— these papers guarded by our Kings with such
jealous care — to any student who fills out the
required slip for the attendant.

It was for centuries believed that the docu-
ments of the trial of Anne Boleyn had been
destroyed. The trial was secret, conducted by
a few chosen instruments who should do a brutish
King's brutal behests ; the public had not know-
ledge by which to question the judicial act ; the
victim was sacrificed. So the story had grown,
weaving around Anne Boleyn pity indeed — pity
which none can withhold — and making her
martyr, not quite saint. Yet still not satisfying ;

THE BAGA DE SECRETIS 157

still leaving doubt ; still with that heart-searching
question unanswered, was she this, or libertine,
and worse ? " Sweet Anne Boleyn," the gentle
Queen of a tragic epoch, laughing herself at
that " lyttel neck " which next morning was
to be severed by the Calais headsman's sword,
was she this, or a brazen, corrupted — let us in
pity leave out the word ! The Baga de Secretis
revealed the documents, neither destroyed by
designing hands nor lost, but preserved with
meticulous care, each order and writ and bill.
Nothing is missing. One recalls the use Froude
made of them, and how one's beliefs toppled
over — beliefs influenced in large part by that
letter of infinite pathos which she wrote to Henry
VIII., and her protestations of innocence. The
evidence on oath we have not got. It satisfied
the jurors of the different counties in which it
was collected. The indictment based on their
return sets out the place, the date, the personalities
in respect of each act charged, indicating only
too plainly the whole revolting story. Mark
Smeton, the Court musician accused, pleaded
guilty, and being of ignoble birth died at the
gibbet. The others, of noble blood, suffered by
the axe, and at the end did not protest innocence.
And what was the Court which joined in
collusion with Henry VIII. in this act of un-

158 UNKNOWN LONDON

speakable infamy in putting to death a discarded
Queen ? — that is, if Anne be held innocent and
the guilt be that of Henry, guilt more red, more
shameful a thousand times even than hers. A
packed, carefully selected, and corrupt tribunal ?
Let us see. The attendant at the Public Record
Office in Chancery Lane will bring you the docu-
ments, still in the original white leather pouch,
drawn together at the mouth with a leathern
thong, in which they have been always kept,
and thereon you may read the names. The
trial of the Queen and of Lord Rochford, her
brother, took place in The Tower, the i5th May
1536. There were the two English Dukes, of
Norfolk — the veteran who had won his spurs at
Flodden Field — and Suffolk. The one English
Marquis, of Exeter. The Earls of Arundel,
Oxford, Northumberland (the Queen's early lover)
Westmorland, Derby, Worcester, Rutland, Sussex,
and Huntingdon — all those in the peerage save
four. Lords Audeley, De la Ware, Montague,
Morley, Dacre, Cobham, Maltravers, Poms,
Mounteagle, Clinton, Sandys, Windsor, Went-
worth, Burgh and Mordaunt. Twenty-seven in
all ; " men hitherto of unblemished honour — the
noblest blood in the realm."

Lord Wiltshire, one of the four absent Earls,
was not called upon to give judgment upon his

THE BAGA DE SECRETIS 159

daughter and son, but he sat upon the Commission
and acquiesced in the finding which condemned
the four commoners accused of adultery with the
Queen. That Commission consisted besides of
Lord Audeley, the Lord Chancellor of England ;
the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk ; the Earls of
Oxford, Westmorland and Sussex ; Lord Sandys ;
Thomas Cromwell ; Sir William Fitzwilliam,
Lord High Admiral — often called "the Nelson
of the sixteenth century " ; Sir William Paulet,
Lord Treasurer, and all the nine Judges of the
Courts of Westminster. Had ever other com-
moners such a Court to try their cause ? Thirty-
two Knights and gentlemen were the grand jurors
who returned true bills on the sworn evidence,
and their names in the counties stood not less
high.

Were all these so craven, so despicable, so
lacking in human soul that for fear of Henry's
displeasure they returned a finding which they
knew to be false, fearful to do right in the belief
that the King desired a wrong ; they accepted
concocted evidence knowing its worthlessness ?
Was there not one honest man among them ?
They had the evidence, which we have not ; they
answered to their names individually when called
upon for their verdict ; and in the two trials
there is not one dissentient voice. Can anybody

160 UNKNOWN LONDON

conceive that Henry, arbitrary as were his
methods, could alone have suborned the entire
House of Peers, the full Judicial Bench, the
ruling class without whom government was
impossible, the Knights and gentlemen of the
counties, and not find among them one witness
to the truth who should speak out ?

These men who found the guilt of Anne Boleyn
were the flower of England, of its blood, its
chivalry, its learning, its character. If the
tribunals appointed do not satisfy, where should
others stronger have been found ? The Kingdom
could not have produced their like. The Baga
de Secretis, by disclosing the constitution of the
Courts and the jurors, has solved an historic
doubt. Either the evidence was such as to
satisfy reasonable men, or Englishmen at this
time had sunk into a morass of infamy and
impotency of which we had believed our country
clean. They were the Englishmen of the Re-
formation. Call us Huns or what you will if
we are descendants of forefathers who shared
with Henry VIII. the guilt of this cowardly
crime. Let us bury our pride of race under the
disgrace. To me it is incredible. If consolation
lie in that fact, let us admit that error is always
possible with all Parliaments, all Judges, with
the largest numbers ; but this trial and judgment

THE BAGA DE SECRETIS 161

were honest. Against the revealed fact stands
a legend, and the legend must go.

The records of another Queen's wrong fill
in all fifty-three membranes in the Great Baga
— Katherine Howard. A plump little person,
radiant with that immeasurable gift of youth
(she was but twenty-two), and pleasing she must
have been to Henry's eye. Almost we forget
her admitted frailties in the remembrance of
that weird scene by candle-light in the gloomy
Tower, the night before her execution. " She
desired that the block on which she was to be
beheaded might be brought to her, that she
might learn how she was to place herself. This
was done, and she made the experiment," wrote
the Ambassador Chappuys. And so prepared,
on a February morning, she went out into the
sunrise of her last day, for the execution had
been fixed for seven o'clock.

These other parchments at my elbow, separated
in time by but a few years, are the papers of the
trial of a third Queen — the Lady Jane Grey, the
pitiful Queen of a nine days' reign. The charge
against her is of high treason, and specifically
that she signed various writings " Jane the
Queene, ' ' against her allegiance. The Commission
is addressed in the first instance to Thomas
Whyte, Mayor of the City of London, other

162 UNKNOWN LONDON

names following, and the Precept to the Con-
stable of The Tower, commanding him to bring
her to Guildhall for trial, is signed " By me
Thomas Whyte," and afterwards, " T. Norfolk "
— the Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal of England.
It is the acknowledgment of the Lord Mayor's
precedence in the City, as in all cases where the
trial was at Guildhall. She came on foot — why
this unnecessary humiliation, one wonders ? —
and so returned. Cranmer and Guilford Dudley
were with her, and with her pleaded guilty.
" Judgment against the Lady Jane Grey, that she
be burnt alive on Tower Hill or beheaded, as the
Queen shall please." Oh ! the horror of those times
of butchery that could admit such a sentence !

I have said that the Baga de Secretis contains
nothing of the trial of Charles I., but packed into
it are the papers of the Regicides. Listen to the
legal phraseology when a King dies violently —

" They [John Lisle and forty-seven others] proposed
and consulted to murder the said King, and took upon
themselves authority and power to put the said King
to death. In execution of which traitorous design,
viz. 30 January, in the parish of St Martin-in-the-Fields,
they, together with a certain man, whose name is un-
known to the jurors, having a visor upon his face and
being clad hi a frock, assaulted the same King ; and the
said unknown man, with an axe which he held in both
his hands, struck the said King upon his neck, and
divided his head from his body."

THE BAGA DE SECRETIS 163

Afterwards William Hewlett was hurried to
execution as the headsman, but his fate leaves
unsolved the mysterious identity of the masked
man on the scaffold raised outside the Banquetting
House at Whitehall. Colder words than those
cited could not be used for the most common
crime.

It is with the toll of death that the Great Baga
has been stuffed. Rare indeed is it to light upon
an acquittal here. I find a man " otherwise
John Johnston," a figure swollen with a great
crime which still we recall each year.

Do you know John Johnson ?

A complete stranger he seems. It is Guy
Fawkes who alone fills the bill of Gunpowder
Plot as arch-conspirator and desperado, with a
name ringing and sounding down the centuries
louder than ever Johnson would have done. I
could not bring myself to light squibs and Catherine
wheels to celebrate Johnson. It was the name
that Fawkes gave when, bound hand and foot
and under strong guard, he was brought into
King James's presence in the royal bedchamber
at Whitehall at one o'clock on the morning of
his arrest, when the Privy Council was hastily
assembled there, and he would say nothing save —
with a wry smile — that his purpose was " to
blow the Scots back to Scotland again ! "

164

Fawkes's crushed indictment, of portentous
length, has been tumbled into the Baga, and in
it I read that Thomas Wyntour, Guy Fawkes
otherwise Johnson, Keys, Robert Wyntour,
Graunte, Rookewood and Bates were charged
that they conspired and attempted " to blow
up the King, Queen, Prince Henry, as well as
the Knights, Citizens and Burgesses in Parliament
assembled with gunpowder " ; and I am left
more than ever with puzzling wonder why Gun-
powder Plot was not unmasked earlier. This
apart from the fact that the knowledge was in
the keeping of thirteen conspirators — auspicious
number !

On the nth Dec. 1604 these men began to dig
" with great labour a mine under the Parliament
House, even to the middle of the wall of the said
Parliament House, such foundation being of the
thickness of three yards, with the intention of
placing a large quantity of gunpowder therein,
for the purpose of carrying their treasonable
intentions into effect." Finding the job tough,
they hired through Percy, a fellow conspirator,
a neighbouring house which had the advantage
of a cellar going right under the House of
Lords, and on 20th March next " did remove 20
barrels of gunpowder from the house of Percy
into the said cellar." Then on the 3ist July,

THE BAGA BE SECRETIS 165

fearing that their explosive had become damp,
they brought into the cellar ten more barrels
of powder.

No suspicion had been aroused. Further, the
plotters on the 20th September following " brought
into the cellar four hogsheads filled with gun-
powder, and also various iron bars and stones
to place upon the same, and placed them thereon,
and in order that the same might not be seen
covered them with faggots." What was the
sleepy Westminster watch doing ? Months were
passing — eleven months in all — in which digging
was going on, barrels and hogsheads of gun-
powder and missiles for the explosion were being
rolled in from the street, till thirty-four powder
barrels in all were stored, and no one in authority
was a penny the wiser. The 4th November came,
eve of the Parliament's meeting, and that night
Fawkes was found in flagrante delicto in the
cellar, watching beside the barrels with touch-
wood and matches about him. His signature to
the confession extorted from him when on the
rack you may see in the Public Record Office,
the trembling, broken lines testifying that the
poor wretch had been so nerve-shattered by his
torture that he could not grasp the pen.

Now we make amends for the lack of caution
shown when Gunpowder Plot was hatching, and

166 UNKNOWN LONDON

though three centuries have passed since the
peril, still each time that Parliament meets for
a new session the Beefeaters conduct their search
for powder barrels in the vaults below the
Parliament House.

A curious crime of which the Baga contains
the whole story is that by Edward Squyer, a
yeoman of London, in his attempt to poison
Queen Elizabeth. Squyer had attached himself
to Philip of Spain when he was preparing an
Armada for invasion of England, and, attempting
the life of great Elizabeth, this man brought
back with him from Seville " a poisonous con-
fection, contained in a double bladder, to the
intention that he should smere the pommel of
the Queen's saddle therewith when the Queen
was about to ride, in order that she, putting her
hand on the pommel, might be poisoned." He
actually obtained admittance to the courtyard
where the Queen's riding-horse was awaiting her,
and rubbed some of the poison on the pommel
of the saddle, exclaiming loudly at the same
time, " God save the Queen ! " for the purpose
of better concealing his treason, but his clumsiness
betrayed him. Judgment as against all traitors.

Timothy Penchard forged a likeness of
Elizabeth's seal to counterfeit writs of the
Queen's Bench, and this was his savage sentence :

THE BAGA DE SECRETIS 167

that he should be put in the pillory upon two
successive market days in Cheapside, and on the
first day should have one ear nailed to the pillory,
and on the second day his other ear nailed to
the pillory, in such manner that he should by
his own proper motion be compelled to tear away
his two ears from the wood.

Elizabeth had a short way with vagabondage.
It was charged against Rowland and Thomas
Gabriel, Lawrence Bannester and Christopher
Jackson, on indictment found at Aylesbury,
that they did keep company with four persons,
but one of whom — Deago — bears a foreign name,
vulgarly called and calling themselves Egyptians,
and counterfeited, transformed and altered them-
selves in dress, language and behaviour to
such vagabonds called Egyptians, contrary to
statute. ' ' Judgment that they are to be hanged. ' '
Why this petty felony should figure among the
historic trials in the Baga de Secretis I do not
know, but these and many other names of
men of mean condition stand on equality with
the ill-fated Dukes of Buckingham and Suffolk,
with Surrey and Somerset, Essex and Cobham,
in the State calendar of crime.

XII
LONDON'S LOST KING

LOST, the statue of a king — lost, that is,
to London this past century and a half,
but not to the country of its creation.
If travel leads your steps north, you will find in
the beautiful grounds of Newby Hall, near Ripon,
Yorks, raised in front of the mansion, the his-
torical but forgotten statue of King Charles
II. trampling on the prostrate Protector Oliver.
Originally it stood where to-day is the Mansion
House. It was the one architectural adornment
of the old Stocks Market, the King, astride a
pawing horse, being mounted on a high pedestal,
but little honoured, I fear, by the fishwives, the
vegetable and herb sellers, and the butchers
who, till the middle eighteenth century, kept his
company, and made this central spot in the
City noisy with their cries.

The Stocks Market has gone, stalls, name and
all. Long since the Lord Mayor's stocks have
disappeared, wherein many a vagrom man has
been held fast by the legs. St Christopher-

168

KING CHARLES II TRAMI'LINC UPON OLIVER CROMWELL
A London Statue note' at .\eiehy Hall, Rifon

LONDON'S LOST KING 169

le-Stocks church no longer stands. The en-
tire parish, church and churchyard have been
swallowed up in the Bank of England. The
passer-by occasionally gets a glimpse through
frowning portals of the pretty garden within the
Bank, bright in summer with the gorgeous
colouring of flowers, amidst which a fountain
plays. That was the churchyard. After the
building over of the ground the interment of
one Jenkins, a Bank clerk, was allowed there.
He stood 7 feet 6 inches high, and his burial
took place within the bank in order to defeat
the body-snatchers, who might be covetous for
so rich a prize.

Sir Robert Vyner, " the Prince of Goldsmiths,"
was the donor of the Stocks Market statue,
an episode in his picturesque career — Baronet,
Alderman, Sheriff, Lord Mayor, and much more.
A genial soul, addicted to good living, he was a
familiar figure in Restoration days. Pepys, who
loved bright company, kept an account with
him, knew him well, and often in the Diary
mentions his activities in the King's interests.
For Vyner possessed money and Charles did not,
and there was the bond that linked the two.
Goldsmith and banker, he was, indeed, the chief
financier of his day, a man with whom Charles,
in his many and devious shifts for money, could

UNKNOWN LONDON

not do without. He gave Charles his Crown —
literally, for the State jewels having been sold
or pawned by Charles I. and the Parliament to
provide funds for the opposing armies, Sir Robert
Vyner advanced £32,000 to furnish a new set of
regalia. Charles ruined him, leaving him when,
by an arbitrary act, the King closed the Ex-
chequer in January, 1672, an unsatisfied creditor
for £416,000. Vyner shouldered his burden
and struggled along to eventual bankruptcy,
protected by Royal command forbidding his
clients to sue him, and an annual payment of
interest promised but long deferred ; and in his
broad-mindedness he seems to have borne the
King no malice. He is best remembered by an
anecdote told of a City feast in his mayoralty,
whereat the King, stealing away to his coach in
Guildhall Yard, was seized by the hand by his
host, who cried with an oath, " Sire, you shall
stay and take t'other bottle." Charles, ready
in wit, replied with the line of an old song —

" He that is drunk is as great as a King,"

and the two jovial monarchs returned to the
table to finish the carouse.

The Great Fire of London in 1666 swept the
full length of Lombard Street on its second day.
Vyner's fine house there, the typical mansion of

LONDON'S LOST KING 171

a rich City merchant, stood in a pleasant garden,
where now is a branch Post Office, and it burnt
with the rest, but his wealth, being largely in
bonds and securities, was easily removed while
the flames were still threatening. The King
sent an order to Windsor Castle that Vyner's
securities, moneys and jewels should be safe
lodged there, and appointed also a place for Mm
in order that his labours for the Crown should
continue undisturbed. The City churches de-
stroyed in the Great Fire included St Mary
Woolchurchhawe, and a finer and larger Stocks
Market being afterwards determined upon, the
site of the church and graveyard were thrown
into it.

What more befitting so central a position than
a statue raised to the greatness of Charles II. ?
So thought Sir Robert, with whom loyalty was
the very life blood, when surely the most curious
combination of circumstances that has ever
occurred placed such a statue within his reach.
The story has run with a ripple of laughter. It
chanced that John Sobeisky, King of Poland,
having slaughtered a vast number of Turks, and
so saved Vienna, his Ambassador in England
ordered an equestrian statue of his master com-
memorative of the victory. Sobeisky, engrossed
with larger affairs, did not send his Ambassador

172 UNKNOWN LONDON

the money with which to pay the sculptor, and
pending a settlement of this vital matter, the
statue lay boxed up on Tower Wharf, below
London Bridge, awaiting exportation. That was
Vyner's opportunity, and he was prompt to seize
it. The sculptor, forgotten but meritorious, put
vigour into his work, representing Sobeisky in
warrior's dress trampling upon a helpless Turk.
The goldsmith purchased the statue,1 and dis-
regarding the incongruities of costume, had the
head of the Polish King replaced by that of
Charles II., and the features of the Turk lying
prostrate under his horse's feet altered to
those of Oliver Cromwell. Thus manoeuvred, the
statue arose on this spot in honour of the
Sovereign ! It was dedicated on the anniversary
of the King's birthday in 1672 ; Walpole says
that Latham carved the head of King Charles.
There is not the least doubt about the story,
which the Oriental attire and headdress of the
betrampled Cromwell, as still to be seen at Newby
Hall, fully bear out.

Naturally the lampooners made busy. One
wrote these lines some years after the erection
of the statue—

1 There is another version of the origin of the statue, that
Vyner first heard of it from his agent at Leghorn, that he
acquired it for a mere song, and shipped it from the Continent
to Tower Wharf. I do not know which is true.

LONDON'S LOST KING 173

" Could Robert Vyner have foreseen
The glorious triumph of his master,
The Wool Church statue gold had been,
Which now is made of alabaster.
But wise men think had it been wood,
Twere for a bankrupt King too good.
Those that the fabric well consider
Do of it diversely discourse,
Some pass their censure on the rider,
Others their judgment on the horse ;
Most say the steed's a goodly thing,
But all agree 'tis a lewd King."

Andrew Marvell, when Member of Parliament
for Hull, spent his satire upon the ill-judged
statue, in lines which passed from hand to hand,
but attained print only posthumously. In order
to understand them, remember that the eques-
trian figure was set up after the general ruin
which attended the closing of the Exchequer —

" So Sir Robert advanced the King's statue in token
Of a Broker defeated and Lombard Street broken.

Some thought it a mighty and generous Deed,

Obliging the citty with a King on a steed,

When with Honour he might from his word have gone

back ;
He that waits for a Calme is absolv'd by a Wrack.

By all it appears, from the first to the last,
To be a Revenge, and a Malice forecast,
Upon the King's Birth-day to set up a thing
That shows him a Monkey more like than a King.

When each one that passes finds fault with the Horse,
Yet all do assure that the King is much worse ;

174 UNKNOWN LONDON

And some by its likeness Sir Robert suspect
That he did for the King his own statue erect.

But with all his faults pray give us our King

As ever you hope in December for Spring.

For tho" the whole World cannot shew such another,

We had better have him than his bigotted Brother."

Not less biting in their allusions arc verses
on "A Dialogue Between two Horses." The
steeds bearing the figures of Charles I. at Charing
Cross, and Charles II. at the Stocks Market have
joined company at night, their riders having
dismounted, the father to visit Archbishop Laud,
and the son to seek more questionable associates.
An anonymous writer of the next century gave
in satirical form " The Last Dying Speech and
Confession of the Horse at Stocks Market "

" Ye whimsical people of London's fair town,
Who one year put up what the next year you pull down ;
Full sixty-one years have I stood in this place,
And never till now met with any disgrace.
What affront to crowned heads could you offer more

bare,
Than to pull down a King to make room for a Mayor ?

The great Sobeiski, on horse with long tail
I first represented when set up for sale ;
A Turk, as you see, was placed under my feet,
To prove o'er the Sultan my triumph complete.

When the King was restored, you then, in a trice,
Called me Charles the Second, and, by way of device,
Said the old whiskered Turk had Oliver's face —
Though, you know, to be conquered, he ne'er felt the
disgrace.

LONDON'S LOST KING 175

As the market is moved, I'm obliged to retreat ;
I could stay there no longer with nothing to eat ;
Now the herbs and the greens are all carried away,
I must trot unto those who will find me in hay."

The City bore with the statue, a constant
shaft of opprobrium and ridicule, for two-thirds
of a century, when in 1738 the closing of the
Stocks Market and clearance of the ground for
building the Mansion House left it on hand.
What to do with it was a problem the civic
fathers could not solve. They had then had
more experience of the Stuarts, in no way
enlarging the popularity of that dynasty. A
Hanoverian sat on the British Throne. Rider
and horse were laid aside for several years, out
of sight in a builder's shed, and when memory
of them had faded, the Common Council, in the
year 1779, presented the statue to Robert Vyner,
a descendant of the loyal Lord Mayor. It was
set up by him at Gautby Park, Lincolnshire,
and its last migration was in 1883 to Newby
Hall, the Yorkshire seat of the present head of
the Vyner family, where to-day it stands.
Such, in brief, is the story of the Stocks Market
statue, and one wonders if another Royal effigy
has ever had such adventures.

XIII
THE FIRES OF SMITHFIELD

" The noble army of Martyrs, praise Thee."

THE buildings of a great work of mercy,
St Bartholomew's Hospital, enclose
Smithfield on one side, fronting the
dread place whereon the fires were lighted, and
upon a wall you may read a tablet which tells
simply that " Within a few feet of this spot
John Rogers, John Bradford, John Philpot and
other Servants of God suffered death by fire
for the Faith of Christ, in the years 1555, 1556,
I557-" Three martyrs only are thus comme-
morated, with others unnamed. It is curious that
there is no list accessible of those who suffered
for faith at Smithfield — no one has been at the
trouble of collecting the names. Most, but not
all, may be recovered by research in Foxe's
huge Acts and Monuments, known to the living
generation by its many abridgements, but un-
familiar in its awesome mass.

Smithfield has much changed. The blue garb

176

THE FIRES OF SMITHFIELD 177

of honour of the wounded soldier from the wars
mixes with the civilian drab seen in the Hospital
squares, the men sitting out to greet the sun-
shine. The open space before was London's
cattle-market, lasting into Victorian times. The
pens and byres covering the ground, the horse
dealers and drovers and figures of bucolic life
which the market brought together — all have
gone. To-day the drays occasionally lumbering
by to the underground stores and ice-chambers
bring only carcases. The whole picture of anima-
tion dissolved when the live stock came no more
into the City. There is one thing surviving
which was there when the faggots crackled and
burnt and human life went out in agony, looking
down upon the altered scene — the archway of
Great St Bartholomew's, which is all that the
despoilers of the Reformation have spared of
the immense nave and western front of that
majestic church. An old timber-framed house
has been built around and above it, now after
many years restored to its original picturesqueness.

That is a sad little archway, for through it
have passed many victims to the stake and the
flame.

Seventy years ago there was a square space of
dark coloured cobbled paving, now obliterated,
which had a tradition, set before this gateway

M

178 UNKNOWN LONDON

but edged a little out into the open Smithfield —
which once was London's " smooth field." In
the month of March, 1849, excavations necessary
for a new sewer were made at this spot. Three
feet below the surface the workmen laid open a
mass of unhewn stones, blackened as if by fire.
Ashes covered them. There were, too, human
bones, charred and partially consumed. That was
proof sufficient that this was the site of the
Smithfield burnings. The unhewn stones were
the supports of the stake. Some of these bones
of martyrs people carried away as relics.

Forty-three martyrs, men and women, suffered
death by fire here in the Marian persecutions.
Let us not forget that there were others, Pro-
testant and Catholic, before. The horror of
Queen Mary's reign has seared deeply the national
conscience, and with thought of it rousing one's
blood to passionate protest at such atrocity,
these others one is apt to overlook. The times
were cruel, and men were cruel, not knowing
tolerance, one faith or the other, and with judg-
ment so strangely warped, with belief each man
in his creed so immutably fixed, that Christian
sent Christian to torment and death believing
that thereby a godly work was done, worshipping
one and the same God. It is a strange and
terrible chapter in human error.

SMITHFIELU: SITE OF THE MARTYRS' STAKE
In roadway mar ktd -with white cross

THE FIRES OF SMITHFIELD 179

" That was the hand that wrote it, therefore
it shall suffer first punishment," said Cranmer
in the fire at Oxford of his recantation, extending
his right arm into the flame, " and never stirred
nor cried." The pathos of that scene will always
make its appeal ; l and who remembers that
Cranmer had himself sent Friar Forest and
Joan Bocher to the flames in Smithfield ? The
goodly Latimer preached the sermon at Forest's
burning, desiring, he wrote to Cromwell, " that
my stage stood near unto Forest, for I would
endeavour myself so to content the people, that
therewith I might also convert Forest, God so
helping, or, rather, altogether working." Pity
for an erring man one may perhaps find in the
letter, but of horror at the contemplated act
nothing.

" I will die," Forest gallantly answered when
Latimer turned to ask him if he would live or
die. " Do your worst upon me. Seven years
ago you durst not, for your life, have preached
such words as these ; and now, if an angel from
heaven should come down and teach me any
other doctrine than that which I learnt as a
child, I would not believe him. Take me ; cut

1 I cannot forbear the pleasure of recalling the fine lines of
Jeremy Collier on Cranmer's death : " He burnt to appear-
ance without motion or pain ; he seemed to repel the force
of the fire and to overlook the torture, by strength of thought."

i8o UNKNOWN LONDON

me to pieces, joint from joint. Burn — ^hang-
do what you will — I will be true henceforth to
my faith." And therewith, in chains, he was
swung into the fire.

King Henry VIII. martyred Protestants and
Catholics, and once, late in his persecut-
ing career, Smithfield witnessed the dreadful
spectacle of three Protestants — Robert Barnes,
Thomas Garret, and William Jerome — burnt at
the stake as " abominable and detestable
heretics," and suffering beside them three Romish
priests, Fetherstone, Abel and Powel, hanged
and quartered as traitors. The last were said
to have spoken in favour of the Pope. These
men's fate should teach this terrible lesson :
the execution of traitors was to imply no in-
dulgence of heresy ; the punishment of heretics
should give no hope to men disloyal to their
King and country. Foxe could allow but grudg-
ing admission of the Catholic priests to his
martyrology, " being neither good martyrs to
God nor good subjects to the King," he says
of them in a marginal note.

The Marian persecutions struck at their outset
a noble victim. John Rogers had preached
at Paul's Cross three days after Queen Mary's
arrival in London. There he boldly set forth
the Reformed doctrines. He never preached

THE FIRES OF SMITHFIELD 181

again. Stripped of his benefices, he was cast
into Newgate ; and in the prison chapel on
his last day, the 4th February 1555, he was
degraded from the priesthood by having his
canonical dress torn piece-meal from him, and
was immediately after sent out to the stake at
Smithfield.

Rogers had been converted by personal in-
timacy with William Tyndale, and he it was
who had prepared Tyndale 's unfinished Old
Testament in English for the press, though he
did not actually translate himself. He was
Prebendary of St Paul's, and vicar of St
Sepulchre's, outside Newgate.

On his way he passed by his own church, met
there by his wife and eleven children, the youngest
in arms. The sorrowful sight did not shake his
resolution. They joined the procession. " The
people in Smithfield were not afraid to make
him many exclamations to strengthen his courage.
Even his children assisted at it, comforting him
in such manner that it seemed as if he had been
led to a wedding," wrote Count Noailles, the
French Ambassador. So to his Master went the
first of the Marian martyrs.

Again, on the 3oth May, the fires were prepared.
There came, through sympathizers crowding
about them, John Cardmaker, Chancellor of

182 UNKNOWN LONDON

Wells and also a preacher at St Paul's ; and
with him John Warne, an unlettered cloth-
worker. Warne was offered the Queen's pardon
if he would recant. Straight he went to
the stake. Cardmaker dallied in conversation
with the Sheriffs. " The people assembled in
Smithfield," says Foxe, "were in a marvellous
dump and sadness, thinking that Cardmaker
would recant at the burning of Warne. At
length, coming towards the stake, he kneeled
down in prayer, then rose up, put off his clothes
unto his shirt, and went with bold courage to
the stake and kissed it sweetly ; he took Warne
by the hand and comforted him heartily ; and
so gave himself to be also bound most gladly.

" The people, seeing this so suddenly done,
contrary to their fearful expectation, as men
delivered out of a great doubt, cried for joy (with
so great a shout as hath not lightly been heard
a greater) saying, ' God be praised ! The Lord
strengthen thee, Cardmaker ; the Lord Jesus
receive thy spirit ! ' This continued till the
executioner put fire to them. " And they both
passed," adds Foxe, in trumpet phrases, " through
the fire to the blessed rest and peace among
God's holy saints and martyrs, to enjoy the
crown of triumph and victory prepared for the
elect soldiers and warriors of Christ Jesus in his

THE FIRES OF SMITHFIELD 183

blessed kingdom. To whom be glory and majesty
for ever. Amen ! "

The year had other victims, and none of gentler
grace than John Bradford, divine. Rumour had
spread that he was to be burnt at dawn of
a July morning. In darkness a vast concourse
of people assembled. It was not until nine that
he was brought to the stake, " a great company
of weaponed men to conduct him thither as the
like was seen at no man's burning, for in every
corner of Smithfield there were some, besides
those who stood about the stake." Mary's
councillors had fears that the populace would
be stung to resistance. Bradford spoke to the
people ; the Sheriff brusquely ordered that his
hands be tied if he would not keep silence.
John Leaf, a young man, was his fellow martyr.
Bradford turned to him, saying, "Be of good
comfort, brother, for we shall have a merry
supper with the Lord this night." So with
eyes upcast he passed.

A new year opened with the bitter spectacle
in Smithfield of seven persons burning together,
the 27th January 1556. Thomas Whittle, an
expelled priest, had gone abroad preaching to
whoever would hear. Bartlet Green was a young
man of family who had been converted to
the Reformed Church when at Oxford by the

184 UNKNOWN LONDON

lectures of Peter Martyr, and studied law in
the Temple, a man " meek, humble, discreet,
and of most gentle behaviour " — it is Foxe's
description. Thomas Browne, when at Bonner's
palace at Fulham required to attend Mass in
chapel, went into the warren and there knelt
among the trees. John Tudson and John Wart
were simple artificers ; Isobel Foster, the wife
of a mechanic. Joan Warne, a young maid,
attending in prison her parents, both of whom
had gloried at their death in the flame, had
herself come under suspicion for her faith.
Together the seven went to the fire.

In April six others, in one fire ; in May three
women — their names Katherine Hut, a widow,
Elizabeth Thackvel, and Joan Horns, a maid,
all three defiant. Joan Horns would yield nothing
either to fair promises or to terror. " And so,"
says Foxe indignantly, " the holy virgin and
martyr, committed to the shambles of the secular
sword, was offered up with her fellows a burnt
sacrifice to the Lord, in odor em "bonce fragrantia "
(" in the savour of a sweet and pleasant smell ").

A fourth, Margaret Ellis, intended for a like
fate, found escape by death in Newgate.

They were people of small standing, with
them some divines, but the persecution hesitated
to strike down powerful victims ; doing its

THE FIRES OF SMITHFIELD 185

work in public' yet always fearful of conse-
quences ; shrinking from rousing in England
that fierce, ungovernable resentment deep in
our character which would have overwhelmed in
bloodshed ten times aggravated the whole cursed
error. This thing was foreign to our soil, in
which it could never root. The pageantry with
which the Holy Inquisition had familiarized the
Continent, the exultant triumph, the banners,
the public holiday, the hoarse shout, the fete
of Death — Smithfield saw none of these. Its
fires lacked the awful splendours of the Spanish
Auto-da-Fe, the devilment and concomitant
horrors of the procession of tortured and broken
victims to the stake. Dark deeds were done
darkly, not with the insolence of pride.

The third year the persecution increased, like
rolling thunder gathering volume, terrible, omin-
ous. Smithfield, on I2th April 1557, witnessed
three other men and two women burnt ; there-
after three men ; then John Rough, a minister,
with Margaret Dealing, a woman of his con-
gregation ; again three men. Why continue ?
In pity, let us cut out the awful story. It
has been written in sorrow and in shame, and
the remembrance can never be forgotten. Full
fed as were the fires of Smithfield, they did
not suffice ; they had their like all over the

i86 UNKNOWN LONDON

country. On one occasion, at Stratford-by-Bow,
on London's outskirts, thirteen martyrs perished
in one fire, eleven men in groups of three chained
to separate stakes, and the remaining two men
together at a fourth stake, and two women left
loose in the ring of flame formed by lighted
faggots piled high.
I hasten to the closing scene.
Seven martyrs die together, the 27th June
1558. They were part of a congregation taken
while assembled for prayer in the fields at
Islington, a company of forty men and women.
Roger Holland, John Holiday, Henry Pond,
Reinald Eastland, Robert Southam, Matthew
Ricarby, John Floyd — these were chosen for
Smithfield ; others elsewhere. The temper of
the populace was evident. Mary's officers, an
armed guard being with them, read a proclama-
tion forbidding any spectator under pain of
imprisonment to speak a word to the approaching
martyrs. They replied to the Queen's menaces
by crowding about them, affectionately em-
braced them, and brought them in their arms
to the place of suffering.

Master Bentham (afterwards Elizabeth's
Bishop of Lichfield), nothing daunted, spoke
out with a loud voice, " We know that they are
the people of God, and therefore we cannot

THE FIRES OF SMITHFIELD 187

choose but wish well to them, and say, ' God
strengthen them ! Almighty God, for Christ's
sake strengthen them ! '

The multitude shouted in reply, " Amen, Amen ! "
" Lord, bless Thy people," said Holland, as
fire was set to the faggots and the flames
rose. They were the last words recorded spoken
from the stake at Smithfield, for soon afterwards
Mary was released by death. The most hideous
reign in England had ended.

Elizabeth burnt two heretics and made many
martyrs besides, and the Protestant bigot,
James I., sent a man — Bartholomew Legate —
to burn for heresy in Smithfield ; but with the
passing of Mary the dread chapter of persecution
by fire for faith may be considered closed. That
was three and a half centuries ago. The tablet
on the Hospital wall, so inconsequential and
seen by few, in fact almost concealed by its own
railing, I suppose must be accepted as character-
istically English. We are indeed a great nation
in our neglect. The City does not honour its
own great dead or outstanding events in its
long history, and the two or three monumental
bronzes in its streets are raised to statesmen and
kings of small importance. But Smithfield still
has wide spaces, and I should like to see on this
sanctified spot a little shrine raised, a stone

i88 UNKNOWN LONDON

screen with a f aid-stool or two, to which any who
have been deeply moved by the glorious spirit
tried here in death might if the}' wished enter,
and there pray. I cannot but think that to
our many visitors from the distant Dominions
the continued neglect of Smithfield must bring a
shock of surprise.

A monumental brass in the church of Rayne,
in Essex, to the memory of Elizabeth Blencowe
of Thoby Priory, records that she was the sixth
in lineal descent from William Barber, who
narrowly escaped the flames of persecution under
Queen Mary, having been brought to the stake
at Smithfield, and his life saved by arrival of
intelligence of the Queen's death.

A belief commonly held that fire was
the chosen instrument of religious persecution
because of its extreme torment has no basis.
The choice had a deeper significance. Ecclesia
non -novit sanguinem, of course. But the idea
underlying all was that of annihilation, soul and
body — the end ! The utter annihilation of the
heretic's soul was accepted on the teaching of
the Church uppermost at the time ; that of the
body should be visible to the assembled spectators
as the corporal man was reduced before their
eyes, and finally in ashes was blown into
nothingness at the sport of the winds.

THE FIRES OF SMITHFIELD 189

It is a befitting act to record the names of the
Smithfield Martyrs in this place, and some people
there will be, I feel sure, who will value this list.
Those whose family names are the same cannot
but feel honoured by this association.

MARTYRS BY FIRE AT SMITHFIELD.

Where names are bracketed the victims perished
together in one fire.

JAMES I

Bartholomew Legate, " the Aryan "

QUEEN MARY

John Rogers /-Robert Drakes / John Hollingdale

Thomas Tomkins I William Tyms -{ William Sparrow

/John Cardmaker I Robert Spurge I Richard Gibson

I John Warne 1 Thomas Spurge ( John Rough

( John Bradford I John Canel I Margaret Bearing

I John Leaf ^George Ambrose fCuthbert Sympson

John Philpot •! Hugh Fox

I John De venish

/•Thomas Whittle f Katherine Hut f Henry Pond

Bartlet Green \ Joan Horns

John Tudson I Elizabeth Thackvel
John Wart /-Thomas Losely

Thomas Browne I Henry Ramsey
Isabel Foster -j Thomas Thirtel
Joan Warne I Margaret Hide
v Agnes Stanley

EDWARD VI

Joan Bocher, Anabaptist

Reinald Eastland
Robert Southam
Matthew Ricarby
John Floyd
John Holiday
Roger Holland

UNKNOWN LONDON

HENRY VIII

John Tewkesbury Collins

James Bainham ( Robert Barnes
/ John Frith -! William Jerome

\ Andrew Hewet I Thomas Garret

Friar Forest

John Nicholson, alias Lambert

Joan Boughton
Four priests
William Sawtree

HENRY VII
HENRY VI

HENRY IV

/-
| J

Annie Askew

ohn Lacels
John Adams
Nicholas Belenian
Rogers (of Norfolk)
Style

Thomas Badby

XIV
WAXWORKS IN THE ABBEY

I CONFESS some reverence for the waxworks
at Westminster Abbey that too often is
withheld from them, paying to them the
respect due to the burial customs of our ancestors.
Their homeliness, too, has pleased me. It is
part of the topsy-turviness of things that a show
of wax figures of historical personages nowadays
has no interest for the young, but makes its
appeal solely to the aged. It is always a pleasure
to revive the memories of youth, and that we
greyheads may enjoy in their company, for in
our time these and their like were the simple
joys of our growing years. The blase lad of
to-day (a horror to his grandfather, dissimulate
he never so well) who is familiar with stage
heroes and reared to association with sock and
buskin at a time of life when his sedate elders
considered an annual visit to the pantomime
the limit of permissible enjoyment — he affects
scorn for mere wax figures.

Were I the guardian and showman of the

191

192 UNKNOWN LONDON

Abbey waxworks, I would exclude the impudent
young. Such powers of stimulating interest as I
might possess I would give to those whom time
has sobered. They should see Queen Elizabeth
in all her panoply of monstrous fashion. For
them alone should King Charles II. stare out of
his glass pane, and Nelson with his one good eye
gaze into futurity. The Duchess of Richmond
should stand with her parrot only before them.
Monck, Duke of Albemarle, I say with regret,
is to-day too dilapidated even to be shown.
But there are those mentioned and various
others still fit companionship for the appreciative
audiences of the middle-aged and elders whom
I would invite to tour with me the Abbey wax-
works. The young scoffer outside the portals
would not trouble me.

The ignorant alone find incongruity in the
association of wax figures and our glorious Abbey,
and they are the majority, for the average
stroller among the tombs would be puzzled to
give a reason why the effigies are here. They
are survivals of a custom centuries old. The
cherished right of a Roman noble was that of
having figures, with waxen masks representing
his ancestors, carried at his obsequies and placed
in his hall ; and from the Romans the observance
was handed down. Effigies of English Kings

KING CHARLES II IN WAX EFKICY
a .l/'l-o.' Islip's Chapel, II rstininster Abbt.

WAXWORKS IN THE ABBEY 193

were borne before the body at Royal funerals,
with pikes reversed carried at the shoulder,
and hatchments displayed, and the measured
tread of armed men and all the pomp and blaze
of heraldry, as can be traced in records far back
to the fourteenth century. And where Kings
led, the practice was followed by our great nobles.
At the interment the effigies were raised high
upon a " herse." This was a platform heavily
draped with black hangings, and often decorated
with arms and sculptured devices, which re-
mained for varying periods in place over the
grave, or sometimes by the high altar. Ben
Jonson refers to it in his famous epitaph on the
Countess of Pembroke —

" Underneath this sable herse
Lies the subject of all verse,
Sidney's sister — Pembroke's mother —
Death, ere thou hast slain another
Fair and wise and good as she
Time shall throw his dart at thee."

The wax effigies, now sent aloft to an upper
chamber of Abbot John Islip's Chapel, as if in
disgrace and out of joint with the times, once
stood about among the tombs on the Abbey
floor. Odd they must have looked in such
surroundings, with bright costumes and flashing
mock jewels when all around was brown and

N

194 UNKNOWN LONDON

grey, lacking reverence as to-day we understand
it ; but they meant no irreverence. Monck's
standing figure above his own grave was most
fitting, for in this posture he died. His spirit
was unconquerable. " Like a Roman general
and soldier," wrote an eye-witness of the memor-
able scene at his passing, " he died standing
almost up in his chair, his chamber like a tent
open, and all his officers about him." Ben
Jonson it is, poet and roystering liver, who in
the Abbey is buried upstanding.

The story runs that Jonson begged of King
Charles I. a favour. " What is it ? " said
the King. " Give me eighteen inches of
square ground." " Where ? " asked the King.
" In Westminster Abbey." And there he stands
awaiting the Resurrection, in the north aisle of
the nave, in the path of square stones, beneath
one marked by a small triangular lozenge, in
which has been recut the old inscription —

" O rare Ben Johnson ! "

Loose sand of Jonson's grave when, in 1849,
Sir Robert Wilson was buried close by, " rippled
in like a quicksand," and the clerk of works who
superintended the operation " saw the two leg-
bones of Jonson, fixed bolt upright in the sand,
as though the body had been buried in the up-

195

right position ; and the skull came rolling down
among the sand, from a position above the
leg-bones, to the bottom of the newly-made
grave. There was still hair upon it, and it
was of a red colour." Once again this skull,
from which so much living verse had sprung,
was seen on the digging of John Hunter's
grave, and " it had still traces of red hair
upon it."

These wax effigies of Westminster Abbey
should be accepted, not as mere show-pieces,
but as part of our burial ritual that for centuries
was honoured in England. They have seized
my errant fancy. Left alone with them in this
upper chamber, I have felt on intimate terms
with Kings and heroes, a man as good as they —
aye, my sense of living tells me, better than they !
There is not the separation, as from those who
lie below, by all the majesty of Death, and the
funeral trappings, carving piled upon carving,
richness upon richness, about those whom n.en
term illustrious, by which vain mortals strive in
a pitiful effort to conceal that Death is the
common leveller —

" The glories of our blood and state

Are shadows, not substantial things ;
There is no armour against Fate ;
Death lays his icy hand on Kings :

196 UNKNOWN LONDON

Sceptre and crown

Must tumble down
And in the dust be equal made
With the poor crooked scythe and spade."

That is the message which every dim arcade and
chapel in our glorious Abbey gives.

These wax figures are men and women, not
heroes really, as like the living presentment as
their framers could make them, as they lived,
walked and talked ; a little stiff no doubt, but
not with the stiffness of those recumbent effigies
in colder marble and bronze that lie upon the
tombs. Was ever there a more kindly figure of
King Charles II. than this in wax in the Islip
Chapel ? — a little bibulous, perhaps ; the nose
has appeared to me not quite kind, or is it merely
the effects of time darkening the soft substance
of which it is composed ? He holds his arms
and disjointed fingers as if suffering internal
pain, to which the full eyes seek to give expression,
that homely pain which monarchs who have
dined not wisely but too well share with lesser
folk. No formal sovereignty is limned here ;
the lined face, the somewhat ridiculous wig,
give only the man. I would take Charles II.,
given the choice, in preference over all the other
company of wax.

Queen Elizabeth I do not covet. She lies

197

gloriously in marble, a Sovereign and a Tudor,
recumbent in that great canopied cenotaph
which James I. placed in King Henry VI I. 's
Chapel to her memory, a companion tomb to
that in the opposite ambulatory to Mary Queen
of Scots : the one woman his mother, the other
her executioner, both memorials raised by the
same hand. Was ever before a son so placed to
fulfil such a task ? Elizabeth in wax is posed
as the Queen, a stout, matronly figure, over-
dressed in a raiment of gorgeous needlework
and lace, over-loaded with mock jewels. Wax
does not lend itself to the similitude of majesty.
And she could be masterful. Listen to her,
talking to the stout yeomen gathering in harness
at Tilbury : "I know I have but the body of a
weak and feeble woman ; but I have the heart
of a King, and a King of England too ! " There
is the Tudor ring. This effigy is preposterous,
not human.

The orb held in one hand and the sceptre in
the other are merely the showman's additions
to an unsatisfying figure. Better than this is
Nelson, so gaunt and frail, for at least it is
unpretentious. The Admiral is dressed in blue
coat with a mass of gold lace and curious flat
buttons, white kerseymere breeches and silk
stockings, and huge cocked hat overshadowing

ig8 UNKNOWN LONDON

the pale face, all, save the coat, being clothes
that he actually wore — a little, dapper gentleman.
Has it struck you how strangely untrue is Nelson,
the exemplar of them all, to the type of the
British sailor, so hearty, bluff, and weathered ?

The image of Elizabeth, oldest of this company,
was contemporary, for it has mention in King
James I.'s reign, when on King Christianus of
Denmark coming to the Abbey it was beautified,
amended, and adorned with Royal vestments.
Little of the original remains in the present
figure, save perhaps the face, which may be from
the authentic death mask. Being worn out
in the eighteenth century, " with the remnants
of an old dirty ruff, and nothing else to cover
her " — fie ! and for such a Queen ! — the figure
was remade in 1760 by order of the Chapter, to
commemorate the bicentenary of the foundation
by Elizabeth of the Collegiate Church of West-
minster. The wax effigy of Charles II. used to
stand over his now unadorned grave in Henry
VII. 's magnificent chapel. Others of Royal
lineage are William III. and Mary, a couple
much admired in less critical days than these,
and buxom, homely Queen Anne.

Catherine Duchess of Buckinghamshire, proud
of her Royal descent as a natural daughter of
James II., makes a notable wax figure, and one

WAXWORKS IN THE ABBEY 199

must believe that it was the subject of her personal
care. The dying Duchess, a poor desolate soul,
who had outlived her husband and all her children,
displayed quite remarkable interest in her own
funeral preparations. She sent for Garter King-
at-Arns to come to the death-bed, and " feared
dying before the pomp should come home."
" Why,1' she asked peevishly, " don't they send
the canopy for me to see ? Let them send it,,
though all the tassels are not finished." She
made her ladies vow to her that, if she should
lie senseless, they would not sit down in her
presence before she was dead. What great
to-do over so commonplace a thing as a passing !

Artistically, the prettiest of the waxworks is
that of her son, the young Duke, who is shown
recumbent, as the body was brought from Rome.

The Duchess of Richmond (died 1702) ar-
ranged for her waxwork in her will. It was to
stand " at the corner of the great east window,"
to be " as well done in wax as could be," dressed
in the robes and coronet that she wore at the
Coronation of Queen Anne, and to be " under
clear crown glass and none other." A Mr Gold-
smith, of London, was the artist. The imperious
lady also directed in her testament that her
favourite parrot should accompany the figure,
as it is shown. These and Lord Chatham in

200 UNKNOWN LONDON

scarlet robes, and the mere blocks of some other
Kings and Queens upon which no ornament
remains, complete the company of the " Ragged
Regiment," as it has been termed.

These figures at Westminster are mostly the
" living effigies " made for the funerals, but not
the two of most recent date. Chatham, added
in 1779, when the custom of bearing effigies
had ceased to be observed, owes his appearance
among the wax group to the desire of the Minor
Canons and Lay Vicars, who eked out their
scanty incomes by the fees paid by visitors,
to make the show more attractive. The great
statesman proved such a draw that the charge
for admission was raised from threepence to
sixpence. Dean Stanley, to whose Memorials
I am a debtor, quotes the laudatory notice of a
guide book of the year 1783. " Lately intro-
duced (it says) at a considerable expense. The
eagerness of connoisseurs and artists to see this
figure, and the satisfaction it affords, justly
places it among the first of the kind ever seen in
this or any other country."

Nelson's introduction is still more remarkable,
for, unlike the first Pitt, he does not lie in the
Abbey. St Paul's holds the bones of that in-
comparable sailor, and to Wren's Cathedral his
coffin was borne through the streets of London

WAXWORKS IN THE ABBEY 201

on a great funeral car, which afterwards was
deposited there. Sightseers flocked in thousansd
to see it, deserting Westminster, to the monetary
loss of the officials of the Abbey. They met
the competition by setting up this wax figure of
the naval hero. It is said to have been the
speculation of the vergers, whose enterprise was
justified by results, for the crowds returned.
The show was not seemly, but, after all, the
vergers might have retorted that they did only
as their predecessors had done, for in mediaeval
London there was competition not less lively in
the rival attractions of the sacred relics of
St Paul's and Westminster.

XV

A LOST INVENTION

THIS is a mere trifle of flotsam picked
up on the broad ocean of our history.
The incident, dismissed lightly as of
no importance, very likely was forgotten in the
lives of those whom it concerned, who are long
since dead : the world knew nothing of it, and
it was likely to have remained unknown but
for the fact that the papers chanced to be pre-
served among the muniments at Montagu House,
the great London mansion of the Dukes of
Buccleuch. There was a secret well kept, and
now lost for ever. The brief story will introduce
men whom the world counted great, not in their
greatness, but in moments when they were mean
and petty : King Charles II., back from exile
a few years, enjoying his popularity with his
subjects and the exercise of regal power so long
denied to him, but craftily suspicious, uncertain
whom to trust ; Henry Benet Lord Arlington,
his Secretary of State ; Sir Samuel Morland —
the last filling a lesser space in the eyes of his

A LOST INVENTION 203

contemporaries, but the second, if not actually
the first, inventive mind of his day.

The Great Fire of London broke out at two
o'clock on the morning of Sunday, the 2nd
September 1666, blazing up in the darkness
amidst dry timber-built houses at Pudding Lane,
by London Bridge. A high wind drove the
flames forward, and sweeping along the riverside
they had reached Dowgate by nightfall. In
Cloak Lane, which still you may find off Dowgate
Hill, was the General Post Office for the mails.
Sir Philip Frowde was at the time manager for
the lessee, Katharine Countess of Chesterfield,
who formed the posts under a monopoly which
gave the profits to the King's brother, the Duke
of York, and his heirs. Frowde and his lady
anxiously watched the Fire bearing towards
them, and at midnight, when the peril had
become grave, they fled for safety. The acting
postmaster, James Hickes, was no stranger to
horrors. At hazard of life he had remained in
London throughout the previous year's Great
Plague, keeping the letter office open and at-
tending to its business, when neighbours were
dying all around, and the red cross and that
tragic appeal, " Lord, have mercy on us ! " were
chalked on many citizens' doors.

He stayed himself this night of the Fire till

204 UNKNOWN LONDON

one o'clock. Such was then the alarm of his
wife and children that they would stay no
longer, fearful lest the flames should entirely cut
off their escape. With difficulty, and no little
danger in the burning streets, Hickes managed
to reach an inn bearing the sign of the Golden
Lion in Red Cross Street, outside Cripplegate,
where he temporarily re-established the post-
house. He saved such packets as he could
hastily remove, and forwarded to Williamson,
Lord Arlington's secretary, the letters of State
received by the Chester and Irish mails, with a
despairing note, " that he knows not how to
dispose of the business." He left behind that
the thought of which must have caused him
many a twinge of conscience, and many wakeful
half-hours in those terrible nights, lighted like
noon-day and noisy with the crackling and fall
of houses, during which London continued to
burn. Sir Philip Frowde, too, knew what it was.

Left behind to the flames if fortuitously they
should reach it first, or to the hand of any
marauder who might break into the untenanted
post-house before the Fire wholly consumed it,
was a complete secret apparatus for tampering
with, copying, and forging letters in the interests
of the State.

This was the device of Samuel Morland, a

A LOST INVENTION 205

man whose extraordinary ingenuity would have
brought him immense fortune had he lived in
an age when the adoption of the mechanical
arts to commercial uses was better rewarded.
A calculating machine, the drum capstan for up-
winding heavy ships' anchors, the gland and
stuffing box of the plunger pump, the speaking
trumpet, and practical water-raising contriv-
ances— all were his, the product of his resourceful
brain. Like the late Member of Parliament of
our own acquaintance who invented the safety
lucifer match, and omitted to patent it, he missed
his opportunity, but that was his misfortune,
to be in advance of his time. He was made, late
in life, Magister Mechanicorum by the King.
The philosopher's reputation and trustworthiness
were not untarnished, for he had sought to serve
two masters. Pepys has drawn him as a lonely
figure in a great company assembled on the
Fleet to await Charles's embarkation for England :
" Mr Morland, now Sir Samuel, was here on
board, but I do not find that my Lord l or any-
body did give him any respect, he being looked
upon by him and all men as a knave." He
had, with Isaac Dorislaus the younger, during
Cromwell's government been one of the Board

1 Edward Montague, Earl of Sandwich. In Pepys's Diary,
as his chief, he is always styled " My Lord."

206 UNKNOWN LONDON

of Examiners of the Post Office, by whom any
suspicious letters directed abroad were opened
and read. Also, he had kept up secret com-
munications with Charles in France. Cromwell,
served by many others whose infidelity was yet
blacker than the inventor's, of course knew
nothing of this.

Morland had been Secretary Thurloe's own
secretary. A dramatic incident in his career
of duplicity, as told by Welwood in his Memoirs,
reads much like an excerpt from the Arabian
Nights, and little like the truth. This was his
eavesdropping at the plot (so called by Royalists)
to induce Charles II. and his brother to effect
a landing on the Sussex coast, under pretence
of meeting many adherents, and to put them
both to death the moment they disembarked.
Cromwell, Thurloe, and Sir Richard Willis met
to scheme at Thurloe's office, and the conver-
sation was overheard by Morland, who pretended
to be asleep at his desk. On discovering
Morland's presence there Cromwell drew his
poignard, and would have killed him on the
spot but for Thurloe's solemn assurance that
his secretary had sat up two nights in succession,
and was certainly fast asleep. Morland is said
to have betrayed Willis, the originator of the
plot. His reward was one of the first knight-

A LOST INVENTION 207

hoods bestowed by Charles at his Restoration.
Pepys, I have said, held him to be " a knave " ;
later, they had a chance meeting at the Privy
Seal office, whence Morland had come with two
baronets' grants given to him by the King to
make money out of, " all which," says the worldly-
minded diarist, " do make me begin to think he
is not so much of a fool as I took him to be."

But I am losing the story in recalling the actors.
The Stuart letter-writer knew nothing of en-
velopes. The written letter was penned upon
one side of a large sheet of paper, then the sheet
was folded, addressed on the back, and sealed
with wax or wafer — a good method, for the
convenience of which all who have had the
handling of large numbers of old documents
are profoundly grateful. It had, of course, the
disadvantage that with a little expert mani-
pulation of seal and wafer the contents were soon
at the disposal of prying eyes. The Spaniards,
masters of intrigue, had a way of so sealing up
letters that it was said to be utterly impossible
to open them without discovery being made.
Lord Arlington, having heard of Morland's
proficiency in tricks of the kind, brought the
method to the King's notice. Morland, by way
of experiment, and to show his powers, induced
Arlington to go alone into a private room, there

208 UNKNOWN LONDON

write ten or twelve lines, fold and seal the paper
in the Spanish manner, and leave the document
with the inventor.

A day or two later he waited upon Arlington,
and gave him first a copy of what he had so
penned and sealed, then put into his hand his
own sealed letter. Arlington examined both and
opened them with all care imaginable, afterwards
confessing that he could not tell which was his
own handwriting. " He immediately left me,"
Morland records, " being not a little surprised,
and acquainted the King with what had happ-
ened, and showed him all the papers."

Charles's curiosity was aroused, and his love
of devious methods led him to desire to know
more. The flagrant dishonesty of the thing must
be condoned if all be fair in love, war and
statecraft. A demonstration was first arranged
at the Secretary's office, at an hour when all
the clerks and messengers had left for the day.
Models of the apparatus were shown and ex-
plained, and the whole process was gone through
under the King's eyes, " with which his Majesty "
— so Morland writes — " was so well pleased that
he sent for the Postmaster-General, and ordered
him to prepare two rooms at the General Post
Office to put these things in real practice, which
three months after was done."

A LOST INVENTION 209

The King came down again to witness a
second demonstration, when all went well. The
circumstances were highly dramatic. A private
gentleman's coach drove into Whitehall. Late
at night, between ten and eleven o'clock, the
King entered it. With him was Lord Arlington,
the State Secretary, and one other. Together
they rode unnoticed into the City, to the General
Post Office. There, in the shuttered and con-
cealed rooms, they witnessed the forgers at
work, and stayed nearly three hours — almost
till dawn was in the skies — seeing with admira-
tion and very great satisfaction, so the unblushing
Morland declares, the various operations, which
were : —

1. Opening with great care and expedition all
manner of seals, both wafer and wax, and again
sealing the letters up so that the most curious
eye could not discover that they had been
tampered with.

2. Counterfeiting all sorts of seals, giving as
sharp impressions as with the original seals,
both in wafer and wax.

3. Counterfeiting all manner of writing, so as
to make it impossible for any person to know
or distinguish his own handwriting.

4. Rapid and exact copying of any writing,
even when a whole sheet of paper was closely

o

210 UNKNOWN LONDON

written upon both sides, for which little more
time than one minute was required, and so pro-
portionately for any number of sheets.

A fine night's work for a King ! Morland, I
fear a sad scoundrel, no doubt was dead to those
feelings common to all normally constituted
beings, which make them regard a forger as a
loathsome and despicable creature ; but it would
be interesting could we read Charles's unquiet
thoughts as he drove away.

The King was well satisfied. All these
black arts were thereafter, by Royal command,
practised at the General Post Office, " with
great advantage to the Crown," until by the
Postmaster's negligence, when he fled before
the advancing Fire during the night of the
2nd September 1666, the machines and utensils
employed were left behind and destroyed by
the flames.

Years passed by. Morland, grown old and
always needy — large monies he had received,
but they slipped through his fingers — desired,
for his own profit, that the tampering and forgery
should be restored, and he set out in a petition
to Lord Shaftesbury, then Secretary of State,
the great advantages that would accrue to the
King thereby ; that he would, by frequent in-
spection of letters when the practice was un-

A LOST INVENTION 211

suspected, come to know the temper of all his
principal and active subjects throughout his
dominions ; that where treason was suspected,
it would be easy to make a disaffected subject
and his accomplices correspond by copies only,
and to keep the originals till their designs were
ripe for discovery and conviction. " And this
person," says Morland, the tempter, " may
sometimes happen to be a favourite, or a Privy
Councillor, or a great military officer, and nearly
concern the Prince's life and government."
Furthermore, the devices of Ambassadors and
Foreign Ministers would be thwarted. Those
people were always careful to send their de-
spatches of consequence as late as possible to the
General Post Office, so that no time was available
for spying into their contents. But by the
wonderful process exact copies, even of ten of
twelve written sheets, could be made in as many
minutes.

Machiavelli himself gave no more Satanic
counsel to his Prince. But the old order had
changed, swept away in a night — the night
during which Charles had lain such an un-
conscionable time in dying. One recalls that
tremendous indictment that John Evelyn wrote
in his Diary : "I can never forget the in-
expressible luxury and profane-ness, gaming, and

212 UNKNOWN LONDON

all dissoluteness, and as it were total forgetful-
ness of God (it being Sunday evening) which
this day se'nnight I was witness of, the King
sitting and toying with his concubines, Portsmouth,
Cleveland, and Mazarin, etc., a French boy
singing love-songs, in that glorious gallery,
whilst about twenty of the great courtiers and
other dissolute persons were at basset round a
large table, a bank of at least £2000 in gold
before them ; upon which two gentlemen who
were with me made reflections with astonish-
ment. Six days after was all in the dust."

A cautious and stolid Dutchman, William of
Orange, sat on the British throne. He refused
his consent. There is a note at the end
of Morland's petition in Shaftesbury's hand :
" The King made a very honourable answer, that
Sir Sam should be considered, but he thought
that the secret ought to die with him, as too
dangerous to be encouraged." And so far as I
know, and so far as is known at St Martin's-le-
Grand, the secret died with him, and no doubt it
is well.

XVI

JOHN ALLIN, minister of the Gospel and
student of medicine, wrote these letters
in 1665, when London was sick and dying
of the Great Plague. Fires, like funeral pyres,
were kept burning in the streets, adding a foul
smoke to so much other foulness. The streets
were mostly empty, for few people ventured into
them, and then furtively, suspicious of every
passer-by. Once the citizen was out of doors
on some needful errand, his fears were made
plain by his progress, corkscrew fashion, as he
crossed and recrossed the road times out of
number. This to avoid even a meeting on the
same side with some other person approaching.

Human beings are by nature neighbourly.
The isolation among them born of this awful
visitation ; the dread of contact with one's own
kind, as with a leper ; the hideous selfishness of
the time, self centred wholly on maintaining
one's own existence — these were as horrible as

214 UNKNOWN LONDON

were the ghastlier tokens of death striking down
men a thousand daily.

London was a city of prisons, the locked and
guarded dwellings of citizens into which Plague
had entered. A watcher stood before each door,
ready to fetch the bare necessities for sustaining
life for the stricken prisoners within, but never
loosening the bolts. He took his instructions
from a safe distance — from a casement window
thrown open above. On door after door was
marked with chalk a red cross, and the plaintive
words, " Lord, have mercy upon us ! "

There were doors in these spectre-haunted
streets which never opened till the dead cart
came on its round, and the bodies — those of a
whole family — were brought out and uncere-
moniously added to the heap already collected ;
then the cart trundled away for the pit. There
was no time for ceremony, nor, with death so
common an occurrence, the mood for it. Over
the city was a strange, uncanny silence, broken
only by the dirge of the church bells.

Traffic had disappeared from the streets, and
by withdrawing accentuated the city's apparent
emptiness — a big city even in 1665, with all its
activities suddenly stopped. Shops were closed.
A goodly part of the population had fled. There
was not even conversation, the pleasant sound of

LETTERS FROM LONDON 215

human voices. London had become a tomb of
the living and the dead. Its one great artery
of communication and of commerce, the River
Thames, had the same oppressive quietness as
prevailed among the buildings, the boatmen
having moved upstream, taking wives and
children with them away from the infection.

Londoners heard with a distinctness that was
arresting the rush of the rapids between the
starlings and piers of Old London Bridge.

John Allin had mentioned in his letters— they
deal with many topics — that severe winter frost,
starting about Christmas, 1664, had continued
almost without a break till April. Then on
the 27th April he gives casually in a sentence,
as if of little importance, the first indication of
all that was to follow : " I heard yesterday there
are 2 houses shut up in Drury Lane for the
sickness."

He wrote much ; the packets number in all
one hundred and ninety letters, extending over
ten years. Something impelled him to write,
and frequently, when the Plague was raging at
its worst, probably a longing for human inter-
course and sympathy, even though he knew —
people are brutally frank at such times — that
his letters were received with dread, lest con-
tagion should be carried on the written sheet.

2i6 UNKNOWN LONDON

" Surely if my friends be afrayd of my letters I
would not be afrayd of theirs," he writes in one,
half reproachfully, out of his solitude.

John Allin was a parson, ministering at the
quaint old Cinque Port town of Rye, till in 1662
the Conformity Act put the problem of conscience
nakedly before him. Could he serve God and
do what man required of him ? He decided that
he could not, and his name has honourable place
on the roll of those many hundreds of devout
and brave Churchmen who went out into the
wilderness at the Great Ejectment. His journey
ings brought him to London, and there he took
up the study of medicine. He addressed his
letters, which are still preserved, to two friends
he had left behind at Rye, Philip Fryth, a solicitor,
and Samuel Jeake, the historian of the Cinque
Ports ; and they reveal a somewhat surprising
personality — surprising, that is, to us at this
day, though no doubt common enough two and
a half centuries ago. For John Allin, priest of
the Anglican Church, a man of education, pro-
bably trained at college — a lettered man — held
strange beliefs. At night he looked out upon
the stars, intent on divining from them the
decisions of Fate ; he dabbled in alchemy, with
something of the unbeaten faith of the old
searchers after the secret of the transmutation

LETTERS FROM LONDON 217

of metals ; and his astrology and alchemy mixed
together in a curious potage with those medical
studies by which he hoped to give benefit to
suffering humanity.

He writes no connected narrative of the Plague.
In certain letters, especially when the infection
came nearest to his home, the absorbing topic
occupied all his attention, but at times the
mention is most casual, merely the number of
deaths in London for the week recorded in the
published bills of mortality. The reader often is
annoyed at omissions of what might have been
told ; but there is enough, remembering that
these are original letters by a man who lived
through the Plague. The world knows that time
of horror only from Defoe's Journal of the Plague
Year, a work that owes its apparent authenticity
to the author's art alone, assisted by copious
quotations from printed and manuscript records
at his hand. Much unprofitable ingenuity has
been spent in seeking to establish that " H.F.,"
the reputed writer of the Journal, was Defoe's
uncle, Henry Foe. The book was given to the
world as fiction. Allin is worth attention as
fact.

" May 26. — Ye sicknesse is said to encrease in
Holland, as it also doth here ; ye bill mentioned
3 last weeke and 14 this weeke, but its rather

2i8 UNKNOWN LONDON

beleived to bee treble the number. At ye
upper end of the towne persons high and low are
very fearfull of it, and many removed ; one
house, if not two, are lately shut in Chancery
Lane, and one about Cripplegate."

" June 26. — I heare ye generall bill this week
wilbee about 2500. I thank God I goe about
my buisnes without any slavish feare of it ; yet
my body too apt for such a disease, which
proves very mortal where it comes ; many whole
familyes of 7, 8, 9, 10, 18 in family totally swept
away. I thinke there is no fleeing from God's
hand, and truely this sicknes so highly pesti-
lential in some places speakes it to be more a
judgment than anything else, and true repentance
is the best antidote, and pardon of sin the best
cordiall."

July gave fearful indication of the terrors of
Plague, the deaths attributed to it that month
having numbered 4119, but there was to be a
startling leap up from these figures. On the
nth August Allin writes to Fryth, who evidently
had suggested his flight from London —

" I shall not thinke myself e safer there [at
Rye] than here, whilest my call is to stay here ;
yet I am troubled at the approach of the sicknesse
neerer every weeke, and at a new burying place
which they have made neere us, and with some

LETTERS FROM LONDON zig

piece of indiscretion used in not shutting up, but
rather makeing great funeralls for such as dye
of the distemper ; which yet I thinke God will
not putt an end to till sin be left and suppressed
more than it is : but God seems to pursue a
designe which doubtlesse Hee will efect before
Hee hath done 4030 in all ; 2817 Plague."

" August 18. — 5319 this weekes bill in generall.
Mr Symond Porter, Mr Millers brother-in-law,
dyed last Tuesday : I am afrayd to write to
Mr Miller of it, lest he should bee afrayd of my
letter ; but pray let him know of his brother's
death."

"Aug. 24. — I am, through mercy, yet well in
middest of death, and that, too, approaching
neerer and neerer : not many doores off, and the
pitt open dayly within view of my chamber
window. The Lord fitt mee and all of us for our
last end 1 Here are many who weare amulets made
of the poison of the toad, which if there be no
infection workes nothing, but upon any infection
invadeing from time to time, raise a blister,
which a plaister heales, and so they are well :
perhaps I may by ye next get the true prepara-
tion of it, and sent it to you. ... I saw this
day some prima mater ia in our streets."

Let us not, presuming on the fuller knowledge
that now is common property, call the honest

220 UNKNOWN LONDON

man " quack." The ex- Vicar of Rye, a scoffer,
as above made plain, at simple folk who placed
their faith in the toad amulet, was himself an
earnest seeker after the true elixir that should
conquer the Plague. On the essential merit of
cleanliness, sanitation, fresh air, purity in food
and water, he, in common with medical men of
his age, had no enlightenment. His mind con-
fused with alchemy and astrology, he believed
the cure would be found in an extract from the
little plant growth best known as Ccelifolium.
It fell from heaven in the night was once the
popular belief. The plant, which is indicated
so often in these letters by the general term
" Materia prima," was the Tremella Nostock
(Linn.). It appears in summer after rain on
sandy and parched soils, is agitated with a
tremulous motion when fresh, and is so frail
that gatherers must be out before sunrise ; once
heated by the sun's rays it dries and shrivels up,
and nothing remains except some membranes
brownish in colour. Distilled, the plant yields
a dark, foetid oil, believed by the alchemists to
contain the universal spirit, which, when ex-
tracted pure, would be the solvent of gold so
long sought after.

Allin employed a man to gather the plant for
him, and moreover pestered his correspondents

LETTERS FROM LONDON 221

for supplies. In the true spirit of the scientific
enquirer he asks also for " the moss that grows
on dead men's sculls and bones," instancing a
certain churchyard at Winchilsea where it might
be found. That churchyard can have been kept
with little reverence.

He resumes the story of a stricken London in
his weekly letters of the 2gth August. Meantime
much had happened. The troops had been
moved into Hyde Park. The Court of Charles II.
had gone first to Hampton Court, and thence to
Salisbury, but on the appearance of Plague in
that cathedral city fled precipitately to Oxford,
whither the Michaelmas law term was ordered
to be taken, and a Royal Proclamation was
issued directing Parliament to meet there.

" Aug. 29. — Ye sicknes here is very much in-
creased : this weeke I feare ye bill wilbee neere
double the former ; and truely I know not how
to thinke it should lessen, when as the greatest
thing done to stop it, vizt. takeing ye phanatickes
out of their owne houses, and sometimes caught
meeting and carrying them to infected prisons,
of which we have none free, wilbee found in the
end to heighten it, though its said one major
of ye soldjers hath threatned by that meanes
quickly to drive that plague away : — remember
that there wilbee little prima materia found after

222 UNKNOWN LONDON

a rainy, but most in a dry night after a rainy
day or weather, the wind south-west."

That month of August 20,046 persons had
died in London.

" Sept. 2. — Ye sicknesse encreased very much
last bill, vizt. 1928 increase ; ye total 7496 ;
of ye Plague 6102. Since that bill I have
not particularly heard anything whither still in-
creasing or not, but feare, by the dolefull
and almost universall and continuall ringing and
tolling of bells it doth increase. I am sure it
approacheth to mee, I meane my concernment :
for it hath pleased God to take from mee the
best friend I have in ye world, and one wherein
my children [he had three] stood as much con-
cerned as in myself with reference to what they
should have expected from the relations of my
wife : it is my brother, Peter Smith, who was
abroad on Lord's day last, in the morning ; to-
wards evening a little ill, then tooke somethinge to
sweate, which that night brought forth a stiffness
under his eare, where he had a swelling that could
not be brought to rise and breake, but choacked
him ; he dyed Thursday night last. I blesse
God I am well, was not with my brother after
we see what it would bee, as little else upon every
distemper here can be expected : it is a greate
mercy now counted to dye of another disease."

LETTERS FROM LONDON 223

" Sept. 7 (to Fryth). — The increasing sicke-
ness hath now drawne very nigh mee, and God
knoweth whither I may write ony more or no ;
it is at the next doore on both hands of mee, and
under the same roofe ; but I have no place of
retireing, neither in the city nor country ; none
in heaven nor earth to go unto but God onely ;
the Lord lodge mee in the bosom of his love, and
then I shall be safe whatever betides. ... If
I live I hope to have some materia prima from
you ; if you could inclose a little dust in a letter
I shall be glad to receive it (figures this week
8252, of Plague 6978). It is truely still in-
creasing. These 3 dayes hath bene sea cole
fyres made in the streetes about every I2th doore,
but that will not do ye worke of stopping God's
hand; nothing but repentance will do that, of
which no signe yett, but oppressions, and yett
increasing."

With increasing heat and continued drought,
the Plague grew in virulence in the first weeks
of September, and the deaths scaled ever higher.
Not a cloud drifted across the blue sky, and the
sun scorched down upon the fever-stricken city.
Rain fell at last on the I5th of the month, putting
out the fires in the streets and bringing new life
to the parched grass that had grown up un-
checked between the stones. The temperature

224 UNKNOWN LONDON

fell, and the bills began to show a decline, but
September, by reason of the vast mortality with
which it was ushered in, has the worst record of
the Plague year. Allin at this time tells the
facts of a medical investigation and its frightful
sequel —

" Sept. 14. — This sicknes, though more dye,
because more are infected, yet, thankes bee to God
is not so mortall as at the first, for more recover
of it now than formerly. If we knew how to
trust the bills it is decreased in the generall.
The generall bill is 7690 buryed this weeke,
whereof of the Plague 6544. . . . Our friend
Dr Starkey is dead of this visitation, with about
6 more of them chymicall practitioners, who in
an insulting way over other Galenists, and in a
sorte over this visitation sickness, which is more
a judgment than a disease, because they could
not resist it by their Galenical medicines, which
they were too confident that their chymical
medicines could doe, they would give money for
the most infected body they could heare of to
dissect, which they had, and opened to search
the seate of this disease, etc. ; upon ye opening
whereof a stinch ascended from the body, and
infected them every one, and it is said they are
all dead since, the most of them distractedly
madd, whereof G. Starkey is one. I heare also

LETTERS FROM LONDON 225

that above 7 score doctors, apothecarys and

surgeons are dead of this distemper in and about

ye City since this visitation. God is resolved to

staine the pride of all glory ; there is no boasting

before Him, and much lesse against Him."

Again a week later he writes to Jeake —

" Sept. 20. — It is somewhat refreshing to mee

to thinke you are yet willing to receive a line

from mee. It was an afliction to mee that I

knew not to whom I might send a letter with

acceptance (except Mr Fryth onely). I am

afrayd that some of my friends there are this day

too much afrayd where no feare need to bee,

for were my penn infectious my hand would

soone let it drop. Gracious Mr Cobb (one whom

God sometimes imployed in the worke of com-

forteing and supporting others in this darke and

gloomy day of the Lorde) who yet fell by this

sickness, and last Lord's Day entered into his

father's bosomme. . . . Clouds are gathering

thicker and thicker, and I thinke veryly the day

of the Lorde will yet prove more blacker.

Whither the Lord will make good that word

spoken by a child here concerning the increase

of ye Plague, till 18,317 dye in a weeke (which

all endeavours are used to conceale) though

still goeth on in reality to increase it : and that

word too of a yeares time of greate and sad

226 UNKNOWN LONDON

persecution, spoken by ye same mouth after
death had once cooled it in this visitation, time
will show."

Did ever the brain of Edgar Allan Poe yield
anything quite so morbid as the doctor's story
just told ? Even more gruesome, badly phrased
as it is, is this of the child, stricken dead with
Plague, yet after death prophesying by word
of mouth another year of great and sad per-
secution before the Plague should be lifted from
the city. Distraught minds gave willing belief
to the most incredible things. The public de-
sired marvels. A blazing star had appeared in
the skies, visible till daylight, a month before
the Plague struck London. Mr Secretary Morris's
cistern of water turned into blood during a night.
Lilly, the popular astrologer, soothsayer and
charlatan had an eager audience for his almanacs
and writings. Allin's next letter to his friends,
after two days' interval, reports the week's
deaths in London to have been 8297, of Plague
7165 ; and on the 27th September he writes —

" I am where ye Lord hath hitherto, amidst
100 dyeing weekely, preserved me, and yet
through mercy am in health, the Lord be praysed.
The Lord hath decreased this week's bill 1837 :
there dyeing this weeke but 6460 : Plague 5533 :
and in our parish there was 50 decreased ; but

LETTERS FROM LONDON 227

it is still very hot near me : I fear it will increase
with you. If you send any prima materia in a
glasse I pray cover it over with paper, and
double seale it that nothing of it bee scene."

The worst was over. In September Plague
had claimed in London 26,230 victims so attri-
buted, and probably by far the larger proportion
of others whose deaths were accounted for by
various causes in the bills of mortality. Safe
himself, Allin imparted to Fryth, at Rye, the
precautionary measure to which, in part at least,
he attributed his own immunity. " Freind (he
writes) get a piece of angellgold, if you can of
Eliz. coine (that is ye best) which is phylo-
sophicall gold, and keepe it airways in your mouth
when you walke out or any sicke persons come to
you : you will find strange effects of it for good
in freedome of breathing, etc., as I have done ;
if you lye with it in your mouth without your
teeth, as I doe, vizt. in one side betweene your
cheke and gumms, and so turning it sometimes
on one side, sometimes on ye other."

Thereafter the references to the Plague are
shorter —

" October 7. — The sicknes is now very hot at
the next house to us one way, but hath beene
neerer, though none of our family hath been ill
at all yet, through mercy. What with some

228 UNKNOWN LONDON

imployment on Lord's dayes, at other dayes
sometimes, in this scarcity of ministers (many
being dead, though more fled) I am streightened
in time. At Yarmouth, Colchester, Ipswich
the sicknes is very much, and now pretty much
at Norwich ; Southampton is reported to bee
allmost depopulated."

" Oct. 19. — Wee have had this weeke, God be
praysed ! a very mercifull abatement of ye bill
of mortality, vizt. 1849 decreased this weeke ; ye
whole bill being 3219, whereof Plague 2665, but
yet it doth creepe into fresh houses still. Ye Lord
fitt mee for what his good will and pleasure is."

The long trial had told upon Allin. " My
head aketh at ye present," he writes in his
first letter of November. Again he repeats the
prayer, " Ye Lord fitt mee for what hee intends
towards me."

He looked at night into the vault of the heavens
to read his fate. The portents boded ill. It
is pitiable to realize from the next letter that the
man who had lived so long in daily and intimate
contact with the facts of life and death, in ex-
treme peril himself, at the end of it all found no
peace, but must needs worry his wracked nerves
with vain imaginings about the malign influences
of the stars. His mind remained simple. Allin
clearly was a fatalist, but with faith undiminished

LETTERS FROM LONDON 229

— the faith he held while thousands were dying
around him, and weary months passed in his
unfruitful researches, in the efficacy of the little
plant if only its secret should be vouchsafed
to him.

" November 8. — Through mercy I am yet
very well, though never without dayly feares,
and truly not without cause, if I either consider
the will of myne own hearte, or yet if there be
any truth in ye language of the starrs, for Mars
is comeing to my ascendant in my nativity,
which was there lord of the eighth ; and in my
revolution this yeare Lord of the Asc ; and in
his course of progress and regradation he will
continue within the compasse of my ascendant
in my nativity till ist July next. . . . Send as
much prima materia as you can get gathered
in Scorpio, by itself ; if in Virgo, by itself."

" Nov. 14 (to Jeake). — It is yet dyeing time
with us, though the bill is hoped to have de-
creased this weeke."

" Nov. 16 (to Fryth). — You will see a little
decrease in this bill, but truly God seemes now
in divers familys to visit the 2nd time, after they
have beene all well 6 or 8 weekes ; and fresh
houses in divers places, besides whole familys,
swept away that have returned to ye City
allready."

230 UNKNOWN LONDON

" December 7. — Some fresh houses in divers
parishes are still visited, besides more of them
that come to towne, or are imployed in the
aireing of other's houses."

" Dec. 12. — Divers persons and familyes at
their returne home to the City have mett with
what they fled from, in so much that I feare and
heare this weekes bill hath an increase. I
heare there is a new blazing starr scene last
weeke, 4 or 5 nights together, about north-east."

" Dec. 14. — Ye sicknes is now agayne increasing,
as by ye totalls doth appeare, but yet is increased
in the sicknes 33, and wholly in the City ; divers
fresh houses, since the returne of fresh persons
hither, visited and swept."

" Dec. 26. — The totall of the generall bill this
year is, of all diseases 97,306 ; whereof the
Plague 68,596. The sicknesse, wee feare, is still
increasing this weeke agayne."

Next year the deaths in London from all
causes fell to 12,838, as few persons dying in a
month as had died in a day when the Great
Plague raged. If allowance be made for the
many thousands of those who fled from the
infection into the country, the toll of the Plague
cannot have been less than one person out of
every five who remained.

XVII

THE BELLS OF ST CLEMENT'S

OF late years the famous peal of bells of
St Clement Danes, in the Strand, has
been mute. The note of a single bell
you may hear when the hammer from the clock
strikes it, proclaiming the hour — that is all.
London people are not observant. Thousands
hurry by each working day into Fleet Street and
beyond, going in and out to business, a Cockney
throng streaked with a leaven of visitors from
fer distant quarters of the globe who have been
discharged at Charing Cross terminus, which
aptly has been described as one of the gates of
the world. Amid the rush of traffic and with the
noisy hum of the City all around them, probably
few have missed the clang of the bells. Up in
the belfry the long ropes dangle, untouched by
any hand.

Sorrowfully the Rector told me one day, as
we passed out under the dark tower, with its
embedded Norman pillars, into the blaze of
sunlight flooding the Strand, that he dare not

232 UNKNOWN LONDON

ring the peal for fear of bringing the bells down
upon the ringers' heads.

The reason thereof lies within and above.
The stout oaken frame which bears the immense
weight of all this swinging metal, that has vibrated
over the City these many centuries past with so
much melody, might seem to an unskilled eye
strong enough to resist anything short of the
crack of doom. But the plain fact is that the
constant swing of the bells has worked the frame
loose. Stout as it is, even more strength is
needed. Till a sum of about £300 is available
for fixing a new steel frame, the belfry must
remain silent.

St Clement's bells belong to no single parish,
not even to great London. They have rung for
untold centuries through the whole realm of
nurseryland, whose boundaries only the most
distant oceans encompass —

" ' Oranges and lemons/
Say the bells of St Clement's "

— who is there alive, with English blood in his
veins, who does not remember the rhyme since
earliest childhood ? And who wrote those lines ?
Someone has missed immortality by not leaving
us his name. No one even knows their date.
Loftier verse has been written than these jingles,
but what proportion of it will be so enduring ?

BELFRY TOWER OF ST. CLEMENT DANES, STRAND

THE BELLS OF ST CLEMENT'S 233

I am prone to suspect that they are Elizabethan,
a product of that great age of far greater poetry,
which has given us so many rhymes that live
in nursery literature. The catch sayings with
which our youngest hopefuls seek to entrap their
elders, forgetting that they themselves were once
children, are for the most part of still earlier date.
" How many cows' tails would it take to reach
the moon ? " " One — if it were long enough ! "
That is delightfully familiar ; but it has been
left to learned bibliophiles, greybeards with
strained eyes poring through gold-rimmed
spectacles over the earliest productions of the
English printing press, to discover that this little
quip was printed by Wynkyn de Worde, Caxton's
old assistant, in his Demaundes Joyous, a nursery
book issued from the sign of the Sunne in Fleet
Street in the year 1510. Four centuries have
not blunted its point, and still it is potent to
produce shouts of infantile laughter.

" ' Lend me five farthings/
Say the bells of St Martin's.

' When will you pay me ? '
Say the bells of Old Bailey.

' When I am rich,'

Say the bells of Shoreditch.

' When will that be ? '
Say the bells of Stepney."

234 UNKNOWN LONDON

St Martin's, the bells of Old Bailey, Shoreditch,
Stepney — they are all identified in their proper
names and places, and so is " the big^jbell of
Bow," Cheapside, which with its "I'm sure I
don't know " closes the animated conversation
between the London belfries, and the rhyme
goes off distractedly —

" Here comes a candle to light you to bed,
And here comes a chopper to chop off your head !
Chop, chop I "

Let a disturbing doubt — like unto the chopper
— be admitted. What have oranges and lemons,
most delectable of foreign fruit, to do with
St Clement Danes, unless it be to serve the
need of a somewhat halting rhyme ? The church
stands before Temple Bar, at the gateway of the
City of London. The association is by no means
obvious. St Clement's bells sent their message
over Drury Lane, which is within the parish, and
the orange girls of Drury Lane have their place
in the drama's history. Was not Sweet Nell of
Old Drury, most famous of all orange girls,
herself a King's favourite ? But to pierce the
mystery one must go deeper than such super-
ficial explanations. The solution was perhaps
found by the late Rev. J. Septimus Pennington,
whose long and devoted labours as Rector of
St Clement Danes will never be forgotten.

235

Clement's Inn, now modernized and let out for
offices and residences, was a lawyers' inn close
by, and there it was the custom at the New Year
for the servants to go to all the chambers, pre-
senting gifts of oranges and lemons to the tenants,
while from the church belfry there rang a joyous
peal. Still, the question remains whether the
custom was older than the rhyme, or took birth
from it, and as we do not know the date of the
latter I cannot undertake to sit in judgment.

Lawyers of note have been there. Justice
Shallow, you recall, was of Clement's Inn,
boasting — the braggart ! — that often he had
heard the chimes at midnight.

Another City church has claimed the rhyme
as its own. St Clement's Eastcheap stands not
far back from the river. Steamboats, trailing
long lines of smoke behind them, come up the
Thames, passing to the Pool under the raised
bascules of Tower Bridge, bringing golden
oranges, resplendent with the sunshine of Spain,
and lemons from Sicily ; and no sight is more
familiar at London Bridge than that of the files
of men, like loaded ants, carrying the heavy
boxes of fruit from ship to shore. But sentiment
will continue to associate the nursery lines with
St Clement Danes, because — if for no other
reason — by its unrivalled position it has become

236 UNKNOWN LONDON

one of the best known churches in all London.
Who will tell off-hand where St Clement East-
cheap, the least notable among Wren's company
of churches, even stands ?

Ten bells hang in the now silent belfry, a little
lone world to itself poised high within four walls,
undisturbed by anything which agitates the great
city below. If ever an owl sought a roosting
place wherein to blink and preen himself before
setting out on nocturnal flights over London,
here, I feel sure, he would be found. The tenor
bell, big brother of this musical family, weighs
24 cwt. Eight of the company were cast by
William and Philip Wightman in 1693, eleven
years after Sir Christopher Wren had raised the
present church. St Clement Danes, however,
is in origin one of the oldest churches in the
metropolis, the foundation taking us far back
into the mists of antiquity. There was an
Anglo-Saxon building at this spot when William
the Conqueror and his host landed near Hastings,
and the " Danes " in the name preserves memory
of the rule of still earlier alien kings.

St Clement Danes has long treasured the
possession of its Sanctus Bell, swung high up in
the belfry above the chimes. Such a bell is, of
course, a direct link with the early faith and days
before the Reformation. I feel some contrition

237

in referring to this matter at all, some regret in
performing an unpleasant task, but having
assured a society of archaeologists that this is an
original Sanctus Bell, it is now due from me,
with fuller information in possession, to say that
it is not. In earlier times the Saint's Bell played
a part of no mean importance in the ritual of the
Roman Catholic Church. At the point in the
service where the words occur,

" Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth,"

the Sanctus was rung, and sent its message over
the whole of the parish, that those who were in-
evitably absent through sickness or upon the bed
of death might humbly kneel or bow in supplica-
tion with their fellow worshippers within the church.
Many examples of the Sanctus Bell no doubt
survived the Reformation, and were hanging in
the belfries when the Great Fire of 1666 swept
through London, destroying in its path no fewer
than eighty-seven of the one hundred and nine
City churches. In that tremendous conflagration,
the bells, great and small, were melted into
shapeless masses of metal, or falling from great
heights shattered themselves into fragments.
St Clement Danes stood outside the area of the
Fire, which stopped in Fleet Street ; its bell
tower was safe. " Robertus Mot me fecit " is

238 UNKNOWN LONDON

moulded in the bell-metal in the pretty Gothic
letter, with a date. The question turns on the
date, the weathered figures of which have been
read 1538 and 1558. I climbed over the silent
peal, and up an iron ladder to the topmast
platform, leaving footprints in the dust of London
blown to this height, to get the testimony of
my own eyes, and left still undecided. Robert
Mot supplies the key. He was a bell-founder
in Whitechapel who was not trading in 1538,
but was so trading later that century. In
the year 1558 Elizabeth came to the English
throne,1 and I have imagined the bell sending out
its joyous sound for the first time in a peal
rung, after the darkest reign in our history, in
welcome of the Protestant Queen.

You may from the wide Strand catch just a
glimpse of the bell, high overhead, where through
the pierced tower the flag-staffs bear the weight
of streaming bunting on days of festival. Each
hour is struck upon it by the clock — a simple use.
The same note, silvery, clear and penetrating
that to-day it gives out must have been heard by

1 Yet to add other complications, Messrs Hears & Stain-
bank, the famous bell-founders who carry on to-day in
Whitechapel the business originally established by Robert
Mot, tell me that from their own examination they find the
bell was cast in 1588 ; and having climbed the tower again I
agree with them.

THE BELLS OF ST CLEMENT'S 239

Shakespeare, for it rang in Shakespeare's London ;
by Milton, when he lived in St Bride's Passage,
Fleet Street ; by the luckless Lovelace, dying
in poor lodgings in Gunpowder Alley ; by
Dr Johnson, who regularly attended worship at
this church, where his pew is marked by a tablet ;
by all those of the great dead whose ghosts flock
through Temple Bar. The clock strikes first on
the tenor bell, and then a moment later the note
is repeated on Mot's bell. The arrangement is
peculiar to St Clement Danes. Perchance the
old horologist who made this clock, wily in his
day, determined to give himself two chances of
accuracy in time-keeping.

A joyful peal from St Clement Danes belfry,
standing at the very gate of the City, has made
a greeting to every English Sovereign passing
through to his Coronation at Westminster or
returning to honour the City of London with a
visit. With the belfry mute, it seems as though
a bit of Old London's long history and tradition
had passed out of it. Wind in the high tower
sweeps across the bells ; their note is as true as
ever, but they hang listlessly, no one daring,
because of the shaking frame, to give a turn to
the wheels which would release all this melody.

Who will help the Rector to give back to
London " The Bells of St Clement's " ?

XVIII

A LONDON HOUSEHOLD OF A.D. 1337

LONDON has preserved its archives in an
unbroken series for a longer period,
probably, than any other city in the
world, and there is hardly an incident arising
in the lives of citizens long centuries back which
is not illustrated in one or other of the vast
accumulation of documents at Guildhall. I have
picked out two or three to tell from them the
brief life story of Hugh le Bevere. The tragedy
of it interests me less than the light which
the parchments throw upon the domestic sur-
roundings of a humble household close upon six
hundred years ago.

Hugh le Bevere might have been one of the
many skilled craftsmen of London, labouring
long hours at his trade while daylight lasted,
and bound to his gild and his master. What
that trade was — whether sporier, cutler, glover,
pelterer — I had small chance of telling, for he
figures only as " felon " ; but with such ex-
emplary completeness are the City records kept
940

A LONDON HOUSEHOLD 24!

that I was able to find a will, dated seven years
later, of another citizen to whom his tenement
passed, and therein Hugh is described as vintner.
He was living ten years after King Edward III.
had ascended the English throne — the year 1337
— in a house that stood in the ward of Candlewyck
Street, which now we call Cannon Street, within
the City's encircling wall.

Murder was done there. The neighbours,
breaking in, found the wife Alice lying stark
and dead upon the floor. A knife was flung into
the corner, and Hugh — he was childless, and
perhaps but recently married — crouched beside
the corpse. He would say nothing, nor would
he plead when indicted before the Coroner and
the Sheriffs, and why that crime was committed
and whether Hugh le Bevere was blood-guilty
none to this day can tell. The King's justiciars,
finding him still obdurate — " he refused the law
of England " — committed him to the gaol of
Newgate, there in penance to remain until he
should be dead.

Penance, as understood in mediaeval days,
was close and solitary confinement with an un-
varying and insufficient ration of bread and
water. Horrible enough, I grant, but it lacks
the revolting torture of the press-yard, intro-
duced in a later and what should have been a
Q

242 UNKNOWN LONDON

more refined age, when in that same gaol of
Newgate the practice was to place heavy weights
upon the body and press to death felons who
sought to defeat the course of the law by refus-
ing to plead. I have myself tramped over the
press-yard at the demolition of Dance's prison,
then still bearing its horrid name.

This crime of murder was committed on the
last days of October, 1337, and two months
later, on the 27th December, Hugh le Bevere
was dead. Meanwhile the Sheriffs had seized
his possessions and these they sold, first drawing
up an inventory, which sets out with the order
of a housekeeper's book the domestic arrange-
ments of this fourteenth-century household. The
vintner made good money, for his furniture and
clothing were apprised at the value of £12,
i8s. 4d., a sum in the then money values far
above the competence of any of the poorer
workers to amass.

The house consisted of two apartments, one
above the other. The lower room, which was
kitchen and keeping-room in one, had a part
partitioned off for a hall, and this also contained
a larder. It had a chimney and a grate. Light
came in through the one window, an " oriole "
built at the end of the hall — probably a recess
with a bay window, the upper part of which

A LONDON HOUSEHOLD 243

alone was glazed, on account of the great expense
of glass, the remainder being closed by a wooden
shutter. In the room below the window was
the high bench (summum scamnum). Before the
house was a single step up to the street door,
and a porch covering, or penthouse. A door
at the back led to the buttery, where stood
ranged six casks of wine, the value of each cask
being one mark. A tressle table and two chairs,
the last valued at fourpence each, were the only
furniture, but the kitchen was well supplied with
serviceable utensils. There were eight brass
pots, not counting one broken, andirons, basins,
a washing vessel, a tripod, an iron cooking spit,
a frying pan, a plate, and also a small brass
plate, a funnel, and two ankers or tubs. Two
cellars were excavated beneath the floor, opposite
one another, and there was a cesspool with pipes
leading to it — let us hope outside the house.

A ladder gave access to the upper room,
entered by a space left open in the floor. This
was the solar, or sleeping room. Like the rest
of the house, it was timber-built, but in com-
pliance with the City's regulations stone walls
divided the dwelling from the houses on either
side. The room contained a bed, on which was
a mattress, and there were three feather beds
and two pillows. A great wooden coffer stood

244 UNKNOWN LONDON

against the wall. In this were stored six blankets
and one serge, a torn coverlet with shields of
cendale (a kind of thin silk), eight linen sheets
and four table-cloths. Alice, the newly-made
wife, may justifiably have looked with pride
upon her well-stored press.

The clothes, for which there were six chests,
were in unexpected plenty. I credit Alice with
being a careful housewife, for she had kept, rather
than throw it away, an old fur, though " almost
consumed by moths," which duly figures in
the pathetic little inventory of personal effects.
There were two robes of perset, or peach-coloured
cloth, another of medley, a third of scarlet, all
being furred ; a coat, then one coat of ray, or
striped cloth, and another with a hood of perset ;
a surcoat, another of worsted, a third with a hood
of ray ; and a green hood of cendale, with edging.
I do not attempt to distinguish the ownership of
this finery, male or female. The London vintner,
when he walked abroad among his fellow-citizens
or attended his gild feast, depend upon it was
as finely dressed, and in colours quite as bright,
as was his spouse. The lady's alone were the
one camise (a light, loosely fitting dress) and
eight savenapes, or aprons.

A candlestick " of lattone," an aumbrey
(cabinet, or small portable cupboard) and an

A LONDON HOUSEHOLD 245

iron herce, or frame for candles, also went to
the furnishing of this simple household, and for
luxury they had curtains to hang before the
door to keep out the cold, cushions, and even a
green carpet, while for the husband's use there
was a haketone, or suit of quilted leather armour,
and an iron head-piece. The personal treasures
— gifts, may be, at the marriage, or perhaps
inheritances — were a cup, with a foot and cover
of silver, value thirty shillings, a mazar cup, and
six silver spoons. Hugh had money, too, for he
had lent to Paul de Botiller, a neighbour, one
mark, as security for which were given in pledge
a surcoat and also a woman's coat.

For winter's warmth Hugh le Bevere had
stacked a pile of firewood, and this the City sold
for three shillings. Coal, borne by the coasting
vessels to London, was then much too costly for
any but rich men to burn.

I have taken all from the records, with one
small license. I do not know which house in the
City ward of Candlewyck Street was Hugh le
Bevere's. But a house exactly as has been
described was built by Simon of Canterbury, the
carpenter, a few years before, and he brought
his specifications before the Mayor and Aldermen.
The house which he undertook to build from the
ground entire, down to the locks, was to be paid

246 UNKNOWN LONDON

for by William de Hanigtone, citizen and pelterer,
in cash and in kind ; in cash by £9, 55. 4d., also
he was to give half a hundred Eastern martin
pelts, fur for a woman's hood of the value of five
shillings, and fur likewise for a robe for Simon
the carpenter. The pelterers, or skinners, were
grouped near about Cannon Street ward, and not
unlikely Hugh le Bevere sold Ms wine largely
to men of that trade. Included in the modest
sum mentioned for house-building a stable, with
solar above, was thrown in.

INDEX

& Becket, Thomas, 46 ; shrine

despoiled, 50.

Albemarle, Duke of, 192, 194.
Aldersgate, 35.
Allhallows-on-the-Wall, 27.

„ Staining, 135.
Allin, John, letters during

the Great Plague, 213-30.
America Square, 3, 5, 34.
Anne, Queen, in wax, 198.
Arlington, Lord, 202, 204,

207-9.

B

Baga de Secretis, 153-67 ;
Anne Boleyn's trial, 156-
161 ; Charles I., 155, 162 ;
Guy Fawkes, 163 - 165 ;
forgery of writs, 166-7;
Lady Jane Grey, 161-2 ;
Katherine Howard, 161 ;
Regicides, 162 ; ox-hide
and closet, 155 ; plot to
poison Queen Elizabeth,
1 66 ; vagrant gipsies, 167.

Ballard, Mr, on Domesday,

79-

Bank of England, 169.
Barber's Wine Vaults, 21-6,

34-
Bastions of City Wall, 28-30,

32.

Bells of St Clement's, 231-39 ;
Church in Strand, 231, 236 ;
St Clement's Eastcheap,
235-6; clock, 231, 238-9;

. early nursery rhymes,
232"3 I " Oranges and
lemons," 232-4 ; the peal,
231, 236, 239; Sanctus bell,
236-9 ; tenor, 236, 239.

Bevere, Hugh le, 240-6.

Bishopsgate, 27 ; tablet at, 21 .

Blackfriars, 32.

Bloody Tower, vii, 59.

" Blow High, Blow Low," 118

Bocher, Joan, martyr, 179.

Body snatchers, 169.

Boleyn, Queen Anne, 59, 61,
154, 156-60.

Bovey Tracy, 138.

Bradford, John, martyr, 176,
183.

Bridgnorth, The Crown at, 37.

British Museum, 140-1, 147.

Buckinghamshire, Duchess of,
Duke of, in waxwork, 198-9.
„ in Domesday, 78.

Cade, Jack, 128, 130-2, 138.
Caen Cathedral, 69.
Camden on London Stone,i29.
,, Town, St Martin's

Churchyard at, 117.
Cannon Street, 131, 139, 241,

246.
Canterbury, a Becket's shrine,

5°-
Cardmaker, John, martyr,

181-2.

Catholic martyrs, 179-80.
Cattle market at Smithfield,

177-

247

248

UNKNOWN LONDON

Chancery Lane, 69, 70, 80,

156, 218.
Charles I., 155, 162-3, 174,

194.

„ II., 168-75, 192, 196,

203, 2O6-I2, 221,

Chatham in wax, 199, 200.
Cheapside, 234 ; pillory in,

167.

Cheshire in Domesday, 78.
Christ's Hospital, 28.
City Corporation (Common \

Council), 21, 23, 27, 98, !

J75-

City Wall, 19-35 '• at Bar- '
ber's Vaults, 19, 21 - 6, !
34 ; bastions, 28-30, 32 ;
building of, 30, 31 ; de-
molition, 34 ; Edward I.'s
extension, 31 ; gates in,
20, 26, 35 ; at Ludgate
Hill, 26, 34 ; mediaeval, 21,
23» 27> 31 ; Norman, 23 ; at
Post Office, Newgate St.,
28-30 ; repairs to, 25, 27 ;
Roman, 19, 24, 31 ; at
Roman Wall House, 33 ;
at St Alphage, London
Wall, 21, 32 ; at St Giles's,
Cripplegate, 32 ; at Tower,
33 ; at Trinity Place, 33.

Clamor es in Domesday, 75.

Clement's Inn, 235.

Coal Exchange, Roman Bath
at, 98-103.

Collier, Jeremy, 179 n.

Commissioners of Sewers, 34.

Common Council (see City
Corporation) .

Cooper's Row, 21.

Cranmer burnt, 179.

Cripplegate, 35, 204, 218 ;
St Giles's, 32.

Cromwell, Oliver, 42, 61, 168-
175, 205-6.

Crosby, Sir Thomas, 86.

Cumberland in Domesday,
78.

D

Defoe's Journal of Plague
Year, 217.

Dent, Urwick and Yeatman,
88.

Dettingen, Battle of, 94.

Dibdin, Charles, song-writer,
109-12, 115-23 ; birth at
Southampton, 117 ; burial
in London, 117; pension,
121.

Doctors killed by Plague, 224.

Domesday Book, 68 - 84 ;
Alunid's lands, 78 ;
clamores, 75 ; counties
omitted, 78 ; deposited in
London, 80 ; early date of
small volume, 75-6 ; ex-
cerpt from, 71 ; errors in
compilation, 79, 80 ; Exon
Domesday, 71 ; Greno's
lands, 77 ; London and
other towns omitted, 79 ;
object of survey, 71, 81-4 ;
order to take survey, 72 ;
Oxford, 83 ; Pepys's in-
quiry, 84 ; population
shown, 83 ; Peverel's lands,
77-8 ; Questions, 68 ; Royal
Officers' Courts, 73 - 5 ;
Saxon Chronicle, 72 ; Ver-
dicts of jurors, 74; York,

83-
Drury Lane, 215, 234.

East Sheen, 8, 9.

Edward the Confessor (see
also shrine of), 68, 81
burial, 44 ; canonization
45 ; character, 39 - 43
coffin opened, 44-5 ; coffin
strengthened, 56 ; Death
°f. 38 - 9 ; founder of
Westminster Abbey, 43 ;
legends of, 40-1 ; trans-

INDEX

249

lations of body, 45-6, 49 ;

Vita JEduuardi, 41.
Edward I, 31.
„ II., 26.
„ IV., 154-
„ VI., 6, 8.
Egyptian beliefs in future

life, 152.
Elizabeth, Queen, 53, 138,

187 ; plot to poison, 166 ;

statue, 35 ; tomb, 197 ; in

wax, 196-8.
Epitaph on Countess of

Pembroke, 193.
Essex in Domesday, 71, 76-8.
Evelyn, John, 211-2.
Execution Dock, no, 126-7.
Exon Domesday, 71.

Fawkes, Guy, 58, 70, 163-5.
Feckenham, Abbot, 51, 53.
FitzAlwin, Henry, first Mayor,

132-5, 137, 139.
Fleet Street, 231, 233, 237,

239.

Forest, Friar, martyr, 179-80.
Forgery in Post Office, 202-12.

,, of writs, 166-7.
Foxe's Acts and Monuments,

176, 180, 182, 184.
Frowde, Sir Philip, 203-4.

Gates in City Wall, 20, 26, 35.

George II. at Dettingen, 94.

Ghosts in the Tower, 57-67 ;
shadow of an axe, 51 ; of
a bear, 64-5 ; Anne Boleyn,
59, 60 ; Guy Fawkes, 58 ;
spectre seen by Lenthal
Swifte, 61-4 ; Raleigh, 58.

Gomme, Sir Laurence, 128-30.

Great Tower Street, No. 34,
86-97.

Grey, Henry (see Suffolk,
Duke of).

,, Lady Jane, 6, 17, 154 ;
execution of, 9 ; letter to
her father, 10 ; prisoner in
the Tower, 9 ; proclaimed
Queen, 8; trial and sen-
tence at Guildhall, 161-2.

Guildhall, 26, 132, 135, 137,
139, 162, 240.

Gunpowder Plot, 163-6.

Gipsies hanged, 167.

H

Hampton Court, 221.
Harewood, Earls of, 91.
Harold, King, 39.
Henry I., 44.

II., 46, 80, 81.

III., 46-50.

V.,49.

VI., 40, 49, 128, 130.

VIII., 28, 50, 154, 157-
161, 180.
Herodotus in Egypt, 142-5.
Hickes, James, 203-4.
Holinshed, 12, 131.
Holy Trinity, Minories, 4, 5,
7, 14; crime by sexton of,

15-7-

Horse Guards at Dettingen, 94,
Houghton House, 95.
Howard, Queen Katharine,

156, 161.

Islip, Chapel of Abbot, 193.

J

James I., 163-4, ^7-

„ II-, 53, 174-
Joceline, Ralph, 25, 27.

250

UNKNOWN LONDON

John de Londoneston, 135.
John, King, 132.
Johnson, Samuel, 124, 239.
" Jolly's Wagon," 89.
Jonson, Ben, 193-5.

K

Keepe, Henry, 53-5.
Kidd, Captain, 127.

Lancashire in Domesday, 78.

Landlady Meg of Wapping,
no, 121-2.

Latimer, 179.

Legends of the Confessor, 40,
41.

Leigh in Domesday, 76, 77.

Lethaby, Professor, n.

Limehouse, 108, 109.

London and Middlesex Ar-
chaeological Society, 105,

137-

London Bridge, 112-3, *34>

203, 215, 235; heads on, 7.

„ Fire of, 85, 87, 112,

170, 2O3, 2IO, 237.

,, Household of A.D.
i337>24°-6; Hugh
le Bevere's crime,
241 ; inventory of
effects, 242-5 ; a
mediaeval house,
245-6.

London Stone, 128-39 ; Jack
Cade at the Stone, 128,
130-2, 138 ; Camden's
theory, 129; Henry Fitz-
Alwin's house, 135, 137,
139 ; fixed in St Swithin's
Church wall, 139 ; legal
associations, 138 ; founda-
tion of Mayoralty, 132 ;
reputed Roman origin,

128-30 ; suggested origin,
I35> I37"9 > Shakespeare's
reference, 128, 130;
" Staining," 135 ; Stow's
description, 131.

London Wall, street called
(see also City Wall). 20,
,, omitted from Domes-
day, 79.

Lord Mayors (see Mayors) .

Lovelace, Lord, 90.

Lower Thames Street, 98.

Lud and his sons, 35.

Ludgate, 26, 35.
„ Hill, 35.

Lydgate, 128, 131.

M

Macaulay, Lord, 65.
Mansion House, 86, 135, 137,

139, 175.

Martyrs (see Smithfield).

Marvel, Andrew, 173

Mary, Queen, 8, 9, 51, 53,
178, 1 80, 187-9.

Mary, William and, in wax,
198.

Mayoralty, founding of, 132.

Mayors and Lord Mayors.
Raynald de Conduit, 135 ;
Sir Thomas Crosby, 86 ;
Henry FitzAlwin, 132-5,
I37> *39 1 Ralph Joceline,
25, 27 ; Sir Robert Vyner,
169-75 ; Thomas Whyte,
161-2.

Men-kau-Ra, King of Egypt,
140-52 ; age of, 141-2 ;
authenticity of remains,
151 ; bones in British
Museum, 140, 147, 151 ;
builder of Third Pyramid,
141 ; Egyptian beliefs in
future life, 152 ; inscrip-
tion on coffin lid, 140-1 ;
legends told by Herodotus,

INDEX

251

142-5 opening of Pyramid ,
145-7 ; rifling of tomb by
Arabs, 146 ; ritual of the
dead, 148-50 ; sarcophagus
lost, 147 ; ^skull missing,
147 ; texts on Seti I. s
sarcophagus, 148-50.

Midsummer Watch, 28.

Milton, 239 ; burial place, 32.

Mincing Lane, 135.

Minories, 3, 6, 15.

Miracle at Confessor's Shrine,
46.

Morland, Sir Samuel, 202,
204-12.

Morley, Charles, 136.

Mot, Robert, bell-founder,

237-9.
Mouat, Dr, on Suffolk's head,

13, 14-

Mutiny of the Nore, 123-4.

N

National Portrait Gallery, 14.
Nelson, Lord, 112, 197-8,

200- 1.

Newby Hall, statue at, 168-75.
Newgate Gaol, 126, 181, 242.
Newgate St. Post Office, 28.
Nightingale Lane, 126.
Norfolk in Domesday, 76.
Norman Conquest, 39, 83.
Nuns of St Olave, 5, 6.
Nursery rhymes, 232-3.

O

Old City Merchant's Mansion,
No. 34 Great Tower Street,
85-97 ; built after Great
Fire, 85 ; carving in upper
rooms, 90-1 ; George II.
at Dettingen, 94 ; ground
floor offices, 88 ; " Jolly's
Wagon," 89 ; Lord Love-

lace's purchase, 90 ; Dean
Swift, 96 ; Sir Robert Wai-
pole, 95 ; wine trade remin-
iscences, 89, 90 ; Yorkshire
election, 91-3.

" Oranges and lemons," 232-3.

Oxford, 221 ; in Domesday,
83 ; burning of Cranmer,

Pasquill and Marfarius, 138.
Pelham, Sir J., monument of,

15-
Pepys, Samuel. 84, 169, 205,

207.

Petrus Romanus Civis, 47.
Peverel of London, 77, 78.
Philpot, John, martyr, 176.
Pillory in Cheapside, 167.
Plague, John Allin's letters

during the Great, 213-30 ;

beliefs in alchemy and

astrology, 216-7, 219-21,

223, 228 ; in marvels,
226 ; child's prophesy after
death, 225-6 ; decline, 227 ;
Defoe's Journal of Plague
Year, 217 ; doctors' ter-
rible fate, 224-5 ; first
case, 215 ; flight from
London, 214, 221 ; mor-
tality in July, 218 ; in
August, 222 ; in September,

224, 227 ; in year, 230 ;
plague pits, 218 ; toad
amulets, 219.

Portsmouth, 109, 117, 119.
Post Office, Newgate Street,

28.
Post Office, secret apparatus

for copying and forging

letters, 202-12.
Public Record Office, viii,

69, 70, 80, 156, 158, 165.
Pyramids of Egypt, 141, 143,

252

UNKNOWN LONDON

R

Rainham in Domesday, 77.
Raleigh, Sir Walter, 58, 154.
Reformation, 50, 160, 177,

i8o? 236-7.

Regicides, indictment of, 162.
Richmond, Duchess of, 192,

199.

Rochford, Lord, trial of, 158.

Rogers, John, martyr, 176,
180-1.

Roman Bath at Coal Ex-
change, chambers in, 98-
102 ; hypocaust , 101-2 ;
pilae, 101 ; plan, 100 ;
preserved by City Cor-
poration, 98 ; Vitruvius,
101 ; Bath in Strand, de-
scription of, 103 ; known
publicly in 1834, 103 ;
modern additions, 104 ;
spring water supply, 103 ;
at Wroxeter, 105.

Roman Remains in London. —
Bath at Coal Exchange,
98-103 ; in Strand, 103-6 ;
London Stone, 128-39 ;
Wall at Barber's Vaults,
24 ; at Post Office, New-
gate Street, 28-30 ; at
Roman Wall House, 33-4 ;
at St Alphage, London
Wall, 32 ; at Tower, 33 ;
at Trinity Place, 33.

Roman Wall (see City Wall).
„ „ House, 33.

Round, Mr, on Domesday, 74.

Rutherford, Mr, 93.

Rye, 216, 218, 227.

Sadlers Company, 33.

St Alphage, London Wall, 21,

3*
St Bartholomew the Great, 177

St Bartholomew's Hospital,

176-7.

St Botolph, Aldgate, 15.
St Clement Danes (see also

Bells), 231-9.

St Clement, Eastcheap, 235-6.
St Christopher-le-Stocks, 169.
St Dunstan's, Fleet St., 35.
St Dunstan's Hostel, 35.
St George's-in-the-East, 125.
St Giles, Cripplegate, 32.
St Katharine s by Tower, 64.
St John of Bletsoe, Lord, 15.
St John, vision of, 41.
St Martin's churchyard, 117.
St Mary Staining, 135.
St Mary Woolchurchhawe,

171.

St Olave, Nuns of, 5, 6.
St Peter ad Vincula, viii, 7,

65, 66.

St Sepulchre, 181.
St Swithin, 131, 139.
Salters Hall, 139.
Sanctus bell, 236-9.
Sandbags in the Abbey, 36.
Saxon Chronicle, 72.
Scaffold on Tower Green, 9.
Scaffold on Tower Hill, 4, 5,

10, n.
Scharf, Sir G., on Suffolk's

head, 12, 13.

Scots Greys at Dettingen, 94.
Seti I.'s sarcophagus, 148-50.
Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, 41.
Sexton of Holy Trinity, 15-7.
Shaftesbury, Lord, 210, 212.
Shakespeare, 128, 130, 235,

239-
Shrine of Thomas a Becket,

5°-

Shrine of Edward the Con-
fessor (see also Edward
the Confessor). — Body re-
stored to, 51-2 ; building
of, 46-8 ; chain and cruci-
fix removed and lost,
54-6 ; coffin broken, 53 ;

INDEX

253

strengthened, 56 ; con-
dition of bones, 54-5 ;
cost, 47 ; damaged at Re-
formation, 50 ; Fecken-
ham's restoration, 51-3 ;
golden feretory, 47, 49, 51 ;
jewels and ornaments,
48-9, 51 ; letter found
in, 36-8 ; miracle at, 46 ;
movable stones, 52 ; rif-
ling of coffin, 53-5 ; robes
removed, 46 ; sandbag pro-
tection, 36 ; translation of
body to Henry II. 's shrine,
45-6; to Henry III. 's shrine,
49-

Shrine of St White, 47 n.

Sion House, Isleworth, 8.

Slaves in West Indies, 91, 93.

Smithfield, the Fires of, 176-
190; John Bradford, 176,
183 ; John Cardmaker,
181-2 ; Catholic martyrs,
178-80 ; cattle market,
177 ; escape from flames,
1 88 ; Friar Forest, 179 ;
heretics burnt by Elizabeth,
187 ; by James I., 187 ;
last martyrs of Marian
persecution, 186 ; list of
martyrs, 189-90 ; no ade-
quate memorial, 187 ;
John Rogers, 180-1 ; St
Bartholomew the Great,
177; site of stake, 178;
tablet, 176 ; thirteen burnt
at Stratford-by-Bow, 186 ;
three women burnt, 184.

Soane Museum, 148.

Sobeisky's statue, 171-5.

"Sorores Minories," 6.

Squyer's Crime, 166.

Stane and Staining, 134.

Stanley, Dean, 42, 200.

Statue of Charles II. tramp-
ling on Cromwell, 168-75.

Stigand, Archbishop, 44.

Stocks Market Statue, 168-75.

Stow, John, cited, 27, 131.

Strand, 231, 238.

Strand Lane and Roman Bath
(see Roman Bath).

Stratford-by-Bow, martyrs
burnt, 1 86.

Suffolk, Duchess of, 7, 8.

Suffolk, Henry Grey, Duke of,
3-18; arrest, 9 ; burial, 7 ;
character, 7, 8, 12 ; exe-
cution, 4, 5 ; head of, 4,
5, 7, 13, 14, 17 ; opinions
on head, 13, 14 ; plot to
crown Lady Jane Grey, 8 ;
trial, 10, 167 ; Wyatt's
rebellion, 8.

Suffolk in Domesday, 76.

Swift, Dean, 96.

Swifte, Lenthal, 60-4.

Thames, River, 25, 86, 108,

134,215,235-
Tichborne Claimant at Wap-

ping, 1 1 1-2.
" Tom Bowling,"|'ii7.
Tower Green, scaffold on, 9.
Tower Hill, scaffold on, 4, 5,

10, II, 126.

Tower of London, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9,
23» 33, 57 '• Bishops in, 61 ;
Armoury fire, 61 ; Bloody
Tower, vii, 59 ; dungeons,
vii ; ghosts in, 57-67 ; Jewel
House, 61, 64 ; Martin
Tower, 61 ; Zoo in, 65.

" Town of Ramsgate," no.

Trafalgar despatches, 70.

Trinity Place, 33.

Trinity Square, 21, 33.

Tyndale's Old Testament, 181 .

Vita /Eduuardi .41.
Vitruvius, 101.

UNKNOWN LONDON

Vyner, Sir Robert, 169-75.
Vyse, Colonel Howard, 145-6.

W

Wall of London (see City
Wall).

Walpole, Sir Robert, 94-6.

Wapping High Street, 107-
27 ; description of, 108-14
Charles Dibdin, 116-7
his sea songs, 109, 115-22
church, in ; Execution
Dock, no, 126; foulest
spot in London, 124
" Landlady Meg," no
121-2 ; Nelson at, 112
Press Gangs, 126 ; ship
ping at, 108; taverns, 114
Tichborne Claimant, in
" Tom Bowling," 117
" Town of Ramsgate," no.

Wapping Old Stairs, 107, 109,
in.

Wapping Wall, in.

Waterloo despatches, 70.

Wax effigies in Westminster
Abbey, 191-201; ancient
burial custom, 191-3 ; in
Abbot Islip's Chapel, 193 ;
Queen Anne, 198; Duke
of Buckinghamshire, 199;
Duchess of Buckingham-
shire, 198-9 ; Charles II.,
196; Chatham, 200 ; Eliza-
beth, 196-8; Duke of Al-
bemarle, 192, 194; Nelson,
197 ; Duchess of Rich-
mond, 199 ; William III.
and Mary, 198 ; verger's
enterprise, 201.

Westlake, Canon, viii, 52.

Westminster Abbey (see also
Shrine of Confessor). —
Founded by Edward the
Confessor, 43 ; dissolved

by Henry VIII., 50 ; re-
stored by Mary, 51 ; re-
founded by Elizabeth, 198 ;
Abbot Islip's Chapel, 193 ;
Confessor's shrine, 36-8, 46-
53 ; dedication, 43 ; Henry
III.'s building, 46; James
II. 's Coronation, 53 ; monks
flight from, 50 ; sacred
relics, 49, 201 ; tombs of
Kings and Queens, 50 ; wax
effigies in, 191-201.

Westminster Hall, 10, 155.

Westminster Palace, 38.

Westminster School, 37, 52

Westmorland in Domesday, 78

West, William, 37, 38.

Whitechapel, 28, 238.

Whyte, Thomas, Lord Mayor,
161-2.

Wilberforce, William, 92, 93.

Wilkinson and Caviller, 91 .

William I., 44, 68-9, 71-2,

78, 81-4, 236.

William and Mary, 43, 198,

212.

Willis, Sir Richard, 206.
Winchester, Domesday at,

79, 80.

Wine trade, 89, 90.
Women martyrs burnt, 184-6.
Wren, Sir Christopher, 87, 236.
Wroxeter Roman Bath, 105.
Wyatt's Rebellion, 8, 154.

York in Domesday, 83.
Yorkshire in Domesday, 78.
„ Election, 91-3.

Zeppelin raids, 36.

BA Bell, Walter George
677 Unknown London
.1

B35

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY