Of Towers and Castles

“The city of London (saith Fitzstephen) hath in the east a very great and a most strong palatine Tower, whose turrets and walls do rise from a deep foundation, the mortar thereof being temperey with the blood of beasts. In the west part are two strong castles etc.”

To begin therefore with the most famous Tower of London, situate in the east, near unto the river of Thames; it hath been the common opinion, and some have written- but of none assured ground- that Julius cae1, the first conqueror of the Britons, was the original author and founder, as well thereof as also of many other towers, castles, and great buildings within this realm; but (as I have already noted) Cæsar remained not here so long, nor had he in his head any such matter, but only to dispatch a conquest of this barbarous country, and to proceed to greater matter. Neither do the Roman writers make mention of any such buildings created by him here; and therefore leaving this, and proceeding to more grounded authority, I find in a fair register-book, containing the acts of the Bishops of Rochester, set down by Edmond de Hadenham, that William I surnamed Conqueror, built the Tower of London; to wit, the great white and square tower there, about the year of Christ 1078, appointing Gundulph, then Bishop of Rochester, to be principal surveyor and overseer of that work, who was for the time lodged in the house of Edmere, a burgess of London; the very words of which mine author are these:

“Gundulphus Episcopus mandato Willielmi Regis magni præfuit operi magnæ Turris London. quo tempore hospitatus est apud quondam Edmerum Burgensem London. qui deditunum were EcclesiæRofen.”

Ye have before heard that the wall of this city was all round about furnished with towers and bulwarks in due distance every one from other; and also that the river Thames, with his ebbing and flowing, on the south side, had subverted the said wall and towers there. Wherefore King William, for defence of this city, in place most dangerous, and open to the enemy, having taken down the second bulwark in the east part of the wall from the Thames, built this tower, which was the great square tower, now called the White Tower, and hath been since at divers times

enlarged with other buildings adjoining, as shall be shown. This tower was by tempest of wind sore shaken in the year 1090, the 4^th of William Rufus, and was again by the said Rufus and Henry I repaired. They also caused a castle to be built under the said tower, namely, on the south side towards the Thames, and also incastellated the same round about.

        Henry Huntington, libro sexto, hath these words: “William Rufus challenged the investure of prelates; he pilled and shaved the people with tribute, especially to spend about the Tower of London and the great hall at Westminster."

        Othowerus, Acolinillus, Otto, and Geoffrey Magnaville, Earl of Essex, were four the first constables of this Tower of London, by succession; all which held by force a portion of land that pertained to the priory of the Holy Trinity within Aldgate; that is to say, East Smithfield, near unto the Tower; making thereof a vineyard, and would not depart from it till the 2^nd year of King Stephen, when the same was abridged and restored to the church. This said Geoffrey Magnaville was Earl of Essex, constable of the Tower, sheriff of London, Middlesex, Essex, and Hertfordshire, as appeareth by a charter of Maude the empress, dated 1141. He also fortified the Tower of London against King Stephen; but the king took him in his court at St. Albans, and would not deliver him till he had rendered the Tower of London, with the castles of Walden and Plashey in Essex.

        In the year 1153 the Tower of London and the Castle of Windsor were by the king delivered to Richard de Lucie, to be safely kept.

        In the year 1155, Thomas Becket, being Chancellor to Henry II., caused the Flemings to be banished out of England, their castles lately built to be pulled down, and the Tower of London to be repaired.

        About the year 1190, the 2^nd of Richard I., William Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, Chancellor of England, for cause of dissension betwixt him and Earl John, the king’s brother that was rebel, inclosed the tower and castle of London with an outward wall of stone embattled, and also caused a deep ditch to be cast about the same, thinking, as I have said before, to have environed it with the river of Thames. By the making of this enclosure and ditch in East Smithfield, the Church of the Holy Trinity in London lost half a mark rent by the year, and the mill was removed that belonged to the poor brethren of the Hospital of St. Katherine, and to the Church of the Holy Trinity aforesaid, which was no small loss and discommodity to either part; and the garden which the king had hired of the brethren,, for six marks the year, for the most part was wasted and marred by the ditch. Recompense was often promised, but never performed, until King Edward coming after, gave to the brethren five marks and a half for that part which the ditch had devoured, and the other part thereof without he yielded to them again, which they hold; and of the said rent of five marks and a half, they have a deed, by virtue whereof they are well paid to this day.

        It is also to be noted, and cannot be denied but that the said enclosure and ditch took the like or greater quantity of ground from the city within the wall; namely one, of that part called the Tower Hill, besides breaking down of the city wall from the White Tower to the first gate of the city called the Postern; yet I have not read of any quarrel made by the citizens, or recompense demanded by them for that matter, because all was done for good of the city’s defence thereof, and to their good likings.

        But Matthew Paris writeth that, in the year 1239, King Henry III fortified the Tower of London to another end, wherefore the citizens, fearing lest that were done to their detriment, complained; and the king answered, that he had not done it to their hurt, but, saith he, I will from henceforth do as my brother doth, in building and fortifying castles, who beareth the name to be wiser than I am.

        It followed in the next year, saith mine author, the said noble buildings of the stone gate and bulwark, which the king had caused to be made by the Tower of London, on the west side thereof, were shaken as it had been with an earthquake, and fell down, which the king again commanded to be built in better sort than before, which was done.

        And yet again, I the year 1247, the said wall and bulwarks that were newly built, wherein the king had bestowed more than twelve thousand marks, were irrecoverably thrown down, as afore. For the which chance the citizens of London were nothing sorry, for they were threatened that the said wall and bulwarks were built, to the end that if any of them would contend for the liberties of the city, they might be imprisoned; and that many might be laid in divers prisons, many lodgings were made that no one should speak with another: thus much Matthew Paris for this building.

        More of Henry III his dealings against the citizens of London we may read in the said author, in 1245, 1248, 1249, 1253, 1255, 1256, &c. But, concerning the said wall and bulwark, the same was finished, though not in his time; for I read that Edward I., in the second of his reign, commanded the treasurer and chamberlain of the Exchequer to deliver out of his treasury unto Miles of Antwerp two hundred marks, of the fines taken out of divers merchants or usurers of London, for so be the words of the record, towards the work of the ditch then new made about the said bulwark, now called the Lion Tower.

        I find also recorded, that Henry III, in the 46^th of his reign, wrote to Edward of Westminster, commanding him that he, should buy certain perie plants [young pear trees], and set the same in the place without his Tower of London, within the wall of the said city, which of late he had caused to be enclosed with a mud wall, as may appear by this that followeth: the mayor and commonalty of London were fined for throwing down the said earthen wall against the Tower of London, the 9^th of Edward II.

        Edward IV in place thereof built a wall of brick.

        But now for the Lion Tower and lions in England, the original, as I have read, was thus.

        Henry I. built his manor of Woodstock, with a park, which he walled about with stone, seven miles in compass, destroying for the same divers villages, churches, and chapels; and this was the first park in England. He placed therein, besides great store of deer, divers strange beasts to be kept and nourished, such as were brought to him from far countries, as lions, leopards, lynxes, porpentines [porcupines], and such other.

        More, I read that in the year 1235, Frederick the emperor sent to Henry III, three leopards, in token of his regal shield of arms, wherein three leopards were pictured; since the which time these lions and others have been kept in a part of this bulwark, now called the Lion Tower, and their keepers there lodged.

        King Edward II, in the 12^th of his reign, commanded the sheriffs of London to pay to the keepers of the king’s leopard in the Tower of London sixpence the day for the sustenance of the leopard, and three-halfpence a day for diet of the said keeper, out of the fee farm of the said city.

        More, in the 16^th of Edward III, one lion, one lioness, one leopard, and two cur lions, in the said Tower, were committed to the custody of Robert, the son of John Bowre.

        Edward IV fortified the Tower of London, and enclosed with brick, as is aforesaid, a certain piece of ground taken out of the Tower Hill, west from the Lion Tower, now called the bulwark. His officers also, in the 5^th of his reign, set upon the said hill both scaffold and gallows, for the execution of offenders; whereupon the mayor and his brethren complained to the king, and were answered that the same was not done in derogation of the city’s liberties, and thereof caused proclamation to be made, etc., as shall be shown in Tower Street.

        Richard III repaired and built in this tower somewhat. Henry VIII, in 1532, repaired the White Tower, and other parts thereof.

        In the year 1548, the 2^nd of Edward VI, on the 22^nd of November, in the night, a Frenchman lodged in the round bulwark, betwixt the west gate and the postern or drawbridge called the warders’ gate, by setting fire on a barrel of gunpowder, blew up the said bulwark, burnt himself, and no more persons. This bulwark was forthwith again new built.

        And here, because I have by occasion spoken of the west gate of this tower, the same, as the most principal, is used for the receipt and delivery of all kinds of carriages; without the which gate are divers bulwarks and gates, towards the north etc.

        Then near within this west gate, opening to the south, is a strong postern for passengers by the ward-house, over a drawbridge let down for that purpose.

        Next on the same south side, toward the east, is a large water-gate, for receipt of boats and small vessels, partly under a stone bridge from the river of Thames. Beyond it is a small postern, with a drawbridge, seldom let down but for the receipt of some great persons, prisoners. The towards the east is a great and strong gate, commonly called the Iron gate, but not usually opened, And thus much for the foundation, building and repairing of this tower, with the gates and posterns, may, suffice, And now somewhat of accidents in the same shall be shown.

        In the year 1196, William Fitzosbert, a citizen of London, seditiously moving the common people to seek liberty, and not to be subject to the rich and more mighty, at length was taken and brought before the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Tower where he was by the judges condemned, and by the heels drawn thence to the Elms in Smithfield, and there hanged.

        In 1214, King John wrote to Geoffrey Magnaville to deliver the Tower of London, with the prisoners, armour, and all other things found therein belonging to the king, to William, Archdeacon of Huntingdon. 

        In the year 1216, the 1^st of Henry III, the said Tower was delivered to Lewis of France and the barons of England.

        In the year 1206 pleas of the crown were pleaded in the Tower; likewise in the year 1220, and likewise in the year 1224, and again in the year 1243, before William of York, Richard Passelew, Henry Brahe, Jerome of Saxton, justices.

        In the year 1222, the citizens of London having made a tumult against the Abbot of Westminster, Hubert of Burgh, chief‑justice of England, came to the Tower of London, called before him the mayor and aldermen, of whom he inquired for the principal authors of that sedition amongst whom one, named Constantine Fitz Aelulfe, avowed that he was the man, and had done much less than he ought to have done: whereupon the justice sent him with two other to Falks de Brent, who with armed men brought them to the gallows, where they were hanged,

        In the year 1244, Griffith, the eldest son of Leoline, Prince of Wales, being kept prisoner in the Tower, devised means of escape, and having in the night made of the hangings, sheets, &c., a long line, he put himself down from the top of the Tower, but in the sliding, the weight of his body, being a very big and a fat man, brake the rope, and he fell and brake his neck withal.

        In the year 1253, King Henry III imprisoned the sheriffs of London in the Tower more than a month, for the escape of a prisoner out of Newgate, as you may read in the chapter on Gates.

        In the year 1260, King Henry, with his queen (for fear of the barons) were lodged in the Tower. The next year he sent for his lords, and held his parliament there.

        In the year 1263, when the queen would have removed from the Tower by water towards Windsor, sundry Londoners got them together to the bridge, under which she was to pass, and not only cried out upon her with reproachful words, but also threw mire and stones at her, by which she was constrained to return for the time. But in the year 1265, the said citizens were fain to submit themselves to the king for it, and the mayor, aldermen, and sheriffs were sent to divers prisons, and a custos also was set over the city; to wit, Othon, constable of the Tower, etc.

        In the year 1282, Leoline, Prince of Wales, being taken at Builth Castle, Roger Lestrange cut off his head, which Sir Roger Mortimer caused to be crowned with ivy, and set it upon the Tower of London.

        In the year 1290, divers justices, as well of the bench as of the assizes, were sent prisoners to the Tower, which with great sums of money redeemed their liberty. Edward II, the 14^th of his reign, appointed for prisoners in the Tower, a knight twopence the day, an esquire one penny the day, to serve for their diet.

        In the year 1320, the king’s justices sat in the Tower, for trial of matters; whereupon John Gifors, late mayor of London, and many others, fled the city, for fear to be charged of things they had presumptuously done.

        In the year 1321, the Mortimers yielding themselves to the king, he sent them prisoners to the Tower, where they remained long, and were adjudged to be drawn and hanged. But at length, Roger Mortimer, of Wigmore, by giving to his keepers a sleepy drink, escaped out of the Tower, and his uncle Roger, being still kept there, died about five years after.

        In the year 1326, the citizens of London won the Tower, wresting the keys out of the constable’s hands, delivered all the prisoners, and kept both city and Tower to the use of Isabel the queen, and Edward her son.

        In the year 1330, Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, was taken and brought to the Tower, from whence he was brought to the Elms, and there hanged.

        In the year 1344, King Edward III, in the 18^th of his reign, commanded florences of gold to be made and coined in the Tower; that is to say, a penny piece of the value of five shillings and eight-pence, the halfpenny piece of the value of three shillings and four pence, and a farthing piece worth twenty pence; Percevall de Port of Lake being then master of the coin. And this is the first coining of gold in the Tower whereof I have­ read, and also the first coinage of gold in England.

        I find also recorded, that the said king in the same year ordained his exchange of money to be kept in Serne's Tower, a part of the king's house in Bucklesbury. And here to digress a little by occasion offered, I find that, in times before passed, all great sums were paid by weight of gold or silver, as so many pounds

or   marks of silver, or so many pounds or marks of gold, cut in blanks, and not stamped, as I could prove by many good, authori                         ties which I overpass. The smaller sums also were paid in sterlings, which were pence so called, for other coins they had none. The antiquity of this sterling penny usual in this realm is from the reign of Henry II, notwithstanding the Saxon coins, before the Conquest were pence of fine silver the full weight, and somewhat better than the latter sterlings, as I have tried by conference of the pence of Burghrede, king of Mercia, Alfred, Edward, and Edelred, kings of the West Saxons, Plegmond, Archbishop of Canterbury, and others. William the Conqueror's penny also was fine silver of the weight of the easterling, and had on the one side stamped an armed head, with a beardless

face‑for the Normans wore no beards‑with a sceptre in his hand. The inscription in the circumference was this: “Le Rei Wilam;”                           on the other side, a cross double to the ring, between four rowals of six points.

   King Henry I, his penny was of the like weight, fineness, form of face, cross, &c.

   This Henry, in the 8^th year of his reign, ordained the penny, which was round, so to be quartered by the cross, that they might easily be broken into halfpence and farthings. In the 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th of King Richard I, his reign, and afterwards, I find commonly easterling money mentioned, and yet ofttimes the same is called argent, as afore, and not otherwise.

   The first great sum that I read of to be paid in easterlings was in the reign of Richard I, when Robert, Earl of Leicester, being prisoner in France, proferred for his ransom a thousand marks easterlings, notwithstanding the easterling pence were long before.

   The weight of the easterling penny may appear by divers statutes, namely of weights and measures, made in the 51^st of Henry III, in these words: “Thirty-two graines of wheat, drie and round, taken in the middest of the eare, should be the weight of a sterling penie, 20 of those pence should waye one ounce, 12 ounces a pound Troy.”

   It followeth in the statute eight pound to make a gallon of wine, and eight gallons a bushel of London measure etc.

   Notwithstanding which statute, I find, in the 8^th of Edward I, Gregorie Rokesley, mayor of London, being chief master or minister of the King’s Exchange, or mints, a new coin being then appointed, the pound of easterling money should contain as afore twelve ounces; to wit, fine silver, such as was then made into foil, and was commonly called silver of Guthurons Lane, eleven ounces, two easterlings, and one ferling or farthing, and the other seventeen pence to be alloy. Also, the pound of money ought to weigh twenty shillings and threepence by account; so that no pound ought to be over twenty shillings and threepence, nor less than twenty shillings and twopence by account; the ounce to weigh twenty pence, the penny weight twenty-four grains (which twenty-four by weight then appointed were as much as the former thirty-two grains of wheat), a penny force twenty-five grains and a half, the penny deble or feeble twenty-two grains and a half etc.

   Now for the penny easterling, how it took that name I think good briefly to touch. It hath been said, that Numa Pompilius, the second king of the Romans, commanded money first to be made, of whose name they were called nummi; and when copper pence, silver pence, and gold pence were made, because every silver penny was worth ten copper pence, and every gold penny worth ten silver pence, the pence therefore were called in Latin, denarii, and oftentimes the pence are named of the matter and stuff of gold or silver. But the money of England was called of the workers and makers thereof, as the florin of gold is called the Florentines, that were the workers thereof, and so the easterling pence took their name of the Easterlings which did first make this money in England; in the reign of Henry II [Camden says: “In the time of King Richard I, money coined in the east parts of Germany began to be of especial request in England for the purity thereof, and was called Easterling money, as all the inhabitants of those parts were called Easterlings; and shortly after, some of that country, skilful in mint matters and alloys, were sent for into this realm to bring the coin to perfection, which since that time was called of them Sterling or Easterling," ]

   Thus have I set down according to my reading in antiquity of money matters, omitting the imaginations of late writers, of whom some have said easterling money to take that name of a star, stamped in the border or ring of the penny; other some of a bird called a star or starling stamped in the circumference; and other, more unlikely, of being coined at Strivelin or Sterling, a town in Scotland, &c.

   Now concerning halfpence and farthings, the account of which is more subtle than the pence, I need not speak of them more than that they were only made in the Exchange at London, and nowhere else: first appointed to be made by Edward I in the 8^th of his reign; and also at the same time the said king coined some few groats of silver, but they were not usual. The King's exchange at London was near unto the cathedral church of St. Paul, and is to this day commonly called the Old Change, but in evidences the Old Exchange.

   The king's exchanger in this place was to deliver out to every other exchanger throughout England, or other the king's dominions, their coining irons, that is to say, one standard, or staple, and two trussels or punchons; and when the same was spent and worn, to receive them with an account what sum had been coined, and also their pix or bore of assay, and deliver other irons new graven, &c.

   I find that in the 9^th of King John, there was besides the mint at London, other mints at Winchester, Excester, Chichester, Canterbury, Rochester, Ipswich, Norwich, Lynn, Lincoln, York, Carlisle, Northampton, Oxford, St. Edmondsbury, and Durham. The exchanger, examiner, and trier buyeth the silver for coinage, answering for every hundred pounds of silver bought in bullion or otherwise, ninety‑eight pounds fifteen shillings, for he taketh twenty‑five shillings for coinage.

   King Edward I, in the 27^th of his reign, held a parliament at Stebenheth, in the house of Henry Wales, mayor of London, wherein amongst other things there handled, the transporting of sterling money was forbidden.

   In the year 1351, William Edington, Bishop of Winchester, and treasurer of England, a wise man, but loving the king’s commodity more than the wealth of the whole realm and common people, saith mine author, caused a new coin, called a groat and a half-groat, to be coined and stamped, the groat to be taken for fourpence, and the half-groat for twopence, not containing in weight according to the pence called easterlings, but much less, to wit, by five shillings in the pound; by reason whereof, victuals and merchandises became the dearer through the whole realm.

   About the same time also, the old coin of gold was changed into a new; but the old florin or noble, then so called, was worth much above the taxed rate of the new, and therefore the merchants engrossed up the old, and conveyed them out of the realm, to the great loss of the kingdom. Wherefore a remedy was provided by changing of the stamp.

   In the year 1441, King Henry IV caused a new coin of nobles to be made, of less value than the old by fourpence in the noble, to that fifty nobles should be a pound troy weight.

   In the year 1421 was granted to Henry V a fifteenth, to be paid at Candlemas and at Martinmas, of such money as was then current, gold or silver, not overmuch clipped or washed; to wit, that if the noble were worth five shillings and eightpence, then the king should take it for a full noble of six shillings and eightpence, and if it were less of value than five shillings and eightpence, then the person paying that gold to make it good to the value of five shillings and eightpence, the king always receiving it for a whole noble of six shillings and eightpence. And if the noble be so paid be better than five shillings and eightpence, the ling to pay again the surplusage that it was better than five shillings and eightpence. Also this year was such scarcity of white money, that though a noble were so good of gold and weight as six shillings and eightpence, men might get no white money for them.       

   In the year 1465, King Edward IV caused a new coin both of gold and silver to be made, whereby he gained much; for he made of an old noble a royal, which he commanded to go for ten shillings.

   Nevertheless, to the same royal was put eightpence of alloy, and so weighed the more, being smitten with a new stamp, to wit, a rose. He likewise made half‑angels of five shillings, and farthings of two shillings and sixpence, angelets of six shillings and eightpence, and half‑angels of three shillings and fourpence. He made silver money of threepence, a groat, and so of other coins after that rate, to the great harm of the commons.

   W. Lord Hastings, the king's chamberlain, being master of the king's mints, undertook to make the moneys under form following, to wit‑of gold, a piece of eight shillings and fourpence sterling, which should be called a noble of gold, of the which there should be fifty such pieces in the pound weight of the Tower; another piece of gold of four shillings and twopence sterling, and to be of them an hundred such pieces in the pound; and a third piece of gold, of two shillings and one penny sterling, two hundred such pieces in the pound; every pound weight of the Tower to be worth twenty pounds, sixteen shillings, and eightpence, the which should be twenty‑three carats, three grains and a half fine, &c., and for silver, thirty‑seven shillings and sixpence; the piece of fourpence to be one hundred and twelve groats and twopence in the pound weight.

   In the year 1504, King Henry VII appointed a new coin, to wit, a groat, and half‑groat, which bare but half faces; the same time also was coined a groat which was in value twelve pence, but of those but a few, after the rate of forty pence the ounce.

   In the year 1526, the 18^th of Henry VIII, the angel noble being then the sixth part of an ounce troy, so that six angels were just an ounce, which was forty shillings sterling, and the angel was also worth two ounces of silver, so that six angels were worth twelve ounces of silver, which was forty shillings, a proclamation was made on the sixth of September, that the angel should go for seven shillings and fourpence, the royal for eleven shillings, and the crown for four shillings and fourpence.

   And on the fifth of November following, again by proclamation, the angel was enhanced to seven shillings and sixpence, and so every ounce of gold to be forty‑five shillings, and the ounce of silver at three shillings and ninepence in value.

   In the year 1544, the 35^th of Henry VIII, on the 16^th of May, proclamation was made for the enhancing of gold to forty-eight shillings, and silver to four shillings the ounce. Also the king caused to be coined base moneys, to wit, pieces of twelve pence, sixpence, fourpence, twopence, and a penny, in weight as the late sterling, in show good silver, but inwardly copper. These pieces had whole, or broad faces, and continued current after that rate till the 5^th of Edward VI, when they were on the 9^th of July called down, the shilling to ninepence, the groat to threepence, etc., and on the 17^th of August from ninepence to sixpence etc.

   And on the 30^th of October was published new coins of silver and gold to be made, a piece of silver five shillings sterling, a piece of two shillings and fivepence, of twelve pence, of sixpence, a penny with a double rose, half-penny a single rose, and a farthing with a portcullis.

   Coins of fine gold: a whole sovereign of thirty shillings, an angel of ten shillings, and angelet of five shillings. Of crown gold: a sovereign twenty shillings, half-sovereign ten shillings, five shillings, two shillings and sixpence, and base moneys to pass as before, which continued till the 2^nd of Queen Elizabeth, then called to a lower rate, taken to the mint, and refined, the silver whereof being coined with a new stamp of her Majesty, the dross was carried to foul highways, to heighten them. This base money, for the time, caused the old sterling moneys to be hoarded up, so that I have seen twenty-one shillings current given for one old angel to gild withal.

   Also rents of lands and tenements, with prices of victuals, were raised far beyond the former rates, hardly since to be brought down.

   Thus much for base moneys coined and current in England have I known.

   But for leather moneys, as many people have fondly talked, I find no such matter. I read that King John of France, being taken prisoner by Edward the Black Prince at the battle of Poictiers, paid a ransom of three millions of florences, whereby he brought the realm into such poverty, that many years after they used leather money, with a little stud or nail of silver in the middle thereof.

   Thus much for mint and coinage, by occasion of this Tower, under correction of others more skilful, may suffice.

   And now to other accidents there.

   In the year 1360, the peace between England and France being confirmed, King Edward came over into England, and straight to the Tower, to see the French king then prisoner there; whose ransom he assessed at three millions of florences, and so delivered him from prison, and brought him with honour to the sea.

   In the year 1381, the rebels of Kent drew out of the Tower, where the king was then lodged, Simon Sudbury, archbishop of Canterbury, lord chancellor, Robert Hales, prior of St. John's, and treasurer of England, William Appleton, friar, the king's confessor, and John Legg, a sergeant of the king's, and beheaded them on the Tower Hill, &c.

   In the year 1387, King Richard held his feast of Christmas in the Tower; and in the year 1399, the same king was sent prisoner to the Tower.

   In the year 1414, Sir John Oldcastle brake out of the Tower. And the same year, a parliament being holden at Leicester, a porter of the Tower was drawn, hanged, and headed, whose head was sent up, and set over the Tower gate, for consenting to one Whitlooke, that brake out of the Tower.

   In the year 1419, Friar Randulph was sent to the Tower, and was there slain by the parson of St. Peter's in the Tower.

   In the year 1428, there came to London a lewd fellow, feigning himself to be sent from the Emperor to the young King Henry VI, calling himself Baron of Blakamoore, and that he should be the principal physician in this kingdom; but his subtlety being known, he was apprehended, condemned, drawn, hanged, headed, and quartered, his head set on the Tower of London, and his quarters on four gates of the city.

   In the year 1458, in Whitsun week, the Duke of Somerset, with Anthony Rivers, and other four, kept jousts before the queen in the Tower of London, against three esquires of the queen's, and other's.

   In the year 1465, King Henry VI was brought prisoner to the Tower, where he remained long.

   In the year 1470, the Tower was yielded to Sir Richard Lee, mayor of London, and his brethren the aldermen, who forthwith entered the same, delivered King Henry of his imprisonment, and lodged him in the king's lodging there; but the next year he was again sent thither prisoner, and there murdered.

   In the year 1478, George, Duke of Clarence, was drowned with malmsey in the Tower; and within five years after King Edward V, with his brother, were said to be murdered there.

   In the year 1485, John, Earl of Oxford, was made constable of the Tower, and had custody of the lions granted him.

   In the year 1501, in the month of May, was a royal tourney of lords and knights in the Tower of London before the king.

   In the year 1502, Queen Elizabeth, wife to Henry VII, died of childbirth in the Tower.

   In the year 1512, the chapel in the high White Tower was burnt.

   In the year 1536, Queen Anne Bullein was beheaded in the Tower. 1541, Lady Katherine Howard, wife to King Henry VIII, was also beheaded there.

   In the year 1546, the 27^th of April, being Tuesday in Easter week, William Foxley, potmaker for the Mint in the Tower of London, fell asleep, and so continued sleeping, and could not be wakened with pricking, cramping, or otherwise burning whatsoever, until the first day of the term, which was full fourteen fays and fifteen nights, or more, for that Easter term beginneth not before seventeen days after Easter. The cause of his thus sleeping could not be known, though the same was diligently searched after by the king’s physicians, and other learned men; yea, the king himself examining the said William Foxley, who was in all points found at his awakening to be as if he had slept but one night. And he lived more than forty years after in the said Tower, to wit, until the year of Christ 1587, and then deceased on Wednesday in Easter week.

   Thus much for these accidents; and now to conclude thereof in summary. This Tower is a citadel to defend or command the city; a royal palace for assemblies or treaties; a prison of state for the most dangerous offenders; the only place of coinage for all England at this time; the armoury for warlike provision; the treasury of the ornaments and jewels of the crown; and general conserver of the most records of the king’s courts of justice at Westminster.

   The next tower on the river of Thames is on London Bridge, at the north end of the drawbridge. This tower was newly begun to be built in the year 1426. John Reynwell, mayor of London, laid one of the first corner stones in the foundation of this work, the other three were laid by the sheriffs and bridge-masters upon every of these four stones was engraven in fair Roman letters the name of “Ihesus." And these stones I have seen laid in the bridge storehouse since they were taken up, when that tower was of late newly made of timber. This gate and tower was at the first strongly built up of stone, and so continued until the year 1577, in the month of April, when the same stone arched gate and tower being decayed, was begun to be taken down, and then were the heads of the traitors removed thence, and set on the tower over the gate at the bridge‑foot towards Southwark. This said tower being taken down, a new foundation, was drawn, and Sir John Langley, lord mayor, laid the first stone in the presence of the sheriffs and bridgemasters, on the 28^th of August; and in the month of September, in the year 1579, the same tower was finished‑a beautiful and chargeable piece of work, all above the bridge being of timber.

   Another tower there is on London Bridge, to wit, over the gate at the south end of the same bridge towards Southwark. This gate, with the tower thereupon, and two arches of the bridge, fell down, and no man perished by the fall thereof, in the year 1436; towards the new building whereof divers charitable citizens gave large sums of money; which gate, being then again newly built, was, with seventeen houses more on the bridge, in the year 1471 burnt by the mariners and sailors of Kent, Bastard Falconbridge being their captain.

   In the west of this city, saith Fitzstephen, are two most strong castles, &c. Also Gervasius Tilbury, in the reign of Henry II, writing of these castles, hath to this effect :‑“Two castles," saith he, “are built with walls and rampires, whereof one is, in right of possession, Baynardes; the other the Barons of Mountfichet" The first of these castles, banking on the river Thames, was called Baynard's Castle, of Baynard a nobleman, that came in with the Conqueror, and then built it, and deceased in the reign of William Rufus; after whose decease Geoffrey Baynard succeeded, and then William Baynard, in the year 1111, who by forfeiture for felony, lost his barony of Little Dunmow, and King Henry gave it wholly to Robert, the son of Richard, the son of Gilbert of Clare, and to his heirs, together with the honour of Baynard's Castle. This Robert married Maude de Saint Licio, lady of Bradham, and deceased 1134 ; was buried at St. Neots by Gilbert of Clare, his father. Walter his son succeeded him; he took to wife Matilde de Bocham, and after her decease, Matilde, the daughter and coheir of Richard de Lucy, on whom he begat Robert and other; he deceased in the year 1198, and was buried at Dunmow; after whom succeeded Robert Fitzwalter, a valiant knight.

   About the year 1213, there arose a great discord between King John and his barons, because of Matilda, surnamed the Fair, daughter to the said Robert Fitzwalter, whom the king unlawfully loved but could not obtain her, nor her father would consent thereunto, whereupon, and for other like causes, ensued war through the whole realm.

   The barons were received into London, where they greatly endangered the king; but in the end the king did not only therefore banish the said Fitzwalter, amongst other, out of the realm, but also caused his castle called Baynard, and other his houses, to be spoiled; which thing being done, a messenger being sent unto Matilda the Fair about the king’s suit, whereunto she would not consent, she was poisoned; Robert Fitzwalter, and other, being then passed into France, and some into Scotland etc.

   It happened in the year 1214, King John being then in France with a great army, that a truce was taken betwixt the two kings of England and France for the term of five years; and a river, or arm of the sea, being then between either host, there was a knight in the English host, that cried to them of the other side, willing some one of their knights to come and joust a course or twain with him; whereupon, without stay, Robert Fitzwalter, being on the French part, made himself ready, ferried over, and got on horseback, without any man to help him, and showed himself ready to the face of his challenger, whom at first course he struck so hard with his great spear, that horse and man fell to the ground; and when his spear was broken he went back to the King of France. Which when the king had seen, “By God’s tooth,” quoth he, after his usual oath, “he were a king indeed that had such a knight.” The friends of Robert, hearing these words, kneeled down, and said- “O king, he is your knight; it is Robert Fitzwalter.” And thereupon, the next day he was sent for, and restored to the king’s favour; by which means peace was concluded, and he received his livings, and had licence to repair his castle of Baynard, and other castles.

   The year 1216, the 1^st of Henry III, the castle of Hertford being delivered to Lewis the French prince, and the barons of England, Robert Fitzwalter requiring to have the same, because the keeping thereof did by ancient right and title pertain to him, was answered by Lewis, “that Englishmen were not worthy to have such holds in keeping, because they did betray their own lord," &c. This Robert deceased in the year 1234, and was buried at Dunmow, and Walter his son that succeeded him. 1258, his barony of Baynard was in the ward of King Henry, in the nonage of Robert Fitzwalter. This Robert took to his second wife Eleanor, daughter and heir to the Earl of Ferrars, in the year 1289; and in the year 1303, on the 12^th of March, before John Blondon, mayor of London, he acknowledged his service to the same city, and sware upon the Evangelists, that he would be true to the liberties thereof, and maintain the same to his power, and the counsel of the same to keep, &c.

   The rights that belonged to Robert Fitzwalter, chastelian of London, lord of Wodeham, were these:

   The said Robert and his heirs ought to be and are chief bannerers of London, in fee of the chastellerie, which he and his ancestors had by Castle Baynard, in the said city. In time of war the said Robert, and his heirs, ought to serve the city in manner as followeth: that is, The said Robert ought to come, he being the twentieth man of arms on horseback, covered with cloth, or armour, unto the great west door of St. Paul, with his banner displayed before him of his arms; and when he is come to the said door, mounted and apparelled, as before is said, the mayor with his aldermen and sheriffs armed in their arms, shall come out of the said Church of St. Paul, unto the said door, with a banner in his hand, all on foot, which banner shall be gules, with the image of St. Paul, gold, the face, hands, feet, and sword, of silver; and as soon as the said Robert shall see the mayor, aldermen, and sheriffs come on foot out of the church, armed with such a banner, he shall alight from his horse and salute the mayor, and say to him‑ “Sir mayor, I am come to do my service, which I owe to the city." And the mayor and aldermen shall answer‑“We give to you, as our bannerer of fee in this city, this banner of this city to bear and govern to the honour and profit of the city to our power." And the said Robert and his heirs shall receive the banner in his hands, and shall go on foot out of the gate with the banner in his hands; and the mayor, aldermen, and sheriffs shall follow to the door, and shall bring a horse to the said Robert worth twenty pounds, which horse shall be saddled with a saddle of the arms of the said Robert, and shall be covered with sandals [sandals- pieces of a rich thin silk. The word was in Greek and in Low Latin cendalum derived from Sindhu the Indus and the country by the Indus from which these fine fabrics of silk or linen were first brought] of the said arms.

   Also they shall present to him twenty pounds sterling money, and deliver it to the chamberlain of the said Robert for his expenses that day.

   Then the said Robert shall mount upon the horse which the mayor presented to him with the banner in his hand, and as soon as he is up, he shall say to the mayor, that he cause a marshal to be chosen for the host, one of the city; which marshall being chosen, the said Robert shall command the mayor and burgesses of the city to warn the commoners to assemble together, and they shall all go under the banner of St. Paul, and the said Robert shall bear it himself unto Aldgate, and there the said Robert and mayor shall deliver the said banner of St. Paul from thence, to whom they shall assent or think good.

   And if they must make any issue forth of the city, then the said Robert ought to choose two of every ward, the most sage personages, to foresee to the safe keeping of the city after they be gone forth. And this council shall be taken in the priory of the Trinity near unto Aldgate.

   And before every town or castle which the host of London besiege, if the siege continue a whole year, the said Robert shall have for every siege of the commonalty of London an hundred shillings for his travail, and no more. These be the rights that the said Robert hath in time of war.

   Rights belonging to Robert Fitzwalter, and to his heirs in the city of London, in the time of peace, are these: that is to say, the said Robert hath a soken or ward in the city, that is, a wall of the canonry of St. Paul, as a man goeth down the street before the brewhouse of St. Paul unto the Thames, and so to the side of the mill, which is in the water that cometh down from the Fleet Bridge, and goeth so by London walls, betwixt the Friars preachers and Ludgate, and so returneth back by the house of the said Friars unto the said wall of the said canonry of St. Paul, that is, all the parish of St. Andrew, which is in the gift of his ancestors by the said seigniority. And so the said Robert hath appendant unto the said soken all these things underwritten- that he ought to have a sokeman, and to place what sokeman he will, so he be of the sokemanry, or the same ward; and if any of the sokemanry be impleaded in the Guildhall, of anything that toucheth not the body of the mayor that for the time is, or that toucheth the body of no sheriff, it is not lawful for the sokeman of the sokemanry of the said Robert Fitzwalter to demand a court of the said Robert; and the mayor, and his citizens of London, ought to grant him to have a court, and in his court he ought to bring his judgments, as it is assented and agreed upon in this Guildhall, that shall be given them. If any, therefore, be taken in his sokemanry, he ought to have his stocks and imprisonment in his soken; and he shall be brought from thence to the Guildhall before the mayor, and there they shall provide him his judgment that ought to be given of him; but his judgment shall not be published till he come into the court of the said Robert, and in his liberty. And the judgment shall be such, that if he have deserved death by treason, he to be tied to a post in the Thames at a good wharf where boats are fastened, two ebbings and two flowings of the water. And if he be condemned for a common thief, he ought to be led to the Elms, and there suffer his judgment as other thieves. And so the said Robert and his heirs hath honour that he holdeth a great franchise within the city, that the mayor of the city and citizens are bound to do him of right, that is to say, that when the mayor will hold a great council, he ought to call the said Robert, and his heirs, to be with him in council of the city, and the said Robert ought to be sworn to be of council with the city against all people, saving the king and his heirs. And when the said Robert cometh to the hustings in the Guildhall of the city, the mayor, or his lieutenant, ought to rise against him, and set him down near unto him; and so long as he is in the Guildhall, all the judgment ought to be given by his mouth, according to the record of the recorders of the said Guildhall; and so many waifs as come so long as he is there, he, ought to give them to the bailiffs of the town, or to whom he will, by the counsel of the mayor of the city. These be the franchises that belonged to Robert Fitzwalter in London, in time of peace, which for the antiquity thereof I have noted out of an old record.

   This Robert deceased in the year 1305, leaving issue Walter Fitzrobert, who had issue Robert Fitzwalter, unto whom, in the year 1320, the citizens of London acknowledged the right which they ought [owed] to him and his heirs for the Castle Baynard; he deceased 1325, unto whom succeeded Robert Fitzrobert, Fitzwalter, etc. More of the Lord Fitzwalter may ye read in my Annals in 51^st of Edward III.

   But how this honour of Baynard’s Castle, with the appurtenances, fell from the possession of the Fitzwalters, I have not read; only I find, that in the year 1428, the 7^th of Henry VI, a great fire was at Baynard’s Castle, and that same Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, built it of new. By his death and attainder, in the year 1446, it came to the hands of Henry VI, and from him to Richard, Duke of York, of whom we read, that in the year 1457 he lodged there, as in his own house.

   In the year 1460, the 28^th of February, the Earls of March and of Warwick, with a great power of men, but few of name, entered the city of London, where they were of the citizens joyously received; and upon the 3^rd of March, being Sunday, the said earl caused to be mustered his people in St. John’s field, where unto that host was showed and proclaimed certain articles and points wherein King Henry, as they said, had offended; and thereupon it was demanded of the said people, whether the said Henry was worthy to reign as king any longer or not; whereunto the people cried Nay.

   Then it was asked of them, whether they would have the Earl of March for their king; and they cried, Yea, yea.

   Whereupon certain captains were appointed to bear report thereof unto the said Earl of March, then being lodged at his castle of Baynard. Whereof when the earl was by them advertised, he thanked God and them for their election; notwithstanding he showed some countenance of insufficiency in him to occupy so great a charge, till by exhortation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Excester, and certain noblemen, he granted to their petition; and on the next morro at Paul’s he went on procession, offered, and had Te Deum sung.

   Then was he with great royalty conveyed to Westminster, and there, in the great Hall, set in the king’s seat, with St. Edward’s sceptre in his hand.

   Edward IV being dead, leaving his eldest son Edward, and his second son Richard, both infants, Richard, Duke of Gloucester being elected by the nobles and commons in the Guildhall of London, took on him the title of the realm, and kingdom, as imposed upon him in this Baynard's Castle, as ye may read penned by Sir Thomas More, and set down in my Annals.

   Henry VII, about the year 1501, the 16^th of his reign, repaired, or rather new built this house, not embattled, or so strongly fortified castle like, but far more beautiful and commodious for the entertainment of any prince or great estate. In the 17^th of his reign, he, with his queen, were lodged there, and came from thence to Paul's Church, where they made their offering, dined in the bishop's palace, and so returned. The 18^th of his reign he was lodged there, and the ambassadors from the King of the Romans were thither brought to his presence, and from thence the king came to Paul's, and was there sworn to the King of the Romans, as the said king had sworn to him.

   The 20^th of the said king, he with his knights of the order, all in their habits of the Garter, rode from the Tower of London, through the city, unto the cathedral church of St. Paul's, and there heard evensong, and from thence they rode to Baynard's Castle, where the king lodged; and on the next morrow, in the same habit they rode from thence again to the said Church of St. Paul's, went on procession, heard the divine service, offered, and returned. The same year the King of Castile was lodged there.

   In the year 1553, the 19^th of July, the council, partly moved with the right of the Lady Mary's cause, partly considering that the most of the realm were wholly bent on her side, changing their mind from Lady Jane, lately proclaimed queen, assembled themselves at this Baynard's Castle, where they communed with the Earl of Pembroke, and the Earl of Shrewsbury, and Sir John Mason, clerk of the council, sent for the lord mayor, and then riding into Cheap to the Cross, where Garter King at Arms, trumpet being sounded, proclaimed the Lady Mary, daughter of King Henry VIII and Queen Katherine, Queen of England, &c.

This castle now belongeth to the Earl of Pembroke.

Next adjoining to this castle was sometime a tower, the name whereof I have not read; but that the same was built by Edward II, is manifest by this that followeth.

King Edward III, in the second year of his reign, gave unto William de Ros, of Hamolake, in Yorkshire, a tower upon the water of Thames, by the castle of Baynard in the city of London, which tower his father had built; he gave the said tower and appurtenances to the said William Hamolake, and his heirs, for a rose yearly, to be paid for all service due, etc. This tower, as seemeth to me, was since called Legat’s Inn, the 7^th of Edward IV.

The next tower or castle, banking also on the river of Thames, was, as is afore showed, called Montfichett’s Castle, of a nobleman, Baron of Montfichett, the first builder thereof, who came in with William the Conqueror, and was since named Le Sir Montfichett.

This castle he built in a place not far distant from Baynard’s, towards the west. The same William Montfichett lived in the reign of Henry I, and was witness to a charter then granted to the city for the sheriffs of London.

Richard Montfichett lived in King John’s time; and in the year 1213 was by the same king banished the realm into France, when peradventure King John caused his castle to be overthrown; the which after his return might be by him again re-edified; for the total destruction thereof was about the year 1276, when Robert Kilwarby, Archbishop of Canterbury, began the foundation of the Friars Preachers Church there, commonly called the Black Friars, as appeareth by a charter the 4^th of Edward I, wherein is declared that Gregory de Rocksley, mayor of London, and the barons of the same city, granted and gave unto the said Archbishop Robert, two lanes or ways next the street of Baynard’s Castle, and the tower of Montfichett, to be applied for the enlargement of the said church and place.

One other tower there was also situate on the river of Thames near unto the said Black Friars Church, on the west part thereof built at the citizen’s charges, but by license and commandment of Edward I and of Edward II, as appeareth by their grants; which tower was then finished, and so stood for the space of three hundred years, and was at last taken down by the commandment of John Shaw, mayor of London, in the year 1502.

Another tower, or castle, also was there in the west part of the city pertaining to the king. For I read, that in the year 1087, the 20^th of William I, the city of London, with the Church of St. Paul being burned, Mauritius, then Bishop of London, afterward began the foundation of a new church, whereunto, King William, saith mine author, gave the choice stones of this castle standing near to the bank of the river of Thames, at the west end of the city. After this Mauritius, Richard his successor purchased the streets about Paul's Church, compassing the same with a wall of stone and gates. King Henry I gave to this Richard so much of the moat or wall of the castle, on the Thames side to the south, as should be needful to make the said wall of the churchyard, and so much more as should suffice to make a way without the wall on the north side, &c.

This tower or castle thus destroyed, stood, as it may seem, where now standeth the house called Bridewell. For notwithstanding the destruction of the said castle or tower, the house remained large, so that the kings of this realm long after were lodged there, and kept their courts; for until the 9^th year of Henry III the courts of law and justice were kept in the king's house, wheresoever he was lodged, and not elsewhere. And that the kings have been lodged, and kept their law courts, in this place, I could show you many authors of record, but for plain proof this one may suffice. “Hæc est finalis concordia, facta in Curia Domini regis apud Sanct. Bridgid. London. a die Sancti Michaelis in 15 dies, Anno regni regis Johannis 7. coram G. Fil. Petri. Eustachio de Fauconberg, Johanne de Gestlinge, Osbart filio Hervey, Walter De Crisping Justiciar. et aliis baronibus Domini regis."

More, as Matthew Paris hath, about the year 1210, King John, in the 12^th of his reign, summoned a parliament at St. Bride's in London, where he exacted of the clergy and religious persons the sum of one hundred thousand pounds; and besides all this, the white monks were compelled to cancel their privileges, and to pay forty thousand pounds to the king, &c.

This house of St. Bride's of latter time being left, and not used by the kings, fell to ruin, insomuch that the very platform thereof remained for great part waste, and, as it were, but a laystall of filth and rubbish; only a fair well remained there. A great part of this house, namely, on the west, as hath been said, was given to the Bishop of Salisbury; the other, part towards the east remaining waste until King Henry VIII built a stately and beautiful house thereupon, giving it that name Bridewell, of the parish and well there. This house he purposely built for the entertainment of the Emperor Charles V, who in the year 1522 came into this city, as I have showed in my Summary, Annals, and large Chronicles.

        On the north‑west side of the city, near unto Redcross Street, there was a tower, commonly called Barbican, or Burhkenning [Barbican –Stow’s etymology will not explain the existence of the word in Old French, Old Spanish, and Low Latin. Its origin is doubtful, but it is usually derived from the Arabic]; for that the same being placed on a high ground, and also built of some good height, was in old time a watch-tower for the city, from whence a man might behold and view the whole city toward the south, and also into Kent, Sussex, and Surrey, and likewise every other way, east, north, or west.

Some other burhkennings, or watch‑towers, there were of old time in and about the city, all which were repaired, yea, and others new built, by Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, in the reign of King Henry III, when the barons were in arms, and held the city against the king; but the barons being reconciled to his favour in the year 1267, he caused all their burhkennings, watch-towers, and bulwarks, made and repaired by the said earl, to be plucked down, and the ditches to be filled up, so that nought of them might be seen to remain; and then was this burhkenning, amongst the rest, overthrown and destroyed; and although the ditch near thereunto, called Hound’s Ditch, was stopped up, yet the street of long time after was called Hound’s Ditch; and of late time more commonly called the Barbican. The plot or seat of this burhkenning, or watch-tower, King Edward III, in the year 1336, and the 10^th of his reign, gave unto Robert Ufford, Earl of Suffolk, by the name of his manor of Base Court, in the parish of St. Giles without Cripplegate, of London, commonly called the Barbican.

Tower Royal was of old time the king's house. King Stephen was there lodged; but sithence called the Queen's Wardrobe. The princess, mother to King Richard II, in the 4^th of his reign was lodged there; being forced to fly from the Tower of London when the rebels possessed it. But on the 15^th of June (saith Froissart), Wat Tyler being slain, the king went to this lady princess his mother, then lodged in the Tower Royal, called the Queen's Wardrobe, where she had tarried two days and two nights; which tower (saith the Record of Edward III., the 36^th year) was in the parish of St. Michel de Paternoster, &c.

        In the year 1386, King Richard, with Queen Anne his wife, kept their Christmas at Eltham, whither came to him Lion, King of Ermony, under pretence to reform peace betwixt the kings of England and France; but what his coming profited he only understood; for besides innumerable gifts that he received of the king and his nobles, the king lying then in this Tower Royal, at the Queen's Wardrobe in London, granted to him a charter of a thousand pounds by year during his life. He was, as he affirmed, chased out of his kingdom by the Tartarians. More concerning this tower shall you read when you come to Vintry Ward, in which it standeth.

Sernes Tower in Bucklesbury was sometime the king's house. Edward III, in the 18^th of his reign, appointed his exchange of moneys therein to be kept; and in the 32^nd, he gave the same tower to his free chapel of St. Stephen at Westminster.

Of Schools and other Houses of Learning

“In the reign of King Stephen and of Henry II," saith Fitzstephen, “there were in London three principal churches, which had famous schools, either by privilege and ancient dignity, or, by favour of some particular persons, as of doctors which were accounted notable and renowned for knowledge in philosophy. And there were other inferior schools also. Upon festival days the masters made solemn meetings in the churches, where their scholars disputed logically and demonstratively; some bringing enthymems, other perfect syllogisms; some disputed for show, other to trace out the truth; cunning sophisters were thought brave scholars when they flowed with words; others used fallacies; rhetoricians spake aptly to persuade, observing the precepts of art, and omitting nothing that might serve their purpose; the boys of diverse schools did cap or pot verses, and contended of the principles of grammar; there were some which on the other side with epigrams and rymes, nipping and quipping their fellows, and the faults of others, though suppressing their names, moved thereby much laughter among their auditors."

   Hitherto, Fitzstephen, for schools and scholars, and for their exercises in the city in his days; sithence the which time, as to me it seemeth, by the increase of colleges and students in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, the frequenting of schools, and exercises of scholars in the city, as had been accustomed, hath much decreased.

        The three principal churches which had these famous schools by privileges, must needs be the cathedral church of St. Paul for one; seeing, that by a general council, holden in the year of 1176, at Rome, in the patriarchy of Lateran, it was decreed that every cathedral church should have his school-master to teach poor scholars, and others as had been accustomed, and that no man should take any reward for license to teach.

        The second, as most ancient, may seem to have been the monastery of St. Peter's at Westminster, whereof Ingulphus, Abbot of Croyland, in the reign of William the Conqueror, [the Chronicle ascribed to Ingulphus was forged in the beginning of the fifteenth century], thus:‑“I, Ingulphus, an humble servant of God, born of English parents, in the most beautiful city of London, for to attain to learning, was first put to Westminster, and after to study of Oxford," &c.

        And writing in praise of Queen Edgitha, wife to Edward the Confessor: “I have seen her," saith he, “often when being a boy, I came to see my father dwelling in the king’s court, and often coming from school, when I met her, she would oppose me, touching my learning and lesson; and falling from grammar to logic, wherein she had some knowledge, she would subtilly conclude an argument with me, and by her hand maiden give me three or four pieces of money, and send me unto the palace where I should receive some victuals, and then be dismissed."

        The third school seemeth to have been in the monastery of St. Saviour, at Bermondsey in Southwark; for other priories, as of St. John by Smithfield, St. Bartholomew in Smithfield, St. Mary Overies in Southwark, and that of the Holy Trinity by Aldgate, were all of later foundation, and the friaries, colleges, hospitals, in this city, were raised since them in the reigns of Henry III, Edward I, II, and III, &c. All which houses had their schools; though not so famous as these first named.

        But touching schools more lately advanced in this city, I read, that King Henry V, having suppressed the priories aliens, whereof some were about London; namely, one hospital, called Our Lady of Rouncivall, by Charing Cross; one other hospital in Oldbourne; one other without Cripplegate; and the fourth without Aldersgate; besides other that are now worn out of memory, and whereof there is no monument remaining, more than Rouncivall converted to a brotherhood, which continued till the reign of Henry VIII or Edward VI; this, I say, and other their schools, being broken up and ceased, King Henry VI, in the 24^th of the reign, by patent, appointed that there should be in London grammar schools, besides St. Paul's, at St. Martin's le Grand, St. Mary le Bow in Cheap, St. Dunstan's in the west, and St. Anthony's. And in the next year, to wit, 1394, the said king ordained by parliament that four other grammar schools should be erected, to wit, in the parishes of St. Andrew in Oldbourne, Allhallows the Great in Thames Street, St. Peter's upon Cornhill, and in the hospital of St. Thomas of Acons, in West Cheap; since the which time as divers schools, by suppressing of religious houses, whereof they were members, in the reign of Henry VIII, have been decayed, so again have some others been newly erected, and founded for them; as namely Paul's School, in place of an old ruined house, was built in most ample manner, and largely endowed, in the year 1512, by John Colet, Doctor of Divinity, Dean of Paul's, for one hundred and fifty‑three poor men's children, for which there was ordained a master, surmaster or usher, and a chaplain.

        Again, in the year 1553, after the erection of Christ's Hospital, in the late dissolved house of the Gray Friars, a great number     of poor children being taken in, a school was also ordained there at the citizens' charges.

        Also, in the year 1561, the Merchant Taylors of London founded one notable free grammar school, in the parish of St. Laurence Poultney by, Candlewick Street,

Richard Hils, late master of that company, having given five hundred pounds towards the purchase of a house, called the Manor of the Rose, sometime the Duke of Buckingham's, wherein the school is kept. As for the meeting of the school­-masters on festival days, at festival churches, and the disputing of their scholars logically, &c., whereof I have before spoken, the same was long since discontinued; but the arguing of the schoolboys about the principles of grammar hath been continued even till our time; for I myself, in my youth, have yearly seen, on the eve of St. Bartholomew the Apostle, the scholars of divers grammar schools repair unto the churchyard of St. Bartholomew, the priory in Smithfield, where upon a bank boarded about under a tree, some one scholar hath stepped up, and there hath opposed and answered, till he were by some better scholar overcome and put down; and then the overcomer taking the place, did like as the first; and in the end the best opposers and answerers had rewards, which I observed not but it made both good schoolmasters, and also good scholars, diligently against such times to prepare themselves for the obtaining of this garland. I remember there repaired to these exercises, amongst others, the masters and scholars of the free schools of St. Paul's in London, of St. Peter's at Westminster, of St. Thomas Acon's Hospital, and of St. Anthony's Hospital; whereof the last named commonly presented the best scholars, and had the prize in those days.

        This priory of St. Bartholomew being surrendered to Henry VIII, those disputations of scholars in that place surceased; and was again, only for a year or twain, in the reign of Edward VI, revived in the cloister of Christ's Hospital, where the best scholars, then still of St. Anthony's School, were rewarded with bows and arrows of silver, given to them by Sir Martin Bowes, goldsmith. Nevertheless, however the encouragement failed, the scholars of Paul's, meeting with them of St. Anthony's, would call them Anthony pigs, and they again would call the other, pigeons of Paul's, because many pigeons were bred in St. Paul's Church, and St. Anthony was always figured with a pig following him; and mindful of the former usage, did for a long season disorderly in the open street provoke one another with, “Salve tu quoque, placet tibi mecum disputare?" “Placet." And so proceeding from this to questions in grammar, they usually fell from words to blows with their satchels full of books, many times in great heaps, that they troubled the streets and passengers; so that finally they were restrained, with the decay of St. Anthony’s School. Out of this school have sprung divers famous persons, whereof although time hath buried the names of many, yet in mine own remembrance may be numbered these following:‑ Sir Thomas More, knight, Lord Chancellor of England; Dr. Nicholas Heath, sometime Bishop of Rochester, after of Worcester, and lastly Archbishop of York and Lord Chancellor of England; Doctor John Whitgift, Bishop of Worcester, and after Archbishop of Canterbury, &c.

        Of later time, in the year of Christ 1582, there was founded a public lecture on chirurgery, to be read in the College of Physicians in Knightriders Street, to begin in the year 1584, on the sixth of May, and so to be continued for ever, twice every week, on Wednesday and Friday, by the honourable Baron, John Lord Lombley, and the learned Richard Caldwell, doctor in physic, the reader whereof to be Richard Forster, doctor of physic, during his life.

        Furthermore, about the same time there was also begun a mathematical lecture, to be read in a fair old chapel, built by Simon Eyre, within the Leaden Hall; whereof a learned citizen born, named Thomas Hood, was the first reader. But this chapel, and other parts of that hall, being employed for stowage of goods taken out of a great Spanish carrack, the said lecture ceased any more to be read, and was then in the year 1588 read in the house of Master Thomas Smith in Grass Street, &c.

Last of all, Sir Thomas Gresham, knight, agent to the queen's highness, by his last will and testament made in the year 1579, gave the Royal Exchange, and all the buildings thereunto appertaining; that is to say, the one moiety to the mayor and commonalty of London and their successors, upon trust that they, perform as shall be declared; and the other moiety to the mercers in like confidence. The mayor and commonalty are to find four to read lectures of divinity, astronomy, music, and geometry, within his dwelling‑house in Bishopsgate Street, and to bestow the sum of two hundred pounds; to wit, fifty pounds the piece, &c. The mercers likewise are to find three readers, that is, in civil law, physic, and rhetoric, within the same dwelling‑house, the sum of one hundred and fifty pounds; to every reader, fifty pounds, &c.: which gift hath been since that time confirmed by parliament, to take effect and begin after the decease of the Lady Anne Gresham, which happened in the year 1596, and so to continue for ever. Whereupon the lecturers were accordingly chosen and appointed to have begun their readings in the month of June 1597; whose names were, Anthony Wootton, for divinity; Doctor Mathew Gwynne, for physic; Doctor Henry Mountlow, for the civil law; Doctor John Bull, for music; Brerewood, for astronomy; Henry Briggs, for geometry; and Caleb Willis, for rhetoric. These lectures are read daily, Sundays excepted, in the term times, by every one upon his day, in the morning betwixt nine and ten, in Latin; in the afternoon, betwixt two and three, in English; save that Dr. Bull is dispensed with, to read the music lecture in English only upon two several days, Thursday and Saturday, in the afternoons, betwixt three and four of the clock.

Houses of Students in the Common Law

But besides all this, there is in and about this city a whole University, as it were, of students, practisers or pleaders, and judges of the laws of this realm, not living of common stipends, as in other universities it is for the most part done, but of their own private maintenance, as being altogether fed either by their places or practice, or otherwise by their proper revenue, or exhibition of parents and friends; for that the younger sort are either gentlemen or the sons of gentlemen, or of other most wealthy persons. Of these houses there be at this day fourteen in all; whereof nine do stand within the liberties of this city, and five in the suburbs thereof; to wit

Within the liberties.

Sergeants' Inn in Fleet Street, Sergeants' Inn in Chancery Lane; for judges and sergeants only.

The Inner Temple, the Middle Temple, in Fleet Street; houses of court.

Clifford's Inn in Fleet Street, Thavies Inn in Oldborne, Furnival's Inn in Oldborne, Barnard's Inn in Oldborne, Staple Inn in Oldborne; houses of Chancery.

Without the liberties.

Gray's Inn in Oldborne, Lincoln's Inn in Chancery Lane by the old Temple; houses of court.

Clement's Inn, New Inn, Lyon's Inn; houses of Chancery, without Temple Bar, in the liberty of Westminster.

There was sometime an inn of sergeants in Oldborne, as you may read of Scrop's Inn over against St. Andrew's Church.

There was also one other inn of Chancery, called Chester's Inn for the nearness to the Bishop of Chester's house, but more commonly termed Strand Inn, for that it stood in Strand Street, and near unto Strand Bridge without Temple Bar, in the liberty of the duchy of Lancaster. This inn of Chancery, with other houses near adjoining, were pulled down in the reign of Edward VI by Edward Duke of Somerset, who in place thereof raised that large and beautiful house, but yet unfinished, called Somerset House.

There was, moreover, in the reign of King Henry I, a tenth house of Chancery, mentioned by Justice Fortescue in his book of the laws of England, but where it stood, or when it was abandoned, I cannot find, and therefore I will leave it, and return to the rest.

The Houses of Court be replenished partly with young students, and partly with graduates and practisers of the law; but the Inns of Chancery, being, as it were, provinces, severally subjected to the Inns of Court, be chiefly furnished with officers, attorneys, solicitors, and clerks, that follow the courts of the King's Bench or Common Pleas; and yet there want not some other being young students, that come thither sometimes from one of the universities, and sometimes immediately from grammar schools; and these having spent some time in studying upon the first elements and grounds of the law, and having performed the exercise of their own houses (called Boltas Mootes [Boltas Mootes meetings for disputation, that is, for bolting or sifting a case put for argument], and putting of cases), they proceed to be admitted, and become students in some of these four houses or inns of court, where continuing by the space of seven years or thereabouts, they frequent readings, meetings, boltings, and other learned exercises, whereby growing ripe in the knowledge of the laws, and approved withal to be of honest conversation, they are either, by the general consent of the benchers or readers, being of the most ancient, grave, and judicial men of every inn of the court, or by the special privilege of the present reader, there selected and called to the degree of utter barristers, and so enabled to be common counsellors, and to practise the law, both in their chambers and at the bars.

Of these, after that they be called to a further step of preferment, called the Bench, there are twain every year chosen among the benchers of every Inn of Court to be Readers there, who do make their readings at two times in the year also; that is, one in Lent, and the other at the beginning of August.

And for the help of young students in every of the Inns of Chancery, they do likewise choose out of every one Inn of Court a Reader, being no bencher, but an utter barrister there, of ten or twelve years' continuance, and of good profit in study. Now, from these of the said degree of counsellors, or utter barristers, having continued therein the space of fourteen or fifteen years at the least, the chiefest and best learned are by the benchers elected to increase the number, as I said, of the bench amongst them; and so in their time do become first single, and then double, readers to the students of those houses of court; after which last reading they be named apprentices at the law, and, in default of a sufficient number of sergeants at law, these are, at the pleasure of the prince, to be advanced to the places of sergeants; out of which number of sergeants also the void places of judges are likewise ordinarily filled; albeit, now and then some be advanced, by the special favour of the prince, to the estate, dignity, and place, both of sergeant and judge, as it were in one instant. But from thenceforth they hold not any room in those inns of court, being translated to one of the said two inns, called Sergeant's Inns, where none but the sergeants and judges do converse.

Of Orders and Customs.

Of orders and customs in this city of old time, Fitzstephen saith as followeth: “Men of all trades, sellers of all sorts of wares, labourers in every work, every morning are in their distinct and several places; furthermore, in London, upon the river side, between the wine in ships and the wine to be sold in taverns, is a common cookery, or Cooks' Row; there daily, for the season­ of the year, men might have meat, roast, sod, or fried; fish, flesh, fowls, fit for rich and poor. If any come suddenly to any citizen from afar, weary, and not willing to tarry till the meat be bought, and dressed, while the servant bringeth water for his master's hands, and fetcheth bread, he shall have immediately from the river's side all viands whatsoever, be desireth: what multitude soever, either of soldiers or strangers, do come to the city, whatsoever hour, day or night, according to their pleasures may refresh themselves; and they which delight in delicateness may be satisfied with as delicate dishes there as may be found elsewhere. And this Cooks' Row is very necessary to the city; and, according to Plato in Gorgias, next to physic is the office of cooks, as part, of a city.

“Without, one of the gates is a plain field, both in name [Smooth field, Smithfield], and deed, where every Friday, unless it be a solemn bidden holy day, is a notable show of horses to be sold; earls, barons, knights, and citizens repair thither to see or to buy; there may you of pleasure see amblers pacing it delicately; there may you see trotters fit for men of arms, sitting more hardly; there may you have notable young horses, not yet broken; there may you have strong steeds, well limbed geldings, whom the buyers do specially regard for pace and swiftness; the boys which ride these horses, sometime two, sometime three, do run races for wagers, with a desire of praise, or hope of victory. In another part of that field are to be sold all implements of husbandry, as also fat swine, milch kine, sheep, and oxen; there stand also mares and horses fit for ploughs and teams, with their young colts by them. At this city, merchant strangers of all nations had their quays and wharfs; the Arabians sent gold; the Sabians spice, and frankincense; the Scythian armour, Babylon oil, Indian purple garments, Egypt precious stones, Norway and Russia ambergris and sables, and the Frenchmen wine. According to the truth of Chronicles, this city is ancienter than Rome, built of the ancient Troyans and of Brute, before that was built by Romulus and Remus; and therefore useth the ancient customs of Rome. This city, even as Rome, is divided into wards; it hath yearly sheriffs instead of consuls; it hath the dignity of senators in aldermen. It hath under officers, common sewers, and conduits in streets; according to the quality of causes, it hath general courts and assemblies upon appointed days. I do not think that there is any city wherein are better customs, in frequenting the churches, in serving God, in keeping holy days, in giving alms, in entertaining strangers, in solemnizing marriages, in furnishing banquets, celebrating funerals, and burying dead bodies.

“The only plagues of London are immoderate quaffing among the foolish sort, and often casualties by fire. Most part of the bishops, abbots, and great lords of the land have houses there, whereunto they resort, and bestow much, when they are called to parliament by the king, or to council by their metropolitan, or otherwise by their private business."

Thus far Fitzstephen, of the estate of things in his time, whereunto may be added the present, by conference whereof the alteration will easily appear.

Men of trades and sellers of wares in this city have oftentimes since changed their places, as they have found their best advantage. For whereas mercers and haberdashers used to keep their shops in West Cheap, of later time they held them on London Bridge, where partly they yet remain. The goldsmiths of Gutheron's Lane and Old Exchange are now for the most part removed into the south side of West Cheap, the pepperers and grocers of Soper's Lane are now in Bucklesbury, and other places dispersed. The drapers of Lombard Street and of Cornhill are seated in Candlewick Street and Watling Street; the skinners from St. Mary Pellipers, or at the Axe, into Budge Row and Walbrook; the stockfishmongers in Thames Street; wet fishmongers in Knightriders Street and Bridge Street; the ironmongers, of Ironmongers' Lane and Old Jury, into Thames Street; the vintners from the Vintry into divers places.

But the brewers for the more part remain near to the friendly water of Thames; the butchers in East Cheap, St. Nicholas Shambles, and the Stocks Market; the hosiers, of old time in Hosier Lane, near unto Smithfield, are since removed into Cordwainer Street, the upper part thereof by Bow Church, and last of all into Birchoveries Lane by Cornhill; the shoemakers and curriers of Cordwainer Street removed, the one to St. Martin's le Grand, the other to London Wall near unto Moorgate; the founders remain by themselves in Lothbury; cooks, or pastelers, for the more part in Thames Street, the other dispersed into divers parts; poulterers of late removed out of the Poultry, betwixt the Stocks and the great conduit in Cheap, into Grass Street and St. Nicholas shambles; bowyers, from Bowyers' Row by Ludgate into divers places, and almost worn out, with the fletchers; paternoster makers of old time, or bede‑makers, and text‑writers, are gone out of Paternoster Row, and are called stationers of Paul's Churchyard; patten‑makers, of St. Margaret, Pattens' Lane, clean worn out; labourers every work‑day are to be found in Cheap, about Soper's Land End; horse‑coursers and sellers of oxen, sheep, swine, and such like, remain in their old market of Smithfield, &c.

That merchants of all nations had their quays and wharfs at this city, whereunto they brought their merchandises before and in the reign of Henry II, mine author wrote of his own knowledge to be true, though for the antiquity of the city he took the common opinion. Also that this city was in his time and afore divided into wards, had yearly sheriffs, aldermen, general courts, and assemblies, and such like notes by him set down, in commendation of the citizens, whereof there is no question, he wrote likewise of his own experience, as being born and brought up amongst them.

And to confirm his opinion, concerning merchandises then hither transported, whereof happily may be some argument, Thomas Clifford (before Fitzstephen's time), writing of Edward the Confessor, saith to this effect: “King Edward, intending to make his sepulchre at Westminster; for that it was near to the famous city of London, and the river of Thames, that brought in all kind of merchandises from all parts of the world, &c." And William of Malmesbury, that lived in the reign of William I and II, Henry I, and King Stephen, calleth this a noble city, full of wealthy citizens, frequented with the trade of merchandises from all parts of the world.

Also I read, in divers records, that of old time no woad was stowed or harboured in this city, but all was presently sold in the ships, except by licence purchased of the sheriffs, till of more later time; to wit, in the year 1236, Andrew Bokerell, being mayor, by assent of the principal citizens, the merchants of Amiens, Nele, and Corby, purchased letters insealed with the common seal of this city, that they when they come might harbour their woads, and therefore should give the mayor every year fifty marks sterling; and the same year they gave one hundred pounds towards the conveying of water from Tybourn to this city.

Also the merchants of Normandy made fine for license to harbour their woads till it was otherwise provided, in the year 1263, Thomas Fitz Thomas being mayor, &c., which proveth that then as afore, they were here amongst other nations privileged.

It followeth in Fitzstephen, that the plagues of London in that time were immoderate quaffing among fools, and often casualties by fire. For the first‑to wit, of quaffing‑it continueth as afore, or rather is mightily increased, though greatly qualified among the poorer sort, not of any holy abstinence, but of mere necessity, ale and beer being small, and wines in price above their reach. As for prevention of casualties by fire, the houses in this city being then built all of timber, and covered with thatch of straw or reed, it was long since thought good policy in our forefathers wisely to provide, namely, in the year of Christ 1189, the first of Richard I, Henry Fitzalwine being then mayor, that all men in this city should build their houses of stone up to a certain height, and to cover them with slate or baked tile; since which time, thanks be given to God, there hath not happened the like often consuming fires in this city as afore.

But now in our time, instead of these enormities, others are come in place no less meet to be reformed; namely, purprestures, or encroachments on the highways, lanes, and common grounds, in and about this city; whereof a learned gentleman and grave citizen hath not many years since written and exhibited a book to the mayor and commonalty; which book, whether the same have been by them read and diligently considered upon, I know not, but sure I am nothing is reformed since concerning this matter.

Then the number of cars, drays, carts, and coaches, more than been accustomed, the streets and lanes being straitened, must needs be dangerous, as daily experience proveth.

The coachman rides behind the horse tails, lasheth them, and looketh not behind him; the drayman sitteth and sleepeth on his dray, and letteth his horse lead him home. I know that, by the good laws and customs of this city, shod carts [shod carts -carts bound with iron], are forbidden to enter the same, except upon reasonable cause, as service of the prince, or such like, they be tolerated. Also that the fore horse of every carriage should be led by hand; but these good orders are not observed.

Of old time coaches were not known in this island, but chariots or whirlicotes, then so called, and they only used of princes or great estates, such as had their footmen about them; and for example to note, I read that Richard II, being threatened by the rebels of Kent, rode from the Tower of London to the Mile's End, and with him his mother, because she was sick and weak, in a whirlicote, the Earls of Buckingham, Kent, Warwick, and Oxford, Sir Thomas Percy, Sir Robert Knowles, the Mayor of London, Sir Aubrey de Vere, that bare the king's sword, with other knights and esquires attending on horseback.

But in the next year, the said King Richard took to wife Anne, daughter to the King of Bohemia, that first brought hither the riding upon side‑saddles; and so was the riding in whirlicotes and chariots forsaken, except at coronations and such like spectacles; but now of late years the use of coaches, brought out of Germany, is taken up, and made so common, as there is neither distinction of time nor difference of persons observed; for the world runs on wheels with many whose parents were glad to go on foot.

Last of all, mine author in this chapter hath these words:

“Most part of the bishops, abbots, and great lords of the land, as if they were citizens and freemen of London, had many fair houses to resort unto, and many rich and wealthy gentlemen spent their money there."

And in another place he hath these words: “Every Sunday in Lent a fresh company of young men comes into the fields on horseback, and the best horseman conducteth the rest; then march forth the citizen's son's, and other young men, with disarmed lances and shields, and practise feats of war; many courtiers likewise and attendants of noblemen repair to this exercise, and whilst the hope of victory doth inflame their minds, they do show good proof how serviceable they would be in martial affairs, &c."

Again he [Fitzstephen] saith: “This city, in the troublesome time of King Stephen, showed at a muster twenty thousand armed horsemen and forty thousand footmen, serviceable for the wars, &c."

All which sayings of the said author, well considered, do plainly prove that in those days the inhabitants and repairers to this city, of what estate soever, spiritual or temporal, having houses here, lived together in good amity with the citizens, every man observing the customs and orders of the city; and those to be contributary to charges here, rather than in any part of the land wheresoever, this city, being the heart of the realm, the king's chamber and prince's seat, whereunto they made repair, and showed their forces, both of horses and of men; which caused in troublesome time, as of King Stephen, the musters of this city to be so great in number.

And here, to touch somewhat of greater families and households kept in former times by noblemen, and great estates of this realm, according to their honours or dignities, I have seen an account made by H. Leicester, cofferer to Thomas Earl of Lancaster, for one whole year's expenses in the earl's house, from the day next after Michaelmas, in the seventh year of Edward II, until Michaelmas in the eighth year of the same king, amounting to the sum of £7,957, 13s. 4½d. as followeth:

To wit, in the pantry, buttery, and kitchen, £3405, &c. for one hundred and eighty‑four tuns, one pipe of red or claret wine, and one tun of white wine bought for the house, £6104, 17s. 6d.

For grocery ware, £180, 17s.

For six barrels of sturgeon, £19.

For six thousand eight hundred stock‑fishes, so called for dried fishes of all sorts, as lings, haberdines, [salt cod] and other, £41, 6s. 7d.

For one thousand seven hundred and fourteen pounds of wax, with vermilion and turpentine to make red wax, £314, 7s. 4½d.

For two thousand three hundred and nineteen pounds of tallow candles for the household, and one thousand eight hundred and seventy of lights for Paris candles, called perchers [percher -a large wax candle, such as was placed on altars], £3 1, 14s. 3d.

Expenses on the earl's great horses, and the keeper's wages £486, 4s. 3¼d.

Linen cloth for the earl and his chaplains, and for the pantry, £43, 17s.

For one hundred and twenty‑nine dozen of parchment, with ink, £4, 8s. 3¼d.

Sum, £5230, 17s 7¼d.

 

Item, for two cloths of scarlet for the earl against Christmas, one cloth of russet for the Bishop of Angew, seventy cloths of blue for the knights (as they were then termed), fifteen cloths of medley for the lord's clerks, twenty‑eight cloths for the esquires, fifteen cloths for officers, nineteen cloths for grooms, five cloths for archers, four cloths for minstrels and carpenters, with the sharing and carriage for the earl's liveries at Christmas £460, 15s.

Item, for seven furs of variable miniver (or powdered ermine), seven hoods of purple, three hundred and ninety‑five furs of budge [budge-fine lambskin, with the wool dressed outwards], for the liveries of barons, knights, and clerks, one hundred and twenty‑three furs of lambs for esquires, bought at Christmas, £147, 17s. 8d.

Item, sixty‑five cloths, saffron colour, for the barons and knights in summer, twelve red cloths, mixed, for clerks, twenty‑six cloths, ray, for esquires, one cloth, ray, for officers' coats in summer, and four cloths, ray, for carpets in the hall, for £345, 13s. 8d.

Item, one hundred pieces of green silk for the knights, fourteen budge furs for surcoats, thirteen hoods of budge for clerks, and seventy‑five furs of lambs for the lord's liveries in summer, with canvas and cords to truss them, £72, 19s.

Item, saddles for the lord's liveries in summer, £51, 6s. 8d.

Item, one saddle for the earl of the prince's arms, 40s.

Sum, £1079, 18s. 3d.

Item, for things bought, whereof cannot be read in my note, £241, l4s. l¼d.

For horses lost in service of the earl, £8, 6s. 8d.

Fees paid to earls, barons, knights, and esquires, £623, 15s. 5d.

In gifts to knights of France, the Queen of England's nurses, to the Countess of Warren, esquires, minstrels, messengers, and riders, £92, 14s.

Item, one hundred and sixty‑eight yards of russet cloth, and twenty-four coats for poor men, with money given to the poor on Maundy Thursday, £8, 16s. 7d.

Item, twenty-four silver dishes, so many saucers and so many cups for the buttery, one pair of paternosters, and one silver coffin, bought this year, £103, 5s. 6d.

To divers messengers about the earl’s business, £34, 19s. 8d.

In the earl’s chamber, £5.

To divers men for the earl’s old debts, £88, 16s. 0¾d.

Sum, £1207, 7s. 11¾d.

The expenses of the countess at Pickering for the time of this account, as in the pantry, buttery, kitchen, and other places, concerning these offices, £285, 13s. 0½d.

In wine, wax, spices, cloths, furs, and other things for the countess’ wardrobe, £154, 7s. 4½d.

Sum, £439, 8s. 6¼d.

Thus much for this Earl of Lancaster.

More I read, that in the 14^th of the same Edward II, Hugh Spencer the elder (condemned by the commonalty) was banished the realm; at which time it was found by inquisition that the said Spencer had in sundry shires, fifty-nine manors; he had twenty-eight thousand sheep, one thousand oxen and steers, one thousand two hundred kine with their calves, forty mares with their colts, one hundred and sixty drawing horses, two thousand hogs, three hundred bullocks, forty tuns of wine, six hundred bacons, eighty carcases of Martinmas beef, six hundred muttons in larder, ten tuns of cider; his armour, plate, jewels, and ready money, better than £10,000, thirty-six sacks of wool, and a library of books. Thus much the record, which provision for household showeth a great family there to be kept.

Nearer to our time, I read, in the 36^th of Henry VI, that the greater estates of the realm being called up to London.

The Earl of Salisbury came with five hundred men on horseback, and was lodged in the Herber.

Richard, Duke of York, with four hundred men, lodged at Baynard’s Castle.

The Dukes of Exeter and Somerset, with eight hundred men.

The Earl of Northumberland, the Lord Egremont, and the Lord Clifford, with fifteen hundred men.

Richard Nevill, Earl of Warwick, with six hundred men, all in red jackets, embroidered with ragged staves before and behind, and was lodged in Warwick Lane; in whose house there was oftentimes six oxen eaten at a breakfast, and every tavern was full of his meat: for he that had any acquaintance in that house might have there so much of sodden and roast meat as he could prick and carry upon a long dagger.

Richard Redman, Bishop of Ely, 1500, the 17^th of Henry VII, besides his great family, housekeeping, alms dish, and relief to the poor, wheresoever he was lodged, in his travelling, when at his coming or going to or from any town, the bells being rung, all the poor would come together, to whom he gave every one sixpence at the least.

And now to note of our own time somewhat. Omitting in this place, Thomas Wolsey, Archbishop of York, and cardinal, I refer the reader to my Annals, where I have set down the order of his house and household, passing all other subjects of his time. His servants, daily attending in his house, were near about four hundred, omitting his servants' servants, which were many.

Nicholas West, Bishop of Ely, in the year 1532, kept continually in his house an hundred servants, giving to the one half of them 53s. 4d. the piece yearly; to the other half each 40s. the piece; to every one for his winter gown four yards of broadcloth, and for his summer coat three yards and a half: he daily gave at his gates, besides bread and drink, warm meat to two hundred poor people.

The housekeeping of Edward, late Earl of Derby, is not to be forgotten, who had two hundred and twenty men in check roll: his feeding aged persons twice every day, sixty and odd, besides all comers, thrice a week, appointed for his dealing [dealing-distributing, as in whist], days, and every Good Friday two thousand seven hundred, with meat, drink, and money.

Thomas Audley, lord chancellor, his family of gentlemen before him, in coats guarded [guarded-embroidered], with velvet, and chains of gold; his yeomen after him in the same livery, not guarded.

William Paulet, lord great master, Marquis of Winchester, kept the same number of gentlemen and yeomen in a livery of Reading tawny, and great relief at his gate.

Thomas Lord Cromwell, Earl of Sussex, kept the like or greater number in a livery of grey marble; the gentlemen guarded with velvet, the yeomen with the same cloth, yet their skirts large enough for their friends to sit upon them.

Edward, Duke of Somerset, was not inferior in keeping a number of tall and comely gentlemen and yeomen, though his house was then in building, and most of his men were lodged abroad.

The late Earl of Oxford, father to him that now liveth, hath been noted within these forty years to have ridden into this city, and to his house by London Stone, with eighty gentlemen in a livery of Reading tawny, and chains of gold about their necks, before him, and one hundred tall yeomen, in the like livery, to follow him without chains, but all having his cognizance of the blue boar embroidered on their left shoulder.

These, as all other of their times, gave great relief to the poor. I myself, in that declining time of charity, hath oft seen at the Lord Cromwell’s gate in London more than two hundred persons served twice every day with bread, meat, and drink sufficient; for he observed that ancient and charitable custom, as all prelates, noblemen, or men of honour and worship, his predecessors, had done before him; whereof somewhat to note for example, Venerable Bede writeth, that prelates of his time having peradventure but wooden churches, had notwithstanding on their board at their meals one alms dish, into the which was carved some good portion of meat out of every dish brought to their table; all which was given to the poor, besides the fragments left, in so much as in hard time, a poor prelate wanting victuals, hath caused his alms dish, being silver, to be divided among the poor, therewith to shift as they could, till God should send them better store.

Such a prelate was Ethelwald, Bishop of Winchester, in the reign of King Edgar, about the year of Christ 963; he in a great famine sold away all the sacred vessels of his church for to relieve the almost starved people, saying that there was no reason that the senseless temples of God should abound in riches, and lively temples of the Holy Ghost to lack it.

Walter de Suffield, Bishop of Norwich, was of the like mind; about the year 1245, in a time of great dearth, he sold all his plate, and distributed it to the poor every pennyworth.

Robert Winchelsea, Archbishop of Canterbury, about the year 1293, besides the daily fragments of his house, gave every Friday and Sunday, unto every beggar that came to his gate, a loaf of bread sufficient for that day, and there more usually, every such alms day, in time of dearth, to the number of five thousand, and otherwise four thousand, at the least; more, he used every great festival day to give one hundred and fifty pence to so many poor people, to send daily meat, bread, and drink, to such as by age or sickness were not able to fetch his alms, and to send meat, money, and apparel to such as he thought needed it.

I read, in 1171, that Henry II, after his return into England, did penance for the slaughter of Thomas Becket, of whom (a sore dearth increasing) ten thousand persons, from the first of April till new corn was inned, were daily fed and sustained.

More, I find recorded, that in the year 1236, the 20^th of Henry III, William de Haverhull, the king's treasurer, was commanded, that upon the day of the Circumcision of our Lord, six thousand poor people should be fed at Westminster, for the state of the king, queen, and their children. The like commandment the said King Henry gave to Hugh Gifford and William Browne, that upon Friday next after the Epiphany, they should cause to be fed in the great hall at Windsor, at a good fire, all the poor and needy children that could be found, and the king's children being weighed and measured, their weight and measure to be distributed for their good estates. These few examples for charity of kings may suffice.

I read, in the reign of Edward III, that Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham, did weekly bestow for the relief of the poor eight quarters of wheat made into bread, besides his alms dish, fragments of his house, and great sums of money given to the poor when he journeyed. And that these alms dishes were as well used at the tables of noblemen as of prelates, one note may suffice in this place.

I read, in the year 1452, that Richard, Duke of York, then claiming the crown, the Lord Rivers should have passed the sea about the king's business, but staying at Plymouth till his money was spent, and then sending for more, the Duke of Somerset sent him the image of St. George in silver and gold, to be sold, with the alms dish of the Duke of Gloucester, which was also of great price, for coin had they none.

To end of orders and customs in this city, also of great families kept by honourable persons thither repairing, and of charitable alms of old times given, I say, for conclusion, that all noble persons, and other of honour and worship, in former times lodging in this city, or liberties thereof, did without grudging bear their parts in charges with the citizens, according to their estimated estates, as I have before said, and could prove by examples; but let men call to mind Sir Thomas Cromwell, then lord privy seal and vicar‑general, lying in the City of London; he bare his charges to the great muster there in A.D. 1539 ; he sent his men in great number to the Mile's End, and after them their armour in cars, with their coats of white cloth, the arms of this city ; to wit, a red cross, and a sword, on the breast and back which armour and coats they ware amongst the citizens, without any difference, and marched through the city to Westminster.

Sports and Pastimes of Old Time used in this City

“Let us now," saith Fitzstephen, “come to the sports and pastimes, seeing it is fit that a city should not only be commodious and serious, but also merry and sportful; whereupon in the seals of the popes, until the time of Pope Leo, on the one side was St. Peter fishing, with a key over him, reached as it were by the hand of God out of heaven, and about it this verse:

“Tu pro me navem liquisti, suscipe clavem.”

      And on the other side was a city, and this inscription on it: “Aurea Roma.”

      Likewise to the praise of Augustus Cæsar and the city, in respect of the shows and sports was written

“Nocte pluit tota, redeunt spectacula mane …”

“All night it raines, and shows at morrow tide returned again,

And Cæsar with almighty Jove hath matcht an equal raign.”

 

        “But London, for the shows upon theatres, and comical pas­times, hath holy plays, representations of miracles, which holy confessors have wrought, or representations of torments wherein the constancy of martyrs appeared. Every year also at Shrove Tuesday, that we may begin with children's sports, seeing we all have been children, the schoolboys do bring cocks of the game to their master, and all the forenoon they delight themselves in cock‑fighting: after dinner, all the youths go into the fields to play at the ball.

        “The scholars of every school have their ball, or baton, in their hands; the ancient and wealthy men of the city come forth on horseback to see the sport of the young men, and to take part of the pleasure in beholding their agility. Every Friday in Lent a fresh company of young men comes into the field on horseback, and the best horseman conducteth the rest. Then march forth the citizens' sons, and other young men, with disarmed lances and shields, and there they practise feats of war. Many courtiers likewise, when the king lieth near, and attendants of noblemen, do repair to these exercises; and while the hope of victory doth inflame their minds, do show good proof how serviceable they would be in martial affairs.

        “In Easter holidays they fight battles on the water; a shield is hung upon a pole, fixed in the midst of the stream, a boat is prepared without oars, to be carried by violence of the water, and in the fore part thereof standeth a young man, ready to give charge upon the shield with his lance; if so be he breaketh his lance against the shield, and doth not fall, he is thought to have performed a worthy deed; if so be, without breaking his lance, he runneth strongly against the shield, down he falleth into the water, for the boat is violently forced with the tide; but on each side of the shield ride two boats, furnished with young men, which recover him that falleth as soon as they may. Upon the bridge, wharfs, and houses, by the river's side, stand great numbers to see and laugh thereat.

        “In the holidays all the summer the youths are exercised in leaping, dancing, shooting, wrestling, casting the stone, and practising their shields; the maidens trip in their timbrels, and dance as long as they can well see. In winter, every holiday before dinner, the boars prepared for brawn are set to fight, or else bulls and bears are baited.

        “When the great fen, or moor, which watereth the walls of the city on the north side, is frozen, many young men play upon the ice; some, striding as wide as they may, do slide swiftly; others make themselves seats of ice, as great as millstones; one sits down, many hand in hand to draw him, and one slipping on a sudden, all fall together; some tie bones to their feet and under their heels; and shoving themselves by a little picked staff, do slide as swiftly as a bird flieth in the air, or an arrow out of a cross‑bow. Sometime two run together with poles, and hitting one the other, either one or both do fall, not without hurt; some break their arms, some their legs, but youth desirous of glory in this sort exerciseth itself against the time of war. Many of the citizens do delight themselves in hawks and hounds; for they have liberty of hunting in Middlesex, Hertfordshire, all Chiltern, and in Kent to the water of Cray." Thus far Fitzstephen of sports.

        These, or the like exercises, have been continued till our time, namely, in stage plays, whereof ye may read in anno 1391, a play by the parish clerks of London at the Skinner's Well, besides Smithfield, which continued three days together, the king, queen, and nobles of the realm being present. And of another, in the year 1409, which lasted eight days, and was of matter from the creation of the world, whereat was present most part of the nobility and gentry of England. Of late time, in place of those stage plays, hath been used comedies, tragedies, interludes, and histories, both true and feigned; for the acting whereof certain public places, as the Theatre, the Curtain, &c., have been erected.

        Also cocks of the game are yet cherished by divers men for their pleasures, much money being laid on their heads, when they fight in pits, whereof some be costly made for that purpose. The ball is used by noblemen and gentlemen in tennis courts, and by people of meaner sort in the open fields and streets.

        The marching forth of citizens' sons, and other young men on horseback, with disarmed lances and shields, there to practise feats of war, man against man, hath long since been left off, but in their stead they have used on horseback to run at a dead mark, called a quintain; for note whereof I read, that in the year of Christ 1253, the 38^th of Henry III, the youthful citizens, for an exercise of their activity, set forth a game to run at the quintain; and, whoever did best should have a peacock, which

they had prepared as a prize. Certain of the king's servants, because the court lay then at Westminster, came, as it were, in spite of the citizens, to that game; and giving reproachful names to the Londoners, which for the dignity of the city, and ancient privilege which they ought to have enjoyed, were called barons, the said Londoners, not able to bear so to be misused, fell upon the king's servants, and beat them shrewdly, so that upon complaint to the king he fined the citizens to pay a thousand marks. This exercise of running at the quintain was practised by the youthful citizens as well in summer as in winter, namely, in the feast of Christmas, I have seen a quintain set upon Cornhill, by the Leadenhall, where the attendants on the lords of merry disports have run, and made great pastime; for he that hit, not the broad end of the quintain was of all men laughed to scorn, and he that hit it full, if he rid not the faster, had a sound blow in his neck with a bag full of sand hung on the other end. I have also in the summer season seen some upon the river of Thames rowed in wherries, with staves in their hands, flat at the fore end, running one against another, and for the most part, one or both overthrown, and well ducked.

On the holy days in summer the youths of this city have in the field exercised themselves in leaping, dancing, shooting, wrestling, casting of the stone or ball, &c.

And for defence and use of the weapon, there is a special profession of men that teach it. Ye may read in mine Annals how that in the year 1222 the citizens kept games of defence, and wrestlings, near unto the hospital of St Giles‑in‑the‑Field, where they challenged, and had the mastery of the men in the suburbs, and other commoners, &c. Also, in the year 1453, of a tumult made against the mayor at the wrestling besides Clerke's Well, &c. Which is sufficient to prove that of old time the exercising of wrestling, and such like, hath been much more used than of later years. The youths of this city also have used on holy days after evening prayer, at their masters' doors, to exercise their wasters and bucklers; and the maidens, one of them playing on a timbrel, in sight of their masters and dames, to dance for garlands hung athwart the streets; which open pastimes in my youth being now suppressed, worse practices within doors are to be feared. As for the baiting of bulls and bears, they are to this day frequented, namely, in Bear gardens, on the Bank’s side, wherein be prepared scaffolds for beholders to stand upon. Sliding upon the ice is now but children's play; but in hawking and hunting many grave citizens at this present have great delight, and do rather want leisure than goodwill to follow it.

Of triumphant shows made by the citizens of London, ye may read in the year 1236, the 20^th of Henry III, Andrew Bockwell then being mayor, how Eleanor, daughter to Reymond, Earl of Provence, riding through the city towards Westminster, there to be crowned Queen of England, the city was adorned with silks, and in the night with lamps, cressets, and other lights without number, besides many pageants and strange devices there presented; the citizens also rode to meet the king and queen, clothed in long garments embroidered about with gold, and silks of divers colours, their horses gallantly trapped to the number of three hundred and sixty, every man bearing a cup of gold or silver in his hand, and the king's trumpeters sounding before them. These citizens did minister wine, as bottlers, which is their service, at their coronation.

More, in the year 1293, for victory obtained by Edward I against the Scots, every citizen, according to their several trade, made their several show, but especially the fishmongers, which in a solemn procession passed through the city, having, amongst other pageants and shows, four sturgeons gilt, carried on four horses; then four salmons of silver on four horses; and after them six and forty armed knights riding on horses, made like luces of the sea; and then one representing St. Magnus, because it was upon St. Magnus' day, with a thousand horsemen, &c.

One other show, in the year 1377, was made by the citizens for disport of the young prince, Richard, son to the Black Prince, in the feast of Christmas, in this manner:‑ On the Sunday before Candelmas, in the night, one hundred and thirty citizens, disguised and well horsed, in a mummery, with sound of trumpets, sackbuts, cornets, shalmes, and other minstrels, and innumerable torchlights of wax, rode from Newgate, through Cheap, over the bridge, through Southwark, and so to Kennington beside Lambhith, where the young prince remained with his mother and the Duke of Lancaster his uncle, the Earls of Cambridge, Hertford, Warwick, and Suffolk, with divers other lords. 

In the first rank did ride forty‑eight in the likeness and habit of esquires, two and two, together, clothed in red coats and gowns of say or sandal, with comely visors on their faces; after them came riding forty‑eight knights in the same livery of colour and stuff; then followed one richly arrayed like an emperor; and after him some distance, one stately attired like a pope, whom followed twenty‑four cardinals, and after them eight or ten with black visors, not amiable, as if they had been legates from some foreign princes. These maskers, after they had entered Kennington, alighted from their horses, and entered the hall on foot; which done, the prince, his mother, and the lords, came out of the chamber into the hall, whom the said mummers did salute, showing by a pair of dice upon the table their desire to play with the prince, which they so handled that the prince did always win when he cast them. Then the mummers set to the prince three jewels, one after another, which were a bowl of gold, a cup of gold, and a ring of gold, which the prince won at three casts. Then they set to the prince's mother, the duke, the earls, and other lords, to every one a ring of gold, which they did also win. After which they were feasted, and the music sounded, the prince and lords danced on the one part with the mummers, which did also dance; which jollity being ended, they were again made to drink, and then departed in order as they came.

The like was in Henry IV, in the 2^nd of his reign, he then keeping his Christmas at Eltham, twelve aldermen of London and their sons rode in a mumming, and had great thanks.

Thus much for sportful shows in triumphs may suffice. Now for sports and pastimes yearly used.

First, in the feast of Christmas, there was in the king's house, wheresoever he was lodged, a lord of misrule, or master of merry disports, and the like had ye in the house of every nobleman of honour or good worship, were he spiritual or temporal. Amongst the which the mayor of London, and either of the sheriffs, had their several lords of misrule, ever contending, without quarrel or offence, who should make the rarest pastimes to delight the beholders. These lords beginning their rule on Alhollon eve, continued the same till the morrow after the Feast of the Purification, commonly called Candlemas Day. In all which space there were fine and subtle disguisings, masks, and mummeries, with playing at cards for counters, nails, and points, in every house, more for pastime than for gain.

Against the feast of Christmas every man's house, as also the parish churches, were decked with holm, ivy, bays, and whatsoever the season of the year afforded to be green. The conduits and standards in the streets were likewise garnished; amongst the which I read, in the year 1444, that by tempest of thunder and lightning, on the 1^st of February, at night, Paule's Steeple was fired, but with great labour quenched; and towards the morning of Candlemas Day, at the Leadenhall in Cornhill, a standard of tree being set up in midst of the pavement, fast in the ground, nailed full of holm and ivy, for disport of Christmas to the people, was torn up, and cast down by the malignant spirit (as was thought), and the stones of the pavement all about were cast in the streets, and into divers houses, so that the people were sore aghast of the great tempests.

In the week before Easter had ye great shows made for the fetching in of a twisted tree, or with, as they termed it, out of the woods into the king's house; and the like into every man's house of honour or worship.

In the month of May, namely, on May‑day in the morning, every man, except impediment, would walk into the sweet meadows and green woods, there to rejoice their spirits with the beauty and savour of sweet flowers, and with the harmony of

Birds, praising God in their kind and for example hereof, Edward Hall hath noted, that King Henry VIII, as in the 3^rd reign, and divers other years, so namely, in the 7^th of his reign, on May‑day in the morning, with Queen Katherine his wife, accompanied with many lords and ladies, rode a‑maying from Greenwich to the high ground of Shooter's Hill, where, as they passed by the way, they espied a company of tall yeomen, clothed all in green, with green hoods, and bows and arrows, to the number of two hundred; one being their chieftain, was called Robin Hood, who required the king and his company to stay and see his men shoot; whereunto the king granting, Robin Hood whistled and all the two hundred archers shot off, loosing all at once; and when he whistled again they likewise shot again; their arrows whistled by craft of the head, so that the noise was strange and loud, which greatly delighted the king, queen, and their company.

        Moreover, this Robin Hood desired the king and queen, with their retinue, to enter the greenwood, where, in harbours made of boughs, and decked with flowers, they were set and served plentifully with venison and wine by Robin Hood and his men, to their great contentment, and had other pageants and pastimes, as ye may read in my said author.

        I find also, that in the month of May, the citizens of London of all estates, lightly in every parish, or sometimes two or three parishes joining together, had their several mayings, and did fetch in maypoles, with divers warlike shows, with good archers, morris dancers, and other devices, for pastime all the day long; and toward the evening they had stage plays, and bonfires in the streets. Of these mayings we read, in the reign of Henry VI, that the aldermen and sheriffs of London, being on May‑day at the Bishop of London's wood, in the parish of Stebunheath, and having there a worshipful dinner for themselves and other commoners, Lydgate the poet, that was a monk of Bury, sent to them by a pursuivant, a joyful commendation of that season, containing sixteen staves of metre royal, beginning thus:

 

“Mightié Flora! goddess of fresh flowers,­

Which clothéd hath the soyle in lustie greene,

Made buddés springen, with her sweeté showers,

By the influence of the sunne shine.

To doen pleasance of intent full cleane,

Unto the Statés which now sitten here,

Hath Ver down sent her owné daughter deare.

 

Making the vertue, that dare in the roote,

Calléd of clarkes the vertue vegitáble,

For to transcend, most holsome and most soote,

Into the crop, this season so agreáble,

The bawmy liquor is so commendáble,

That it rejoiceth with his fresh moystúre,

Man, beast, and fowle, and every creatúre," &C.

 

These great mayings, and May‑games, made by the governors and masters of this city, with the triumphant setting up of the great shaft (a principal maypole in Cornhill, before the parish church of St. Andrew therefore called Undershaft) by means of an insurrection of youths against aliens on May‑day, 1517, the 9^th of Henry VIII, have not been so freely used as afore, and therefore I leave them, and will somewhat touch of watches, as also of shows in the night.

Of Watches in this City, and Other Matters commanded and the Cause Why

        William Conqueror commanded that in every town and village, a bell should be nightly rung at eight o'clock, and that all people should then put out their fire and candle, and take their rest; which order was observed through this realm during his reign, and the reign of William Rufus. But Henry I, restoring to his subjects the use of fire and lights, as afore; it followeth, by reason of wars within the realm, that many men also gave themselves to robbery and murders in the night; for example whereof in this city Roger Hoveden writeth thus:

“In, the year I 175, a council was kept at Nottingham; in time of which council a brother of the Earl Ferrers being in the night privily slain at London, and thrown out of his inn into the dirty street, when the king understood thereof, he swore that he would be avenged on the citizens. For it was then (saith mine author) a common practice in the city, that a hundred or more in a company, young and old, would make nightly invasions upon houses of the wealthy, to the intent to rob them; and if they found any man stirring in the city within the night that were not of their crew, they would presently murder him, insomuch that when night was come no man durst adventure to walk in the streets. When this had continued long, it fortuned that as a crew of young and wealthy citizens, assembling together in the night, assaulted a stone house of a certain rich man, and breaking through the wall, the good man of that house, having prepared himself with others in a corner, when he perceived one of the thieves named Andrew Bucquint to lead the way, with a burning brand in one hand and a pot of coals in the other, which he essayed to kindle with the brand, he flew upon him, and smote off his right hand, and then with a loud voice cried  ‘Thieves!' at the hearing whereof the thieves took their flight, all saving he that had lost his hand, whom the good man in the next morning delivered to Richard de Lucie, the king's justice. This thief, upon warrant of his life, appeached his confederates, of whom many were taken and many were fled.

Among the rest that were apprehended, a certain citizen of great countenance, credit, and wealth, named John Senex, who for as much as he could not acquit himself by the water doem, as that law was then, he offered to the king five hundred pounds of silver for his life; but forasmuch as he was condemned by judgment of the water, the king would not take the offer, but commanded him to be hanged on the gallows, which was done, and then the city became more quiet for a long time after.”

But for a full remedy of enormities in the night; I read, that in the year 1253, Henry III commanded watches in the cities and borough towns to be kept, for the better observing of peace and quietness amongst his people.

And further, by the advice of them of Savoy, he ordained, that if any man chanced to be robbed, or by any means damnified by any thief or robber, he to whom the charge of keeping that country, city, or borough, chiefly appertained, where the robbery was done, should competently restore the loss. And this was after the use of Savoy, but yet thought more hard to be observed here than in those parts, and, therefore, leaving those laborious watches, I will speak of our pleasures and pastimes in watching by night.

In the months of June and July, on the vigils of festival days, and on the same festival days in the evenings after the sun setting, there were usually made bonfires in the streets, every man bestowing wood or labour towards them; the wealthier sort also, before their doors near to the said bonfires would set out tables on the vigils, furnished with sweet bread and good drink; and on the festival days with meats and drinks plentifully, whereunto they would invite their neighbours and passengers also to sit and be merry with them in great familiarity, praising God for His benefits bestowed on them. These were called bonfires as well of good amity amongst neighbours that being before at controversy, were there, by the labour of others, reconciled, and made of bitter enemies loving friends; and also for the virtue that a great fire hath to purge the infection of the air.

On the vigil of St John the Baptist, and on St. Peter and Paul, the Apostles, every man's door being shadowed with green birch, long fennel, St. John's wort, orpin, white lilies, and such like, garnished upon with garlands of beautiful flowers, had also lamps of glass with oil burning in them all the night; some hung out branches of iron curiously wrought, containing hundreds of lamps alight at once, which made a goodly show, namely, in New Fish Street, Thames Street, &c. Then had ye besides the standing watches all in bright harness, in every ward and street of this city and suburbs, a marching watch, that passed through the principal streets thereof, to wit, from the little conduit by Paul's Gate to West Cheap, by the stocks through Cornhill, by Leadenhall to Aldgate, then back down Fenchurch Street, by Grass Church, about Grass Church conduit, and up Grass Church Street into Cornhill, and through it into West Cheap again.

     The whole way for this marching watch extendeth to three thousand two hundred tailor's yards of assize; for the furniture whereof with lights, there were appointed seven hundred cressets, five hundred of them being found by the companies, the other two hundred by the Chamber of London. Besides the which lights every constable in London, in number more than two hundred and forty, had his cresset: the charge of every cresset was in light two shillings and fourpence, and every cresset had two men, one to bear or hold it, another to bear a bag with light, and to serve it, so that the poor men pertaining to the cressets, taking wages, besides that every one had a straw hat, with a badge painted, and his breakfast in the morning, amounted in number to two thousand.

     The marching watch contained in number about two thousand men, part of them being old soldiers of skill, to be captains, lieutenants, sergeants, corporals, etc, whifflers, drummers, and fifes, standard and ensign bearers, sword players, trumpeters on horseback, demilances on great horses, gunners with hand guns, or half hakes, archers in coats of white fustian, signed on the breast and back with the arms of the city, their bows bent in their hands, with sheaves of arrows by their sides, pikemen in bright corslets, burganets, &c., halberds, the like billmen in almaine rivets, and aprons of mail in great number; there were also divers pageants, morris dancers, constables, the one-half, which was one hundred and twenty, on St. John’s Eve, the other half on St. Peter's Eve, in bright harness, some overgilt, and every one a jornet of scarlet thereupon, and a chain of gold, his henchman following him, his minstrels before him, and his cresset light passing by him, the waits of the city, the mayor's officers for his guard before him, all in a livery of worsted or say jackets party‑coloured, the mayor himself well mounted on horseback, the swordbearer before him in fair armour well mounted also, the mayor's footmen, and the like torch‑bearers about him, henchmen twain upon great stirring horses, following him.

     The sheriff's watches came one after the other in like order, but not so large in number as the mayor's; for where the mayor had besides his giant three pageants, each of the sheriffs had besides their giants but two pageants, each their morris dance, and one henchman, their officers in jackets, of worsted or say party‑coloured, differing from the mayor's, and each from other, but having harnessed men a great many, &c.

     This midsummer watch was thus accustomed yearly, time out of mind, until the year 1539, the 31^st of Henry VIII, in which year, on the 8^th of May, a great muster was made by the citizens at the Mile's End, all in bright harness, with coats of white silk, or cloth and chains of gold, in three great battles, to the number of fifteen thousand, which passed through London to Westminster, and so through the Sanctuary, and round about the park of St. James, and returned home through Oldbourne.

     King Henry, then considering the great charges of the citizens for the furniture of this unusual muster, forbade the marching watch provided for at Midsummer for that year, which being once laid down was not raised again till the year 1548, the second of Edward VI, Sir John Gresham then being mayor, who caused the marching watch, both on the eve of St. John the Baptist and of St. Peter the Apostle, to be revived and set forth in as comely order as it hath been accustomed, which watch was also beautified by the number of more than three hundred demilances and light horsemen, prepared by the citizens to be sent into Scotland for the rescue of the town of Haddington, and others kept by the Englishmen.

     Since this mayor's time, the like marching watch in this city hath not been used, though some attempts have been made thereunto; as in the year 1585, a book was drawn by a grave citizen, and by him dedicated to Sir Thomas Pullison, then lord mayor, and his brethren the aldermen, containing the manner and order of a marching watch in the city upon the evens accustomed; in commendation whereof, namely, in times of peace to be used, he hath words to this effect

     “The artificers of sundry sorts were thereby well set a-work, none but rich men charged, poor men helped, old soldiers, trumpeters, drummers, fifes, and ensign­-bearers, with such like men, meet for princes' service, kept in ure, wherein the safety and defence of every common weal consisteth. Armour and weapon being yearly occupied in this wise, the citizens had of their own readily prepared for any need; whereas by intermission hereof, armourers are out of work, soldiers out of pay, weapons overgrown with foulness, few or none good being provided,” etc.

     In the month of August, about the feast of St. Bartholomew the Apostle, before the Lord Mayor, aldermen, and sheriffs of London, placed in a large tent near unto Clerkenwell, of old time, were divers days spent in the pastime of wrestling, where the officers of the city, namely, the sheriffs, sergeants, and yeomen, the porters of the king’s beam or weigh‑house, now no such men, and other of the city, were challengers of all men in the suburbs, to wrestle for games appointed, and on other days, before the said mayor, aldermen, and sheriffs, in Finsbury field, to shoot the standard, broad arrow, and flight, for games; but now of late years the wrestling is on practised on Bartholomew's Day in the afternoon, and the shooting some three or four days after, in one afternoon, and no more.

     What should I speak of the ancient daily exercises in the long bow by citizens of this city, now almost clean left off and forsaken?- I overpass it; for by the mean of closing in the common grounds, our archers, for want of room to shoot abroad, creep into bowling-alleys and ordinary dicing houses nearer home, where they have room enough to hazard their money at unlawful games; and there I leave them to take their pleasures.

Honour of Citizens and Worthiness of Men in the Same

        “This city,” saith Fitzstephen, “is glorious in manhood; furnished with munitions, populous with inhabitants; insomuch, that in the troublesome time of King Stephen, it hath showed at a muster twenty thousand armed horsemen, and three score thousand footmen, serviceable for the wars. Moreover, saith he, the citizens of London, wheresoever they become, are notable before all other citizens in civility of manners, attire, table, and talk. The matrons of this city are the very modest Sabine ladies of Italy. The Londoners, sometime called Trinobantes, repelled Caesar, which always made his passage by shedding blood; whereupon Lucan sung:

“Territa quæsitis ostendit terga Britannis.”

 

The city of London hath bred some which have subdued many kingdoms, and also the Roman Empire. It hath also brought forth many others, whom virtue and valour hath highly advanced; according to Apollo, in his Oracle to Brute, ‘Sub occasu solis,’ &c. In the time of Christianity, it brought forth that noble emperor, Constantine, which gave the city of Rome and all the imperial ensigns to God, St. Peter, and Pope Silvester; choosing rather to be called a defender of the Church than an emperor; and, lest peace might be violated, and their eyes troubled by his presence, he retired from Rome, and built the city of Constantinople. London also in late time hath brought forth famous kings: Maude the Empress, King Henry, son to Henry II, and Thomas the Archbishop, &c."

This Thomas, surnamed Becket, born in London, brought up in the Priory of Marton, student at Paris, became the sheriff's clerk of London for a time, then parson of St. Mary Hill, had a prebend at London, another at Lincoln, studied the law at Bologna, &c., was made Chancellor of England, and Archbishop of Canterbury, &c. Unto this might be added innumerable persons of honour, wisdom, and virtue, born in London; but of actions done by worthy citizens I will only note a few, and so to other matters.

The citizens of London, time out of mind, founded an hospital of St. James in the fields for leprous women of their city.

In the year 1197, Walter Brune, a citizen of London, and Rosia, his wife, founded the hospital of our Lady, called Domus Dei, or St. Mary Spital, without Bishopsgate of London; a house of such relief to the needy, that there was found standing at the surrender thereof nine score beds, well furnished for receipt of poor people.

In the year 1216, the Londoners sending out a navy, took ninety‑five ships of pirates and sea‑robbers, besides innumerable others that they drowned, which had robbed on the river of Thames.

In the year 1247, Simon Fitzmary, one of the sheriffs of London, founded the hospital of St. Mary called Bethlem, and without Bishopsgate.

In the year 1283, Henry Wallace, then mayor, built the Tun upon Cornhill, to be a prison for night‑walkers, and a market-place called the Stocks, both for fish and flesh, standing in the midst of the city. He also built divers houses on the west and north side of St. Paul’s Churchyard; the profits of all which buildings are to the maintenance of London Bridge.

In the year 1332, William Elsing, mercer of London, founded Elsing Spital within Cripplegate, for sustentation of an hundred poor blind men, and became himself the first prior of that hospital.

Sir John Poultney, draper, four times mayor, in 1337 built a fair chapel in Paul’s Church, wherein he was buried. He founded a college in the parish church of St. Laurence, called Poultney: he built the parish church called Little Allhallows, in Thames Street; the Carmelite Friars Church in Coventry: he gave relief to prisoners in Newgate and in the Fleet, and ten shillings a year to St. Giles’ Hospital by Oldborne for ever, and other legacies long to rehearse.

John Stodie, vintner, mayor 1358, gave to the vintners all the quadrant wherein the Vintner’s Hall now standeth, with all the tenements round about, from Stadies Lane, wherein is founded thirteen almshouses for so many poor people, etc.

Henry Picard, vintner, mayor 1357, in the year 1363, did in one day sumptuously feast Edward III, King of England, John, King of France, David, King of Scots, the King of Cyprus, then all in England, Edward, Prince of Wales, with many other noblemen, and after kept his hall for all comers that were willing to play at dice and hazard. The Lady Margaret, his wife, kept her chamber to the same effect, etc.

John Lofken, fishmonger, four times mayor, 1367, built an hospital called Magdalen’s, in Kingston-upon-Thames; gave thereunto nine tenements, ten shops, one mill, one hundred and twenty-five acres of land, ten acres of meadow, one hundred and twenty acres of pasture, etc.; more, in London, he built the fair parish church of St. Michael in Crooked Lane, and was there buried.

John Barnes, mayor 1371, gave a chest with three locks, and one thousand marks therein, to be lent to young men upon sufficient pawn, and for the use thereof, to say De profundis, or Pater noster, and no more: he also was a great builder of St Thomas Apostle's parish church, as appeareth by his arms there, both in stone and glass.

In the year 1378, John Philpot, sometime mayor, hired with his own money one thousand soldiers, and defended the realm from incursions of the enemy, so that in small time his hired men took John Mercer, a sea‑rover, with all his ships, which he before had taken from Scarborough, and fifteen Spanish ships, laden with great riches.

In the year 1380, Thomas of Woodstock, Thomas Percy, Hugh Calverley, Robert Knowles, and others, being sent with a great power to aid the Duke of Brytaine, the said John Philpot hired ships for them of his own charges, and released the armour, which the soldiers had pawned for their battels, more than a

thousand in number. “This most noble citizen," saith Thomas Walsingham, “that had travailed for the commodity of the whole realm more than all other of his time, had often relieved the king by lending him great sums of money and otherwise, deceased in A.D. 1384, after that he had assured lands to the city for the

relief of thirteen poor people for ever."

        In the year 1381, William Walworth, then mayor, a most provident, valiant, and learned citizen, did by his arrest of Wat Tyler (a presumptuous rebel, upon whom no man durst lay hands), deliver the king and kingdom from the danger of most wicked traitors, and was for his service knighted in the field.

Nicholas Brember, John Philpot, Robert Laund, Nicholas Twiford, and Adam Francis, aldermen, were then for their service likewise knighted; and Sir Robert Knowles, for assisting of the mayor, was made free of this city.

This Sir Robert Knowles, thus worthily infranchised a citizen, founded a college with an hospital at Pontefract: he also built the great stone bridge at Rochester, over the river of Medway, &c.

John Churchman, grocer, one of the sheriffs 1386, for the quiet of merchants, built a certain house upon Wool Wharf, in Tower Ward to serve for tronage or weighing of wools, and for the customer, comptroller, clerks, and other officers to sit, &c.

Adam Goldsmith, goldsmith, mayor 1391, in a great dearth, procured corn from parts beyond the seas to be brought hither in such abundance as sufficed to serve the city, and the countries near adjoining; to the furtherance of which good work he took out of the orphan’s chest in the Guildhall two thousand marks to buy the said corn, and each alderman laid out twenty pounds to the like purpose.

Thomas Knowles, grocer, mayor 1400, with his brethren the aldermen, began to new build the Guildhall in London, and instead of an old little cottage in Aldermanbury Street, made a fair and goodly house, more near unto St. Laurence Church in the Jewry; he re-edified St. Anthony's Church, and gave to the grocers his house near unto the same, for relief of the poor for ever. More he caused sweet water to be conveyed to the gates of Newgate and Ludgate, for relief of the prisoners there.

John Hinde, draper, mayor 1405, newly, built his parish church of St. Swithin by London Stone: his monument is defaced, save only his arms in the glass windows.

Thomas Falconer, mercer, mayor 1414, lent to King Henry VI, towards the maintenance of his wars in France, ten thousand marks upon jewels. More he made the postern called Moorgate, caused the ditches of the city to be cleansed, and did many other things for good in the same city.

William Sevenoke, grocer, mayor 1419, founded in the town of Sevenoke, in Kent, a free school for poor men's children, and thirteen almshouses; his testament saith, twenty poor men and women.

Richard Whittington, mercer, three times mayor, in the year 1421, began the library of the Grey Friars in London, to the charge of four hundred pounds; his executors with his goods founded and built Whittington College, with almshouses for thirteen poor men, and divinity lectures to be read there for ever. They repaired St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in Smithfield; they bare some charges to the glazing and paving of the Guildhall; they bare half the charges of building the library there, and they built the west gate of London, of old time called Newgate, &c.

John Carpenter, town clerk of London, in the reign of Henry V, caused with great expense to be curiously painted upon board, about the north cloister of Paul's, a monument of Death leading all estates, with the speeches of Death, and answer of every state. This cloister was pulled down 1549. He also gave tenements to the city, for the finding and bringing up of four poor men's children with meat, drink, apparel, learning at the schools in the universities, &c., until they be preferred, and then other in their places for ever.

Robert Chicheley, grocer, mayor 1422, appointed by his testament, that on his mind day [mind day-day of remembrance, anniversary of his death], a competent dinner should be ordained for two thousand four hundred poor men, householders of this city, and every man to have twopence in money. More, he gave one large plot of ground, thereupon to build the new parish church of St. Stephen, near unto Walbrook, &c.

John Rainwell, fishmonger, mayor 1427, gave tenements to discharge certain wards of London of fifteenths and other payments.

John Wells, grocer, mayor 1433, a great builder of the chapel or college of the Guildhall, and was there buried. He caused fresh water to be conveyed from Tybourne to the standard in West Cheap for service of the city.

William Eastfield, mercer, 1438, appointed his executors of his goods to convey sweet water from Tybourn, and to build a fair conduit, by Aldermanbury Church, which they performed, as also made a standard in Fleet Street by Shoe Lane end; they also conveyed water to Cripplegate, &c.

Stephen Browne, grocer, mayor 1439, sent into Prussia, causing corn to be brought from thence; whereby he brought down the price of wheat from three shillings the bushel to less than half that money.

Philip Malpas, one of the sheriffs 1440, gave by his testament one hundred and twenty‑five pounds, to relieve poor prisoners, and every year for five years, four hundred shirts and smocks, forty pairs of sheets, and one hundred and fifty gowns of frieze, to the poor; to five hundred poor people in London six shillings and eightpence; to poor maids' marriages one hundred marks; to highways one hundred marks; twenty marks the year to graduate to preach; twenty pounds to preachers at the Spital the three Easter holidays, &c.

Robert Large, mercer, mayor 1440, gave to his parish church of St. Olave in Surrey two hundred pounds; to St. Margaret's in Loth­bury twenty‑five pounds; to the poor twenty pounds; to London Bridge one hundred marks; towards the vaulting over the water-course of Walbrook two hundred marks; to poor maids' marriages one hundred marks; to poor householders one hundred pounds, &c.

Richard Rich, mercer, one of the sheriffs 1442, founded alms houses at Hoddesdon in Hertfordshire.

Simon Eyre, draper, mayor 1346, built the Leaden Hall for a common garner of corn for the use of this city, and left five thousand marks to charitable uses.

Godfrey Bollein, mayor of London, 1458, by his testament, gave liberally to the prisons, hospitals, and lazar‑houses, besides a thousand pounds to poor householders in London, and two hundred pounds to poor householders in Norfolk.

Richard Rawson, one of the sheriffs 1477, gave by testament large legacies to the prisoners, hospitals, lazar‑houses, to other poor, to highways, to the water conduits, besides to poor maids' marriages three hundred and forty pounds, and his executors to build a large house in the churchyard of St. Mary Spital, wherein the mayor and his brethren do use to sit and hear the sermons in the Easter holidays.

Thomas Ilam, one of the sheriffs 1480, newly built the great conduit in Cheap, of his own charges.

Edward Shaw, goldsmith, mayor 1483, caused the Cripplegate of London to be newly built of his goods, &c.

Thomas Hill, grocer, mayor 1485, caused of his goods the conduit of Grass Street to be built.

Hugh Clopton, mercer, during his life a bachelor, mayor 1492, built the great stone‑arched bridge at Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, and did many other things of great charity, as in my Summary.

Robert Fabian, alderman, and one of the sheriffs 1494, gathered out of divers good authors, as well Latin as French, a large Chronicle of England and of France, which he published in English, to his great charges, for the honour of this city, and common utility of the whole realm.

Sir John Percivall, merchant taylor, mayor 1498, founded a grammar school at Macclesfield in Cheshire, where he was born; he endowed the same school with sufficient lands for the finding of a priest master there, to teach freely all children thither sent, without exception.

The Lady Thomasine his wife founded the like free school, together with fair lodgings for the schoolmasters, scholars, and other, and added twenty pounds of yearly revenue for supporting the charges, at St. Mary Wike in Devonshire, where she was born.

Stephen Gennings, merchant taylor, mayor 1509, founded a fair grammar school at Ulfrimhampton [Wolverhampton], in Staffordshire, left good lands, and also built a great part of his parish church, called St. Andrew's Undershaft, in London.

Henry Keble, grocer, mayor 1511, in his life a great benefactor to the new building of old Mary Church, and by his testament gave a thousand pounds towards the finishing thereof; he gave to highways two hundred pounds; to poor maids' marriages one hundred marks ; to poor husbandmen in Oxford and Warwick shires one hundred and forty ploughshares and one hundred and forty coulters of iron; and in London, to seven almsmen sixpence the week for ever.

John Colet, a citizen of London by birth and dignity, Dean of Paul's, Doctor of Divinity, erected and built one free school in Paul's Churchyard, 1512, for three hundred and fifty‑three poor men's children to be taught free in the same school, appointing a master, a surmaster, and a chaplain, with sufficient stipends to endure for ever, and committed the oversight thereof to the mercers in London, because himself was son to Henry Colet, mercer, mayor of London, and endowed the mercers with lands to the yearly value of one hundred and twenty pounds or better.

John Tate, brewer, then a mercer, mayor 1514, caused his brewhouse, called the Swan, near adjoining to the hospital of St. Anthony in London, to be taken down for the enlarging of the said church, then newly built, a great part of his charge. This was a goodly foundation, with almshouses, free school, &c.

George Monox, draper, mayor 1515, re‑edified the decayed parish church of Waltonstow, or Walthamstow, in Essex; he founded there a free school, and almshouses for thirteen alms-people, made a causeway of timber over the marshes from Walthamstow to Lock Bridge, &c.

Sir John Milborne, draper, mayor 1522, built almshouses, fourteen in number, by the Crossed Friars Church [Crossed or Crutched Friars Cruciati, named from a cross embroidered on their dress], in London, there to be placed fourteen poor people; and left to the drapers certain messuages, tenements, and garden plots, in the parish of St. Olave in Hart Street, for the performance of stipends to the said alms-people, and other uses. Look more in Aldgate Ward.

Robert Thorne, merchant taylor, deceased a bachelor in the year 1532, gave by his testament to charitable actions more than four thousand four hundred and forty pounds, and legacies to his poor kindred more five thousand one hundred and forty‑two pounds, besides his debts forgiven, &c.

Sir John Allen, mercer, mayor of London, and of council to King Henry VIII, deceased 1544, buried in St. Thomas of Acres in a fair chapel by him built. He gave to the city of London a rich collar of gold to be worn by the mayor, which was first worn by Sir W. Laxton. He gave five hundred marks to be a stock for sea‑coal; his lands purchased of the king, the rent thereof to be distributed to the poor in the wards of London for ever. He gave besides to the prisons, hospitals, lazar‑houses, and all other poor in the city, or two miles without, very liberally and long to be recited.

Sir William Laxton, grocer, mayor 1545, founded a fair free school at Oundle in Northamptonshire, with six almshouse for the poor.

Sir John Gresham, mercer, mayor 1548, founded a free school at Holt, a market‑town in Norfolk.

Sir Rowland Hill, mercer, mayor 1550, caused to be made divers causeways both for horse and man; he made four bridges, of stone, containing eighteen arches in them both; he built one notable free school at Drayton in Shropshire; he gave to Christ's Hospital in London five hundred pounds, &c.

Sir Andrew Jud, skinner, mayor 1551, erected one notable free school at Tunbridge in Kent, and almshouses nigh St. Helen's Church in London, and left to the Skinners lands to the value of sixty pounds three shillings and eightpence the year; for the which they be bound to pay twenty pounds to the schoolmaster eight pounds to the usher, yearly, for ever, and four shillings the week to the six almspeople, and twenty‑five shillings and fourpence the year in coals for ever.

Sir Thomas White, merchant taylor, mayor 1554, founded St. John's College, Oxford, and gave great sums of money to divers towns in England for relief of the poor, as in my Summary.

Edward Hall, gentleman, of Gray's Inn, a citizen by birth and office, as common sergeant of London, and one of the judges in the Sheriffs' Court; he wrote and published a famous and eloquent chronicle, entitled, “The Uniting of the Two Noble Families, Lancaster and York."

Richard Hills, merchant taylor, 1560, gave five hundred pounds towards the purchase of a house called the manor of the Rose, wherein the merchant taylors founded their free school in London; he also gave to the said merchant taylors one plot of ground, with certain small cottages on the Tower Hill, where he built fair almshouses for fourteen sole women.

About the same time William Lambert, Esq., born in London, a justice of the peace in Kent, founded a college for the poor, which he named of Queen Elizabeth, in East Greenwich.

William Harper, merchant taylor, mayor 1562, founded a free school in the town of Bedford, where he was born, and also buried.

Sir Thomas Gresham, mercer, 1566, built the Royal Exchange in London, and by his testament left his dwelling‑house in Bishopsgate Street to be a place for readings, allowing large stipends to the readers, and certain almshouses for the poor.

William Patton, gentleman, a citizen by birth, a customer of London outward, justice of peace in Middlesex, the parish church of Stoke Newington being ruinous, he repaired, or rather new built.

Sir Thomas Roo, merchant taylor, mayor 1568, gave to the merchant taylors lands or tenements, out of them to be given to ten poor men, clothworkers, carpenters, tilers, plasterers, and armourers, forty pounds yearly, namely, four pounds to each; also one hundred pounds to be lent to eight poor men. Besides he enclosed with a wall of brick nigh one acre of ground, per­taining to the hospital of Bethlem, to be a burial for the dead.

Ambrose, Nicholas, salter, mayor 1576, founded twelve alms-houses, in Monkswell Street, near unto Cripplegate, wherein he placed twelve poor people, having each of them sevenpence the week, and once every year five sacks of coals, and one quarter a hundred faggots, all of his gift for ever.

William Lambe, gentleman and clothworker, in the year 1577 built a water conduit at Oldborne Cross to his charges of fifteen hundred pounds, and did many other charitable acts, as in my Summary.

Sir T. Offley, merchant taylor, mayor, deceased 1580, appointed by his testament the one half of all his goods, and two hundred pounds deducted out of the other half given to his son Henry, to be given and bestowed in deeds of charity by his executors, according to his confidence and trust in them.

John Haydon, sheriff 1583, gave large legacies, more than three thousand pounds, for the relief of the poor, as in my Summary.

Barnard Randolph, common sergeant of London 1583, gave and delivered with his own hand, nine hundred pounds towards the building of water conduits, which was performed. More, by testament, he gave one thousand pounds to be employed in charitable actions; but that money being in holdfast hands, I have not heard how it was bestowed, more than of other good men’s testaments-to be performed.

Sir Wolston Dixie, skinner, mayor 1586, founded a free school at Bosworth, and endowed it with twenty pounds land by year.

Richard May, merchant taylor, gave three hundred pounds toward the new building of Blackwell Hall in London, a market-place for woollen cloths.

John Yuller, Esq., one of the judges in the Sheriffs' Court of London, by his testament, dated 1592, appointed his wife, her heirs and assigns, after his decease, to erect one almshouse in the parish of Stikoneth [Stikoneth a corruption pf Stebonhithe, Stepney], for twelve poor single men, aged fifty years or upwards, and one other almshouse in Shoreditch, for twelve poor aged widow women of like age, she to endow them with one hundred pounds the year, to wit, fifty pounds to each

forever out his lands in Lincolnshire, assured ever unto certain fiefs in trust, by a deed of feoffment. Item: more, he gave his messuages, lands and tenements, lying in the parishes of St. Benet and St. Peter, by Paul’s Wharf in London, to feoffees in trust, yearly for ever, to disburse all the issues and profits of the said lands and tenements, to the relieving and discharge of poor prisoners in the Hole, or twopenny wards in the two compters in London, in equal portions to each compter, so that the prisoners exceed not the sum of twenty‑six shillings and eightpence for every one prisoner at any one time.

Thus much for famous citizens have I noted their charitable actions, for the most part done by them in their lifetime. The residue left in trust to their executors, I have known some of them hardly, or never, performed; wherefore I wish men to make their own hands their executors, and their eyes their overseers, not forgetting the old proverb:

“Women be forgetful, children be unkind,

Executors be covetous, and take what they find.

If any body ask where the dead's goods became,

They answer, So God me help, and holy dome, he died a poor man."

One worthy citizen merchant taylor, having many years considered this proverb foregoing, hath therefore established to twelve poor aged men merchant taylors, six pounds two shillings to each yearly for ever. He hath also given them gowns of good broad cloth, lined thoroughly with bays, and are to receive every three years' end the like new gowns for ever.

And now of some women, citizens' wives, deserving memory, for example to posterity shall be noted.

Dame Agnes Foster, widow, sometime wife to Stephen Foster, fishmonger, mayor 1455, having enlarged the prison of Ludgate in 1463, procured in a common council of this city certain articles to be established for the ease, comfort, and relief of poor prisoners there, as in the Chapter of Gates I have set down.

Avice Gibson, wife unto Nicholas Gibson, grocer, one of the sheriffs 1539, by license of her husband, founded a free school at Radcliff, near unto London, appointing to the same, for the instruction of sixty poor men's children, a schoolmaster and usher with fifty pounds; she also built almshouses for fourteen poor aged persons, each of them to receive quarterly six shillings and eightpence the piece for ever; the government of which free school and almshouses she left in confidence to the Coopers in London. This virtuous gentlewoman was after joined in marriage with Sir Anthony Knevet, knight, and so called the Lady Knevet; a fair painted table of her picture was placed in the chapel which she had built there, but of late removed thence, by the like reason as the Grocers' arms fixed on the outer wall of the school‑house are pulled down, and the Coopers set in place [“Cursed is hee that removeth his neighbors mark, have I read”-Stow’s sidenote].

Margaret Danne, widow to William Danne, ironmonger, one of the sheriffs of London, gave by her testament to the ironmongers, two thousand pounds, to be lent to young men of that company, paying after the rate of five pounds in the year for every hundred; which one hundred pounds so rising yearly, to be employed on charitable actions, as she then appointed, but not performed in more than thirty years after.

Dame Mary Ramsey, wife to Sir Thomas Ramsey, mayor about the year 1577, being seised of lands in fee simple of her inheritance to the yearly value of two hundred and forty three pounds, by his consent gave the same to Christ's Hospital in London towards the relief of poor children there, and other ways, as in my Summary and Abridgment I have long since expressed; which gift she in her widowhood confirmed and augmented, as is showed by monuments in Christ's Hospital erected.

Thus much for the worthiness of citizens in this city, touching whom John Lydgate, a monk of Bury, in the reign of Henry VI, amongst other, these verses following:

“Of seaven things I prayse this citty.

Of true meaning and faithful observance;

Of righteousnes, truth, and equity;

Of stablenes aye kept in legiance ;

And for of vertue thou hast suffisance,

In this lond here and other londs all

The kinges chamber of custome men thee call."

 

Having thus in generality handled the original, the walls, gates, and fresh waters, the bridges, towers, and castles, the schools of learning and houses of law, the orders and customs, sports and pastimes, watchings and martial exercises, and lastly, the honour and worthiness of the citizens, I am now to set down the distribution of this city into parts; and more especially to declare the antiquities noteworthy in every of the same; and how both the whole and parts have been from time to time ruled and governed.

The City of London divided into Parts.

The ancient division of this city was into wards or aldermanries. And therefore I will begin at the east, and so proceed through the high and most principal street of the city to the west, after this manner.

First, through Aldgate Street to the west corner of St. Andrew's Church, called Undershaft, on the right hand, and Lime Street corner on the left‑all which is of Aldgate Ward; from thence through Cornhill Street to the west corner of Leaden Hall‑all which is of Lime Street Ward. From thence, leaving the street that leadeth to Bishopsgate on the right hand, and the way that leadeth into Grass Street on the left, still through Cornhill Street, by the conduit to the west corner against the Stocks‑all which is in Cornhill Ward. Then by the said Stocks (a market‑place both of fish and flesh standing in the midst of the city through the Poultry (a street so‑called) to the great conduit in West Cheap, and so through Cheap to the Standard, which is of Cheap Ward, except on the south side from Bow Lane to the said Standard, which is of Cordwainer Street Ward. Then by the Standard to the Great Cross, which is in Cripplegate Ward on the north side, and in Bread Street Ward on the south side. And to the little conduit by Paul's Gate, from whence of old time the said High Street stretched straight to Ludgate, all in the ward of Farringdon within, then divided truly from east to west; but since by means of the burning of Paul's Church, which was in the reign of William I, Mauritius, then Bishop of London, laid the foundation of a new church, so far in largeness exceeding the old, that the way towards Ludgate was thereby greatly straitened, as before I have discoursed.

Now from the north to the south this city was of old time divided, not by a large highway or street, as from east to west, but by a fair brook of sweet water, which came from out the north fields through the wall and midst of the city into the river of Thames; which division is till this day constantly and without maintained.

This water was called, as I have said, Walbrook, not Galus brook of a Roman captain slain by Asclepiodatus, and thrown therein, as some have fabled, but of running through, and from the wall of this city; the course whereof, to prosecute it particularly, was and is from the said wall to St. Margaret's Church in Lothbury; from thence beneath the lower part of the Grocers' Hall, about the east part of their

kitchen, under St. Mildred's Church, somewhat west from the said Stocks' Market; from thence through Bucklesbury, by one great house built of stone and timber called the Old Barge, because barges out of the river of Thames were rowed up so far into this brook, on the backside of the houses in Walbrook Street (which street taketh the name of the said brook) by the west end of St. John's Church upon Walbrook, under Horseshoe Bridge, by the west side of Tallowchandlers' Hall, and of the Skinners' Hall and so behind the other houses to Elbow Lane, and by a part thereof down Greenwich Lane into the river of Thames.

        This is the course of Walbrook, which was of old time bridged over in divers places, for passage of horses and men, as need required; but since, by means of encroachment on the banks thereof, the channel being greatly straitened, and other noyances done thereunto, at length the same by common consent was arched over with brick, and paved with stone, equal with the ground wherethrough it passed, and is now in most places built that no man may by the eye discern it, and therefore the trace thereof is hardly known to the common people.

        This city was divided from east to west, and from north to south. I am further to show how the same was of old time broken into divers parts called wards, whereof Fitzstephen, more than four hundred years since, writeth thus: “This city, saith he, even as Rome, is divided into wards; it hath yearly sheriffs instead of consuls. It bath the dignity of senators in alder­men,” etc. The number of these wards in London was, both before and in the reign of Henry III, twenty‑four in all; whereof thirteen lay on the east side of the said Walbrook and eleven on the west Notwithstanding these eleven grew much more large than those on the east; and therefore in the year of Christ 1393, in the 17^th of Richard II, Farringdon Ward, which was then one entire ward, but mightily increased of buildings without the gates, was by Act of Parliament appointed to be divided into twain, and to have two aldermen, to wit, Farringdon within, and Farringdon without, which made up the number of twelve wards on the west side of Walbrook, and so the whole number of twenty‑five on both sides.

        Moreover, in the year 1550, the mayor, commonalty, and citizens of London, purchasing the liberties of the borough of Southwark, appointed the same to be a ward of London, and, so became the number of thirteen wards on the east, twelve on the west, and one south of the river Thames, in the said borough of Southwark, in the county of Surrey, which in all arise to the number of twenty‑six wards, and twenty‑six aldermen of London.

 

Wards on the east part of Walbrook are these:

1.               Portsoken Ward without the walls.

2.               Tower Street Ward.

3.               Aldgate Ward.

4.               Lime Street Ward.

5.               Bishopsgate Ward, within the walls and without.

6.               Broad Street Ward.

7.               Cornhill Ward.

8.               Langbourne Ward.

9.               Billingsgate Ward.

10.         Bridge Ward within.

11.         Candlewick Street Ward.

12.         Walbrook Ward.

13.         Downgate Ward.

Wards on the west side of Walbrook are these:

14.         Vintry Ward.

15.         Cordwainer Street Ward.

16.         Cheap Ward.

17.         Coleman Street Ward.

18.         Basinghall Ward.

19.         Cripplegate Ward, within and without.

20.         Aldersgate Ward, within and without.

21.         Farringdon Ward within.

22.         Bread Street Ward.

23.         Queenhithe Ward.

24.         Castle Baynard Ward.

25.         Farringdon Ward without the walls.

One ward south the river Thames, in the borough of Southwark, by the name of

26.         Bridge Ward without.

Portsoken Ward

Seeing that of every of these wards I have to say somewhat, I will begin with Portsoken Ward without Aldgate.

This Portsoken, which soundeth the franchise at the gate, was sometime a guild and had beginning in the days of King Edgar, more than six hundred years since.

There were thirteen knights or soldiers, well-beloved to the king and realm, for service by them done, which requested to have a certain portion of land on the east part of the city, left desolate and forsaken by the inhabitants, by reason of too much servitude. They besought the king to have this land, with the liberty of a guild forever.

The king granted to their request, with conditions following: that is, that each of them should victoriously accomplish three combats, one above the ground, one under ground, and the third in the water; and after this, at a certain day in East Smithfield, they should run with spears against all comers; all which was gloriously performed; and the same day the king named it Knighten Guild, and so bounded it, from Aldgate to the place where the bars now are, toward the east, on both the sides of the street, and extended it towards Bishopsgate in the north, unto the house then of William Presbiter, after of Geffrey Tanner, and then of the heirs of Colver, after that of John Easeby, but since of Lord Bouchier, etc.

And again towards the south unto the river of Thames, and so far into the water, as a horseman, entering the same, may ride at a low water, and throw his spear; so that all East Smithfield, with the right part of the street that goeth to Dodding Pond into the Thames, and also the hospital of St. Katherine’s, with the mills that were founded in King Stephen’s days, and the outward stone wall, and the new ditch of the Tower, are of the same fee and liberty; for the said wall and ditch of the Tower were made in the time of King Richard, when he was in the Holy Land, by William Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, as before I have noted unto you.

These knights had as then none other charter by all the days of Edgar, Ethelred, and Cnutus, until the time of Edward the Confessor, whom the heirs of those knights humbly besought to confirm their liberties; whereunto he, graciously granting, gave them a deed thereof, as appeareth in the book of the late house of the­

Holy Trinity. The said charter is fair written in the Saxon letter and tongue.

        After this, King William, the son of William the Conqueror, made a confirmation of the same liberties, unto the heirs, of those knights, in these words:­

“William, king Of England, to Maurice Bishop, and Godffrey de Magum, and Richard de Parre, and to his faithfull people of London, greeting: Know ye me to have granted to the men of Knighten Guilde, the guilde that belonged to them, and the land that belonged thereunto, with all customes, as they had the same in the time of King Edward, and my father. Witnesse, Hugh de Buche, at Rething."

After him, King Henry I confirmed the same, by his charter to the like effect, the recital whereof I pretermit for brevity. After which time, the Church of the Holy Trinity, within Aldgate of London, being founded by Queen Matilda, wife to the said Henry, the multitude of brethren, praising God day and night therein, in short time so increased, that all the city was delighted in the beholding of them; insomuch, that in the year 1115, certain burgesses of London, of the progeny of those noble English knights‑to wit, Radulphus Fitalgod, Wilmarde le Deuereshe, Orgare le Prude, Edward Hupcornehill, Blackstanus, and, Alwine his kinsman, and Robert his brother, the sons of Leafstanus the goldsmith, Wiso his son, Hugh Fitzvulgar, Algare Secusme‑coming together into the chapter‑house of the said Church of the Holy Trinity, gave to the same church and canons serving God therein, all the lands and soke called in English Knighten Guild, which lieth to the wall of the city, without the same gate, and stretcheth to the river of Thames; they gave it, I say, taking upon them the brotherhood and participation of the benefits of that house, by the hands of Prior Norman.

And the better to confirm this their grant, they offered upon the altar there the charter of Edward, together with the other charters which they had thereof; and afterward they did put the foresaid prior in seisin thereof, by the Church of St. Botolph's, which is built thereon, and is the head of that land.

These things were thus done before Bernard, prior of Dunstable, John, prior of Derland, Geffrey Clinton, chamberlain, and many other clerks and laymen, French and English.

Orgar le Prude, one of their company, was sent to King Henry, beseeching him to confirm their gift, which the king gladly granted by his deed:

“Henrie, king of England, to Richard Bishop of London, to the shireffes and provost, and to all his barons and faithfull people, French and English, of London and Middlesex, greeting: Know ye mee to have graunted and confirmed to

the church and canons of the Holy Trinitie of London, the soke of the English Knighten Guilde, and the land which pertaineth thereunto, and the church of St. Buttolph, as the men of the same guilde have given and granted unto them: and I will and straightly commaund, that they may hold the same well and honourably and freely, with sake and soke, toll and team, infangthefe, and all customs belonging to it, as the men of the same Guild in best sort had the same in the time of K. Edward, and as King William, my father and brother, did grant it to them by their writs. Witnesse, A. the queene, Geffrey the chauncellor, Geoffery of Clinton, and William of Clinton, at Woodstocke.”

        All these prescribed writings, saith my book, which sometime belonged to the priory of the Holy Trinity, are registered in the end of the Book of Remembrances, in the Guildhall of London, marked with the letter C, folio 134. The king sent also his sheriffs, to wit, Aubrey de Vere, and Roger, nephew to Hubert, which upon his behalf should invest this church with the possessions thereof, which the said sheriffs accomplished coming upon the ground; Andrew Buchevite, and the fore-named witnesses, and other, standing by notwithstanding, Othowerus Acolivillus, Otto, and Geffrey, Earl of Essex, constables of the Tower by succession, withheld by force a portion of the said land, as I have before delivered.

        The prior and canons of the Holy Trinity, being thus seised of the said land and soke of Knighten Guild, a part of the suburb without the wall, but within the liberties of the city, the same prior admitted as one of the aldermen of London, to govern the same land and soke.

        According to the customs of the city, he did sit in court, and rode with the mayor and his brethren the aldermen, as one of them, in scarlet or other livery as they used, until the year 1531, at the which time the said priory, by the last prior there, was surrendered to King Henry VIII, in the 23^rd of his reign, who gave this priory to Sir Thomas Audley, knight, Lord Chancellor of England, and he pulled down the church.

        Since the which dissolution of that house, the said ward of Portsoken hath been governed by a temporal man, one of the aldermen of London, elected by citizens, as the aldermen of other wards. Thus much for the out-bounds of Knighten Guild, or Portsoken Ward, and for the antiquity and Government thereof.

        Now, of the parts therein, this is specially to be noted. First, the east part of the Tower standeth there, then an hospital of St. Katherine’s founded by Matilda the queen, wife to King Stephen, by license of the priory and convent of the Holy Trinity in London, on whose grounds he founded it.

        Eleanor the queen, wife to King Edward I, a second foundress, appointed there to be a master, three brethren chaplains, and three sisters, ten poor women, and six poor clerks; she gave to them the manor of Carlton in Wiltshire, and Upchurch in Kent, etc.

        Queen Phillippa, wife to King Edward III, 1351, founded a chantry there, and gave to that hospital ten pounds land by year; it was of late time called a free chapel, a college, and an hospital for poor sisters. The choir, which of late years was not much inferior to that of Paul's, was dissolved by Dr. Wilson, a late master there, the brethren and sisters remaining. This house was valued at £315, 14s. 2d., being now of late years inclosed about, or pestered [pestered clogged, encumbered. Fr. empétrer, which originally meant to hobble a horse turned out to pasture], with small tenements and homely cottages, having inhabitants, English and strangers, more in number than in some city in England. There lie buried in this church the Countess of Huntington, Countess of the March in her time, 1429; John Holland, Duke of Exeter and Earl of Huntington, 1447, and his two wives, in a fair tomb on the north side the choir; Thomas Walsingham, esquire, and Thomas Ballarde, esquire, by him, 1465; Thomas Flemming, knight, 1466, &c.

On the east and by north of the Tower, lieth East Smithfield and Tower Hill, two plots of ground so called, without the wall of the city; and east from them both was sometime a monastery, called New Abbey, founded by King Edward III in the year 1359, upon occasion as followeth:

In the year 1348, the 23^rd of Edward III., the first great pestilence in his time began, and increased so sore, that for want of room in churchyards to bury the dead of the city and of the suburbs, one John Corey, clerk, procured of Nicholas, prior of the Holy Trinity within Aldgate, one toft [toft clear space], of ground near unto East Smithfield, for the burial of them that died, with condition that it might be called the churchyard of the Holy Trinity; which ground he caused, by the aid of divers devout citizens, to be inclosed with a wall of stone. Robert Elsing son of William Elsing, gave five pounds thereunto; and the same was dedicated by Ralph Stratford, Bishop of London, where innumerable bodies of the dead were afterwards buried, and a chapel built in the same place to the honour of God: to the which King Edward setting his eye (having before, in a tempest on the sea, and peril of drowning, made a vow to build a monastery to the honour of God, and our lady of grace, if God would grant him grace to come safe to land), built there a monastery, placing an abbot, and monks of the Cistercian, or White order. The bounds of this plot of ground, together with a decree for tithes thereof, are expressed in the charter, the effect whereof I have set down in another place, and have to show. This house, at the late general suppression, was valued at £546, 0s. 10d. yearly; it was surrendered in the year 1539, the 30^th of Henry VIII since the which time, the said monastery being clean pulled down by Sir Arthur Darcie, knight, and others of late time in place thereof is built a large storehouse for victuals; and convenient ovens are built there, for baking of biscuits to serve her majesty's ships. The grounds adjoining, belonging to the said abbey, are employed in building of small tenements.

For Tower Hill, as the same is greatly diminished by building of tenements and garden-plots, &c., so it is of late, to wit, in the year of Christ, 1593, on the north side thereof, and at the west end of Hog Street, beautified by certain fair almshouses, strongly built of brick and timber, and covered with slate for the poor, by the merchant taylors of London, in place of some small cottages given to them by Richard Hills, sometime a master of that company, one thousand loads of timber for that use, being also given by Anthony Radcliff, of the same society, alderman. In these almshouses, fourteen charitable brethren of the said merchant taylors, yet living, have placed poor sole women, which receive each of them of their founder sixteen pence, or better, weekly, besides £8, 15s. yearly, paid out of the common treasury of the same corporation for fuel.

From the west part of this Tower Hill, towards Aldgate, being a long continual street, amongst other smaller buildings in that row, there was sometime an abbey of nuns of the order of St. Clare, called the Minories, founded by Edmond, Earl of Lancaster, Leicester, and Derby, brother to King Edward III, in the year 1293; the length of which abbey contained fifteen perches and seven feet, near unto the King's Street or highway, &c., as appeareth by a deed, dated 1303.

A plague of pestilence, being in this city, in the year 1515, there died in this house of nuns professed to the number of twenty‑seven, besides other lay people, servants in their house. This house was valued to dispend £418, 8s. 5d. yearly, and was surrendered by Dame Elizabeth Salvage, the last abbess there, unto King Henry VIII, in the 30^th of his reign, the year of Christ 1539.

In place of this house of nuns is now built divers fair and large storehouses for armour and habiliments of war, with divers work­-houses, serving to the same purpose; there is a small parish church for Inhabitants of the close, called St. Trinities.

Near adjoining to this abbey, on the south side thereof, was sometime a farm, belonging to the said nunnery; at the which farm I myself in my youth have fetched many a halfpenny worth of milk, and never had less than three ale pints for a halfpenny in the summer, nor less than one ale quart for a halfpenny in the winter, always hot from the kine, as the same was milked and strained.

One Trolop, and afterwards Goodman, were the farmers there, and had thirty or forty kine to the pail. Goodman's son, being, heir to his father's purchase, let out the ground first for grazing of horses, and then for garden‑plots, and lived like a gentleman thereby.

On the other side of that street lieth the ditch without the walls of the city, which of old time was used to be open, always from time to time cleansed from filth and mud, as need required; of great breadth, and so deep, that divers, watering horses where they thought it shallowest, were drowned, both horse and man. But now of later time the same ditch is inclosed, and the banks thereof let out for garden‑plots, carpenters' yards, bowling alleys, and divers houses thereon built, whereby the city wall is hidden, the ditch filled up, a small channel left, and that very shallow.

From Aldgate, east, lieth a large street and highway, sometime replenished with few but fair and comely buildings; on the north side whereof, the first was the parish church of St. Botolph, in a large cemetery or churchyard. This church hath been lately new built at the special charges of the priors of the Holy Trinity; patrons thereof, as it appeareth by the arms of that house, engraven on the stone work. The parishioners of this parish being of late years mightily increased, the church is pestered with lofts and seats for them. Monuments in this church are few: Henry Jorden founded a chantry there; John Romany Ollarie, and Agnes his wife, were buried there about 1408; Richard Chester, alderman, one of the sheriffs, 1484; Thomas Lord Darcie of the north, Knight of the Garter, beheaded 1537; Sir Nicholas Carew, of Bedington, in Surrey, Knight of the Garter, beheaded 1538; Sir Arthur Darcie, youngest son to Thomas Lord Darcie, deceased at the new abbey on the Tower Hill, was buried there. East from this parish church, there were certain fair inns for receipt of travellers repairing to the city; up towards Hog Lane end, somewhat within the bars, a mark showing how far the liberties of the city do extend.

This Hog Lane stretcheth north towards St. Mary Spital without Bishopsgate, and within these forty years had on both sides fair hedge rows of elm trees, with bridges and easy stiles to pass over into the pleasant fields, very commodious for citizens therein to walk, shoot, and otherwise to recreate and refresh their dull spirits in the sweet and wholesome air, which is now within a few years made a continual building throughout of garden‑houses and small cottages; and the fields on either sides be turned into garden‑plots, tenter yard, bowling alleys, and such like from Hounsditch in the west, as far as Whitechapel, and further towards the east.

On the south side of the highway from Aldgate were some few tenements, thinly scattered here and there, with many void spaces between them, up to the bars; but now that street is not only fully replenished with buildings outward, and also pestered with divers alleys on either side to the bars, but also even to Whitechapel and beyond.

Among the which late buildings, one memorable for the commodity of that east part of this city is a fair water conduit, hard without the gate; at the building whereof in the year 1535, Sir John Allen being mayor, two fifteens were granted by the citizens for the making and laying of pipes, to convey water from Hackney to that place; and so that work was finished.

From Aldgate, north‑west to Bishopsgate, lieth the ditch of the city called Hounsditch; for that in old time, when the same lay open, much filth, conveyed forth of the city, especially dead dogs, were there laid or cast; wherefore of latter time a mud wall was made, inclosing the ditch, to keep out the laying of such filth as had been accustomed.

Over against this mud wall, on the other side of the street, was a fair field, sometime belonging to the priory of the Trinity, and since by Sir Thomas Audley given to Magdalen College in Cambridge; this field, as all other about the city, was enclosed, reserving open passage thereinto for such as were disposed. To­wards the street were some small cottages, of two storeys high, and little garden-plots backward, for poor bed‑rid people, for in that street dwelt none other, built by some prior of the Holy Trinity, to whom that ground belonged.

In my youth, I remember, devout people, as well men as women of this city, were accustomed oftentimes, especially on Fridays, weekly to walk that way purposely there to bestow their charitable alms; every poor man or woman lying in their bed within their window, which was towards the street, open so low that every man might see them, a clean linen cloth lying in their window, and a pair of beads to show that there lay a bed‑rid body, unable but to pray only. This street was first paved in the year 1503.

About the latter reign of Henry VIII, three brethren that were gunfounders, surnamed Owens, got ground there to build upon, and to enclose for casting of brass ordnance. These occupied a good part of the street on the field side, and in a short time divers others also built there, so that the poor bed‑rid people were worn out, and, in place of their homely cottages, such houses built as do rather want room than rent; which houses be for the most part possessed by brokers, sellers of old apparel, and such like. The residue of the field was for the most part made into a garden by a gardener named Cawsway, one that served the markets with herbs and roots; and in the last year of King Edward VI, the same was parcelled into gardens, wherein are now many fair houses of pleasure built.

On the ditch side of this street the mud wall is also by little and little taken down, the bank of the ditch being raised, made level ground and turned into garden‑plots and carpenters' yards, and many large houses are there built; the filth of which houses, as also the earth cast out of their vaults, is turned into the ditch, by which means the ditch is filled up, and both the ditch and wall so hidden that they cannot be seen of the passers‑by.

This Portsoken Ward hath an alderman and his deputy, common councillors six, constables four, scavengers four, for the wardmote inquest eighteen, and a beadle. To the fifteen it is cessed at four pounds ten shillings.

 

Tower Street Ward

 

The first ward in the east part of this city within the wall is called Tower Street Ward, and extendeth along the river of Thames from the said Tower in the east almost to Belinsgate in the west. One half of the Tower, the ditch on the west side, and bulwarks adjoining, do stand within that part where the wall of the city of old time went straight from the postern gate south to the river of Thames, before that the Tower was built.

From and without the Tower ditch, west and by north, is the said Tower Hill, sometime a large plot of ground, now greatly straitened by encroachments, unlawfully made and suffered, for gardens and houses; some on the bank of the Tower ditch, whereby the Tower ditch is marred, but more near unto the wall of the city from the postern north, till over against the principal fore‑gate of the Lord Lumley's house, &c. but the Tower Ward goeth no further that way.

Upon this hill is always readily prepared, at the charges of the city, a large scaffold and gallows of timber, for the execution of such traitors or transgressors as are delivered out of the Tower, or otherwise, to the. sheriffs of London by writ, there to be executed. I read, that in the fifth of King Edward IV, a scaffold and gallows was there set up by other the king's officers, and not of the city's charges, whereupon the mayor and his brethren complained, but were answered by the king that the Tower Hill was of the liberty of the city; and whatsoever was done in that point was not in derogation of the city's liberties, and therefore commanded proclamation to be made, as well within the city as in the suburbs, as followeth:

“Forasmuch as, the seventh day of this present month of November, gallows were erect and set up besides our Tower of London, within the liberties and franchises of our city of London, in derogation and prejudice of the liberties and franchises of this city, the king our sovereign lord would it be certainly understood that the erection and setting up of the said gallows was not done by his commandment; wherefore the king our sovereign lord willeth, that the erection and setting up the said gallows be not any precedent or example thereby hereafter to be taken, in hurt, prejudice, or derogation of the franchises, liberties, and privileges of the said city, which he at all times hath had, and hath in his benevolence, tender favour, and good grace, &c. Apud Westminst. 9 die Novemb. anno regni nostri quinto."

On the north side of this hill is the said Lord Lumley’s house, and on the west side divers houses lately built, and other encroachments along south to Chick Lane, on the east of Barking Church, at the end whereof you have Tower Street stretching from the Tower Hill, west to St. Margaret Patten’s Church Parsonage.

Now therefore, to begin at the east end of the street, on the north side thereof, is the fair parish church called Allhallows Barking, which standeth in a large, but sometime far larger, cemetery or churchyard; on the Northside whereof was sometime built a fair chapel, founded by King Richard I; some have written that his heart was buried there under the high altar. This chapel was confirmed and augmented by King Edward I. Edward IV gave license to his cousin John, Earl of Worcester, to found there a brotherhood for a master and brethren; and he gave to the custos of that fraternity, which was Sir John Scot, knight, Thomas Colte, John Tate, and John Croke, the priory of Tootingbrook, and advowson of the parish church of Streatham, in the county of Surrey, with all the members and appurtenances, and a part of the priory of Okeburn in Wiltshire, both priors aliens, and appointed it to be called the king’s chapel or chantry, In capella BeatæMariæ de Barking. King Richard III new built and founded therein a college of priests etc. Hamond de Lega was buried in that chapel. Robert Tate, mayor of London, 1488, and other, were there buried.

This chapel and college were suppressed and pulled down in the year 1548, the 2^nd of King Edward VI. The ground was employed as a garden-plot during the reigns of King Edward, Queen Mary, and part of Queen Elizabeth, till at length a large strong frame of timber and brick was set thereon, and employed as a storehouse of merchants’ goods brought from the sea by Sir William Winter etc.

Monuments in the parish church of Allhallows Barking, not defaced, are these: Sir Thomas Studinham, of Norwich dioceses, knight, 1469; Thomas Gilbart, draper and merchant of the staple, 1483; John Bolt, merchant of the staple, 1459; Sir John Stile, knight, draper, 1500; William Thynne, Esq., one of the clerks of the Green Cloth, and master of the household to King Henry VIII, 1546; Humfrey Monmouth, draper, one of the sheriffs, 1535; Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, beheaded 1546; Sir Richard Devereux, son and heir to the Lord Ferrers of Chartley; Richard Browne, Esq., 1546; Philip Dennis, Esq., 1556; Andrew Evenger, salter; William Robinson, mercer, alderman, 1552; William Armorer, clothworker, esquire, governor of the pages of honour, or master of the heance men [heance men henchmen], servant to Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Queen Mary, buried 1560.

Besides which there be divers tombs without inscription. John Crolys and Thomas Pike, citizens of London, founded a chantry there, 1388.

By the west end of this parish church and chapel lieth Sidon Lane, now corruptly called Sything Lane, from Tower Street up north to Hart Street. In this Sidon Lane divers fair and large houses are built namely, one by Sir John Allen, sometime mayor of London, and of council unto King Henry VIII; Sir Francis Walsingham, knight, principal secretary to the queen's majesty that now is, was lodged there, and so was the Earl of Essex, &c. At the north‑west corner of this lane standeth a proper parish church of St. Olave, which church together with some houses adjoining, as also others over against it in Hart Street, are of the said Tower Street Ward.

Monuments in this parish church of. St. Olave be these: Richard Cely and Robert Cely, fellmongers, principal builders and benefactors of this church; Dame Johan, wife to Sir John Zouch, 1439; John Clarenciaulx, king of arms, 1427; Thomas Sawle; Sir Richard Haddon, mercer, mayor 1512; Thomas Burnell, mercer, 1548; Thomas Morley, gentleman, 1566; Sir John Radcliffe, knight, 1568 ; and Dame Anne his wife, 1585 ; Chapone, a Florentine gentleman, 1582 ; Sir Hamond Vaughan, knight; George Stoddard, merchant, &c.

Woodroffe Lane towards the Tower is in this parish. Then have ye out of Tower Street, also on the north side, one other lane, called Marte Lane, which runneth up towards the north, and is for the most part of this Tower Street Ward; which lane is about the third quarter thereof divided from Aldgate Ward, by a chain to be drawn athwart the said lane, above the west end of Hart Street. Cokedon Hall, sometime at the south‑west end of Marte Lane, I read of.

A third lane out of Tower Street, on the north side, is called Mincheon Lane, so called of tenements there sometime pertaining to the Minchuns or nuns of St Helen's in Bishopsgate Street [Minchuns or nuns, “Minchin " seems to be a Teutonic feminine formed from “Monk," and perhaps derived from German use of such a feminine from Mönch Möchinn. The French word so formed was Moinesse. The in was sometimes dropped, leaving Minch for a nun. A nunnery at Littlemore was called the Mincheries. The Minchins in the text left their name to Mincing Lane]. This lane is all of the said ward, except the corner house towards Fenchurch Street. In this lane of old time dwelt divers strangers, born of Genoa and those parts; these were commonly called galley men, as men that came up in the galleys brought up wines and other merchandises, which they landed in Thames Street, at a place called Galley Quay. They had a certain coin of silver amongst themselves, which were halfpence of Genoa, and were called Galley halfpence; these halfpence were forbidden in the 13^th of Henry IV, and again by parliament in the 4^th of Henry V. It was, that if any person bring into this realm halfpence, suskinges, or dodkins [suskinges or dodkins little sous and doits, small French and Dutch money], he should be punished as a thief; and he that taketh or payeth such money shall lose a hundred shillings, whereof the king shall have the one half, and he that will sue the other half.

Notwithstanding, in my youth, I have seen them pass current, but with some difficulty, for that the English halfpence were then, though not so broad, somewhat thicker and stronger.

The Clothworkers’ Hall is in this lane. Then at the west end of Tower Street have ye a little turning towards the north to a fair house sometime belonging to one named Griste, for he dwelt there in the year 1449.

And Jack Cade, captain of the rebels in Kent, being by him in this his house feasted, when he had dined, like an unkind guest, robbed him of all that was there to be found worth the carriage.

Next to this is one other fair house, sometime built by Angell Dune, grocer, alderman of London, since possessed by Sir John Champneis, alderman, and mayor of London. He built in this house a high tower of brick, the first that I ever heard of in any private man’s house, to overlook his neighbours in this city. But this delight of his eye was punished with blindness some years before his death. Since that time, Sir Percevall Hart, a jolly courtier, and knight-harbinger [harbinger formerly herbergour, was one who went before to secure fit lodging, in this case for the Queen and her retinue, when they were on a journey], to the queen, was lodged there, etc.

From this house, somewhat west, is the parish church of St. Margaret Patten’s; to the which church and house, on the north side, and as far over against on the south, stretcheth the farthest west part of this ward.

And, therefore, to begin again at the east end of Tower Street, on the south side, have ye Bear Lane, wherein are many fair houses, and runneth down to Thames Street.

The next is Spurrier Lane, of old time so called, but since and of later time named Water Lane, because it runneth down to the water gate by the Custom House in Thames Street.

Then is there Hart Lane for Harp Lane, which likewise runneth down into Thames Street. In this Hart Lane is the Bakers’ Hall, sometime the dwelling-house of John Chichley, chamberlain of London, who was son to William Chichley, alderman of London, brother to William Chichley, Archdeacon of Canterbury, nephew to Robert Chichley, mayor of London, and to Henry Chichley, Archbishop of Canterbury. This John Chichley, saith John Leland, had twenty-four children. Sir Thomas Kirrioll, of Kent, after he had been long prisoner in France, married Elizabeth, one of the daughters of this Chichley, by whom he had this Chichley’s house. This Elizabeth was secondly married to Sir Ralfe Ashton, knight‑marshal, and thirdly, to Sir John Burchier, uncle to the late Burchier, Earl of Essex, but she never had child. Edward Poynings made part with Burchier and Elizabeth to have Ostenhanger in Kent after their death, and entered into it, they living.

In Tower Street, between Hart Lane and Church Lane, was a quadrant called Galley Row, because galley men dwelt there. Then have ye two lanes out of Tower Street, both called Church Lanes, because one runneth down by the east end of St. Dunstan's Church, and the other by the west end of the same; out of the west lane turneth another lane west towards St. Mary Hill, and is called Fowle Lane, which is for the most part in Tower Street Ward.

This church of St. Dunstan is called, in the east, for difference from one other of the same name in the west; it is a fair and large church of an ancient building, and within a large churchyard; it hath a great parish of many rich merchants, and other occupiers of divers trades, namely [especially], salters and ironmongers.

The monuments in that church be these: In the choir, John Kenington, parson, there buried, 1374; Willim Islip, parson, 1382; John Kryoll, Esq., brother to Thomas Kryoll, 1400; Nicholas Bond, Thomas Barry, merchant, 1445; Robert Shelly, Esq., 1420; Robert Pepper, grocer, 1445; John Norwich, grocer, 1390; Alice Brome, wife to John Coventry, sometime mayor of London, 1433; William Isaack, draper, alderman, 1508; Edward Skales, merchant, 1521; John Ricroft, Esq., sergeant of the larder to Henry VII and Henry VIII, 1532 ; Edwaters, Esq., sergeant‑at‑arms, 1558; Sir Bartholomew James, draper, mayor, 1479, buried under a fair monument with his lady; Ralfe Greenway, grocer, alderman, put under the stone of Robert Pepper, 1559; Thomas Bledlow, one of the sheriffs, 1472; James Bacon, fishmonger, sheriff, 1573; Sir Richard Champion, draper, mayor, 1568; Henry Herdson, skinner, alderman, 1555; Sir James Garnado, knight; William Hariot, draper, mayor, 1481, buried in a fair chapel by him built, 1517; John Tate, son to Sir John Tate, in the same chapel in the north wall; Sir Christopher Draper, ironmonger, mayor, 1566, buried 1580. And many other worshipful personages besides, whose monuments are altogether defaced.

Now for the two Church Lanes, they meeting on the south side of this church and churchyard, do join in one, and running down to the Thames Street, the same is. called St. Dunstan's Hill, at the lower end whereof the said Thames Street towards the west on both sides almost to Belinsgate, but towards the east up to the water gate, by the bulwark of the Tower, is all of Tower Street Ward. In this

street, on the Thames side, are divers large landing‑places called wharfs or quays, for craneage up of wares and merchandise, as also for shipping of wares from thence to be transported. These wharfs and quays commonly bear the names of their owners, and are therefore changeable.

    I read, in the 26^th of Henry VI, that in the parish of St. Dunstan in the East, a tenement called Passeke’s Wharf, and another called Horner’s Quay, in Thames Street, were granted to William Harindon, Esq. I read also that in the 6^th of Richard II, John Churchman, grocer, for the quiet of merchants, did newly build a certain house upon the quay, called Wool Wharf, in the Tower Street Ward, in the parish of Allhallows Barking, betwixt the tenement of Paul Salisberrie on the east part, and  the lane called the Water Gate on the west, to serve for tronage, or weighing of wools in the port of London; whereupon the king granted that during the life of the said John, the aforesaid tronage should be held and kept in the said house, with easements there for the balances and weights, and other officers of the said tronage, together with ingress and egress to and from the same, even as was had in other places, where the said tronage was wont to be kept, and that the king should pay yearly to the said John during his life forty shillings at the terms of St. Michael and Easter, by even portions, by the hands of his customer, without any other payment to the said John, as in the indenture thereof more at large appeareth.

        Near unto this Customer’s Quay towards the east, is the said water gate, and west from it Porter’s Quay, then Galley Quay, where the galleys were used to unlade and land their merchandises and wares; and that part of Thames Street was therefore of some called Galley Row, but more commonly Petty Wales.

        On the north side, as well as on the south side of this Thames Street, are many fair houses large for stowage, built for merchants; but towards the east end thereof, namely, over against Galley Quay, Wool Quay, and the Customs House, there have been of old time some large buildings of stone, the ruins whereof do yet remain, but the first builders and owners of them are worn out of memory, wherefore the common people affirm Julius Cæsar to be the builder thereof, as also of the Tower itself. But thereof I have spoken already. Some are of another opinion, and that a more likely, that this great stone building was sometime the lodging appointed for the Princes of Wales, when they repaired to this city, and that therefore the street in that part is called Petty Wales, which name remaineth there most commonly until this day, even as where the Kings of Scotland were used to be lodged betwixt Charing Cross and Whitehall, it is likewise called Scotland, and where the Earls of Brittany were lodged without Aldgate, the street is called Britain Street, etc.

        The said building might of old time pertain to the Princes of Wales, as is aforesaid, but is since turned to other use.

        It is before noted of Galley Quay, that the galleys of Italy, and other parts, did there discharge their wines and merchandises brought to this city. It is like, therefore, that the merchants and owners procured the place to build upon for their lodgings and storehouses, as the merchants of the Hanse of Almaine were licensed to have a house, called Gilda Teutonicorum, the Guildhall of the Germans. Also the merchants of Bordeaux were licensed to build at the Vintry, strongly with stone, as may be yet seen, and seemeth old, though often repaired; much more cause have these buildings in Petty Wales, though as lately built, and partly of the like stone brought from Caen in Normandy, to seem old, which for many years‑to wit, since the galleys left their course of landing there,‑hath fallen to ruin, and been let out for stabling of horses, to tipplers of beer, and such like.

        Amongst others, one Mother Mampudding, as they termed her, for many years kept this house, or a great part thereof, for victualling. And it seemeth that the builders of the hall of this house were shipwrights, and not house carpenters, For the frame thereof, being but low, is raised of certain principal posts of main timber, fixed deep in the ground, without any ground sell, boarded close round about on the inside, having none other wall from the ground to the roof; those boards not exceeding the length of a clap board, about an inch thick, every board ledging over other as in it ship or galley, nailed with ship nails called rough and clench, to wit, rough nails with broad round heads, and clenched on the other side with square plates of iron. The roof of this hall is also wrought of the like board, and nailed with rough and clench, and seemeth as it were a galley, the keel turned upwards; and I observed that no worm or rottenness is seen to have entered either board or timber of that hall, and therefore, in mine opinion, of no great antiquity.

        I read, in 44^th of Edward III, that a hospital in the parish of Barking Church was founded by Robert Denton, chaplain, for the sustentation of poor priests, and other both men and women, that were sick of the frenzy, there to remain till they were perfectly whole, and restored to good memory.

        Also I read, that in the 6^th of Henry V, there was in the Tower Ward a messuage, or great house, called Cobham's Inn; and in the 37^th of Henry VI, a messuage in Thames Street pertaining to Richard Longvile, &c. Some of the ruins before spoken of may seem to be of the foresaid hospital, belonging peradventure to some prior alien, and so suppressed among the rest in the reign of Edward III, or Henry V, who suppressed them all. Thus much for the bounds and antiquities of this ward, wherein is noted the Tower of London, three parish churches, the custom-house, and two halls of companies, to wit, the Clothworkers and the Bakers.

        This ward hath an alderman, his deputy, common councillors eight, constables thirteen, scavengers twelve, wardmote men thirteen, and a beadle; it is taxed to the fifteenth at six and twenty pounds

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