Chapter II: St. Paul's and the Neighbourhood (2)

A part of the monastery of the Blackfriars was, in 1623, the scene of a frightful accident, which made a great noise at the time. Mr. Malcolm has enumerated several of the publications recording it; and from these it appears that on Sunday, the 5th of November in that year, a congregation of about three hundred individuals had assembled in a small gallery over the gateway of the lodgings of the French Ambassador in this building, in order to hear a sermon from a Jesuit, named Father Drury, who enjoyed considerable reputation as a preacher. Under the floor of the chamber where they were assembled was an empty apartment, and under that another, making together a height of twenty-two feet from the ground; and the floor itself, as it afterwards turned out, was mainly supported by a single beam, which in the centre was not more than three inches thick. The people had been in their seats for about half-an-hour, when this beam suddenly gave way, and the whole of them were instantly precipitated, mixed with the timber, plaster, and rubbish of the floors, into the vacant depth below. Drury, and another priest, named Redgate, were both killed, as were also a Lady Webbe, and the daughter of a Lady Blackstone, together with, it is supposed, between ninety and a hundred persons. Many more were seriously injured. "Several people," says Mr. Malcolm, "escaped in a very extraordinary manner, particularly Mrs. Lucy Penruddock, who was preserved by a chair falling hollow over her; and a young man, who lay on the floor, overwhelmed by people and rubbish, yet untouched by them, through the resting of fragments on each other, and thus leaving a space round him. In this horrible situation he had the presence of mind to force his way through a piece of the ceiling, and he shortly after had the indescribable happiness of assisting in the liberation of others."[71] There were many persons, it would appear, foolish and wicked enough to represent this calamity as a token of the displeasure of heaven against the Roman Catholic faith. The pamphlets noticed by Mr. Malcolm are some of those that were published by the parties in a violent controversy which raged for some time on the subject. The day on which this accident happened was long remembered under the name of the Fatal Vespers; and the circumstance that it was the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot was not forgotten by the judgment-mongers. Most of the bodies of those who were killed on this occasion were buried without either the ceremony of a funeral service, or the decency of a coffin or winding-sheet, in two large pits or trenches, dug, the one in the court before, and the other in the garden behind the house, in which the accident had taken place.

Printing-house Square, close to Playhouse-yard, marks out the site of the ancient King's Printing-House, whence bibles, prayer-books, and proclamations were issued. It was rebuilt in the middle of the last century, and became, according to Maitland, "the completest printing-house in the world." The king's printer now lives elsewhere; but in the same spot is a house, which may be called the world's printing-house, seeing the enormous multitude of newspapers which the mighty giant of steam daily throws forth out of his iron lap, full of interest to all quarters of the globe. We need not say that we allude to the _Times_ newspaper. There is knowing, in this and other instances, what bounds to put to human expectation, when mechanical and intellectual force are thus joined in a common object.

On the other side of the way, in Bridge Street, stood, and stands now, though hidden by the new houses, and much altered, the former palace of Bridewell, now known as a house of industry and correction. In ancient times the King used frequently to reside here; and when such was the case, the courts of law sometimes attended him. The building, having fallen into decay, was restored about the year 1522, by Henry VIII.; and here the attendants of the Emperor Charles V. were lodged while the emperor himself occupied the Blackfriars, a communication being formed between the two palaces by a gallery carried over the Fleet Ditch, and through the old city wall. Both Henry and Catherine, also, were lodged here, while the cause between them was proceeding at Blackfriars. In 1553 Edward VI. granted the palace, on the solicitation of Bishop Ridley, for the purposes to which it has been since applied; an act of benevolence which was recorded, with more precision than elegance, in the following lines under a portrait of his majesty, that used to hang near the pulpit in the old chapel:--

"This Edward of fair memory the sixth.
In whom with greatness, goodness was commixt,
Gave this Bridewell, a Palace in old times,
For a chastising house of vagrant crimes."

Bridewell having been burnt down in the Great Fire was rebuilt immediately after that calamity, and it has since been frequently repaired, and partially renovated. Henry the Eighth ("sturdy rogue!") would have been a fit personage to lodge in it still, though under somewhat different circumstances.

One of the steep and gloomy descents from Thames Street still preserves the name of Castle Street; and immediately to the west of this stood in ancient times, on the banks of the river, a large building called Baynard's Castle. Baynard, by whom it was originally erected in the eleventh century, was one of the Conqueror s Norman followers. His descendant, William Baynard, however, soon after the commencement of the next century, forfeited his inheritance to the crown, by which it was bestowed upon the family of Clare. The representative of this family, and the possessor of Baynard's Castle, in the reign of King John, was the Baron Robert Fitzwalter, a portion of whose history, as related by some of our old chroniclers, gives an interest to the spot. Among the beauties of the time, one of the fairest was Matilda, the daughter of Fitzwalter. The licentious monarch, who may have seen her at some high festival held in this very castle, was smitten, after his fashion, by her charms; but his suit was rejected with indignation, both by herself and her father. His "love" now turned into hatred and thirst of revenge; he soon after resorted to open force, and having first driven Fitzwalter to seek refuge in France, easily got the unhappy girl into his custody, and, if we are to believe the story, despatched her by poison. He at the same time ordered Castle Baynard to be demolished. The next year the armies of the English and French Kings lay encamped during a truce on the opposite sides of a river in France, when an English knight, impatient, as it would seem, of the bloodless inactivity that prevailed, thought fit to challenge any one of the enemy who chose to come forth and break a lance with him. It was not long before a champion appeared making his way across the water, who, unattended as he was, had no sooner reached the land, than he mounted a horse and rode up to meet his challenger. The duel took place in the sight of King John and his troops, but it did not last long: for both the English knight and his horse were thrown to the ground by the first thrust of his antagonist's spear, which was also broken to shivers in the shock. "By God's troth," exclaimed John, as he beheld this heroic exploit, "he were a king indeed who had such a knight." The words were caught by some of the bystanders, who had observed more narrowly than the monarch the figure of the unknown victor, and who suspected him to be no other than their old acquaintance, the Baron Fitzwalter. It was, in fact, no other. The next day, the praise which the King had bestowed upon his prowess being reported to him, he returned to the English camp, and throwing himself at the feet of his sovereign, was re-admitted to favour, and restored to all his former possessions and honours. We may observe, however, that this narrative is scarcely detailed with sufficient precision to entitle it to be received as a piece of authentic history, and that especially it does not seem to be very easy to reconcile some parts of it, as commonly given, with the ascertained dates and course of the events of King John's reign. This Robert Fitzwalter is placed by Matthew Paris at the head of his list of the Barons, who, in 1215, came armed in a body to the King, at the Temple, and made those demands which led to the concession of the Great Charter at Runnymede. Indeed, in the short military contest which preceded the King's submission, Fitzwalter was appointed by his brother barons the commander-in-chief of their forces, and dignified in that capacity with the title of Marshal of the Army of God and of Holy Church. On his return to England, he is said to have rebuilt or repaired his castle in London which the King had thrown down, and the edifice continued for a long time to be the principal fortress within the city. The family of Fitzwalter, in consequence of their possession of Baynard's Castle, held the office of Chastilians and Bannerets, or Banner-bearers of London; and the reader who is curious upon such matters may consult Stow, or those who have copied him, for an account of the rights, services, and ceremonial customs appertaining to that dignity. The punishment of a person found guilty of treason within the banneret's jurisdiction is worth noticing: he was to be tied to a post in the Thames, at one of the wharfs, and left there for two ebbings and two flowings of the tide. After this, there was certainly little chance of his committing more treason.

It is not known how Baynard's Castle, and the privileges belonging to the lordship, got out of the hands of this family; but in 1428, in the reign of Henry the Sixth, the building, having been burned down, is stated to have been restored by Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. After the duke's death it came once more into the possession of the crown; and here it was that the great council assembled in the beginning of March, 1461, which proclaimed the Earl of March King, by the title of Edward IV. It was here also, twenty-two years after, that the solemn farce was enacted in which Richard III. assumed the royal dignity on the invitation of Buckingham, and in obedience to the pretended wishes of the citizens. Shakspeare has given this scene with an exact conformity, in all the matters of fact, to the narratives of the old chroniclers; the crafty Protector, it will be remembered, being made to present himself in the gallery above, supported by a bishop on each side, while Buckingham, the lord mayor, the aldermen, and the citizens, occupy the court of the castle below. Baynard's Castle was once more rebuilt in 1487, by Henry VII., with a view to its answering better the purpose of a royal palace; and the King occasionally lodged there. Some time after this we find the place in possession of the Earls of Pembroke, who made it their common residence; and it was here that the Earl of that name, on the 19th of July, 1553, about a fortnight after the death of Edward VI., assembled the council of the nobility and clergy, at which the determination was taken, on the motion of Lord Arundel, to abandon the cause of Lady Jane Grey, and to proclaim Queen Mary, which, accordingly, was instantly done in different parts of the city. This is supposed to have been the building which was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666. It is represented in an old print of London as a square pile surrounding a court, and surmounted with numerous towers. A large gateway in the middle of the south side led to the river by a bridge of two arches and stairs. This ancient fortress was never rebuilt after the fire; and its site has been since occupied by wharfs, timber-yards, workshops, and common dwelling-houses. The ward, however, in which it was situated, and which embraces also St. Paul's Churchyard, and nearly all the localities we have as yet noticed, still retains the name of the Ward of Baynard's Castle.

Upon Paul's Wharf Hill, to the north-east of Baynard's Castle, were a number of houses within a great gate, which are said by Maitland to have been designated, in the leases granted by the dean and chapter, as the _Camera Dianæ_, or Diana's Chamber, and to have been so denominated from a spacious building in the form of a labyrinth, constructed here by Henry II. for the concealment of the fair Rosamond Clifford. We need scarcely say that this tradition has all the air of a fable. The author we have just named, however, assures us that "for a long time there remained some evident testifications of tedious turnings and windings, as also of a passage under ground from his house to Castle Baynard; which was no doubt the King's way from thence to the _Camera Dianæ_,"[72] or the chamber of his "brightest Diana." What the testifications may in question really have amounted to, we cannot pretend to say; but Diana, not being a family name, as in the case of another royal favourite, Diana of Poitiers, seems a strange one to have been given to the lady already christened by so poetical an appellation as Rosamond, and so different in her reputation from the chaste goddess. We should, for our parts, rather suppose that the dean and chapter had been moved to call the place Diana's chamber by some tradition, or a conceit of their own, connecting it with the temple of that goddess, said to have formerly stood on the site of the neighbouring cathedral; or if the name was really a very ancient one, and in popular use, it may perhaps be taken as lending some slight confirmation to the notion of the actual existence of that heathen edifice, and may "help," as Iago phrases it, "to thicken other proofs that also demonstrate thinly." Diana's Chamber, however, may have been so called from its being hung with painted tapestry, representing some story of the goddess. Inigo Jones, by the way, is said by Lord Orford to be buried in the church of St. Bennet, Paul's Wharf, which stands immediately to the south of the spot where we now are, at the corner formed by the meeting of Thames Street and St. Bennet's Hill.

Another building which formerly existed in this neighbourhood was the Royal Wardrobe. It occupied the site of the present Wardrobe Court, immediately to the north of the church of St. Andrew's and gave to the parish the name of St. Andrew's Wardrobe, by which it is still known. This building was erected about the middle of the fourteenth century, by Sir John Beauchamp, Knight of the Garter, a son of Guido, Earl of Warwick, by whose heirs it was sold to Edward III. Mr. Malcolm has printed some extracts from the Manuscript Account Book, since preserved in the Harleian collection, of a keeper of this Wardrobe, from the middle of April to Michaelmas 1481, (towards the close of the reign of Edward IV.), which are interesting and valuable as memorials, both of the prices and of the fashions of that time. During the period, of less than six months, over which the accounts extend, the sum of 1,174_l._ 5_s._ 2_d._ appears to have been received by the keeper, for the use of his office. Of this the most considerable portion seems to have been expended in the purchase of velvet and silks from Montpellier. The velvets cost from 8_s._ to 16_s._ per yard; black cloths of gold, 40_s._; what is called velvet upon velvet, the same; damask, 8_s._; satins, 6_s._ 10_s._ and 12_s._, camlets, 30_s._ a-piece; and sarcenets for 4_s._ to 4_s._ 2_d._ Feather beds, with bolsters, "for our sovereign lord the King," are charged 16_s._ 8_d._ each. A pair of shoes, of Spanish leather, double soled, and not lined, cost 1_s._ 4_d._; a pair of black leather boots, 6_s._ 8_d._; hats 1_s._ a-piece; and ostrich feathers, each 10_s._ The keeper's salary appears to have been 100_l._ per annum--that of his clerk 1_s._ a-day; and the wages of the tailors 6_d._ a-day each. The King sometimes lodged at the Wardrobe; on one of which occasions the washings of the sheets which had been used is charged at the rate of 3_d._ a pair. Candles cost 1_d._ a pound. All the money disbursed by the keeper of the wardrobe, however, was not expended in decorating the persons of his Majesty and the royal household. Among other items we find 20_s._ paid to Piers Bauduyn (or Peter Baldwin, as we should now call him), stationer, "for binding, gilding, and dressing of a book called Titus Livius;" for performing the same offices to a Bible, a Froisard, a Holy Trinity, and the Government of Kings and Princes, 16_s._ each; for three small French books, 6_s._ 8_d._; for the Fortress of Faith, and Josephus 3_s._ 4_d._; and for what is designated "the Bible Historical," 20_s._ So that in those days, we see the binding a book was conceived to be a putting of it into breeches, and the artist employed for that purpose looked upon as a sort of literary tailor.

How impossible it would now be in a neighbourhood like this, for such nuisances to exist, as a fetid _public_ ditch, and scouts of degraded clergymen asking people to "walk in and be married!" Yet such was the case a century ago. At the bottom of Ludgate Hill the little river Fleet formerly ran, and was rendered navigable. Adjoining the site of Fleet Market is Sea-coal Lane, so called from the barges that landed coal there; and Turnagain Lane, at the bottom of which the unadvised passenger found himself compelled by the water to retrace his steps. The water gradually got clogged and foul; and the channel was built over and made a street, as we have noticed in our introduction. But even in the time we speak of, this had not been entirely done. The ditch was open from Fleet Market to the river, occupying the site of the modern Bridge Street; and in the market, before the door of the Fleet prison, men plied in behalf of a clergyman, literally inviting people to walk in and be married. They performed the ceremony inside the prison, to sailors and others, for what they could get. It was the most squalid of Gretnas, bearding the decency and common-sense of a whole metropolis. The parties retired to a gin shop to treat the clergyman; and there, and in similar houses, the register was kept of the marriages. Not far from where the Fleet stood is Newgate; so that the victims had their succession of nooses prepared, in case, as no doubt it often happened, one tie should be followed by the other. Pennant speaks of this nuisance from personal knowledge.

"In walking along the streets in my youth," he tells us, "on
the side next this prison, I have often been tempted by the
question, '_Sir, will you be pleased to walk in and be
married_.' Along this most lawless space was frequently hung up
the sign of a male and female hand conjoined, with _Marriages
performed within_, written beneath. A dirty fellow invited you
in. The parson was seen walking before his shop; a squalid,
profligate figure, clad in a tattered plaid night-gown, with a
fiery face, and ready to couple you for a dram of gin or roll
of tobacco. Our great chancellor, Lord Hardwicke, put these
demons to flight, and saved thousands from the misery and
disgrace which would be entailed by these extemporary
thoughtless unions."

This extraordinary disgrace to the city, which arose most likely from the permission to marry prisoners, and one great secret of which was the advantage taken of it by wretched women to get rid of their debts, was maintained by a collusion between the warden of the Fleet and the disreputable clergymen he became acquainted with. "To such an extent," says Malcolm, "were the proceedings carried, that twenty and thirty couple were joined in one day, at from ten to twenty shillings each;" and "between the 19th Oct., 1704, and the 12th Feb., 1705, 2,954 marriages were celebrated (by evidence), besides others known to have been omitted. To these neither licence nor certificate of banns were required, and they concealed, by private marks, the names of those who chose to pay them for it." The neighbourhood at length complained; and the abuse was put an end to by the Marriage Act, to which it gave rise.

Ludgate and Fleet ditch figure among the scenes of the Dunciad. It is near Bridewell, on the site of the modern Bridge Street, that the venal and scurrilous heroes of that poem emulate one another, at the call of Dulness, in seeing who can plunge deepest into the mud and dirt.

"This labour past, by Bridewell all descend,
(As morning prayer and flagellation end[73]),
To where Fleet ditch, with disemboguing streams,
Rolls the large tribute of dead dogs to Thames;
The king of dykes! than whom no sluice of mud
With deeper sable blots the silver flood.
Here strip, my children! here at once leap in;
Here prove who best can dash through thick and thin;
And who the most in love of dirt excel,
And dark dexterity of groping well."[74]

This part of the games being over,

"Through Lud's famed gates, along the well-known Fleet,
Rolls the black troop and overshades the street;
Till showers of sermons, characters, essays,
In circling fences whiten all the ways:
So clouds replenished from some bog below,
Mount in dark volumes and descend in snow."

The "well-known Fleet" is the prison just mentioned, the side of which appears to have been visible at that time in Ludgate Hill, and where it was a joke (too often founded in truth) to suppose authors incarcerated.

"Few sons of Phoebus in the courts we meet;
But fifty sons of Phoebus in the Fleet,"

says a prologue of Sheridan's. The Fleet having "rules," like the King's Bench, authors were found in the neighbourhood also. Arthur Murphy, provoked by the attacks of Churchill and Lloyd, describes them as among the poor hacks,

"On Ludgate Hill who bloody murders write,
Or pass in Fleet Street supperless the night."

Booksellers' shops were then common as now in Fleet Street and the Strand, in Paternoster Row, and St. Paul's Churchyard. This is pleasant to think of; for change is not desirable without improvement. One feels gratified, where difference is not demanded of us, in being able to have the same association of ideas with such men as Pope and Dryden, even if it be upon no higher ground than the quantity of books in Paternoster Row, or the circumstance that Ludgate Hill still leads into Fleet Street.

FOOTNOTES:

[46] Brayley, vol. ii., p. 303.

[47] In his Life, vol. iii., p. 98. Edit. 1827.

[48] Unless, indeed, we are to suppose, as has been suggested, that _Sermon_ Lane is a corruption of _Sheremoniers_ Lane, that is, the lane of the money clippers, or such as cut and rounded the metal which was to be coined or stamped into money. There was anciently a place in this lane for melting silver, called the _Blackloft_--and the Mint was in the street now called Old Change, in the immediate neighbourhood. See Maitland, ii., 880 (edit. of 1756.)

[49] Letters to Stella, in the duodecimo edition of his works, 1775, Letter vi., p. 43.

[50] Boswell's Life of Johnson, eighth edition, vol. iv., p. 93.

[51] History of London, vol. ii., p. 925.

[52] The Tatler. With notes historical, biographical, and critical 8vo. 1797. Vol. iv., p. 206.

[53] Pennant's London, p. 377.

[54] Of William III.

[55] The genius of Clarke, which, agreeably to his unhappy end, was tender and melancholy, was unsuited to the livelier intoxication of Dryden's feast, afterwards gloriously set by Handel. Clarke has been styled the musical Otway of his time. He was organist at St. Paul's, and shot himself at his house in St. Paul's Churchyard. Mr. John Reading, organist of St. Dunstan's, who was intimately acquainted with him, was going by at the moment the pistol went off, and upon entering the house "found his friend and fellow-student in the agonies of death." Another friend of his, one of the lay vicars of the cathedral, relates of him, that a few weeks before the catastrophe, Clarke had alighted from his horse in a sequestered spot in the country, where there was a pond surrounded by trees, and not knowing whether to hang or drown himself, tossed up a piece of money to see which. The money stuck in the earth edgeways. Of this new chance for life, poor Clarke, we see, was unable to avail himself.

[56] See Maitland, vol. ii., p. 949.

[57] Since this was written, the jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Court in Doctors' Commons on matters of divorce has been transferred to a new "Court of Divorce and Matrimonial Causes," sitting at Westminster.

[58] Londinium Redivivum, vol. ii., p. 473.

[59] On the authority of Langton, Johnson's friend. See Memoirs, Anecdotes, &c., by Letitia Matilda Hawkins, vol. i., p. 293.

[60] Censura Literaria, vol. iii., p. 254.

[61] Life, Diary, and Correspondence of Sir William Dugdale, by Hamper. Lond. 1827. Our memorandum has omitted the page. The letter was written to Dugdale by Randall Holme, a brother herald.

[62] Another opinion, however, is that the spear had been given to one of his ancestors as having been a magistrate of some description. This supposition seems to be supported by the grant of arms to John Shakspeare in 1599, which has been printed by Mr. Malcolm. But Shakspeares in Warwickshire are as plentiful as blackberries, and perhaps the name originated in the stout arms of a whole tribe of soldiers.

[63] _Vix ea nostra voco_--(as above translated). The effect is stronger if the whole passage is called to mind. It is Ovid;

Nam genus, et proavos, et quæ non fecimus ipsi,
Vix ea nostra voco.--_Metamor_. lib. 13. v. 140.
For birth, and rank, and what our own good powers
Have earned us not, I scarcely call them ours.

Ovid, himself a man of birth, puts this sentiment in the mouth of Ulysses, a king. But then he was a king whose talents were above his royalty.

[64] Life of Gibbon, in the Autobiography, vol. i.

[65] Lamb's Specimens of English Dramatic Poets, p. 147.

[66] Maitland, vol. i., p. 28.

[67] Malcolm, Londinium Redivivum, iv., p. 367.

[68] Spectator, vol. i., No. 28.

[69] Malone, in his Historical Account of the English Stage, has an ingenious parallel between these inn-theatres and the construction of the modern ones. "Many of our ancient dramatick pieces," he observes, "were performed in the yards of carriers' inns, in which, in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign, the comedians, who then first united themselves in companies, erected an occasional stage. The form of these temporary play-houses seems to be preserved in our modern theatre. The galleries in both are ranged over each other on three sides of the building. The small rooms under the lowest of these galleries answer to our present boxes; and it is observable, that these, even in theatres which were built in a subsequent period expressly for dramatick exhibitions, still retained their old name, and were frequently called _rooms_ by our ancient writers. The yard bears a sufficient resemblance to the pit, as at present in use. We may suppose the stage to have been raised in this arena, on the fourth side, with its back to the gateway of the inn, at which the money for admission was taken. Thus in fine weather, a play-house, not incommodious, might have been formed." Reed's Edition of Johnson's and Steevens's Shakspeare, vol. iii., p. 73.

[70] Tatler, No. 127.

[71] Londinium Redivivum, ii., 375.

[72] History of London, ii., 880.

[73] The whipping of the criminals in Bridewell took place after the church service.

[74] Dunciad, book ii., v. 269.