LONDON

BY

WALTER BESANT

AUTHOR OF "ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN"
"FIFTY YEARS AGO" ETC.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE

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Copyright, 1892, by Harper & Brothers.

All rights reserved.

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PREFACE

In the following chapters it has been my endeavor to present pictures of the City of London—instantaneous photographs, showing the streets, the buildings, and the citizens at work and at play. Above all, the citizens: with their daily life in the streets, in the shops, in the churches, and in the houses; the merchant in the quays and on 'Change; the shopkeeper of Cheapside; the priests and the monks and the friars; the shouting of those who sell; the laughter and singing of those who feast and drink; the ringing of the bells; the dragging of the criminal to the pillory; the Riding of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen; the river with its boats and barges; the cheerful sound of pipe and tabor; the stage with its tumblers and its rope-dancers; the 'prentices with their clubs; the evening dance in the streets. I want my pictures to show all these things. The history of London has been undertaken by many writers; the presentment of the city and the people from age to age has never yet, I believe, been attempted.

The sources whence one derives the materials for such an attempt are, in the earlier stages, perfectly well known and accessible to all. Chaucer, Froissart, Lydgate, certain volumes of the "Early English Text Society," occur to everybody. But the richest mine, for him who digs after the daily life of the London citizen during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, is certainly Riley's great book of Extracts from the City Records. If there is any life or any reality in the three chapters of this book which treat of the Plantagenet period, it is certainly due to Riley.

As regards the Tudor period, the wealth of illustration is astonishing. One might as well be writing of the city life of this day, so copious are the materials. But it is not to Shakespeare and the dramatists that we must look for the details so much as to the minor writers, the moralists and satirists, of whom the ordinary world knows nothing.

The reign of Charles II. directs one to the Plague and to the Fire. I was fortunate in finding two tracts, one dealing with the plague of 1603, and the other with that of 1625. These, though they are earlier than Charles II., were invaluable, as illustrating the effect of the pestilence in causing an exodus of all who could get away, which took place as much in these earlier years as in 1666. Contemporary tracts on the state of London after the Fire, also happily discovered, proved useful. And when the Plague and the Fire had been dismissed, another extraordinary piece of good fortune put me in possession of certain household accounts which enabled me to present a bourgeois family of the period at home.

Where there is so much to speak about, one must exercise care in selection. I have endeavored to avoid as much as possible those points which have already been presented. For instance, the growth of the municipality, the rise of the Guilds and the Companies, the laws of London, the relations of the City to the Sovereign and the State—these things belong to the continuous historian, not to him who draws a picture of a given time. In the latter case it is the effect of law, not its growth, which is important. Thus I have spoken of the pilgrimizing in the time of Henry II.; of the Mysteries of that time; things that belonged to the daily life; rather than to matters of policy, the stubborn tenacity of the City, or the changes that were coming over the conditions of existence and of trade. Again, in Plantagenet London one might have dwelt at length upon the action taken by London in successive civil wars. That, again, belongs to the historian. I have contented myself with sketching the churches and the monasteries, the palaces and the men-at-arms, the merchants and the workmen.

Again, in the time of George II., the increase of trade, which then advanced by leaps and bounds, the widening of the world to London enterprise, the part which London took in the conquest of India and the ejection of France from North America belong to history. For my own part I have preferred to show the position, the influence, and the work of the Church at a time generally believed to be the deadest period in the whole history of the Church of England. This done, I have gone on to illustrate the day-by-day life of the citizens, with the prices of things, the management, and the appearance of the City.

One thing remains to be said. Mr. Loftie, in his History of London (Stadford), first gave the world a reconstruction of the ground—the terrain—of London and its environs before ever a house was erected or an acre cleared. The first chapter of this book—that on Roman London and After—is chiefly due to a study of this map, and to realizing what that map means when applied to the scanty records of Augusta. This map enabled me to recover the years which followed the retreat of the Romans. I cannot allow this chapter to be called a Theory. It is, I venture to claim for it, nothing less than a Recovery.

WALTER BESANT.

United University Club:
May 2, 1892.

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CONTENTS

class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">V. PLANTAGENET—Continued 215 VI. TUDOR 263 VII. TUDOR—Continued 320 VIII. CHARLES THE SECOND 371 IX. GEORGE THE SECOND 429   INDEX 501

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ILLUSTRATIONS

href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45752@[email protected]#THE_FOUNDER39S_TOMB_ST_BARTHOLOMEW_THE_GREAT_EC" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">The Founder's Tomb, St. Bartholomew the Great, E.C., founded 1123 57 South Ambulatory, Church of St. Bartholomew, founded 1123 61 St. Katherine's by the Tower 64 Interior of the Church of St. Katherine's by the Tower 65 Dowgate Dock 68 St. Saviour's Dock 70 North-east View of St. Saviour's 73 Plan of Saxon Church, Bradford-on-Avon 76 Saxon Church, Seventh or Eighth Century, Bradford-on-Avon 77 Sculptured Angel, Saxon Church 78 View of Interior of Saxon Church, showing very remarkable Chancel Arch and Entrance 79 First Stone London Bridge, begun A.D. 1176 82 Crypt, or Lower Chapel, of St. Thomas's Church, London Bridge 84 West Front of Chapel on London Bridge 85 Part of London Wall in the Church-yard of St. Giles, Cripplegate 88 Entrance to Knights Hospitallers 90 Buildings of Knights Hospitallers 91 Crypt in Bow Church, from the North Side, near the East End of the Nave 95 Interior of Porch of the Parish Church of St. Alphege, London Wall, formerly the Chapel of the Priory of St. Elsynge Spital 97 The Arms and Seals of the Prior and Convent of St. Saviour at Bermondsey 101 A City Monument 107 Ruins (1790) of the Nunnery of St. Helen, Bishopsgate Street 110 St. Helen's, Bishopsgate 113 South-west View of the Interior of the Church of St. Helen, Bishopsgate Street 116 Church of St. Augustin (St. Austin) 119 Church of Austin Friars 122 Christ's Hospital, from the Cloisters 126

The Charter House 130 Ruins of the Convent of Nuns Minories, 1810 133 Bow Church, Mile End Road 137 North-east View of Waltham Abbey Church, Essex 140 Waltham Abbey Church, Essex, before Restoration 145 Porch of St. Sepulchre's Church 148 South View of the Palace of the Bishops of Winchester, near St. Saviour's 151 Charing Cross. Erected by Edward I. in memory of Queen Eleanor of Castile 156 Church of St. Paul's before the Fire 158 Monuments of St. Paul's which survived the Fire (east end of North Crypt) 160 Ancient North-east View of Bishopsgate Street 162 The College of Arms, or Herald's Office 164 Bridewell 165 View of the Savoy from the Thames 165 View of the South Front of Baynard's Castle, about 1640 167 View of Cold Harbor, in Thames Street, about 1600 171 Crosby House, Bishopsgate Street 173 Interior of Crosby Hall 175 Interior of part of Crosby Hall, called the Council Room, looking East 178 Gateway, etc., in Crosby Square (now destroyed) 180 Crosby Hall 183 North-east View of Crosby Hall, showing part of the Interior of the Great Hall 187 Gerrard's Hall 191 Bridewell Palace, about 1660, with the Entrance to the Fleet River, part of the Black Friars, etc. 195 The Thames Front, A.D. 1540 197 Ancient Court of Bridewell Palace 201 Old Charing Cross 216

tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">The Strand (1547), with the Strand Cross, Covent Garden, and the Procession of Edward VI. to his Coronation at Westminster 241 Arms of Sir Richard Whittington 244 Arms granted to the Craft of the Ironmongers of London by Lancaster King of Arms, A.D. 1466 246 Guildhall, King Street, London 248 Blackwell Hall, King Street 251 Ancient Plate 254 The Conduit, near Bayswater 257 South-east View of Stepney Church 259 Boar in Eastcheap 264 The View of London Bridge from East to West 271 The Pool 275 Burghley House 283 Ilford Almshouses 287 Old Tavern 289 Front of Sir Paul Pinder's House, on the West Side of Bishopsgate Street Without 291 The Royal Exchange, Cornhill 295 The Steel Yard, etc., Thames Street, after the Great Fire of 1666 299 Collegii Greshamensis a Latere Occidentali Prospectus A.D. 1739 302 Curious Pump 305 Newgate 315 Sign of the Three Kings, Bucklersbury 321 The Manner of Burning Anne Askew, John Lacels, John Adams, and Nicolas Belenian, with certane of ye Counsell sitting in Smithfield 326 Old Fountain Inn in the Minories. Taken down in 1793 329 South-west View of an Ancient Structure in Ship Yard, Temple Bar 335 Obsequies of Sir Philip Sidney 341 Dr. Shaw preaching at St. Paul's Cross 347 The Old Bull and Mouth Inn, St. Martin's-le-Grand. Now pulled down 353 Globe Theatre 357

href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45752@[email protected]#INSIDE_OF_THE_RED_BULL_PLAYHOUSE" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">Inside of the Red Bull Playhouse 359 South View of Falcon Tavern, on the Bank Side, Southwark, as it appeared in 1805 363 Palace of Whitehall in the Reign of James II. 373 Hungerford Market 380 Cheapside 382 Fleet Street 385 Below Bridge 389 Old East India House 396 Sion College 398 John Bunyan's Meeting-house in Zoar Street 401 Old Grocers' Hall, used for Bank of England 403 London after the Fire 405 Old St. Paul's, with the Porch of Inigo Jones 411 Houses in St. Katherine's. Pulled down in 1827 432 Lud Gate 435 Davenant's School 439 Sign 444 St. Dunstan's in the West 445 Approach to London Bridge 447 Above Bridge 452 St. James's Palace—March of the Guards 456 Ranelagh 459 North View of the Marshalsea, Southwark 461 Charing Cross 463 A Dish of Tea 469 Visiting Card 478 Vauxhall 481 Sir John Fielding's Court, Bow Street 487 Interior of St. Stephen, Walbrook 491 Concert Ticket 493

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LONDON

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id="pgepubid00004">I

AFTER THE ROMANS

The only real authorities for the events which took place in Britain during the fifth and sixth centuries are Gildas and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. There are other writers—Ethelwerd, for instance, who copied the Chronicle, and adds nothing; and Nennius, whose work, edited by one Mark the Hermit in the tenth century, was found in the Vatican. The first edition was published in London in the year 1819, in the original Latin, by the Rev. William Gunn. Nennius gives a brief account of King Arthur and his exploits, but he affords little or no information that is of use to us. The work of Richard of Cirencester is extremely valuable on account of its topography; it is also interesting as the work of the first English antiquary. But he belonged to the fourteenth century, and has added nothing to the history, of which he knew no more—less, indeed—than we ourselves can discover. The book named after Geoffrey of Monmouth is not worth a moment's serious consideration. In Bede's Ecclesiastical History passages may be found which throw side lights on this period, but they are few.