Milton's England Part 8

_From an old engraving._]

The visitor cannot but query, as he surveys the handsome monument erected to him by his wife, how this was paid for, but there are many explanations that suggest themselves.

Many a time may Milton as a boy and man have stood before this tomb, and viewed the fine timber roof and the late Perpendicular windows, which to-day remain just as he saw them. If the modern visitor would study the fas.h.i.+ons of his day, he can do no better than inspect such monuments as the costly Hammersley erected here. The date thereon is 1636, when Milton was a young man of twenty-eight. The absence in the life-size kneeling figure of the huge stiff crinoline on the tombs of a little earlier date shows that the fas.h.i.+ons changed as sharply as in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The date of the handsome organ is 1695.

CHAPTER X.

CROSBY HALL.--ST. HELEN'S.--ST. ETHELBURGA'S.--ST. GILES'S, CRIPPLEGATE

Pa.s.sing by the tiny churchyard of St. Andrew Undershaft, by several narrow and obscure pa.s.sages amid crowded business blocks, one comes upon the famous Crosby Hall on Bishopsgate Street. This presents to-day one of the most picturesque examples of the beam and plaster houses of the fifteenth century to be found in England. It was, says Stow, "the highest at that time in London," that is, about 1475. Doubtless his reference is to a high turret which once surmounted it, but of which no traces now remain. This was before the more pretentious Tudor buildings of the next century, of whose high towers Stow's biographer says: "He could not endure the high turrets and buildings run up to a great height, which some citizens in his time laid out their money upon to overtop and overlook their neighbours.

Such sort of advanced works, both towers and chimneys, they built both in their summerhouses in Moorfields and in other places in the suburbs, and in their dwelling houses in the City itself. They were like midsummer Pageants, 'not so much for use and profit as for show and pleasure,'

'bewraying,' said he, 'the vanities of men's minds. And that it was unlike to the disposition of the ancient citizens, who delighted in the building of hospitals and almshouses for the poor; and therein both employed their wits, and spent their wealth in the preferment of the common commodity of this our city.'"

Crosby House was, as Sir Thomas More relates, where Richard, Duke of Gloucester, "lodged himself, and little by little all folks drew unto him, so that the Protector's court was crowded and King Edward's left desolate." Here he probably planned his treasonable and malicious scheme for the death of the little princes. In his play of "Richard III.,"

Shakespeare mentions Crosby Hall more than once; doubtless he knew it well, for ten years before the birth of Milton it seems evident that he resided in a house hard by. It is quite certain that it is to his immortalising Crosby Hall that its preservation to this day is due, when almost everything else that was contemporaneous in secular architecture has disappeared in its vicinity.

The building has been much restored, and its banquet-hall is now utilised for a first-cla.s.s restaurant, where he who will may dine where dukes and princes dined four centuries ago. Sir Thomas More lived here for several years, and here doubtless wrote his life of the base king, to the echo of whose voice these walls had once resounded. Sir Thomas sold the place to that dear friend to whom he wrote with a coal a sad letter of farewell from his Tower cell before his execution. Later, his daughter, who loved the place where her dear father had pa.s.sed so many days, hired it, and came here to live.

Some years later, in 1594, the rich mayor of London, Sir John Spencer, bought the place, and entertained an amba.s.sador from Henry IV. to King James I. An interesting incident of this visit is related in the memoirs of this amba.s.sador. It appears that much scandal had been wrought by the mad pranks and rioting of the attendants of former envoys. What, then, was the horror of the French duke, when he discovered that one of the young n.o.bles in his train, on going out of Crosby Hall in quest of sport, had got into a fight and murdered an English merchant close by in Great St.

Helen's. The duke, determined on making an example, bade all his servants and attendants range themselves in a row against the wall, and taking a lighted torch, he looked sharply in the face of each in turn until he found the terrified face of the guilty man. Determined to wreak speedy vengeance, he ordered, after the arbitrary method of the times, his instant decapitation. But the lord mayor pleaded for mercy, and the youth's life was spared; whereupon, the duke records, "the English began to love, and the French to fear him more."

This same Lord Spencer, Mayor of London, had one fair daughter, a gay deceiver of her honoured sire, and as much a lover of fine clothes and service as any modern dame who orders gowns from Worth's, or buys her jewels on Bond Street. She loved, or at all events made up her mind to marry the Earl of Northampton, a man who was _persona non grata_ to her father, who had no mind to wed his daughter, the greatest heiress in England, to this gentleman. But the young folks were not daunted. One day when the mayor gave a sixpence to the baker's boy, who had come with a covered barrow to bring bread, he learned later that the barrow contained not bread, but his own naughty Elizabeth, who was trundled off by her lover in disguise.

When their baby came, some time later, grandpapa was wheedled into a reconciliation, and the gay young bride again lived in Crosby Place, the past forgiven. As an ill.u.s.tration of what wealthy ladies in Milton's boyhood demanded for their pleasure, a quotation from her letter written to her husband shortly after marriage, may prove entertaining: "I pray and beseech you to grant me, your most kind and loving wife, the sum of 2,600 quarterly to be paid. Also I would, besides that allowance, have 600 quarterly to be paid, for the performance of charitable works; and those things I would not, neither will be, accountable for. Also I will have three horses for my own saddle, that none should dare to lend or borrow; none lend but I, none borrow but you. Also I would have two gentlewomen ... when I ride a hunting or a hawking, or travel from one house to another, I will have them attending; so for either of these said women, I must and will have for either of them a horse. Also I will have six or eight gentlemen. And I will have my two coaches, one lined with velvet to myself, with four very fine horses; and a coach for my women, lined with cloth and laced with gold, otherwise with scarlet and laced with silver, with four good horses. Also I will have two coachmen. Also, at any time when I travel, I will be allowed not only coaches and spare horses for me and my women, but I will be having such carriages as shall be fitting for all; orderly, not pestering my things with my women's nor theirs with their chambermaids, nor theirs with their washmaids.... And I must have two footmen; and my desire is that you defray all the charges for me. And for myself, besides my yearly allowance, I would have twenty gowns of apparel. Also I would have to put me in my purse 2,000 and 200, and so you to pay my debts. Also I would have 6,000 pounds to buy me jewels, and 4,000 to buy me a pearl chain. Now, seeing I have been and am so reasonable unto you, I pray you do find my children apparel and their schooling, and all my servants, men and women, their wages.... So for my drawing-chambers in all houses, I will have them delicately furnished, both with hangings, couch, canopy, gla.s.s, carpet, chairs, cus.h.i.+ons, and all things thereunto belonging.... I pray you when you be an earl to allow me 2,000 more than I now desire, and double attendance."

The Countess of Pembroke, sister of Sir Philip Sidney and friend of Ben Jonson, once lived as mistress in the halls of Crosby Place. The latter's epitaph upon her is well known:

"Underneath this sable hea.r.s.e Lies the subject of all verse: Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother.

Death, ere thou canst find another Good and fair and wise as she, Time shall throw a dart at thee."

Crosby Hall originally occupied far more ground than is indicated by that part of it which stands to-day. A wine cellar with finely groined roof probably belonged to a crypt of its chapel, which has vanished. In its great hall, fifty-four feet long and forty feet high, one sees to-day, in beautiful modern workmans.h.i.+p, the arms of St. Helen's Priory, the earliest proprietor of the place; of Sir John Crosby, its builder; of the "crook-backed tyrant," Richard, and of the wise, the gentle, the learned author of the "Utopia." Its "louvre," or opening in the roof, is found in ancient halls in lieu of a chimney. This hall, however, has a regular fireplace, but perhaps of later construction. The louvre now is closed by the same piece of woodwork that formerly was raised above it. The beautiful carved roof itself is now as it was over four centuries ago, the chief glory of the place. Beneath it the most accomplished musicians of the past discoursed sweet music, and the n.o.ble, the learned, and the fas.h.i.+onable gathered at the hospitable board. Not unlikely, the author of "Comus" and "Lycidas," in the days before its owner fought under Charles I., may have been among their company.

In Milton's blind old age, Crosby Hall became a Presbyterian meeting-house, and for a century afterward devout wors.h.i.+ppers sang psalms beneath its carved oak roof, which had echoed for two hundred years to sounds of mirth and feasting.

A little to the left of Crosby Hall, through a low gateway, the sightseer pa.s.ses from the noisy thoroughfare into a quiet court. Its pavement covers the ancient garden of Crosby Place. But it is not all paved. A small green churchyard still occupies a part of the site of the ancient priory of St.

Helen's, and surrounds the low Gothic church to which one descends a few steps from the modern pavement.

Helena, the mother of Constantine, according to tradition, discovered the tomb of Christ and thereupon was canonised. From remote antiquity a church in her honour has stood here. Three centuries before Milton's day, the Benedictine nuns built a priory close by the ancient church. They built their church, and finally, getting possession of St. Helen's, incorporated it with their own. To-day the ends of the two naves, with a little cupola at the intersection, present an irregular and picturesque aspect; the interior, likewise, by its irregularities, recalls the curious origin of the structure. An agreeable harmony of differing forms and proportions has been accomplished. The old, old church, dim even on a suns.h.i.+ny June day, is pervaded by a strange charm. Business has crowded to its very walls; but the rumble of the streets is dulled by the intervening structures of modern prosaic type that hem in its peaceful solitude. Unlike the last three churches of which we have spoken, its doors are open all day long, and the traveller has not to make painful search amid warehouses and down cross streets for the s.e.xton's keys. St. Helen's is large enough and beautiful enough to lure the frequent visitor; and perhaps it is a welcome refuge to many a perplexed and overwearied man of business, who, for a few moments, now and then, flees from his office and commercial cares, to rest and lift his thoughts to heavenly things within this sanctuary.

St. Helen's is noted for its tombs, and has been called the Westminster Abbey of the "City." Here lies that noted and remarkable man, Sir Thomas Gresham. The visitor to the upper floor of the National Portrait Gallery, in those rooms where hang the portraits of the Elizabethan era, will remember the strong face and figure, elegantly clad, of the man whose bones rest here, and of whom we shall have more to say in connection with his college and the exchange which rose under his direction. His monument is a large marble slab full of fossil sh.e.l.ls, and raised table high. The date is 1579. From the beautiful, great window of the Nun's Church, the coloured rays of his own arms fall on his tomb.

Upon the wall behind it are niches; one of them faced by a little carved arcade, through which, it is said, the nuns who were in disgrace listened to the ma.s.s from the crypt below. A large ugly piece of masonry on the same wall near the farther end once contained the embalmed body of Francis Bancroft, whose face was visible through the gla.s.s lid of his coffin. A few years since both body and tomb were placed within the crypt. According to his will, on the occasion of an annual memorial sermon for which he had arranged, his body was exhibited to certain humble folk for whom he had erected, in expiation of his misdeeds, the almshouses now at Mile End.

Browning has with characteristic power depicted the Roman Jew scourged to the Christian church, and forced to hear a sermon once a year for his conversion. Perhaps some later poet may find as gruesome a theme for his sarcastic pen in the scene which imagination conjures up when these feeble and aged recipients of the gift of this erratic sn.o.b were yearly brought to listen to the tale of his benefactions, and to gaze upon his shrivelling corpse. Bancroft as a magistrate had been so unpopular that the people tried to upset his coffin on its way to the tomb, and pealed the bells.

The oldest monument in the church is to Thomas Langton, chaplain, buried in the choir in 1350. One tomb bears the remarkable name of Sir Julius Caesar. The inscription is in form of a legal doc.u.ment with a broken seal, in which Sir Julius gives his bond to Heaven to surrender his life whenever it shall please G.o.d to call him. If one would see Sir Julius as Milton saw him, let him look upon his portrait that hangs in the National Portrait Gallery with his great contemporaries.

The obdurate father-in-law, the rich Sir John Spencer of Crosby Hall, is commemorated, by his son-in-law, the Earl of Northampton, in a stately alabaster tomb. The figures of Sir John and his wife rest under a double canopy, and at their feet kneels the runaway daughter, in the enormous stiff crinoline of 1609, the date of her father's death. Some thousand men in mourning cloaks are said to have attended his funeral. The tomb of Sir John Crosby and his wife, of 1475, the beautiful and perfectly preserved tomb of Oteswich and his wife, of the time of Henry IV., and the fine figure of a girl reading, are a few of the works of art that deserve careful attention. The beauty of that which antedates the Tudor and Stuart periods, as contrasted with the works of art of those periods, is almost as marked as it is at Westminster Abbey.

When Milton lived he must have seen still standing the refectory and cloisters, and the old hall of the nuns, which was later used by the Company of Leathersellers. The whole group of buildings, with the adjacent gardens, must have formed a highly picturesque reminder of the days before King "Hal" had ruthlessly swept his besom of destruction over the many houses in the land which sheltered nuns and friars.

During Milton's life there stood on Bishopsgate Street the first charitable inst.i.tution for the insane that was ever established. Its name, "Bethlehem Hospital," was corrupted into Bedlam, and has become a term of general application to scenes of disorder. Just after Milton's death, it was removed to Southwark, where the gray dome of the present structure rises conspicuous amid the London smoke.

Pa.s.sing northeast along the crowded thoroughfare of Bishopsgate Street, but a short distance from St. Helen's, the student of antiquities may see, almost concealed by parasitic houses, the little ancient church of St.

Ethelburga. He will need to cross the street in order to perceive the name inscribed in large letters upon the church, beneath the short tower and cupola, and above the clock and the shop that masks its front. In Milton's boyhood, this church was ancient, and had been standing for at least three hundred and fifty years, for it is mentioned as early as 1366. Here Chaucer may have knelt to say his Paternosters.

The visitor should time his coming to the middle of the day, when the door opening upon the sidewalk is unlocked, and he may enter into the solemn little sanctuary, and at the farther end step out into the tiny garden at the rear. Here, if it be summer, he may sit in this shady retreat and meditate upon the history of the bit of ancient wall said by the verger to be a Roman wall, the fragments of which are preserved here. The church itself is plain and bare; simply a Gothic nave, with no side aisles. Its chief interest to some may be its antique organ, of uncertain date, but old enough from its appearance to have been heard by the little lad from Bread Street whose soul was full of music. One can easily imagine the father of John Milton, who was himself so skilled in the great art, bringing his son to every church within his neighbourhood that boasted such an instrument.

The church stands on the site of a much older one, and is named from the daughter of the French princess, Bertha, who brought to Canterbury, to the home of her Saxon husband, Ethelbert, the Christian religion, which was then new to pagan England. Visitors to the little church of St. Martin's at Canterbury will recall the font in which this king was baptised into the faith of his wife.

Not far down Bishopsgate Street, upon the opposite side from St.

Ethelburga's, when Milton lived, stood a house with such a marvellous carved front with oriel windows, that when it made way for a modern business block, it was transferred to the South Kensington Museum, where it may now be seen in one of its lofty halls. In Milton's youth, Sir Paul Pindar, its owner, was the richest merchant in the kingdom, and often loaned money to James I. and his son Charles. As amba.s.sador to Constantinople, he did much to improve England's trade in the East. On his return, when Milton was a schoolboy of a dozen years at St. Paul's School, he brought, among his other treasures, a great diamond, valued at 30,000, which he loaned to the king to wear at his opening of the Parliaments; it was afterward sold to Charles I. Twenty years later, when Cromwell and Milton were fighting for the rights of Englishmen, and Charles's strength was failing, this same Paul Pindar provided funds for the escape of Queen Henrietta Maria and her children.

He gave 10,000 for the restoration, before the fire, of St. Paul's Cathedral. But his loyalty to the house of Stuart was put to a hard test, for the king borrowed such enormous sums that he was all but ruined. When Milton walked down Bishopsgate Street, past his quaint dwelling-house, he must have seen the mulberry-trees planted in the park to please James I.

by his devoted subject. These ancient mulberry-trees disappeared only within the memory of men now living.

Pa.s.sing westward along the northern site of the old city wall, in search of the few landmarks that escaped the Great Fire and still remain, we come to that church of all others most dear to Milton lovers. St. Giles's, Cripplegate, is not easily entered on Sunday, except during hours of service. But a courteous question to the burly guardian of the peace who patrols the neighbourhood may effect an unlocking of the gates and a quiet stroll through the green garden that surrounds the church upon two sides.

The big policeman is a good talker, and relates with gusto the ravages of the great fire a few years since, which came so near as to melt the lead upon the church roof.

The ma.s.sive wall which forms a corner of the green yard is a bastion of the city wall in the time of Edward IV. Possibly the long, narrow bricks which still gleam red in the lower part may be a lingering remnant of the old Roman wall. Certainly they are the type that the Romans were wont to use. The policeman a.s.sures us that there are mysterious "submarine"

pa.s.sages leading from this wall, and one may well believe almost anything as one thinks of the strange sights that it has witnessed. High walls of business blocks of nondescript style replace the gaps made by the recent fire, which fortunately stopped before it touched the narrow, gabled houses of wood which cl.u.s.ter close about the church. These give almost the only example to-day in London of the type of building which housed the poorer cla.s.s of Londoners of Milton's time.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHURCH OF ST. GILES CRIPPLEGATE IN 1737

Dedicated to St. Giles, who lived about the year 700; founded in 1090; destroyed by fire in 1545, and rebuilt within the Liberty but without the City of London.

_From an old engraving._]

The church is on the site of an older one of 1090, and was built about one hundred years before Milton's birth. It is late Perpendicular, and has some good detail.

As one enters the church from the garden, the first monument on his right is Milton's, which contains his bust, under a Gothic canopy. The poet's bones lie by his father's, under the pavement near the choir. According to the evidence of a little book written about 1790, it seems that his coffin was opened by irresponsible persons, who found the lead much decayed and easily bent back the top. A servant-maid for a consideration let in sightseers through a window, some of whom, after satisfying their curiosity in gazing on the well-preserved figure, s.n.a.t.c.hed hair and teeth and even an arm-bone to carry away as relics. A later authority questions whether it is certain that the grave thus desecrated was indeed Milton's or another's, and leaves a grain of comfort in the thought that perhaps his honoured remains still rest untouched by vandals.

Within this church Ben Jonson was married in 1623, and here Oliver Cromwell, a st.u.r.dy youth of twenty-one, married his bride on August 22d in 1620. Little thought the parson, as he and Elizabeth Bourchier knelt before him, to be joined in holy wedlock, that one day he would be ent.i.tled not only "Protector of England," but "Protector of Protestantism." A marvellous man, this Oliver, whose deeds left much to be forgiven by a later age, for they sometimes had more of the spirit of Joshua than of the Founder of the Christian Faith, and yet as a lover of England, and a minister to the court of Queen Victoria from England's l.u.s.ty kin beyond the sea has said:

"He lived to make his simple oaken chair More terrible, more grandly beautiful, Than any throne before or after of a British king.

One of the few who have a right to rank With the true Makers; for his spirit wrought Order from Chaos; proved that right divine Dwelt only in the excellence of truth; And far within old Darkness' hostile lines Advanced and pitched the s.h.i.+ning tents of Light Nor shall the grateful Muse forget to tell, That--not the least among his many claims To deathless honour--he was MILTON'S friend, A man not second among those who lived To show us that the poet's lyre demands An arm of tougher sinew than the sword."

--_"A Glance Behind the Curtain," Lowell._