London and the Kingdom Volume I Part 28

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It was perhaps on this account that the civic authorities excelled themselves in giving the queen a suitable reception as she pa.s.sed from the Tower to Westminster on the 31st May. The Court of Aldermen directed (14 May) the wardens of the Haberdashers to prepare their barge as well as the "bachelers" barge for the occasion. Three pageants were to be set up, one in Leadenhall and the others at the Standard and the little Conduit in Cheapside. The Standard was to run with wine. A deputation was appointed to wait upon the king's council to learn its wishes, and enquiry was to be made of the Duke of Norfolk whether the clergy should take part in the day's proceedings, and whether the merchants of the Steelyard or other strangers should be allowed to erect pageants.(1170)

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The Court of Common Council had on the previous day (13 May) voted a gift of 1,000 marks to be presented to the queen at her coronation, and a further sum to be expended in the city "for the honor of the same."(1171) Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn were the only queens of king Henry VIII who were crowned, and on both occasions the citizens of London performed the customary services.(1172)

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In September (1533) Anne gave birth to a daughter, who afterwards ascended the throne as Queen Elizabeth. In the following spring (1534) parliament pa.s.sed an Act of Succession, which not only declared Elizabeth (and not Mary, the king's daughter by Catherine of Aragon) heir to the crown, but required all subjects to take an oath acknowledging the succession.

Commissioners were appointed to tender the oath to the citizens,(1173) and by the 20th April the "most part of the city was sworn to the "king and his legitimate issue by the queen's grace now had and hereafter to come."(1174) A fortnight later deeds under the common seals of the livery companies "concernyng the suretye state and succession" of the king were delivered to Henry in person at Greenwich by a deputation of aldermen.(1175)

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The oath, nevertheless, met with much opposition, more especially among the clergy and the religious orders. Elizabeth Barton, known as the "holy maid of Kent," and some of her followers, among them being Henry Gold, rector of the church of St. Mary Aldermary, were executed at Tyburn for daring to speak against the king's marriage.(1176) The friars proved extremely obstinate, and Henry sent commissioners to seek out and suppress all those friaries that refused to submit.

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The inmates of the London Charterhouse, who might well have been left to enjoy their quiet seclusion from the world, were startled by a visit from the king's commissioners calling upon them to take the oath. The manner of their reception by John Houghton, the prior, and his brethren and subsequent proceedings are graphically described by Maurice Chauncy,(1177) one of the inmates, who was more compliant than his brethren to the king's wishes, and thereby saved his life. The prior and Humphrey Middlemore, the procurator of the convent, were committed to the Tower for counselling opposition to the commissioners. There they were visited by the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of London, who persuaded them at last that the question of the succession was not a cause in which to sacrifice their lives for conscience sake. The result was that after a while Houghton and his companion declared their willingness to submit. On the 29th May the commissioners received oaths of fealty from Prior Houghton and five other monks, and on the 6th June Bishop Lee and Sir Thomas Kitson, one of the sheriffs, received similar oaths from a number of priests, professed monks and lay brethren or _conversi_ belonging to the house.(1178) The oaths of obedience to the Act were given under reservation "so far as the law of G.o.d permitted," and for a time the monks were left in comparative quiet, some few of them, of whom Cromwell entertained the most hope of submission, being sent, by his direction, to the convent of Sion.(1179)

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The exhortations of the "father confessor" were not without some measure of success, several of the Carthusians being induced to alter their opinions as to the king's demands. The seal of doom, however, was fixed on the order by the pa.s.sing of the Act which called upon its members to renounce the Pope and acknowledge the royal supremacy.(1180) Fisher and More denied the king's t.i.tle of Supreme Head of the Church, and were committed to the Tower. At this crisis there came to London two priors of Carthusian houses established, one in Nottinghams.h.i.+re and the other in Lincolns.h.i.+re. They came to talk over the state of affairs with Houghton.

An interview with Cromwell, recently appointed vicar-general or king's vicegerent in matters ecclesiastical, was resolved on. The king might possibly be prevailed upon to make some abatement in his demands.

Cromwell, however, no sooner discovered the object of their visit than he committed them to the Tower as rebels and would-be traitors. As they still refused to acknowledge the king's supremacy in the Church, in spite of all efforts of persuasion, they were brought to trial, together with Father Reynolds of Sion, on a charge of treason. A verdict of guilty was, after some hesitation on the part of the jury, found against them, and they were executed at Tyburn (4 May, 1535), glorying in the cause for which they were held worthy to suffer death. Houghton's arm was suspended over the gateway of the London Charterhouse, in the fond hope that the rest of the brethren might be awed into submission. This atrocious act of barbarism had, however, precisely the opposite effect to that desired. The monks were more resolute than ever not to submit, and not even a personal visit of Henry himself could turn them from their purpose.(1181) Three of them were thereupon committed to prison, where they were compelled to stand in an upright position for thirteen days, chained from their necks to their arms and with their legs fettered.(1182) They were afterwards brought to trial on a charge of treason, convicted and executed (19 June).

The fate of the remaining monks is soon told. In May, 1537, the royal commissioners once more attended at the Charterhouse, when they found the majority of its inmates prepared to take the oath prescribed. Ten of them, however, still refused, and were committed to Newgate and there left to be "dispatched by the hand of G.o.d," in other words to meet a painful and lingering death from fever and starvation. The following month the remnant of the community made their submission, and the London Charterhouse, as a monastic inst.i.tution, ceased to exist.

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Fisher and More were now brought from the Tower, where they had lain six months and more, and convicted on a similar charge of treason. Their sentence was commuted to death by beheading. Fisher was the first to suffer (19 June, 1535). His head was set up on London Bridge and his body buried in the churchyard of All Hallows, Barking. More suffered a few weeks later (6 July). His head, too, was placed on London Bridge, but his body was buried in the Tower, whither the remains of Fisher were afterwards carried. On the 15th December the Court of Aldermen publicly condemned a sermon preached by Fisher "in derogation and diminution of the royal estate of the king's majesty."(1183)

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When, in the following year (1536), the smaller monasteries-those of less than 200 a year-were dissolved by Act of Parliament, and the inhabitants of Lincolns.h.i.+re and Yorks.h.i.+re, taking fright lest the king and Cromwell should proceed to despoil the parish churches, set out on the Pilgrimage of Grace, Henry sought the City's aid. On the 10th October a letter from the king was read before the Court of Aldermen, desiring them to dispatch forthwith to his manor of Ampthill, where the n.o.bles were about to wait upon his majesty, a contingent of at least 250 armed men, 200 of which were to be well horsed, and 100 to be archers.(1184) The mayor, Sir John Allen,(1185) lost no time in issuing his precept to the livery companies for each of them to furnish a certain number of bowmen and billmen, well horsed and arrayed in jackets of white bearing the City's arms. They were to muster in Moorfields within twenty-four hours. The Mercers were called upon to furnish the largest quota, viz., twenty men; the Grocers, Drapers, Tailors and Cloth-workers respectively, sixteen men, and the rest of the companies contingents varying from twelve to two.(1186) The Court of Aldermen at the same time took the precaution of depriving all priests and curates, as well as all friars dwelling within the city, of every offensive weapon, so that they should be left with nothing but their "meate knyves."(1187) The king sent a letter of thanks for the city's contingent.(1188)

Later on, when Allen had been succeeded in the mayoralty by Sir Ralph Warren,(1189) it was resolved that each member of the court should provide at his own cost and charges twenty able men fully equipped in case of any emergency that might arise, whilst the companies were again called upon to hold men in readiness.(1190)

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Henry in the meantime had got rid of his second wife on the specious ground of her having misconducted herself with more than one member of the court, the real cause being her miscarriage(1191) of a male child, to the king's bitter disappointment. Henry had made up his mind to change his wives until he could find one who would give him a male heir and thus place the succession to the crown beyond all possibility of doubt. The very next day following Anne Boleyn's execution he married Jane Seymour.

The marriage necessitated the calling together of a new parliament, when a fresh Act was pa.s.sed settling the succession on Jane's children and declaring both Mary and Elizabeth illegitimate. Nevertheless, as soon as Mary made formal submission to her father, the king's att.i.tude towards her, from being cold and cruel, changed at once to one of courtesy if not of affection. He was thought to entertain the idea of declaring her heir-apparent. Indeed, on Sunday, the 20th August, she was actually proclaimed as such in one of the London churches-no doubt by some mistake.(1192)

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Whilst parliament was sitting at Westminster convocation was gathered at St. Paul's in the city, and continued to sit there until the 20th July, presided over by Cromwell as the king's vicar-general. The meeting was remarkable for its formal decree that Henry, as supreme head of the Church, might and ought to disregard all citations by the Pope, as well as for the promulgation of the ten articles intended to promote uniformity of belief and wors.h.i.+p.(1193)

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In September, 1536, the Court of Common Council agreed to vote the same sum of money for the coronation of the "right excellent pryncesse lady Jane, quene of Englonde," as had been granted at the coronation of "dame Anne, late queene of Englonde."(1194) The money, however, was not required, for the new queen was never crowned. Just one week after the birth of a prince (12 Oct., 1537), afterwards King Edward VI, there was a solemn procession of priests from every city church, with the Bishop of London, the choir of St. Paul's, the mayor, aldermen and crafts in their liveries, for the preservation of the infant prince and for the health of the queen, who lay in a precarious state.(1195) A few days later (24 Oct.) she was dead. The citizens caused her obit to be celebrated in St. Paul's with truly regal pomp.(1196)

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Two years later the citizens were preparing to set out to Greenwich in their barge (the mayor, aldermen, and those who had served the office of sheriff, in liveries of black velvet with chains of gold on their necks, accompanied by their servants in coats of russet) to welcome Anne of Cleves, who landed at Dover the 27th December, 1539.(1197) On the 3rd February, 1540, the Court of Aldermen was informed that the king and queen would be leaving Greenwich on the morrow for Westminster, and that it was the king's wish that the commons of London should be in their best apparel, in their barges, to wait upon his highness, meeting at St.

Dunstan's in the East at 7 o'clock in the morning and arriving at Greenwich by 8 o'clock.(1198)

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The insurrection which had taken place in the country under the name of the Pilgrimage of Grace was seized by the king as an excuse for suppressing many of the larger monasteries and confiscating their property. He had no such excuse for carrying out his destructive policy in the city. Nevertheless, under the immediate supervision of Cromwell, the work of suppression went on, and before the end of 1538 was well nigh complete. The surrender of the houses of the Black Friars, the Grey Friars and the White Friars followed in quick succession, "and so all the other immediatlie."(1199) Cromwell by this time had removed from his house near Fenchurch to another near the Austin Friars in Throgmorton Street. He had recently asked for a pipe of water to be laid on to his new house, and this the Common Council had "lovingly" granted.(1200) In his private concerns he showed as little regard for the rights of others as in the affairs of State. He did not scruple to remove bodily a small house, the property of Stow's father, in order to enlarge his own garden, giving neither warning beforehand nor explanation afterwards, and "no man durst go to argue the matter."(1201)

The hospital of St. Thomas of Acon, which had ministered to the wants of the poorer citizens for nearly 400 years, disappeared,(1202) and was soon followed by the priory and hospital of St. Bartholomew, an inst.i.tution of even greater antiquity, the hospital of St. Thomas, in Southwark, the priory and hospital of St. Mary without Bishopsgate, known as St. Mary of Bethlem, or "Bedlam," and the Abbey of Graces or New Abbey (sometimes called the Eastminster to distinguish it from the other minster in the west of London) which had been founded by Edward III, near Tower Hill.

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A portion of the spoil was, as we have already seen, distributed among court favourites. The site of the house and gardens of the Augustinian Friars in Broad Street Ward was occupied, soon after their suppression (12 Nov., 1538), by the mansion-house of that politic courtier the celebrated Marquis of Winchester, who managed to maintain himself in high station in spite of the changes which took place under the several reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth, "by being a willow and not an oak."

The building known at the present day as Winchester House, in Broad Street, stands near the site of the old mansion-house and garden of William Paulet, first Marquis of Winchester. The Friars' church he allowed to stand; and in June, 1550, the nave was granted, by virtue of a charter permitting alien non-conforming churches to exist in this country, to the Dutch and Walloon churches.(1203) The first marquis dying in 1571, he was succeeded by his son, who sold the monuments and lead from the roof of the remaining portion of the church and turned the place into a stable.(1204) The fourth marquis was reduced to parting with his house, built on the site of the old priory, in order to pay his debts, and appears to have found a purchaser in a wealthy London merchant and alderman of the city, John Swinnerton or Swynarton.(1205)

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The steeple of the church, which was of so great beauty that the citizens desired its preservation,(1206) was sold by the marquis to Henry Robinson, who forthwith set to work to pull it down on the ground that it was in such a state of decay as to be a danger to the pa.s.ser-by. Swinnerton, who happened to be mayor at the time, ordered him to stay the work of demolition; he, however, not only hurried on the more, but obstructed the officers sent to put a stop to the work, for which he was committed to Newgate to stay there until he gave security for restoring what he had already pulled down. The thought suggests itself that the fact of Swinnerton having purchased adjacent property may have made him the more zealous in preventing the demolition of the steeple than perhaps he might otherwise have been. However that may be, he lost no time in informing the lords of the council of the state of affairs and asking their advice (16 Feb., 1612). The reply came three days later, and was to the effect that as the City had had the option of purchasing the steeple at even a less price than Robinson had paid for it, and might have come to some arrangement with the marquis to keep it in repair, it could not prevent Robinson, who purchased it as a speculation, making the best he could of his bargain; so that, unless the City consented to accept Robinson's offer to part with his property on payment of his purchase-money and disburs.e.m.e.nts within a fortnight, down the steeple must come.(1207)

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The priory of St. Helen without Bishopsgate was one of the last to be surrendered. In 1542 the nuns' chapel, which at one time was part.i.tioned off from the rest of the church, was made over to Sir Richard Williams, a nephew of Thomas Cromwell, and ancestor of the Protector. The nuns'

refectory or hall pa.s.sed into the hands of the Leathersellers' Company and formed the company's hall until the close of the last century. The conduct of the inmates of the priory had not always been what it should be.(1208) The last prioress, in antic.i.p.ation of the coming storm, leased a large portion of the conventual property to members of her own family, and at the time of the suppression was herself allowed a gratuity of 30 and a pension.

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The relations existing between the civic authorities and the religious houses in the city were often of a most friendly and cordial character.

When, in 1520, the Friars of the Holy Cross wanted a.s.sistance for the maintenance and building of their church, they applied to the Corporation as being their "secund founders."(1209) For a.s.sistance thus given the friars bound themselves to pray for their benefactors. When, in 1512, the master of St. Bartholomew's hospital obtained a lease for ninety-nine years from the City of a parcel of land on which his gatehouse or porch stood, it was on condition of payment of a certain rent and of his keeping a yearly obit in his church for the souls of the mayor, aldermen and commons of the city; and when the master of the hospital, two years later, attempted to back out of the terms of his lease and asked to be discharged from keeping the obit on the ground that he thought that the payment of the specified rent was sufficient for the premises, the Court of Aldermen unanimously decided that no part of the agreement should be minished or remitted.(1210) When the house of the Sisters Minoresses or Poor Clares, situate in Aldgate, suffered from fire, the Corporation rendered them pecuniary aid to the extent of 300 marks.(1211)

It was, however, to the Franciscans or Grey Friars that the citizens of London, individually as well as in their corporate capacity, were more especially attached. Soon after their arrival in England in 1223, they became indebted to the benevolence and generosity of citizens, their first benefactor having been John Ewen, citizen and mercer, who made them a gift of some land and houses in the parish of St. Nicholas by the Shambles.

Upon this they erected their original building. Their first chapel, which became the chapel of their church, was built at the cost of William Joyner, who was mayor in 1239; the nave was added by Henry Waleys, who was frequently mayor during the reign of Edward I; the chapterhouse by Walter le Poter, elected sheriff in 1272; the dormitory by Gregory de Rokesley, who was mayor from 1274 to 1281, and again in 1284-5, and whose bones eventually found a resting place in their church; the refectory by another citizen, Bartholomew de Castro; and lastly-coming to later times-a library was added to their house by the bounty of Richard Whitington, as already narrated. It became the custom for the mayor and aldermen, as patron and founders, to pay a yearly visit to their house and church on St. Francis's day (4 Oct.). The custom dates from 1508. In 1522 the visit was for the first time followed by a dinner.(1212)

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In one respect at least, if in no other, Cromwell's action in suppressing religious houses resulted in a benefit to the city of London as well as to the country at large, and this was in the inst.i.tution of parish registers, not only for baptisms, but also for marriages. It had been his intention to establish them in 1536 to remedy the inconvenience to the public arising from the suppression of the smaller monasteries, and it is evident that some instructions were given at this time, inasmuch as the registers of two city parishes-viz., St. James Garlickhithe and St. Mary Bothaw-commence in November of this year,(1213) although the royal injunction commanding that registers should systematically be kept up, under penalty of fines, was not published by Cromwell, as vicar-general, until the 29th September, 1538. The delay is to be accounted for by the great discontent which the rumour of his project excited in the country.

It was reported that some new tax on the services of the Church was contemplated, and the first in the list of popular grievances circulated by the rebels in the Pilgrimage of Grace was the payment of tribute to the king for the sacrament of baptism. In course of time, as matters became quieter and the government began to feel its own strength, Cromwell resumed a project never altogether abandoned, and caused the injunction to be issued, an action for which posterity must ever be deeply grateful.

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On the other hand, the sudden closing of these inst.i.tutions caused the streets to be thronged with the sick and poor, and the small parish churches to be so crowded with those who had been accustomed to frequent the larger and more commodious churches of the friars that there was scarce room left for the paris.h.i.+oners themselves. The city authorities saw at once that something would have to be done if they wished to keep their streets clear of beggars and of invalids, and not invite the spread of sickness by allowing infected persons to wander at large. As a means of affording temporary relief, collections for the poor were made every Sunday at Paul's Cross, after the sermon, and the proceeds were distributed weekly among the most necessitous,(1214) but more comprehensive steps were required to be taken.

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Sir Richard Gresham,(1215) who was mayor at the time (1537-8), took upon himself to address a letter(1216) to the king setting forth that there were three hospitals in the city, viz., St. Mary's Spital, St.

Bartholomew's and St. Thomas's, besides the New Abbey on Tower Hill-inst.i.tutions primarily founded "onely for the releffe, comforte and helpyng of pore and impotent people not beyng able to helpe theymselffes; and not to the mayntenannce of Chanons, Preests, and Monks to lyve in pleasure, nothyng regardyng the miserable people liyng in every strete, offendyng every clene person pa.s.syng by the way with theyre fylthy and nasty savours"-and asking that the mayor and aldermen of the city for the time being might have the order and disposition of the hospitals mentioned, and of all the lands, tenements and revenues appertaining to the same. If his grace would but grant this request the mayor promised that a great number of the indigent sick would be relieved, whilst "st.u.r.dy beggars" not willing to work would be punished.

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