35. AMUSEMENTS
We have heard so much of the religious Houses, Companies, Hospitals, quarrels and struggles that we may have forgotten a very important element in the life of the City – the amusements and pastimes of the citizens. Never was there a time when the City had more amusements than in these centuries. You have seen that it was always a rich town: its craftsmen were well paid: food was abundant: the people were well fed always, except in times of famine, which were rare. There were taverns with music and singing: there were pageants, wonderful processions representing all kinds of marvels, devised by the citizens to please the King or to please themselves: there were plays representing scenes from the Bible and from the Lives of the Saints: there were tournaments to look at. Then there were the Festivals of the year, Christmas Day, Twelfth Day, Easter, the Day of St. John the Baptist, Shrove Tuesday, the Day of the Company, May Day, at all of which feasting and merriment were the rule. The young men, in winter, played at football, hockey, quarterstaff, and single stick. They had cock fighting, boar fights, and the baiting of bulls and bears. On May Day they erected a May-pole in every parish: they chose a May Queen: and they had morris-dancing with the lads dressed up as Robin Hood, Friar Tuck, Little John, Tom the Piper, and other famous characters.
Then they shot with the bow and the cross-bow for prizes: they had wrestlings and they had foot races.
The two great festivals of the year were the Eve of St. John the Baptist and the Day of the Company.
On the former there took place the March of the Watch. Bonfires were lit in the streets, not for warmth but in order to purge and cleanse the air of the narrow streets: at the open doors stood tables with meat and drink, neighbour inviting neighbour to hospitality. Then the doors were wreathed with green branches, leaves, and flowers: lamps of glass were hanging over them with oil burning all the night: some hung out branches of iron curiously wrought with hundreds of hanging lights. And everywhere the cheerful sounds of music and singing and the dancing of the prentice lads and girls in the open street. Through the midst of this joyousness filed the Watch. Four thousand men took part in this procession which was certainly the finest thing that Mediæval London had to show. To light the procession on its way the City found two hundred cressets or lanterns, the Companies found five hundred and the constables of London, two hundred and fifty in number, each carried one. The number of men who carried and attended to the cressets was two thousand. Then followed the Watch itself, consisting of two thousand captains, lieutenants, sergeants, drummers and fifers, standard bearers, trumpeters, demilances on great horses, bowmen, pikemen, with morris-dancers and minstrels – their armour all polished bright and some even gilded. No painter has ever painted this March: yet of all things, mediæval, it was the most beautiful and the most mediæval.
On the day of the Company, i.e. the Company's Saint's Day, all the members assembled in the Hall, every man in a new livery, in the morning. First they formed in procession and marched to church, headed by priests and singing boys, in surplices: after these walked the servants, clerks, assistants, the chaplain, the Mayor's sergeants, often the Lord Mayor himself. Lastly came the Court with the Master and Wardens followed by the Livery, i.e. the members.
After church they returned in like manner to the Hall, where a great banquet awaited them, music played in the gallery: the banners of the Company were hung over their heads: they burned scented wood: they sat in order, Master and Wardens and illustrious guests at the high table: and the freemen below, every man with his wife or some maiden if he were unmarried. After dinner the loving cup went round: the minstrels led in the players: and they had dramatic shows, songs, dances and 'mummeries' for the rest of the day.
Do not think of mediæval London as a dull place – it was full of life and of brightness: the streets were narrow perhaps, but they were full of colour from the bright dresses of all – the liveries of the Companies – the liveries of the great nobles – the splendid costume of the knights and richer class. The craftsman worked from daylight till curfew in the winter: from five or six in the summer: he had a long day: but he had three holidays: he had his evenings: and his Sundays. A dull time was going to fall upon the Londoners, but not yet for two hundred years.
36. WESTMINSTER ABBEY
Hitherto our attention has been confined to the City within the walls. It is time to step outside the walls.
All this time, i.e. ever since peaceful occupation became possible, a town had been growing up on the west side of London. You have seen that formerly there spread a broad marsh over this part. Some rising ground kept what is now the Strand above the river, but Westminster, except for certain reed-grown islets, was nothing but a marsh covered over twice in the day by the tide. The river thus spreading out over marshes on either bank was quite shallow, and could in certain places be forded. The spot where any ford existed afterwards became a ferry. Lambeth Bridge spans the river at one such place, the memory of which is now maintained in the name of the Horseferry Road. The largest of these islets was once called Thorney, i.e. the Isle of Thorns. If you will take a map of Westminster, shift the bank of the river so as to make it flow along Abingdon Street, draw a stream running down College Street into the Thames; another running into the Thames across King Street, and draw a ditch or moat connecting the two streams along Delahaye Street and Princes Street you will have Thorney, about a quarter of a mile long, and not quite so much broad, standing just above high water level. This was the original Precinct of Westminster.
The Abbey of St. Peter's, Westminster, is said to have been founded on the first conversion of the East Saxons, and at the same time as the Foundation of St. Paul's. We know nothing about the foundation of the church. During the Danish troubles the Abbey was deserted. It was refounded by Dunstan. It was, however, rebuilt in much greater splendour by Edward the Confessor. Of his work something still remains, and can be pointed out to the visitor. But the present Abbey contains work by Henry III., Edward I., Richard II. – Whittington being commissioner for the work – Henry VII. and Wren, Hawksmoor and Gilbert Scott the architects.
There is no monument on British soil more venerable than Westminster Abbey. You must not think that you know the place when you have visited it once or twice. You must go there again and again. Every visit should teach you something of your country and its history. The building itself betraying to those who can read architecture the various periods at which its builders lived: the beauty of the building, the solemnity of the services – these are things which one must visit the Abbey often in order to understand. Then there are the associations of the Abbey; the things that have been done in the Abbey: the crowning of the Kings, in a long line from Edward the Confessor downwards. Here Edward the Fourth's Queen, Elizabeth Woodville, took sanctuary when her husband suffered reverse: here the unfortunate Edward V. was born. Here the same unhappy Queen brought her two boys when her husband died. Here Caxton set up his first printing press: here is the coronation chair. Here is the shrine of the sainted Edward the Confessor. It is robbed of its precious stones and its gold: but the shrine is the same as that before which for five hundred years people knelt as to the protector saint of England. This is the burial-place of no fewer than twenty-six of our Kings and their Queens. This is the sacred spot where we have buried most of our great men. To name a few whose monuments you should look for, here are Sir William Temple, Lord Chatham, Fox and Wilberforce, among statesmen; of soldiers there are Prince Rupert and Monk; of Indian fame, here are Lord Lawrence and Lord Clyde; of sailors, Blake, Cloudesley Shovel, and Lord Dundonald. Of poets, Chaucer, Spenser, Beaumont, Ben Jonson, Dryden, Prior, Addison, Gay, Campbell. Of historians and prose writers, Samuel Johnson, Macaulay, Dickens, Livingston, Isaac Newton. Many others there are to look for, notably the great poet Tennyson, buried here in October 1892.
Read what was written by Jeremy Taylor, a great divine, on Westminster Abbey: —
'A man may read a sermon, the best and most passionate that ever man preached, if he shall but enter into the sepulchre of Kings… There the warlike and the peaceful, the fortunate and the miserable, the beloved and the despised princes mingle their dust and pay down their symbol of mortality; and tell all the world that when we die our ashes shall be equal to kings, and our accounts easier, and our pains or our crowns shall be less.'
37. THE COURT AT WESTMINSTER
Although the Kings of England have occasionally lodged in the Tower and even at Baynard's Castle, and other places in the City, the permanent home of the Court was always from Edward the Confessor to Henry VIII. at the Royal Palace of Westminster. Of this building, large, rambling, picturesque, only two parts are left, Westminster Hall and the crypt of St. Stephen's Chapel. When King Henry VIII. exchanged Westminster for Whitehall the rooms of the old Palace were given over to various purposes. One of them was the Star Chamber, in which the Star Chamber Court was held: one was the Exchequer Chamber: St. Stephen's Chapel was the House of Commons; and the House of Lords sat in the Old Court of Bequests. All that was left of the Palace except the Great Hall, was destroyed in the fire of 1834. Very fortunately the Hall was saved. This magnificent structure, one of the largest rooms in the world not supported by pillars, was built by William Rufus, and altered by Richard II. Here have been held Parliaments and Grand Councils. Here have been many State trials. Sir William Wallace was condemned in this Hall. Sir Thomas More; the Protector Somerset; Lady Jane Grey; Anne Boleyn; King Charles I.; the rebels of 1745, Lords Kilmarnock, Balmerino and Lovat: Earl Ferrers, for murdering his steward; all these were condemned. One or two have been acquitted, Lord Byron – cousin of the poet – for killing Mr. Chaworth: and Warren Hastings, the great Indian statesman. In Westminster Hall used to be held the Coronation Banquets at which the hereditary champion rode into the Hall in full armour and threw down a glove.
After the removal of the Court the Hall became the Law Courts. It is almost incredible that three Courts sat in this Hall, cases being heard before three Judges at the same time. In addition to the Courts, shops or stalls were ranged along the walls where dealers in toys, milliners, sempstresses, stationers and booksellers sold their wares. A picture exists showing this extraordinary use of the Hall.
It is more difficult to restore ancient Westminster than any part of the City. We must remember that the great Hall formed part of a square or quadrangle on which were the private rooms of the Sovereign, the State rooms of audience and banquet, the official rooms of the King's ministers and servants; this court led into others – one knows not how many – but certainly as many as belong to the older part of Hampton Court, which may be taken as resembling Westminster Palace in its leading features. The courts were filled with men-at-arms, serving men, pages, and minstrels. They went backwards and forwards on their business or they lay about in the sun and gambled. Sometimes there crossed the court some great noble followed by two or three of his servants on his way to a Council: or a bishop with his chaplain, to have speech with the King: or a group of townsmen after a brawl, who had been brought here with ropes about their necks, uncertain whether all would be pardoned or half a dozen hanged, the uncertainty lending a very repentant and anxious look to their faces. Or it would be the Queen's most Excellent Highness herself with her ladies riding forth to see the hunt. This was the daily life of the Court: we read the dry history of what happened but we forget the scenery in which it happened – the crowds of nobles, bishops, abbots, knights, men-at-arms, serving men, among whom all these things took place. We are apt to forget, as well, the extraordinary brightness, the colour, the glitter and gleam that belonged to those times when every man went dressed in some gay livery wearing the colours and the crest of his lord. Who rides there, the hart couchant – the deer at rest – upon his helm? A Knight belonging to the Court: one of the Knights of King Richard the Second. Who march with the bear and ragged staff upon their arms? They are the Livery of the Earl of Warwick. The clash and gleam of arms and armour everywhere: colour on the men as well as the women: colour on the trappings of the horses: colour on the hanging arras of the wall: colour on the cloth of scarlet which they hang out of the windows when the royal pageant rides along.
Close to the Palace, the Abbey. That too belongs to the time. Within the Abbey precincts the people are almost as crowded as in the Palace. But it is a different crowd. There is not so much colour: no arms or armour: an orderly crowd: there are the Benedictine monks themselves, with their crowd of servants, cooks, and refectory men: brewers: bakers: clothiers: architects, builders and masons: scribes and lawyers: foresters and farmers from the estates: stewards: cellarers: singing boys: organists – for the Abbey Church of St. Peter is as great and as rich and maintains as large an army of servants as the Cathedral Church of St. Paul.
38. JUSTICE AND PUNISHMENTS
In the time of the Plantagenets the punishments inflicted on wrongdoers were much more lenient than those which followed in later years. There is none of that brutal flogging which grew up in the last century, the worst time in the whole history of the country, for the people. This flogging not only in the army and navy but also for such offences as vagrancy, lasted even into the present century. In the year 1804 six women were publicly flogged at Gloucester for this offence. Under Whittington this barbarous cruelty would not have been done. There were, it is true, certain punishments which seem excessively cruel. If a man struck a sheriff or an alderman he was sentenced to have his right hand chopped off. That is, indeed, worse than hanging. But, consider, the whole strength of London lay in its power to act and its resolution always to act, as one man. This could only be effected by habitual obedience to law and the most profound respect to the executive officers. Therefore the worst penalty possible – that which deprived a man of his power to work and his power to fight – which reduced him to ruin – which made his innocent children beggars – which branded him till death as a malefactor of the most dangerous kind – was inflicted for such an offence. Here, again, mercy stepped in; for, when the criminal was brought out for execution, if he expressed contrition the offended officer, represented by the Alderman of the Ward – begged that he might be pardoned.
For burglary criminals were ruthlessly hanged. This crime is bad enough now; it is a crime which ought at all times to be punished with the utmost rigour. But in these days what is it that a burglar can carry away from an ordinary house? A clock or two: a silver ring: a lady's watch and chain: a few trinkets: if any money, then only a purse with two or three pounds. The wealth of the family is invested in various securities: if the burglar takes the papers they are of no use to him: there is a current account at the bank; but that cannot be touched. Books, engravings, candlesticks, plated spoons – these are of little real value. Formerly, however, every man kept all his money – all his wealth – in his own house; if he was a rich merchant he had a stone safe or strong box constructed in the wall of his cellar or basement – I have seen such a safe in an old house pulled down about seven years ago. If he was only a small trader or craftsman he kept his money in a box: this he hid: there were various hiding places: behind the bed, under the hearthstone – but they were all known. A burglar, therefore, might, and very often did, take away the whole of a man's property and reduce him to ruin. For this reason it was very wisely ordered that a burglar should be hanged.
They began in the reign of Henry IV. to burn heretics. Later on they burned witches and poisoners. As yet they had not begun to slice off ears and to slit noses: there was no rack: nobody was tortured: nobody was branded on the hand: there was no whipping of women in Bridewell as a public show – that came later: there was no flogging at the cart tail.
Punishments were mild. Sometimes the criminal performed the amende honorable, marching along Chepe bareheaded and wearing nothing but a white shirt, carrying a great wax taper, escorted by the Mayor's sergeants. There was a ducking-stool on the other side of the river, at Bank Side, in which scolds were ducked. There was the thewe, which was a chair in which women were made to sit, lifted high above the crowd, exposed to their derision. There was the pillory, which served for almost all the cases which now come before a police magistrate – adulteration, false weights and measures, selling bad meat: pretending to be an officer of the Mayor: making and selling bad work: forging title deeds; stealing – all were punished in the same way. The offender was carried or led through the City – sometimes mounted with his head to the horse's tail – always with something about his neck to show the nature of his offence, and placed in pillory for a certain time.
There was one punishment always in reserve – the worst of all. This was deprivation of the privileges of a freeman and banishment from the City. 'Go,' said the Mayor. 'Thou shalt dwell with us; trade with us; converse with us; no more. Go.' And so that source of trouble was removed.
We have seen how the trades formed companies – every trade having its own company. It must not, however, be understood that the working man gained much power by their unions. They were organised: they had to obey: obedience was very good for them as it is for all of us, always; but it must be obedience to a corporate body, not to a master. This they did not understand and they tried to form 'covins' or trades unions of their own. The City put down these attempts with a stern hand. The trade companies ruled hours of work, wages, and standard of work. Lastly, though there was no City police to guard the streets, there were certain laws for the maintenance of order. Nobody under the rank of knight was to carry arms in the streets: no one was to walk about the street after nine at night: houses were not to be built over streets. In a word, there were not many laws; but the people were law abiding. And this, perhaps, as much as anything else, explains the greatness of London.
39. THE POLITICAL POWER OF LONDON
Until the rapid growth of the manufacturing interests created immense cities in the North, the wealth and prosperity and population of London gave it a consideration and power in the political situation which was unequalled by that of any other mediæval city. Even Paris, for instance, has never held an equal importance in the history of France. This power has been especially, and significantly, employed in the election and proclamation of Kings. It is not only that London has been the place of proclamation: it is that the Londoners themselves have repeatedly said, 'This shall be our King': and, as repeatedly, by that very act, have given him to understand that if he would not reign well he should, like some of his predecessors, be deposed. London chose Kings Edmund and Harold Harefoot, before the Conquest. After the Conquest, they elected Stephen at a folkmote, a gathering of all the citizens. They put him on the Throne and they kept him there. The power of the Londoners is very well put by Froissart, who wrote in the time of Richard II. and Henry IV., and was an eyewitness of many things which he relates. 'The English,' he says, 'are the worst people in the world: the most obstinate and the most presumptuous: and, of all England, the Londoners are the leaders; for, to say the truth, they are very powerful in men and in wealth. In the City there are 24,000 men completely armed from head to foot and full 30,000 archers. This is a great force and they are bold and courageous, and the more blood is spilled, the greater is their courage.'
Take the deposition of Edward II., also described by Froissart. He says that when the Londoners found the King 'besotted' with his favourites, they sent word to Queen Isabella that if she could land in England with 300 armed men she would find the citizens of London and the majority of the nobles and commonalty ready to join her and place her on the Throne. This the Queen effected: the citizens joined the little army thus collected – without their assistance, Froissart says, the thing could not have been done – and made Edward prisoner at Berkeley Castle.
Or there was the capture of Richard II. This also was effected by an army composed entirely of Londoners 12,000 strong, led by Henry of Lancaster. Afterwards, when Henry of Lancaster was Henry IV., and a conspiracy was formed against him, the Lord Mayor said, 'Sire, King we have made you: King we will keep you.' The City played almost as great a part against Henry VI. – half-heartedly at first, because they thought that as he had no children there would be at some time or other an end. Moreover, they could not readily forget his grandfather, their own King; and his father, the hero of Agincourt. When, however, a son was born, the Londoners became openly and unreservedly Yorkists. And the Yorkists triumphed. The election of Richard III. was made in London. When Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed Queen, it was not by the Mayor and Aldermen, but by the Duke of Northumberland, and the City looked on in apathy, expecting trouble. The greatest strength of Elizabeth lay in the affection and support of London, which never wavered. Had Charles I. conciliated the City he might have died in his bed, still King of England. It was the City which forced James II. to fly and called over William Prince of Orange. It was, again, London which supported Pitt in his firm and uncompromising resistance to Napoleon. And in the end Napoleon was beaten. It cannot be too often repeated that two causes made the strength of London: the unity of the City, so that its vast population moved as one man: and its wealth. The King thought of the subsidies – under the names of loans, grants, benevolences – which he could extort from the merchants. We who enjoy the fruits of the long struggle maintained especially by London for the right of managing our own affairs, especially in the matter of taxation, cannot understand the tyrannies which the people of old had to endure from Kings and nobles. Richard II., for instance, forced the citizens to sign and seal blank 'charts' – try to imagine the Prime Minister making the Lord Mayor, the Aldermen, the Common Council men, and all the more important merchants sign blank cheques to be filled in as he pleased! That, however, was the last exaction of Richard II. Henry of Lancaster went out with 12,000 Londoners, and made him prisoner.
Another factor, less generally understood, assisted and developed the power of London.
It was also the position of the City as the centre of the country; not geographically, which would give Warwick that position, but from the construction of the roads and from its position on the Thames. But, to repeat, the use and wont of the City to act together by order of the Mayor, principally made it so great a power. Whatever troubles might arise, here was a solid body – '24,000 men at arms and 30,000 archers,' all acting on one side. The rest of the country was scattered, uncertain, inclined this way and that. The City, to use a modern phrase, 'voted solid.' There were no differences of opinion in the City. And that, even more than its wealth, made London a far more important factor, politically, than the barons with all their following.