  James found the City, after a hundred years of Tudor rule, reduced to an admirable condition of submission and loyalty. He was proclaimed in the City and by the City, the citizens of London claiming once more a voice in electing an accessor to the crown. The King returned thanks to the Mayor and Aldermen in a letter which lacks, one perceives at once, the royal style of Elizabeth. JAMES I. (1566–1625) After the portrait by Paul von Somer.
TRIUMPHAL ARCH ERECTED AT THE TIME OF THE CORONATION OF JAMES I. From a contemporary print. E. Gardner’s collection. James left Edinburgh on the 5th of April, arriving at Theobalds, where he rested for four days, on May the 7th; it had taken more than a month to ride from Edinburgh, i.e. he had ridden about twelve miles a day. At Waltham he was met by one of the sheriffs with sixty servants; at Stamford Hill by the Mayor and Aldermen in velvet and gold chains and 500 citizens richly apparelled. At that moment the Plague broke out; the Coronation was shorn of its splendour; the pageants and shows were laid aside; only the Mayor, Aldermen, and twelve citizens were present in Westminster Abbey; and James had to postpone his public entry into the City for a twelvemonth. With the accession of James revived the hopes of the Catholics; they built upon the inexperience and the ignorance of the King; perhaps upon his fears; they magnified their own strength and numbers; and they quite misunderstood the feeling of the country, which grew more and more in distrust and hatred of the Catholics. They began, moreover, just as they had done in the reign of Elizabeth, by plots and conspiracies. The first of these plots was that called the “Main,” in which Raleigh, unfortunately for himself and his own reputation, was concerned. With him was Lord Cobham. As to Raleigh’s guilt, this is not the place to inquire. As is well known, after twelve years he was suffered to come out of the Tower, and was allowed to command a fleet bound for the coast of South America in quest of gold-mines. The story of his voyage, of his ill success, of his son’s death, of his return, of his arrest, may be read in the history of England. But the tragedy of October 29, 1618, when at eight o’clock in the morning Sir Walter Raleigh was led out to die, moved to the depths every English heart, and should not be passed over in any history of London. It was remembered by all that he was the lifelong enemy of Spain, nor could the attacking of a friendly power in time of peace appear as any other than a laudable act to the English mind. That the traitor who arrested and betrayed him, his kinsman who became a paid spy, who also took money from the very man he was watching, that this man, Sir Lewis Stukeley, afterwards fell into misery and madness appeared to everybody an open and visible punishment inflicted by God Himself. Let us consider the meaning of the fines which play so large a part in the history of these times. If a man is a Roman Catholic he is on no account allowed to attend a church or assembly where any kind of service other than the Catholic is performed. That rule is never, I believe, relaxed under any circumstances. It is a rule, therefore, which can be easily used for the discovery of Catholics. Thus (23 Elizabeth) it was enacted that every person over sixteen years of age who should refrain from attending at church, chapel, or some usual place of common prayer, against the tenor of a certain statute of the first year of her Majesty’s reign, for uniformity of common prayer, and should be lawfully convicted thereof, should forfeit, for each month in which he or she should so refrain, The secret professors of the ancient faith knew of places where a priest was concealed, and where Mass was sung or whispered with closed doors. There were five or six of these priests tried and condemned before the Middlesex magistrates. Thus John Welden in March 1587, William Hartley in 1588, Robert Walkinson in 1598 were tried and found guilty simply for being priests, i.e. because, “being subjects of the Queen, they were ordained by authority derived from the See of Rome, in contempt of the Crown and Dignity of the said Queen.” They were executed as traitors with the cruelties of detail which we know. Other persons were charged with receiving, comforting, and maintaining priests. Thus George Glover and Mary Baylie his wife maintained and comforted Thomas Tycheburne, clerk and priest, and they received the pardon of the Queen; Catharine Bellamy, wife of Richard Bellamy, gentleman, moved and seduced by instigation of the devil, received and entertained Robert Southwell—it does not appear whether she was punished for the offence; and Dorothea White, either sister or wife of Humphrey White of Westminster, gentleman, thus received and entertained William Tedder, priest. Dorothea was hanged—one supposes—because she did not make submission. If we inquire into the comparative importance of the recusants, it seems that it must have been too small to constitute a real danger. The number, 408, convicted in a quarter of a century over the whole of Middlesex—London not included—that is, no more than an average of sixteen in a year, at a time when THE GUNPOWDER CONSPIRATORS From title-page of Warhafftige Beschreibung der VerrÄtherei, etc. (De Bry), Frankfurt, 1606. Action in the case of the recusants was followed by the famous Gunpowder Plot. There can be no doubt that the Catholics were maddened by disappointment, by persecution, by the failure to obtain toleration, and by the fines to which they Gunpowder Treason. From a contemporary print. E. Gardner’s collection. When the Common Council established a Court of Conscience in the City, it was with the design of saving poor debtors from the costs of being sued in the superior courts. But this Court was confined to debtors who were Citizens and Freemen of London and the Liberties. Some persons, intending to subvert the good and charitable intent of the Court, took hold of certain ambiguous words and endeavoured by means of these to render the intentions of the Court useless. A new and amending Act was passed which cleared up these difficulties and put the Court of Conscience on a sounder footing. The Act was well meant, but for more than two hundred years after it the miserable annals of the Debtors’ Prisons are filled with stories of the exorbitant and extortionate costs charged by attornies, and with the sufferings of the debtors in consequence. The honour in which the City was held was illustrated when the King joined the Clothworkers’ Company, and when the Merchant Taylors, in jealousy, showed him their roll of members containing seven kings, one queen, seventeen princes and dukes, two duchesses, one archbishop, thirty earls, five countesses, one viscount, fourteen bishops, sixty-six barons, two ladies, seven abbots, seven priors, and an immense number of knights and esquires. The King gave them his son Henry as a member. The New River was completed after eight years of work. The length of the canal was 60 miles; it was crossed by 800 bridges, and five years were spent in the construction; the people were slow in taking their water from the new supply, probably because they detested changing their ways. The City was at first supplied with water from the Walbrook and the Fleet; there were also wells and springs on the rising ground of the Strand; in Moorfields, at Shoreditch, and elsewhere there were wells sunk within the City walls; and there were “bosses” or taps of fresh water brought in from Tyburn. All this, however, was not enough; the principal sources of supply, the Fleet and Walbrook, had long since ceased to be of any use. Powers therefore were sought to bring more water into the City, and were granted to bring water from Hampstead and from the river Lea; these powers were not, however, used. Improved works were set up at Tyburn; water mills were placed in the Thames, by which water was forced up and conveyed as far as Leadenhall. Finally, after a great deal of hesitation the City made use of these powers to construct a canal from springs at Chadwell and Amwell in Herts, and accepted the office of Hugh Middleton, a goldsmith, to execute the work. Middleton would have failed, however, but for the help of James, who agreed to pay half the cost of the work if Middleton gave him half the property. This was done in an assignment of thirty-six “King’s shares.” Charles parted with them for an annuity of £500. A few years ago an undivided share sold for £94,900. Yet Middleton died in reduced circumstances, unable to pay a loan which the City had advanced him on the progress of his work. The flight of the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnel in 1607 left without an owner a large tract of land in the north of Ireland which was confiscated to the Crown. It was proposed to colonise the district, and a scheme was drawn up for the “Plantation of Ulster.” The King proposed that the City should take part in this work; the citizens were assured that their own City was dangerously overcrowded with workmen and traders of all kinds, that the plantation would be an outlet much wanted, that the country was well watered and fertile, good for breeding cattle, well stocked with game and with fisheries; they were even told to consider how great a work had been done by the people of Bristol in settling Dublin. A fuller account of the Irish Estates will be found later on (p. 206). The conduct of a State Banquet at the Court of King James is minutely KING JAMES I. ENTERTAINING THE SPANISH AMBASSADOR AT WHITEHALL, 1623 From a contemporary print. E. Gardner’s Collection.
Walker & Cockerell. HENRY, PRINCE OF WALES (1594–1612) From the painting by Paul von Somer.
The mind of the City in 1607 was greatly exercised with a question of precedence. The question, which was submitted to the King, and by him submitted to the Court Marshal, was as follows:—
The question was decided in favour of the precedency of the Aldermen. In the year 1606 one is surprised to find an order for the cleansing of the “Now of late neglected and forced either to a very narrow, and the same a filthy channel, or altogether stopped up for gardens planted, and houses built thereon; even to the very wall, and in many places upon both ditch and wall houses to be built; to what danger of the City, I leave to wiser consideration, and can but wish that reformation might be had.” It had been cleansed in 1519, 1540, 1569, and 1595, but apparently only in part. Thus in 1519 between Aldgate and the Tower postern, the same part in 1540, the same part again in 1569, and the part between Bishopsgate and the postern of Moorgate in 1595. I do not understand the reason of these repeated cleansings of parts. In 1614 Smithfield, which had now become the cattle-market of the City, and was therefore a place of very great resort, continued to be without pavement of any kind, so that during or after rainy weather it was absolutely impassable for mud and mire. King James called the attention of the Mayor to this scandal, and ordered that the place should be paved. This was done. The paving was the old-fashioned cobble; it took six months to lay down, and cost £1600. At the same time the laying down of broad freestones instead of the old cobbles was commenced. Those of the inhabitants who chose laid down the stones before their own doors. We must understand, therefore, that all the important streets at this time were paved with cobbles; that in a few of the principal thoroughfares there was a pavement of flat stones, but not uniform; and that there were many courts and alleys where there was no kind of pavement at all. We may further understand that this was the London of Hogarth as well as of James I. On July 8, 1614, the Lord Mayor sent a communication to the Lord Chamberlain detailing the steps he had taken in reforming disorderly practices (Remembrancia, p. 358):—
A FACSIMILE OF THE ORDER FOR THE BURNING OF THE BOOK OF SPORTS E. Gardner’s Collection. Returning from Scotland in 1618 James observed that certain persons of Lancashire, whom he called Puritans, and precise people, had interfered by prohibiting such “lawful recreations and honest exercises upon Sundays and other holidays The King therefore commanded that no recreations should be denied to his subjects which did not militate against the laws and the canons of the Church. “And as for our good people’s lawful recreation, our pleasure likewise is that after the end of divine services our good people may not be disturbed, letted, or discouraged from any lawful recreation, such as dancing, either men or women, archery for men, leaping, vaulting, or any other such harmless recreation: nor from having of May games, Whitsun ales, and Morris dances, and the setting up of May-poles, and other sports therewith used, as the same be had in due and convenient time without impediment or neglect of divine service; and that women shall have leave to carry rushes to the church for the decorating of it, according to their old custom. But withall, we do here account still as prohibited all unlawful games to be used upon Sunday only, as bear and bull-baiting, interludes, and, at all times in the meaner sort of people by law prohibited, bowling.” The famous Book of Sports, which laid down rules as to games and sports lawful to be played on the Sunday, was ordered to be read in every parish church throughout the country. The reception of the proclamation, especially in the City, seems to have surprised the King’s advisers. Neither James nor his son could ever understand the extent or the depth of the new ideas in religion. Sunday, in the eyes of most people who thought about religion at all—that is, in the eyes of all responsible persons in London, which was a hot-bed of religious controversy—had become the Jewish Sabbath. Most of the City clergy refused absolutely to read the Book of Sports in their churches, choosing to be fined or suspended and imprisoned rather than obey. These punishments they endured. But the feeling in the City ran very high, insomuch that the Lord Mayor refused permission for the King’s carriages to be drawn through the City on Sunday during Divine Service. There was, naturally, great indignation at Court. The King made the customary observation about two Kings in the country. However, he sent his carriages back with a warrant to let them pass. This the Mayor obeyed, saying that he had done his duty, but that what one in higher authority commanded, he must obey. So no more was said, and the City, in the matter of the Book of Sports, had peace. The story of the settlement of Virginia is a pleasing episode of this reign. It THE DESTRUCTION OF CHEAPSIDE CROSS AND THE BURNING OF THE BOOK OF SPORTS, MAY 1643 The Company for colonising Virginia was founded in 1609. The promoters assured the Mayor, then Sir Humphry Wild, that if the surplus population of London could be transferred to Virginia there would be far less danger of pestilence and famine. By way of attracting people willing to emigrate, meat, drink, and clothing, with a house, orchard, and garden, and an allotment of land, were offered. In two years’ time the Company had got through all their money, though they had raised £18,000 since their first fleet went out. They obtained, however, a third charter, with the addition of the Bermudas, and they held a public lottery. It is remarkable to find the City Companies and the City churches, or vestries, taking shares in this lottery. Two years later a second lottery was set on foot. In 1618 it was decided to take up vagrant boys and girls in the streets and to transport them to Virginia. This was done. A beginning was made with 100, who were shipped across so successfully that the Corporation sent over another hundred. The children cost £5 each, including their voyage and their clothing. The Common Council paid for both shiploads by a rate levied on the City. Next, the King complained that whole companies of lazy rogues and masterless men followed the Court. The Virginia Company laid hands on all, put them into Bridewell, and as soon as possible packed them off for the Plantation. But the infant colony suffered in 1622 from a treacherous attack made upon the people by the Indians, in which 350 of the settlers perished. The Court of Common Council voted another £500 for another shipload of boys and girls. The question of beggars, vagrants, and disorderly persons was constantly before the authorities. The difficulty has always been the same. If they are suppressed one day, they gather again the next. In the year 1614 the City began a very mean and unworthy practice; that, namely, of electing to the office of Sheriff those who would rather pay the fine than serve. In this year nearly a dozen were elected, all of whom declined to serve. In the same year the Mayor and Corporation received a reminder that the City was expected to keep a force of militia always equipped and drilled. They therefore resolved on raising a force of 6000 men; the Aldermen were provided with precepts stating the number of men wanted from each ward, with the kind of arms and armour which they were to bring with them. A list of prices at which the arms could be procured was appended to the precept:—
The interference of James with the Merchant Adventurers in 1615 is difficult to understand. He suppressed the Company, withdrew all licences for the exportation of undyed and undressed cloth, and formed a new company. The Dutch threatened to set up looms for themselves and to destroy the English trade in cloth, but the new company proved a failure, and the old company was restored. The charter granted by James in the sixth year of his reign confirmed all the ancient rights, liberties, and immunities of the citizens, and added to the bounds of the City and its jurisdiction, the precincts of Duke’s Place, St. Bartholomew’s the Great and Less, Black and White Friars, and Cold Harbour. Yet the same anxiety which possessed the Government in the reign of Elizabeth as to the increase of London was shown by that of James in his very first year, when he issued a proclamation putting a stop to the building of new houses in the suburbs. It was ordered that no one should build on new foundations, and that all houses so built should be pulled down. The frequency of these proclamations shows that the Government was in earnest on the subject. No doubt the ordinance was evaded because the suburbs were actually increasing, and that rapidly, but a great many persons would be deterred by fear of breaking the law, and would either remain in the City, which was greatly overcrowded, or go across the river and occupy Southwark, which began to fill up fast, along the causeway and embankment, and to grow also by putting out new streets on either side of the former and along the road to Bermondsey. The year after a third proclamation was issued to the same effect; no one was to build on new foundations within two miles of the City. The people paid no attention to this proclamation, and building went on without molestation for some years, when the builders were called upon either to buy their own houses at an extravagant price or to pull them down. This mode of enforcing the law would not be approved at the present day; in 1617 it put money into James’s pocket. Six years later another proclamation was published to the same effect, acknowledging the futility of the former law. On a certain Sunday afternoon, the 26th of October 1623, occurred a disaster, called the Fatal Vespers, which was long remembered as a signal proof of Heaven’s wrath against those who followed Popish worship. The French Ambassador at that time had a house in Blackfriars, adjoining which there was a large upper chamber, sometimes used as the Ambassador’s chapel, about 60 feet long and 20 feet broad. Roman Catholics in London frequented the chapels at the various embassies. But On this afternoon about 300 persons were assembled to celebrate evensong and to hear a sermon from a Jesuit named Father Drury, a person held in great repute for his learning, his blameless life, and laudable conversation. The congregation consisted of English, Scotch, Irish, and Welsh. The sermon began between three and four in the afternoon. The text was the parable of the king and the servant whom he forgave. In the midst of the sermon the beams and side timbers of the floor suddenly gave way and fell with all the people upon the floor of the room below. This in its turn being broken through, all fell upon the lowest floor, where they lay piled together with the beams and broken planks. The only persons who did not fall were some thirty sitting or standing in a corner where the beams held fast. These people with their knives cut a hole in the wall, and so got safely into the Ambassador’s house. Meanwhile people came running with spades and pickaxes to extricate the sufferers from the ruins. It took the whole of that day and night to bring out all the people. Out of the 300 who were assembled in the evening some thirty we have said did not fall with the rest. Ninety-five were found to be dead, including the preacher, Father Drury, and a great many were maimed and bruised. The story of a tumult by the City ’prentices suggests the fourteenth century. It began with one of them crying out when Gondomar, the Spanish Ambassador, was being carried down Fleet Street in his chair, “There goes the devil in a dung-cart.” Upon which one of the suite retorted sharply. Then the apprentice knocked down the Spaniard. For this offence he with his companions was ordered to be whipped through the City. Thereupon the apprentices rose, 300 strong, and released their companions. However, it could not be endured that an Ambassador should be insulted, and the sentence was carried out. One of the apprentices died, presumably from the severity of his punishment; the others were released, and when it was known, later on, that the Spanish match had fallen through, the Londoners expressed the liveliest joy, bonfires were lit, bells rung, tables were spread in the streets, casks were broached, and all because the Prince was coming home—without the Infanta. All that precedes concerning the reign of James I. touches the surface of things. These events might have been observed by any casual by-stander, and understood by him as possessing no significance as to the mind of the people and the City. We have now to consider the influence of James, not on the country at large, where opinion was slow in coming to a head, so much as in the City, where, with 100,000 gathered closely together, and that within hearing of Whitehall, suspicion To begin with, the City was fiercely Protestant. The Catholic reaction, which had stayed the spread of Continental Protestantism, only made England more doggedly Protestant. That a new life had been imparted to the Catholic Church by the Jesuits and the new orders made the Englishman only the more hostile to a church which threatened his nationality, his liberties, everything that he held most sacred. Again, to the Protestant spirit belonged the right of free thought and free doctrine as against authority. Scholars and divines were satisfied with the purely personal relations between God and man, which they had substituted for the priest and the sacerdotal authority. What the Protestant clergy wanted, what they asked of James in the Millenary Petition was a reform in the ecclesiastical courts, the removal of certain superstitious usages from the Prayer Book, the more rigorous observance of Sunday, and the training of preachers. “Why,” asked Bacon—he might have asked the same question to-day—“should the civil state be purged and restored by good and wholesome laws made every three years in Parliament assembled, devising remedies as fast as time breedeth mischief, and contrariwise the ecclesiastical state still continue upon the dregs of time, and receive no alteration these forty-five years and more?” However, James had not the least intention of making any change in the ecclesiastical courts. Moreover, he had already declared his views as to the rights of the sovereign. “A king, he said, is not bound to frame his actions according to law, but of his own free will, and for giving an example to his people.” Convocation was quick to adopt this view and to denounce as a fatal error the doctrine that all power is derived from the people. Later on, the University of Oxford proclaimed the doctrine of passive resistance. It is difficult to speak with moderation of these two opinions, or to estimate how far they are responsible for the bloodshed of the Civil War. How James carried on his government for seven years without a Parliament belongs to national history. We may, however, picture the wrath and exasperation of the City at the encroachments of the spiritual courts, the subserviency of the lawyers and judges, the extortions, the sale of peerages, and the dismissal of the We may sum up this ignoble reign, so far as concerns London, by saying that the attitude of the City during the whole of it was one of observation and endurance. We have seen something of what was observed. There were, however, other things of which the City took silent note. To begin with, James, while he proclaimed the Royal prerogative, threw away the Royal dignity. He was extravagant and in foolish ways; he loved favourites and they were unworthy; his son was the idol of the people, but James affected no grief for him, nay, it was even whispered that the young Prince was poisoned, and with the guilty knowledge of his father; he hated Puritans and persecuted Catholics; he spent most of his time in hunting; it was commonly reported that he drank heavily; his servants were left without their wages; his purveyors refused supplies until they were paid; he was always preaching the Royal prerogative; he was anxious to enter upon a marriage with Spain, the arch-enemy of the Protestant religion; he tried to bully the House of Commons, but got nothing from them; he granted monopolies, a thing abhorrent to the commercial mind. All these things London observed and marked, and they bore their fruit in the reign of James’s son, and those of his two grandsons. But as yet resistance—armed resistance—was not even thought of. Plots and conspiracies there were, but of small account. Of armed resistance on behalf of the liberties of the country as yet there was no idea. The history of Charles shows, if we consider nothing more than his dealings with the City of London, a wrongheadedness which is most amazing. It is true that two at least of the Tudor sovereigns had ruled the City with a strong hand, but they knew how to make themselves loved as well as feared, and they knew, further, how timely concessions in small things may overcome resistance in great things. Moreover, we have seen how James had endeavoured to make himself an absolute monarch, and the results which followed. As the event proved, the side taken by London in this reign was once more the winning side; as it was with Richard the Second and Henry the Sixth, so it was with Charles the First. CHARLES I. (1600–1649) From the replica of the portrait by Van Dyck painted by Sir Peter Lely. CHEAPSIDE—QUEEN HENRIETTA MARIA’S ENTRY INTO LONDON From a contemporary print. I have attempted to indicate something of the effect produced upon the City by the reign of James I. I have now to show the fruits of that reign, followed by another even more obstinately arbitrary; even blinder to the threatening wave that was rising and swelling before the King’s feet, so that it was impossible, one would have thought, not to see it and to understand it. The unbroken contumacy of the House of Commons, whenever it had a chance of speaking, was not that a sign which might have been read by the King and his Ministers? The sullen attitude of the City—was not that a sign? Charles, however, saw nothing, or, if he saw, then he thought the opposition feeble compared with the forces at his own disposal. Nothing, however, seems to have been further from his thoughts than armed resistance. Let us remember, however, that at the outset Charles had to face an angry and discontented City; angry on account of the ecclesiastical courts and the impossibility of redress; discontented on account of the late King’s deliberate trampling upon all its liberties. On the 28th of April, Charles was proclaimed King at Ludgate Hill, himself being present. On the 1st of May he was married by proxy in Paris to Henrietta Maria. The new Queen came over at once, and received a kindly welcome from the citizens. The public entry, which was arranged for June 18, was postponed on account of another outbreak of plague. The number of deaths from this visitation is returned at 35,417, about one-third of the whole population. As in 1603, and later on in 1665, the richer sort hurried out of the town on the first outbreak, leaving behind them the population which cannot leave the place of work, namely, the apprentices, craftsmen, servants, and porters. The rich carried away what they could, but they were refused entrance into the villages, even the barns being closed to them. Many of them died on the highway, their pockets stuffed with money. In the midst of this terrible time Charles called upon the City to raise and equip 1000 men for the new expedition. This was done, and the men were raised somehow, and marched down to Plymouth, where they awaited the arrival of the Fleet with no pay and no provisions. Finally the Fleet arrived, and they went on board, bound for Cadiz, there to experience failure. The Parliament of 1626 refused to grant supplies until grievances had been considered. Charles therefore dissolved it. This was like his father. He would get on without the Parliament. He began by calling upon the City to lend him £100,000. The City refused, they had no money, they were just recovering from the Plague; they lent, however, £20,000 on good security. Next came a demand for 4000 men and 20 ships, the first for the defence of Sheppey, and the second in order to carry the war into the enemy’s country. To the first the City replied As for the ships, the Mayor was instructed to reply that the City was in a most impoverished condition, that they could not get the ships ready in the time, and that the merchants would far rather have letters of mark and go out privateering. However, the City gave way. It is an indication of the poverty of the City at this time that the small sum of £18,000 wanted for fitting out the ships could not be raised. Many of the people steadfastly refused to pay their rate; the constables refused to distrain; the people helped one another when the constables tried to do their duty. Meantime the streets of the City were thronged with sailors clamouring for their pay; they mobbed the Duke of Buckingham, who put them off with promises. Charles had no money to give them. He endeavoured to get supplies by the “Forced Loan” of 1626. The City was left for a time, but when in 1627 war broke out between France and England it became necessary to press for the loan. Some persons refused to give any money and were committed to prison; the judges declared the loan illegal. The City, however, after long discussions, resolved on lending the King another sum of £120,000, provided it was amply secured. The following is part of the assessment, showing the demands divided among the leading companies:—
The masters and wardens of the plumbers, saddlers, founders, joiners, and glaziers were sent to prison for neglecting to collect the company’s quota. The unpopularity of Buckingham, upon whom was laid the odium of failure, is shown in the very strange story of the murder of Dr. Lambe. Lambe was an astrologer and a creature of Buckingham’s. The account of his death is told in three ways. First, that of Dr. Reginald Sharpe (London and the Kingdom, ii. 1. He was insulted by a few boys, who were joined by the rabble, so that he took refuge in a tavern in the Old Jewry. The vintner, for his own safety, turned him out, whereupon the mob beat him to death before the Mayor’s guard could reach the spot. HENRIETTA MARIA (1609–1669) From an engraving by Voerts, after Van Dyck. 2. He was in Cheapside, where he was insulted by the boys, who were joined by the mob; he ran into a house of Wood Street, where the people broke all the windows. He was forced to leave his refuge, and was then seized by the mob, who dragged him along, striking and kicking him. The account goes on to say that the news of the tumult reaching the King, he rode, accompanied by a small guard, into the City, and found in St. Paul’s Churchyard the mob, still beating and kicking the man; that he addressed the mob and bade them desist; that they replied that they had already judged him; and in fact they had so dislocated his limbs that he was dead. Charles, having so small a guard, was obliged to retire. The second of these two accounts is clearly false, because Wood Street is In any case there is no doubt that the man Lambe was murdered by the London mob; also that the King was greatly incensed at the matter, for he wrote an angry letter to the Mayor calling for the punishment of the murderers. The Mayor replied that he could not find any; the City was therefore fined £6000, which, on their arresting a few men, was reduced to 1500 marks or £1000. It has been suggested that the money was all that Charles wanted. If so, why did he reduce the fine? It is much more probable that he was personally concerned at the murder. There are many indications that the people were getting beyond the control of the Mayor and Aldermen. The murder of Lambe was only one of the many riotous affairs which occurred during this reign. In 1630 the Sheriff’s officers having arrested a man in Fleet Street, the populace rose and attempted a rescue. The Sheriff’s officers were supported by watchmen, constables, and some of the citizens who joined them; a fight ensued, in which many were killed and wounded. The Mayor, with a company of the trained bands, arrived upon the scene and stopped the battle. Several ringleaders were arrested, and one, Henry Stamford by name, was executed. Again, in 1640, the City being greatly enraged against the Archbishop of Canterbury, a body of five hundred ’prentices gathered together by night and ran to Lambeth, intending to sack and destroy the Palace; the Archbishop, however, had got wind of their design, and was strong enough to beat them off. The ’prentices also broke up the sittings of the High Commissioner of St. Paul’s. Another pestilence visited the City in 1629, remaining till 1631. It was followed, as usual, by distress and scarcity of provisions. Doggerel rhymes (Sharpe, ii. 109) appeared showing the temper of the people:— “The corne is so dear, I doubt many will starve this year; If you see not to this Some of you will speed amiss. Our souls they are dear, For our bodies have some care. Before we arise Less will suffice.” One of the advantages of keeping all the shops of one trade in the same quarter is illustrated by the story of the Queen’s loss by robbery. It was in the year 1631 that a part of her plate and jewels was stolen. The purchasers of the The business of the ship money is by some historians considered the greatest of all the King’s mistakes; but that of the Cheapside tradesmen touched a lower level, and therefore a wider area. To bleed the rich merchants was one thing, to deprive an honest tradesman of his shop was more serious, because of tradesmen there were more than of merchants. A charter confirming the City liberties produced no change in the King’s policy. It was signed while the disputes concerning ship money, Irish Estates, and interference with trade were at their height, and it cost the City £12,000. When we read of ships being fitted out by London, of the fleet equipped by Sir John Philpott, of the solid support given to the fleet which engaged the Spanish Armada, and of other occasions, it is difficult to understand the objections The impost of ship money, which ultimately caused Charles I. so much trouble, was suggested to him in 1631 by Sir William Noye, Attorney-General, who had found among the records in the Tower, not only writs compelling the ports on certain occasions to provide ships for the use of the King, but others obliging their neighbours of the maritime counties to contribute to the expense. Writs were issued to London and the different ports, October 20, 1634, ordering them to supply a certain number of ships of a specified tonnage, sufficiently armed and manned, to rendezvous at Portsmouth on the 1st of March 1635. The writ is set out in Howell’s State Trials, vol. iii. pp. 830–832, and also the proceedings of the Common Council, and their petition to the King against it. By this contrivance the King obtained a supply of £218,500, which he devoted to providing a fleet. Twelve of the judges decided that the King had the right to make the levy. In the speech of Lord Keeper Coventry to the judges assembled in the Star Chamber on the 14th of February 1636 he stated that, “In the first year, when the writs were directed to the ports and the maritime places, they received little or no opposition; but in the second year, when they went generally throughout the kingdom, although by some well obeyed, have been refused by some, not only in some inland counties, but in some of the maritime places.” Charles then called upon the whole nation to provide ship money. London was ordered to equip two more ships of 800 tons apiece. One, Robert Chambers by name, brought the question of the King’s right into the Court of the King’s Bench. Mr. Justice Berkeley, with amazing servility, refused to allow the case to be argued, because, he said, “there is a rule of law, and another of government,” thus actually separating the law and government. It was by this time fully evident that the King and Council were resolved upon the humbling of the City. If there was any doubt left in men’s minds, that doubt was surely dispelled by the action of the Star Chamber concerning the Irish Estates. The Star Chamber, after hearing a suit against the City charging them with mal-administration of their Irish property, condemned the City to forfeiture of all their lands in Ireland—lands which, as we have seen, the City had been forced to take up by James the First, and on which they had spent very large sums of money. In addition to losing their estates the citizens Walker & Cockerell. GEORGE VILLIERS, FIRST DUKE (SECOND CREATION) OF BUCKINGHAM (1592–1628) From the portrait by Gerard Honthorst. I purpose in this place to interrupt the direct course of events in order to show, by reference to certain political events of the time, the mind of London. In 1626 occurred the famous impeachment of the Duke of Buckingham by Sir John Eliot, when the Commons pronounced their first refusal to grant subsidies till grievances had been redressed. Eliot was arrested and confined to the Tower; after ten days he was released, but the Parliament was dissolved. The King appealed to the country to grant as a free gift what the Commons had refused. The answer to this appeal should have left no doubt in the minds of the King’s friends that the words of Sir John Eliot stated the mind of the whole country. As Charles then tried the expedient of a forced loan with equal want of success. It was found impossible to collect it. In 1628 a new Parliament was called. In this House the Petition of Right was drawn up, in which, among other things, it was claimed that no man should be compelled to pay any kind of tax without the consent of Parliament. Charles gave way, secretly, after his manner, reserving certain rights of his own, as that of imprisonment without appeal. The City knew nothing of this duplicity; bells were rung; bonfires lighted; it was assumed that the King had honestly given way, and the House granted a subsidy. Then came the news of Buckingham’s murder. There were two of Charles’s friends, and only two, for whom the City afterwards entertained a hatred equal to that they felt for Buckingham. But at that moment there was no one whose death was so ardently desired. When the news was brought to London, grave citizens drank the health of Felton. When the murderer was brought to London, the crowd followed praying that the Lord would comfort him. Such was the mind of the City towards the man whom Eliot had impeached; they received the news of his murder with savage exultation. Then Charles made Laud Bishop of London—the third of the three men whose death a few years later the City welcomed with shouts of joy. It was not enough to trample on the liberties of the people, he must now proceed to deprive them of their religion. The memorable sitting in the House when the Speaker was held in his chair while the Commons passed resolution after resolution against innovations in religion and the illegal levy of taxes, belongs to national history. It was with passionate excitement, hardly restrained from tumult, that the news of this sitting and these resolutions was received in the City. There were as yet no newspapers to furnish day by day a report of the proceedings in the House, but the tidings of each protest of the Commons and each arbitrary measure of the King flew through the streets of the City as quickly as if by means of the daily paper, so that every house was filled with the angry murmurs of the citizens, and men in the streets and on ’Change looked at each other and asked what would happen next. Yet no word of armed resistance. The old time when one King could be put down and another set up in his place was forgotten. Rebellion was not yet even thought of. The Parliament was dissolved. Laud, free to do what he pleased, proceeded whither his pleasure led him. What he did is national history. The people of London, of whom nine-tenths were Puritans (see p. 137), or, at least, strong Protestants, saw with rage the severance of the ties connecting the Church of England with the foreign Protestant churches; they saw the forcible introduction of rites and ceremonies offensive to Puritan There seemed no hope of redress. The High Church party were in power; the return to Rome seemed certain. It was at this time (1629–1640) that the first great emigration to America took place. It was an emigration of men and women of every station and every trade; there were men of family and property among them; there were also husbandmen and humble craftsmen; 1700 emigrants went out in one year, 1630; in eleven years (1629–1640) 20,000 went away. It seems as if the magnitude of the emigration should have caused uneasiness, but probably the exodus of 2000 people a year, many of whom went abroad to better themselves without regard to religion, was considered to be useful to the plantations, and, so far as they departed for the sake of religion, in no way prejudicial to the State. The lists published in The Original Emigrants to America show that from the Port of London—the only port we need mention here—in the year 1635 there were embarked and were transported—not in a criminal sense—no fewer than 4890 emigrants, a fourth part of the whole number mentioned above. There must have been some special reason for the departure of so many in one year. We may find it, perhaps, in the tyrannical and oppressive proceedings of Laud. He had deprived the French and Flemish refugees of their right to worship after their own manner, and thousands emigrated in consequence; he had assumed a censorship of the Press which forbade such books as Foxe’s Book of Martyrs; he restored the “wakes” or dedication feasts, the church ales, the Sunday sports, the surplice, kneeling at the Communion; he insisted on uniformity of worship; these are sufficient causes for the great emigration of 1635. The book in which I find the names of the emigrants gives them in separate lists according to the ships in which they sailed; in most cases it gives their ages, in a few cases their occupation and station—unfortunately in very few cases. Again, in some cases the list gives the name of the parish where the statutory declaration was made, viz. the oaths of allegiance, that of conformity to the Church of England, and the assurance that the emigrant was not a “subsidy man”—that is to say, a person owing money to the State on account of subsidy due. One need not attach much importance to this declaration, as yet no one had begun to dispute the duty of allegiance; the Church of England included the Puritans, and as regards the subsidy, those who were of humble rank owed nothing; those of the better sort may very well have protested that they owed nothing—as by a strictly legal view they did not. It is a great pity that the names of the places from which the emigrants came are not always indicated. We cannot, for instance, learn how far this movement
The greatest contributor, however, to the 5000 was Gravesend, from which place 1875 persons took the oaths and were sent on to the Port of London to be shipped. The sight of these crowds flocking to the Port of London to embark on the ships bound for America; the provisioning of the ships for the voyage; the talk about the places whither these persons were to be carried; the reasons why they went; the escape for some from the Laudian persecution; the hope, for others, of a new country where the divine right of Kings would not be a subject of discussion; the grave and serious divines who went on board these ships; the gentlemen who joined them; the humble craftsmen who went with them, the Geneva Bible in hand; can we doubt that these sights sank deep into the hearts of the people? Can we doubt that the example, the prayers, the touching farewells of these emigrants were sowing seeds which should produce fruit eventful and terrible? “Our hearts,” said Winthrop, “shall be fountains of tears for your everlasting welfare when we shall be in our poor cottages in the wilderness.” Doubt not that the people of London knew very well what a wilderness this New England was; how hard and barren was its coast; how cruel was its winter; how deadly and implacable were the Indians; they had heard of seasons when the shell-fish of the sea-shore were the food of the emigrants, when in the evening they knew not where they would find their food in the morning, and when they assembled to worship under escort and with armed sentinels. We must not be led away to believe that after the first rush, when divines, scholars, country gentlemen, and lawyers joined the list of emigrants, the same class was continued. The lists before us point rather in the other direction, as if in 1635, five years after the first movement began, by far the larger number were Where did the emigrants go? There were six places open to the emigrant of the seventeenth century. And he went to them in the following proportion during the year 1635:—
Let us return to the constitutional part of the history. Charles called no Parliament for eleven years. During that time, as he could get no subsidies, he was compelled to practise every kind of extortion; he enforced the old obligation to take the honour of knighthood; he imposed fines for encroachments, for defective title deeds, for recusancy. Where he touched the City was, first, in reviving the old laws against building in the suburbs, and in fining those living in houses built twenty years before in assurance that the law was a dead letter; next, in the levy of illegal and extortionate customs duties, which were resisted by the City merchants, but at their peril. One of them said that it was better to be a merchant in Turkey than in London; for this he was sent to the Tower and fined £2000: thirdly, by the system of monopolies, against which the City had protested under Elizabeth. Everything became the subject of a monopoly. As was said afterwards in the Long Parliament, “They sup in our cup; they dip in our dish; they sit by our fire; we find them in the dye-fat, the wash bowls, and the powdering tub. They have marked and sealed us from head to foot.” All these grievances continued to roll up like a snowball, as silently and as rapidly; yet it was an invisible snowball. Outwardly the King and his friends were deceived by the general tranquillity; there was offered very little resistance; there were manifested few open signs of discontent; a general prosperity prevailed; trade was better than it had been for many years; the English flag was flying over new seas and in ports hitherto unknown; agriculture was advancing; the country gentry Perhaps enough has been said to show the temper of the City. One or two notes more. We find a London clergyman calling on all Christians to “resist the Bishops as robbers of souls, limbs of the Beast, and fathers of Antichrist.” One pays very little heed to ecclesiastical censure, which is generally cursing, at any time, but the vehemence of this language seems worthy of remark. When Prynne was carried from Palace Yard after the sentence which deprived him of his ears, he was escorted by a hundred thousand Londoners with prayers and cries of encouragement and of comfort. In 1638 Hampden’s judges laid down the principle that “no statute prohibiting arbitrary taxation could be pleaded against the King’s will.” To this monstrous doctrine the City said nothing, the people said nothing; they waited; sooner or later there must be a Parliament. Next year began the Scotch troubles, the beginning of the end for Charles. In 1640 the King found himself compelled to call a Parliament; he must have money. This was the Short Parliament. I am quite sure that the news of the summons was received on ’Change and wherever the merchants and citizens of London met together with the quiet laughter of those who saw that the day of redemption was drawing nigh. At last after eleven years the Parliament was called together. Would the members prove staunch? No fear of that. The City knew—no other institution or place knew so well—the feeling of the country. The City always knew the feeling of the country; there were a thousand correspondents between the City and the country; the merchants had no doubt that the country was sound. Laud’s clergy marked the change in the defiant air of the City, in the exulting looks of the people; there were changes close at hand. The House did prove staunch. Once more the Commons refused a subsidy till grievances were redressed, and until security was obtained for religion, for property, and for the liberties of the country. The House was dissolved. Then the City laughed again and its people rubbed their hands. For the King must have money, and without a Parliament he could not get money. The Scotch business went on, and the snowball of discontent and of grievances was now visible even to Charles the Blind. Then began an interesting and an exciting time. The King tried to persuade the City to lend him £100,000. The City steadfastly refused. The Mayor and Aldermen were summoned to Whitehall; the King addressed them; they were ordered to make out lists of the wealthier citizens; they were dismissed, but were summoned again, and told that if they did not pay £100,000 they would have to pay £200,000; and that if they still refused that they would have to pay £300,000. They were again dismissed, and told to prepare the list of rich citizens by the following Sunday. KING CHARLES I. THROWN OVERBOARD From a satirical print in the British Museum. By this time the temper of London was roused. The Mayor and Aldermen In June the Mayor was again summoned to show cause why the ship money was not collected. He replied, plainly, that no one would pay it. Here we see the secret of the City’s strength; the people only had to sit down; they could not be forced to pay, either by the King, who had no force at his disposal, or by the Aldermen, who had no police. The people sat down and refused to pay. There were threats of debasing the coinage unless the City yielded; the answer was that the Common Council had no power to dispose of the citizens’ money. Charles then endeavoured to raise £120,000 from the livery companies; they replied—it was impossible to let go so fine an opportunity—that their “stocks” had all been consumed in the Irish Estates—confiscated by the King. On the 3rd of November 1640 Charles, evidently suffering under great depression of spirits, opened the Long Parliament. Between the dissolution of the Short Parliament and the assembling of the Long the City petitioned the King to call a Parliament for the redress of grievances. Laud and the Privy Council tried to frighten the City against signing it, but in vain. It was signed by 10,000 citizens. Maitland gives it in full:—
The fanatical temper of the people as regards the Catholics was shown in their attack upon the Spanish Ambassador’s house in Bishopsgate Street:—
The true maner of the execution of thomas earle of strafford. Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. upon Towerhill, the 12th of May, 1641. From a contemporary Dutch print. E. Gardner’s Collection. Walker & Cockerell. THOMAS WENTWORTH, FIRST EARL OF STRAFFORD (1593–1641) From the portrait by Sir Anthony Van Dyck.
A Plan of London and Westminster Shewing the Forts erected by Order of the Parliament in 1643 & the Desolation by the Fire in 1666 From a contemporary print.
We now come to events which belong to the national history. We may therefore pass them over except where they specially touch upon London. The discovery of the “Army Plot” made Strafford’s fate certain, and his death was the cause of savage exultation in the City; a countless multitude assembled to see him die; the people ran and rode from the scene waving their hats and crying “His head is off.” The Grand Remonstrance laid before the House called forth the opposition of a small Royalist party, which only strengthened the cause. London was zealous for the cause; associations were formed in every county. I pass over the events which followed. Civil War began in July 1642. Marston Moor in 1644 and Naseby in 1645 practically finished it. The importance of the City in making the war possible can hardly be overestimated. They began with a force of 8000 trained bands, well drilled and well handled. When the breach between King and Commons could no longer be averted, the City raised £100,000 with alacrity at the request of the latter. An immense quantity of plate was brought in, and a levy of £50,000 was laid upon all strangers and aliens residing in the City. That was in June 1642. When in the autumn it was reported that Prince Rupert was marching on London, the City became a huge camp; nothing went on but arming, training, practising, marching. The whole City was Roundhead; those few who remained loyal—the “malignants”—were arrested and clapped into prison as soon as they could be caught. This unanimity did not continue. The Royalists presently plucked up heart and, appearing with their badges, found out how strong they were. A reaction set in when it was discovered that the war would not be finished in a single campaign and that it entailed heavy sacrifices, including the shutting of shops and the temporary ruin of trade. A stormy gathering was held in the Guildhall, at which there were loud cries for peace. The Common Council therefore drew up two petitions, one for the King and one for the Parliament, advocating peace, or at least a truce for deliberation. They even sent a deputation to the King, who received the members graciously and promised a reply, which quickly followed. It is a very long document, in which the King pointed out the wickedness of fighting against him; and he ordered his loyal subjects to begin the cause of peace by arresting the Mayor. On the 21st of November 1642, about a month after the battle of Edgehill, a suspicious-looking boat was discovered by the pinnace guarding the Thames for the City and Parliament. She was a Gravesend boat and should have put in at Billingsgate. Instead of this, the tide being favourable, she continued her course and shot the bridge. The pinnace gave chase, and presently caught up with her and seized her. The only passenger on board was a gentleman, who was carrying from Colonel Goring a letter—it is not stated to whom—containing lists of the supplies of men expected by the King from Holland and Denmark. Nothing could have been more opportune than such a capture; the City was still lukewarm in the cause; to afford them clear proof that the King intended to fight them with Danes and Dutchmen would fire their blood as nothing else would do, not even defeat and disaster. Pennington, who was Mayor and a Parliamentarian heart and soul, joyfully received the letter, ordered copies to be made and to be read in every church on Sunday, the very next day, and a subscription to be opened at once for carrying on the war. In the church of St. Bartholomew by the Exchange, twenty-seven persons subscribed various sums, amounting in all to £290. In St. Margaret’s, Lothbury, about £350 were subscribed. Mr. Edwin Freshfield, who relates this story (ArchÆologia, xlv.), is of opinion that the whole business was invented by the Mayor. He wanted money, he wanted to rouse the citizens, he wanted them to be committed openly. In this he succeeded perfectly; he raised £30,000, he fired their passions, he made them commit themselves in writing. From this moment there was no looking back for the City of London. In February 1643, as the attack upon London by the Royalist army seemed threatening, the Common Council passed an Act for the defence of the City by a line of redoubts and fortifications, which were taken in hand and executed without delay. It has been assumed that this work consisted of a wall with redoubts and bastions at intervals. A plan of the wall shows an enormous work, eleven miles long, running all round London. This view has been adopted by later writers. No one seems to have remarked on the impossibility of so colossal a fortification being constructed in the brief space of three or four weeks even if the whole population worked day and night; and no one seems to have discovered that it was absurd to construct such a wall where the enemy could not possibly attack it, or that it should have been thought desirable to construct a wall which it would have required at least 200,000 men to defend. The historian also might have thought it still more remarkable that such enormous earth-works, with stone bastions, entailing such enormous labour, should have been undertaken with so much zeal and unanimity; and, finally, he might have asked himself how it came to pass that not a vestige of the work should have remained, even though the greater part of the ground covered was free from buildings down to the beginning of this century. Sharpe, however (London and the Kingdom, iii. 431), gives the actual “Resolution of the Common Council for putting the City and Suburbs into a posture of defence, 23rd February 1643:”—
It will be seen that there is not one word about a new wall round London. The so-called fortifications were simply small redoubts and bastions at certain fixed points. How the London trained bands went out to fight, how well they stood their ground, in what actions they took their part, will be found in the many histories of that war which still claims its fierce adherents and still awakens the passions of a partisan, whoever relates it. The constancy of the City was rewarded by the stoppage of trade and the ruin of many merchants, while the soldiers in the trained bands were shopkeepers and skilled craftsmen, to whom long continuance in the field was ruin. In 1644 the disaffection of the men amounted almost to mutiny. On the temper and discipline of the City trained bands Sharpe thus speaks:—
The City, however, despite these rules, remained staunch to the Parliamentary cause; in spite of hard times, London raised the money to carry on the war; and, as in former cases, the winning side proved to be that which London had espoused. Early in 1645 the army was remodelled on a more permanent footing, in which In June 1645 the Common Council presented a petition to Parliament calling attention to what they considered the causes of their ill success, and asking, among other things, that Fairfax might have a free hand and not be hampered by orders from Westminster. This view was favourably received. Fairfax chose his own tactics; he marched in pursuit of the Royal army, which he met—and fought—at Naseby on June 14. After Naseby the City entertained both Houses of Parliament with a Thanksgiving sermon in Christ Church, Newgate. This was the old Grey Friars Church, a splendid building then still standing, though its monuments and fine carved work were gone. After the sermon there was a banquet in Grocers’ Hall; the Hall was not large enough for everybody, therefore the Common Council dined at another Company’s hall. The day after the dinner the Council had to consider what was to be done with the 3000 Royalist prisoners. They confined them in the south cloister and the Convocation House of St. Paul’s. How long they were kept there; how they were fed; what became of them ultimately, one knows not. Perhaps they were treated as Cromwell afterwards treated the Scotch prisoners taken at Worcester (see p. 68). The City also raised £31,000 for the pay of the Scots who were marching south. In July of the same year they raised 1000 light horse and 500 dragoons, and in September 500 light horse and the same number of dragoons. The events which followed Naseby until the trial and execution of the King would not concern us but for the part played by the City. They constitute a chapter in which the completion of the Civil War is mixed up with the dissension of the Presbyterians and the Independents, two sects equally intolerant and equally determined to obtain the supremacy. I have abridged the business so far as the City is concerned in the paragraph which follows. The whole story, when one reads it in detail, makes one almost inclined to condone the crimes of the King against the civil liberties of the people, since his enemies were themselves so determined against their religious liberties. The Parliament desired to force a Presbyterian form of worship on the City, and to lay down laws for the election of elders. This was not at all the view of the City, which desired freedom from Parliamentary control in matters of religion. The ministers of the City parish churches drew up their own list of reforms; the citizens themselves sent a petition to Parliament giving their views. The House of Commons returned an answer of an ungracious character. They knew their own duties and would carry them through. TRIAL OF KING CHARLES I., JANUARY 1648 From an engraving of the painting by William Fisk. The City at the same time came to a quarrel with Parliament on the governing of the militia raised within the weekly bills of mortality. Parliament was ready to allow them the command over the militia within the Liberties, but the City wished to include within the area of command all the parishes and parts covered by the weekly bills of mortality. The three years preceding the execution of Charles were a troubled and an uneasy time for the City. On September the 7th, 1646, the City was asked by Parliament to consider ways and means for raising £200,000, being half of the sum claimed by the Scots for their expenses. On the 9th they reported a scheme for raising money by the excise and by the sale of the Bishop’s lands. On December 19th the City sent a petition to Parliament for the redress of grievances. They demanded the disbandment of the army, the suppression of heresy, the union of the two kingdoms, the free election of members of Parliament, and the command of their own militia. The “disbandment of the army” is a point that must be especially noted because it marks the growing terror of the army. It was necessary, before the army could be disbanded, to settle the arrears of pay. The men were invited to volunteer for service in Ireland. They asked for their pay. Parliament proposed to raise £200,000, not for the arrears, but for service in England and Ireland. At the same time application was made to the City for ways and means to raise this large sum. And the City was put into good temper by an ordinance for a new Militia Committee. But the disbanded army had to look on while they themselves could get no pay, and the City militia received their pay regularly. Riots took place; companies of the disbanded besieged the House of Commons demanding their arrears. These riots took place early in June 1647. On the 11th of June the City was informed that Fairfax, with the army, was on his way to London. The Mayor replied that they had no quarrel with the army; that they had themselves presented a humble address to Parliament in favour of the just demands of the army; and that if Fairfax would kindly keep at a distance of thirty miles, the City would be much obliged. Fairfax declared that the last demand was impossible so long as enlistments were continued in the trained bands and auxiliaries, and that the movements of the army depended very much on the reception that might be given to certain papers just laid before the House of Lords. The “papers,” in fact, asserted the right of the army to speak in the name of the people, and demanded the expulsion from the House of eleven members who had misrepresented the army and raised forces for a new war. Among them was Glyn, the City Recorder. The Mayor, Sir John Gayre, on finding that the army was really marching south, called out the newly-enlisted trained bands. It appeared that they only existed on paper; in many companies not ten men appeared; in many others none but officers. It became evident that a different tone must be adopted. Fairfax was assured that the new enlistments had been stopped. Even then that general was not satisfied. He now said that he could not stop his army until the Parliament had returned a satisfactory answer to the “papers” already mentioned. The sending of these letters backwards and forwards produced little effect for a time—except tumults of apprentices and disturbances by reformadoes, or disbanded soldiers. SIR THOMAS FAIRFAX (1612–1671) AND HIS WIFE From the painting by William Dobson in the National Portrait Gallery, London. On July 9th the Parliament agreed to the demands of Fairfax, and ordered all disbanded soldiers to quit the City. On July 11th the Army Council recommended the Parliament to take into their own hands again the command of the City militia. This was done, but the City had their say in the matter. Petitions to the House were drawn up; they were carried to Westminster by the sheriffs and members of the Common Council, followed by an enormous crowd of angry and excited apprentices and citizens. There was a long debate; the Commons refused to give way; the crowd grew more threatening; at last, at eight o’clock in the evening, the Commons yielded. It was now time for the City to consider measures of defence. The trained bands were sent to man the works, and all the citizens who could carry arms were ordered to attend at a general muster. It became obvious, however, that armed resistance to the army was out of the question, and the City made haste to submit and to hope for favourable terms. The City forts were surrendered. Fairfax entered the lines of fortification and marched upon Westminster. On the following day the army marched through the City doing no kind of harm to any one. Fairfax and his officers were invited to a grand banquet at Grocers’ Hall, and so the business ended amicably, as it seemed. TRIAL OF KING CHARLES I. JANUARY 20–27, 1648 “It was remarkt yt the Gold Head dropt of ye King’s Cane yt day wthout any visible cause.” From a contemporary print. E. Gardner’s Collection. The banquet did not interfere, however, with the projects of Fairfax and the army. The City was called upon for £50,000 towards the arrears of pay; the Lord Mayor, Sir John Gayre, Thomas Cullons, one of the Sheriffs, and three Aldermen were impeached for threatening the Commons and for inciting to fresh war. They were all sent to the Tower. When they were brought for trial before In 1648 the City carried one point and gained the command of their own militia. A deputation of Lords and Commons attended the Court of Common Council, and assured them that not only did they cheerfully commit to them the command of the militia, but that they had resolved on making no change in the constitution of the country with King, Lords, and Commons. The City at this juncture resolved to stand by the Parliament; they asked for the return of the Recorder, the Aldermen, and the other citizens who were imprisoned in the Tower. The miserable condition of trade naturally brought about discontent, which turned to disaffection. The Royalist party made an excuse of a rising in Kent to petition the Parliament for a personal treaty with the King; the same people also called upon the Court of Common Council to summon a Common Hall—that is, a meeting of the whole body of freemen. The Court took time to consider the matter: in other words, to see their way to refusing it, which they did at last, on the ground of the distraction of the times. The longing for peace was shown by petition after petition from the City, all in the same strain, that the King should be approached personally; the City offered to assure his safety if he were placed in their hands. In addition to the other troubles, the mob was now growing more Royalist. They insulted the Speaker; they rescued war prisoners; they secretly enlisted and sent out horses for the Royalist enemy. The Council asked the House that a death penalty should be inflicted on any person who caused a tumult or riot, and that no man who had ever fought against the Parliament should be allowed to reside within thirty miles of London. These two requests reveal a time of great uneasiness and general suspicion. The end of this state of things was now rapidly approaching. The Parliament sent fifteen commissioners to open the Treaty of Newport in September. At the end of November the army declared that the Parliament must be dissolved. Fairfax marched into London (November 30, 1648) and demanded a sum of £40,000 to be paid the next day. The Council sent him £10,000 and promised the rest; Fairfax took up his quarters at Whitehall, and sent into the City for 3800 beds. A week later, neither money nor beds having been provided, Fairfax arrested Major-General Browne, one of the sheriffs, with certain others, on a charge of having joined in calling upon the Scots to invade England. He also seized on the sum of £27,000 lying in Goldsmiths’ and Weavers’ Halls. This money, he told the City, he intended to keep until they sent him the £40,000. He refused meantime to withdraw his troops who were quartered on the City. The money was found. In the municipal elections the new Mayor, Abraham Reynardson, was a Royalist, and well known to be such. It was feared by the Commons, now the Rump, that the elections of December to the Common Council would also be Royalist. Accordingly the House passed an ordinance excluding “malignants.” In this way no citizen was admitted who had subscribed to any petition for a personal treaty with the King. When the new Council assembled, the Mayor ordered them to take the oath of allegiance, which had not yet been abolished. This they refused. The Commons ordered the Mayor to suspend the oath altogether. Under these conditions the Council met, and although the Mayor refused to acknowledge their authority, they proceeded to consider a petition asking the House “to execute justice impartially and vigorously ‘upon all the grand and capital authors, contrivers of and actors in the late wars against Parliament and kingdom, from the highest to the lowest,’ and to take steps, as the supreme power of the nation, for the preservation of peace and the recovery of trade and credit.” ENGLANDS ROYAL PATTERN or the Execution of KING CHARLES ye 1st Jany 30. EXECUTION OF CHARLES I., JANUARY 30, 1648 From a contemporary print. E. Gardner’s Collection. The Royalist Lord Mayor with his Aldermen—only two being present—rose and left the Court rather than sanction such a petition by their presence. It must be remembered that the date of this meeting was the 18th of January 1648, and that the Court for the trial of Charles had been already determined. When the Mayor and Aldermen had left there was no Court. But those present proceeded with their petition. Among the judges of King Charles were nominated five Aldermen, viz. Isaac Pennington, Thomas Andrews, Thomas Atkins, Rowland Wilson, and John Fowke. Only the two first took part in the trial, and Wilson refused to serve. Bradshaw, the President, had been judge of the Sheriffs’ Court in the Wood Street Compter. Two citizens, Tichborne and Row, were on the Commission. The trial of Charles—the most momentous in its consequences of any event since the Conquest or the granting of the Great Charter—belongs to the national history. It began on the 20th of January; it concluded on the 27th; and on the 30th the King was beheaded. The City entered upon a war which was to linger on for eight years, in the firm conviction that it would be finished in a few months. The men who went out to fight expected to be back again in their shops and their workrooms before long. This belief, while it stimulated the enlistment of fighting men and forbade the contemplation of distress and bankruptcy in case the war should continue, caused very grave discontent when it became evident that a long struggle was before the country. I propose in this chapter to illustrate the condition of the City during this period from contemporary authorities not, I hope, already too well known. As is natural at such a time, the City was full of dangers on account of suspicion. The experiences of James Howell when he was arrested as a spy show how perilous it was to go abroad in the streets:— “I was lately come to London upon some occasions of mine own, and I had been divers times in Westminster Hall, where I conversed with many Parliament-men of my Acquaintance, but one morning betimes there rushed into my Chamber five armed Men with Swords, Pistols, and Bills, and told me they had a warrant from the Parliament for me; I desired to see their Warrant, they denied it; I desired to see the date of it, they denied it; I desired to see my Name in the Warrant, they denied all. At last one of them pulled a greasy Paper out of his pocket, and shewed me only three or four names subscribed, and no more; so they rushed presently into my Closet, and seized on all my Papers and Letters, and anything that was Manuscript; and many printed Books they took also, and hurl’d all into a great hair Trunk which they carried away with them. I had taken a little Physic that morning, and with very much ado they suffered me to stay in my Chamber with two Guards upon me, till the evening; at which time they brought me before the Committee for examination, where I confess I found good respect; and being brought up to the Close Committee for examination, I was ordered to be forthcoming, till some papers of mine were perused, and Mr. Corbet was appointed to do it. Some days after, I came to Mr. Corbet, and he told me he had perused them, How the war affected quiet and peaceful citizens may be gathered from two cases, instanced by Dugdale:— “The miseries and calamities which of late have happened in this confused place of England are so many that they furnish the discourse both of this and of other nations, who, notwithstanding, are not able to express them all. I shall now relate you only two, befalling within these few days, and to this end, that, by the true report of these (which, by men of sundry passions, may be prevented), others of the like nature, if it please God, may be prevented. Of the one, I have certaine information; of the other, I myselfe was an eye-witness. The first happened, at Acton, some six miles distant from London, where lived a gentleman, reported and believed to be different in religion (as too many nowadays are, which we know to be the cause of all our evils) from the Church of England; but in the voice of most of his neighbours, a sober, moderate, and charitable-minded man. This gentleman, having in his house no more but one ancient gentlewoman, his kinswoman, whom he intrusted as his housekeeper, with one serving man and maide, had his house besett with divers companies of soldiers, who had listed themselves for the service of the King and Parliament, and were in pay and command under officers; where, after they had forced him to open the gates by threatning words, they entered the house, and so strangely despoiled him that they left him not a bed, bedstead, table, doore, or glasse window, chest, trunk, or the smallest utensil, but sold all for very small prices before his servants’ faces, some of them having forced him before on foote to London; and for his bills, bonds, letters, and other writings the most part they tore in pieces, and strewed them about the house; others some they sent up to London. He hath, with much industry and long time, rarely furnished a plot of ground with the choicest flowers and outlandish trees which he could procure, which they plucked up by the roots, as many as they could, and the rest left so desolate that, whereas it was thought the finest and most curious garden in all those parts, there is now left nothing but the ruines of Art and Nature. The other outrage, which with griefe I saw, was committed in Radcliffe Highway, Tuesday last, being the 23 of this instant August, where lived an ancient gentleman in good fashion, love and credit amongst his neighbours for many years space. I was informed, and might likewise guesse by his aspect, that he was above fourscore, and his wife not much distant from his time. This poor man was, like manner, assaulted by another company of souldiers, who are billeted thereabouts until the drum commands them to do service, where, having approached his doore, Before long it became manifest that the war was pressing very severely upon the City. The complaints of all classes were deep and loud; there arose the inevitable reaction. It seemed at one time as if history was about to repeat itself and that the desertion of London by the Britons in the fifth century, owing to the stoppage of supplies, was about to be repeated in the seventeenth. There was no foreign trade; the Royalist ships commanded the German Ocean; the west of England sent up no wool; the east sent up no provisions; the north sent up no coal; there was no money; the shops stood open, but the master was away with the trained bands; the craftsman’s children wanted bread, but the breadwinner was away with Fairfax. The industries ceased, for the markets were closed; after every battle, soldiers, either disbanded or deserters, swarmed into London as a place of refuge; the Royalist minority was a constant source of danger; there were religious differences innumerable, each as intolerant as the Church of Rome; the citizens were, for the most part, Presbyterian; but they desired not to have a national, but a free, Church; they wanted the Church to be governed by herself, and not by Parliament; they petitioned Parliament in this sense; they also petitioned the House for intolerance pure and simple; they would have no freedom of thought, or speech, or doctrine in religion. To take instances of hardship. In 1642 the people in the Strand, who chiefly lived by letting lodgings, were in despair, having to pawn their furniture in order to pay the rent, their lodgings being all empty. The lawyers at the Guildhall were busy, but it was over the affairs of an incredible number of bankrupts; at the Royal Exchange there was no business transacted, nor any discourse all day long except about the news of the day. In the shops the keepers had nothing to do but to visit and to condole with each other. London, as it always had been, was a receiving house and a distributing house for the whole country, and in this time of civil war there was nothing to distribute and nothing to receive. As a finishing stroke, it is Amid a confused babble of petitions and letters, and imprisonments and fines, one episode stands out clear and strong. It is the petition of the women, calling themselves “many civilly disposed women,” to the Parliament, praying for a peace. The petition was cleverly drawn up—one suspects a masculine hand:—
It was taken to Westminster by two or three thousand women with white ribbons in their hats. The Commons received and heard the petition; they even gave them an answer. They had no doubt of speedily arriving at a peace; meantime the petitioners were enjoined to return to their own homes. By this time their numbers were swollen to five thousand and more, among them being men dressed as women. They flocked round the door of the House of Commons, crying “Peace! Peace!” and presently, “Give us those Traitors that are against Peace, that we may tear them to pieces! Give us that dog Pym!” The trained bands were sent for, but were received by these Amazons with brick-bats, whereupon the soldiers fired upon the women, killed some, and dispersed the rest. The violence and insolence of the mob during this unhappy time shows the want of executive strength in the City. Measures are passed; no one heeds them; a riot is suppressed and it breaks out again; disbanded soldiers swarm in the streets and rob and plunder as they please. We have seen how the mob murdered Dr. Lamb. On another occasion the mob had forced its way into the Court of High Commission. They had assembled at Westminster, crying “No Bishops!” They had been driven down King Street by officers with drawn swords. After the war broke out the mob was divided between the two factions, each having its own badge. When the war brought the usual troubles, with want of money and of
Another serious outbreak took place later, on Sunday, April 10, 1648. A multitude was assembled in Moorfields to drink and play. A company of trained bands endeavoured to suppress the profanation of the day, and were themselves set upon and dispersed. The mob, gathering greater strength, went off to Whitehall, where they were driven back by the troops. Returning to the City, they broke open houses and magazines, seized the gates and chains, attacked the Lord Mayor’s house, and called upon everybody to join them for God and King Charles. General Fairfax let them alone one night, and in the morning sent out troops, and after some resistance dispersed them. Every success or partial success made the Royalist party in the City more fearless and undisguised; sometimes they mounted cockades; sometimes they burned bonfires; sometimes they openly cried for the King; the ’prentices, who had been so ready to petition against the Bishops, turned round. Though the actual weight of numbers and of opinions was in favour of the Parliament, there was a very strong party who were always looking for an opportunity to demonstrate, if not to rise, for the King. One has only to consult the pages of Evelyn in order to understand the strength of the Royalist party even in times of the deepest adversity. I have already quoted from Howell. Let him speak again concerning the condition of the City at this time:—
The weaker side always takes refuge in epigrams. I have before me a little book called Two Centuries of Paul’s Churchyard, which contains (1) a list of imaginary books, (2) questions for tender consciences. The following extracts will show the temper of the Royalists in London during the Civil War:—
Although the Royalists ventured to proclaim their opinions, though they openly wore ribbons or badges in their hats, they were not so strong as the Parliamentary party; they had to take their part in the fortification of the avenues and approaches to London, and they had to pay their share in the weekly tax of £10,000 imposed upon the City. In “A True Relation of two Merchants of London who were taken prisoners by the Cavaliers and of the Misery they and the other Puritans endured”—a pamphlet of 1642—I think we have one of those documents, of which Napoleon so well understood the use, which were meant to stimulate enmity and provoke wrath. It is an interesting paper, but one remarks that the only cruelty endured by the two merchants was due to a smoky chimney; that they report various hangings, but they were not themselves hanged; and various slashings of ears, but they brought their own away with them; and, as is common in such documents, they report the evil case of the enemy and their resolution to destroy the City of London when they get in. I take an extract from it as follows:— “Warre hath seemed alwayes sweet to those who have been unexperienced with it, who, blinded with its flourish and its glory, observe not the tragicall events that doe attend it. Of all war the civill is most grievous, where all the obligations of friendship and nature lye cancelled in one another’s blood, and violated by their hands who should bee most carefull to preserve them. In civill warres there hath been no greater stickler than religion, whose innocent and sacred garment hath been too often traduced to palliate all dissolute and bloody acts, and (as if heaven suffered flatterers as well as Princes) religion and loyalty have been induced to beleeve they are protected most by those men who most dangerously and most closely doe oppose them, and who, while both are trampled on them by them, doe still cry out, For God and the King. Every day brings in many sad demonstrations concerning this subject; the burning of houses, the pillaging of goods, the violating of all lawes, both divine and humane, have been arguments written in blood by too many swords. What I shall now relate concerning the sufferings of these two Gentlemen, who were taken by the Cavaliers, and what outrages they have performed in the time of their durance, will bee a compendious mixture of all distresses in one story, wherein I shall bee Two Citizens of London, Gentlemen of good repute and quality (who will be ready upon their oaths to give an attestation of what is here reported), travelling not many days towards Hartly Row, concerning some private occasions of their owne, were taken in their way at Hounsloe, at the sign of the Katharine Wheele, by a party of some fifty Cavaliers, who had then been forraging up and downe the County of Middlesex, to see what good booty and pillage they could bring. PRINCE RUPERT (1619–1682) These Gentlemen no sooner alighted, with an intent for an houre or two to refresh themselves, and bait their horses, but the Cavaliers had notice of it, who rudely and violently did breake into the Chamber wherein they were, and tooke them prisoners. From their Chambers they made haste downe into the Stable, and seized upon their horses, and inforced these captive Gentlemen to ride behinde two of them unto Eggham, to be examined there by Prince Robert. They found their journey, though short, extreamly troublesome, beeing never used to ride before without a saddle; and having such desperate companions on either Saddle before them to conduct them. Comming to Eggham they found Prince Robert in bed, his From thence they were committed to the Court of guard, and a Captain had a charge over them, who was a Frenchman; he placed them both together by the fireside, where the winde did drive all the smoke into their eyes. Though they were almost blinded and choaked with the smoake, which still in waving tumults did issue from the Chimney upon them, they durst not stirre, though to discharge the most earnest Offices of Nature, but had a guard set over them, who threatened and swore, God darne them, they would pistoll them. That night Prince Robert was to march from Hounsloe, and either wanting guides in earnest, or their cruelty making mirth with these honest Gentlemen, they made their conducts, and following them with their pistols, they did sweare, that if they led them but a yard out of the way they immediately would shoot them. It was a lamentable condition that these two Gentlemen were in; they were not well acquainted with the way, the smoke had almost blinded their eyes, the night was as darke as cold, which were both then in extreames, they saw their lives at the mercy of these mercilesse men; and to make their condition yet worse, there did arise a thick and sudden mist, which tooke from them the little knowledge of the way they had before; they were not suffered to eate or drinke one drop, though they offered to pay freely for it, and were ready to starve for cold and hunger, but were still pursued with reproachfull and contumelious words, as, Lead on, lead on, you Parliament dogges; if you lead us but one yard out of the way, we will hang you, wee will pistoll you both. The Army being come to the Rendezvous, they were driven before it with many other prisoners, being coupled in cords two by two. That day the Army being to march towards London, with a resolution to take the Citie, they were left in bonds at the Rendezvous. The King and Prince were then on Hounsloe Heath, and were marching towards Brainford; There was that day apprehended a Gentleman cloathed in Scarlet, and hanged in a with upon a tree, as it is conceived for speaking in honour of the Parliament, and no man suffered to cut him downe or cover his face, untill he had been made a publicke spectacle to the whole Army which was then marching by. This was done in the way betwixt Eggham and Staines. Dr. Soame, vicar of Staines, having four or five daughters, in great jollity did ride up and downe the Army, and was very familiar with the Commanders, and it was thought some of those Commanders were as familiar with his daughters; for they did ride behinde some Captaines, who took them up on horsebacke, and being more mindfull of them than of their souldiers, shewed them the whole Army, as they marched by. The Army being prevented, and their hopes frustrated for the surprizing of the Citie of London, they were driven back to their Rendezvous, where these two honest Gentlemen, after many solicitations for their release, procured at length some men to passe their words for their ransome; and after eight dayes imprisonment, finding a convenient opportunity for their escape, they stole away to Brainford, making so much haste, that when they came thither they had not one dry threed about them. The misery these two Gentlemen indured hath beene almost inexpressible; they were cudgelled by the Cavaliers, and drove with the other prisoners, like beasts before the Army; their eyes were tormented to see the slaughter and execution of their friends, their eares furred to heare the blasphemies of their enemies, their bellies were pinched with hunger, their whole bodies with cold, their understandings with the apprehension of some infamous death; for not an houre hardly passed away, wherein they were not threatened to be hanged. Whatsoever calamity the insolency of men could inflict, they indured, and doe believe the bondage under the Turk to be humanity and mercy compared to their slavery, who being now in the armes of safety, have drawne my sad pen from the relation of their sorrowes to touch a little on the tyranny of the Cavaliers, and on the extremities of those men who were fellow captives with them. The poore people that were not able to pay ransomes, they did put into a pond stark naked, up to the knees in durt, in a cold night, and drove them the next morning before the Camp, the basest of the Army inveighing against them with most opprobrious language, calling them Round-headed Citizens, Parliament Rogues, and Parliament Dogges. They took one in Thistleworth, an honest and religious man, who, because he said he was for the King and Parliament, they most inhumanely did cut off his They took another in the same towne, who, flying from their fury, got into a house, and, having barred fast the gate, not long after he was inforced to open it to let in his wife, when the Cavaliers came violently rushing in after her, and, fastning a cord unto his feet, they dragged him about the streets; and weary of their cruelty, they said, ‘Why do we trouble ourselves any longer with this Dogge,’ and so discharging their pistols on him, they discharged him of his torments, and his life together. They are very poore in cloathes, especially the foot, but are very full of money; wheresoever they come, they pay for nothing, yet make pillage of whatsoever they come at; and what they get in one towne at very easie rates, they doe sell in another, and doe inforce the inhabitants to buy their commodities and stolne goods of them, whether they will or no. There was a Captaine who offered to lend three hundred pound to any man upon good security, and that being lent forth, hee made no question, he said, but in a few days to be able to lend as much more. The Cavaliers and all are driven unto such necessity, as they are constrained sometimes either to fast or to feed on carrion; they have killed Ewes great with lambe, and one Ewe that was great with two lambes. Whatsoever they cannot eat at any time, bee their diet never so good, they throw away; and whatsoever is left of their hay and provender (their horses many times feeding on good wheat, which they take from the owner), they fling away at their departure, alledging they will leave nothing behind them for the Parliament Roundheads. They drinke and sweare extreamly, and although they lately were prevented in their designe upon the Citie of London, wherein they verily expected a great and strong party to assist them, they say, that ere it be long, they will returne to it againe, and are so confident either by stratagem or by strength to win it, that when anything comes crosse them, they will say, ‘No matter, ere it be long, London shall make amends for all.’” After the execution of the King, the Commons, by an Act, abolished Monarchy and erected a Commonwealth in its place. Orders were sent to the Mayor and Sheriffs requiring them to make proclamation accordingly. The Mayor, however, Reynardson, who had always shown Royalist leanings, refused to obey on the ground that he had already, in entering upon the various offices which he had held, taken so many oaths of loyalty that he could not, in conscience, obey. He was therefore committed to the Tower for two months, deprived of his Mayoralty, and fined £2000 for contempt. And the City was ordered to elect a new Mayor with all convenient speed. The City obeyed; Alderman Atkins was chosen Mayor, and on the 30th of May the proclamation was duly made, but not without hooting and groaning from the crowd. Two Aldermen, Soames and Chambers, were not present. On being questioned at the Bar of the House, Soames said boldly that the proclamation was against his judgment and conscience; Chambers that his heart was not in the business. They were therefore degraded from their position and declared incapable of filling any City office for the future. A day of public thanksgiving was then appointed, when the City invited the House of Commons to hear a sermon at Christ Church, Newgate, and afterwards to a noble entertainment at the Grocers’ Hall. The day after, the City presented Fairfax with a basin and ewer of gold, and Cromwell with a hundred pounds’ worth of plate and a purse of £200 in gold. The exchange of presents and courtesies ended, for the time, with the presentation to the City, by the House of Commons, of Richmond Park. On the 19th of September 1650 another day of thanksgiving was held for the victory of Dunbar, and another after the victory of Worcester. Cromwell was received on his return to London by the Mayor, Aldermen, and Sheriffs, who invited him to a Banquet. CROMWELL DISSOLVING PARLIAMENT From a Dutch satirical print in the British Museum. On the forcible dissolution of the old Parliament, petitions were presented to Cromwell by the City for and against the reinstatement of the Parliament. Cromwell met them both by constituting a certain number of persons the “Supreme “1. That the precious Truths of the Gospel may be preserved in Purity; and the Dispensers thereof, being approved to be learned, godly, and void of Offence, may be sent forth to preach the Gospel. 2. That their settled Maintenance by Law might be confirmed, and their just Properties preserved. 3. That the Universities may be zealously countenanced and encouraged.” (Maitland, vol. i. p. 421.) HACKNEY COACHMAN From a contemporary print published by John Overton. The “Supreme Authority” surrendering its power, Cromwell was made Protector, a step which the City hastened to recognise by inviting him to dine at the Guildhall, and receiving him with all the honours of a sovereign. On the discovery of a conspiracy against his person, Cromwell sent for the Mayor and Aldermen, and, after acquainting them with the nature of the plot, recommended to them the safety and peace of the City, giving them at the same time, in order to strengthen their hands, the entire control of the City Militia. He also sanctioned the revival of the Honourable Artillery Company. As regards affairs municipal, Cromwell limited the number of hackney coachmen to two hundred, under the license of the Mayor and Corporation; and for the sake of the poor he allowed the entrance into the port, free of duty, of 4000 chaldrons of coals every year. Cromwell also renewed the attempts of Elizabeth, James, and Charles to stop the erection of new buildings; all those persons who had built houses—except on four acres of ground—since 1620 were fined one year’s rent, and all those who should build after 1656 were to be fined £100. These successive Acts caused great vexation at the time, but as they were never enforced save at irregular intervals, the chief effect was to drive across the river into the Borough those of the craftsmen for whom there was no room in the City. The Common Council proceeded to consider the allowances for the expenses of the Mayor and the Sheriffs; these were now fixed at £208:6s. a month for the former, and £150 a month for each of the latter. A Committee was appointed “to manage and to let to farm a number of offices, including those of garbling, package, and scavage, metage of grain, coal, salt and fruit, as well as all fines, issues, amerciaments and estreated recognizances under the greenwax.” The condition of the poor was taken in hand at this time very seriously. A project was started to raise money by establishing a post in Scotland and other parts of the country; but the House of Commons resolved that the office of postmaster in every part of the country is in the power and the disposal of the Parliament; the project, therefore, fell through; meantime the poor remained. It was decided to raise £4600 in order to find work for them; a storehouse was set apart for them in the Minories and the King’s Wardrobe, part of the Palace so-called, one court of which remained until recently—to be used as a workroom. Walker & Cockerell. OLIVER CROMWELL (1599–1658) From a painting in the National Portrait Gallery, London. The weariness of civil war felt by the Londoners was further displayed in the autumn of 1650 when a contingent of recruits was marched from London to the North to join the army in Scotland. Half of them deserted by the way. In the following year the City remonstrated on the heavy taxation from which they suffered, stating that the City was assessed at a fifteenth part of the whole kingdom; that the foreign trade had suffered grievously from Prince Rupert’s piracies; that the wealthier citizens were withdrawing from London to the suburbs, and so evading taxation. The last clause is remarkable. The time had not yet come when the The battle of Worcester, September 3, 1651, put an end to the Civil War. A few days later the unhappy Scottish prisoners were marched through the City, ragged, barefoot, bareheaded, starving—a terrible spectacle. Meal was collected for them from house to house; they were taken to Tothill Fields in Westminster, where they lay in the open under rain and suffering from the cold winds of autumn. Twelve hundred of them died. The rest were sent away to the Gold Coast, whence none ever came back. War with Holland broke out in 1652 and a subscription of £1071:9:5 for the wounded sailors and soldiers was raised in the City. On December 16, 1653, the Lord Mayor carried the City Sword at the installation of Cromwell as Lord Protector. Two months later he dined with the Mayor and Corporation at Grocers’ Hall. This interchange of courtesies continued during the rest of Cromwell’s rule. The connection of the City with the Protector offers very little of importance. When the proclamation was made, six weeks after the execution of the King, abolishing monarchy, the City made no protest either by its Common Council or by any popular movement. When a Commonwealth was proclaimed in May there were many refusals among the clergy and others to promise fidelity to the new order, but no remonstrance came from the City. When Cromwell dissolved the Rump “not a dog barked” either in the City or outside. The Fifth Monarchy men, a small minority, gave some trouble in the City. They were fanatics of the deepest dye. They would have no King but Jesus Christ, and no Parliament but a Sanhedrin of Saints—meaning themselves. Among all the sects which drove men mad perhaps the most mischievous was that of the “Fifth Monarchy” men. It was a sect whose adherents were principally found in London. At one time they were numerous enough to be important. They supported Cromwell’s Government at first in the faith that it would become the “Fifth Monarchy,” in succession, that is, to the Assyrian, the Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman. During the Fifth Monarchy, they thought, Christ would reign, with the saints, for a thousand years. Their leader was one Venner, a wine cooper, but among them were certain officers, as Major-General Harrison, Colonel Rich, and others. When the proposal that Cromwell should assume the title of King was first brought forward, the Fifth Monarchy men, being disappointed in their hopes and acknowledging no King but Christ, prepared for a rising; they were to meet at Mile End Green, where they expected to be joined by thousands from the country as well as from the City. They were arrested with arms in their hands and sent to the Tower, but none were executed. The man Venner gave more trouble afterwards. There were, however, signs of Royalist disaffection, What followed Cromwell’s death belongs to the general history of the country. Lambert treated the Parliament with the greatest insolence and arrogance. Monk marched south, pretending to vindicate the rights of Parliament; the apprentices rose and rushed about the streets clamouring for a free Parliament; Colonel Heron with a company of soldiers fired upon them. The Aldermen exchanged explanations on the subject with the Committee of Safety. The Common Council petitioned Fleetwood for a Parliament as in 1642; the petition was returned. The City Remembrancer was sent to expostulate with Fleetwood, who finally promised a free Parliament. It is difficult to understand what else he could do; there was no second Cromwell; the City called out six regiments of its own militia, commanded by its officers nominated by the Common Council. GENERAL MONK, FIRST DUKE OF ALBEMARLE (1608–1670) After an engraving by David Loggan, 1661 If we inquire why a city which before the death of the King seemed Republican and Presbyterian through and through, should in ten years become in the same thorough manner Royalist and Episcopal; or, to put it more exactly, why the First of all, though the governing body was both Republican and Presbyterian, there were numbers of citizens who had preserved their loyalty to the Crown, and many more who, for divers reasons, hated the Puritan rule. We have seen the petition of the women and that of the apprentices; we have seen the rioting and discontent at the prohibition of the old sports and the closing of the play-houses. There were also other causes; the Londoners were ready to go forth and fight a battle, but not to carry on a long war; further, they distrusted the standing army which had taken the place of the trained bands. Again, trade was depressed; many ships were taken by Prince Rupert off the Nore and in the narrow seas, and the whole City was kept in perpetual controversies and quarrels over points of doctrine. With a decaying trade, a city divided against itself, religious quarrels without religious peace, the young folk longing for the restoration of the old sports, every tavern full of discontented men, every church a brawling place, what wonder if, after ten years and more, the City suddenly turned round and cried for the King and the Church to come back again. View of Genl Monks House in Grub Street. Yet the events which followed Cromwell’s death and preceded the Restoration were very closely connected with the City of London. The domination of the City The Rump hastened its own fall. In consequence of the attitude of the Common Council it declared that body dissolved; it also ordered the gates and chains of the City to be removed, and troops to be quartered there in order to reduce the City to obedience. Monk, in order to carry out these instructions, removed into the City, where he conferred with the Aldermen. They would do nothing; the Common Council being dissolved, there was no body which had the power of speaking for the City. Monk met them again on the following day. He read them a letter which he had sent to the House. He demanded that writs for every seat should be ready for issue within a week. Great was the joy of the City; bonfires were lighted; bells were set ringing, and the soldiers were feasted by the people. The next day, being Sunday, Monk attended service at St. Paul’s. On the 13th, Monday, he conferred with the Mayor and Aldermen in Drapers’ Hall. On the 15th he informed the Mayor that he was about to return to Whitehall, but that he should take care of the safety of the City. However, he did not go back; he remained in the City. Meantime his order about the writs had been obeyed; many of the old members were taking their places, including those ejected for various reasons. The order dissolving the Common Council was rescinded and the gates were allowed to be repaired. It does not appear that much damage had been done to them. The House also allowed the City to place its militia in the hands of Commissioners of its own choice. On March 16 the Parliament—the old Long Parliament which had done so much, suffered so much, and gone through so many vicissitudes—dissolved. Writs were issued for a new Parliament to meet on April 25. Meantime the Government was in the hands of the Council of State. And now people began to talk openly and freely of the Restoration. One man boldly set a ladder against the wall of the Royal Exchange and brushed out the inscription, “Exit Tyrannus Regum Ultimus,” which had been set up in August 1650. The Skinners’ Company set up the Royal Arms once more in their Hall. This Declaration was scarcely issued before a letter came from Charles II. conveying his assurance that he had no thoughts of revenge, and promising the City the confirmation of its Charters. He also pledged himself to grant liberty of conscience in religion, to leave questions of title to land to Parliament, and he promised the soldiers their arrears of pay. The new Parliament met on the 25th of April. Charles’s Declaration reached the House on the 1st of May. Parliament instantly sent to the City to borrow £100,000, which was cheerfully advanced, and half of it was at once sent over to the King. On the same day the City companies raised the sum of £10,000 for Charles, and £2000 to be divided between the Dukes of York and Gloucester. Sixteen commissioners were appointed to wait on Charles at the Hague in order to take over this Royal gift. Charles was proclaimed on May the 18th. The welcome with which Charles was received amounted to frenzy. Bonfires were made all over the City; up went the maypoles again; the church bells rang; the mob paraded rumps of beef, which they afterwards roasted and devoured; they made everybody drink the health of the King upon their knees; they broke the windows of leading Puritans; they made Monk’s soldiers drunk. It was not only the King who had come to his own again; it was the return of merriment, feasting, dancing, singing, mumming, sports, music, laughing, the pride of the eye, the delight of the ear, the joy of the world, the careless, reckless, headlong happiness of youth in the things that belong to youth. The kingdom of God upon the earth had been attempted. Perhaps the Puritans mistook the nature of that kingdom; perhaps they were only wrong in believing that the time was ripe for the advent of that kingdom. MOB AT TEMPLE BAR From the Crace Collection in British Museum But let us begin this reign with the words of those who looked on at the Restoration:— “Mem. that Threadneedle Street was all day long and late at night crammed with multitudes crying out, ‘A free Parliament!—A free Parliament!’ that the air rang again with their noise. One day, he, coming out on horseback, they were so violent that he was almost afraid of himself, and so, to satisfy them (as they used to do to importunate children), said, ‘Pray be quiet, ye shall have a Free Parliament!’ This was about seven, or rather eight, as I remember, at night; immediately a loud halloa and shout was given, all the bells in the city ringing; and the whole city looked as if it had been in a flame by the bonfires, which were prodigiously great and frequent, and ran like a train over the city; and I saw some balconies that began to be kindled. They made little gibbets, and roasted rumps of mutton; nay, I saw some very good rumps of beef. Health to K. Charles II. was drunk in the streets, by the bonfires, even on their knees.” And Pepys writes:—
When Parliament met all the members must have understood what was going to happen. On the 3rd of May, Sir John Greville presented to the House a letter from Charles. It was resolved that his promises were satisfactory and that the Government should be once more by King, Lords, and Commons. Six Commissioners representing the House of Lords, twelve for the House of Commons, and twenty for the City of London, were appointed; they were instructed to take over £50,000 for the King, £10,000 for the Duke of York, and £5000 for the Duke of Gloucester; the City Commissioners added a gift of £10,000 for the King. “There was great joy in London,” Pepys states, “and at night more bonfires than ever, and ringing of bells, and drinking of the King’s health upon their knees in the streets, which methinks is a little too much.” On the 26th of May 1660 the King landed at Dover; on the 29th he entered
At the Coronation in April of the following year, the City, still in a fever of loyalty, raised four triumphal arches, and organised a procession as magnificent as that of the entry. After the Coronation was the Banquet, at which Pepys was so fortunate as to be a spectator:—
The Fifth Monarchy men who have already been mentioned as rising against THE CORONATION OF CHARLES II. IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY, APRIL 23, 1661 From a contemporary print. Between the King’s accession in May and the end of the year these fanatics seem to have done nothing. Many of their leaders, including Colonel Overton, Major Wild, Cornet Day, and others, were arrested on suspicion of dangerous symptoms. The Fifth Monarchy people had a meeting-house in Swan Alley, Coleman Street. Here on the sixth day of January 1661, the Sunday after the arrest of their leaders, they assembled in a state of mind approaching frenzy. What followed was madness pure and simple. Their preacher, Thomas Venner, the wine cooper, had acquired a competent fortune by his trade. He was believed to be a man of sense until his understanding was confused with enthusiasm. He, in common with his sect, looked on Charles as a usurper upon Christ’s dominion. On this particular Sunday his madness and the madness of his followers broke out. He assured them that the time of the Fifth Monarchy had arrived; that those who believed in it and expected it should be protected by Divine interference so that no weapon should hurt them, and not a hair should be touched among them all; CHARLES II. (1630–1685) From an engraving by P. Vanderbanc. When they had adopted this promising declaration they marched out in a body of sixty only, but well armed, down Cheapside to St. Paul’s Churchyard, shouting as they went for “King Jesus.” In St. Paul’s Churchyard they were accosted by a man who cried out for King Charles. Him they slew immediately. By this time the Mayor, Sir Richard Brown, heard of the tumult, and sent a company of the trained bands to suppress it. The number of the company thus sent out is not known, but they were not strong enough. Instead of suppressing the fanatics they were themselves totally routed and put to flight. The Fifth Monarchy men then marched through the City without opposition; they passed out at Bishopsgate; then, evidently not knowing what to do next, they crossed Moorfields, marched along Chiswell Street, and, turning south again, re-entered the City at Cripplegate. It would have been better for them had they dispersed and gone home for the night, satisfied with their triumph and now convinced of their invulnerability. Unfortunately they heard of a troop of horse waiting for them somewhere, and so retreated, killing a headborough on the way, to Beech Lane. Here they encountered some opposition which caused them to march north as far as the heights of Hampstead. They found shelter, such as it was, for the night in Ken Woods, which are still left exactly as they were then. In the morning—they must have been wretched after a winter night in the open and with no food—they were attacked by more troops and dispersed, some of them being taken prisoners and committed to the Gatehouse, Westminster. Next day they rallied again and returned to London. This was the last day of the Rising. It was a day of sturdy and obstinate fighting. I do not know any other example where such a handful of men held out so long against such odds. Nor can one understand where the men got their ammunition. They fought on Sunday evening, Monday and Tuesday; they are described as firing in good order; where, then, did they procure their ammunition? When they arrived once more in London they divided into two small parties; one of them marched towards Leadenhall, where they were followed by the trained bands which dispersed them. The other party, under Venner, marched on Haberdashers’ Hall in Maiden Lane, hoping to catch the Mayor. But he evaded them. They then repaired to Wood Street, presumably intending to go out again by Cripplegate; the Horse Guards now came upon the scene, and a fierce fight ensued, in which Venner was dangerously wounded and two of their preachers killed. They then retreated in good order; outside the gate they stationed ten men in an alehouse with instructions to hold it; seven of the ten were killed, a large number of the trained bands, and twenty of the rebels. Fourteen were taken; eleven were executed with the customary formalities; and here they made an end; probably no further search was attempted after the rest of the rioters. It was wiser not to ascertain how many of these fanatics there were and who they were. We hear, however, very little more of the Fifth Monarchy men. As for the poor fanatics, they affirmed to the last that if they had been deceived, the Lord Himself was their deceiver. INCIDENTS IN THE REBELLION OF THE FIFTH MONARCHY MEN UNDER THOMAS VENNER, AND THE EXECUTION OF THEIR LEADERS E. Gardner’s Collection. On the 30th day of January 1661, the anniversary of King Charles’s execution, in the year following the Restoration, a remarkable procession took place through the streets of London to Tyburn. Horsemen led the way and brought up the rear; there were trumpets and drums; guards marched on either side; in the middle, one behind the other, on their sledges, sat Lord Munson, Sir Henry Mildmay, and Robert Wallop with ropes about their necks. The Act of Indemnity had spared their lives, but it had not spared them other penalties, and they went through the form of being drawn to execution. Arrived at Tyburn they were taken off the sledges and carried back to the Tower, there to pass the remainder of their days. Three more of the regicides, Okey, Corbet, and Berkstead, who had escaped to Hanau in Germany, were decoyed by Sir George Downey, the King’s resident at the Hague. He treacherously assured Okey that he had no directions to look for him; whereupon all three left Hanau and repaired to Delft, where they were arrested and sent home for trial. They were of course convicted and executed. No more honourable and conscientious man than Corbet ever existed. The death of these three was followed by that of Sir Harry Vane. Neither Vane nor Lambert was among the judges of the King. The House of Lords wished, however, to exclude both from the Act of Indemnity; the House of Commons desired to include them. The Chancellor assuring them that their lives were safe, both Houses agreed in a petition to the King:— “Your Majesty having declared your gracious pleasure to proceed only against the murderers of your royal Father, we, your Majesty’s most humble subjects, the Lords and Commons assembled, not finding Sir Henry Vane or Colonel Lambert to be of the number, are humble suitors to your Majesty that, if they shall be attainted, execution of their lives may be remitted.” Charles broke his word and Vane was executed, showing to the last the “If his Majesty does not think himself more concerned for his honour and word than I am for my life, I am very willing he should take it; and I declare that I value my life less in a good cause than the King does his promise.” (Clayton, ii. p. 164.) Sir Harry Vane was a scholar of Oxford; he had travelled in France and stayed awhile in Geneva, where he had adopted the religious principles which ruled him through life. So much was he considered when quite young that the King entreated Laud to bring him to a more orthodox way of thinking. To avoid Laud’s frequent reproofs Vane went to America, where, at the age of four-and-twenty, he became Governor of Massachusetts Bay. The Act of Indemnity excluded the late King’s judges and certain persons who had been active in procuring the King’s execution. The trials of the State prisoners under the exceptions of this Act took place at the Old Bailey. On October 11 they were all sentenced to death as traitors, with the customary barbarities. Major-General Harrison, the Rev. Hugh Peters, Mr. Thomas Scot, Mr. Gregory Clement, and Colonels Scroop (or Scrope), John Jones, Francis Hacker, and Daniel Axtell were sentenced. Most of them were executed at Charing Cross. The case of Harrison was the most important. There is no doubt that he took an active part in bringing Charles to the block; yet he subsequently refused to assist Cromwell in his ambitions; he was imprisoned by Cromwell and deprived of his commission; on his release he retired to a private life, and refused to fly when the King returned. Brought before the Court, he made no attempt to deny the fact; on the contrary he gloried in it:—
He then refused to say more and submitted to the sentence of the Court. The scene of the execution was Charing Cross; the day, October the 14th, 1661. Evelyn met the carts carrying away the mangled quarters. “Oh!” he cried, “the miraculous providence of God!” There is, perhaps, no time in the history of Great Britain of deeper interest and importance than that which witnessed the restoration and, later, the final expulsion of the Stuarts. We find the City at the outset weary of its Commonwealth, and longing for that security and order which are the best recommendations of a settled succession. And then the old business begins again. It seems as if the history of the last twenty years had been in vain, that the struggles and the victories had been forgotten. I have here to recount only the part played by London between the years 1660 and 1688. Not, that is, the part played in London, otherwise we should have to consider nearly all the important events of the reign, which was passed almost entirely at Whitehall. In many cases it is difficult to decide between what belongs to London alone and what belongs to London and the country. The execution of Venner and his men did not clear the City of dangerous elements. The Fifth Monarchy people and the Presbyterians exhorted each other to withstand the introduction of the Book of Common Prayer and the idolatry of the Court. Some of them refused to obey the law unless the spirit ordered them. The City was full of disbanded officers and men who were ready and anxious to take up arms again. The King complained that the night watch was unable to cope with these turbulent people, and ordered that only able men should be appointed, and that their watch should continue all night. The Act of Uniformity of 1662 ordered every minister, if he would continue in his benefice, to assent to everything contained in the Book of Common Prayer. On Sunday, August 17, all the Presbyterians took leave of their congregations amid their tears and lamentations. Then persecution set in. It must be confessed that the language and action of some of the Nonconformists seemed to justify, in a certain measure, the rigours of the Government. For instance, the Baptists are said to have spoken openly of the King as the “Beast”; it was reported that Presbyterians and Baptists together were preparing to resist by force of arms; it must be remembered that these people represented the Roundheads of twenty years before. In the same year an Act was passed for raising money for the paving of the streets of London by making every hackney coach—of which there were then four hundred—pay a tax of five pounds a year; every load of hay, sixpence; every load of straw, twopence. The Act provided especially for the paving of Hedge Lane (Whitcomb Street), from Petty France to St. James’s Palace, St. James’s Street, and Pall Mall. The paving was the old-fashioned round cobbles; before they were laid down the road was simply a trodden way, in the summer throwing up clouds of dust, in the winter knee-deep in mud. The Act further provided for the widening of certain ways and passages in the City. It is idle to ask if they were widened, because the Fire came a few years later and swept all away. The King in the same year formally restored to the City their Irish estates, which the Parliament had long before restored. On June 24, 1663, Charles granted the Inspeximus Charter. Accounts of the Plague of 1665 and the Fire of 1666 will be found in other places (pp. 215, 240). As soon as things were more settled after the Great Fire, the Corporation considered how best to avoid the recurrence of such a calamity. They divided the City into four divisions, each to be supplied with 800 buckets, 50 ladders, from 12 to 42 feet in length, 2 brazen hand-squirts to each parish, 24 pickaxe sledges, and 40 “shod” shovels. Each of the twelve great companies was to be provided with an engine, 30 buckets, 3 ladders, 6 pickaxe sledges, and 2 hand-squirts. The inferior companies were to have such a number of engines, etc., as should be fixed by the Court of Aldermen. The Aldermen who had passed the Shrievalty were to keep 24 buckets and 1 hand-squirt each in his house. Those who had not yet passed the Shrievalty, half that number of buckets. Fire-plugs were to be placed in the main water-pipes. The companies of carpenters, bricklayers, plasterers, painters, masons, smiths, plumbers, and paviours were to appoint for each company 2 master workmen, 4 journeymen, 8 apprentices, and 16 labourers, to be ready on an alarm to turn out. And lastly, all the workmen belonging to the several water-works, the sea coal meters, Blackwall Hall, Leadenhall, ticket, package, and other porters, were to attend the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs in such services. In other words, a fire brigade was established of several hundreds, with means of putting out fires amounting to about 1500 buckets and 300 hand-squirts. The weak point in this machinery was the difficulty of getting at the men when they were wanted, and the feeble nature of the hand-squirt. The Fire produced confusion in ecclesiastical property, for the tithes which had been levied from house to house could no longer be collected owing to the changes of site, the substitution of a small house for a great house, or vice versÂ. It was The rebuilding of London was a great time for the passing of ordinances and regulations for the better preservation of order and cleanliness in the City. Thus the foot-passage, or way along the streets, was at this time ordered to be of flat or broad stone. The Fellowship of Carmen was ordered to send round carts for the collection of all waste stuff, which was to be conveyed to the nearest laystall. The traffic in the streets was regulated. Carts had to stand along, not across, the street; brewers and others were not to use more than one horse, nothing was to be thrown into the streets, every householder had to keep his own part of the street clean, and things offensive were not to be carried about the streets before eleven o’clock at night. The heavy losses caused first by the Plague, which stopped trade of all kinds and destroyed many thousands of craftsmen and servants, and next by the Fire, had reduced the City to a very low condition. No one will ever be able to estimate the losses of or consider the number of respectable families reduced to poverty, and plunged down into the lowest depths. A Committee, appointed by the Common Council to investigate the financial position of the City, had to recommend the abolition of certain offices and resolute retrenchment in many departments. Among other measures of economy the Committee recommended the abolition of their chronologer (see p. 178). On June 10, 1667, the City, which was as yet only half-built, presented a most melancholy appearance. It had been devastated by plague, its people lay by thousands in the burial-grounds, it had been destroyed by fire, and now it seemed as if the last and crowning misery was to be inflicted upon it. Men’s hearts sank within them. They asked if their afflictions were laid upon them for their persecution of the Quakers and the Baptists, for their imprisonment of the saints, for the idolatries of the Court, and the corruption of the times. For it was known on that day that the Dutch had sailed up the Medway and burned the English men-of-war which were lying there, either without a crew or with half their company discharged. For defence—an ignoble defence—ships were sunk in the bed of the Thames at Barking, Woolwich, and Blackwall. Every able-bodied man in the City was called out. Had the Dutch continued, they must have been able to take the City. Luckily they did not continue, and the Treaty of Breda put an end to hostilities. The City at this time returned to the mediÆval use of passing long and intricate regulations for the better management of the markets. The most noteworthy provisions were two: that the Market Bell should ring at six every morning, at which the market was to open for housekeepers only and such as bought for their Was the Temple within the City and its Liberties or not? The question was answered in a practical manner by the Lord Mayor in March 1669, when, with the Aldermen, he went to dine with the Reader of the Inner Temple. He claimed that it was within his jurisdiction, and ordered his sword-bearer to precede him carrying the sword up. The students, as sticklers for the honour of the Temple, came out and ordered him to lower the sword; they tried to snatch the sword away; they hustled the marshal’s men and compelled the Mayor and Aldermen to take refuge in the chambers of the Auditor Phillips while the Recorder and Sheriffs hastened to Whitehall in order to lay the matter before the King. It is not stated what message was sent by the King, but when the Sheriffs came back and the Mayor attempted to get away there was another fight, and the Aldermen were treated with the greatest disrespect. They again retreated to the Chambers and again sent to the King. When the Sheriffs returned, however, the students had gone to dinner and the unfortunate civic procession was enabled to get out in an extremely undignified manner. In 1670 an Act of Parliament was passed suppressing conventicles. The Act was carried out with great rigour; but the meeting-houses were handed over to the Church of England to be used as churches until the parish churches themselves should be rebuilt. The attempted robbery of the Tower by Blood in 1671 may be mentioned on account of the extraordinary interest excited everywhere by the audacity of the crime. Otherwise it belongs to the history of the country rather than to that of the City. There was whispering on Change, murmurs and rumblings of discontent when it became known that the man had not only received the King’s pardon, but also the King’s favour and a grant of land. But, in fact, during the whole of this reign, in which the King was encroaching as much as he dared, having learned nothing from his father’s fate, and the City was defending her liberties now feebly, now strongly, the air was filled with murmurs of discontent and with whispers of approaching rebellion. It was as if an impending earthquake announced its coming by subterranean rumblings. How much the King heard and understood, how far he was prepared, if necessary, for a new appeal to the sword, it is for the historian of the country to investigate. As a means of compensating those loyal and necessitous officers who had suffered for their adherence to the Royalist cause, Charles granted them one or more plate lotteries. Thus he presented the officers with certain plate as a gift from the Crown; they were authorised to put it up in lottery by tickets which were sold for the purpose. Thus, if the plate was worth, say £1000, tickets to the value of £3000 were issued, ensuring a large profit to the proprietor if all the tickets were sold. We have now to consider the treatment of London by the King during the latter part of his reign. One may ask with amazement how the City, which had deposed Richard the Second for acts not nearly so arbitrary as those of Charles the Second, which had driven Charles the First from the throne for attempts far less despotic, could sit down in submission, nay, almost without a protest, under tyrannies and encroachments which indicated the determination to recognise neither liberty nor privilege. The bankers of the Middle Ages were the great merchants, the merchant adventurers. Whittington held money for the landowners, advanced money on the security of land, and in nearly all respects carried on the business of a private bank. The merchant adventurers, who were mostly mercers, were succeeded by the goldsmiths, who were private bankers, kept the money of their customers—“running cash”—gave them cheques under the name of “goldsmiths’ notes,” received money on deposit account and gave interest for it; they made their own profits by lending it out at higher interest. The customers were allowed 6 per cent at twenty days’ sale and 3-1/2 per cent for money on demand. The bankers took assignments of the public revenue for payment of principal and interest as it came in. Of these bankers the most important was Edward Blackwell. He was the King’s intermediary in many important transactions. The pay of the troops in Dunkirk passed through his hands; he went to France on business for the King; he advanced money to the King, who owed him in 1672 more than a quarter of a million. There were nearly forty goldsmiths and bankers in Lombard Street. The money these bankers had lent to the Exchequer on security of the public revenue amounted to £1,300,000. In the year 1671 Charles wanted money. He was about to enter upon the war with Holland. Parliament was prorogued; he would always get money, if he could, without going to the House for it. In this case he listened to the advice of Clifford and took a step, the nature of which, one would hope, he did not comprehend. He resolved upon closing the Exchequer. The meaning of this step is perhaps not at once intelligible. It means that the repayments due to those who had lent money to the Exchequer were withheld, and it means that the interest due on these loans was refused payment. Imagine, if you can, the consternation and the despair which would be spread around if the interest on Bank of England Stock, or the London County Council Debt, or any other large security were to be suddenly stopped at the present day! Charles laid his hands on the whole amount. He took it. He promised to resume payment within a year, with interest. He took this money. And yet the City did not rise! Blackwell, with all the goldsmiths in Lombard Street, was ruined. Those rich bankers who had placed all their money in the King’s hands were utterly ruined; so were the lesser folk, the hundreds of people who had entrusted their money to the bankers of Lombard Street. Not even Henry the Third, not even Richard the Second, ever inflicted such a blow as this upon the City. In money of our day, and considering the poverty of the City, it represents at least £6,000,000—nay, more, because the interest was then more than double that of the present day, say £8,000,000. Imagine the rage and consternation were such a blow to be delivered at the Bank of England! Imagine the consternation if there were to be no interest on a great part of the National Debt for a whole year! Nay, the blow was far greater, because London two hundred years ago was far, far less wealthy than at present, not only actually, but in proportion to its population. Looking on London only as a trading community it is quite certain that such a blow could never be forgiven. When the opportunity should arise it would be remembered. It was not his religion only that drove James from Whitehall, it was the memory of this act of confiscation and the other acts of oppression which followed. The absence of resistance is at first sight most remarkable. I can only account for this fact on the theory that the poverty of the City and its weakness were much greater than is generally supposed. The Plague, which swept away many thousands of bread-winners, left behind it many thousands of penniless orphans. The Fire, which spared the lives of the people, destroyed all they owned in the world: house, furniture, stock in trade, tools, everything. The long civil wars had helped to impoverish the City; the Dutch War was calamitous; in other words, the City for many years had been living on its capital, and now this was coming to an end. Again, the religious dissensions of the City contributed to its weakness. It was the influence of the Church of England which brought back the King; it was therefore with an ill grace that they complained of the Royal exactions. The Church of England had joined in persecuting the Nonconformists just as, in the fifties, the Independents and the Presbyterians had joined in persecuting the Anglicans. Moreover, from many a pulpit in the City, day after day, the doctrine—the monstrous suicidal doctrine—of passive obedience was preached. The “Judgment and Decree” of Oxford, issued a few years later, was already on the lips of the High Church preachers. It declared to be “false, seditious, and impious, even heretical and blasphemous,” to hold that “authority is derived from the people; that if lawful governors become tyrants, they forfeit their right of governing; that the King hath but a co-ordinate right with the other two estates, the Lords and the Commons, etc.,” and that passive obedience is “the badge and character of the Church of England.” The secret of the submission of the City under so many blows was therefore (1) its poverty, (2) its internal dissensions, (3) the doctrine of passive obedience inculcated by so many of the clergy. Perhaps there was still some memory among middle-aged men of the sour austerities enforced during the Commonwealth. Many of the natural leaders of the City, those of the merchants who were still In February 1674 the general complaints about trade were so loud that an attempt was made to seek redress from the Parliament. A petition, setting forth the miserable condition of the City, was drawn up and presented on February 23. Nothing was done, however, and on the 24th the House was prorogued. In the year 1675 compliments and presents passed between the King and the City, noticeable only as showing the apparently unabated loyalty of the City, and in 1677 the City offered a magnificent entertainment to the King and Queen, the Duke of York, the Princesses Mary and Anne, and the Prince of Orange, to celebrate the betrothal of the Princess Mary. After the regulation of the Provision Markets the Common Council turned their attention to the Cloth Market and produced a set of regulations which, one may confidently assume, could never have been mastered by the honest vendors of cloth. They may be found set forth at length in Maitland’s History. Then followed one of those dreary disputes which can hardly be read with patience. It was the old question whether the Court of Aldermen had the power to veto the decisions and orders of the Common Council. How was it ended? I quote the words of Sharpe (London and the Kingdom, ii. p. 454):—
Hungerford Market, near York Buildings, Strand. Built by Sir Edward Hungerford, created Knight of the Bath at the Coronation of King Charles the Second From a contemporary print. In the year 1679 the King was attacked by fever, and for some time was believed to be in danger. The City realised, then, at least, that his successor was a Catholic. Therefore when Charles recovered, the joybells and the bonfires represented much more than a common and perfunctory rejoicing. The King recovered, and made haste to show the true nature of his sentiments towards the City. He was very much annoyed by the presentation of a number of petitions from all parts of the country, including London, in favour of calling a Parliament. He went so far as to prohibit (December 1672) “tumultuous petitions,” the adjective meaning petitions such as might lead to civil war. Notwithstanding this prohibition the City of London dared to present another petition urging his Majesty “for the preservation of his royal person and government, and the Protestant religion, he would graciously please to order that parliament, his Great Council, might assemble and sit to take measures against the machinations of Rome.” When, in November 1680, the House did meet, the City sent up another petition. They urged the King to lend an ear to the advice tendered by the House for his own safety and the preservation of the Protestant religion; “they promised to be ready at all times to promote his Majesty’s ease and prosperity, and to stand by him against all dangers and hazards whatsoever.” The deputation which presented the petition were bluntly told to go home and mind their own business. Six months later the City presented another petition expressing surprise at the prorogation of the House, “whereby the prosecution of the public justice of the kingdom has received an interruption,” and prayed that the House might resume its sessions on the day to which it had been prorogued as being “the only means to quiet the minds and extinguish the fears of your Protestant subjects.” The King’s answer was the dissolution of Parliament, and the announcement that he would call another for March 1 to sit at Oxford. The Solemn Mock Procession of the POPE, Cardinalls, Jesuits, Fryers, etc: through ye City of London, November ye 17th 1679 From the Crace Collection, British Museum. All this anxiety meant that the Duke of York was not to succeed if he could be kept out. And Charles, for his part, was not going to take any steps to prevent the succession of his brother. There were, however, other instruments at work to keep up the anti-Papal feeling. Chief among these was the King’s Head Club. The King’s Head Tavern stood over against the Inner Temple. The members of the Club were at first Lord Shaftesbury’s friends, but others, especially young men of good family, were admitted. In order to be known by each other they wore a green ribbon in their hats. Their principal discourse turned upon the perils of Popery. The true purpose of the founders was to foster the anti-Catholic spirit, and to keep it alive and strong enough to prevent the succession of James. Among other things, for instance, they got up processions, in which the Pope was carried in effigy with two or three devils to The Oxford House of Commons lasted a week only. The City presented another address of remonstrance. For a second time they were told to mind their own business. When a really clever thing is done in the name of the King he always gets the credit of the cleverness. The reduction of the City into a collection of men and women without rights, liberties, or government, other than what the King might grant and allow, was a piece of work which reflects the highest credit on whoever devised it, designed it, or carried it out. The last years of Charles’s reign were occupied in a determined and a successful effort to reduce the Corporation to submission and to make it, so to speak, a pocket borough. In these efforts he completely succeeded. Where the first Charles had failed, the second Charles succeeded. The petitions of the Corporation were counterbalanced by others from the Borough of Southwark, from the Lieutenancy of London, and from 20,000 ’prentices to the opposite effect. The last of these petitions gave the greatest pleasure to the Court. The loyal ’prentices were rewarded with a splendid banquet given to them in the Merchant Taylors’ Hall. The Duke of Grafton, the Earl of Mulgrave, Lord Hyde, and Sir Joseph Williamson acted as stewards, and 1500 tickets were given away among those who had signed the petition. The tickets contained the following invitation: “You are invited, and desired, by the Right Honourable and others of the stewards, elected at a meeting of the loyal young men and addressers, July 28, 1682, to take a dinner (together with other loyal young freemen and apprentices of the City of London) at Merchant Taylors’ Hall, on Wednesday the 9th of this instant August, at 12 o’clock.” The King himself, to grace the board, sent a brace of “very good bucks.” They were carried into the City upright in a cart, stuck with boughs. Three thousand sat down to this entertainment. Charles, in fact, discovered with joy that there were two parties in the City, and that the loyal party was apparently of strength nearly equal to the “country” party He resolved, therefore, so to manage the conduct of the City as to bring the election of all the officers into the hands of the Royalists—that is to say, into his own hands. The contest began with the election of the Sheriffs. There had been many attempts made from the commencement of the fourteenth century to take away the election of the Sheriffs from the Commonalty. But in 1347 the Mayor obtained the right, or took the right, of nominating and electing one of the Sheriffs, while the Commonalty elected the other. For 300 years this right was exercised, either without opposition or with faint grumblings. The Lord Mayor continued to exercise this right for 300 years. In the year Here, then, was established a very pretty ground of quarrel. For the next nine years the Mayor continued to nominate and the Commonalty continued to protest. Then for the following nine years the Mayor abandoned his privilege. But it still remained open for him to claim it and to exercise it. In fact, in 1662 he did both. The Commonalty protested but elected his man. For seven years after this the Mayor continued to exercise his right. In 1674, however, the Common Council appointed a Committee to investigate the case. The Mayor drank, as usual, to the man whom he chose. The Committee recommended an Act of Common Council to settle the question. No such Act was passed. In 1680 the question proceeded to the acute stage. It was just before the discovery by Charles of the strong Court party in the City. The Mayor nominated one Hockenhall, who refused to serve, and paid his fine. The Commons therefore elected Slingsby Bethel and Henry Cornish, both men of the Puritan party, and the former a strong republican and an enemy to everything that looked like feasting and joy. The nominees of the Court party who suffered defeat were Box and Nicholson. Cornish refused, for instance, to give the customary dinner to the Aldermen. He was regarded with great aversion by the Court party for his republican tendencies. In the following year the two Sheriffs, Pilkington and Shute, were of the same party and were elected against the same Court nominees as in the previous year. The King, when the Recorder and the two Sheriffs waited upon him, expressed in the presence of the latter the fact that they were personally unwelcome to him. One would think that the Common Council had had enough rebuffs over their petitions. But they drew up another, which they presented to the King, with the same result as before. In September 1681 the Court party got a Mayor of their own, one Sir John Moore. It was their first success. The King expressed his satisfaction at the election of so loyal and worthy a magistrate. And, in order to mark his sense of the late elections of Sheriffs, he issued, in January 1682, a writ calling upon the citizens to show by what warrant they claimed their liberties and franchises:—
The City received the writ much as their ancestors had received notice of an LORD MAYOR AND ALDERMEN From Pennant’s London, in British Museum. Meantime the people of the City were ranged definitely into two factions; on the one side were those who stood for rights and liberties; for toleration of religion—it was notorious that they would have no toleration while they were in power—and for Parliamentary government. This party contained the better class of citizens, the merchants, the responsible citizens, and the whole of the Nonconformists. The other party, which remembered the severe times when the theatres The former party was under the leadership of Pilkington; the latter under that of the Lord Mayor. The shrievalty of Pilkington was terminated in an extremely disagreeable manner by the Duke of York bringing an action against him for libel. The Sheriff was accused of saying that the Duke had burned down the City and was going to cut the throats of the citizens. The Duke had little cause to be friendly with the City, where his portrait had been cut and hacked, and where such things were openly said about him. At the same time it was a vindictive action, and one which he did not dare to have tried in a City court. He removed it, one knows not by what authority, to the county of Hertford, where it was heard by a packed jury. It is quite uncertain whether Pilkington uttered the words attributed to him. Alderman Sir Henry Tulse and Sir William Hooker swore that he did say these words. Sir Patience Ward swore that if the words were said, it was before Pilkington’s arrival on the scene. However, there was no hesitation on the part of the jury. They found for the plaintiff with £100,000 damages. The name of Pilkington belongs to two or three Protestant champions of a somewhat earlier time. Thomas Pilkington, born about 1620, the son of a country gentleman of good family, like so many London citizens, was probably related to, or descended from, James Pilkington, Bishop of Durham, Leonard Pilkington, Master of St. John’s, Cambridge, and Richard Pilkington, Archdeacon of Leicester; all these were controversialists in their generation. Thomas Pilkington, therefore, had Protestantism in his blood. He was Master of the Skinners’ Company, one of the City members, Alderman of Farringdon Without, and, as we have seen, Sheriff in 1681. He was a marked man at Court; not only did he never disguise his principles, but entertained at his house Shaftesbury, Essex, and other leaders of the Whig party. On hearing the result of the libel case he made no effort to escape but quietly surrendered to the bail, was committed to prison, and resigned his aldermanry, to which Sheriff North succeeded. He remained in prison four years, when the King released him. Sir Patience Ward, for giving evidence in his favour, was proceeded against for perjury and found guilty. Like Lord Shaftesbury he took refuge in Holland. To complete the history of Pilkington. When the opportunity arrived he did his best to send James on his travels and to welcome William; he was reinstated in his office of Alderman; he was three times Lord Mayor, and at his first installation banquet he entertained the King and Queen. Before the trial which condemned him, Pilkington had to take his part in the election of the new Sheriffs, June 24, 1682. It was not to be thought that the Lord Mayor would neglect his opportunity of securing one of the Sheriffs for his own side. He therefore drank to one Dudley North, and issued a precept to the companies to meet for the purpose of informing his nominee and electing another Sheriff. The following is his letter (Maitland, i. p. 474):—
On Midsummer Day, we read, the Liverymen assembled in the Guildhall in great numbers. When the Mayor and Aldermen were arrived upon the Hustings, the Common Crier made proclamation: “You Gentlemen of the Livery of London, attend your Confirmation;” upon which there arose a tumult of voices crying, “No Confirmation! No Confirmation!” and so continued for half an hour. The Recorder at last procured silence and made a speech upon their privileges. The Lord Mayor and Aldermen then withdrew, and the Common Serjeant offered to speak amid cries of “Election! Election! To the Day’s Work!” The question of confirmation was shelved, and there were put in nomination for Sheriffs, Dudley North and Ralph Box, of the Court side, and Thomas Papillon and John Dubois, of the other side. On a show of hands the two latter had an enormous majority. But a poll was demanded. It was noticed that a great many persons were present who had no right of entry, not being citizens; they carried swords and insulted the Liverymen and endeavoured to make a disturbance. In this they were unsuccessful. About seven in the evening the Lord Mayor came to the Hall and ordered all to depart till three days later. But the Sheriffs took no notice of this order and continued the Poll, hoping to finish that day. At nine o’clock, there being three or four thousand people in the Guildhall, the Sheriff closed for the day, and adjourned the Poll till the Tuesday following (it was then Saturday). So the Sheriffs went home, followed by crowds crying out “God bless the Protestant Sheriffs! God bless Papillon and Dubois!” This was construed into a riot, for which the Sheriffs Pilkington and Shute were committed to the Tower, but immediately afterwards admitted to bail. On the 1st of July they met at Common Hall, and refusing to obey the order of the Lord Mayor to adjourn the meeting, declared Papillon and Dubois duly elected Sheriffs. Had the Sheriffs the right to ignore the Mayor’s orders? That remained to be proved. Meantime on the 7th the Mayor repaired to the Guildhall to carry on the Poll, taking no notice of the Sheriffs’ proceedings. There was a dispute, naturally, and the Mayor adjourned the Hall until the 11th. The matter was laid before the King, who decided that a new election should take place. Sharpe gives two versions of what took place at this new election. According to the official account, Dudley North was duly confirmed and gave his consent to take office. On taking votes for the other three, Papillon had 60 voices, Dubois 60, and Box 1244. Therefore Box was elected. According to a tract of the time, a separate poll was opened on the same day by the Sheriffs; all four candidates were submitted to the Hall. Only 107 voted for the confirmation of North, and 2414 against it. After the declaration of this result the Mayor caused the reading of the other, which caused so great an uproar that the Mayor and Aldermen left the Hall, and the Sheriffs declared Papillon and Dubois duly elected. Then petitions were drawn up, praying that as Papillon and Dubois had been duly elected, the Court would call them; also that a caveat should be entered against North and Box being admitted. The Mayor returned an evasive answer. The huge majority in favour of Box at the Mayor’s poll is explained by a remark of Maitland, that nobody voted for Papillon and Dubois because they had already carried them at the Sheriffs’ poll. Box at this point retired, paying the fine. The Mayor therefore ordered another Common Hall for the election of his successor, and put forward one Peter Rich. There was a great tumult in the Hall. The people shouted for their own men, Papillon and Dubois; the Mayor, going through the ceremony in dumb show, declared Rich duly elected. He then dissolved the Common Hall and went home. Then the Sheriffs proceeded to open the Poll, and found 2082 votes in favour of their former choice, and only 35 for Rich. The Sheriffs—who were still Pilkington and Shute—proclaimed the result of the Poll, and the election of Papillon and Dubois. Then the Mayor and some of the Aldermen went to Whitehall and informed the King what had happened. The Sheriffs were summoned before the Council. They were ordered to enter in their own recognizances for £1000. Two days afterwards Rich and North were sworn in as Sheriffs, the Guildhall being guarded by the trained bands. It was ominous of the feeling in the City that the Mercers’ Company, to which North belonged, refused to pay him the common compliment of going with him to the Guildhall on entering upon office. So far the Court had won. They now had the Lord Mayor and the Sheriffs; the next thing was to secure the successor to the Mayoralty. This was done, apparently, by making a false return of the votes. Four In order to obtain a Royalist Common Council, Charles ordered that none should be elected who had not conformed to the Corporation Act. In February 1683 the hearing of the Quo Warranto case came on. The points at issue have already been detailed. The pleadings in the case may be found in Maitland. The following judgment was pronounced by Mr. Justice Jones on June 12:—
The Attorney-General moved that the judgment might not be recorded. After this judgment the City was greatly astonished and perplexed. The popular party wanted to enter the judgment and to leave the King to do what he pleased. The Court party were for absolute surrender of their liberties and submission to the King. Maitland gives in full a paper which was circulated at that time, showing what would be lost if the City surrendered its Charter:—
The writer then enumerates all the rights, privileges, and possessions which the City would lose, never to regain them again, and concludes:—
However, the City submitted. They were informed by the Lord Keeper that the King accepted their submission in consideration of the many loyal citizens in London, but with conditions, which were as follows:—
The City were also informed that if they accepted these conditions all would be well with them. If, on the other hand, they refused, the Attorney-General would enter upon judgment on the following Saturday. The Court of Common Council was called to consider the propositions. Some of them declared that rather than accept such slavish conditions they would sacrifice everything. But, by a majority of eighteen, the conditions were accepted. While these things were going on Papillon obtained a writ of Latitat on an action upon this case against the Mayor, Dudley North, and some of the Aldermen. They were all served with this writ by one Brown, an attorney, and a clerk to the Skinners’ Company. He not only served them with the writ, but he arrested them This story to my mind, untrained in legal subtleties, is mysterious. By whose authority could the chief magistrate of the City be arrested within his own jurisdiction? And why did the Lord Mayor, the Sheriff, and the Aldermen go meekly in the custody of an attorney-clerk to a City company? The conclusion of the story, however, is an action brought by Pritchard when his time of office was expired. It was heard before Judge Jeffreys, and resulted in damages against Papillon of £10,000. He therefore made haste to put the sea between himself and prison. Then came the question whether the City should voluntarily surrender their liberties. The Recorder was strongly against this step; if they freely surrendered their liberties there would be no redress open to them; if they did not and judgment was entered, they could take proceedings by writ of error. Finally, by 103 to 85 it was resolved not to surrender. Judgment was therefore entered against the City. The King was now therefore absolutely master of the City. He allowed Pritchard to continue as Mayor and the two Sheriffs to remain; eight Aldermen were dismissed; sixteen were made Justices of the Peace; the Recorder was dismissed and another appointed, and Sir Henry Tulse was nominated Mayor to succeed Pritchard. Now had Charles the First been clever enough at the outset to secure and use for his own interest the Court party in the City, all his troubles might have been avoided. On the other hand, had Charles the Second begun his reign instead of ending it with the enslaving of the City, he might have died the same death as his father, with the certainty that there would have been none to lament him. The City was not yet, however, made safe; there remained the companies. These also, being served with a Quo Warranto, had to surrender their charters and receive new ones with certain trifling conditions. I have said nothing of the national aspect of this struggle. Let us remind ourselves that the conquest of London was only part of the conquest of the kingdom; that the triumph of despotism in London was accompanied by the triumph of despotism in the country. The country party was broken up. Shaftesbury had fled; with him many of the London merchants; Essex had committed suicide; Lord Russell and Algernon Sidney had been executed; Monmouth had fled. The towns attacked, like London, with Quo Warranto, surrendered their charters and received them back, with conditions. Oxford had declared for passive obedience. All but the most thorough loyalists were excluded from the franchise; Charles had the representation of every borough in his own hands. More than this, he had an army of 10,000 men. The wonderful ability with which this Revolution was effected may be credited to Charles’s ministers; one seems, however, to perceive the King’s brain devising and the King’s hand executing the whole. And the master-stroke of all was that by which he acquired the whole power; he violated no law and executed no overt acts of tyranny. He was using the forms and institutions of liberty for the purpose of crushing liberty. He did not even restore old abuses; the Star Chamber and the Court of High Commission did not reappear. Freedom of the press was granted. The Habeas Corpus Act was passed. And the City of London, stripped of all real power, retained the form of it, and on the strength of the form seemed to preserve the old loyalty and the old personal affection for the King who had taken away its powers and its privileges. And this was even a more wonderful achievement for Charles than his triumph. Yet the loyalty and the affection were but forms and shadows like the ghostly form of its liberties left to the City. What the King would have done with his absolute authority one knows not, because in the very hour of his success he was stricken down by death. I have refrained from speaking much of Charles’s Court, because by this time the Court and the City were entirely separate, and were drifting apart more and more. Yet one cannot avoid asking what the better class of people, what the baser sort, knew of the Court and the life led by King Charles and his courtiers. Something of the King’s mistresses they knew; witness the well-known story of Nell Gwynne and the mob; witness also that other story of the riot in 1668 when the ’prentices pulled down and wrecked certain disorderly houses in Moorfields, saying that they did “ill in contenting themselves with pulling down the little brothels and did not go to pull down the big one at Whitehall.” Eight of the rioters were hanged for this offence, which did not stop the appearance of the Remonstrance pretending to be a petition from the women whose houses had been destroyed to the King’s mistresses at Whitehall. But they could not have known the corruption, the venality, and the profligacy of Whitehall; that could only be learned by the habituÉs; there were no papers to spread the infamy abroad; there was no fierce light of journalism thrown upon the King’s private life. The general belief concerning the Court of Charles II. is that it presented to the world nothing but a long-continued pageant of profligacy, extravagance, luxury, waste, and open contempt of morals. We remember Evelyn’s often-quoted account of the last Sunday evening before the fatal seizure; Pepys tell us what he saw and heard; De Grammont’s book is well known to all; the name and the fame and the shame of the King’s mistresses are notorious; the men seem devoid of honour, and the women match the men. It appears, to one who would restore the palace in the days of the Merry Monarch, that all day long the courts of Whitehall echo with the tinkling guitar; at every window is a light o’ love; below one of these the King converses gaily and carelessly; we hear the laughter, loud and coarse, of the titled There were daily duties to be performed. The King held a levÉe every morning; he went in state to prayers; he received his ministers and sat at the Council; he dined in public; the Court was open to any one who might venture to claim the rank and consideration of a gentleman; the King was accessible to all. A Perspective of Westminster-Abby from the High-Altar to the West end. Shewing the manner of His Majesties’s Crowning. THE CORONATION OF JAMES II. IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY From a contemporary print. E. Gardner’s Collection. The short reign of James afforded to the City a time of continual surprises and ceaseless anxiety, with the corresponding emotions of joy, sorrow, disappointment, and despair. The reign began with an assurance that the established government, that of Church and State, would be respected and maintained. The King, however, showed what he understood by the proclamation when he continued to receive the customs which had been settled on Charles for life, and which could not be exacted by his successor without the assent of Parliament. James announced his intention of speedily calling a Parliament at the same time as he proclaimed his continuance of taking the customs. In the same illegal way he took over the excise duties. TITUS OATES FLOGGED AT THE CART TAIL Meantime the Mayor and Aldermen, in accordance with the successful craft of Charles, were mostly nominees of the King; they were instructed to admit to the liveries of the City Companies none but persons of “unquestionable loyalty”; so that, as Charles had provided, the whole of the governing bodies in the City were mere creatures of the Court. One can hardly be surprised at the arrest and punishment of Titus Oates when James succeeded. At the same time to flog a man all the way from Aldgate to Newgate, and two days afterwards from Newgate to Tyburn, seems, short of the TITUS OATES IN THE PILLORY Short as was the reign of James, it provided for the Londoners many other scenes and dramatic situations. On July 15 the populace gathered together in immense crowds to witness the execution of the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth. They brought him out of the Tower surrounded by a strong guard, while commanding officers had orders to shoot the prisoner should any attempt be made at a rescue. This was more than probable, seeing that in the vast concourse of people who were collected on Tower Hill, nine out of ten wished in their hearts that the Protestant champion had won the day at Sedgemoor, while some of them had even been with him on that fatal night, though they were by no means anxious that their friends should know the fact. The prisoner, still young, still the loveliest man to look upon in the three kingdoms, mounted the scaffold; he showed a firm countenance at the end. Did any of the spectators ask each other whether this handsome face had in it the slightest sign of kinship with the black and dour face of Charles? He knelt down; the headsman, trembling, delivered three strokes, then threw down the axe and swore he would not go on; but, taking up the axe again, in two more strokes severed the head from the body. Then the people, sick and sorry, returned to their homes. The fall of Monmouth offered an opening, which James was not likely to forego, for the enjoyment of private revenge, and for giving a lesson to zealous Protestants. Henry Cornish was by trade a “factor”; was Alderman of the Ward of Bassishaw, and a resident in Cateaton Street. As we have seen, he was made Sheriff in 1680 with Slingsby Bethel. The events connected with his election were not calculated to make him a persona grata with the Court. He was not only a Whig but a Presbyterian. He was one of the five Aldermen chosen for the defence of the civic liberties against the Quo Warranto. In February 1683 Cornish, with Pilkington, Shute, Bethel, Sir Thomas Player, the City Chamberlain, and Lord Grey of Wark, were brought to trial for the disturbances in June of the preceding year. They were all found guilty and all were fined; Cornish, for his part, had to pay a fine of 1000 marks. He had already been tricked out of his election to the office of Mayor by wholesale tampering with the votes. At the time of the Rye House Conspiracy, one John Rumsay, arrested on suspicion, offered to give evidence implicating Cornish. At the time his offer was not accepted. DUKE OF MONMOUTH (1649–1685) From an engraving after Sir Peter Lely. Then James succeeded. Evidently he regarded Cornish as one of his most Monmouth was executed on July 15. Three months passed, during which nothing was done to Cornish. This interval was employed, it is now certain, in getting up a case against him; we cannot suppose that James was ignorant of this plot—it was nothing less—to take the life of the sturdy Whig. The man Rumsey found another man, a private enemy to Cornish, named Goodenough, to join him in bearing witness which should implicate Cornish in the Rye House Plot and show him to be a friend of Monmouth. On Tuesday, the 13th of October, Cornish was arrested and taken to Newgate. On the Saturday he learned for the first time that he was in prison on a charge of high treason, and that he would be tried on the Monday. The trial took place accordingly. It was marked by the customary brow-beating and bullying. The man must have known that he was doomed; the fact that two days only were allowed him to prepare his case and bring forward his witnesses might have warned him what to expect. Prospect des Thur-hils zu London worauf der Herzog von Monmouth den 25/15 Iuly 1685 enthaubt worden. THE EXECUTION OF MONMOUTH, JULY 15, 1685 From a contemporary Dutch print. E. Gardner’s Collection. One of the chief witnesses for the Crown was Goodenough, who had a personal spite against Cornish for his having objected to him (Goodenough) serving as under-sheriff in 1680–81, the year when Bethel and Cornish were sheriffs. Goodenough had risked his neck in Monmouth’s late rebellion, but he had succeeded in obtaining a pardon by promises of valuable information against others. With the King’s pardon in his pocket he unblushingly declared before the judges that he, as well as Cornish and some others, had determined upon a general rising in the city at the time of the Rye House Plot. ‘We designed,’ said he, ‘to divide it (i.e. the city) into twenty parts, and out of each part to raise five hundred men, if it might be done, to make an insurrection.’ The Tower was to be seized and the guard expelled. Cornish had been afforded no opportunity for instructing counsel in his defence. He was therefore obliged to act as his own counsel, with the result usual in such cases. He rested his main defence upon the improbability of his having acted as the prosecution endeavoured to make out. This he so persistently urged that the judges lost patience. Improbability was not enough, they declared; let him call his witnesses. When, however, Cornish desired an adjournment, in order that he might bring a witness up from Lancashire, his request was refused. His chief witness he omitted to call until after the Lord Chief Justice had summed up. This man was a vintner of the city, named Shephard, at whose house Cornish was charged with having met and held consultation with Monmouth and the rest of the conspirators. The Bench after some demur assented to the prisoner’s earnest prayer that Shephard’s evidence might be taken. He showed that he had been in the habit of having commercial transactions with Cornish and was at that moment in his debt; that on the occasion in question Cornish had come to his house, but whether he came to speak with the Duke of Monmouth or not the witness could not say for certain; that he only remained a few minutes, and that no paper or declaration (on which so much stress had been laid) in connection with the conspiracy was read in Cornish’s presence; that in fact Cornish was not considered at the time as being in the plot. Such evidence, if not conclusive, ought to have gone far towards obtaining a verdict of acquittal for the prisoner. This was not the case, however. The jury, after a brief consultation, brought in a verdict of guilty, and Cornish had to submit to the indignity of being tied—like a dangerous criminal—whilst sentence of death was passed upon him and three others who had been tried at the same time. The prisoner was allowed but three clear days before he was hanged at the corner of King Street and Cheapside, within sight of the Guildhall, which he had so often frequented as an Alderman of the City, and on which his head was afterwards placed. He met his end with courage and with many pious expressions, but to It is pleasing to add that four years later an Act of Parliament was passed reversing the attainder of Cornish. It is also pleasing to think that the blood of this innocent man, like the blood of the martyrs, was remembered by his fellow-citizens, that it strengthened the side of freedom and accelerated the fall of James. On the same day the people of London had a choice between two spectacles: that of Henry Cornish’s hanging, which was calculated to make every citizen thoughtful; or that of the burning of Elizabeth Gaunt at Tyburn—an act of brutal wickedness which ought to have made every citizen mad with indignation. Elizabeth Gaunt was a woman of great piety and charity; she visited the prisoners in the gaols; she relieved the sick; she fed the poor; she helped all who were afflicted, or in want, or in danger. Among others she helped a man named Burton, who was an outlaw, to escape. For this she was actually burned alive! The wretched man, Burton, turned King’s evidence and informed against his benefactress. One feels that it would be a moral lesson if we could ascertain the after-lives of Messrs. Rumsey, Goodenough, and Burton. The unfortunate gentlewoman behaved with fortitude, arranging with her own hands the straw around her so that she might the more quickly die. To us it seems incredible that judges should pass such sentences or should have such cases as those of Henry Cornish and Elizabeth Gaunt brought before them. As for the effect produced by these executions, they might, and no doubt did, terrify for a short time, but it was a terror which led to exasperation. We must remember that the temper of the City during the whole of the seventeenth century was profoundly hostile to the Catholics. The Gunpowder Plot; the Romish leanings of Laud; the Fire of London; the so-called Romanist plots; the Protestant literature of the period; the terrible stories of the Spanish Inquisition; everything conspired to keep alive the hatred and suspicion of the Catholic Church. And an event which happened in October 1685 taught the people, who were ripe for such a lesson, what was to be expected of a Roman Catholic Government. From time to time London has been enriched by the arrival of foreigners—Danes, Normans, Flemings, Italians, Palatines—who have brought with them new industries, and have settled down among the people, becoming English in the next generation. The most important of these immigrations was that of 1685, which came over here from France in consequence of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, under which the Protestants of France had enjoyed the freedom of worshipping according to their own religion. A great many of them—probably about 60,000—came to this country, bringing with them what money they had, amounting, as was estimated, to £3,000,000. Among them were artificers of various kinds, especially silk-weavers, gold and silversmiths, watchmakers and carvers. These refugees came over just before the death of Charles the Second; they were received with warm welcome; collections were made for them. There can be no doubt that the presence of these victims to Catholic bigotry largely stimulated the feeling against Catholicism which two or three years later ended in the expulsion of James. They were always in evidence. “See,” they said, “we are Protestants like yourselves; we have been driven from our own country for no other crime but our religion. What will happen to you when your King has had his own way and turned this country again to the Roman Catholic faith?” This was a question which was asked by everybody, and answered by every man and woman, however mean and illiterate, by one word. JAMES II. (1633–1701) With all these facts before him, in the face of feeling so strong that it seems impossible that he could fail to understand it, James persisted in his purpose. Perhaps he relied on assurances of support from the Catholic gentry; perhaps he thought of using Irish troops; perhaps he even looked forward to assistance from Louis; perhaps he counted on Roman Catholic officers carrying with them the army. However this may be, James resolved that there should be no mistake about his intentions. The laws against the Catholics were disregarded. Roman Catholic chapels were openly built and the Romish services were openly performed in them; there were tumults in the City; the mob would have no wooden gods and tore down James next took up his late brother’s plan, which was to gain over the Corporations in the country; six Commissioners were sent round to turn out all those persons who were in favour of the Test Act and the penal laws. The companies of London were treated in this way, with the result that some 900 persons were turned out of the Courts of Assistants. As for the City itself, which, it must be understood, was still deprived of its charter, Jeffreys was instructed to inform the Aldermen that in future their Court should recommend to the Crown persons fit to be Aldermen. Many of the Aldermen resigned rather than vote an address to the King for this liberty, which was in reality another link in the chain which kept the City in servitude. Recommending to the King is not exactly the same thing as free election. However, they did recommend and nominate persons to serve, but it was found extremely difficult to get any one to accept office. No less than £8500 were paid in fines by those who refused. In a very short time the City offices were nearly all held by Dissenters. A Dissenter was Lord Mayor, one Sir John Shorter, said to be an Anabaptist. The installation of Sir John was accompanied by a great dinner, to which every Alderman contributed £50; the King was present, with the Queen and the Papal Nuncio. The City Companies had turned out most of their Church of England members, and the Lord Mayor, Sir John Shorter, “a very odd, ignorant person, a mechanic, I think, and an Anabaptist” (Evelyn), openly attended a conventicle every Sunday. Among those who accepted office was William Kiffin. He was a leading Nonconformist in the City. Two of his grandsons, Benjamin and William Hewling, had been executed by Jeffreys for their share in the Monmouth rebellion. He was just seventy years of age, and had retired from active business when the King sent for him and made him accept office by telling him that if he refused he might be fined £20,000 or £30,000, or anything that the judges pleased. So the old man accepted. His account of the work entrusted to the Court of Aldermen is amazing. The King used to send them lists of liverymen who were to be turned out of their companies, with other lists of those to be put in. There were seven hundred so discharged without any charge or accusation, and all Protestants of the Church of England. The winter of 1687–88 passed quietly; but there were messengers secretly passing between London and Holland and the end was rapidly approaching. The King received addresses from all quarters thanking him for his Declaration of Indulgence; not only from Nonconformists about the country, but from the newly reformed City Companies, of whom, however, not all were found to join in the cry of gratitude. It would seem, however, as if the absence of any rebellion, coupled with the fact of their dutiful addresses, made James believe that he had a clear majority in support of his Declaration of Indulgence. He seems never to have understood the strength and the magnitude of the Established Church, just as he certainly never understood the strength and the extent of the popular hatred of his own Church. To the latter form of ignorance we may ascribe James’s acts and their consequences. He could not understand how the Catholic Church could be so deeply hated. Himself the son of a Catholic; his second wife a Catholic; his brother’s wife a Catholic; surrounded by Catholics in his own house, he was in no way able to comprehend why the country hated and feared his religion. In the same way the mediÆval Jew could not understand that he was loathed and hated. Why should he be? He was a man, like the Christian, of similar body parts, and passions. He could never understand it. Now that loathing has become a thing of the past, he cannot yet understand it. So with James; he could not understand it. THE SEVEN BISHOPS ON THE WAY TO THE TOWER From a contemporary print. E. Gardner’s Collection. In the spring, therefore, of 1688 James, still unable to understand, issued a
E. Gardner’s Collection. The objections of the Bishops are stated by Evelyn:—
The Bishops were sent to the Tower for refusing to give bail, “as it would have That was on the 8th of June. On the 13th Evelyn visited four of the Bishops in the Tower. On the 15th they were brought to Westminster, where their indictment was read and they were called in to plead. They were called upon to give bail, but they refused; in the end they were dismissed on their own recognizances to appear that day fortnight. JUDGE JEFFREYS (1648–1689) From a print in the British Museum. On the 29th they appeared and the trial took place. It lasted from nine in the morning until six in the evening. At that hour the jury, who had been drawn from Middlesex, not from London, retired to consider their verdict. They could not at first agree, and were locked up all night. All were for acquittal except one. At last he, too, agreed with the others. “When this was heard,” says Evelyn, “there was great rejoicing: and there was a lane of people from the King’s Bench to the waterside on their knees, as the Bishops passed and repassed, to beg their blessing. Bonfires were made that night and bells rung, which was taken very ill at Court.” It is pleasing to note that the Bishops not only refused to give bail, but refused to pay any fees to the Lieutenant of the Tower. It was during their short imprisonment that the Prince of Wales, the Elder Pretender, was born, “which will cause disputes,” says Evelyn. Well assured of the spirit in which he would be received, the Prince of Orange made haste to prepare for his descent on England. In September the news came that a fleet of sixty sail was in readiness. Then James began to make concessions. The City should have its charter returned. This was done. But the City was no more inclined to Catholicism than before. The rest we know; William landed on the 5th of November. James sent for the Mayor and Aldermen, entrusted the care of the City to them, and instructed them, should he fall in battle, to proclaim the infant Prince of Wales successor to the Crown. He then set out for the west, to meet the invader. His army deserted him, and he returned to London, where there had been some riots and plundering of Roman Catholic chapels. A fortnight later, the Queen and her child having been got safely out of the country, James himself attempted to escape. As soon as this fact was known, many of the Lords, spiritual and temporal, met at the Guildhall and there drew up a declaration that they would stand by the Prince of Orange in maintaining the religion, the rights, and the liberties of the country. The declaration was communicated to the Court of Aldermen, who called a Court of Common Council, at which another address to the same effect was drawn up. James, as we know, failed in his first attempt to escape, being stopped by certain fisher folk at Feversham. Lord Winchilsea, for whom he sent, persuaded him to return to London. He was received, we are told, with the liveliest indications of joy, as if he had been the best Prince in the world. Perhaps the historian mistook rejoicings over the capture of a prisoner for those over the return of a well-beloved sovereign. A London mob may be fickle, but there was absolutely no reason for such a change of front as would justify a demonstration of joy. Rather must we believe that every shout which went up meant that the King was in the hands of his faithful subjects, and that the faithful subjects would be able to give him the same trial, with the same termination of it, which they gave to his father. Another of those dramatic scenes which enlivened the City during this reign was provided by the flight and capture of Judge Jeffreys. The Judge, who had presided over the butcheries in the west of England, who became the willing creature and tool of James in every illegal act, was regarded all over the country with a hatred exceeding that which any Englishman has achieved for a thousand years and more. No one knew this better than himself. When, therefore, the power of his master crumbled away he sought safety in flight. Why he did not escape to France; whether his nerve failed him; whether there was no time; whether there was no one he could trust, one knows not. It is, however, certain that he was suffering from a cruel disease, which caused him the greatest agonies and was partly the cause of that roaring voice, those bullying tones, which made him the terror of the Court and aggravated the agonies of punishment. I think it not impossible that a severe attack of this disease prevented him from The Lord Chancellor taken disguised in Wapping — Engraved for the Devils Broker — THE ARREST OF JEFFREYS From a satirical print in the British Museum. And so James vanished from the scene and a new king reigned. But neither in the reign of William nor in that of any following sovereign were there so many splendid sights and anxious moments as in that of the unfortunate king whom we have learned to despise more profoundly than any other sovereign who ever sat upon the sacred Coronation chair. The events connecting London with the reign of James II. belong for the most The following, on the condition of London after the abdication, is an extract from the English Courant and London Mercury. It is quoted by Malcolm (Manners and Customs, 1811):—
ENTRY OF THE PRINCE OF ORANGE INTO LONDON E. Gardner’s Collection. At the Coronation Banquet the Lord Mayor, the Aldermen, and the members of the twelve principal companies attended as butler and assistants. The City plate was also lent for the occasion. This was on the 11th of April 1689. Since the Prince of Orange had entered London on December 18, 1688, when James fled, the country had been left without King or Government. The “Convocation,” as it was called, met on January 22. On the 28th the Commons declared the throne to be vacant, and on the 6th of February the House of Lords passed a similar resolution. A Declaration of Rights was next drawn up condemning the unconstitutional acts of James and offering the throne to William and Mary. After their proclamation their Majesties made haste to convert the Convocation into Parliament. The reign of William presents few surprises or dramatic scenes so far as the City of London is concerned. On the other hand, there was a great deal done towards the strengthening and definition of the City rights and liberties. The Stuart kings, who could learn nothing and forget nothing, were gone, never to return; in future it would be quite as impossible for the sovereign to rob London of her liberties as to reign without a Parliament. Out of the arbitrary acts of the two Charleses, the elder and the younger, out of the civil wars, out of the expulsion of James, came to London the secure possession, henceforth unquestioned, of her charters, just as to the three kingdoms came constitutional government and a sovereign bound by the will of the people. These were great gains; one who could realise the state of the country even under the well-beloved despot Elizabeth, and compare it with its condition under the Georges, might well acknowledge that the gain was worth all the fighting and struggle, all the trials and executions which had to be endured in achieving it. Of the loyalty of the City throughout this reign there can be no question. The address drawn up by the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs soon after it began on the occasion of a discovery of a plot against the King strikes a note which was maintained throughout:— “And we most humbly beg leave to assure your Majesty that we will, as far as our Power extends, oppose ourselves to, and suppress all designs of that Nature; and will search after, disarm, seize, secure, and bring to Justice all Persons concerned therein, or contributing thereto: And we are unanimously, firmly, and unalterably resolved and determined to stand by, defend, and maintain your Majesty, and your Government, with the uttermost Hazard and Expence of our Lives and Estates, against all Persons whatsoever, that shall conspire or attempt any Thing against the same” (Maitland, i. p. 491). The pageant on Lord Mayor’s Day was attended by the King and Queen, who sat in the usual place reserved for them in Cheapside—the balcony of St. Mary le Bow. After the pageant they dined with the Lord Mayor at Guildhall. The pageant itself may be found briefly described in Fairholt’s Book of Pageants. It will be seen by those who look up the passage that we are indeed far from the pageants of Edward the Third or Henry the Fifth. It was natural that the first desire of the City should be to obtain an Act of Parliament declaring the forfeiture of their charter to be illegal. On March 8, 1689, the Grand Committee of Grievances reported that the rights of the City of London in the election of Sheriffs were invaded in the year 1682, and that the judgment given upon the Quo Warranto was illegal. The Act of Parliament by which the charters of the City were formally declared is a lengthy document of very great importance. An abridgment of this Act follows:—
At the same time the City proceeded to lay down and define the rights of
WILLIAM III. (1650–1702) After an engraving of the painting by Sir Godfrey Kneller. So that those who were not Freemen of the City had no right to vote at all. This limitation of the vote was confirmed in 1711, 1712, in 1714, and by an Act of Parliament of 11 George I. There were scares in the City, first after the defeat of the Dutch fleet on MARY II. (1662–1694) After an engraving of the painting by Sir Godfrey Kneller. The City next had to go before Parliament in the humiliating position of a trustee who has lost trust money. The case was this. It had long been the custom of the City to take care of orphans, being children of Freemen, their fortunes or portions being received by the Chamber and administered for them. The Mayor now declared that this money had so grievously diminished that they simply could not pay the orphans on coming of age their own estates. Several reasons were alleged for this loss: the stoppage of the Exchequer, Charles’s act of robbery; a large part of the fund had been lent to the Exchequer; other sums had been lost in various ways, and the City now found itself in debt to orphans
Dissensions over elections and the mode of elections, scares about plots and the rumours of plots, rejoicings over victory, make up the history of London during the next few years. The losses of the Turkey merchants when, for want of a sufficient convoy, their ships were taken or burned by the French, were a national disaster. The merchant fleet was valued at many millions; the convoy forwarded the merchantmen safely as far as the Land’s End, when it left them to a smaller convoy of seventeen ships under Rooke. They found their way barred by the French fleet; in the fight that followed some of the merchantmen escaped, but the greater number were lost. “Never within the memory of man,” Everybody who studies London possesses among his collection pictures of the street cries. These drawings generally belong to the later years of the eighteenth century or the beginning of the nineteenth. They establish the fact that the streets were filled with a never-ending procession of men and women with baskets, carts, wheel-barrows, trays, boxes, all bawling their wares at the top of the voice. You may look into the shop now called an “Oilman’s”; nearly all the things he sells were formerly vended in the street. The conversion of the wheel-barrow and the tray into the shop would prove a chapter in the history of London trade. It is therefore interesting to learn that these hawkers and pedlars had already, at the end of the seventeenth century, increased so greatly as to become a nuisance to the Citizens. The Common Council proceeded against them with an Act providing that
At the same time an Act of Parliament imposed a tax upon them. The hawker or pedlar played an important part in the country life from an early period. He it was who circulated among the villages, and from farm to farm, the things for which in the country there existed no shops. Autolycus belongs to all ages, and in all ages he is a jovial, sharp, ready-witted rascal who will pass off his damaged goods for new, will buy cheap and sell dear. The hawkers escaped legislation in mediÆval England, and are first noticed in a statute of Edward VI., in which “they are treated in a very contemptuous manner, being described as more ‘hurtful than necessary to the commonwealth.’ But the case of pedlars was not seriously taken in hand before the reign of William III., who put a tax upon them and, ominously enough, bound them to certify commissioners for transportation how they travelled and traded.” We have seen how the Franciscans became pedlars, “Thai dele with purses, pynnes and knyves, With girdles, gloves for wenches, and wyves.” The hawker of London was not exactly the same as the hawker of the country. In the first place, it is evident that the City disliked his setting up a stall outside the markets or the streets where special things were sold; the companies still exercised the power of regulating trade; there was still the old jealousy which would not allow one trader to sell things belonging to another company. But the object of hawkers was to sell everything wanted for the daily life; like the Franciscan, he would not only sell mercery but also cutlery. This kind of hawker was effectually banished from the City, even though shopkeepers had now begun to mix up various companies and crafts in the same counter. The London hawker was reduced to selling one thing, and one thing only. In all the pictures of the street cries we find the hawker engaged in crying one thing for sale; he offered to catch rats, or sold sand, small coal, boot laces, door-mats, baskets, sausages, and so on, whatever was wanted for everyday use and could not be found in the shops. “Rats or Mice to kill” “Sausages” LONDON STREET CRIES From contemporary prints in British Museum. The hawkers of 1695, since they could not set up stalls or sell in the streets, tried to force an entrance into the markets. Upon which the Council laid down the law that the markets were not to be used as a place of sale for goods sold in the shops or warehouses of Freemen of the City. This important Act, which continued in force until the nineteenth century, should be quoted:—
In 1695 we hear of the first indications that the Jacobite party was still strong in the City as elsewhere. It was on the 10th of June, the birthday of the Prince of Wales, that a number of Jacobites assembled in a tavern of Drury Lane, where they proceeded to drink the health of the Prince. Thence they went out into the streets with drums and flags and insisted upon everybody’s drinking the same toast. It was a time when the people could not wait for the interference of the police, because there were none; they were obliged to act for themselves, and often acted in a more efficient manner than any police. On this occasion they poured out into the streets, armed, and with one consent set upon the Jacobites, put them to flight, took one prisoner, and sacked the tavern. In the same year we read of another Jacobite ebullition when, the King being abroad carrying on the war with France, a man rode through the streets crying aloud that King William was dead: an adventure which might have done great mischief. The King, who was not dead after all, returned in October. Then occurred the assassination plot. He was to be murdered after hunting in Richmond Park. Fortunately the plot was discovered and the ringleaders arrested. The trained bands were called out and an address of loyalty was drawn up by the Corporation. In 1697 the King returned to London on the Treaty of Ryswick. He consented to make a public entry. It was made the occasion of a procession of great magnificence, though falling very far short of the old pageants. The following notes from the letters of Richard Lapthorme to Richard Coffin cover the greater part of King William’s reign:— 1688. Sir C. Pym, dining at a tavern in Old Fish Street, quarrelled with a stranger—went out into the street, drew—Sir C. died. 1688. July 21st.Fireworks on Thames cost £20,000. Present 100,000 people. „ Judge Rotherham, Oxford Circuit, took with him Burgess N. Comminuta; asked him to pass a short tract for instructions and admonitions of criminals condemned. „ Captain tossed the Mayor of Scarboro’ in blanket. Came up to complain to King. „ Nov.Two rich aldermen died, one Alderman Jefferys, Tobacconist, £300,000, no children. Alderman Lacy very rich, 1 daughter. „ 11 Dec.“Mobile” pulling down mass-houses. 1688. 29th Dec.Lord Jefferies confined in chamber of one Bulle, a warder. Pen, ink, and paper. Town church very full in hopes of seeing him. Did not come. 1689. 20th Dec.Anniversary of King’s arrival in London. Representation in effigies. Procession 1000 torches to Temple Bar. All King James’s ministers: all hung on gallows—bonfire—gallows fall in with pillory. Whipping posts and everything. 1690. 20th Sep.People shut shops for monthly fast, but clergy will not open church.... preached everywhere. 1690. 22nd Nov.Two ladies of fortune abducted. „ 18th Dec.22 condemned to be hanged, including the Golden Farmer, a highwayman, and Sir John Jepson for abducting Mrs. Coherton. „ 28th Feb.In Duke Street, Covent Garden, a gentlewoman bewitched. A voice speaks within her blasphemously—tho’ lips and teeth are shut; sometimes she is visibly lifted up, chair and all, no one touching the chair. 11th Apr.Fire at Whitehall. „ 31st May.New Diving bell. „ 4th July.Fray between Alsateans and gentlemen of the Temple. A fight; one of the sheriff’s posse killed; several wounded. 70 Alsateans sent to the various prisons. „ 25th July.Murder by one Bird. „ 15th Aug.„„ a young gentleman. „ 22nd„2 grenadiers shot in Hyde Park for mutiny. Murders nearly every day. Dr. Clench sent for to a patient—strangled in coach. 1692. 18th Aug. Packet from Holland blew up—60 perished. 40 picked up. The Lord of Banbury fought with his brother-in-law, Capt. Laurie, and killed him. Young, clerk, fought Graham, clerk, and killed him. Lord Mohun killed Montfort the player. Reprieves used to be sent after the prisoners on their way to Tyburn. They were brought back on Sheriff’s horse, yet after all executed. Miracle of the lame F. Girl. A long succession of cold and rainy seasons caused many bad harvests, in so much that for some years there was a great dearth of corn, wheat being sold at as high as three pounds eight shillings a quarter. Considering the value of money then—it was almost twice as much as at present—we may understand the cost of wheat bread. But the working classes did never eat wheat bread except as a luxury. They lived on oaten bread. In the year 1699 occurred another scare about the wicked Papists. The Mayor and Aldermen were summoned before the Privy Council, when the King informed them that he had heard of a great increase of Papists in the City; that they openly attended Mass-houses in spite of the law; that he had commanded all Jesuits and Popish priests to leave the country; that he had recalled all those English students who were educated abroad, and that he looked to the Lord Mayor for vigilance in searching out Papists, especially those who had arms concealed, destroying Papistical books, shutting up Mass-houses and Catholic schools, and administering the oaths to suspected Papists. Almost the last act of the City of London in this reign was to send a loyal address to the King when James the Second died and Louis XIV. acknowledged as his successor the young Prince of Wales. On the 8th of March 1702 William III. died. There is nothing picturesque and very little that is important in the history of London during the reign of Queen Anne. An address to the new Queen, a public reception of Her Majesty by the City, several days of Thanksgiving for successes over the enemy, quarrels about elections, High Church riots, mainly exhaust the annals of this reign. ANNE (1665–1714) After the portrait by J. Closterman. On Friday, November 26, 1703, the greatest hurricane of wind and rain ever known in this country “o’er pale Britannia passed.” This really belongs chronologically The Common Council in 1704 considered the condition of the night watch. They ordered that 583 men, strong and able-bodied, should watch all night, divided among the respective wards. When we read that for the small precinct of Blackfriars alone six men were ordered to patrol the streets all night, that for Monkwell Street alone two men were to walk up and down all night, one wonders at the stories of midnight violence, burglary, and robbery belonging to the eighteenth century. What were those able-bodied men doing? It is another illustration of the difference between a strong law and a strong executive. The Union of England and Scotland being at last happily accomplished, the Queen was carried to St. Paul’s in a solemn procession for a Thanksgiving service. In 1709 arrived in London a body of helpless and destitute people from the Palatinate, which had been devastated by the French; there were nearly 12,000 of them. At first they were maintained by charity, over £22,000 being subscribed for their immediate necessities. They were then settled in various places; about 3000 were sent to Ireland, to each of the provinces of North and South Carolina about 600, and to the Province of New York about 3500. This settlement was made by a Committee appointed by the Queen. It consisted of the Great Officers of State, many of the nobility, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City and other persons of distinction, in number 121. These Trustees, as they were called, met every afternoon in the week at four o’clock, either at Whitehall or at the Guildhall Council Chamber. There were not wanting malcontents who thought that the country had paupers enough of its own without importing others. The example of the Huguenots, whose reception in this country brought new industries and increased wealth, might have taught a lesson, but it did not. Perhaps the double example of the welcome given to the Huguenots first and the Palatinates next may serve for another lesson at the present moment when the immigration of Polish and Russian Jews by the thousand terrifies some of us. THANKSGIVING SERVICE IN ST. PAUL’S From Pennant’s London, in the British Museum. During the whole of this reign, and in that of its successor, party feeling ran high with High Churchmen and Moderates, including Dissenters. In the autumn of the year 1709 two sermons were preached, by one Henry Sacheverell, D.D., which produced consequences not often due to the pulpit. The preacher himself has been represented by those of the opposite side as an obscure divine, of bad moral character, of no learning, of no eloquence, and of boundless impudence. This description of the famous Doctor must be taken with a very large deduction for the personal equation. Henry Sacheverell was the son of a clergyman, Rector of Marlborough, Wilts, and the grandson of a strong Presbyterian. He was entered at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he had Addison for his fellow-student and his friend. Certain Latin verses of his are inserted in the MusÆ AnglicanÆ, and certain English verses of his may be found in Nichol’s Collection. He was born in 1672, was Master of Arts in 1696, and Doctor of Divinity in 1708. He lectured or took pupils at Oxford for a few years, and then became successively vicar of a country parish and Chaplain of St. Saviour’s, Southwark. In August 1709 he delivered a sermon at the Derby Assizes, in which he maintained the doctrine, which many Oxford men then held, of passive obedience. To us the doctrine appears too ridiculous to need refutation; to the Tories and High Churchmen of that time it was a very serious position indeed, and one which was maintained by the support of Scripture. On November the 5th of the same year he was invited to preach before the Mayor and Corporation at St. Paul’s Cathedral. His sermon on this day was to the same effect. He took for his text the words “Perils from false brethren.” He asserted in the strongest terms the doctrines of passive obedience and non-resistance; he spoke of the Revolution as a crime never to be forgiven, and he called the Bishops perfidious prelates and false sons of the Church because they approved of toleration. It was customary for the Mayor to command the printing of any sermon preached before the Corporation. But in this case the Mayor did not make the usual order, the reason being that many of the Aldermen and Common Council were alarmed at the extreme views advanced. Let us understand that if this man had been the impudent, arrogant, self-seeking quack which some histories represent him, it is quite unlikely that the Mayor would have invited him to preach. Vain, carried away by his sudden popularity, he may have been, but he was eloquent, he was scholarly, and he undoubtedly possessed the power of moving his audience. Other divines on the High Church side had raged against the Revolution but to no purpose; there is talk of a certain Higgins who is said to have made loud outcries against the condition of the Church and the general wickedness. Yet no one heeded Higgins. But Sacheverell they did heed. His sermons, both that of Derby and that of St. Paul’s, were published. The Tories ran after them eagerly, cried them up, ordered everybody to buy them, with the result that 40,000 copies were sold throughout the kingdom. The number, to us They were considered by the Council. All were of the opinion that the preacher ought to be prosecuted; there were differences as to the method and as to the court by which he should be tried. It was finally resolved that he should be impeached before the two Houses of Parliament. There were delays before the impeachment could be carried out. Meantime the High Church party and the clergy in general were actively engaged in proclaiming that the Church was in danger, and in inflaming the minds of the people against the Dissenters. And then occurred one of those strange tumults in which the lowest classes in London have risen up, from time to time, in favour of religion and morality, as if they understood in the least what these words mean. The ’prentices waging war against disorderly houses, the craftsmen destroying the Savoy in defence of their Bishop, the mob tearing down Mass-houses, the mob throwing up their hats for Sacheverell, the mob following Lord George Gordon—all these are risings of the same kind. Other reasons are assigned in each case; the one and only reason, apart from the general love of a fight, which lies always in the heart of the Londoner, was a blind desire for truth and justice. Who were the Dissenters? They were Puritans; they were the people, who, when they had the power, forbade the old sports, and persecuted those who would still play them; they were the masters who commanded the way of their people in matters of religion as in matters of politics; they had turned merry London into morose London. It is generally believed that the common people did not go to church, and therefore had no love for the church. This is most untrue. The City was still full of the craftsmen; all those who lived in the City went to church. How many of those who lived outside the walls, what proportion of those who were settled beyond the walls, went to church one has no means of ascertaining. But within the walls all the people went to church. So that when we hear that ’prentices, butchers, chimney-sweepers, scavengers, fellowship porters, and the like made up the mob which bawled in the streets the cry of “The Church in danger,” we need only remark that respectable people never join a mob and never bawl in the streets for any cause whatsoever. In a word, there is every reason to believe the mob to have been filled with an honest conviction that this cause was that of religion, pure and undefiled. On the 27th day of February, Dr. Sacheverell was brought to the bar before the Lords and Commons in Westminster Hall. Immense importance was attached to the case; the Queen was present, but privately. Seats were arranged for the HENRY SACHEVERELL, D.D. (1674?–1724) The sentence passed upon the Doctor was considered as an acquittal. Bonfires illuminated the City in the evening; drink flowed; every one was made to drink the health of the Doctor. The subsequent career of Sacheverell was tame. He made a kind of triumphal progress through the country, though some of the towns refused to admit him. Oxford received him as if he was a martyr, or a confessor at least. When the Sacheverell tumults were finished and over, the Lord Mayor issued an order for the suppression of such assemblies of rude and disorderly persons by the constables. We have already noted the appearance of these documents and proclamations and their futile character, because without sufficient force of police in reserve such general orders are powerless. The Statute for the erection of fifty new churches in the suburbs of London indicates the growth of the City outside the walls. Fifty churches would provide accommodation for fifty thousand people; or, allowing for the infants, the aged, the infirm, and those who attended service only once a day, probably a hundred thousand. At the present day the parishes of Greater London frequently include eight thousand to twenty thousand souls. The last years of Queen Anne were distracted, as readers of history know, by secret conferences, correspondence, and conspiracies to secure the succession of the elder Pretender, James Francis. The reports and whispers of these things kept London in a state of continual alarm and ferment; rumours were constantly spreading around; it was said that a large number of disaffected persons calling themselves Mohocks and Hawkabites came out at night and scoured the streets, assaulting and wounding harmless persons; it was also said that they flattened the noses of those they seized, or slit them; that they cut off their ears; that they stretched their mouths or gagged them; that they cruelly pricked and stabbed them; that they set women on their heads, with other terrible things. The citizens were afraid to go into the streets at night for fear of being “mohocked.” A proclamation was issued offering a reward of one hundred pounds for the conviction of every such offender. But no one was apprehended, nor could any one be found who had suffered from the cruelties of the so-called Mohocks and Hawkabites. In fact it was a scare, baseless except for the occasional acts of violence which took place in the streets. Another scare was started about the same time. It was bruited abroad that the suburbs and fields around London were haunted by a wretch called Whipping Tom, whose practice it was to seize on all the women he met with and flog them. No one asked how this could be done if the woman resisted or ran away, because one would want both hands for the purpose, and the fields—meaning Moor Fields—and suburbs were not so lonely that a woman’s cries could not be heard. However, the women of London were put into a state of great terror in consequence of this report, and for a long time none would venture abroad without an escort. At this time there were complaints that many shopkeepers employed assistants who were not Freemen of the City. The Mayor and Common Council passed a strict order that this practice was to cease, and that the persons employed in the City in any capacity should be Freemen of the City. Queen Anne died on August 1, 1714. |
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