Not long had the Norman dynasty ruled over England. Scarcely more than a third of a century had elapsed since the Norman Duke unfurled his standard at Hastings, and in that interval the first William and the second William had passed away, and Henry le Beauclerk, by an act of usurpation had leapt into the vacant throne, which belonged by right to his elder brother Robert. The Saxon people, reft of their lands, deprived of their liberties, and subject to oppressive laws, had become the vassals and serfs of their Norman feudal lords, and chafed with sullen submission under the yoke. Great, therefore, was their delight when their new king announced his intention of marrying a daughter of their old line of kings—a descendant of the great Alfred, and they cherished hopes that by this infusion of Saxon blood into the veins of their future kings, the Saxon race would be elevated in position, and that, being vastly more numerous, they would eventually, by marriages, absorb the Norman few and England again become Saxon.

Matilda, Henry's Queen (born 1079, married 1100, died 1118), was the daughter of Malcolm Canmore, King of Scotland, by Margaret, daughter of Eadward, the Ætheling, who was the son of Eadmund Ironside, the lineal descendant of King Alfred. She was originally called Editha, which name was changed, at the request of her godfather, Prince Robert, brother of her future husband, who wished her to be named after his mother. "Matildem quoe prius dicta Edithe," say Ordericus Vitalis. In the year 1093, her father was slain before Alnwick Castle, and her mother died of grief shortly after. Donald Bane usurped the throne of his nephew, and Eadgar, the Ætheling, removed his nephews and nieces to England, not deeming them safe in Scotland. Matilda was educated in the Nunneries of Romsey and Wilton, under her aunt, Christina, the Abbess. She had two or three eligible offers of marriage, and it was with some reluctance, and not until a council had determined that she was under no religious vows, that she accepted the hand of the king.

She became very popular by influencing the king in the reformation of abuses, the granting of charters of privileges, and making good laws. Robert of Gloucester says—

Amongst other good deeds besides founding the Priory, she established a hospital at St. Giles-in-the-Fields, built a bridge over the river Lea, afterwards called the bridge of Stratford-le-Bow, which was so named because it was the first "bowed" or arched bridge built in England, and was generally called Maud's Bridge; made new roads, repaired old ones, and was a benefactor to the Abbey of St. Alban's, in whose "Golden Book," now in the British Museum, is her miniature, with an inscription, "Queen Matilde's gave us Ballwick and Lilleburn."

William of Malmesbury thus sums up her character:—"She was singularly holy ... a rival of her mother's piety; never committing any impropriety. Clad in hair cloth, beneath her royal habit, in Lent, she trod the thresholds of the churches, barefoot. Nor was she disgusted at washing the feet of the diseased." She had issue a son, William, drowned with his bride and a host of nobles in the "Blanche Nef," when coming from Normandy, and a daughter, afterwards the Empress Matilda, mother of King Henry Second.

The most splendid act of munificence on the part of the Queen was the foundation of the magnificent Priory of the Holy Trinity, in the year 1108, which became in process of time the greatest and richest priory in the City.

At this period, when the City was a forest of spires and towers, there stood, on the north-east of Leadenhall Street, just within Aldgate, four parish churches, those of St. Catherine, St. Michael, St. Mary Magdalene, and the Blessed Trinity. The church of St. Michael is supposed to have been one of the most ancient Christian temples in England; at this time the earth had risen twenty feet above its level, and it was only necessary to take down the tower to make way for the priory. The body or crypt of this venerable relic of antiquity was discovered a few years ago, and unhappily destroyed. The church erected to the honour of Christ and St. Mary Magdalene was founded by Siredus, charged with an annual payment of 30s. to the Dean and Chapter of Waltham, which the Queen compounded for by giving them possession of a mill. These four churches and parishes were cleared away for the site of the priory, which was built on the ground occupied by that of St. Michael. It was 300 feet in length facing Leadenhall Street, and was bounded on the east by what is now the street of Houndsditch.

Just outside the gate was the church of St. Botolph the Briton, a rectory of very ancient date, belonging to and standing on the land of the Knighten Guild, which was given by the knights to the prior and brethren, who rebuilt it and placed their arms over the door. It was repaired 1661, escaped the fire, became ruinous, and was rebuilt 1741-4.

After the clearance of the land, the buildings rapidly rose, and, when completed, were filled with Canons Regular of the order of St. Augustine, with Norman as the Prior, and is said to have been the first House of Canons Regular established in England.

For endowment, the Queen granted to the fraternity lands within the walls, which, when they obtained the Soke outside the walls, was called "the Inner Soken," the boundaries of which are described in a book called Dunthorne, written by one of the brethren, as extending from Aldgate to the Bailey of the Tower, to St. Olave's Church, Coleman Church, and Fen Church, by the house of Theobald Fitzloo, "the lane leading wherto is now stopped, because it had been suspected of thieves," then by the Church of St. Michael to Lime Street, and by the Church of St. Andrew as far as the Chapel of St. Augustine-upon-the-Wall. She gave them also Aldgate and £25 per annum from the city of Exeter.

Thus runs the deed of gift: "Maud, by the grace of God, Queen of England, to R. Bishop of London, and all the faithful of the Holy Church, greeting. Be it known to you that I, by the advice of Archbishop Anselm, and with the assent and confirmation of my Lord King Henry, have given and confirmed to the Church of Christ, seated near the walls of London, free and discharged from all subjection, as well to the Church of Waltham, and all other churches, except the church of St Paul, London, and the bishops, with all things appertaining to the same, for the honour of God, to the Canons regularly serving God in the same with Norman the Prior, for ever, for the redemption of souls, and of those of our parents. I have in like manner given them the gate of Aldgate, with the Soc belonging to the same, which was my lordship, and two-third parts of the revenue of the city of Exeter. And it is my will and I command that the said Canons hold the lands and all things belonging to the Church, well and peaceably and honourably and freely, with all the liberties and customs which my Lord, King Henry, by his charter confirmed to them, so that neither wrong nor injury be done to them. Witness: William, Bishop of Winchester; Roger, Bishop of Salisbury; Robert, Bishop of Lincoln."

Henry confirmed this deed, with further privileges of sac and soc, thol and theam, ingfang theft and outfang theft, and all other their customs, as were within as without.

The Inner Soke is identical with the present ward of Aldgate, but there is no record to show that the priory was represented in the Court of Aldermen for this ward, as they were afterwards for their Outer Soken.

Soon afterwards, in the year 1115, the Priory had a considerable accession of landed property, by a grant of what now constitutes the ward of Portsoken.

In the reign of King Eadgar, thirteen knights who had done service to the realm, asked the king to bestow upon them a tract of land lying desolate outside Aldgate, comprising what is now covered by the Minories, Houndsditch, Petticoat Lane, etc., and Whitechapel to the Bars. Eadgar consented on two conditions, that they should each be victors in three combats, one under ground, one upon ground, and one above ground, and that on a certain day they should tilt with lances against all comers in East Smithfield. All this was accomplished by the knights with great glory, and the king made them a grant of the land, constituting them a guild under the name of the "Knighten Guild," the land being named "Portsoken," signifying the "Franchise at the Gate."

Eadgar's charter of incorporation was confirmed by Eadward the Confessor, William I., William II., and Henry I..

After the establishment of the priory, the knights of the guild, for the glory of God and the Blessed Trinity, and out of a chivalrous admiration of their pious Queen, gave to the prior and canons the whole of their land, franchise, and liberties, and the church of St. Botolph the Briton, and took upon themselves the habit of the order, becoming members of the fraternity.

In attestation of their grant they placed their charters upon the altar of the priory church, and gave Norman, the prior seisin of the land in the church of St. Botolph, which stood upon the land; Barnard, Prior of Dunstable; John, Prior of Derland; Geoffrey Clinton, Chamberlain of London, and other clerks and laymen being witnesses thereof. King Henry gave a confirmatory charter, as did, afterwards, Gilbert, William, and Roger, Bishops of London, St. Alphage, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Popes Alexander and Innocent, the latter adding that the Church of St. Botolph should be served by one of the canons of the priory, removable at the discretion of the prior.

In consequence of this acquisition, the prior was admitted as a Ward Alderman of the City of London, the land, although lying beyond the boundaries, being within the liberties of the City. He met in the Council Chamber, took part in the deliberations, feasted in the hall, and rode forth in pageants, clad in scarlet as other aldermen, but had his robes cut in clerical fashion.

Allen, in his History of London, intimates that he sat in the Guildhall, in a clerical capacity, to look after the interests of the church, which was not correct, his position there being the representative of the temporalities of the Ward.

Prior Norman appears to have been entrusted with the superintendence of the building of the priory, and, like others not trained in commercial pursuits, to have been somewhat unthrifty in the expenditure of money, for we find that when he had built up his refectory, kitchen, and larder, his funds were exhausted, and he had not the wherewithal to supply the necessary food for his hungry canons; but the matrons and maidens of the city passing by, and seeing the tables laid out without the necessary appliances, brought them loaves of bread every Sunday for the week's consumption, until the rents began to come in and they were able to provide for themselves.

After the destruction of the four churches it became necessary to celebrate mass in two parts of the new church at the same time, which caused a great deal of confusion and discord, until at length a separate church was built for the St. Catherine's parishioners in the priory churchyard, where mass was performed by one of the canons; but the people were required to attend the conventual church at festivals and fasts, and to have their children baptised there. This gave rise to some ill-feeling and disputes, the people wishing to have all the services and sacraments of religion celebrated in their own church; and in 1414, when William Haradon was prior, the matter was referred to the Bishop of London for arbitration, and he decreed that St. Catherine's should have a baptismal font, and be allowed to ring their bells on Easter day; that they should celebrate the feast of the dedication of their own church within its walls, but should attend at the festival of the dedication of the conventual church, and then and there "give their pence, halfpence, and farthings in token of submission;" and that the Sacrament in St. Catherine's Church should be administered by a canon of the Priory, "but that the Priory should be at no other charges for the chapel." All this the bishop, "out of his paternal affections, yielded unto."

The church was denominated St. Catherine Cree, the word Cree being an ancient method of spelling the name of Christ, as pronounced by the French, and was added as being an adjunct of the conventual or Christ Church. A bell tower was built 1504, Lord Mayor Sir John Perceval having left money for that purpose. The present church was built 1630, and escaped the fire of 1666. It was at its dedication that Laud indulged in Popish ceremonials, which aroused the indignation of the Puritans, and assisted in paving the way of the Archbishop to the block. The churchyard of St. Catherine was a popular place for the performance of moralities and miracle plays, which took place on Sundays. There is an entry in the parish books—"Received of Hugh Grymes, for licence given to certain players to play their interludes in the churchyard from the feast of Easter An. D'ni. 1565, until the feast of St. Michael the Archangel, next coming, every holyday, to the use of the parish, 27s. 8d." Hans Holbein is supposed to have been buried in the church.

The Priory had not been built twenty ears when it ran a great risk of being destroyed by the fire of 1136, second only to the great conflagration of 1666, which broke out near London stone, and destroyed the City westward to Clement's Danes, and eastward to Aldgate, the flames sweeping up to the walls of the Priory, northward to St. Paul's Cathedral, which was partially, or, as Matthew Paris states, entirely, consumed, and by London Bridge, which was of wood, and entirely burnt, into Southwark.

Ralph the Prior, circa 1145, with the consent of the Canons, exchanged a plot of land near the river, in the outer-soken, and "all the mills there in the shambles," with Maud, Stephen's queen, for land in Hertfordshire, where she built and endowed the Hospital of St. Katherine, which was repaired and enlarged by Queen Eleanor in 1273. It was removed to Regent's Park in the present century to make way for St. Katherine's Docks.

King Henry II. having debased the coin of the realm, Stephen, the Prior, 1180, demanded £25 12s. 6d. from the city of Exeter, as the then value of the £25 per annum granted out of the city revenues. The citizens refused to pay the additional 12s. 6d., but were compelled by a mandate from the King.

In the year 1215, when King John was at feud with his Barons, Matthew Paris informs us that, after the siege of Northampton, the Barons came, by way of Bedford and Ware, to London, entering the City by Aldgate, and that "as they passed along, they spoiled the Fryars' Houses and searched their coffers," on which occasion, doubtless, the Brethren of Holy Trinity, lying so near the gate, would have black-mail levied on them. At the same time they repaired the ruined gate and put it in a state of defence, obtaining the materials from the houses of the Jews.

Eustacius, the eighth Prior, 1264, appointed Theobald Fitz-James as his deputy in the Aldermanship, he deeming it inconsistent with his spiritual vocation to perform secular duties.

William Rising became Prior in 1377, when there is a record of his taking the oaths as Alderman.

The year 1348-9 (23rd Edward III.) was long after remembered for a great pestilence, which broke out in Northern Asia, spread over Europe, and this year committed terrible ravages in London. The city graveyards became choked with corpses, and suburban cemeteries were extemporised for the wholesale reception of the dead. Nicholas, then Prior, sold to John Grey, clerk of the Corporation, a plot of ground in the outer-soken, near East Smithfield to be used as a place of burial, with the condition annexed that it should be called the Churchyard of the Holy Trinity, "which ground he (John Grey) caused, by the aid of divers devout citizens, to be enclosed with a wall of stone." It was consecrated by Ralph, Bishop of London, and a chapel built "for the honour of God," and near by King Edward built a small monastery "of our Lady of Grace," in gratitude for preservation from shipwreck in a tempest at sea.

One Sunday morning, the 11th of May, 1471, when the brethren were at Mass, they were alarmed by an attack on Aldgate. For some days arrows had been shot into the City over the wall, and the houses of the outside suburb had been burnt. The besiegers were Sir Thomas Nevil, usually called the Bastard of Fauconbridge, and his followers. He was a kinsman of the Great Earl of Warwick, who, after his defection from the cause of Edward IV., had made him Admiral of the Lancastrian fleet. Warwick had fallen a month ago at Barnet, and the Yorkist King Edward in consequence became firmly established on the throne, when Sir Thomas conceived the mad project of landing with his sailors, marching to London, and re-establishing the Lancastrian family. The Londoners shut their gates against him, but he broke down Aldgate on this Sunday morning, and several of the insurgents rushed through when the portcullis was let down, and those within were slain by the citizens, headed by Basset, Alderman of the ward. The Lieutenant of the Tower then came up with a body of troops, the portcullis was raised, and the Bastard and his followers driven into Essex, "with sharp shot and fierce fight," being pursued as far as Mile End.

The priory waxed rich, grew famous, and nourished during a period of 433 years, no doubt becoming luxurious, idle, and corrupt, like other fraternities; until at length, in 1531, the end came. King Henry VIII., wishing to reward Sir Thomas Audley, afterwards Lord Chancellor and first Baron Audley of Walden, for his service as Speaker, in the impeachment of Wolsey, cast his eye upon this Priory, sent for Nicholas Hancock, the last Prior, whom he cajoled with complimentary praises, commending his hospitality, and telling him that a man of his merit and ability deserved higher preferment, and that if he would surrender the Priory into his (the King's) hands, he should have something better. After some hesitation the Prior gave up the house, the Canons were sent to other houses of the same order, and the Priory, with all its appurtenances, bestowed on Audley.

Sir Thomas Audley determined to build himself a mansion on the site, and offered the church to any one who would take it down, but it was so strongly built that no one would undertake the cost. He then pulled it down himself, and allowed any one to have the materials who would carry them away, giving the four large bells to Stepney Church, and the five smaller to St. Stephen, Coleman Street. He then added new buildings, where he dwelt until his death, 1544, when the property passed, by the marriage of his daughter, to Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, who was beheaded 1572, and it was then called Duke's Place. It descended to their son, Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk, who sold it to the Corporation, was eventually taken down, and streets built on the site. The only vestige remaining is a stone arch between 73, Leadenhall Street and 39, Mitre Court.

The Priory possessed a messuage, dovecote, and garden of seven acres, on the east side of Houndsditch, which were given to Sir T. Audley, and which he bestowed on Magdalen College, Cambridge. In the street leading thereto, one of the priors had built some cottages for bedridden people, which Stow remembered as having seen in his boyhood, the bedridden people, men and women, lying by the windows, that devout persons might see them as they passed and bestow alms upon them: which street, afterwards, according to Munday, was inhabited by "these men, or rather monsters in the shape of men, who profess to live by lending, and yet will lend nothing but upon pawns."

Stow, who lived in the parish of St. Andrew Undershaft, and was buried in the parish church, speaks from personal recollection of the Prior "keeping a bountiful house for rich and poor, as well within the houses as to all comers at the gate," and, when a boy, of going to farmer Goodman, in the outer-soken, where Goodman's Fields now are, for milk at the rate of "three pints, hot from the kine, for a halfpenny."

The inhabitants of Duke's Place being left without a church, after the demolition of the Priory Church, attended that of St. Catherine Cree until the reign of James I., when Trinity Christ Church was built for them out of the ruins of the Priory, and was consecrated in 1622. It escaped the Great Fire, and has since been called the Church of St. James, Duke's Place. In Strype's time it claimed the right of solemnizing marriages without licence or proclamation of banns.