[pg 383]CHAPTER XIV.The House of Commons and the Clergy, 1529.Although Wolsey was no more, his works followed him. He it was, and not Henry, who first conceived the idea of church reform, towards which some steps had been taken in Wolsey's lifetime. It was left for Henry to carry out the design of his great minister. When the king laid his hand on the monasteries, he only followed the example set by the cardinal in 1525, when some of the smaller religious houses in Kent, Sussex and Essex were suppressed for his great foundation of Oxford. To assist him in carrying out his design he turned to parliament. Relieved as they now were of the oppression of the great nobles, the Commons were ready to use their newly-acquired independence against the clergy, who exacted extravagant fees and misused the powers of the ecclesiastical courts. Acts were passed regulating the payment of mortuary fees and the fees for probate, whilst another Act restricted the holding of pluralities and the taking of ferms by church-men.1152The clergy threatened to appeal to Rome, but were warned that such action would be met with pains and penalties as opposed to the royal prerogative.1153Disputes touching tithes payable to city clergy, 1527-1534.In the city the question of tithes payable to the clergy had been always more or less a vexed question. Before the commencement of the thirteenth century the city clergy had been supported by casual dues in[pg 384]addition to their glebe land. These casual payments were originally personal, but subsequently became regulated by the amount of rent paid by parishioners for their houses. A question arose as to whether the citizens were also liable to pay personal tithes on their gains, and it was eventually decided that they were so liable.1154On the 31st August, 1527, a committee, which had been specially appointed to enquire into matters concerning the city's welfare, reported, among other things, upon the tithe question as it then stood in the city.1155The "curates," they said, had purchased a Bull of Pope Nicholas, on the 6th August, 1453, and this Bull had been confirmed by Act of Common Council on the 3rd March, 1475. Not only was the amount of the tithe payable fixed by the Bull, but the Bull itself was to be publicly read by the curates four times a year, so that no doubt should exist in the minds of the parishioners. This the curates had failed to do, and had caused their parishioners heavy legal expenses in disputing demands for tithes. One man was known to have spent as much as £100 in his own defence. The committee suggested that the whole question should be referred to the Bishop of London, and that a translation of the Bull should be exhibited in every church. The citizens were the more aggrieved because many parsonages and vicarages were let to ferm.1156The curates' book of articles.The curates made their defence in a book of eighteen articles touching tithes and other oblations,[pg 385]the chief point being that every householder, time out of mind, had been bound to pay to God and the Church one farthing out of every 10s.of rent, a half-penny out of 20s.and so forth, on 100 days of the year; amounting in all to 2s.1d.for every 10s.rentper annum. This manner of payment proving tedious, the curates and their parishioners came to an agreement that 1s.2d.should be paid on every 6s.8d.or noble, and this sum the curates had been receiving time out of mind, none reclaiming or denying. But, inasmuch as this payment by occupiers of houses was only ordained for a "dowry" to the parish churches of London which had no glebe lands, the curates demanded that all merchants and artificers, with other occupiers of the city, should pay personal tithes of their "lucre or encrece" according to the common law, and as "well conscyoned" men had been in the habit of paying in times past.1157The book of articles was laid before the Court of Common Council on the 16th February, 1528, by Robert Carter and six other priests, on behalf of their entire body. On the following 16th March the Court of Aldermen for themselves agreed to pay tithe at the forthcoming Easter according to the Bull of Pope Nicholas, and not after the rate of 1s.2d.on the noble,1158whilst four days later the Common Council decided that, for the sake of convenience, bills should be posted in every parish church within the city showing the number of offering days (viz., eighty-two) and the amount to be offered by inhabitants of the city.1159[pg 386]So matters continued until, early in 1534, it was agreed to submit the whole question to the lord chancellor and other members of the council, who made their award a few days before Easter.1160It decreed that at the forthcoming festival every subject should pay to the parson or curate of his parish after the rate of 2s.9d.in the pound, and 16 pence half-penny in the half-pound, and that every man's wife, servant, child and apprentice receiving the Holy Sacrament should pay two pence. These payments were to continue to be paid "without grudge or murmur" until such time as the council should arrive at a final settlement.1161Elsing Spital and Holy Trinity Priory surrendered to the king, 1530-1531.In the meanwhile the city had been made to feel the heavy hand of the king and of his new minister, Thomas Cromwell. In May, 1530, Elsing Spital, a house established by William Elsing, a charitable mercer, for the relief of the blind, but which had subsequently grown into a priory of Augustinian canons of wealth and position, was confiscated by the Crown. What became of the blind inmates is not known. In the following year (1531) the Priory of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, shared the same fate. The priory had existed since the time of Henry I and the "good queen" Matilda,1162and its prior enjoyed the singular distinction of beingex[pg 387]officioan alderman of the city. The canons were now removed to another place and the building and site bestowed by Henry upon his chancellor, Sir Thomas Audley.1163The Great Beam reconveyed to the City after the lapse of ten years, 1531.Between 1531 and 1534 the City enjoyed some respite from attack. It even recovered some of its lost privileges. In 1521 Henry had deprived the City of its right to the Great Beam, and of the issues and profits derived from it, and had caused a conveyance of it to be made to Sir William Sidney. In 1531 the beam was re-conveyed to the City.1164The Grocers' Company were scarcely less interested in the beam than the City, for to them was deputed the choice of weighers, who were afterwards admitted and sworn before the Court of Aldermen. Both the City and the company used their best endeavours to recover their lost rights, the former going so far as to sanction the distribution of the sum of £23 6s.8d.between the king's sergeant, the king's attorney, and one "Lumnore,"1165a servant of "my lady Anne,"1166with the view of gaining their object the easier.1167A compromise was subsequently effected by which Sir William Sidney continued to hold the beam at an annual rent payable to the City,1168until, in 1531, he[pg 388]consented to a surrender, and it became again vested in the Corporation.Feeling in the city at Henry's marriage with Anne Boleyn, 1533.Finding it hopeless to obtain the Pope's sanction to his divorce from Catherine, Henry at last lost all patience, and on the 25th January, 1533, was privately married to Anne Boleyn. The match was unpopular with the citizens, who took occasion of a sermon preached on Easter-day to show their dissatisfaction. According to Chapuys, the Spanish ambassador, who sent an account of the affair to the emperor, the greater part of the congregation got up and left the church when prayers were desired for the queen. When Henry heard of the insult thus offered to his new bride he was furious, and forthwith sent word to the mayor to see that no such manifestation should occur again. Thereupon, continues Chapuys, the mayor summoned the guilds to assemble in their various halls and commanded them to cease murmuring against the king's marriage on pain of incurring the royal displeasure, and to order their own journeymen and servants, "and, a still more difficult task, their own wives," to refrain from speaking disparagingly about the queen.1169The queen's passage from the Tower to Westminster, 31 May, 1533.It was perhaps on this account that the civic authorities excelled themselves in giving the queen a suitable reception as she passed from the Tower to Westminster on the 31st May. The Court of Aldermen directed (14 May) the wardens of the Haberdashers to prepare their barge as well as the "bachelers" barge for the occasion. Three pageants were to be set up, one in Leadenhall and the others at the[pg 389]Standard and the little Conduit in Cheapside. The Standard was to run with wine. A deputation was appointed to wait upon the king's council to learn its wishes, and enquiry was to be made of the Duke of Norfolk whether the clergy should take part in the day's proceedings, and whether the merchants of the Steelyard or other strangers should be allowed to erect pageants.1170The City's gift of 1,000 marks.The Court of Common Council had on the previous day (13 May) voted a gift of 1,000 marks to be presented to the queen at her coronation, and a further sum to be expended in the city "for the honor of the same."1171Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn were the only queens of king Henry VIII who were crowned, and on both occasions the citizens of London performed the customary services.1172The Act of Succession, 1534.In September (1533) Anne gave birth to a daughter, who afterwards ascended the throne as Queen Elizabeth. In the following spring (1534) parliament passed an Act of Succession, which not only declared Elizabeth (and not Mary, the king's daughter by Catherine of Aragon) heir to the crown, but required all subjects to take an oath acknowledging the succession. Commissioners were appointed to tender the oath to the citizens,1173and by the 20th April the "most part of the city was sworn to the[pg 390]"king and his legitimate issue by the queen's grace now had and hereafter to come."1174A fortnight later deeds under the common seals of the livery companies "concernyng the suretye state and succession" of the king were delivered to Henry in person at Greenwich by a deputation of aldermen.1175Proceedings against those objecting to subscribe to the Act of Succession.The oath, nevertheless, met with much opposition, more especially among the clergy and the religious orders. Elizabeth Barton, known as the "holy maid of Kent," and some of her followers, among them being Henry Gold, rector of the church of St. Mary Aldermary, were executed at Tyburn for daring to speak against the king's marriage.1176The friars proved extremely obstinate, and Henry sent commissioners to seek out and suppress all those friaries that refused to submit.The monks of the Charterhouse, 1534-1535.The inmates of the London Charterhouse, who might well have been left to enjoy their quiet seclusion from the world, were startled by a visit from the king's commissioners calling upon them to take the oath. The manner of their reception by John Houghton, the prior, and his brethren and subsequent proceedings are graphically described by Maurice Chauncy,1177one[pg 391]of the inmates, who was more compliant than his brethren to the king's wishes, and thereby saved his life. The prior and Humphrey Middlemore, the procurator of the convent, were committed to the Tower for counselling opposition to the commissioners. There they were visited by the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of London, who persuaded them at last that the question of the succession was not a cause in which to sacrifice their lives for conscience sake. The result was that after a while Houghton and his companion declared their willingness to submit. On the 29th May the commissioners received oaths of fealty from Prior Houghton and five other monks, and on the 6th June Bishop Lee and Sir Thomas Kitson, one of the sheriffs, received similar oaths from a number of priests, professed monks and lay brethren orconversibelonging to the house.1178The oaths of obedience to the Act were given under reservation "so far as the law of God permitted," and for a time the monks were left in comparative quiet, some few of them, of whom Cromwell entertained the most hope of submission, being sent, by his direction, to the convent of Sion.1179[pg 392]The Act of Supremacy, 1534.Execution of Houghton and others, 1535.The exhortations of the "father confessor" were not without some measure of success, several of the Carthusians being induced to alter their opinions as to the king's demands. The seal of doom, however, was fixed on the order by the passing of the Act which called upon its members to renounce the Pope and acknowledge the royal supremacy.1180Fisher and More denied the king's title of Supreme Head of the Church, and were committed to the Tower. At this crisis there came to London two priors of Carthusian houses established, one in Nottinghamshire and the other in Lincolnshire. They came to talk over the state of affairs with Houghton. An interview with Cromwell, recently appointed vicar-general or king's vicegerent in matters ecclesiastical, was resolved on. The king might possibly be prevailed upon to make some abatement in his demands. Cromwell, however, no sooner discovered the object of their visit than he committed them to the Tower as rebels and would-be traitors. As they still refused to acknowledge the king's supremacy in the Church, in spite of all efforts of persuasion, they were brought to trial, together with Father Reynolds of Sion, on a charge of treason. A verdict of guilty was, after some hesitation on the part of the jury, found against them, and they were executed at Tyburn (4 May, 1535), glorying in the cause for which they were held worthy to suffer death. Houghton's arm was suspended over the gateway of the London Charterhouse, in the fond hope that the rest of the brethren might be awed into submission. This atrocious act of barbarism had,[pg 393]however, precisely the opposite effect to that desired. The monks were more resolute than ever not to submit, and not even a personal visit of Henry himself could turn them from their purpose.1181Three of them were thereupon committed to prison, where they were compelled to stand in an upright position for thirteen days, chained from their necks to their arms and with their legs fettered.1182They were afterwards brought to trial on a charge of treason, convicted and executed (19 June).The fate of the remaining monks is soon told. In May, 1537, the royal commissioners once more attended at the Charterhouse, when they found the majority of its inmates prepared to take the oath prescribed. Ten of them, however, still refused, and were committed to Newgate and there left to be "dispatched by the hand of God," in other words to meet a painful and lingering death from fever and starvation. The following month the remnant of the community made their submission, and the London Charterhouse, as a monastic institution, ceased to exist.Execution of Fisher and More, 1535.Fisher and More were now brought from the Tower, where they had lain six months and more, and convicted on a similar charge of treason. Their sentence was commuted to death by beheading. Fisher was the first to suffer (19 June, 1535). His head was set up on London Bridge and his body buried in the churchyard of All Hallows, Barking. More suffered a few weeks later (6 July). His head, too, was placed on London Bridge, but his body was buried in the[pg 394]Tower, whither the remains of Fisher were afterwards carried. On the 15th December the Court of Aldermen publicly condemned a sermon preached by Fisher "in derogation and diminution of the royal estate of the king's majesty."1183The Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536.When, in the following year (1536), the smaller monasteries—those of less than £200 a year—were dissolved by Act of Parliament, and the inhabitants of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, taking fright lest the king and Cromwell should proceed to despoil the parish churches, set out on the Pilgrimage of Grace, Henry sought the City's aid. On the 10th October a letter from the king was read before the Court of Aldermen, desiring them to dispatch forthwith to his manor of Ampthill, where the nobles were about to wait upon his majesty, a contingent of at least 250 armed men, 200 of which were to be well horsed, and 100 to be archers.1184The mayor, Sir John Allen,1185lost no time in issuing his precept to the livery companies for each of them to furnish a certain number of bowmen and billmen, well horsed and arrayed in jackets of white bearing the City's arms. They were to muster in Moorfields within twenty-four hours. The Mercers were called upon to furnish the largest quota, viz., twenty men; the Grocers, Drapers, Tailors and Cloth-workers respectively, sixteen men, and the rest of the companies contingents varying from twelve to two.1186The Court of Aldermen at the same time took[pg 395]the precaution of depriving all priests and curates, as well as all friars dwelling within the city, of every offensive weapon, so that they should be left with nothing but their "meate knyves."1187The king sent a letter of thanks for the city's contingent.1188Later on, when Allen had been succeeded in the mayoralty by Sir Ralph Warren,1189it was resolved that each member of the court should provide at his own cost and charges twenty able men fully equipped in case of any emergency that might arise, whilst the companies were again called upon to hold men in readiness.1190Henry's marriage with Jane Seymour, May, 1536.Henry in the meantime had got rid of his second wife on the specious ground of her having misconducted herself with more than one member of the court, the real cause being her miscarriage1191of a male child, to the king's bitter disappointment. Henry had made up his mind to change his wives until he could find one who would give him a male heir and thus place the succession to the crown beyond all possibility of doubt. The very next day following Anne Boleyn's execution he married Jane Seymour. The marriage necessitated the calling together of a new parliament, when a fresh Act was passed settling[pg 396]the succession on Jane's children and declaring both Mary and Elizabeth illegitimate. Nevertheless, as soon as Mary made formal submission to her father, the king's attitude towards her, from being cold and cruel, changed at once to one of courtesy if not of affection. He was thought to entertain the idea of declaring her heir-apparent. Indeed, on Sunday, the 20th August, she was actually proclaimed as such in one of the London churches—no doubt by some mistake.1192Convocation at St. Paul's, 9 June-20 July, 1536.Whilst parliament was sitting at Westminster convocation was gathered at St. Paul's in the city, and continued to sit there until the 20th July, presided over by Cromwell as the king's vicar-general. The meeting was remarkable for its formal decree that Henry, as supreme head of the Church, might and ought to disregard all citations by the Pope, as well as for the promulgation of the ten articles intended to promote uniformity of belief and worship.1193Preparation for the new queen's coronation.She dies in childbed, 24 Oct., 1537.In September, 1536, the Court of Common Council agreed to vote the same sum of money for the coronation of the "right excellent pryncesse lady Jane, quene of Englonde," as had been granted at the coronation of "dame Anne, late queene of Englonde."1194The money, however, was not required, for the new queen was never crowned. Just one week after the birth of a prince (12 Oct., 1537), afterwards King Edward VI, there was a solemn procession of priests from every city church, with the Bishop of London, the choir of St. Paul's, the mayor, aldermen and[pg 397]crafts in their liveries, for the preservation of the infant prince and for the health of the queen, who lay in a precarious state.1195A few days later (24 Oct.) she was dead. The citizens caused her obit to be celebrated in St. Paul's with truly regal pomp.1196Anne of Cleves arrives at Dover, 27 Dec., 1539.Her passage through the city, 4 Feb,. 1540.Two years later the citizens were preparing to set out to Greenwich in their barge (the mayor, aldermen, and those who had served the office of sheriff, in liveries of black velvet with chains of gold on their necks, accompanied by their servants in coats of russet) to welcome Anne of Cleves, who landed at Dover the 27th December, 1539.1197On the 3rd February, 1540, the Court of Aldermen was informed that the king and queen would be leaving Greenwich on the morrow for Westminster, and that it was the king's wish that the commons of London should be in their best apparel, in their barges, to wait upon his highness, meeting at St. Dunstan's in the East at 7 o'clock in the morning and arriving at Greenwich by 8 o'clock.1198Cromwell's work of demolition in the city, 1537-1538.The insurrection which had taken place in the country under the name of the Pilgrimage of Grace was seized by the king as an excuse for suppressing many of the larger monasteries and confiscating their property. He had no such excuse for carrying out his destructive policy in the city. Nevertheless, under the immediate supervision of Cromwell, the work of suppression went on, and before the end of 1538 was[pg 398]well nigh complete. The surrender of the houses of the Black Friars, the Grey Friars and the White Friars followed in quick succession, "and so all the other immediatlie."1199Cromwell by this time had removed from his house near Fenchurch to another near the Austin Friars in Throgmorton Street. He had recently asked for a pipe of water to be laid on to his new house, and this the Common Council had "lovingly" granted.1200In his private concerns he showed as little regard for the rights of others as in the affairs of State. He did not scruple to remove bodily a small house, the property of Stow's father, in order to enlarge his own garden, giving neither warning beforehand nor explanation afterwards, and "no man durst go to argue the matter."1201The hospital of St. Thomas of Acon, which had ministered to the wants of the poorer citizens for nearly 400 years, disappeared,1202and was soon followed by the priory and hospital of St. Bartholomew, an institution of even greater antiquity, the hospital of St. Thomas, in Southwark, the priory and hospital of St. Mary without Bishopsgate, known as St. Mary of Bethlem, or "Bedlam," and the Abbey of Graces or New Abbey (sometimes called the Eastminster to distinguish it from the other minster in the west of London) which had been founded by Edward III, near Tower Hill.[pg 399]The division of the spoil.A portion of the spoil was, as we have already seen, distributed among court favourites. The site of the house and gardens of the Augustinian Friars in Broad Street Ward was occupied, soon after their suppression (12 Nov., 1538), by the mansion-house of that politic courtier the celebrated Marquis of Winchester, who managed to maintain himself in high station in spite of the changes which took place under the several reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth, "by being a willow and not an oak." The building known at the present day as Winchester House, in Broad Street, stands near the site of the old mansion-house and garden of William Paulet, first Marquis of Winchester. The Friars' church he allowed to stand; and in June, 1550, the nave was granted, by virtue of a charter permitting alien non-conforming churches to exist in this country, to the Dutch and Walloon churches.1203The first marquis dying in 1571, he was succeeded by his son, who sold the monuments and lead from the roof of the remaining portion of the church and turned the place into a stable.1204The fourth marquis was reduced to parting with his house, built on the site of the old priory, in order to pay his debts, and appears to have found a purchaser in a wealthy London merchant and alderman of the city, John Swinnerton or Swynarton.1205[pg 400]The mayor's effort to save the destruction of the steeple of the Austin Friars Church.The steeple of the church, which was of so great beauty that the citizens desired its preservation,1206was sold by the marquis to Henry Robinson, who forthwith set to work to pull it down on the ground that it was in such a state of decay as to be a danger to the passer-by. Swinnerton, who happened to be mayor at the time, ordered him to stay the work of demolition; he, however, not only hurried on the more, but obstructed the officers sent to put a stop to the work, for which he was committed to Newgate to stay there until he gave security for restoring what he had already pulled down. The thought suggests itself that the fact of Swinnerton having purchased adjacent property may have made him the more zealous in preventing the demolition of the steeple than perhaps he might otherwise have been. However that may be, he lost no time in informing the lords of the council of the state of affairs and asking their advice (16 Feb., 1612). The reply came three days later, and was to the effect that as the City had had the option of purchasing the steeple at even a less price than Robinson had paid for it, and might have come to some arrangement with the marquis to keep it in repair, it could not prevent Robinson, who purchased it as a speculation, making the best he could of his bargain; so that, unless the City consented to accept Robinson's offer to part with his property on payment of his purchase-money and disbursements within a fortnight, down the steeple must come.1207The priory of St. Helen without Bishopsgate.The priory of St. Helen without Bishopsgate was one of the last to be surrendered. In 1542 the[pg 401]nuns' chapel, which at one time was partitioned off from the rest of the church, was made over to Sir Richard Williams, a nephew of Thomas Cromwell, and ancestor of the Protector. The nuns' refectory or hall passed into the hands of the Leathersellers' Company and formed the company's hall until the close of the last century. The conduct of the inmates of the priory had not always been what it should be.1208The last prioress, in anticipation of the coming storm, leased a large portion of the conventual property to members of her own family, and at the time of the suppression was herself allowed a gratuity of £30 and a pension.Friendly relations between the Corporation and religious houses in the city.The relations existing between the civic authorities and the religious houses in the city were often of a most friendly and cordial character. When, in 1520, the Friars of the Holy Cross wanted assistance for the maintenance and building of their church, they applied to the Corporation as being their "secund founders."1209For assistance thus given the friars bound themselves to pray for their benefactors. When, in 1512, the master of St. Bartholomew's hospital obtained a lease for ninety-nine years from the City of a parcel of land on which his gatehouse or porch stood, it was on condition of payment of a certain rent and of his keeping a yearly obit in his church for the souls of the mayor, aldermen and commons of the city; and when the master of the hospital, two years later, attempted to back out of[pg 402]the terms of his lease and asked to be discharged from keeping the obit on the ground that he thought that the payment of the specified rent was sufficient for the premises, the Court of Aldermen unanimously decided that no part of the agreement should be minished or remitted.1210When the house of the Sisters Minoresses or Poor Clares, situate in Aldgate, suffered from fire, the Corporation rendered them pecuniary aid to the extent of 300 marks.1211It was, however, to the Franciscans or Grey Friars that the citizens of London, individually as well as in their corporate capacity, were more especially attached. Soon after their arrival in England in 1223, they became indebted to the benevolence and generosity of citizens, their first benefactor having been John Ewen, citizen and mercer, who made them a gift of some land and houses in the parish of St. Nicholas by the Shambles. Upon this they erected their original building. Their first chapel, which became the chapel of their church, was built at the cost of William Joyner, who was mayor in 1239; the nave was added by Henry Waleys, who was frequently mayor during the reign of Edward I; the chapterhouse by Walter le Poter, elected sheriff in 1272; the dormitory by Gregory de Rokesley, who was mayor from 1274 to 1281, and again in 1284-5, and whose bones eventually found a resting place in their church; the refectory by another citizen, Bartholomew de Castro; and lastly—coming to later times—a library was added to their house by the bounty of Richard Whitington, as already narrated. It became the custom for the mayor and aldermen, as patron and[pg 403]founders, to pay a yearly visit to their house and church on St. Francis's day (4 Oct.). The custom dates from 1508. In 1522 the visit was for the first time followed by a dinner.1212Royal injunction for keeping Parish Registers, 29 Sept., 1538.In one respect at least, if in no other, Cromwell's action in suppressing religious houses resulted in a benefit to the city of London as well as to the country at large, and this was in the institution of parish registers, not only for baptisms, but also for marriages. It had been his intention to establish them in 1536 to remedy the inconvenience to the public arising from the suppression of the smaller monasteries, and it is evident that some instructions were given at this time, inasmuch as the registers of two city parishes—viz., St. James Garlickhithe and St. Mary Bothaw—commence in November of this year,1213although the royal injunction commanding that registers should systematically be kept up, under penalty of fines, was not published by Cromwell, as vicar-general, until the 29th September, 1538. The delay is to be accounted for by the great discontent which the rumour of his project excited in the country. It was reported that some new tax on the services of the Church was contemplated, and the first in the list of popular grievances circulated by the rebels in the Pilgrimage of Grace was the payment of tribute to the king for the sacrament of baptism. In course of time, as matters became quieter and the government began to feel its own strength, Cromwell resumed a project never altogether abandoned, and caused the injunction to be[pg 404]issued, an action for which posterity must ever be deeply grateful.Great increase of London poor, consequent on the suppression of religious houses.On the other hand, the sudden closing of these institutions caused the streets to be thronged with the sick and poor, and the small parish churches to be so crowded with those who had been accustomed to frequent the larger and more commodious churches of the friars that there was scarce room left for the parishioners themselves. The city authorities saw at once that something would have to be done if they wished to keep their streets clear of beggars and of invalids, and not invite the spread of sickness by allowing infected persons to wander at large. As a means of affording temporary relief, collections for the poor were made every Sunday at Paul's Cross, after the sermon, and the proceeds were distributed weekly among the most necessitous,1214but more comprehensive steps were required to be taken.Sir Richard Gresham's letter to the king for conveyance to the City of certain hospitals.Sir Richard Gresham,1215who was mayor at the time (1537-8), took upon himself to address a letter1216to the king setting forth that there were three hospitals in the city, viz., St. Mary's Spital, St. Bartholomew's and St. Thomas's, besides the New Abbey on Tower Hill—institutions primarily founded "onely for the releffe, comforte and helpyng of pore and impotent[pg 405]people not beyng able to helpe theymselffes; and not to the mayntenannce of Chanons, Preests, and Monks to lyve in pleasure, nothyng regardyng the miserable people liyng in every strete, offendyng every clene person passyng by the way with theyre fylthy and nasty savours"—and asking that the mayor and aldermen of the city for the time being might have the order and disposition of the hospitals mentioned, and of all the lands, tenements and revenues appertaining to the same. If his grace would but grant this request the mayor promised that a great number of the indigent sick would be relieved, whilst "sturdy beggars" not willing to work would be punished.Two petitions from the City, Mar., 1539.The City offers to purchase certain dissolved houses, 1 Aug., 1540.In March, 1539, the City presented two petitions to the king, one desiring that the late dissolved houses might be made over to them, together with their rents and revenues, in order that relief might be provided for the sick and needy, and the other asking that Henry would be pleased to convey to them the churches of the late four orders of friars, together with their lands and tenements, so that the mayor and citizens might take order for the due performance of divine service therein to the glory of God and the honour of the king.1217These petitions having been either refused or ignored, the Court of Common Council, on the 1st August, 1540, authorised the mayor and aldermen to make diligent suit to the king for the purchase of the houses, churches, and cloisters of the dissolved friars, and to make an offer of 1,000 marks for them "yf thei can be gotten no better chepe."1218Henry upbraided the[pg 406]City for being "pynche pence" or stingy in their offer,1219but as no better offer was made the matter was allowed to stand over, and nothing was done for four years.The City in difficulties with king and parliament, 1541-1542.Henry meanwhile took the opportunity afforded him by a full treasury, which rendered him independent of the favour of the citizens, of robbing them of their right of measuring linen-cloth and other commodities, and conferring the same by letters patent on John Godsalve, one of the clerks of the signet. The City's right was incontestable, and had been admitted by the king's chancellor, as well as by the Chancellor of the Court of Fruits and Tenths (a court recently established), and the mayor and aldermen represented the facts of the case to the king himself by letter, dated the 21st July, 1541.1220Another "variance" occurred about this time between the City and the Crown touching the office and duties of the City's waterbailiff.1221Again, in the spring of 1542, an incident occurred which caused the relations between parliament and the City to be somewhat strained. The sheriffs of that year—Rowland Hill,1222an ancestor of the founder of the Penny Post, and Henry Suckley—had thought fit to obstruct the sergeant-at-mace in the execution of his duty, whilst attempting to remove a prisoner, who was a member of parliament, from[pg 407]one of the compters. The arrest of a member of parliament has always been a hazardous operation, and the sheriffs after a time thought better of it and gave up their prisoner. The Speaker, nevertheless, summoned them to appear at the Bar of the House and finally committed them to the Tower. They were released after two or three days, however, at the humble suit of the mayor.1223Precautions against the spread of pestilence, 1543.In the following year (1543) the plague returned, and extra-precautions had to be taken against the spread of the disease, now that the houses of the friars were no longer open to receive patients and to alleviate distress. Besides the usual order that infected houses should be marked with a cross, the mayor caused proclamation to be made that persons of independent means should undergo quarantine for one month after recovery from sickness, whilst others whom necessity compelled to walk abroad for their livelihood were to carry in their hands white rods, two feet in length, for the space of forty days after convalescence. Straw and rushes in an infected house were to be removed to the fields before they were burnt, and infected clothing was to be carried away to be aired and not to be hung out of window. The hard-heartedness engendered by these visitations is evidenced by the necessity of the mayor having to enjoin that thenceforth no householder within the city or liberties should put any person stricken with the plague out of his house into the street, without making provision for his being kept in some other[pg 408]house. All dogs other than hounds, spaniels or mastiffs kept for the purpose of guarding the house were forthwith to be removed out of the city or killed, whilst watch-dogs were to be confined to the house.1224In October the mayor was ordered to resume the weekly bills of mortality, which of late had been neglected, in order that the king might be kept informed as to the increase or decrease of the sickness.1225The Michaelmas Law Sittings had to be postponed until the 15th November, and were removed to St. Albans.1226Preparation for renewal of war with France, 1544.Whilst the city was being wasted by disease the king was preparing for war with France.1227A joint expedition by Henry and Charles was to be undertaken in the following year (1544). A commission was issued early in the year for raising money in the city, and the lord chancellor himself, accompanied by officers of State, came into the city to read it. Finding that the lord mayor's name appeared third on the commission instead of being placed at its head, the chancellor ordered the mistake to be at once rectified by the town clerk and a new commission to be drawn up, whilst the rest of the lords agreed that at their several sessions on the business of this subsidy the lord mayor should occupy the seat of honour.1228By the end of April the chancellor (Audley) had died. His successor, Lord Wriothesley, had not long been appointed before the Court of Aldermen sent a deputation to desire his lordship's favour and friendship[pg 409]in the city's affairs, and agreed to make him a present of a couple of silver-gilt pots to the value of £20 or thereabouts.1229On the 24th May the Common Council agreed to provide a contingent of 500 or 600 men at the discretion of the mayor and aldermen, the men being raised from the livery companies.1230The re-establishment of St. Bartholomew's hospital, 23 June, 1544.Just as the king was about to set sail for the continent, he issued letters patent (23 June, 1544) re-establishing the hospital of St. Bartholomew on a new foundation, with the avowed object of providing "comfort to prisoners, shelter to the poor, visitation to the sick, food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothes to the naked, and sepulture to the dead."1231The campaign in France of 1544.Henry crossed over to France, leaving the new queen, Catherine Parr, widow of Lord Latimer, whom he had recently married, regent of the realm. After a long siege, lasting from July until September, he succeeded in taking Boulogne. On Thursday, the 25th September, an order was received by the Court of Aldermen from the lord chancellor, on behalf of the queen regent, to get in readiness another contingent of 500 men well harnessed and weaponed, 100 of whom were to be archers and the rest billmen. The last mentioned were to be provided with "blak bylles or morys pykes." The whole force was to be ready for shipment to Boulogne by the following Saturday. No time was to be lost. The wardens of the city companies were immediately summoned, and each company was ordered to provide the same number[pg 410]of men as on the last occasion. Each soldier was to be provided with a coat of grey frieze, with half sleeves, and a pair of new boots or else "sterte upps." The Corporation for its part appointed five captains, to each of whom was given the sum of £10 towards his apparel and charges, whilst £5 was allowed to each petty captain. These sums were paid out of the "goods" of the mayor and commonalty.1232Scarcely had the city recovered from this drain upon its population before it was again called upon to fill up the ranks of the army in France. On Saturday, the 25th October, the Court of Aldermen was ordered to raise another force of 500 men by the following Monday. It was no easy matter to comply with so sudden a demand. The city companies were called upon to contribute as before, any deficiency in the number of men raised by them being made up by men raised by the mayor and aldermen themselves in a somewhat novel fashion. The Court of Aldermen had agreed that each of their number should on the Saturday night make the round of his ward and select "fifty, forty, twenty, or ten" tall and comely men, who should be warned in the king's name to appear the next morning before seven o'clock at the Guildhall. On Sunday morning the mayor and aldermen came to the Guildhall, and took the names of those whom they had selected over night. Two hundred men were eventually set apart to make up the deficiency of those to be provided by the companies. By six o'clock in the evening the whole contingent of 500 men was thus raised, and at nine o'clock on Monday morning they mustered at Leadenhall,[pg 411]whence they were conducted by the sheriffs and city chamberlain to the Tower Hill and handed over to Sir Thomas Arundel, who complimented the civic authorities on the appearance of the men, and promised to commend their diligence to the king.1233This same Monday morning (27 Oct.) the mayor received instructions to see that such carpenters and other artificers as had been "prested" for the king's service at Boulogne by the king's master-carpenter kept their day and presented themselves at the time and place appointed on pain of death.1234Search was ordered to be made in the following month for mariners lurking in the city, and if any were discovered they were to be forthwith despatched to the ships awaiting them.1235City gift to the king on his return from France.By this time the king had ceased to take a personal part in the campaign and had returned home, the mayor and aldermen giving him a hearty welcome, and making him a suitable present in token of their joy for his return and his success in effecting the surrender of Boulogne.1236Opposition to a benevolence in the city, 1545.At the opening of the next year (1545) Henry demanded another benevolence after the rate of two shillings in the pound. The lord chancellor and others of the king's council sat at Baynard's Castle to collect the benevolence of the city, "callinge all the citizens of the same before them, begininge first with the mayor and aldermen."1237Richard Rede, alderman of the ward of Farringdon Without, resisted this demand[pg 412]as unconstitutional, and was promptly despatched to the king in Scotland, where he was shortly afterwards made a prisoner of war. Another alderman, Sir William Roche, of Bassishaw ward, was unfortunate enough to offend the council and was committed to the Fleet.1238William Laxton, mayor, knighted, 8 Feb., 1545.On the 8th February William Laxton, the mayor, was presented to the king at Westminster, when Henry took occasion to thank him and his brother aldermen for the benevolence they had given him. He informed them of the success that had recently attended the English forces under the Earl of Hertford and the lord admiral, Sir John Dudley, whom he had left as deputy of Boulogne, and dismissed them to their homes after conferring upon the mayor the honour of knighthood.1239A call for volunteers for the French war. April, 1545.In the following April volunteers were called for, and those in the city willing to follow the fortunes of war as "adventurers" were asked to repair to the sign of the "Gunne," at Billingsgate, where they would receive directions from John of Caleys, captain of all such adventurers, for their passage to France.1240The sessions of the law courts were adjourned in order to give lawyers and suitors an opportunity of showing their patriotism by taking up arms.1241The city companies furnished 100 men appareled "with whyte cotes of penystone whytes1242or karsies," with a[pg 413]red cross of St. George before and behind, each being provided with a white cap to wear under his "sallett or scull."1243The last subsidy to be forthwith paid up.There yet remained a portion of the last subsidy to be collected, for which purpose the lord chancellor once more paid a visit to the city (12 June) and sat in the Guildhall. Every alderman was straitly charged to call before him every person in his ward who was worth £40 and upwards. The king's affairs were pressing, and this last payment must be immediately forthcoming.1244A force of 2,000 soldiers demanded of the City, June, 1545.A week later (19 June) letters from the king were read to the Court of Aldermen touching the levying of more forces and firing of beacons—a French squadron had appeared off the south coast. It was resolved to adjourn consideration of the message until the following Monday, when the lord chancellor and other lords of the council would again be coming into the city for the subsidy, and their advice could be asked. The outcome of these letters was that the City had to raise a force of 2,000 able men. To do this an assessment of a fifteenth was ordered to be levied on the wards, but in the meantime the money so to be raised was to be advanced by the aldermen.1245Not only were the aldermen on this, as on other occasions, mulcted in their pocket, but they were also called upon to personally share with the lord mayor himself and the sheriffs in the extra watch which in the "besye tyme of the warres" was ordered to be kept in the city.1246[pg 414]In the meantime a man was despatched by the Court of Aldermen to St. James' Fair to buy five wey of cheese for the city's soldiers who were already at Guildford. The cheese was to be sent by water as far as Kingston, whence it would be conveyed by "the good industrye and help of Master Judde, alderman," to its destination. The bakers of Stratford contracted to send two cart-loads of bread. It was further agreed on the same day that Christopher Fowlke should forthwith go to Guildford, and further if need be, "to guyde the seyd vytayle and to utter the same to the souldyers by thassistence of the sworde berer and the under chamberleyn. And to recyve money for the same."1247A flag and a drum were likewise to be despatched forthwith. The citizen soldiers were required to assist in driving out the French, who had effected a landing in the Isle of Wight; but before they arrived the enemy had disappeared.1248Boulogne threatened.The French king now prepared to lay siege to Boulogne, and the citizens were again called upon to furnish soldiers. One thousand men were required, and this number was only raised by enlisting men who had failed to pass previous musters. However, there was no time to pick and choose.1249Act for confiscating chantries, &c., 1545.By this time Henry's resources were fast giving out. A parliament was summoned to meet in November, and again resort was had to confiscation for the purpose of supplying the king with money. An Act was passed which placed 2,000 chantries and chapels and over 100 hospitals at Henry's disposal.1250[pg 415]Peace with France proclaimed, 13 June, 1546.All parties were, however, tired of the war, and in the following June (1546) a peace was concluded. Henry was allowed to retain Boulogne as security for a debt, and the French admiral soon afterwards paid a visit to the city, where he was heartily welcomed and hospitably entertained.1251Uniformity of religion enforced, 1546.Recantation of the rector of St. Mary Aldermary.Freed from the embarrassment of foreign wars, Henry now had leisure to turn his attention to home affairs, and more particularly to the establishment of that uniformity which he so much desired, and which he endeavoured to bring about by getting rid of all those who differed in opinion from himself. Those who openly declared their disbelief in any one of the "Six Articles," and more particularly in the first article, which established the doctrine of the real presence, ran the risk of death by the gallows, the block or the stake. A city rector, Dr. Crome, of the church of St. Mary Aldermary, got into disgrace for speaking lightly of the benefits to be derived from private masses, and, although his argument tended to minimise the effect of the recent confiscation of so many chantries, he was called upon to make a public recantation at Paul's Cross.1252Trial and execution of Anne Ascue.Others were not so compliant. Among these was Anne Ascue or Ascough, a daughter of Sir William Ascough, of Kelsey, in Lincolnshire, and sometimes known as Anne Kyme, from the name of her husband, with whom she had ceased to live. In June, 1545, she and some others, among whom was another woman, Joan, wife of John Sauterie, of London, had[pg 416]been arraigned at the Guildhall "for speaking against the sacrament of the altar"; but, no evidence being adduced against her, she was on that occasion acquitted and discharged.1253Scarcely a year elapsed before she was again in custody. On the 18th June, 1546, she was tried at the Guildhall and condemned to be burned alive as a heretic at Smithfield, where the city chamberlain had orders to erect a "substantial stage," whence the king's council and the civic authorities might witness the scene.1254Improved water supply of the city, 1545-1546.The insanitary condition of the city, occasioned for the most part by an insufficient supply of water, was not improved by the influx of disbanded and invalided soldiers, followed by a swarm of vagabonds and idlers, which took place at the conclusion of peace with France. To the soldiers licences were granted to solicit alms for longer or shorter periods, whilst the vagabonds were ordered to quit the city.1255The water question had been taken in hand by the Common Council towards the close of the preceding year (1545), when Sir Martin Bowes entered upon his mayoralty, and a tax of two fifteenths was imposed upon the inhabitants of the city for the purpose of conveying fresh water from certain "lively sprynges" recently discovered at Hackney.1256Bowes himself was very energetic in the matter, and before he went out of office he had the satisfaction of seeing a plentiful supply of water brought into the heart of the city from the suburban manor of Finsbury.1257[pg 417]St. Bartholomew's Hospital, &c., vested in the City, 13 Jan., 1547.Henry's reign was now fast drawing to a close. In April, 1546, he had bestowed an endowment of 500 marks a year on the city poor-houses on condition the citizens themselves found a similar sum.1258In January, 1547—a few days only before he died—he showed still further care for the city poor by vesting in the Corporation, not only St. Bartholomew's Hospital, thenceforth to be known as the House of the Poor in West Smithfield, but also the house and church of the dissolved monastery of the Grey Friars and the house and hospital of Bethlehem.1259A committee appointed to investigate the recently acquired property, 6 May, 1547.The Corporation lost no time in getting their newly acquired property into working order. On the 6th May the late king's conveyance was read before the Court of Aldermen, and thereupon a committee, of which Sir Martin Bowes was a prominent member, was deputed to make an abstract of the yearly revenues and charges of the house of the Grey Friars and hospital of little Saint Bartholomew, and to report thereon to the court with as much speed as possible.1260From a purely monetary point of view the City had made a bad bargain, and had saddled itself with an annual expenditure out of the Corporation revenues to an extent little thought of at the time.1261The king's death, 28 Jan., 1547.On the 28th January, 1547, Henry died "at hys most pryncely howse at Westminster, comenly[pg 418]called Yorkeplace or Whytehall"—the palace which Cardinal Wolsey built for himself, and which Henry appropriated, extending its grounds and preserves in cynical contempt of public convenience and utter disregard of the chartered rights of the citizens of London.1262There his corpse remained until the 14th February, when it was removed at 8 o'clock in the morning to Sion House, near Richmond, and thence conveyed to Windsor on the following day.Edward VI proclaimed king in the city, 31 Jan., 1547.In the meantime the mayor, Henry Huberthorne, or Hoberthorne,1263had been sent for (31 Jan.) to attend the king's council at Westminster, where he received orders to return to the city and cause himself and his brother aldermen to be arrayed in their scarlet robes, in order to accompany the heralds whilst they proclaimed the new king in various parts of the city. This being done, the mayor took steps for securing the peace of the city, and the citizens voted Edward a benevolence of a fifteenth and a half.1264Distribution of gowns of black livery.Edward on his part presented the mayor and aldermen with 104 gowns of black livery, according to the precedent followed at the decease of Henry VII.[pg 419]These gowns were distributed among the mayor and aldermen, the high officers and certain clerks in the service of the Corporation. Ten aldermen accompanied the remains of the late king on their way to Windsor, riding forth in black coats with the rest of the mourners, the harness and bridles of their horses being covered with black cloth. Two of the aldermen, Sir William Laxton and Sir Martin Bowes, had each four servants in their suite, whilst the rest of the aldermen had three, all in black coats.1265
[pg 383]CHAPTER XIV.The House of Commons and the Clergy, 1529.Although Wolsey was no more, his works followed him. He it was, and not Henry, who first conceived the idea of church reform, towards which some steps had been taken in Wolsey's lifetime. It was left for Henry to carry out the design of his great minister. When the king laid his hand on the monasteries, he only followed the example set by the cardinal in 1525, when some of the smaller religious houses in Kent, Sussex and Essex were suppressed for his great foundation of Oxford. To assist him in carrying out his design he turned to parliament. Relieved as they now were of the oppression of the great nobles, the Commons were ready to use their newly-acquired independence against the clergy, who exacted extravagant fees and misused the powers of the ecclesiastical courts. Acts were passed regulating the payment of mortuary fees and the fees for probate, whilst another Act restricted the holding of pluralities and the taking of ferms by church-men.1152The clergy threatened to appeal to Rome, but were warned that such action would be met with pains and penalties as opposed to the royal prerogative.1153Disputes touching tithes payable to city clergy, 1527-1534.In the city the question of tithes payable to the clergy had been always more or less a vexed question. Before the commencement of the thirteenth century the city clergy had been supported by casual dues in[pg 384]addition to their glebe land. These casual payments were originally personal, but subsequently became regulated by the amount of rent paid by parishioners for their houses. A question arose as to whether the citizens were also liable to pay personal tithes on their gains, and it was eventually decided that they were so liable.1154On the 31st August, 1527, a committee, which had been specially appointed to enquire into matters concerning the city's welfare, reported, among other things, upon the tithe question as it then stood in the city.1155The "curates," they said, had purchased a Bull of Pope Nicholas, on the 6th August, 1453, and this Bull had been confirmed by Act of Common Council on the 3rd March, 1475. Not only was the amount of the tithe payable fixed by the Bull, but the Bull itself was to be publicly read by the curates four times a year, so that no doubt should exist in the minds of the parishioners. This the curates had failed to do, and had caused their parishioners heavy legal expenses in disputing demands for tithes. One man was known to have spent as much as £100 in his own defence. The committee suggested that the whole question should be referred to the Bishop of London, and that a translation of the Bull should be exhibited in every church. The citizens were the more aggrieved because many parsonages and vicarages were let to ferm.1156The curates' book of articles.The curates made their defence in a book of eighteen articles touching tithes and other oblations,[pg 385]the chief point being that every householder, time out of mind, had been bound to pay to God and the Church one farthing out of every 10s.of rent, a half-penny out of 20s.and so forth, on 100 days of the year; amounting in all to 2s.1d.for every 10s.rentper annum. This manner of payment proving tedious, the curates and their parishioners came to an agreement that 1s.2d.should be paid on every 6s.8d.or noble, and this sum the curates had been receiving time out of mind, none reclaiming or denying. But, inasmuch as this payment by occupiers of houses was only ordained for a "dowry" to the parish churches of London which had no glebe lands, the curates demanded that all merchants and artificers, with other occupiers of the city, should pay personal tithes of their "lucre or encrece" according to the common law, and as "well conscyoned" men had been in the habit of paying in times past.1157The book of articles was laid before the Court of Common Council on the 16th February, 1528, by Robert Carter and six other priests, on behalf of their entire body. On the following 16th March the Court of Aldermen for themselves agreed to pay tithe at the forthcoming Easter according to the Bull of Pope Nicholas, and not after the rate of 1s.2d.on the noble,1158whilst four days later the Common Council decided that, for the sake of convenience, bills should be posted in every parish church within the city showing the number of offering days (viz., eighty-two) and the amount to be offered by inhabitants of the city.1159[pg 386]So matters continued until, early in 1534, it was agreed to submit the whole question to the lord chancellor and other members of the council, who made their award a few days before Easter.1160It decreed that at the forthcoming festival every subject should pay to the parson or curate of his parish after the rate of 2s.9d.in the pound, and 16 pence half-penny in the half-pound, and that every man's wife, servant, child and apprentice receiving the Holy Sacrament should pay two pence. These payments were to continue to be paid "without grudge or murmur" until such time as the council should arrive at a final settlement.1161Elsing Spital and Holy Trinity Priory surrendered to the king, 1530-1531.In the meanwhile the city had been made to feel the heavy hand of the king and of his new minister, Thomas Cromwell. In May, 1530, Elsing Spital, a house established by William Elsing, a charitable mercer, for the relief of the blind, but which had subsequently grown into a priory of Augustinian canons of wealth and position, was confiscated by the Crown. What became of the blind inmates is not known. In the following year (1531) the Priory of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, shared the same fate. The priory had existed since the time of Henry I and the "good queen" Matilda,1162and its prior enjoyed the singular distinction of beingex[pg 387]officioan alderman of the city. The canons were now removed to another place and the building and site bestowed by Henry upon his chancellor, Sir Thomas Audley.1163The Great Beam reconveyed to the City after the lapse of ten years, 1531.Between 1531 and 1534 the City enjoyed some respite from attack. It even recovered some of its lost privileges. In 1521 Henry had deprived the City of its right to the Great Beam, and of the issues and profits derived from it, and had caused a conveyance of it to be made to Sir William Sidney. In 1531 the beam was re-conveyed to the City.1164The Grocers' Company were scarcely less interested in the beam than the City, for to them was deputed the choice of weighers, who were afterwards admitted and sworn before the Court of Aldermen. Both the City and the company used their best endeavours to recover their lost rights, the former going so far as to sanction the distribution of the sum of £23 6s.8d.between the king's sergeant, the king's attorney, and one "Lumnore,"1165a servant of "my lady Anne,"1166with the view of gaining their object the easier.1167A compromise was subsequently effected by which Sir William Sidney continued to hold the beam at an annual rent payable to the City,1168until, in 1531, he[pg 388]consented to a surrender, and it became again vested in the Corporation.Feeling in the city at Henry's marriage with Anne Boleyn, 1533.Finding it hopeless to obtain the Pope's sanction to his divorce from Catherine, Henry at last lost all patience, and on the 25th January, 1533, was privately married to Anne Boleyn. The match was unpopular with the citizens, who took occasion of a sermon preached on Easter-day to show their dissatisfaction. According to Chapuys, the Spanish ambassador, who sent an account of the affair to the emperor, the greater part of the congregation got up and left the church when prayers were desired for the queen. When Henry heard of the insult thus offered to his new bride he was furious, and forthwith sent word to the mayor to see that no such manifestation should occur again. Thereupon, continues Chapuys, the mayor summoned the guilds to assemble in their various halls and commanded them to cease murmuring against the king's marriage on pain of incurring the royal displeasure, and to order their own journeymen and servants, "and, a still more difficult task, their own wives," to refrain from speaking disparagingly about the queen.1169The queen's passage from the Tower to Westminster, 31 May, 1533.It was perhaps on this account that the civic authorities excelled themselves in giving the queen a suitable reception as she passed from the Tower to Westminster on the 31st May. The Court of Aldermen directed (14 May) the wardens of the Haberdashers to prepare their barge as well as the "bachelers" barge for the occasion. Three pageants were to be set up, one in Leadenhall and the others at the[pg 389]Standard and the little Conduit in Cheapside. The Standard was to run with wine. A deputation was appointed to wait upon the king's council to learn its wishes, and enquiry was to be made of the Duke of Norfolk whether the clergy should take part in the day's proceedings, and whether the merchants of the Steelyard or other strangers should be allowed to erect pageants.1170The City's gift of 1,000 marks.The Court of Common Council had on the previous day (13 May) voted a gift of 1,000 marks to be presented to the queen at her coronation, and a further sum to be expended in the city "for the honor of the same."1171Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn were the only queens of king Henry VIII who were crowned, and on both occasions the citizens of London performed the customary services.1172The Act of Succession, 1534.In September (1533) Anne gave birth to a daughter, who afterwards ascended the throne as Queen Elizabeth. In the following spring (1534) parliament passed an Act of Succession, which not only declared Elizabeth (and not Mary, the king's daughter by Catherine of Aragon) heir to the crown, but required all subjects to take an oath acknowledging the succession. Commissioners were appointed to tender the oath to the citizens,1173and by the 20th April the "most part of the city was sworn to the[pg 390]"king and his legitimate issue by the queen's grace now had and hereafter to come."1174A fortnight later deeds under the common seals of the livery companies "concernyng the suretye state and succession" of the king were delivered to Henry in person at Greenwich by a deputation of aldermen.1175Proceedings against those objecting to subscribe to the Act of Succession.The oath, nevertheless, met with much opposition, more especially among the clergy and the religious orders. Elizabeth Barton, known as the "holy maid of Kent," and some of her followers, among them being Henry Gold, rector of the church of St. Mary Aldermary, were executed at Tyburn for daring to speak against the king's marriage.1176The friars proved extremely obstinate, and Henry sent commissioners to seek out and suppress all those friaries that refused to submit.The monks of the Charterhouse, 1534-1535.The inmates of the London Charterhouse, who might well have been left to enjoy their quiet seclusion from the world, were startled by a visit from the king's commissioners calling upon them to take the oath. The manner of their reception by John Houghton, the prior, and his brethren and subsequent proceedings are graphically described by Maurice Chauncy,1177one[pg 391]of the inmates, who was more compliant than his brethren to the king's wishes, and thereby saved his life. The prior and Humphrey Middlemore, the procurator of the convent, were committed to the Tower for counselling opposition to the commissioners. There they were visited by the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of London, who persuaded them at last that the question of the succession was not a cause in which to sacrifice their lives for conscience sake. The result was that after a while Houghton and his companion declared their willingness to submit. On the 29th May the commissioners received oaths of fealty from Prior Houghton and five other monks, and on the 6th June Bishop Lee and Sir Thomas Kitson, one of the sheriffs, received similar oaths from a number of priests, professed monks and lay brethren orconversibelonging to the house.1178The oaths of obedience to the Act were given under reservation "so far as the law of God permitted," and for a time the monks were left in comparative quiet, some few of them, of whom Cromwell entertained the most hope of submission, being sent, by his direction, to the convent of Sion.1179[pg 392]The Act of Supremacy, 1534.Execution of Houghton and others, 1535.The exhortations of the "father confessor" were not without some measure of success, several of the Carthusians being induced to alter their opinions as to the king's demands. The seal of doom, however, was fixed on the order by the passing of the Act which called upon its members to renounce the Pope and acknowledge the royal supremacy.1180Fisher and More denied the king's title of Supreme Head of the Church, and were committed to the Tower. At this crisis there came to London two priors of Carthusian houses established, one in Nottinghamshire and the other in Lincolnshire. They came to talk over the state of affairs with Houghton. An interview with Cromwell, recently appointed vicar-general or king's vicegerent in matters ecclesiastical, was resolved on. The king might possibly be prevailed upon to make some abatement in his demands. Cromwell, however, no sooner discovered the object of their visit than he committed them to the Tower as rebels and would-be traitors. As they still refused to acknowledge the king's supremacy in the Church, in spite of all efforts of persuasion, they were brought to trial, together with Father Reynolds of Sion, on a charge of treason. A verdict of guilty was, after some hesitation on the part of the jury, found against them, and they were executed at Tyburn (4 May, 1535), glorying in the cause for which they were held worthy to suffer death. Houghton's arm was suspended over the gateway of the London Charterhouse, in the fond hope that the rest of the brethren might be awed into submission. This atrocious act of barbarism had,[pg 393]however, precisely the opposite effect to that desired. The monks were more resolute than ever not to submit, and not even a personal visit of Henry himself could turn them from their purpose.1181Three of them were thereupon committed to prison, where they were compelled to stand in an upright position for thirteen days, chained from their necks to their arms and with their legs fettered.1182They were afterwards brought to trial on a charge of treason, convicted and executed (19 June).The fate of the remaining monks is soon told. In May, 1537, the royal commissioners once more attended at the Charterhouse, when they found the majority of its inmates prepared to take the oath prescribed. Ten of them, however, still refused, and were committed to Newgate and there left to be "dispatched by the hand of God," in other words to meet a painful and lingering death from fever and starvation. The following month the remnant of the community made their submission, and the London Charterhouse, as a monastic institution, ceased to exist.Execution of Fisher and More, 1535.Fisher and More were now brought from the Tower, where they had lain six months and more, and convicted on a similar charge of treason. Their sentence was commuted to death by beheading. Fisher was the first to suffer (19 June, 1535). His head was set up on London Bridge and his body buried in the churchyard of All Hallows, Barking. More suffered a few weeks later (6 July). His head, too, was placed on London Bridge, but his body was buried in the[pg 394]Tower, whither the remains of Fisher were afterwards carried. On the 15th December the Court of Aldermen publicly condemned a sermon preached by Fisher "in derogation and diminution of the royal estate of the king's majesty."1183The Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536.When, in the following year (1536), the smaller monasteries—those of less than £200 a year—were dissolved by Act of Parliament, and the inhabitants of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, taking fright lest the king and Cromwell should proceed to despoil the parish churches, set out on the Pilgrimage of Grace, Henry sought the City's aid. On the 10th October a letter from the king was read before the Court of Aldermen, desiring them to dispatch forthwith to his manor of Ampthill, where the nobles were about to wait upon his majesty, a contingent of at least 250 armed men, 200 of which were to be well horsed, and 100 to be archers.1184The mayor, Sir John Allen,1185lost no time in issuing his precept to the livery companies for each of them to furnish a certain number of bowmen and billmen, well horsed and arrayed in jackets of white bearing the City's arms. They were to muster in Moorfields within twenty-four hours. The Mercers were called upon to furnish the largest quota, viz., twenty men; the Grocers, Drapers, Tailors and Cloth-workers respectively, sixteen men, and the rest of the companies contingents varying from twelve to two.1186The Court of Aldermen at the same time took[pg 395]the precaution of depriving all priests and curates, as well as all friars dwelling within the city, of every offensive weapon, so that they should be left with nothing but their "meate knyves."1187The king sent a letter of thanks for the city's contingent.1188Later on, when Allen had been succeeded in the mayoralty by Sir Ralph Warren,1189it was resolved that each member of the court should provide at his own cost and charges twenty able men fully equipped in case of any emergency that might arise, whilst the companies were again called upon to hold men in readiness.1190Henry's marriage with Jane Seymour, May, 1536.Henry in the meantime had got rid of his second wife on the specious ground of her having misconducted herself with more than one member of the court, the real cause being her miscarriage1191of a male child, to the king's bitter disappointment. Henry had made up his mind to change his wives until he could find one who would give him a male heir and thus place the succession to the crown beyond all possibility of doubt. The very next day following Anne Boleyn's execution he married Jane Seymour. The marriage necessitated the calling together of a new parliament, when a fresh Act was passed settling[pg 396]the succession on Jane's children and declaring both Mary and Elizabeth illegitimate. Nevertheless, as soon as Mary made formal submission to her father, the king's attitude towards her, from being cold and cruel, changed at once to one of courtesy if not of affection. He was thought to entertain the idea of declaring her heir-apparent. Indeed, on Sunday, the 20th August, she was actually proclaimed as such in one of the London churches—no doubt by some mistake.1192Convocation at St. Paul's, 9 June-20 July, 1536.Whilst parliament was sitting at Westminster convocation was gathered at St. Paul's in the city, and continued to sit there until the 20th July, presided over by Cromwell as the king's vicar-general. The meeting was remarkable for its formal decree that Henry, as supreme head of the Church, might and ought to disregard all citations by the Pope, as well as for the promulgation of the ten articles intended to promote uniformity of belief and worship.1193Preparation for the new queen's coronation.She dies in childbed, 24 Oct., 1537.In September, 1536, the Court of Common Council agreed to vote the same sum of money for the coronation of the "right excellent pryncesse lady Jane, quene of Englonde," as had been granted at the coronation of "dame Anne, late queene of Englonde."1194The money, however, was not required, for the new queen was never crowned. Just one week after the birth of a prince (12 Oct., 1537), afterwards King Edward VI, there was a solemn procession of priests from every city church, with the Bishop of London, the choir of St. Paul's, the mayor, aldermen and[pg 397]crafts in their liveries, for the preservation of the infant prince and for the health of the queen, who lay in a precarious state.1195A few days later (24 Oct.) she was dead. The citizens caused her obit to be celebrated in St. Paul's with truly regal pomp.1196Anne of Cleves arrives at Dover, 27 Dec., 1539.Her passage through the city, 4 Feb,. 1540.Two years later the citizens were preparing to set out to Greenwich in their barge (the mayor, aldermen, and those who had served the office of sheriff, in liveries of black velvet with chains of gold on their necks, accompanied by their servants in coats of russet) to welcome Anne of Cleves, who landed at Dover the 27th December, 1539.1197On the 3rd February, 1540, the Court of Aldermen was informed that the king and queen would be leaving Greenwich on the morrow for Westminster, and that it was the king's wish that the commons of London should be in their best apparel, in their barges, to wait upon his highness, meeting at St. Dunstan's in the East at 7 o'clock in the morning and arriving at Greenwich by 8 o'clock.1198Cromwell's work of demolition in the city, 1537-1538.The insurrection which had taken place in the country under the name of the Pilgrimage of Grace was seized by the king as an excuse for suppressing many of the larger monasteries and confiscating their property. He had no such excuse for carrying out his destructive policy in the city. Nevertheless, under the immediate supervision of Cromwell, the work of suppression went on, and before the end of 1538 was[pg 398]well nigh complete. The surrender of the houses of the Black Friars, the Grey Friars and the White Friars followed in quick succession, "and so all the other immediatlie."1199Cromwell by this time had removed from his house near Fenchurch to another near the Austin Friars in Throgmorton Street. He had recently asked for a pipe of water to be laid on to his new house, and this the Common Council had "lovingly" granted.1200In his private concerns he showed as little regard for the rights of others as in the affairs of State. He did not scruple to remove bodily a small house, the property of Stow's father, in order to enlarge his own garden, giving neither warning beforehand nor explanation afterwards, and "no man durst go to argue the matter."1201The hospital of St. Thomas of Acon, which had ministered to the wants of the poorer citizens for nearly 400 years, disappeared,1202and was soon followed by the priory and hospital of St. Bartholomew, an institution of even greater antiquity, the hospital of St. Thomas, in Southwark, the priory and hospital of St. Mary without Bishopsgate, known as St. Mary of Bethlem, or "Bedlam," and the Abbey of Graces or New Abbey (sometimes called the Eastminster to distinguish it from the other minster in the west of London) which had been founded by Edward III, near Tower Hill.[pg 399]The division of the spoil.A portion of the spoil was, as we have already seen, distributed among court favourites. The site of the house and gardens of the Augustinian Friars in Broad Street Ward was occupied, soon after their suppression (12 Nov., 1538), by the mansion-house of that politic courtier the celebrated Marquis of Winchester, who managed to maintain himself in high station in spite of the changes which took place under the several reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth, "by being a willow and not an oak." The building known at the present day as Winchester House, in Broad Street, stands near the site of the old mansion-house and garden of William Paulet, first Marquis of Winchester. The Friars' church he allowed to stand; and in June, 1550, the nave was granted, by virtue of a charter permitting alien non-conforming churches to exist in this country, to the Dutch and Walloon churches.1203The first marquis dying in 1571, he was succeeded by his son, who sold the monuments and lead from the roof of the remaining portion of the church and turned the place into a stable.1204The fourth marquis was reduced to parting with his house, built on the site of the old priory, in order to pay his debts, and appears to have found a purchaser in a wealthy London merchant and alderman of the city, John Swinnerton or Swynarton.1205[pg 400]The mayor's effort to save the destruction of the steeple of the Austin Friars Church.The steeple of the church, which was of so great beauty that the citizens desired its preservation,1206was sold by the marquis to Henry Robinson, who forthwith set to work to pull it down on the ground that it was in such a state of decay as to be a danger to the passer-by. Swinnerton, who happened to be mayor at the time, ordered him to stay the work of demolition; he, however, not only hurried on the more, but obstructed the officers sent to put a stop to the work, for which he was committed to Newgate to stay there until he gave security for restoring what he had already pulled down. The thought suggests itself that the fact of Swinnerton having purchased adjacent property may have made him the more zealous in preventing the demolition of the steeple than perhaps he might otherwise have been. However that may be, he lost no time in informing the lords of the council of the state of affairs and asking their advice (16 Feb., 1612). The reply came three days later, and was to the effect that as the City had had the option of purchasing the steeple at even a less price than Robinson had paid for it, and might have come to some arrangement with the marquis to keep it in repair, it could not prevent Robinson, who purchased it as a speculation, making the best he could of his bargain; so that, unless the City consented to accept Robinson's offer to part with his property on payment of his purchase-money and disbursements within a fortnight, down the steeple must come.1207The priory of St. Helen without Bishopsgate.The priory of St. Helen without Bishopsgate was one of the last to be surrendered. In 1542 the[pg 401]nuns' chapel, which at one time was partitioned off from the rest of the church, was made over to Sir Richard Williams, a nephew of Thomas Cromwell, and ancestor of the Protector. The nuns' refectory or hall passed into the hands of the Leathersellers' Company and formed the company's hall until the close of the last century. The conduct of the inmates of the priory had not always been what it should be.1208The last prioress, in anticipation of the coming storm, leased a large portion of the conventual property to members of her own family, and at the time of the suppression was herself allowed a gratuity of £30 and a pension.Friendly relations between the Corporation and religious houses in the city.The relations existing between the civic authorities and the religious houses in the city were often of a most friendly and cordial character. When, in 1520, the Friars of the Holy Cross wanted assistance for the maintenance and building of their church, they applied to the Corporation as being their "secund founders."1209For assistance thus given the friars bound themselves to pray for their benefactors. When, in 1512, the master of St. Bartholomew's hospital obtained a lease for ninety-nine years from the City of a parcel of land on which his gatehouse or porch stood, it was on condition of payment of a certain rent and of his keeping a yearly obit in his church for the souls of the mayor, aldermen and commons of the city; and when the master of the hospital, two years later, attempted to back out of[pg 402]the terms of his lease and asked to be discharged from keeping the obit on the ground that he thought that the payment of the specified rent was sufficient for the premises, the Court of Aldermen unanimously decided that no part of the agreement should be minished or remitted.1210When the house of the Sisters Minoresses or Poor Clares, situate in Aldgate, suffered from fire, the Corporation rendered them pecuniary aid to the extent of 300 marks.1211It was, however, to the Franciscans or Grey Friars that the citizens of London, individually as well as in their corporate capacity, were more especially attached. Soon after their arrival in England in 1223, they became indebted to the benevolence and generosity of citizens, their first benefactor having been John Ewen, citizen and mercer, who made them a gift of some land and houses in the parish of St. Nicholas by the Shambles. Upon this they erected their original building. Their first chapel, which became the chapel of their church, was built at the cost of William Joyner, who was mayor in 1239; the nave was added by Henry Waleys, who was frequently mayor during the reign of Edward I; the chapterhouse by Walter le Poter, elected sheriff in 1272; the dormitory by Gregory de Rokesley, who was mayor from 1274 to 1281, and again in 1284-5, and whose bones eventually found a resting place in their church; the refectory by another citizen, Bartholomew de Castro; and lastly—coming to later times—a library was added to their house by the bounty of Richard Whitington, as already narrated. It became the custom for the mayor and aldermen, as patron and[pg 403]founders, to pay a yearly visit to their house and church on St. Francis's day (4 Oct.). The custom dates from 1508. In 1522 the visit was for the first time followed by a dinner.1212Royal injunction for keeping Parish Registers, 29 Sept., 1538.In one respect at least, if in no other, Cromwell's action in suppressing religious houses resulted in a benefit to the city of London as well as to the country at large, and this was in the institution of parish registers, not only for baptisms, but also for marriages. It had been his intention to establish them in 1536 to remedy the inconvenience to the public arising from the suppression of the smaller monasteries, and it is evident that some instructions were given at this time, inasmuch as the registers of two city parishes—viz., St. James Garlickhithe and St. Mary Bothaw—commence in November of this year,1213although the royal injunction commanding that registers should systematically be kept up, under penalty of fines, was not published by Cromwell, as vicar-general, until the 29th September, 1538. The delay is to be accounted for by the great discontent which the rumour of his project excited in the country. It was reported that some new tax on the services of the Church was contemplated, and the first in the list of popular grievances circulated by the rebels in the Pilgrimage of Grace was the payment of tribute to the king for the sacrament of baptism. In course of time, as matters became quieter and the government began to feel its own strength, Cromwell resumed a project never altogether abandoned, and caused the injunction to be[pg 404]issued, an action for which posterity must ever be deeply grateful.Great increase of London poor, consequent on the suppression of religious houses.On the other hand, the sudden closing of these institutions caused the streets to be thronged with the sick and poor, and the small parish churches to be so crowded with those who had been accustomed to frequent the larger and more commodious churches of the friars that there was scarce room left for the parishioners themselves. The city authorities saw at once that something would have to be done if they wished to keep their streets clear of beggars and of invalids, and not invite the spread of sickness by allowing infected persons to wander at large. As a means of affording temporary relief, collections for the poor were made every Sunday at Paul's Cross, after the sermon, and the proceeds were distributed weekly among the most necessitous,1214but more comprehensive steps were required to be taken.Sir Richard Gresham's letter to the king for conveyance to the City of certain hospitals.Sir Richard Gresham,1215who was mayor at the time (1537-8), took upon himself to address a letter1216to the king setting forth that there were three hospitals in the city, viz., St. Mary's Spital, St. Bartholomew's and St. Thomas's, besides the New Abbey on Tower Hill—institutions primarily founded "onely for the releffe, comforte and helpyng of pore and impotent[pg 405]people not beyng able to helpe theymselffes; and not to the mayntenannce of Chanons, Preests, and Monks to lyve in pleasure, nothyng regardyng the miserable people liyng in every strete, offendyng every clene person passyng by the way with theyre fylthy and nasty savours"—and asking that the mayor and aldermen of the city for the time being might have the order and disposition of the hospitals mentioned, and of all the lands, tenements and revenues appertaining to the same. If his grace would but grant this request the mayor promised that a great number of the indigent sick would be relieved, whilst "sturdy beggars" not willing to work would be punished.Two petitions from the City, Mar., 1539.The City offers to purchase certain dissolved houses, 1 Aug., 1540.In March, 1539, the City presented two petitions to the king, one desiring that the late dissolved houses might be made over to them, together with their rents and revenues, in order that relief might be provided for the sick and needy, and the other asking that Henry would be pleased to convey to them the churches of the late four orders of friars, together with their lands and tenements, so that the mayor and citizens might take order for the due performance of divine service therein to the glory of God and the honour of the king.1217These petitions having been either refused or ignored, the Court of Common Council, on the 1st August, 1540, authorised the mayor and aldermen to make diligent suit to the king for the purchase of the houses, churches, and cloisters of the dissolved friars, and to make an offer of 1,000 marks for them "yf thei can be gotten no better chepe."1218Henry upbraided the[pg 406]City for being "pynche pence" or stingy in their offer,1219but as no better offer was made the matter was allowed to stand over, and nothing was done for four years.The City in difficulties with king and parliament, 1541-1542.Henry meanwhile took the opportunity afforded him by a full treasury, which rendered him independent of the favour of the citizens, of robbing them of their right of measuring linen-cloth and other commodities, and conferring the same by letters patent on John Godsalve, one of the clerks of the signet. The City's right was incontestable, and had been admitted by the king's chancellor, as well as by the Chancellor of the Court of Fruits and Tenths (a court recently established), and the mayor and aldermen represented the facts of the case to the king himself by letter, dated the 21st July, 1541.1220Another "variance" occurred about this time between the City and the Crown touching the office and duties of the City's waterbailiff.1221Again, in the spring of 1542, an incident occurred which caused the relations between parliament and the City to be somewhat strained. The sheriffs of that year—Rowland Hill,1222an ancestor of the founder of the Penny Post, and Henry Suckley—had thought fit to obstruct the sergeant-at-mace in the execution of his duty, whilst attempting to remove a prisoner, who was a member of parliament, from[pg 407]one of the compters. The arrest of a member of parliament has always been a hazardous operation, and the sheriffs after a time thought better of it and gave up their prisoner. The Speaker, nevertheless, summoned them to appear at the Bar of the House and finally committed them to the Tower. They were released after two or three days, however, at the humble suit of the mayor.1223Precautions against the spread of pestilence, 1543.In the following year (1543) the plague returned, and extra-precautions had to be taken against the spread of the disease, now that the houses of the friars were no longer open to receive patients and to alleviate distress. Besides the usual order that infected houses should be marked with a cross, the mayor caused proclamation to be made that persons of independent means should undergo quarantine for one month after recovery from sickness, whilst others whom necessity compelled to walk abroad for their livelihood were to carry in their hands white rods, two feet in length, for the space of forty days after convalescence. Straw and rushes in an infected house were to be removed to the fields before they were burnt, and infected clothing was to be carried away to be aired and not to be hung out of window. The hard-heartedness engendered by these visitations is evidenced by the necessity of the mayor having to enjoin that thenceforth no householder within the city or liberties should put any person stricken with the plague out of his house into the street, without making provision for his being kept in some other[pg 408]house. All dogs other than hounds, spaniels or mastiffs kept for the purpose of guarding the house were forthwith to be removed out of the city or killed, whilst watch-dogs were to be confined to the house.1224In October the mayor was ordered to resume the weekly bills of mortality, which of late had been neglected, in order that the king might be kept informed as to the increase or decrease of the sickness.1225The Michaelmas Law Sittings had to be postponed until the 15th November, and were removed to St. Albans.1226Preparation for renewal of war with France, 1544.Whilst the city was being wasted by disease the king was preparing for war with France.1227A joint expedition by Henry and Charles was to be undertaken in the following year (1544). A commission was issued early in the year for raising money in the city, and the lord chancellor himself, accompanied by officers of State, came into the city to read it. Finding that the lord mayor's name appeared third on the commission instead of being placed at its head, the chancellor ordered the mistake to be at once rectified by the town clerk and a new commission to be drawn up, whilst the rest of the lords agreed that at their several sessions on the business of this subsidy the lord mayor should occupy the seat of honour.1228By the end of April the chancellor (Audley) had died. His successor, Lord Wriothesley, had not long been appointed before the Court of Aldermen sent a deputation to desire his lordship's favour and friendship[pg 409]in the city's affairs, and agreed to make him a present of a couple of silver-gilt pots to the value of £20 or thereabouts.1229On the 24th May the Common Council agreed to provide a contingent of 500 or 600 men at the discretion of the mayor and aldermen, the men being raised from the livery companies.1230The re-establishment of St. Bartholomew's hospital, 23 June, 1544.Just as the king was about to set sail for the continent, he issued letters patent (23 June, 1544) re-establishing the hospital of St. Bartholomew on a new foundation, with the avowed object of providing "comfort to prisoners, shelter to the poor, visitation to the sick, food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothes to the naked, and sepulture to the dead."1231The campaign in France of 1544.Henry crossed over to France, leaving the new queen, Catherine Parr, widow of Lord Latimer, whom he had recently married, regent of the realm. After a long siege, lasting from July until September, he succeeded in taking Boulogne. On Thursday, the 25th September, an order was received by the Court of Aldermen from the lord chancellor, on behalf of the queen regent, to get in readiness another contingent of 500 men well harnessed and weaponed, 100 of whom were to be archers and the rest billmen. The last mentioned were to be provided with "blak bylles or morys pykes." The whole force was to be ready for shipment to Boulogne by the following Saturday. No time was to be lost. The wardens of the city companies were immediately summoned, and each company was ordered to provide the same number[pg 410]of men as on the last occasion. Each soldier was to be provided with a coat of grey frieze, with half sleeves, and a pair of new boots or else "sterte upps." The Corporation for its part appointed five captains, to each of whom was given the sum of £10 towards his apparel and charges, whilst £5 was allowed to each petty captain. These sums were paid out of the "goods" of the mayor and commonalty.1232Scarcely had the city recovered from this drain upon its population before it was again called upon to fill up the ranks of the army in France. On Saturday, the 25th October, the Court of Aldermen was ordered to raise another force of 500 men by the following Monday. It was no easy matter to comply with so sudden a demand. The city companies were called upon to contribute as before, any deficiency in the number of men raised by them being made up by men raised by the mayor and aldermen themselves in a somewhat novel fashion. The Court of Aldermen had agreed that each of their number should on the Saturday night make the round of his ward and select "fifty, forty, twenty, or ten" tall and comely men, who should be warned in the king's name to appear the next morning before seven o'clock at the Guildhall. On Sunday morning the mayor and aldermen came to the Guildhall, and took the names of those whom they had selected over night. Two hundred men were eventually set apart to make up the deficiency of those to be provided by the companies. By six o'clock in the evening the whole contingent of 500 men was thus raised, and at nine o'clock on Monday morning they mustered at Leadenhall,[pg 411]whence they were conducted by the sheriffs and city chamberlain to the Tower Hill and handed over to Sir Thomas Arundel, who complimented the civic authorities on the appearance of the men, and promised to commend their diligence to the king.1233This same Monday morning (27 Oct.) the mayor received instructions to see that such carpenters and other artificers as had been "prested" for the king's service at Boulogne by the king's master-carpenter kept their day and presented themselves at the time and place appointed on pain of death.1234Search was ordered to be made in the following month for mariners lurking in the city, and if any were discovered they were to be forthwith despatched to the ships awaiting them.1235City gift to the king on his return from France.By this time the king had ceased to take a personal part in the campaign and had returned home, the mayor and aldermen giving him a hearty welcome, and making him a suitable present in token of their joy for his return and his success in effecting the surrender of Boulogne.1236Opposition to a benevolence in the city, 1545.At the opening of the next year (1545) Henry demanded another benevolence after the rate of two shillings in the pound. The lord chancellor and others of the king's council sat at Baynard's Castle to collect the benevolence of the city, "callinge all the citizens of the same before them, begininge first with the mayor and aldermen."1237Richard Rede, alderman of the ward of Farringdon Without, resisted this demand[pg 412]as unconstitutional, and was promptly despatched to the king in Scotland, where he was shortly afterwards made a prisoner of war. Another alderman, Sir William Roche, of Bassishaw ward, was unfortunate enough to offend the council and was committed to the Fleet.1238William Laxton, mayor, knighted, 8 Feb., 1545.On the 8th February William Laxton, the mayor, was presented to the king at Westminster, when Henry took occasion to thank him and his brother aldermen for the benevolence they had given him. He informed them of the success that had recently attended the English forces under the Earl of Hertford and the lord admiral, Sir John Dudley, whom he had left as deputy of Boulogne, and dismissed them to their homes after conferring upon the mayor the honour of knighthood.1239A call for volunteers for the French war. April, 1545.In the following April volunteers were called for, and those in the city willing to follow the fortunes of war as "adventurers" were asked to repair to the sign of the "Gunne," at Billingsgate, where they would receive directions from John of Caleys, captain of all such adventurers, for their passage to France.1240The sessions of the law courts were adjourned in order to give lawyers and suitors an opportunity of showing their patriotism by taking up arms.1241The city companies furnished 100 men appareled "with whyte cotes of penystone whytes1242or karsies," with a[pg 413]red cross of St. George before and behind, each being provided with a white cap to wear under his "sallett or scull."1243The last subsidy to be forthwith paid up.There yet remained a portion of the last subsidy to be collected, for which purpose the lord chancellor once more paid a visit to the city (12 June) and sat in the Guildhall. Every alderman was straitly charged to call before him every person in his ward who was worth £40 and upwards. The king's affairs were pressing, and this last payment must be immediately forthcoming.1244A force of 2,000 soldiers demanded of the City, June, 1545.A week later (19 June) letters from the king were read to the Court of Aldermen touching the levying of more forces and firing of beacons—a French squadron had appeared off the south coast. It was resolved to adjourn consideration of the message until the following Monday, when the lord chancellor and other lords of the council would again be coming into the city for the subsidy, and their advice could be asked. The outcome of these letters was that the City had to raise a force of 2,000 able men. To do this an assessment of a fifteenth was ordered to be levied on the wards, but in the meantime the money so to be raised was to be advanced by the aldermen.1245Not only were the aldermen on this, as on other occasions, mulcted in their pocket, but they were also called upon to personally share with the lord mayor himself and the sheriffs in the extra watch which in the "besye tyme of the warres" was ordered to be kept in the city.1246[pg 414]In the meantime a man was despatched by the Court of Aldermen to St. James' Fair to buy five wey of cheese for the city's soldiers who were already at Guildford. The cheese was to be sent by water as far as Kingston, whence it would be conveyed by "the good industrye and help of Master Judde, alderman," to its destination. The bakers of Stratford contracted to send two cart-loads of bread. It was further agreed on the same day that Christopher Fowlke should forthwith go to Guildford, and further if need be, "to guyde the seyd vytayle and to utter the same to the souldyers by thassistence of the sworde berer and the under chamberleyn. And to recyve money for the same."1247A flag and a drum were likewise to be despatched forthwith. The citizen soldiers were required to assist in driving out the French, who had effected a landing in the Isle of Wight; but before they arrived the enemy had disappeared.1248Boulogne threatened.The French king now prepared to lay siege to Boulogne, and the citizens were again called upon to furnish soldiers. One thousand men were required, and this number was only raised by enlisting men who had failed to pass previous musters. However, there was no time to pick and choose.1249Act for confiscating chantries, &c., 1545.By this time Henry's resources were fast giving out. A parliament was summoned to meet in November, and again resort was had to confiscation for the purpose of supplying the king with money. An Act was passed which placed 2,000 chantries and chapels and over 100 hospitals at Henry's disposal.1250[pg 415]Peace with France proclaimed, 13 June, 1546.All parties were, however, tired of the war, and in the following June (1546) a peace was concluded. Henry was allowed to retain Boulogne as security for a debt, and the French admiral soon afterwards paid a visit to the city, where he was heartily welcomed and hospitably entertained.1251Uniformity of religion enforced, 1546.Recantation of the rector of St. Mary Aldermary.Freed from the embarrassment of foreign wars, Henry now had leisure to turn his attention to home affairs, and more particularly to the establishment of that uniformity which he so much desired, and which he endeavoured to bring about by getting rid of all those who differed in opinion from himself. Those who openly declared their disbelief in any one of the "Six Articles," and more particularly in the first article, which established the doctrine of the real presence, ran the risk of death by the gallows, the block or the stake. A city rector, Dr. Crome, of the church of St. Mary Aldermary, got into disgrace for speaking lightly of the benefits to be derived from private masses, and, although his argument tended to minimise the effect of the recent confiscation of so many chantries, he was called upon to make a public recantation at Paul's Cross.1252Trial and execution of Anne Ascue.Others were not so compliant. Among these was Anne Ascue or Ascough, a daughter of Sir William Ascough, of Kelsey, in Lincolnshire, and sometimes known as Anne Kyme, from the name of her husband, with whom she had ceased to live. In June, 1545, she and some others, among whom was another woman, Joan, wife of John Sauterie, of London, had[pg 416]been arraigned at the Guildhall "for speaking against the sacrament of the altar"; but, no evidence being adduced against her, she was on that occasion acquitted and discharged.1253Scarcely a year elapsed before she was again in custody. On the 18th June, 1546, she was tried at the Guildhall and condemned to be burned alive as a heretic at Smithfield, where the city chamberlain had orders to erect a "substantial stage," whence the king's council and the civic authorities might witness the scene.1254Improved water supply of the city, 1545-1546.The insanitary condition of the city, occasioned for the most part by an insufficient supply of water, was not improved by the influx of disbanded and invalided soldiers, followed by a swarm of vagabonds and idlers, which took place at the conclusion of peace with France. To the soldiers licences were granted to solicit alms for longer or shorter periods, whilst the vagabonds were ordered to quit the city.1255The water question had been taken in hand by the Common Council towards the close of the preceding year (1545), when Sir Martin Bowes entered upon his mayoralty, and a tax of two fifteenths was imposed upon the inhabitants of the city for the purpose of conveying fresh water from certain "lively sprynges" recently discovered at Hackney.1256Bowes himself was very energetic in the matter, and before he went out of office he had the satisfaction of seeing a plentiful supply of water brought into the heart of the city from the suburban manor of Finsbury.1257[pg 417]St. Bartholomew's Hospital, &c., vested in the City, 13 Jan., 1547.Henry's reign was now fast drawing to a close. In April, 1546, he had bestowed an endowment of 500 marks a year on the city poor-houses on condition the citizens themselves found a similar sum.1258In January, 1547—a few days only before he died—he showed still further care for the city poor by vesting in the Corporation, not only St. Bartholomew's Hospital, thenceforth to be known as the House of the Poor in West Smithfield, but also the house and church of the dissolved monastery of the Grey Friars and the house and hospital of Bethlehem.1259A committee appointed to investigate the recently acquired property, 6 May, 1547.The Corporation lost no time in getting their newly acquired property into working order. On the 6th May the late king's conveyance was read before the Court of Aldermen, and thereupon a committee, of which Sir Martin Bowes was a prominent member, was deputed to make an abstract of the yearly revenues and charges of the house of the Grey Friars and hospital of little Saint Bartholomew, and to report thereon to the court with as much speed as possible.1260From a purely monetary point of view the City had made a bad bargain, and had saddled itself with an annual expenditure out of the Corporation revenues to an extent little thought of at the time.1261The king's death, 28 Jan., 1547.On the 28th January, 1547, Henry died "at hys most pryncely howse at Westminster, comenly[pg 418]called Yorkeplace or Whytehall"—the palace which Cardinal Wolsey built for himself, and which Henry appropriated, extending its grounds and preserves in cynical contempt of public convenience and utter disregard of the chartered rights of the citizens of London.1262There his corpse remained until the 14th February, when it was removed at 8 o'clock in the morning to Sion House, near Richmond, and thence conveyed to Windsor on the following day.Edward VI proclaimed king in the city, 31 Jan., 1547.In the meantime the mayor, Henry Huberthorne, or Hoberthorne,1263had been sent for (31 Jan.) to attend the king's council at Westminster, where he received orders to return to the city and cause himself and his brother aldermen to be arrayed in their scarlet robes, in order to accompany the heralds whilst they proclaimed the new king in various parts of the city. This being done, the mayor took steps for securing the peace of the city, and the citizens voted Edward a benevolence of a fifteenth and a half.1264Distribution of gowns of black livery.Edward on his part presented the mayor and aldermen with 104 gowns of black livery, according to the precedent followed at the decease of Henry VII.[pg 419]These gowns were distributed among the mayor and aldermen, the high officers and certain clerks in the service of the Corporation. Ten aldermen accompanied the remains of the late king on their way to Windsor, riding forth in black coats with the rest of the mourners, the harness and bridles of their horses being covered with black cloth. Two of the aldermen, Sir William Laxton and Sir Martin Bowes, had each four servants in their suite, whilst the rest of the aldermen had three, all in black coats.1265
[pg 383]CHAPTER XIV.The House of Commons and the Clergy, 1529.Although Wolsey was no more, his works followed him. He it was, and not Henry, who first conceived the idea of church reform, towards which some steps had been taken in Wolsey's lifetime. It was left for Henry to carry out the design of his great minister. When the king laid his hand on the monasteries, he only followed the example set by the cardinal in 1525, when some of the smaller religious houses in Kent, Sussex and Essex were suppressed for his great foundation of Oxford. To assist him in carrying out his design he turned to parliament. Relieved as they now were of the oppression of the great nobles, the Commons were ready to use their newly-acquired independence against the clergy, who exacted extravagant fees and misused the powers of the ecclesiastical courts. Acts were passed regulating the payment of mortuary fees and the fees for probate, whilst another Act restricted the holding of pluralities and the taking of ferms by church-men.1152The clergy threatened to appeal to Rome, but were warned that such action would be met with pains and penalties as opposed to the royal prerogative.1153Disputes touching tithes payable to city clergy, 1527-1534.In the city the question of tithes payable to the clergy had been always more or less a vexed question. Before the commencement of the thirteenth century the city clergy had been supported by casual dues in[pg 384]addition to their glebe land. These casual payments were originally personal, but subsequently became regulated by the amount of rent paid by parishioners for their houses. A question arose as to whether the citizens were also liable to pay personal tithes on their gains, and it was eventually decided that they were so liable.1154On the 31st August, 1527, a committee, which had been specially appointed to enquire into matters concerning the city's welfare, reported, among other things, upon the tithe question as it then stood in the city.1155The "curates," they said, had purchased a Bull of Pope Nicholas, on the 6th August, 1453, and this Bull had been confirmed by Act of Common Council on the 3rd March, 1475. Not only was the amount of the tithe payable fixed by the Bull, but the Bull itself was to be publicly read by the curates four times a year, so that no doubt should exist in the minds of the parishioners. This the curates had failed to do, and had caused their parishioners heavy legal expenses in disputing demands for tithes. One man was known to have spent as much as £100 in his own defence. The committee suggested that the whole question should be referred to the Bishop of London, and that a translation of the Bull should be exhibited in every church. The citizens were the more aggrieved because many parsonages and vicarages were let to ferm.1156The curates' book of articles.The curates made their defence in a book of eighteen articles touching tithes and other oblations,[pg 385]the chief point being that every householder, time out of mind, had been bound to pay to God and the Church one farthing out of every 10s.of rent, a half-penny out of 20s.and so forth, on 100 days of the year; amounting in all to 2s.1d.for every 10s.rentper annum. This manner of payment proving tedious, the curates and their parishioners came to an agreement that 1s.2d.should be paid on every 6s.8d.or noble, and this sum the curates had been receiving time out of mind, none reclaiming or denying. But, inasmuch as this payment by occupiers of houses was only ordained for a "dowry" to the parish churches of London which had no glebe lands, the curates demanded that all merchants and artificers, with other occupiers of the city, should pay personal tithes of their "lucre or encrece" according to the common law, and as "well conscyoned" men had been in the habit of paying in times past.1157The book of articles was laid before the Court of Common Council on the 16th February, 1528, by Robert Carter and six other priests, on behalf of their entire body. On the following 16th March the Court of Aldermen for themselves agreed to pay tithe at the forthcoming Easter according to the Bull of Pope Nicholas, and not after the rate of 1s.2d.on the noble,1158whilst four days later the Common Council decided that, for the sake of convenience, bills should be posted in every parish church within the city showing the number of offering days (viz., eighty-two) and the amount to be offered by inhabitants of the city.1159[pg 386]So matters continued until, early in 1534, it was agreed to submit the whole question to the lord chancellor and other members of the council, who made their award a few days before Easter.1160It decreed that at the forthcoming festival every subject should pay to the parson or curate of his parish after the rate of 2s.9d.in the pound, and 16 pence half-penny in the half-pound, and that every man's wife, servant, child and apprentice receiving the Holy Sacrament should pay two pence. These payments were to continue to be paid "without grudge or murmur" until such time as the council should arrive at a final settlement.1161Elsing Spital and Holy Trinity Priory surrendered to the king, 1530-1531.In the meanwhile the city had been made to feel the heavy hand of the king and of his new minister, Thomas Cromwell. In May, 1530, Elsing Spital, a house established by William Elsing, a charitable mercer, for the relief of the blind, but which had subsequently grown into a priory of Augustinian canons of wealth and position, was confiscated by the Crown. What became of the blind inmates is not known. In the following year (1531) the Priory of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, shared the same fate. The priory had existed since the time of Henry I and the "good queen" Matilda,1162and its prior enjoyed the singular distinction of beingex[pg 387]officioan alderman of the city. The canons were now removed to another place and the building and site bestowed by Henry upon his chancellor, Sir Thomas Audley.1163The Great Beam reconveyed to the City after the lapse of ten years, 1531.Between 1531 and 1534 the City enjoyed some respite from attack. It even recovered some of its lost privileges. In 1521 Henry had deprived the City of its right to the Great Beam, and of the issues and profits derived from it, and had caused a conveyance of it to be made to Sir William Sidney. In 1531 the beam was re-conveyed to the City.1164The Grocers' Company were scarcely less interested in the beam than the City, for to them was deputed the choice of weighers, who were afterwards admitted and sworn before the Court of Aldermen. Both the City and the company used their best endeavours to recover their lost rights, the former going so far as to sanction the distribution of the sum of £23 6s.8d.between the king's sergeant, the king's attorney, and one "Lumnore,"1165a servant of "my lady Anne,"1166with the view of gaining their object the easier.1167A compromise was subsequently effected by which Sir William Sidney continued to hold the beam at an annual rent payable to the City,1168until, in 1531, he[pg 388]consented to a surrender, and it became again vested in the Corporation.Feeling in the city at Henry's marriage with Anne Boleyn, 1533.Finding it hopeless to obtain the Pope's sanction to his divorce from Catherine, Henry at last lost all patience, and on the 25th January, 1533, was privately married to Anne Boleyn. The match was unpopular with the citizens, who took occasion of a sermon preached on Easter-day to show their dissatisfaction. According to Chapuys, the Spanish ambassador, who sent an account of the affair to the emperor, the greater part of the congregation got up and left the church when prayers were desired for the queen. When Henry heard of the insult thus offered to his new bride he was furious, and forthwith sent word to the mayor to see that no such manifestation should occur again. Thereupon, continues Chapuys, the mayor summoned the guilds to assemble in their various halls and commanded them to cease murmuring against the king's marriage on pain of incurring the royal displeasure, and to order their own journeymen and servants, "and, a still more difficult task, their own wives," to refrain from speaking disparagingly about the queen.1169The queen's passage from the Tower to Westminster, 31 May, 1533.It was perhaps on this account that the civic authorities excelled themselves in giving the queen a suitable reception as she passed from the Tower to Westminster on the 31st May. The Court of Aldermen directed (14 May) the wardens of the Haberdashers to prepare their barge as well as the "bachelers" barge for the occasion. Three pageants were to be set up, one in Leadenhall and the others at the[pg 389]Standard and the little Conduit in Cheapside. The Standard was to run with wine. A deputation was appointed to wait upon the king's council to learn its wishes, and enquiry was to be made of the Duke of Norfolk whether the clergy should take part in the day's proceedings, and whether the merchants of the Steelyard or other strangers should be allowed to erect pageants.1170The City's gift of 1,000 marks.The Court of Common Council had on the previous day (13 May) voted a gift of 1,000 marks to be presented to the queen at her coronation, and a further sum to be expended in the city "for the honor of the same."1171Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn were the only queens of king Henry VIII who were crowned, and on both occasions the citizens of London performed the customary services.1172The Act of Succession, 1534.In September (1533) Anne gave birth to a daughter, who afterwards ascended the throne as Queen Elizabeth. In the following spring (1534) parliament passed an Act of Succession, which not only declared Elizabeth (and not Mary, the king's daughter by Catherine of Aragon) heir to the crown, but required all subjects to take an oath acknowledging the succession. Commissioners were appointed to tender the oath to the citizens,1173and by the 20th April the "most part of the city was sworn to the[pg 390]"king and his legitimate issue by the queen's grace now had and hereafter to come."1174A fortnight later deeds under the common seals of the livery companies "concernyng the suretye state and succession" of the king were delivered to Henry in person at Greenwich by a deputation of aldermen.1175Proceedings against those objecting to subscribe to the Act of Succession.The oath, nevertheless, met with much opposition, more especially among the clergy and the religious orders. Elizabeth Barton, known as the "holy maid of Kent," and some of her followers, among them being Henry Gold, rector of the church of St. Mary Aldermary, were executed at Tyburn for daring to speak against the king's marriage.1176The friars proved extremely obstinate, and Henry sent commissioners to seek out and suppress all those friaries that refused to submit.The monks of the Charterhouse, 1534-1535.The inmates of the London Charterhouse, who might well have been left to enjoy their quiet seclusion from the world, were startled by a visit from the king's commissioners calling upon them to take the oath. The manner of their reception by John Houghton, the prior, and his brethren and subsequent proceedings are graphically described by Maurice Chauncy,1177one[pg 391]of the inmates, who was more compliant than his brethren to the king's wishes, and thereby saved his life. The prior and Humphrey Middlemore, the procurator of the convent, were committed to the Tower for counselling opposition to the commissioners. There they were visited by the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of London, who persuaded them at last that the question of the succession was not a cause in which to sacrifice their lives for conscience sake. The result was that after a while Houghton and his companion declared their willingness to submit. On the 29th May the commissioners received oaths of fealty from Prior Houghton and five other monks, and on the 6th June Bishop Lee and Sir Thomas Kitson, one of the sheriffs, received similar oaths from a number of priests, professed monks and lay brethren orconversibelonging to the house.1178The oaths of obedience to the Act were given under reservation "so far as the law of God permitted," and for a time the monks were left in comparative quiet, some few of them, of whom Cromwell entertained the most hope of submission, being sent, by his direction, to the convent of Sion.1179[pg 392]The Act of Supremacy, 1534.Execution of Houghton and others, 1535.The exhortations of the "father confessor" were not without some measure of success, several of the Carthusians being induced to alter their opinions as to the king's demands. The seal of doom, however, was fixed on the order by the passing of the Act which called upon its members to renounce the Pope and acknowledge the royal supremacy.1180Fisher and More denied the king's title of Supreme Head of the Church, and were committed to the Tower. At this crisis there came to London two priors of Carthusian houses established, one in Nottinghamshire and the other in Lincolnshire. They came to talk over the state of affairs with Houghton. An interview with Cromwell, recently appointed vicar-general or king's vicegerent in matters ecclesiastical, was resolved on. The king might possibly be prevailed upon to make some abatement in his demands. Cromwell, however, no sooner discovered the object of their visit than he committed them to the Tower as rebels and would-be traitors. As they still refused to acknowledge the king's supremacy in the Church, in spite of all efforts of persuasion, they were brought to trial, together with Father Reynolds of Sion, on a charge of treason. A verdict of guilty was, after some hesitation on the part of the jury, found against them, and they were executed at Tyburn (4 May, 1535), glorying in the cause for which they were held worthy to suffer death. Houghton's arm was suspended over the gateway of the London Charterhouse, in the fond hope that the rest of the brethren might be awed into submission. This atrocious act of barbarism had,[pg 393]however, precisely the opposite effect to that desired. The monks were more resolute than ever not to submit, and not even a personal visit of Henry himself could turn them from their purpose.1181Three of them were thereupon committed to prison, where they were compelled to stand in an upright position for thirteen days, chained from their necks to their arms and with their legs fettered.1182They were afterwards brought to trial on a charge of treason, convicted and executed (19 June).The fate of the remaining monks is soon told. In May, 1537, the royal commissioners once more attended at the Charterhouse, when they found the majority of its inmates prepared to take the oath prescribed. Ten of them, however, still refused, and were committed to Newgate and there left to be "dispatched by the hand of God," in other words to meet a painful and lingering death from fever and starvation. The following month the remnant of the community made their submission, and the London Charterhouse, as a monastic institution, ceased to exist.Execution of Fisher and More, 1535.Fisher and More were now brought from the Tower, where they had lain six months and more, and convicted on a similar charge of treason. Their sentence was commuted to death by beheading. Fisher was the first to suffer (19 June, 1535). His head was set up on London Bridge and his body buried in the churchyard of All Hallows, Barking. More suffered a few weeks later (6 July). His head, too, was placed on London Bridge, but his body was buried in the[pg 394]Tower, whither the remains of Fisher were afterwards carried. On the 15th December the Court of Aldermen publicly condemned a sermon preached by Fisher "in derogation and diminution of the royal estate of the king's majesty."1183The Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536.When, in the following year (1536), the smaller monasteries—those of less than £200 a year—were dissolved by Act of Parliament, and the inhabitants of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, taking fright lest the king and Cromwell should proceed to despoil the parish churches, set out on the Pilgrimage of Grace, Henry sought the City's aid. On the 10th October a letter from the king was read before the Court of Aldermen, desiring them to dispatch forthwith to his manor of Ampthill, where the nobles were about to wait upon his majesty, a contingent of at least 250 armed men, 200 of which were to be well horsed, and 100 to be archers.1184The mayor, Sir John Allen,1185lost no time in issuing his precept to the livery companies for each of them to furnish a certain number of bowmen and billmen, well horsed and arrayed in jackets of white bearing the City's arms. They were to muster in Moorfields within twenty-four hours. The Mercers were called upon to furnish the largest quota, viz., twenty men; the Grocers, Drapers, Tailors and Cloth-workers respectively, sixteen men, and the rest of the companies contingents varying from twelve to two.1186The Court of Aldermen at the same time took[pg 395]the precaution of depriving all priests and curates, as well as all friars dwelling within the city, of every offensive weapon, so that they should be left with nothing but their "meate knyves."1187The king sent a letter of thanks for the city's contingent.1188Later on, when Allen had been succeeded in the mayoralty by Sir Ralph Warren,1189it was resolved that each member of the court should provide at his own cost and charges twenty able men fully equipped in case of any emergency that might arise, whilst the companies were again called upon to hold men in readiness.1190Henry's marriage with Jane Seymour, May, 1536.Henry in the meantime had got rid of his second wife on the specious ground of her having misconducted herself with more than one member of the court, the real cause being her miscarriage1191of a male child, to the king's bitter disappointment. Henry had made up his mind to change his wives until he could find one who would give him a male heir and thus place the succession to the crown beyond all possibility of doubt. The very next day following Anne Boleyn's execution he married Jane Seymour. The marriage necessitated the calling together of a new parliament, when a fresh Act was passed settling[pg 396]the succession on Jane's children and declaring both Mary and Elizabeth illegitimate. Nevertheless, as soon as Mary made formal submission to her father, the king's attitude towards her, from being cold and cruel, changed at once to one of courtesy if not of affection. He was thought to entertain the idea of declaring her heir-apparent. Indeed, on Sunday, the 20th August, she was actually proclaimed as such in one of the London churches—no doubt by some mistake.1192Convocation at St. Paul's, 9 June-20 July, 1536.Whilst parliament was sitting at Westminster convocation was gathered at St. Paul's in the city, and continued to sit there until the 20th July, presided over by Cromwell as the king's vicar-general. The meeting was remarkable for its formal decree that Henry, as supreme head of the Church, might and ought to disregard all citations by the Pope, as well as for the promulgation of the ten articles intended to promote uniformity of belief and worship.1193Preparation for the new queen's coronation.She dies in childbed, 24 Oct., 1537.In September, 1536, the Court of Common Council agreed to vote the same sum of money for the coronation of the "right excellent pryncesse lady Jane, quene of Englonde," as had been granted at the coronation of "dame Anne, late queene of Englonde."1194The money, however, was not required, for the new queen was never crowned. Just one week after the birth of a prince (12 Oct., 1537), afterwards King Edward VI, there was a solemn procession of priests from every city church, with the Bishop of London, the choir of St. Paul's, the mayor, aldermen and[pg 397]crafts in their liveries, for the preservation of the infant prince and for the health of the queen, who lay in a precarious state.1195A few days later (24 Oct.) she was dead. The citizens caused her obit to be celebrated in St. Paul's with truly regal pomp.1196Anne of Cleves arrives at Dover, 27 Dec., 1539.Her passage through the city, 4 Feb,. 1540.Two years later the citizens were preparing to set out to Greenwich in their barge (the mayor, aldermen, and those who had served the office of sheriff, in liveries of black velvet with chains of gold on their necks, accompanied by their servants in coats of russet) to welcome Anne of Cleves, who landed at Dover the 27th December, 1539.1197On the 3rd February, 1540, the Court of Aldermen was informed that the king and queen would be leaving Greenwich on the morrow for Westminster, and that it was the king's wish that the commons of London should be in their best apparel, in their barges, to wait upon his highness, meeting at St. Dunstan's in the East at 7 o'clock in the morning and arriving at Greenwich by 8 o'clock.1198Cromwell's work of demolition in the city, 1537-1538.The insurrection which had taken place in the country under the name of the Pilgrimage of Grace was seized by the king as an excuse for suppressing many of the larger monasteries and confiscating their property. He had no such excuse for carrying out his destructive policy in the city. Nevertheless, under the immediate supervision of Cromwell, the work of suppression went on, and before the end of 1538 was[pg 398]well nigh complete. The surrender of the houses of the Black Friars, the Grey Friars and the White Friars followed in quick succession, "and so all the other immediatlie."1199Cromwell by this time had removed from his house near Fenchurch to another near the Austin Friars in Throgmorton Street. He had recently asked for a pipe of water to be laid on to his new house, and this the Common Council had "lovingly" granted.1200In his private concerns he showed as little regard for the rights of others as in the affairs of State. He did not scruple to remove bodily a small house, the property of Stow's father, in order to enlarge his own garden, giving neither warning beforehand nor explanation afterwards, and "no man durst go to argue the matter."1201The hospital of St. Thomas of Acon, which had ministered to the wants of the poorer citizens for nearly 400 years, disappeared,1202and was soon followed by the priory and hospital of St. Bartholomew, an institution of even greater antiquity, the hospital of St. Thomas, in Southwark, the priory and hospital of St. Mary without Bishopsgate, known as St. Mary of Bethlem, or "Bedlam," and the Abbey of Graces or New Abbey (sometimes called the Eastminster to distinguish it from the other minster in the west of London) which had been founded by Edward III, near Tower Hill.[pg 399]The division of the spoil.A portion of the spoil was, as we have already seen, distributed among court favourites. The site of the house and gardens of the Augustinian Friars in Broad Street Ward was occupied, soon after their suppression (12 Nov., 1538), by the mansion-house of that politic courtier the celebrated Marquis of Winchester, who managed to maintain himself in high station in spite of the changes which took place under the several reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth, "by being a willow and not an oak." The building known at the present day as Winchester House, in Broad Street, stands near the site of the old mansion-house and garden of William Paulet, first Marquis of Winchester. The Friars' church he allowed to stand; and in June, 1550, the nave was granted, by virtue of a charter permitting alien non-conforming churches to exist in this country, to the Dutch and Walloon churches.1203The first marquis dying in 1571, he was succeeded by his son, who sold the monuments and lead from the roof of the remaining portion of the church and turned the place into a stable.1204The fourth marquis was reduced to parting with his house, built on the site of the old priory, in order to pay his debts, and appears to have found a purchaser in a wealthy London merchant and alderman of the city, John Swinnerton or Swynarton.1205[pg 400]The mayor's effort to save the destruction of the steeple of the Austin Friars Church.The steeple of the church, which was of so great beauty that the citizens desired its preservation,1206was sold by the marquis to Henry Robinson, who forthwith set to work to pull it down on the ground that it was in such a state of decay as to be a danger to the passer-by. Swinnerton, who happened to be mayor at the time, ordered him to stay the work of demolition; he, however, not only hurried on the more, but obstructed the officers sent to put a stop to the work, for which he was committed to Newgate to stay there until he gave security for restoring what he had already pulled down. The thought suggests itself that the fact of Swinnerton having purchased adjacent property may have made him the more zealous in preventing the demolition of the steeple than perhaps he might otherwise have been. However that may be, he lost no time in informing the lords of the council of the state of affairs and asking their advice (16 Feb., 1612). The reply came three days later, and was to the effect that as the City had had the option of purchasing the steeple at even a less price than Robinson had paid for it, and might have come to some arrangement with the marquis to keep it in repair, it could not prevent Robinson, who purchased it as a speculation, making the best he could of his bargain; so that, unless the City consented to accept Robinson's offer to part with his property on payment of his purchase-money and disbursements within a fortnight, down the steeple must come.1207The priory of St. Helen without Bishopsgate.The priory of St. Helen without Bishopsgate was one of the last to be surrendered. In 1542 the[pg 401]nuns' chapel, which at one time was partitioned off from the rest of the church, was made over to Sir Richard Williams, a nephew of Thomas Cromwell, and ancestor of the Protector. The nuns' refectory or hall passed into the hands of the Leathersellers' Company and formed the company's hall until the close of the last century. The conduct of the inmates of the priory had not always been what it should be.1208The last prioress, in anticipation of the coming storm, leased a large portion of the conventual property to members of her own family, and at the time of the suppression was herself allowed a gratuity of £30 and a pension.Friendly relations between the Corporation and religious houses in the city.The relations existing between the civic authorities and the religious houses in the city were often of a most friendly and cordial character. When, in 1520, the Friars of the Holy Cross wanted assistance for the maintenance and building of their church, they applied to the Corporation as being their "secund founders."1209For assistance thus given the friars bound themselves to pray for their benefactors. When, in 1512, the master of St. Bartholomew's hospital obtained a lease for ninety-nine years from the City of a parcel of land on which his gatehouse or porch stood, it was on condition of payment of a certain rent and of his keeping a yearly obit in his church for the souls of the mayor, aldermen and commons of the city; and when the master of the hospital, two years later, attempted to back out of[pg 402]the terms of his lease and asked to be discharged from keeping the obit on the ground that he thought that the payment of the specified rent was sufficient for the premises, the Court of Aldermen unanimously decided that no part of the agreement should be minished or remitted.1210When the house of the Sisters Minoresses or Poor Clares, situate in Aldgate, suffered from fire, the Corporation rendered them pecuniary aid to the extent of 300 marks.1211It was, however, to the Franciscans or Grey Friars that the citizens of London, individually as well as in their corporate capacity, were more especially attached. Soon after their arrival in England in 1223, they became indebted to the benevolence and generosity of citizens, their first benefactor having been John Ewen, citizen and mercer, who made them a gift of some land and houses in the parish of St. Nicholas by the Shambles. Upon this they erected their original building. Their first chapel, which became the chapel of their church, was built at the cost of William Joyner, who was mayor in 1239; the nave was added by Henry Waleys, who was frequently mayor during the reign of Edward I; the chapterhouse by Walter le Poter, elected sheriff in 1272; the dormitory by Gregory de Rokesley, who was mayor from 1274 to 1281, and again in 1284-5, and whose bones eventually found a resting place in their church; the refectory by another citizen, Bartholomew de Castro; and lastly—coming to later times—a library was added to their house by the bounty of Richard Whitington, as already narrated. It became the custom for the mayor and aldermen, as patron and[pg 403]founders, to pay a yearly visit to their house and church on St. Francis's day (4 Oct.). The custom dates from 1508. In 1522 the visit was for the first time followed by a dinner.1212Royal injunction for keeping Parish Registers, 29 Sept., 1538.In one respect at least, if in no other, Cromwell's action in suppressing religious houses resulted in a benefit to the city of London as well as to the country at large, and this was in the institution of parish registers, not only for baptisms, but also for marriages. It had been his intention to establish them in 1536 to remedy the inconvenience to the public arising from the suppression of the smaller monasteries, and it is evident that some instructions were given at this time, inasmuch as the registers of two city parishes—viz., St. James Garlickhithe and St. Mary Bothaw—commence in November of this year,1213although the royal injunction commanding that registers should systematically be kept up, under penalty of fines, was not published by Cromwell, as vicar-general, until the 29th September, 1538. The delay is to be accounted for by the great discontent which the rumour of his project excited in the country. It was reported that some new tax on the services of the Church was contemplated, and the first in the list of popular grievances circulated by the rebels in the Pilgrimage of Grace was the payment of tribute to the king for the sacrament of baptism. In course of time, as matters became quieter and the government began to feel its own strength, Cromwell resumed a project never altogether abandoned, and caused the injunction to be[pg 404]issued, an action for which posterity must ever be deeply grateful.Great increase of London poor, consequent on the suppression of religious houses.On the other hand, the sudden closing of these institutions caused the streets to be thronged with the sick and poor, and the small parish churches to be so crowded with those who had been accustomed to frequent the larger and more commodious churches of the friars that there was scarce room left for the parishioners themselves. The city authorities saw at once that something would have to be done if they wished to keep their streets clear of beggars and of invalids, and not invite the spread of sickness by allowing infected persons to wander at large. As a means of affording temporary relief, collections for the poor were made every Sunday at Paul's Cross, after the sermon, and the proceeds were distributed weekly among the most necessitous,1214but more comprehensive steps were required to be taken.Sir Richard Gresham's letter to the king for conveyance to the City of certain hospitals.Sir Richard Gresham,1215who was mayor at the time (1537-8), took upon himself to address a letter1216to the king setting forth that there were three hospitals in the city, viz., St. Mary's Spital, St. Bartholomew's and St. Thomas's, besides the New Abbey on Tower Hill—institutions primarily founded "onely for the releffe, comforte and helpyng of pore and impotent[pg 405]people not beyng able to helpe theymselffes; and not to the mayntenannce of Chanons, Preests, and Monks to lyve in pleasure, nothyng regardyng the miserable people liyng in every strete, offendyng every clene person passyng by the way with theyre fylthy and nasty savours"—and asking that the mayor and aldermen of the city for the time being might have the order and disposition of the hospitals mentioned, and of all the lands, tenements and revenues appertaining to the same. If his grace would but grant this request the mayor promised that a great number of the indigent sick would be relieved, whilst "sturdy beggars" not willing to work would be punished.Two petitions from the City, Mar., 1539.The City offers to purchase certain dissolved houses, 1 Aug., 1540.In March, 1539, the City presented two petitions to the king, one desiring that the late dissolved houses might be made over to them, together with their rents and revenues, in order that relief might be provided for the sick and needy, and the other asking that Henry would be pleased to convey to them the churches of the late four orders of friars, together with their lands and tenements, so that the mayor and citizens might take order for the due performance of divine service therein to the glory of God and the honour of the king.1217These petitions having been either refused or ignored, the Court of Common Council, on the 1st August, 1540, authorised the mayor and aldermen to make diligent suit to the king for the purchase of the houses, churches, and cloisters of the dissolved friars, and to make an offer of 1,000 marks for them "yf thei can be gotten no better chepe."1218Henry upbraided the[pg 406]City for being "pynche pence" or stingy in their offer,1219but as no better offer was made the matter was allowed to stand over, and nothing was done for four years.The City in difficulties with king and parliament, 1541-1542.Henry meanwhile took the opportunity afforded him by a full treasury, which rendered him independent of the favour of the citizens, of robbing them of their right of measuring linen-cloth and other commodities, and conferring the same by letters patent on John Godsalve, one of the clerks of the signet. The City's right was incontestable, and had been admitted by the king's chancellor, as well as by the Chancellor of the Court of Fruits and Tenths (a court recently established), and the mayor and aldermen represented the facts of the case to the king himself by letter, dated the 21st July, 1541.1220Another "variance" occurred about this time between the City and the Crown touching the office and duties of the City's waterbailiff.1221Again, in the spring of 1542, an incident occurred which caused the relations between parliament and the City to be somewhat strained. The sheriffs of that year—Rowland Hill,1222an ancestor of the founder of the Penny Post, and Henry Suckley—had thought fit to obstruct the sergeant-at-mace in the execution of his duty, whilst attempting to remove a prisoner, who was a member of parliament, from[pg 407]one of the compters. The arrest of a member of parliament has always been a hazardous operation, and the sheriffs after a time thought better of it and gave up their prisoner. The Speaker, nevertheless, summoned them to appear at the Bar of the House and finally committed them to the Tower. They were released after two or three days, however, at the humble suit of the mayor.1223Precautions against the spread of pestilence, 1543.In the following year (1543) the plague returned, and extra-precautions had to be taken against the spread of the disease, now that the houses of the friars were no longer open to receive patients and to alleviate distress. Besides the usual order that infected houses should be marked with a cross, the mayor caused proclamation to be made that persons of independent means should undergo quarantine for one month after recovery from sickness, whilst others whom necessity compelled to walk abroad for their livelihood were to carry in their hands white rods, two feet in length, for the space of forty days after convalescence. Straw and rushes in an infected house were to be removed to the fields before they were burnt, and infected clothing was to be carried away to be aired and not to be hung out of window. The hard-heartedness engendered by these visitations is evidenced by the necessity of the mayor having to enjoin that thenceforth no householder within the city or liberties should put any person stricken with the plague out of his house into the street, without making provision for his being kept in some other[pg 408]house. All dogs other than hounds, spaniels or mastiffs kept for the purpose of guarding the house were forthwith to be removed out of the city or killed, whilst watch-dogs were to be confined to the house.1224In October the mayor was ordered to resume the weekly bills of mortality, which of late had been neglected, in order that the king might be kept informed as to the increase or decrease of the sickness.1225The Michaelmas Law Sittings had to be postponed until the 15th November, and were removed to St. Albans.1226Preparation for renewal of war with France, 1544.Whilst the city was being wasted by disease the king was preparing for war with France.1227A joint expedition by Henry and Charles was to be undertaken in the following year (1544). A commission was issued early in the year for raising money in the city, and the lord chancellor himself, accompanied by officers of State, came into the city to read it. Finding that the lord mayor's name appeared third on the commission instead of being placed at its head, the chancellor ordered the mistake to be at once rectified by the town clerk and a new commission to be drawn up, whilst the rest of the lords agreed that at their several sessions on the business of this subsidy the lord mayor should occupy the seat of honour.1228By the end of April the chancellor (Audley) had died. His successor, Lord Wriothesley, had not long been appointed before the Court of Aldermen sent a deputation to desire his lordship's favour and friendship[pg 409]in the city's affairs, and agreed to make him a present of a couple of silver-gilt pots to the value of £20 or thereabouts.1229On the 24th May the Common Council agreed to provide a contingent of 500 or 600 men at the discretion of the mayor and aldermen, the men being raised from the livery companies.1230The re-establishment of St. Bartholomew's hospital, 23 June, 1544.Just as the king was about to set sail for the continent, he issued letters patent (23 June, 1544) re-establishing the hospital of St. Bartholomew on a new foundation, with the avowed object of providing "comfort to prisoners, shelter to the poor, visitation to the sick, food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothes to the naked, and sepulture to the dead."1231The campaign in France of 1544.Henry crossed over to France, leaving the new queen, Catherine Parr, widow of Lord Latimer, whom he had recently married, regent of the realm. After a long siege, lasting from July until September, he succeeded in taking Boulogne. On Thursday, the 25th September, an order was received by the Court of Aldermen from the lord chancellor, on behalf of the queen regent, to get in readiness another contingent of 500 men well harnessed and weaponed, 100 of whom were to be archers and the rest billmen. The last mentioned were to be provided with "blak bylles or morys pykes." The whole force was to be ready for shipment to Boulogne by the following Saturday. No time was to be lost. The wardens of the city companies were immediately summoned, and each company was ordered to provide the same number[pg 410]of men as on the last occasion. Each soldier was to be provided with a coat of grey frieze, with half sleeves, and a pair of new boots or else "sterte upps." The Corporation for its part appointed five captains, to each of whom was given the sum of £10 towards his apparel and charges, whilst £5 was allowed to each petty captain. These sums were paid out of the "goods" of the mayor and commonalty.1232Scarcely had the city recovered from this drain upon its population before it was again called upon to fill up the ranks of the army in France. On Saturday, the 25th October, the Court of Aldermen was ordered to raise another force of 500 men by the following Monday. It was no easy matter to comply with so sudden a demand. The city companies were called upon to contribute as before, any deficiency in the number of men raised by them being made up by men raised by the mayor and aldermen themselves in a somewhat novel fashion. The Court of Aldermen had agreed that each of their number should on the Saturday night make the round of his ward and select "fifty, forty, twenty, or ten" tall and comely men, who should be warned in the king's name to appear the next morning before seven o'clock at the Guildhall. On Sunday morning the mayor and aldermen came to the Guildhall, and took the names of those whom they had selected over night. Two hundred men were eventually set apart to make up the deficiency of those to be provided by the companies. By six o'clock in the evening the whole contingent of 500 men was thus raised, and at nine o'clock on Monday morning they mustered at Leadenhall,[pg 411]whence they were conducted by the sheriffs and city chamberlain to the Tower Hill and handed over to Sir Thomas Arundel, who complimented the civic authorities on the appearance of the men, and promised to commend their diligence to the king.1233This same Monday morning (27 Oct.) the mayor received instructions to see that such carpenters and other artificers as had been "prested" for the king's service at Boulogne by the king's master-carpenter kept their day and presented themselves at the time and place appointed on pain of death.1234Search was ordered to be made in the following month for mariners lurking in the city, and if any were discovered they were to be forthwith despatched to the ships awaiting them.1235City gift to the king on his return from France.By this time the king had ceased to take a personal part in the campaign and had returned home, the mayor and aldermen giving him a hearty welcome, and making him a suitable present in token of their joy for his return and his success in effecting the surrender of Boulogne.1236Opposition to a benevolence in the city, 1545.At the opening of the next year (1545) Henry demanded another benevolence after the rate of two shillings in the pound. The lord chancellor and others of the king's council sat at Baynard's Castle to collect the benevolence of the city, "callinge all the citizens of the same before them, begininge first with the mayor and aldermen."1237Richard Rede, alderman of the ward of Farringdon Without, resisted this demand[pg 412]as unconstitutional, and was promptly despatched to the king in Scotland, where he was shortly afterwards made a prisoner of war. Another alderman, Sir William Roche, of Bassishaw ward, was unfortunate enough to offend the council and was committed to the Fleet.1238William Laxton, mayor, knighted, 8 Feb., 1545.On the 8th February William Laxton, the mayor, was presented to the king at Westminster, when Henry took occasion to thank him and his brother aldermen for the benevolence they had given him. He informed them of the success that had recently attended the English forces under the Earl of Hertford and the lord admiral, Sir John Dudley, whom he had left as deputy of Boulogne, and dismissed them to their homes after conferring upon the mayor the honour of knighthood.1239A call for volunteers for the French war. April, 1545.In the following April volunteers were called for, and those in the city willing to follow the fortunes of war as "adventurers" were asked to repair to the sign of the "Gunne," at Billingsgate, where they would receive directions from John of Caleys, captain of all such adventurers, for their passage to France.1240The sessions of the law courts were adjourned in order to give lawyers and suitors an opportunity of showing their patriotism by taking up arms.1241The city companies furnished 100 men appareled "with whyte cotes of penystone whytes1242or karsies," with a[pg 413]red cross of St. George before and behind, each being provided with a white cap to wear under his "sallett or scull."1243The last subsidy to be forthwith paid up.There yet remained a portion of the last subsidy to be collected, for which purpose the lord chancellor once more paid a visit to the city (12 June) and sat in the Guildhall. Every alderman was straitly charged to call before him every person in his ward who was worth £40 and upwards. The king's affairs were pressing, and this last payment must be immediately forthcoming.1244A force of 2,000 soldiers demanded of the City, June, 1545.A week later (19 June) letters from the king were read to the Court of Aldermen touching the levying of more forces and firing of beacons—a French squadron had appeared off the south coast. It was resolved to adjourn consideration of the message until the following Monday, when the lord chancellor and other lords of the council would again be coming into the city for the subsidy, and their advice could be asked. The outcome of these letters was that the City had to raise a force of 2,000 able men. To do this an assessment of a fifteenth was ordered to be levied on the wards, but in the meantime the money so to be raised was to be advanced by the aldermen.1245Not only were the aldermen on this, as on other occasions, mulcted in their pocket, but they were also called upon to personally share with the lord mayor himself and the sheriffs in the extra watch which in the "besye tyme of the warres" was ordered to be kept in the city.1246[pg 414]In the meantime a man was despatched by the Court of Aldermen to St. James' Fair to buy five wey of cheese for the city's soldiers who were already at Guildford. The cheese was to be sent by water as far as Kingston, whence it would be conveyed by "the good industrye and help of Master Judde, alderman," to its destination. The bakers of Stratford contracted to send two cart-loads of bread. It was further agreed on the same day that Christopher Fowlke should forthwith go to Guildford, and further if need be, "to guyde the seyd vytayle and to utter the same to the souldyers by thassistence of the sworde berer and the under chamberleyn. And to recyve money for the same."1247A flag and a drum were likewise to be despatched forthwith. The citizen soldiers were required to assist in driving out the French, who had effected a landing in the Isle of Wight; but before they arrived the enemy had disappeared.1248Boulogne threatened.The French king now prepared to lay siege to Boulogne, and the citizens were again called upon to furnish soldiers. One thousand men were required, and this number was only raised by enlisting men who had failed to pass previous musters. However, there was no time to pick and choose.1249Act for confiscating chantries, &c., 1545.By this time Henry's resources were fast giving out. A parliament was summoned to meet in November, and again resort was had to confiscation for the purpose of supplying the king with money. An Act was passed which placed 2,000 chantries and chapels and over 100 hospitals at Henry's disposal.1250[pg 415]Peace with France proclaimed, 13 June, 1546.All parties were, however, tired of the war, and in the following June (1546) a peace was concluded. Henry was allowed to retain Boulogne as security for a debt, and the French admiral soon afterwards paid a visit to the city, where he was heartily welcomed and hospitably entertained.1251Uniformity of religion enforced, 1546.Recantation of the rector of St. Mary Aldermary.Freed from the embarrassment of foreign wars, Henry now had leisure to turn his attention to home affairs, and more particularly to the establishment of that uniformity which he so much desired, and which he endeavoured to bring about by getting rid of all those who differed in opinion from himself. Those who openly declared their disbelief in any one of the "Six Articles," and more particularly in the first article, which established the doctrine of the real presence, ran the risk of death by the gallows, the block or the stake. A city rector, Dr. Crome, of the church of St. Mary Aldermary, got into disgrace for speaking lightly of the benefits to be derived from private masses, and, although his argument tended to minimise the effect of the recent confiscation of so many chantries, he was called upon to make a public recantation at Paul's Cross.1252Trial and execution of Anne Ascue.Others were not so compliant. Among these was Anne Ascue or Ascough, a daughter of Sir William Ascough, of Kelsey, in Lincolnshire, and sometimes known as Anne Kyme, from the name of her husband, with whom she had ceased to live. In June, 1545, she and some others, among whom was another woman, Joan, wife of John Sauterie, of London, had[pg 416]been arraigned at the Guildhall "for speaking against the sacrament of the altar"; but, no evidence being adduced against her, she was on that occasion acquitted and discharged.1253Scarcely a year elapsed before she was again in custody. On the 18th June, 1546, she was tried at the Guildhall and condemned to be burned alive as a heretic at Smithfield, where the city chamberlain had orders to erect a "substantial stage," whence the king's council and the civic authorities might witness the scene.1254Improved water supply of the city, 1545-1546.The insanitary condition of the city, occasioned for the most part by an insufficient supply of water, was not improved by the influx of disbanded and invalided soldiers, followed by a swarm of vagabonds and idlers, which took place at the conclusion of peace with France. To the soldiers licences were granted to solicit alms for longer or shorter periods, whilst the vagabonds were ordered to quit the city.1255The water question had been taken in hand by the Common Council towards the close of the preceding year (1545), when Sir Martin Bowes entered upon his mayoralty, and a tax of two fifteenths was imposed upon the inhabitants of the city for the purpose of conveying fresh water from certain "lively sprynges" recently discovered at Hackney.1256Bowes himself was very energetic in the matter, and before he went out of office he had the satisfaction of seeing a plentiful supply of water brought into the heart of the city from the suburban manor of Finsbury.1257[pg 417]St. Bartholomew's Hospital, &c., vested in the City, 13 Jan., 1547.Henry's reign was now fast drawing to a close. In April, 1546, he had bestowed an endowment of 500 marks a year on the city poor-houses on condition the citizens themselves found a similar sum.1258In January, 1547—a few days only before he died—he showed still further care for the city poor by vesting in the Corporation, not only St. Bartholomew's Hospital, thenceforth to be known as the House of the Poor in West Smithfield, but also the house and church of the dissolved monastery of the Grey Friars and the house and hospital of Bethlehem.1259A committee appointed to investigate the recently acquired property, 6 May, 1547.The Corporation lost no time in getting their newly acquired property into working order. On the 6th May the late king's conveyance was read before the Court of Aldermen, and thereupon a committee, of which Sir Martin Bowes was a prominent member, was deputed to make an abstract of the yearly revenues and charges of the house of the Grey Friars and hospital of little Saint Bartholomew, and to report thereon to the court with as much speed as possible.1260From a purely monetary point of view the City had made a bad bargain, and had saddled itself with an annual expenditure out of the Corporation revenues to an extent little thought of at the time.1261The king's death, 28 Jan., 1547.On the 28th January, 1547, Henry died "at hys most pryncely howse at Westminster, comenly[pg 418]called Yorkeplace or Whytehall"—the palace which Cardinal Wolsey built for himself, and which Henry appropriated, extending its grounds and preserves in cynical contempt of public convenience and utter disregard of the chartered rights of the citizens of London.1262There his corpse remained until the 14th February, when it was removed at 8 o'clock in the morning to Sion House, near Richmond, and thence conveyed to Windsor on the following day.Edward VI proclaimed king in the city, 31 Jan., 1547.In the meantime the mayor, Henry Huberthorne, or Hoberthorne,1263had been sent for (31 Jan.) to attend the king's council at Westminster, where he received orders to return to the city and cause himself and his brother aldermen to be arrayed in their scarlet robes, in order to accompany the heralds whilst they proclaimed the new king in various parts of the city. This being done, the mayor took steps for securing the peace of the city, and the citizens voted Edward a benevolence of a fifteenth and a half.1264Distribution of gowns of black livery.Edward on his part presented the mayor and aldermen with 104 gowns of black livery, according to the precedent followed at the decease of Henry VII.[pg 419]These gowns were distributed among the mayor and aldermen, the high officers and certain clerks in the service of the Corporation. Ten aldermen accompanied the remains of the late king on their way to Windsor, riding forth in black coats with the rest of the mourners, the harness and bridles of their horses being covered with black cloth. Two of the aldermen, Sir William Laxton and Sir Martin Bowes, had each four servants in their suite, whilst the rest of the aldermen had three, all in black coats.1265
The House of Commons and the Clergy, 1529.Although Wolsey was no more, his works followed him. He it was, and not Henry, who first conceived the idea of church reform, towards which some steps had been taken in Wolsey's lifetime. It was left for Henry to carry out the design of his great minister. When the king laid his hand on the monasteries, he only followed the example set by the cardinal in 1525, when some of the smaller religious houses in Kent, Sussex and Essex were suppressed for his great foundation of Oxford. To assist him in carrying out his design he turned to parliament. Relieved as they now were of the oppression of the great nobles, the Commons were ready to use their newly-acquired independence against the clergy, who exacted extravagant fees and misused the powers of the ecclesiastical courts. Acts were passed regulating the payment of mortuary fees and the fees for probate, whilst another Act restricted the holding of pluralities and the taking of ferms by church-men.1152The clergy threatened to appeal to Rome, but were warned that such action would be met with pains and penalties as opposed to the royal prerogative.1153Disputes touching tithes payable to city clergy, 1527-1534.In the city the question of tithes payable to the clergy had been always more or less a vexed question. Before the commencement of the thirteenth century the city clergy had been supported by casual dues in[pg 384]addition to their glebe land. These casual payments were originally personal, but subsequently became regulated by the amount of rent paid by parishioners for their houses. A question arose as to whether the citizens were also liable to pay personal tithes on their gains, and it was eventually decided that they were so liable.1154On the 31st August, 1527, a committee, which had been specially appointed to enquire into matters concerning the city's welfare, reported, among other things, upon the tithe question as it then stood in the city.1155The "curates," they said, had purchased a Bull of Pope Nicholas, on the 6th August, 1453, and this Bull had been confirmed by Act of Common Council on the 3rd March, 1475. Not only was the amount of the tithe payable fixed by the Bull, but the Bull itself was to be publicly read by the curates four times a year, so that no doubt should exist in the minds of the parishioners. This the curates had failed to do, and had caused their parishioners heavy legal expenses in disputing demands for tithes. One man was known to have spent as much as £100 in his own defence. The committee suggested that the whole question should be referred to the Bishop of London, and that a translation of the Bull should be exhibited in every church. The citizens were the more aggrieved because many parsonages and vicarages were let to ferm.1156The curates' book of articles.The curates made their defence in a book of eighteen articles touching tithes and other oblations,[pg 385]the chief point being that every householder, time out of mind, had been bound to pay to God and the Church one farthing out of every 10s.of rent, a half-penny out of 20s.and so forth, on 100 days of the year; amounting in all to 2s.1d.for every 10s.rentper annum. This manner of payment proving tedious, the curates and their parishioners came to an agreement that 1s.2d.should be paid on every 6s.8d.or noble, and this sum the curates had been receiving time out of mind, none reclaiming or denying. But, inasmuch as this payment by occupiers of houses was only ordained for a "dowry" to the parish churches of London which had no glebe lands, the curates demanded that all merchants and artificers, with other occupiers of the city, should pay personal tithes of their "lucre or encrece" according to the common law, and as "well conscyoned" men had been in the habit of paying in times past.1157The book of articles was laid before the Court of Common Council on the 16th February, 1528, by Robert Carter and six other priests, on behalf of their entire body. On the following 16th March the Court of Aldermen for themselves agreed to pay tithe at the forthcoming Easter according to the Bull of Pope Nicholas, and not after the rate of 1s.2d.on the noble,1158whilst four days later the Common Council decided that, for the sake of convenience, bills should be posted in every parish church within the city showing the number of offering days (viz., eighty-two) and the amount to be offered by inhabitants of the city.1159[pg 386]So matters continued until, early in 1534, it was agreed to submit the whole question to the lord chancellor and other members of the council, who made their award a few days before Easter.1160It decreed that at the forthcoming festival every subject should pay to the parson or curate of his parish after the rate of 2s.9d.in the pound, and 16 pence half-penny in the half-pound, and that every man's wife, servant, child and apprentice receiving the Holy Sacrament should pay two pence. These payments were to continue to be paid "without grudge or murmur" until such time as the council should arrive at a final settlement.1161Elsing Spital and Holy Trinity Priory surrendered to the king, 1530-1531.In the meanwhile the city had been made to feel the heavy hand of the king and of his new minister, Thomas Cromwell. In May, 1530, Elsing Spital, a house established by William Elsing, a charitable mercer, for the relief of the blind, but which had subsequently grown into a priory of Augustinian canons of wealth and position, was confiscated by the Crown. What became of the blind inmates is not known. In the following year (1531) the Priory of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, shared the same fate. The priory had existed since the time of Henry I and the "good queen" Matilda,1162and its prior enjoyed the singular distinction of beingex[pg 387]officioan alderman of the city. The canons were now removed to another place and the building and site bestowed by Henry upon his chancellor, Sir Thomas Audley.1163The Great Beam reconveyed to the City after the lapse of ten years, 1531.Between 1531 and 1534 the City enjoyed some respite from attack. It even recovered some of its lost privileges. In 1521 Henry had deprived the City of its right to the Great Beam, and of the issues and profits derived from it, and had caused a conveyance of it to be made to Sir William Sidney. In 1531 the beam was re-conveyed to the City.1164The Grocers' Company were scarcely less interested in the beam than the City, for to them was deputed the choice of weighers, who were afterwards admitted and sworn before the Court of Aldermen. Both the City and the company used their best endeavours to recover their lost rights, the former going so far as to sanction the distribution of the sum of £23 6s.8d.between the king's sergeant, the king's attorney, and one "Lumnore,"1165a servant of "my lady Anne,"1166with the view of gaining their object the easier.1167A compromise was subsequently effected by which Sir William Sidney continued to hold the beam at an annual rent payable to the City,1168until, in 1531, he[pg 388]consented to a surrender, and it became again vested in the Corporation.Feeling in the city at Henry's marriage with Anne Boleyn, 1533.Finding it hopeless to obtain the Pope's sanction to his divorce from Catherine, Henry at last lost all patience, and on the 25th January, 1533, was privately married to Anne Boleyn. The match was unpopular with the citizens, who took occasion of a sermon preached on Easter-day to show their dissatisfaction. According to Chapuys, the Spanish ambassador, who sent an account of the affair to the emperor, the greater part of the congregation got up and left the church when prayers were desired for the queen. When Henry heard of the insult thus offered to his new bride he was furious, and forthwith sent word to the mayor to see that no such manifestation should occur again. Thereupon, continues Chapuys, the mayor summoned the guilds to assemble in their various halls and commanded them to cease murmuring against the king's marriage on pain of incurring the royal displeasure, and to order their own journeymen and servants, "and, a still more difficult task, their own wives," to refrain from speaking disparagingly about the queen.1169The queen's passage from the Tower to Westminster, 31 May, 1533.It was perhaps on this account that the civic authorities excelled themselves in giving the queen a suitable reception as she passed from the Tower to Westminster on the 31st May. The Court of Aldermen directed (14 May) the wardens of the Haberdashers to prepare their barge as well as the "bachelers" barge for the occasion. Three pageants were to be set up, one in Leadenhall and the others at the[pg 389]Standard and the little Conduit in Cheapside. The Standard was to run with wine. A deputation was appointed to wait upon the king's council to learn its wishes, and enquiry was to be made of the Duke of Norfolk whether the clergy should take part in the day's proceedings, and whether the merchants of the Steelyard or other strangers should be allowed to erect pageants.1170The City's gift of 1,000 marks.The Court of Common Council had on the previous day (13 May) voted a gift of 1,000 marks to be presented to the queen at her coronation, and a further sum to be expended in the city "for the honor of the same."1171Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn were the only queens of king Henry VIII who were crowned, and on both occasions the citizens of London performed the customary services.1172The Act of Succession, 1534.In September (1533) Anne gave birth to a daughter, who afterwards ascended the throne as Queen Elizabeth. In the following spring (1534) parliament passed an Act of Succession, which not only declared Elizabeth (and not Mary, the king's daughter by Catherine of Aragon) heir to the crown, but required all subjects to take an oath acknowledging the succession. Commissioners were appointed to tender the oath to the citizens,1173and by the 20th April the "most part of the city was sworn to the[pg 390]"king and his legitimate issue by the queen's grace now had and hereafter to come."1174A fortnight later deeds under the common seals of the livery companies "concernyng the suretye state and succession" of the king were delivered to Henry in person at Greenwich by a deputation of aldermen.1175Proceedings against those objecting to subscribe to the Act of Succession.The oath, nevertheless, met with much opposition, more especially among the clergy and the religious orders. Elizabeth Barton, known as the "holy maid of Kent," and some of her followers, among them being Henry Gold, rector of the church of St. Mary Aldermary, were executed at Tyburn for daring to speak against the king's marriage.1176The friars proved extremely obstinate, and Henry sent commissioners to seek out and suppress all those friaries that refused to submit.The monks of the Charterhouse, 1534-1535.The inmates of the London Charterhouse, who might well have been left to enjoy their quiet seclusion from the world, were startled by a visit from the king's commissioners calling upon them to take the oath. The manner of their reception by John Houghton, the prior, and his brethren and subsequent proceedings are graphically described by Maurice Chauncy,1177one[pg 391]of the inmates, who was more compliant than his brethren to the king's wishes, and thereby saved his life. The prior and Humphrey Middlemore, the procurator of the convent, were committed to the Tower for counselling opposition to the commissioners. There they were visited by the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of London, who persuaded them at last that the question of the succession was not a cause in which to sacrifice their lives for conscience sake. The result was that after a while Houghton and his companion declared their willingness to submit. On the 29th May the commissioners received oaths of fealty from Prior Houghton and five other monks, and on the 6th June Bishop Lee and Sir Thomas Kitson, one of the sheriffs, received similar oaths from a number of priests, professed monks and lay brethren orconversibelonging to the house.1178The oaths of obedience to the Act were given under reservation "so far as the law of God permitted," and for a time the monks were left in comparative quiet, some few of them, of whom Cromwell entertained the most hope of submission, being sent, by his direction, to the convent of Sion.1179[pg 392]The Act of Supremacy, 1534.Execution of Houghton and others, 1535.The exhortations of the "father confessor" were not without some measure of success, several of the Carthusians being induced to alter their opinions as to the king's demands. The seal of doom, however, was fixed on the order by the passing of the Act which called upon its members to renounce the Pope and acknowledge the royal supremacy.1180Fisher and More denied the king's title of Supreme Head of the Church, and were committed to the Tower. At this crisis there came to London two priors of Carthusian houses established, one in Nottinghamshire and the other in Lincolnshire. They came to talk over the state of affairs with Houghton. An interview with Cromwell, recently appointed vicar-general or king's vicegerent in matters ecclesiastical, was resolved on. The king might possibly be prevailed upon to make some abatement in his demands. Cromwell, however, no sooner discovered the object of their visit than he committed them to the Tower as rebels and would-be traitors. As they still refused to acknowledge the king's supremacy in the Church, in spite of all efforts of persuasion, they were brought to trial, together with Father Reynolds of Sion, on a charge of treason. A verdict of guilty was, after some hesitation on the part of the jury, found against them, and they were executed at Tyburn (4 May, 1535), glorying in the cause for which they were held worthy to suffer death. Houghton's arm was suspended over the gateway of the London Charterhouse, in the fond hope that the rest of the brethren might be awed into submission. This atrocious act of barbarism had,[pg 393]however, precisely the opposite effect to that desired. The monks were more resolute than ever not to submit, and not even a personal visit of Henry himself could turn them from their purpose.1181Three of them were thereupon committed to prison, where they were compelled to stand in an upright position for thirteen days, chained from their necks to their arms and with their legs fettered.1182They were afterwards brought to trial on a charge of treason, convicted and executed (19 June).The fate of the remaining monks is soon told. In May, 1537, the royal commissioners once more attended at the Charterhouse, when they found the majority of its inmates prepared to take the oath prescribed. Ten of them, however, still refused, and were committed to Newgate and there left to be "dispatched by the hand of God," in other words to meet a painful and lingering death from fever and starvation. The following month the remnant of the community made their submission, and the London Charterhouse, as a monastic institution, ceased to exist.Execution of Fisher and More, 1535.Fisher and More were now brought from the Tower, where they had lain six months and more, and convicted on a similar charge of treason. Their sentence was commuted to death by beheading. Fisher was the first to suffer (19 June, 1535). His head was set up on London Bridge and his body buried in the churchyard of All Hallows, Barking. More suffered a few weeks later (6 July). His head, too, was placed on London Bridge, but his body was buried in the[pg 394]Tower, whither the remains of Fisher were afterwards carried. On the 15th December the Court of Aldermen publicly condemned a sermon preached by Fisher "in derogation and diminution of the royal estate of the king's majesty."1183The Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536.When, in the following year (1536), the smaller monasteries—those of less than £200 a year—were dissolved by Act of Parliament, and the inhabitants of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, taking fright lest the king and Cromwell should proceed to despoil the parish churches, set out on the Pilgrimage of Grace, Henry sought the City's aid. On the 10th October a letter from the king was read before the Court of Aldermen, desiring them to dispatch forthwith to his manor of Ampthill, where the nobles were about to wait upon his majesty, a contingent of at least 250 armed men, 200 of which were to be well horsed, and 100 to be archers.1184The mayor, Sir John Allen,1185lost no time in issuing his precept to the livery companies for each of them to furnish a certain number of bowmen and billmen, well horsed and arrayed in jackets of white bearing the City's arms. They were to muster in Moorfields within twenty-four hours. The Mercers were called upon to furnish the largest quota, viz., twenty men; the Grocers, Drapers, Tailors and Cloth-workers respectively, sixteen men, and the rest of the companies contingents varying from twelve to two.1186The Court of Aldermen at the same time took[pg 395]the precaution of depriving all priests and curates, as well as all friars dwelling within the city, of every offensive weapon, so that they should be left with nothing but their "meate knyves."1187The king sent a letter of thanks for the city's contingent.1188Later on, when Allen had been succeeded in the mayoralty by Sir Ralph Warren,1189it was resolved that each member of the court should provide at his own cost and charges twenty able men fully equipped in case of any emergency that might arise, whilst the companies were again called upon to hold men in readiness.1190Henry's marriage with Jane Seymour, May, 1536.Henry in the meantime had got rid of his second wife on the specious ground of her having misconducted herself with more than one member of the court, the real cause being her miscarriage1191of a male child, to the king's bitter disappointment. Henry had made up his mind to change his wives until he could find one who would give him a male heir and thus place the succession to the crown beyond all possibility of doubt. The very next day following Anne Boleyn's execution he married Jane Seymour. The marriage necessitated the calling together of a new parliament, when a fresh Act was passed settling[pg 396]the succession on Jane's children and declaring both Mary and Elizabeth illegitimate. Nevertheless, as soon as Mary made formal submission to her father, the king's attitude towards her, from being cold and cruel, changed at once to one of courtesy if not of affection. He was thought to entertain the idea of declaring her heir-apparent. Indeed, on Sunday, the 20th August, she was actually proclaimed as such in one of the London churches—no doubt by some mistake.1192Convocation at St. Paul's, 9 June-20 July, 1536.Whilst parliament was sitting at Westminster convocation was gathered at St. Paul's in the city, and continued to sit there until the 20th July, presided over by Cromwell as the king's vicar-general. The meeting was remarkable for its formal decree that Henry, as supreme head of the Church, might and ought to disregard all citations by the Pope, as well as for the promulgation of the ten articles intended to promote uniformity of belief and worship.1193Preparation for the new queen's coronation.She dies in childbed, 24 Oct., 1537.In September, 1536, the Court of Common Council agreed to vote the same sum of money for the coronation of the "right excellent pryncesse lady Jane, quene of Englonde," as had been granted at the coronation of "dame Anne, late queene of Englonde."1194The money, however, was not required, for the new queen was never crowned. Just one week after the birth of a prince (12 Oct., 1537), afterwards King Edward VI, there was a solemn procession of priests from every city church, with the Bishop of London, the choir of St. Paul's, the mayor, aldermen and[pg 397]crafts in their liveries, for the preservation of the infant prince and for the health of the queen, who lay in a precarious state.1195A few days later (24 Oct.) she was dead. The citizens caused her obit to be celebrated in St. Paul's with truly regal pomp.1196Anne of Cleves arrives at Dover, 27 Dec., 1539.Her passage through the city, 4 Feb,. 1540.Two years later the citizens were preparing to set out to Greenwich in their barge (the mayor, aldermen, and those who had served the office of sheriff, in liveries of black velvet with chains of gold on their necks, accompanied by their servants in coats of russet) to welcome Anne of Cleves, who landed at Dover the 27th December, 1539.1197On the 3rd February, 1540, the Court of Aldermen was informed that the king and queen would be leaving Greenwich on the morrow for Westminster, and that it was the king's wish that the commons of London should be in their best apparel, in their barges, to wait upon his highness, meeting at St. Dunstan's in the East at 7 o'clock in the morning and arriving at Greenwich by 8 o'clock.1198Cromwell's work of demolition in the city, 1537-1538.The insurrection which had taken place in the country under the name of the Pilgrimage of Grace was seized by the king as an excuse for suppressing many of the larger monasteries and confiscating their property. He had no such excuse for carrying out his destructive policy in the city. Nevertheless, under the immediate supervision of Cromwell, the work of suppression went on, and before the end of 1538 was[pg 398]well nigh complete. The surrender of the houses of the Black Friars, the Grey Friars and the White Friars followed in quick succession, "and so all the other immediatlie."1199Cromwell by this time had removed from his house near Fenchurch to another near the Austin Friars in Throgmorton Street. He had recently asked for a pipe of water to be laid on to his new house, and this the Common Council had "lovingly" granted.1200In his private concerns he showed as little regard for the rights of others as in the affairs of State. He did not scruple to remove bodily a small house, the property of Stow's father, in order to enlarge his own garden, giving neither warning beforehand nor explanation afterwards, and "no man durst go to argue the matter."1201The hospital of St. Thomas of Acon, which had ministered to the wants of the poorer citizens for nearly 400 years, disappeared,1202and was soon followed by the priory and hospital of St. Bartholomew, an institution of even greater antiquity, the hospital of St. Thomas, in Southwark, the priory and hospital of St. Mary without Bishopsgate, known as St. Mary of Bethlem, or "Bedlam," and the Abbey of Graces or New Abbey (sometimes called the Eastminster to distinguish it from the other minster in the west of London) which had been founded by Edward III, near Tower Hill.[pg 399]The division of the spoil.A portion of the spoil was, as we have already seen, distributed among court favourites. The site of the house and gardens of the Augustinian Friars in Broad Street Ward was occupied, soon after their suppression (12 Nov., 1538), by the mansion-house of that politic courtier the celebrated Marquis of Winchester, who managed to maintain himself in high station in spite of the changes which took place under the several reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth, "by being a willow and not an oak." The building known at the present day as Winchester House, in Broad Street, stands near the site of the old mansion-house and garden of William Paulet, first Marquis of Winchester. The Friars' church he allowed to stand; and in June, 1550, the nave was granted, by virtue of a charter permitting alien non-conforming churches to exist in this country, to the Dutch and Walloon churches.1203The first marquis dying in 1571, he was succeeded by his son, who sold the monuments and lead from the roof of the remaining portion of the church and turned the place into a stable.1204The fourth marquis was reduced to parting with his house, built on the site of the old priory, in order to pay his debts, and appears to have found a purchaser in a wealthy London merchant and alderman of the city, John Swinnerton or Swynarton.1205[pg 400]The mayor's effort to save the destruction of the steeple of the Austin Friars Church.The steeple of the church, which was of so great beauty that the citizens desired its preservation,1206was sold by the marquis to Henry Robinson, who forthwith set to work to pull it down on the ground that it was in such a state of decay as to be a danger to the passer-by. Swinnerton, who happened to be mayor at the time, ordered him to stay the work of demolition; he, however, not only hurried on the more, but obstructed the officers sent to put a stop to the work, for which he was committed to Newgate to stay there until he gave security for restoring what he had already pulled down. The thought suggests itself that the fact of Swinnerton having purchased adjacent property may have made him the more zealous in preventing the demolition of the steeple than perhaps he might otherwise have been. However that may be, he lost no time in informing the lords of the council of the state of affairs and asking their advice (16 Feb., 1612). The reply came three days later, and was to the effect that as the City had had the option of purchasing the steeple at even a less price than Robinson had paid for it, and might have come to some arrangement with the marquis to keep it in repair, it could not prevent Robinson, who purchased it as a speculation, making the best he could of his bargain; so that, unless the City consented to accept Robinson's offer to part with his property on payment of his purchase-money and disbursements within a fortnight, down the steeple must come.1207The priory of St. Helen without Bishopsgate.The priory of St. Helen without Bishopsgate was one of the last to be surrendered. In 1542 the[pg 401]nuns' chapel, which at one time was partitioned off from the rest of the church, was made over to Sir Richard Williams, a nephew of Thomas Cromwell, and ancestor of the Protector. The nuns' refectory or hall passed into the hands of the Leathersellers' Company and formed the company's hall until the close of the last century. The conduct of the inmates of the priory had not always been what it should be.1208The last prioress, in anticipation of the coming storm, leased a large portion of the conventual property to members of her own family, and at the time of the suppression was herself allowed a gratuity of £30 and a pension.Friendly relations between the Corporation and religious houses in the city.The relations existing between the civic authorities and the religious houses in the city were often of a most friendly and cordial character. When, in 1520, the Friars of the Holy Cross wanted assistance for the maintenance and building of their church, they applied to the Corporation as being their "secund founders."1209For assistance thus given the friars bound themselves to pray for their benefactors. When, in 1512, the master of St. Bartholomew's hospital obtained a lease for ninety-nine years from the City of a parcel of land on which his gatehouse or porch stood, it was on condition of payment of a certain rent and of his keeping a yearly obit in his church for the souls of the mayor, aldermen and commons of the city; and when the master of the hospital, two years later, attempted to back out of[pg 402]the terms of his lease and asked to be discharged from keeping the obit on the ground that he thought that the payment of the specified rent was sufficient for the premises, the Court of Aldermen unanimously decided that no part of the agreement should be minished or remitted.1210When the house of the Sisters Minoresses or Poor Clares, situate in Aldgate, suffered from fire, the Corporation rendered them pecuniary aid to the extent of 300 marks.1211It was, however, to the Franciscans or Grey Friars that the citizens of London, individually as well as in their corporate capacity, were more especially attached. Soon after their arrival in England in 1223, they became indebted to the benevolence and generosity of citizens, their first benefactor having been John Ewen, citizen and mercer, who made them a gift of some land and houses in the parish of St. Nicholas by the Shambles. Upon this they erected their original building. Their first chapel, which became the chapel of their church, was built at the cost of William Joyner, who was mayor in 1239; the nave was added by Henry Waleys, who was frequently mayor during the reign of Edward I; the chapterhouse by Walter le Poter, elected sheriff in 1272; the dormitory by Gregory de Rokesley, who was mayor from 1274 to 1281, and again in 1284-5, and whose bones eventually found a resting place in their church; the refectory by another citizen, Bartholomew de Castro; and lastly—coming to later times—a library was added to their house by the bounty of Richard Whitington, as already narrated. It became the custom for the mayor and aldermen, as patron and[pg 403]founders, to pay a yearly visit to their house and church on St. Francis's day (4 Oct.). The custom dates from 1508. In 1522 the visit was for the first time followed by a dinner.1212Royal injunction for keeping Parish Registers, 29 Sept., 1538.In one respect at least, if in no other, Cromwell's action in suppressing religious houses resulted in a benefit to the city of London as well as to the country at large, and this was in the institution of parish registers, not only for baptisms, but also for marriages. It had been his intention to establish them in 1536 to remedy the inconvenience to the public arising from the suppression of the smaller monasteries, and it is evident that some instructions were given at this time, inasmuch as the registers of two city parishes—viz., St. James Garlickhithe and St. Mary Bothaw—commence in November of this year,1213although the royal injunction commanding that registers should systematically be kept up, under penalty of fines, was not published by Cromwell, as vicar-general, until the 29th September, 1538. The delay is to be accounted for by the great discontent which the rumour of his project excited in the country. It was reported that some new tax on the services of the Church was contemplated, and the first in the list of popular grievances circulated by the rebels in the Pilgrimage of Grace was the payment of tribute to the king for the sacrament of baptism. In course of time, as matters became quieter and the government began to feel its own strength, Cromwell resumed a project never altogether abandoned, and caused the injunction to be[pg 404]issued, an action for which posterity must ever be deeply grateful.Great increase of London poor, consequent on the suppression of religious houses.On the other hand, the sudden closing of these institutions caused the streets to be thronged with the sick and poor, and the small parish churches to be so crowded with those who had been accustomed to frequent the larger and more commodious churches of the friars that there was scarce room left for the parishioners themselves. The city authorities saw at once that something would have to be done if they wished to keep their streets clear of beggars and of invalids, and not invite the spread of sickness by allowing infected persons to wander at large. As a means of affording temporary relief, collections for the poor were made every Sunday at Paul's Cross, after the sermon, and the proceeds were distributed weekly among the most necessitous,1214but more comprehensive steps were required to be taken.Sir Richard Gresham's letter to the king for conveyance to the City of certain hospitals.Sir Richard Gresham,1215who was mayor at the time (1537-8), took upon himself to address a letter1216to the king setting forth that there were three hospitals in the city, viz., St. Mary's Spital, St. Bartholomew's and St. Thomas's, besides the New Abbey on Tower Hill—institutions primarily founded "onely for the releffe, comforte and helpyng of pore and impotent[pg 405]people not beyng able to helpe theymselffes; and not to the mayntenannce of Chanons, Preests, and Monks to lyve in pleasure, nothyng regardyng the miserable people liyng in every strete, offendyng every clene person passyng by the way with theyre fylthy and nasty savours"—and asking that the mayor and aldermen of the city for the time being might have the order and disposition of the hospitals mentioned, and of all the lands, tenements and revenues appertaining to the same. If his grace would but grant this request the mayor promised that a great number of the indigent sick would be relieved, whilst "sturdy beggars" not willing to work would be punished.Two petitions from the City, Mar., 1539.The City offers to purchase certain dissolved houses, 1 Aug., 1540.In March, 1539, the City presented two petitions to the king, one desiring that the late dissolved houses might be made over to them, together with their rents and revenues, in order that relief might be provided for the sick and needy, and the other asking that Henry would be pleased to convey to them the churches of the late four orders of friars, together with their lands and tenements, so that the mayor and citizens might take order for the due performance of divine service therein to the glory of God and the honour of the king.1217These petitions having been either refused or ignored, the Court of Common Council, on the 1st August, 1540, authorised the mayor and aldermen to make diligent suit to the king for the purchase of the houses, churches, and cloisters of the dissolved friars, and to make an offer of 1,000 marks for them "yf thei can be gotten no better chepe."1218Henry upbraided the[pg 406]City for being "pynche pence" or stingy in their offer,1219but as no better offer was made the matter was allowed to stand over, and nothing was done for four years.The City in difficulties with king and parliament, 1541-1542.Henry meanwhile took the opportunity afforded him by a full treasury, which rendered him independent of the favour of the citizens, of robbing them of their right of measuring linen-cloth and other commodities, and conferring the same by letters patent on John Godsalve, one of the clerks of the signet. The City's right was incontestable, and had been admitted by the king's chancellor, as well as by the Chancellor of the Court of Fruits and Tenths (a court recently established), and the mayor and aldermen represented the facts of the case to the king himself by letter, dated the 21st July, 1541.1220Another "variance" occurred about this time between the City and the Crown touching the office and duties of the City's waterbailiff.1221Again, in the spring of 1542, an incident occurred which caused the relations between parliament and the City to be somewhat strained. The sheriffs of that year—Rowland Hill,1222an ancestor of the founder of the Penny Post, and Henry Suckley—had thought fit to obstruct the sergeant-at-mace in the execution of his duty, whilst attempting to remove a prisoner, who was a member of parliament, from[pg 407]one of the compters. The arrest of a member of parliament has always been a hazardous operation, and the sheriffs after a time thought better of it and gave up their prisoner. The Speaker, nevertheless, summoned them to appear at the Bar of the House and finally committed them to the Tower. They were released after two or three days, however, at the humble suit of the mayor.1223Precautions against the spread of pestilence, 1543.In the following year (1543) the plague returned, and extra-precautions had to be taken against the spread of the disease, now that the houses of the friars were no longer open to receive patients and to alleviate distress. Besides the usual order that infected houses should be marked with a cross, the mayor caused proclamation to be made that persons of independent means should undergo quarantine for one month after recovery from sickness, whilst others whom necessity compelled to walk abroad for their livelihood were to carry in their hands white rods, two feet in length, for the space of forty days after convalescence. Straw and rushes in an infected house were to be removed to the fields before they were burnt, and infected clothing was to be carried away to be aired and not to be hung out of window. The hard-heartedness engendered by these visitations is evidenced by the necessity of the mayor having to enjoin that thenceforth no householder within the city or liberties should put any person stricken with the plague out of his house into the street, without making provision for his being kept in some other[pg 408]house. All dogs other than hounds, spaniels or mastiffs kept for the purpose of guarding the house were forthwith to be removed out of the city or killed, whilst watch-dogs were to be confined to the house.1224In October the mayor was ordered to resume the weekly bills of mortality, which of late had been neglected, in order that the king might be kept informed as to the increase or decrease of the sickness.1225The Michaelmas Law Sittings had to be postponed until the 15th November, and were removed to St. Albans.1226Preparation for renewal of war with France, 1544.Whilst the city was being wasted by disease the king was preparing for war with France.1227A joint expedition by Henry and Charles was to be undertaken in the following year (1544). A commission was issued early in the year for raising money in the city, and the lord chancellor himself, accompanied by officers of State, came into the city to read it. Finding that the lord mayor's name appeared third on the commission instead of being placed at its head, the chancellor ordered the mistake to be at once rectified by the town clerk and a new commission to be drawn up, whilst the rest of the lords agreed that at their several sessions on the business of this subsidy the lord mayor should occupy the seat of honour.1228By the end of April the chancellor (Audley) had died. His successor, Lord Wriothesley, had not long been appointed before the Court of Aldermen sent a deputation to desire his lordship's favour and friendship[pg 409]in the city's affairs, and agreed to make him a present of a couple of silver-gilt pots to the value of £20 or thereabouts.1229On the 24th May the Common Council agreed to provide a contingent of 500 or 600 men at the discretion of the mayor and aldermen, the men being raised from the livery companies.1230The re-establishment of St. Bartholomew's hospital, 23 June, 1544.Just as the king was about to set sail for the continent, he issued letters patent (23 June, 1544) re-establishing the hospital of St. Bartholomew on a new foundation, with the avowed object of providing "comfort to prisoners, shelter to the poor, visitation to the sick, food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothes to the naked, and sepulture to the dead."1231The campaign in France of 1544.Henry crossed over to France, leaving the new queen, Catherine Parr, widow of Lord Latimer, whom he had recently married, regent of the realm. After a long siege, lasting from July until September, he succeeded in taking Boulogne. On Thursday, the 25th September, an order was received by the Court of Aldermen from the lord chancellor, on behalf of the queen regent, to get in readiness another contingent of 500 men well harnessed and weaponed, 100 of whom were to be archers and the rest billmen. The last mentioned were to be provided with "blak bylles or morys pykes." The whole force was to be ready for shipment to Boulogne by the following Saturday. No time was to be lost. The wardens of the city companies were immediately summoned, and each company was ordered to provide the same number[pg 410]of men as on the last occasion. Each soldier was to be provided with a coat of grey frieze, with half sleeves, and a pair of new boots or else "sterte upps." The Corporation for its part appointed five captains, to each of whom was given the sum of £10 towards his apparel and charges, whilst £5 was allowed to each petty captain. These sums were paid out of the "goods" of the mayor and commonalty.1232Scarcely had the city recovered from this drain upon its population before it was again called upon to fill up the ranks of the army in France. On Saturday, the 25th October, the Court of Aldermen was ordered to raise another force of 500 men by the following Monday. It was no easy matter to comply with so sudden a demand. The city companies were called upon to contribute as before, any deficiency in the number of men raised by them being made up by men raised by the mayor and aldermen themselves in a somewhat novel fashion. The Court of Aldermen had agreed that each of their number should on the Saturday night make the round of his ward and select "fifty, forty, twenty, or ten" tall and comely men, who should be warned in the king's name to appear the next morning before seven o'clock at the Guildhall. On Sunday morning the mayor and aldermen came to the Guildhall, and took the names of those whom they had selected over night. Two hundred men were eventually set apart to make up the deficiency of those to be provided by the companies. By six o'clock in the evening the whole contingent of 500 men was thus raised, and at nine o'clock on Monday morning they mustered at Leadenhall,[pg 411]whence they were conducted by the sheriffs and city chamberlain to the Tower Hill and handed over to Sir Thomas Arundel, who complimented the civic authorities on the appearance of the men, and promised to commend their diligence to the king.1233This same Monday morning (27 Oct.) the mayor received instructions to see that such carpenters and other artificers as had been "prested" for the king's service at Boulogne by the king's master-carpenter kept their day and presented themselves at the time and place appointed on pain of death.1234Search was ordered to be made in the following month for mariners lurking in the city, and if any were discovered they were to be forthwith despatched to the ships awaiting them.1235City gift to the king on his return from France.By this time the king had ceased to take a personal part in the campaign and had returned home, the mayor and aldermen giving him a hearty welcome, and making him a suitable present in token of their joy for his return and his success in effecting the surrender of Boulogne.1236Opposition to a benevolence in the city, 1545.At the opening of the next year (1545) Henry demanded another benevolence after the rate of two shillings in the pound. The lord chancellor and others of the king's council sat at Baynard's Castle to collect the benevolence of the city, "callinge all the citizens of the same before them, begininge first with the mayor and aldermen."1237Richard Rede, alderman of the ward of Farringdon Without, resisted this demand[pg 412]as unconstitutional, and was promptly despatched to the king in Scotland, where he was shortly afterwards made a prisoner of war. Another alderman, Sir William Roche, of Bassishaw ward, was unfortunate enough to offend the council and was committed to the Fleet.1238William Laxton, mayor, knighted, 8 Feb., 1545.On the 8th February William Laxton, the mayor, was presented to the king at Westminster, when Henry took occasion to thank him and his brother aldermen for the benevolence they had given him. He informed them of the success that had recently attended the English forces under the Earl of Hertford and the lord admiral, Sir John Dudley, whom he had left as deputy of Boulogne, and dismissed them to their homes after conferring upon the mayor the honour of knighthood.1239A call for volunteers for the French war. April, 1545.In the following April volunteers were called for, and those in the city willing to follow the fortunes of war as "adventurers" were asked to repair to the sign of the "Gunne," at Billingsgate, where they would receive directions from John of Caleys, captain of all such adventurers, for their passage to France.1240The sessions of the law courts were adjourned in order to give lawyers and suitors an opportunity of showing their patriotism by taking up arms.1241The city companies furnished 100 men appareled "with whyte cotes of penystone whytes1242or karsies," with a[pg 413]red cross of St. George before and behind, each being provided with a white cap to wear under his "sallett or scull."1243The last subsidy to be forthwith paid up.There yet remained a portion of the last subsidy to be collected, for which purpose the lord chancellor once more paid a visit to the city (12 June) and sat in the Guildhall. Every alderman was straitly charged to call before him every person in his ward who was worth £40 and upwards. The king's affairs were pressing, and this last payment must be immediately forthcoming.1244A force of 2,000 soldiers demanded of the City, June, 1545.A week later (19 June) letters from the king were read to the Court of Aldermen touching the levying of more forces and firing of beacons—a French squadron had appeared off the south coast. It was resolved to adjourn consideration of the message until the following Monday, when the lord chancellor and other lords of the council would again be coming into the city for the subsidy, and their advice could be asked. The outcome of these letters was that the City had to raise a force of 2,000 able men. To do this an assessment of a fifteenth was ordered to be levied on the wards, but in the meantime the money so to be raised was to be advanced by the aldermen.1245Not only were the aldermen on this, as on other occasions, mulcted in their pocket, but they were also called upon to personally share with the lord mayor himself and the sheriffs in the extra watch which in the "besye tyme of the warres" was ordered to be kept in the city.1246[pg 414]In the meantime a man was despatched by the Court of Aldermen to St. James' Fair to buy five wey of cheese for the city's soldiers who were already at Guildford. The cheese was to be sent by water as far as Kingston, whence it would be conveyed by "the good industrye and help of Master Judde, alderman," to its destination. The bakers of Stratford contracted to send two cart-loads of bread. It was further agreed on the same day that Christopher Fowlke should forthwith go to Guildford, and further if need be, "to guyde the seyd vytayle and to utter the same to the souldyers by thassistence of the sworde berer and the under chamberleyn. And to recyve money for the same."1247A flag and a drum were likewise to be despatched forthwith. The citizen soldiers were required to assist in driving out the French, who had effected a landing in the Isle of Wight; but before they arrived the enemy had disappeared.1248Boulogne threatened.The French king now prepared to lay siege to Boulogne, and the citizens were again called upon to furnish soldiers. One thousand men were required, and this number was only raised by enlisting men who had failed to pass previous musters. However, there was no time to pick and choose.1249Act for confiscating chantries, &c., 1545.By this time Henry's resources were fast giving out. A parliament was summoned to meet in November, and again resort was had to confiscation for the purpose of supplying the king with money. An Act was passed which placed 2,000 chantries and chapels and over 100 hospitals at Henry's disposal.1250[pg 415]Peace with France proclaimed, 13 June, 1546.All parties were, however, tired of the war, and in the following June (1546) a peace was concluded. Henry was allowed to retain Boulogne as security for a debt, and the French admiral soon afterwards paid a visit to the city, where he was heartily welcomed and hospitably entertained.1251Uniformity of religion enforced, 1546.Recantation of the rector of St. Mary Aldermary.Freed from the embarrassment of foreign wars, Henry now had leisure to turn his attention to home affairs, and more particularly to the establishment of that uniformity which he so much desired, and which he endeavoured to bring about by getting rid of all those who differed in opinion from himself. Those who openly declared their disbelief in any one of the "Six Articles," and more particularly in the first article, which established the doctrine of the real presence, ran the risk of death by the gallows, the block or the stake. A city rector, Dr. Crome, of the church of St. Mary Aldermary, got into disgrace for speaking lightly of the benefits to be derived from private masses, and, although his argument tended to minimise the effect of the recent confiscation of so many chantries, he was called upon to make a public recantation at Paul's Cross.1252Trial and execution of Anne Ascue.Others were not so compliant. Among these was Anne Ascue or Ascough, a daughter of Sir William Ascough, of Kelsey, in Lincolnshire, and sometimes known as Anne Kyme, from the name of her husband, with whom she had ceased to live. In June, 1545, she and some others, among whom was another woman, Joan, wife of John Sauterie, of London, had[pg 416]been arraigned at the Guildhall "for speaking against the sacrament of the altar"; but, no evidence being adduced against her, she was on that occasion acquitted and discharged.1253Scarcely a year elapsed before she was again in custody. On the 18th June, 1546, she was tried at the Guildhall and condemned to be burned alive as a heretic at Smithfield, where the city chamberlain had orders to erect a "substantial stage," whence the king's council and the civic authorities might witness the scene.1254Improved water supply of the city, 1545-1546.The insanitary condition of the city, occasioned for the most part by an insufficient supply of water, was not improved by the influx of disbanded and invalided soldiers, followed by a swarm of vagabonds and idlers, which took place at the conclusion of peace with France. To the soldiers licences were granted to solicit alms for longer or shorter periods, whilst the vagabonds were ordered to quit the city.1255The water question had been taken in hand by the Common Council towards the close of the preceding year (1545), when Sir Martin Bowes entered upon his mayoralty, and a tax of two fifteenths was imposed upon the inhabitants of the city for the purpose of conveying fresh water from certain "lively sprynges" recently discovered at Hackney.1256Bowes himself was very energetic in the matter, and before he went out of office he had the satisfaction of seeing a plentiful supply of water brought into the heart of the city from the suburban manor of Finsbury.1257[pg 417]St. Bartholomew's Hospital, &c., vested in the City, 13 Jan., 1547.Henry's reign was now fast drawing to a close. In April, 1546, he had bestowed an endowment of 500 marks a year on the city poor-houses on condition the citizens themselves found a similar sum.1258In January, 1547—a few days only before he died—he showed still further care for the city poor by vesting in the Corporation, not only St. Bartholomew's Hospital, thenceforth to be known as the House of the Poor in West Smithfield, but also the house and church of the dissolved monastery of the Grey Friars and the house and hospital of Bethlehem.1259A committee appointed to investigate the recently acquired property, 6 May, 1547.The Corporation lost no time in getting their newly acquired property into working order. On the 6th May the late king's conveyance was read before the Court of Aldermen, and thereupon a committee, of which Sir Martin Bowes was a prominent member, was deputed to make an abstract of the yearly revenues and charges of the house of the Grey Friars and hospital of little Saint Bartholomew, and to report thereon to the court with as much speed as possible.1260From a purely monetary point of view the City had made a bad bargain, and had saddled itself with an annual expenditure out of the Corporation revenues to an extent little thought of at the time.1261The king's death, 28 Jan., 1547.On the 28th January, 1547, Henry died "at hys most pryncely howse at Westminster, comenly[pg 418]called Yorkeplace or Whytehall"—the palace which Cardinal Wolsey built for himself, and which Henry appropriated, extending its grounds and preserves in cynical contempt of public convenience and utter disregard of the chartered rights of the citizens of London.1262There his corpse remained until the 14th February, when it was removed at 8 o'clock in the morning to Sion House, near Richmond, and thence conveyed to Windsor on the following day.Edward VI proclaimed king in the city, 31 Jan., 1547.In the meantime the mayor, Henry Huberthorne, or Hoberthorne,1263had been sent for (31 Jan.) to attend the king's council at Westminster, where he received orders to return to the city and cause himself and his brother aldermen to be arrayed in their scarlet robes, in order to accompany the heralds whilst they proclaimed the new king in various parts of the city. This being done, the mayor took steps for securing the peace of the city, and the citizens voted Edward a benevolence of a fifteenth and a half.1264Distribution of gowns of black livery.Edward on his part presented the mayor and aldermen with 104 gowns of black livery, according to the precedent followed at the decease of Henry VII.[pg 419]These gowns were distributed among the mayor and aldermen, the high officers and certain clerks in the service of the Corporation. Ten aldermen accompanied the remains of the late king on their way to Windsor, riding forth in black coats with the rest of the mourners, the harness and bridles of their horses being covered with black cloth. Two of the aldermen, Sir William Laxton and Sir Martin Bowes, had each four servants in their suite, whilst the rest of the aldermen had three, all in black coats.1265
The House of Commons and the Clergy, 1529.
The House of Commons and the Clergy, 1529.
Although Wolsey was no more, his works followed him. He it was, and not Henry, who first conceived the idea of church reform, towards which some steps had been taken in Wolsey's lifetime. It was left for Henry to carry out the design of his great minister. When the king laid his hand on the monasteries, he only followed the example set by the cardinal in 1525, when some of the smaller religious houses in Kent, Sussex and Essex were suppressed for his great foundation of Oxford. To assist him in carrying out his design he turned to parliament. Relieved as they now were of the oppression of the great nobles, the Commons were ready to use their newly-acquired independence against the clergy, who exacted extravagant fees and misused the powers of the ecclesiastical courts. Acts were passed regulating the payment of mortuary fees and the fees for probate, whilst another Act restricted the holding of pluralities and the taking of ferms by church-men.1152The clergy threatened to appeal to Rome, but were warned that such action would be met with pains and penalties as opposed to the royal prerogative.1153
Disputes touching tithes payable to city clergy, 1527-1534.
Disputes touching tithes payable to city clergy, 1527-1534.
In the city the question of tithes payable to the clergy had been always more or less a vexed question. Before the commencement of the thirteenth century the city clergy had been supported by casual dues in[pg 384]addition to their glebe land. These casual payments were originally personal, but subsequently became regulated by the amount of rent paid by parishioners for their houses. A question arose as to whether the citizens were also liable to pay personal tithes on their gains, and it was eventually decided that they were so liable.1154
On the 31st August, 1527, a committee, which had been specially appointed to enquire into matters concerning the city's welfare, reported, among other things, upon the tithe question as it then stood in the city.1155The "curates," they said, had purchased a Bull of Pope Nicholas, on the 6th August, 1453, and this Bull had been confirmed by Act of Common Council on the 3rd March, 1475. Not only was the amount of the tithe payable fixed by the Bull, but the Bull itself was to be publicly read by the curates four times a year, so that no doubt should exist in the minds of the parishioners. This the curates had failed to do, and had caused their parishioners heavy legal expenses in disputing demands for tithes. One man was known to have spent as much as £100 in his own defence. The committee suggested that the whole question should be referred to the Bishop of London, and that a translation of the Bull should be exhibited in every church. The citizens were the more aggrieved because many parsonages and vicarages were let to ferm.1156
The curates' book of articles.
The curates' book of articles.
The curates made their defence in a book of eighteen articles touching tithes and other oblations,[pg 385]the chief point being that every householder, time out of mind, had been bound to pay to God and the Church one farthing out of every 10s.of rent, a half-penny out of 20s.and so forth, on 100 days of the year; amounting in all to 2s.1d.for every 10s.rentper annum. This manner of payment proving tedious, the curates and their parishioners came to an agreement that 1s.2d.should be paid on every 6s.8d.or noble, and this sum the curates had been receiving time out of mind, none reclaiming or denying. But, inasmuch as this payment by occupiers of houses was only ordained for a "dowry" to the parish churches of London which had no glebe lands, the curates demanded that all merchants and artificers, with other occupiers of the city, should pay personal tithes of their "lucre or encrece" according to the common law, and as "well conscyoned" men had been in the habit of paying in times past.1157The book of articles was laid before the Court of Common Council on the 16th February, 1528, by Robert Carter and six other priests, on behalf of their entire body. On the following 16th March the Court of Aldermen for themselves agreed to pay tithe at the forthcoming Easter according to the Bull of Pope Nicholas, and not after the rate of 1s.2d.on the noble,1158whilst four days later the Common Council decided that, for the sake of convenience, bills should be posted in every parish church within the city showing the number of offering days (viz., eighty-two) and the amount to be offered by inhabitants of the city.1159
So matters continued until, early in 1534, it was agreed to submit the whole question to the lord chancellor and other members of the council, who made their award a few days before Easter.1160It decreed that at the forthcoming festival every subject should pay to the parson or curate of his parish after the rate of 2s.9d.in the pound, and 16 pence half-penny in the half-pound, and that every man's wife, servant, child and apprentice receiving the Holy Sacrament should pay two pence. These payments were to continue to be paid "without grudge or murmur" until such time as the council should arrive at a final settlement.1161
Elsing Spital and Holy Trinity Priory surrendered to the king, 1530-1531.
Elsing Spital and Holy Trinity Priory surrendered to the king, 1530-1531.
In the meanwhile the city had been made to feel the heavy hand of the king and of his new minister, Thomas Cromwell. In May, 1530, Elsing Spital, a house established by William Elsing, a charitable mercer, for the relief of the blind, but which had subsequently grown into a priory of Augustinian canons of wealth and position, was confiscated by the Crown. What became of the blind inmates is not known. In the following year (1531) the Priory of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, shared the same fate. The priory had existed since the time of Henry I and the "good queen" Matilda,1162and its prior enjoyed the singular distinction of beingex[pg 387]officioan alderman of the city. The canons were now removed to another place and the building and site bestowed by Henry upon his chancellor, Sir Thomas Audley.1163
The Great Beam reconveyed to the City after the lapse of ten years, 1531.
The Great Beam reconveyed to the City after the lapse of ten years, 1531.
Between 1531 and 1534 the City enjoyed some respite from attack. It even recovered some of its lost privileges. In 1521 Henry had deprived the City of its right to the Great Beam, and of the issues and profits derived from it, and had caused a conveyance of it to be made to Sir William Sidney. In 1531 the beam was re-conveyed to the City.1164The Grocers' Company were scarcely less interested in the beam than the City, for to them was deputed the choice of weighers, who were afterwards admitted and sworn before the Court of Aldermen. Both the City and the company used their best endeavours to recover their lost rights, the former going so far as to sanction the distribution of the sum of £23 6s.8d.between the king's sergeant, the king's attorney, and one "Lumnore,"1165a servant of "my lady Anne,"1166with the view of gaining their object the easier.1167A compromise was subsequently effected by which Sir William Sidney continued to hold the beam at an annual rent payable to the City,1168until, in 1531, he[pg 388]consented to a surrender, and it became again vested in the Corporation.
Feeling in the city at Henry's marriage with Anne Boleyn, 1533.
Feeling in the city at Henry's marriage with Anne Boleyn, 1533.
Finding it hopeless to obtain the Pope's sanction to his divorce from Catherine, Henry at last lost all patience, and on the 25th January, 1533, was privately married to Anne Boleyn. The match was unpopular with the citizens, who took occasion of a sermon preached on Easter-day to show their dissatisfaction. According to Chapuys, the Spanish ambassador, who sent an account of the affair to the emperor, the greater part of the congregation got up and left the church when prayers were desired for the queen. When Henry heard of the insult thus offered to his new bride he was furious, and forthwith sent word to the mayor to see that no such manifestation should occur again. Thereupon, continues Chapuys, the mayor summoned the guilds to assemble in their various halls and commanded them to cease murmuring against the king's marriage on pain of incurring the royal displeasure, and to order their own journeymen and servants, "and, a still more difficult task, their own wives," to refrain from speaking disparagingly about the queen.1169
The queen's passage from the Tower to Westminster, 31 May, 1533.
The queen's passage from the Tower to Westminster, 31 May, 1533.
It was perhaps on this account that the civic authorities excelled themselves in giving the queen a suitable reception as she passed from the Tower to Westminster on the 31st May. The Court of Aldermen directed (14 May) the wardens of the Haberdashers to prepare their barge as well as the "bachelers" barge for the occasion. Three pageants were to be set up, one in Leadenhall and the others at the[pg 389]Standard and the little Conduit in Cheapside. The Standard was to run with wine. A deputation was appointed to wait upon the king's council to learn its wishes, and enquiry was to be made of the Duke of Norfolk whether the clergy should take part in the day's proceedings, and whether the merchants of the Steelyard or other strangers should be allowed to erect pageants.1170
The City's gift of 1,000 marks.
The City's gift of 1,000 marks.
The Court of Common Council had on the previous day (13 May) voted a gift of 1,000 marks to be presented to the queen at her coronation, and a further sum to be expended in the city "for the honor of the same."1171Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn were the only queens of king Henry VIII who were crowned, and on both occasions the citizens of London performed the customary services.1172
The Act of Succession, 1534.
The Act of Succession, 1534.
In September (1533) Anne gave birth to a daughter, who afterwards ascended the throne as Queen Elizabeth. In the following spring (1534) parliament passed an Act of Succession, which not only declared Elizabeth (and not Mary, the king's daughter by Catherine of Aragon) heir to the crown, but required all subjects to take an oath acknowledging the succession. Commissioners were appointed to tender the oath to the citizens,1173and by the 20th April the "most part of the city was sworn to the[pg 390]"king and his legitimate issue by the queen's grace now had and hereafter to come."1174A fortnight later deeds under the common seals of the livery companies "concernyng the suretye state and succession" of the king were delivered to Henry in person at Greenwich by a deputation of aldermen.1175
Proceedings against those objecting to subscribe to the Act of Succession.
Proceedings against those objecting to subscribe to the Act of Succession.
The oath, nevertheless, met with much opposition, more especially among the clergy and the religious orders. Elizabeth Barton, known as the "holy maid of Kent," and some of her followers, among them being Henry Gold, rector of the church of St. Mary Aldermary, were executed at Tyburn for daring to speak against the king's marriage.1176The friars proved extremely obstinate, and Henry sent commissioners to seek out and suppress all those friaries that refused to submit.
The monks of the Charterhouse, 1534-1535.
The monks of the Charterhouse, 1534-1535.
The inmates of the London Charterhouse, who might well have been left to enjoy their quiet seclusion from the world, were startled by a visit from the king's commissioners calling upon them to take the oath. The manner of their reception by John Houghton, the prior, and his brethren and subsequent proceedings are graphically described by Maurice Chauncy,1177one[pg 391]of the inmates, who was more compliant than his brethren to the king's wishes, and thereby saved his life. The prior and Humphrey Middlemore, the procurator of the convent, were committed to the Tower for counselling opposition to the commissioners. There they were visited by the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of London, who persuaded them at last that the question of the succession was not a cause in which to sacrifice their lives for conscience sake. The result was that after a while Houghton and his companion declared their willingness to submit. On the 29th May the commissioners received oaths of fealty from Prior Houghton and five other monks, and on the 6th June Bishop Lee and Sir Thomas Kitson, one of the sheriffs, received similar oaths from a number of priests, professed monks and lay brethren orconversibelonging to the house.1178The oaths of obedience to the Act were given under reservation "so far as the law of God permitted," and for a time the monks were left in comparative quiet, some few of them, of whom Cromwell entertained the most hope of submission, being sent, by his direction, to the convent of Sion.1179
The Act of Supremacy, 1534.
The Act of Supremacy, 1534.
Execution of Houghton and others, 1535.
Execution of Houghton and others, 1535.
The exhortations of the "father confessor" were not without some measure of success, several of the Carthusians being induced to alter their opinions as to the king's demands. The seal of doom, however, was fixed on the order by the passing of the Act which called upon its members to renounce the Pope and acknowledge the royal supremacy.1180Fisher and More denied the king's title of Supreme Head of the Church, and were committed to the Tower. At this crisis there came to London two priors of Carthusian houses established, one in Nottinghamshire and the other in Lincolnshire. They came to talk over the state of affairs with Houghton. An interview with Cromwell, recently appointed vicar-general or king's vicegerent in matters ecclesiastical, was resolved on. The king might possibly be prevailed upon to make some abatement in his demands. Cromwell, however, no sooner discovered the object of their visit than he committed them to the Tower as rebels and would-be traitors. As they still refused to acknowledge the king's supremacy in the Church, in spite of all efforts of persuasion, they were brought to trial, together with Father Reynolds of Sion, on a charge of treason. A verdict of guilty was, after some hesitation on the part of the jury, found against them, and they were executed at Tyburn (4 May, 1535), glorying in the cause for which they were held worthy to suffer death. Houghton's arm was suspended over the gateway of the London Charterhouse, in the fond hope that the rest of the brethren might be awed into submission. This atrocious act of barbarism had,[pg 393]however, precisely the opposite effect to that desired. The monks were more resolute than ever not to submit, and not even a personal visit of Henry himself could turn them from their purpose.1181Three of them were thereupon committed to prison, where they were compelled to stand in an upright position for thirteen days, chained from their necks to their arms and with their legs fettered.1182They were afterwards brought to trial on a charge of treason, convicted and executed (19 June).
The fate of the remaining monks is soon told. In May, 1537, the royal commissioners once more attended at the Charterhouse, when they found the majority of its inmates prepared to take the oath prescribed. Ten of them, however, still refused, and were committed to Newgate and there left to be "dispatched by the hand of God," in other words to meet a painful and lingering death from fever and starvation. The following month the remnant of the community made their submission, and the London Charterhouse, as a monastic institution, ceased to exist.
Execution of Fisher and More, 1535.
Execution of Fisher and More, 1535.
Fisher and More were now brought from the Tower, where they had lain six months and more, and convicted on a similar charge of treason. Their sentence was commuted to death by beheading. Fisher was the first to suffer (19 June, 1535). His head was set up on London Bridge and his body buried in the churchyard of All Hallows, Barking. More suffered a few weeks later (6 July). His head, too, was placed on London Bridge, but his body was buried in the[pg 394]Tower, whither the remains of Fisher were afterwards carried. On the 15th December the Court of Aldermen publicly condemned a sermon preached by Fisher "in derogation and diminution of the royal estate of the king's majesty."1183
The Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536.
The Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536.
When, in the following year (1536), the smaller monasteries—those of less than £200 a year—were dissolved by Act of Parliament, and the inhabitants of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, taking fright lest the king and Cromwell should proceed to despoil the parish churches, set out on the Pilgrimage of Grace, Henry sought the City's aid. On the 10th October a letter from the king was read before the Court of Aldermen, desiring them to dispatch forthwith to his manor of Ampthill, where the nobles were about to wait upon his majesty, a contingent of at least 250 armed men, 200 of which were to be well horsed, and 100 to be archers.1184The mayor, Sir John Allen,1185lost no time in issuing his precept to the livery companies for each of them to furnish a certain number of bowmen and billmen, well horsed and arrayed in jackets of white bearing the City's arms. They were to muster in Moorfields within twenty-four hours. The Mercers were called upon to furnish the largest quota, viz., twenty men; the Grocers, Drapers, Tailors and Cloth-workers respectively, sixteen men, and the rest of the companies contingents varying from twelve to two.1186The Court of Aldermen at the same time took[pg 395]the precaution of depriving all priests and curates, as well as all friars dwelling within the city, of every offensive weapon, so that they should be left with nothing but their "meate knyves."1187The king sent a letter of thanks for the city's contingent.1188
Later on, when Allen had been succeeded in the mayoralty by Sir Ralph Warren,1189it was resolved that each member of the court should provide at his own cost and charges twenty able men fully equipped in case of any emergency that might arise, whilst the companies were again called upon to hold men in readiness.1190
Henry's marriage with Jane Seymour, May, 1536.
Henry's marriage with Jane Seymour, May, 1536.
Henry in the meantime had got rid of his second wife on the specious ground of her having misconducted herself with more than one member of the court, the real cause being her miscarriage1191of a male child, to the king's bitter disappointment. Henry had made up his mind to change his wives until he could find one who would give him a male heir and thus place the succession to the crown beyond all possibility of doubt. The very next day following Anne Boleyn's execution he married Jane Seymour. The marriage necessitated the calling together of a new parliament, when a fresh Act was passed settling[pg 396]the succession on Jane's children and declaring both Mary and Elizabeth illegitimate. Nevertheless, as soon as Mary made formal submission to her father, the king's attitude towards her, from being cold and cruel, changed at once to one of courtesy if not of affection. He was thought to entertain the idea of declaring her heir-apparent. Indeed, on Sunday, the 20th August, she was actually proclaimed as such in one of the London churches—no doubt by some mistake.1192
Convocation at St. Paul's, 9 June-20 July, 1536.
Convocation at St. Paul's, 9 June-20 July, 1536.
Whilst parliament was sitting at Westminster convocation was gathered at St. Paul's in the city, and continued to sit there until the 20th July, presided over by Cromwell as the king's vicar-general. The meeting was remarkable for its formal decree that Henry, as supreme head of the Church, might and ought to disregard all citations by the Pope, as well as for the promulgation of the ten articles intended to promote uniformity of belief and worship.1193
Preparation for the new queen's coronation.
Preparation for the new queen's coronation.
She dies in childbed, 24 Oct., 1537.
She dies in childbed, 24 Oct., 1537.
In September, 1536, the Court of Common Council agreed to vote the same sum of money for the coronation of the "right excellent pryncesse lady Jane, quene of Englonde," as had been granted at the coronation of "dame Anne, late queene of Englonde."1194The money, however, was not required, for the new queen was never crowned. Just one week after the birth of a prince (12 Oct., 1537), afterwards King Edward VI, there was a solemn procession of priests from every city church, with the Bishop of London, the choir of St. Paul's, the mayor, aldermen and[pg 397]crafts in their liveries, for the preservation of the infant prince and for the health of the queen, who lay in a precarious state.1195A few days later (24 Oct.) she was dead. The citizens caused her obit to be celebrated in St. Paul's with truly regal pomp.1196
Anne of Cleves arrives at Dover, 27 Dec., 1539.
Anne of Cleves arrives at Dover, 27 Dec., 1539.
Her passage through the city, 4 Feb,. 1540.
Her passage through the city, 4 Feb,. 1540.
Two years later the citizens were preparing to set out to Greenwich in their barge (the mayor, aldermen, and those who had served the office of sheriff, in liveries of black velvet with chains of gold on their necks, accompanied by their servants in coats of russet) to welcome Anne of Cleves, who landed at Dover the 27th December, 1539.1197On the 3rd February, 1540, the Court of Aldermen was informed that the king and queen would be leaving Greenwich on the morrow for Westminster, and that it was the king's wish that the commons of London should be in their best apparel, in their barges, to wait upon his highness, meeting at St. Dunstan's in the East at 7 o'clock in the morning and arriving at Greenwich by 8 o'clock.1198
Cromwell's work of demolition in the city, 1537-1538.
Cromwell's work of demolition in the city, 1537-1538.
The insurrection which had taken place in the country under the name of the Pilgrimage of Grace was seized by the king as an excuse for suppressing many of the larger monasteries and confiscating their property. He had no such excuse for carrying out his destructive policy in the city. Nevertheless, under the immediate supervision of Cromwell, the work of suppression went on, and before the end of 1538 was[pg 398]well nigh complete. The surrender of the houses of the Black Friars, the Grey Friars and the White Friars followed in quick succession, "and so all the other immediatlie."1199Cromwell by this time had removed from his house near Fenchurch to another near the Austin Friars in Throgmorton Street. He had recently asked for a pipe of water to be laid on to his new house, and this the Common Council had "lovingly" granted.1200In his private concerns he showed as little regard for the rights of others as in the affairs of State. He did not scruple to remove bodily a small house, the property of Stow's father, in order to enlarge his own garden, giving neither warning beforehand nor explanation afterwards, and "no man durst go to argue the matter."1201
The hospital of St. Thomas of Acon, which had ministered to the wants of the poorer citizens for nearly 400 years, disappeared,1202and was soon followed by the priory and hospital of St. Bartholomew, an institution of even greater antiquity, the hospital of St. Thomas, in Southwark, the priory and hospital of St. Mary without Bishopsgate, known as St. Mary of Bethlem, or "Bedlam," and the Abbey of Graces or New Abbey (sometimes called the Eastminster to distinguish it from the other minster in the west of London) which had been founded by Edward III, near Tower Hill.
The division of the spoil.
The division of the spoil.
A portion of the spoil was, as we have already seen, distributed among court favourites. The site of the house and gardens of the Augustinian Friars in Broad Street Ward was occupied, soon after their suppression (12 Nov., 1538), by the mansion-house of that politic courtier the celebrated Marquis of Winchester, who managed to maintain himself in high station in spite of the changes which took place under the several reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth, "by being a willow and not an oak." The building known at the present day as Winchester House, in Broad Street, stands near the site of the old mansion-house and garden of William Paulet, first Marquis of Winchester. The Friars' church he allowed to stand; and in June, 1550, the nave was granted, by virtue of a charter permitting alien non-conforming churches to exist in this country, to the Dutch and Walloon churches.1203The first marquis dying in 1571, he was succeeded by his son, who sold the monuments and lead from the roof of the remaining portion of the church and turned the place into a stable.1204The fourth marquis was reduced to parting with his house, built on the site of the old priory, in order to pay his debts, and appears to have found a purchaser in a wealthy London merchant and alderman of the city, John Swinnerton or Swynarton.1205
The mayor's effort to save the destruction of the steeple of the Austin Friars Church.
The mayor's effort to save the destruction of the steeple of the Austin Friars Church.
The steeple of the church, which was of so great beauty that the citizens desired its preservation,1206was sold by the marquis to Henry Robinson, who forthwith set to work to pull it down on the ground that it was in such a state of decay as to be a danger to the passer-by. Swinnerton, who happened to be mayor at the time, ordered him to stay the work of demolition; he, however, not only hurried on the more, but obstructed the officers sent to put a stop to the work, for which he was committed to Newgate to stay there until he gave security for restoring what he had already pulled down. The thought suggests itself that the fact of Swinnerton having purchased adjacent property may have made him the more zealous in preventing the demolition of the steeple than perhaps he might otherwise have been. However that may be, he lost no time in informing the lords of the council of the state of affairs and asking their advice (16 Feb., 1612). The reply came three days later, and was to the effect that as the City had had the option of purchasing the steeple at even a less price than Robinson had paid for it, and might have come to some arrangement with the marquis to keep it in repair, it could not prevent Robinson, who purchased it as a speculation, making the best he could of his bargain; so that, unless the City consented to accept Robinson's offer to part with his property on payment of his purchase-money and disbursements within a fortnight, down the steeple must come.1207
The priory of St. Helen without Bishopsgate.
The priory of St. Helen without Bishopsgate.
The priory of St. Helen without Bishopsgate was one of the last to be surrendered. In 1542 the[pg 401]nuns' chapel, which at one time was partitioned off from the rest of the church, was made over to Sir Richard Williams, a nephew of Thomas Cromwell, and ancestor of the Protector. The nuns' refectory or hall passed into the hands of the Leathersellers' Company and formed the company's hall until the close of the last century. The conduct of the inmates of the priory had not always been what it should be.1208The last prioress, in anticipation of the coming storm, leased a large portion of the conventual property to members of her own family, and at the time of the suppression was herself allowed a gratuity of £30 and a pension.
Friendly relations between the Corporation and religious houses in the city.
Friendly relations between the Corporation and religious houses in the city.
The relations existing between the civic authorities and the religious houses in the city were often of a most friendly and cordial character. When, in 1520, the Friars of the Holy Cross wanted assistance for the maintenance and building of their church, they applied to the Corporation as being their "secund founders."1209For assistance thus given the friars bound themselves to pray for their benefactors. When, in 1512, the master of St. Bartholomew's hospital obtained a lease for ninety-nine years from the City of a parcel of land on which his gatehouse or porch stood, it was on condition of payment of a certain rent and of his keeping a yearly obit in his church for the souls of the mayor, aldermen and commons of the city; and when the master of the hospital, two years later, attempted to back out of[pg 402]the terms of his lease and asked to be discharged from keeping the obit on the ground that he thought that the payment of the specified rent was sufficient for the premises, the Court of Aldermen unanimously decided that no part of the agreement should be minished or remitted.1210When the house of the Sisters Minoresses or Poor Clares, situate in Aldgate, suffered from fire, the Corporation rendered them pecuniary aid to the extent of 300 marks.1211
It was, however, to the Franciscans or Grey Friars that the citizens of London, individually as well as in their corporate capacity, were more especially attached. Soon after their arrival in England in 1223, they became indebted to the benevolence and generosity of citizens, their first benefactor having been John Ewen, citizen and mercer, who made them a gift of some land and houses in the parish of St. Nicholas by the Shambles. Upon this they erected their original building. Their first chapel, which became the chapel of their church, was built at the cost of William Joyner, who was mayor in 1239; the nave was added by Henry Waleys, who was frequently mayor during the reign of Edward I; the chapterhouse by Walter le Poter, elected sheriff in 1272; the dormitory by Gregory de Rokesley, who was mayor from 1274 to 1281, and again in 1284-5, and whose bones eventually found a resting place in their church; the refectory by another citizen, Bartholomew de Castro; and lastly—coming to later times—a library was added to their house by the bounty of Richard Whitington, as already narrated. It became the custom for the mayor and aldermen, as patron and[pg 403]founders, to pay a yearly visit to their house and church on St. Francis's day (4 Oct.). The custom dates from 1508. In 1522 the visit was for the first time followed by a dinner.1212
Royal injunction for keeping Parish Registers, 29 Sept., 1538.
Royal injunction for keeping Parish Registers, 29 Sept., 1538.
In one respect at least, if in no other, Cromwell's action in suppressing religious houses resulted in a benefit to the city of London as well as to the country at large, and this was in the institution of parish registers, not only for baptisms, but also for marriages. It had been his intention to establish them in 1536 to remedy the inconvenience to the public arising from the suppression of the smaller monasteries, and it is evident that some instructions were given at this time, inasmuch as the registers of two city parishes—viz., St. James Garlickhithe and St. Mary Bothaw—commence in November of this year,1213although the royal injunction commanding that registers should systematically be kept up, under penalty of fines, was not published by Cromwell, as vicar-general, until the 29th September, 1538. The delay is to be accounted for by the great discontent which the rumour of his project excited in the country. It was reported that some new tax on the services of the Church was contemplated, and the first in the list of popular grievances circulated by the rebels in the Pilgrimage of Grace was the payment of tribute to the king for the sacrament of baptism. In course of time, as matters became quieter and the government began to feel its own strength, Cromwell resumed a project never altogether abandoned, and caused the injunction to be[pg 404]issued, an action for which posterity must ever be deeply grateful.
Great increase of London poor, consequent on the suppression of religious houses.
Great increase of London poor, consequent on the suppression of religious houses.
On the other hand, the sudden closing of these institutions caused the streets to be thronged with the sick and poor, and the small parish churches to be so crowded with those who had been accustomed to frequent the larger and more commodious churches of the friars that there was scarce room left for the parishioners themselves. The city authorities saw at once that something would have to be done if they wished to keep their streets clear of beggars and of invalids, and not invite the spread of sickness by allowing infected persons to wander at large. As a means of affording temporary relief, collections for the poor were made every Sunday at Paul's Cross, after the sermon, and the proceeds were distributed weekly among the most necessitous,1214but more comprehensive steps were required to be taken.
Sir Richard Gresham's letter to the king for conveyance to the City of certain hospitals.
Sir Richard Gresham's letter to the king for conveyance to the City of certain hospitals.
Sir Richard Gresham,1215who was mayor at the time (1537-8), took upon himself to address a letter1216to the king setting forth that there were three hospitals in the city, viz., St. Mary's Spital, St. Bartholomew's and St. Thomas's, besides the New Abbey on Tower Hill—institutions primarily founded "onely for the releffe, comforte and helpyng of pore and impotent[pg 405]people not beyng able to helpe theymselffes; and not to the mayntenannce of Chanons, Preests, and Monks to lyve in pleasure, nothyng regardyng the miserable people liyng in every strete, offendyng every clene person passyng by the way with theyre fylthy and nasty savours"—and asking that the mayor and aldermen of the city for the time being might have the order and disposition of the hospitals mentioned, and of all the lands, tenements and revenues appertaining to the same. If his grace would but grant this request the mayor promised that a great number of the indigent sick would be relieved, whilst "sturdy beggars" not willing to work would be punished.
Two petitions from the City, Mar., 1539.
Two petitions from the City, Mar., 1539.
The City offers to purchase certain dissolved houses, 1 Aug., 1540.
The City offers to purchase certain dissolved houses, 1 Aug., 1540.
In March, 1539, the City presented two petitions to the king, one desiring that the late dissolved houses might be made over to them, together with their rents and revenues, in order that relief might be provided for the sick and needy, and the other asking that Henry would be pleased to convey to them the churches of the late four orders of friars, together with their lands and tenements, so that the mayor and citizens might take order for the due performance of divine service therein to the glory of God and the honour of the king.1217These petitions having been either refused or ignored, the Court of Common Council, on the 1st August, 1540, authorised the mayor and aldermen to make diligent suit to the king for the purchase of the houses, churches, and cloisters of the dissolved friars, and to make an offer of 1,000 marks for them "yf thei can be gotten no better chepe."1218Henry upbraided the[pg 406]City for being "pynche pence" or stingy in their offer,1219but as no better offer was made the matter was allowed to stand over, and nothing was done for four years.
The City in difficulties with king and parliament, 1541-1542.
The City in difficulties with king and parliament, 1541-1542.
Henry meanwhile took the opportunity afforded him by a full treasury, which rendered him independent of the favour of the citizens, of robbing them of their right of measuring linen-cloth and other commodities, and conferring the same by letters patent on John Godsalve, one of the clerks of the signet. The City's right was incontestable, and had been admitted by the king's chancellor, as well as by the Chancellor of the Court of Fruits and Tenths (a court recently established), and the mayor and aldermen represented the facts of the case to the king himself by letter, dated the 21st July, 1541.1220Another "variance" occurred about this time between the City and the Crown touching the office and duties of the City's waterbailiff.1221
Again, in the spring of 1542, an incident occurred which caused the relations between parliament and the City to be somewhat strained. The sheriffs of that year—Rowland Hill,1222an ancestor of the founder of the Penny Post, and Henry Suckley—had thought fit to obstruct the sergeant-at-mace in the execution of his duty, whilst attempting to remove a prisoner, who was a member of parliament, from[pg 407]one of the compters. The arrest of a member of parliament has always been a hazardous operation, and the sheriffs after a time thought better of it and gave up their prisoner. The Speaker, nevertheless, summoned them to appear at the Bar of the House and finally committed them to the Tower. They were released after two or three days, however, at the humble suit of the mayor.1223
Precautions against the spread of pestilence, 1543.
Precautions against the spread of pestilence, 1543.
In the following year (1543) the plague returned, and extra-precautions had to be taken against the spread of the disease, now that the houses of the friars were no longer open to receive patients and to alleviate distress. Besides the usual order that infected houses should be marked with a cross, the mayor caused proclamation to be made that persons of independent means should undergo quarantine for one month after recovery from sickness, whilst others whom necessity compelled to walk abroad for their livelihood were to carry in their hands white rods, two feet in length, for the space of forty days after convalescence. Straw and rushes in an infected house were to be removed to the fields before they were burnt, and infected clothing was to be carried away to be aired and not to be hung out of window. The hard-heartedness engendered by these visitations is evidenced by the necessity of the mayor having to enjoin that thenceforth no householder within the city or liberties should put any person stricken with the plague out of his house into the street, without making provision for his being kept in some other[pg 408]house. All dogs other than hounds, spaniels or mastiffs kept for the purpose of guarding the house were forthwith to be removed out of the city or killed, whilst watch-dogs were to be confined to the house.1224In October the mayor was ordered to resume the weekly bills of mortality, which of late had been neglected, in order that the king might be kept informed as to the increase or decrease of the sickness.1225The Michaelmas Law Sittings had to be postponed until the 15th November, and were removed to St. Albans.1226
Preparation for renewal of war with France, 1544.
Preparation for renewal of war with France, 1544.
Whilst the city was being wasted by disease the king was preparing for war with France.1227A joint expedition by Henry and Charles was to be undertaken in the following year (1544). A commission was issued early in the year for raising money in the city, and the lord chancellor himself, accompanied by officers of State, came into the city to read it. Finding that the lord mayor's name appeared third on the commission instead of being placed at its head, the chancellor ordered the mistake to be at once rectified by the town clerk and a new commission to be drawn up, whilst the rest of the lords agreed that at their several sessions on the business of this subsidy the lord mayor should occupy the seat of honour.1228By the end of April the chancellor (Audley) had died. His successor, Lord Wriothesley, had not long been appointed before the Court of Aldermen sent a deputation to desire his lordship's favour and friendship[pg 409]in the city's affairs, and agreed to make him a present of a couple of silver-gilt pots to the value of £20 or thereabouts.1229On the 24th May the Common Council agreed to provide a contingent of 500 or 600 men at the discretion of the mayor and aldermen, the men being raised from the livery companies.1230
The re-establishment of St. Bartholomew's hospital, 23 June, 1544.
The re-establishment of St. Bartholomew's hospital, 23 June, 1544.
Just as the king was about to set sail for the continent, he issued letters patent (23 June, 1544) re-establishing the hospital of St. Bartholomew on a new foundation, with the avowed object of providing "comfort to prisoners, shelter to the poor, visitation to the sick, food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothes to the naked, and sepulture to the dead."1231
The campaign in France of 1544.
The campaign in France of 1544.
Henry crossed over to France, leaving the new queen, Catherine Parr, widow of Lord Latimer, whom he had recently married, regent of the realm. After a long siege, lasting from July until September, he succeeded in taking Boulogne. On Thursday, the 25th September, an order was received by the Court of Aldermen from the lord chancellor, on behalf of the queen regent, to get in readiness another contingent of 500 men well harnessed and weaponed, 100 of whom were to be archers and the rest billmen. The last mentioned were to be provided with "blak bylles or morys pykes." The whole force was to be ready for shipment to Boulogne by the following Saturday. No time was to be lost. The wardens of the city companies were immediately summoned, and each company was ordered to provide the same number[pg 410]of men as on the last occasion. Each soldier was to be provided with a coat of grey frieze, with half sleeves, and a pair of new boots or else "sterte upps." The Corporation for its part appointed five captains, to each of whom was given the sum of £10 towards his apparel and charges, whilst £5 was allowed to each petty captain. These sums were paid out of the "goods" of the mayor and commonalty.1232
Scarcely had the city recovered from this drain upon its population before it was again called upon to fill up the ranks of the army in France. On Saturday, the 25th October, the Court of Aldermen was ordered to raise another force of 500 men by the following Monday. It was no easy matter to comply with so sudden a demand. The city companies were called upon to contribute as before, any deficiency in the number of men raised by them being made up by men raised by the mayor and aldermen themselves in a somewhat novel fashion. The Court of Aldermen had agreed that each of their number should on the Saturday night make the round of his ward and select "fifty, forty, twenty, or ten" tall and comely men, who should be warned in the king's name to appear the next morning before seven o'clock at the Guildhall. On Sunday morning the mayor and aldermen came to the Guildhall, and took the names of those whom they had selected over night. Two hundred men were eventually set apart to make up the deficiency of those to be provided by the companies. By six o'clock in the evening the whole contingent of 500 men was thus raised, and at nine o'clock on Monday morning they mustered at Leadenhall,[pg 411]whence they were conducted by the sheriffs and city chamberlain to the Tower Hill and handed over to Sir Thomas Arundel, who complimented the civic authorities on the appearance of the men, and promised to commend their diligence to the king.1233This same Monday morning (27 Oct.) the mayor received instructions to see that such carpenters and other artificers as had been "prested" for the king's service at Boulogne by the king's master-carpenter kept their day and presented themselves at the time and place appointed on pain of death.1234Search was ordered to be made in the following month for mariners lurking in the city, and if any were discovered they were to be forthwith despatched to the ships awaiting them.1235
City gift to the king on his return from France.
City gift to the king on his return from France.
By this time the king had ceased to take a personal part in the campaign and had returned home, the mayor and aldermen giving him a hearty welcome, and making him a suitable present in token of their joy for his return and his success in effecting the surrender of Boulogne.1236
Opposition to a benevolence in the city, 1545.
Opposition to a benevolence in the city, 1545.
At the opening of the next year (1545) Henry demanded another benevolence after the rate of two shillings in the pound. The lord chancellor and others of the king's council sat at Baynard's Castle to collect the benevolence of the city, "callinge all the citizens of the same before them, begininge first with the mayor and aldermen."1237Richard Rede, alderman of the ward of Farringdon Without, resisted this demand[pg 412]as unconstitutional, and was promptly despatched to the king in Scotland, where he was shortly afterwards made a prisoner of war. Another alderman, Sir William Roche, of Bassishaw ward, was unfortunate enough to offend the council and was committed to the Fleet.1238
William Laxton, mayor, knighted, 8 Feb., 1545.
William Laxton, mayor, knighted, 8 Feb., 1545.
On the 8th February William Laxton, the mayor, was presented to the king at Westminster, when Henry took occasion to thank him and his brother aldermen for the benevolence they had given him. He informed them of the success that had recently attended the English forces under the Earl of Hertford and the lord admiral, Sir John Dudley, whom he had left as deputy of Boulogne, and dismissed them to their homes after conferring upon the mayor the honour of knighthood.1239
A call for volunteers for the French war. April, 1545.
A call for volunteers for the French war. April, 1545.
In the following April volunteers were called for, and those in the city willing to follow the fortunes of war as "adventurers" were asked to repair to the sign of the "Gunne," at Billingsgate, where they would receive directions from John of Caleys, captain of all such adventurers, for their passage to France.1240The sessions of the law courts were adjourned in order to give lawyers and suitors an opportunity of showing their patriotism by taking up arms.1241The city companies furnished 100 men appareled "with whyte cotes of penystone whytes1242or karsies," with a[pg 413]red cross of St. George before and behind, each being provided with a white cap to wear under his "sallett or scull."1243
The last subsidy to be forthwith paid up.
The last subsidy to be forthwith paid up.
There yet remained a portion of the last subsidy to be collected, for which purpose the lord chancellor once more paid a visit to the city (12 June) and sat in the Guildhall. Every alderman was straitly charged to call before him every person in his ward who was worth £40 and upwards. The king's affairs were pressing, and this last payment must be immediately forthcoming.1244
A force of 2,000 soldiers demanded of the City, June, 1545.
A force of 2,000 soldiers demanded of the City, June, 1545.
A week later (19 June) letters from the king were read to the Court of Aldermen touching the levying of more forces and firing of beacons—a French squadron had appeared off the south coast. It was resolved to adjourn consideration of the message until the following Monday, when the lord chancellor and other lords of the council would again be coming into the city for the subsidy, and their advice could be asked. The outcome of these letters was that the City had to raise a force of 2,000 able men. To do this an assessment of a fifteenth was ordered to be levied on the wards, but in the meantime the money so to be raised was to be advanced by the aldermen.1245Not only were the aldermen on this, as on other occasions, mulcted in their pocket, but they were also called upon to personally share with the lord mayor himself and the sheriffs in the extra watch which in the "besye tyme of the warres" was ordered to be kept in the city.1246[pg 414]In the meantime a man was despatched by the Court of Aldermen to St. James' Fair to buy five wey of cheese for the city's soldiers who were already at Guildford. The cheese was to be sent by water as far as Kingston, whence it would be conveyed by "the good industrye and help of Master Judde, alderman," to its destination. The bakers of Stratford contracted to send two cart-loads of bread. It was further agreed on the same day that Christopher Fowlke should forthwith go to Guildford, and further if need be, "to guyde the seyd vytayle and to utter the same to the souldyers by thassistence of the sworde berer and the under chamberleyn. And to recyve money for the same."1247A flag and a drum were likewise to be despatched forthwith. The citizen soldiers were required to assist in driving out the French, who had effected a landing in the Isle of Wight; but before they arrived the enemy had disappeared.1248
Boulogne threatened.
Boulogne threatened.
The French king now prepared to lay siege to Boulogne, and the citizens were again called upon to furnish soldiers. One thousand men were required, and this number was only raised by enlisting men who had failed to pass previous musters. However, there was no time to pick and choose.1249
Act for confiscating chantries, &c., 1545.
Act for confiscating chantries, &c., 1545.
By this time Henry's resources were fast giving out. A parliament was summoned to meet in November, and again resort was had to confiscation for the purpose of supplying the king with money. An Act was passed which placed 2,000 chantries and chapels and over 100 hospitals at Henry's disposal.1250
Peace with France proclaimed, 13 June, 1546.
Peace with France proclaimed, 13 June, 1546.
All parties were, however, tired of the war, and in the following June (1546) a peace was concluded. Henry was allowed to retain Boulogne as security for a debt, and the French admiral soon afterwards paid a visit to the city, where he was heartily welcomed and hospitably entertained.1251
Uniformity of religion enforced, 1546.
Uniformity of religion enforced, 1546.
Recantation of the rector of St. Mary Aldermary.
Recantation of the rector of St. Mary Aldermary.
Freed from the embarrassment of foreign wars, Henry now had leisure to turn his attention to home affairs, and more particularly to the establishment of that uniformity which he so much desired, and which he endeavoured to bring about by getting rid of all those who differed in opinion from himself. Those who openly declared their disbelief in any one of the "Six Articles," and more particularly in the first article, which established the doctrine of the real presence, ran the risk of death by the gallows, the block or the stake. A city rector, Dr. Crome, of the church of St. Mary Aldermary, got into disgrace for speaking lightly of the benefits to be derived from private masses, and, although his argument tended to minimise the effect of the recent confiscation of so many chantries, he was called upon to make a public recantation at Paul's Cross.1252
Trial and execution of Anne Ascue.
Trial and execution of Anne Ascue.
Others were not so compliant. Among these was Anne Ascue or Ascough, a daughter of Sir William Ascough, of Kelsey, in Lincolnshire, and sometimes known as Anne Kyme, from the name of her husband, with whom she had ceased to live. In June, 1545, she and some others, among whom was another woman, Joan, wife of John Sauterie, of London, had[pg 416]been arraigned at the Guildhall "for speaking against the sacrament of the altar"; but, no evidence being adduced against her, she was on that occasion acquitted and discharged.1253Scarcely a year elapsed before she was again in custody. On the 18th June, 1546, she was tried at the Guildhall and condemned to be burned alive as a heretic at Smithfield, where the city chamberlain had orders to erect a "substantial stage," whence the king's council and the civic authorities might witness the scene.1254
Improved water supply of the city, 1545-1546.
Improved water supply of the city, 1545-1546.
The insanitary condition of the city, occasioned for the most part by an insufficient supply of water, was not improved by the influx of disbanded and invalided soldiers, followed by a swarm of vagabonds and idlers, which took place at the conclusion of peace with France. To the soldiers licences were granted to solicit alms for longer or shorter periods, whilst the vagabonds were ordered to quit the city.1255The water question had been taken in hand by the Common Council towards the close of the preceding year (1545), when Sir Martin Bowes entered upon his mayoralty, and a tax of two fifteenths was imposed upon the inhabitants of the city for the purpose of conveying fresh water from certain "lively sprynges" recently discovered at Hackney.1256Bowes himself was very energetic in the matter, and before he went out of office he had the satisfaction of seeing a plentiful supply of water brought into the heart of the city from the suburban manor of Finsbury.1257
St. Bartholomew's Hospital, &c., vested in the City, 13 Jan., 1547.
St. Bartholomew's Hospital, &c., vested in the City, 13 Jan., 1547.
Henry's reign was now fast drawing to a close. In April, 1546, he had bestowed an endowment of 500 marks a year on the city poor-houses on condition the citizens themselves found a similar sum.1258In January, 1547—a few days only before he died—he showed still further care for the city poor by vesting in the Corporation, not only St. Bartholomew's Hospital, thenceforth to be known as the House of the Poor in West Smithfield, but also the house and church of the dissolved monastery of the Grey Friars and the house and hospital of Bethlehem.1259
A committee appointed to investigate the recently acquired property, 6 May, 1547.
A committee appointed to investigate the recently acquired property, 6 May, 1547.
The Corporation lost no time in getting their newly acquired property into working order. On the 6th May the late king's conveyance was read before the Court of Aldermen, and thereupon a committee, of which Sir Martin Bowes was a prominent member, was deputed to make an abstract of the yearly revenues and charges of the house of the Grey Friars and hospital of little Saint Bartholomew, and to report thereon to the court with as much speed as possible.1260From a purely monetary point of view the City had made a bad bargain, and had saddled itself with an annual expenditure out of the Corporation revenues to an extent little thought of at the time.1261
The king's death, 28 Jan., 1547.
The king's death, 28 Jan., 1547.
On the 28th January, 1547, Henry died "at hys most pryncely howse at Westminster, comenly[pg 418]called Yorkeplace or Whytehall"—the palace which Cardinal Wolsey built for himself, and which Henry appropriated, extending its grounds and preserves in cynical contempt of public convenience and utter disregard of the chartered rights of the citizens of London.1262There his corpse remained until the 14th February, when it was removed at 8 o'clock in the morning to Sion House, near Richmond, and thence conveyed to Windsor on the following day.
Edward VI proclaimed king in the city, 31 Jan., 1547.
Edward VI proclaimed king in the city, 31 Jan., 1547.
In the meantime the mayor, Henry Huberthorne, or Hoberthorne,1263had been sent for (31 Jan.) to attend the king's council at Westminster, where he received orders to return to the city and cause himself and his brother aldermen to be arrayed in their scarlet robes, in order to accompany the heralds whilst they proclaimed the new king in various parts of the city. This being done, the mayor took steps for securing the peace of the city, and the citizens voted Edward a benevolence of a fifteenth and a half.1264
Distribution of gowns of black livery.
Distribution of gowns of black livery.
Edward on his part presented the mayor and aldermen with 104 gowns of black livery, according to the precedent followed at the decease of Henry VII.[pg 419]These gowns were distributed among the mayor and aldermen, the high officers and certain clerks in the service of the Corporation. Ten aldermen accompanied the remains of the late king on their way to Windsor, riding forth in black coats with the rest of the mourners, the harness and bridles of their horses being covered with black cloth. Two of the aldermen, Sir William Laxton and Sir Martin Bowes, had each four servants in their suite, whilst the rest of the aldermen had three, all in black coats.1265