FOOTNOTES:

£s.d.A yeoman of the chamber, at27000Three Serjeants of ditto,[10]each28000Master of the ceremonies4000Serjeant of the channel184100Yeoman of the channel2500Two yeomen of the waterside, each35000Deputy water-bailiff35000Water-bailiff's first young man30000The common hunt's young man35000Water-bailiff's second young man30000Swordbearer's young man35000

"These sums and others, added to the previous amount, make an annual amount of expense connected with the office of Lord Mayor of £25,034 7s. 1d.

"Most of the last-named officers walk before the Lord Mayor, dressed in black silk gowns, on all state occasions (one acting as his lordship's train- bearer), and dine with the household at a table provided at about 15s. a head, exclusive of wine, which they are allowed without restraint. In the mayoralty of Alderman Atkins, some dispute having arisen with some of the household respecting their tables, the City abolished the daily table, giving each of the officers a sum of money instead, deducting £1,000 a year from the Lord Mayor's allowance, and requiring him only to provide the swordbearer's table on state days."

The estimate made for the expenditure at the Mansion House by the committee of the Corporation, is founded upon the average of many years, but in such mayoralties as Curtis, Pirie, and Wilson, far more must have been spent. It is said that only one Lord Mayor ever saved anything out of his salary.

"Sir James Saunderson, Mayor in 1792-3, left behind him a minute account of the expenses of his year of office, for the edification of his successors. The document is lengthy, but we shall select a few of the more striking items. Paid—Butcher for twelve months, £781 10s. 10d.; one item in this account is for meat given to the prisoners at Ludgate, at a cost of £68 10s. 8d. The wines are, of course, expensive. 1792—Paid, late Lord Mayor's stock, £57 7s. 11d.; hock, 35 dozen, £82 14s. 0d.; champagne, 40 ditto, at 43s., £85 19s. 9d.; claret, 154 ditto, at 34s. 10d. per dozen, £268 12s. 7d.; Burgundy, 30 ditto, £76 5s. 0d.; port, 8 pipes, 400 dozen, £416 4s. 0d.; draught ditto, for Lord Mayor's day, £49 4s. 0d.; ditto, ditto, for Easter Monday, £28 4s. 3d.—£493 12s. 3d.; Madeira, 32 dozen, £59 16s. 4d.; sherry, 61 dozen, £67 1s. 0d.; Lisbon, one hogshead, at 34s. per dozen, £62 12s. 0d.; bottles to make good, broke and stole, £97 13s. 6d.; arrack, £8 8s. 0d.; brandy, 25 gallons, £18 11s. 0d.; rum, 6½ ditto, £3 19s. 6d. Total, £1,309 12s. 10d."

INTERIOR OF THE EGYPTIAN HALL

"These items of costume are curious:—Lady Mayoress, November 30.—A hoop, £2 16s. 0d.; point ruffles, £12 12s. 0d.; treble blond ditto, £7 7s. 0d.; a fan, £3 3s. 0d.; a cap and lappets, £7 7s. 0d.; a cloak and sundries, £26 17s. 0d.; hair ornaments, £34 0s. 0d.; a cap, £7 18s. 0d.; sundries, £37 9s. 1d. 1793, Jan. 26.—A silk, for 9th Nov., 3½ guineas per yard, £41 6s. 0d.; a petticoat (Madame Beauvais), £35 3s. 6d.; agold chain, £57 15s. 0d.; silver silk, £13 0s. 0d.; clouded satin, £5 10s. 0d.; a petticoat for Easter, £29 1s. 0d.; millinery, for ditto, £27 17s. 6d.; hair-dressing, £13 2s. 3d. July 6th.—A petticoat, £6 16s. 8d.; millinery, £7 8s. 8d.; mantua-maker, in full, £13 14s. 6d.; milliner, in full, £12 6s. 6d. Total, £416 2s. 0d. The Lord Mayor's dress:—Two wigs, £9 9s. 0d.; a velvet suit, £54 8s. 0d.; other clothes, £117 13s. 4d.; hats and hose, £9 6s. 6d.; a scarlet robe, £14 8s. 6d.; a violet ditto, £12 1s. 6d.; a gold chain, £63 0s. 0d.; steel buckles, £5 5s. 0d.; a steel sword, £6 16s. 6d.; hair-dressing, £16 16s. 11d.—£309 2s. 3d. On the page opposite to that containing this record, under the head of 'Ditto Returned,' we read 'Per Valuation, £0 0s. 0d.' Thus, to dress a Lord Mayor costs £309 2s. 0d.; but her Ladyship cannot be duly arrayed at a less cost than £416 2s. 0d. To dress the servants cost £724 5s. 6d."

Then comes a grand summing-up. "Dr. The whole state of the account, £12,173 4s. 3d." Then follow the receipts per contra:—" At Chamberlain's Office, £3,572 8s. 4d.; Cocket Office, £892 5s. 11d.; Bridge House, £60; City Gauger, £250; freedoms, £175; fees on affidavits, £21 16s. 8d.; seals, £67 4s. 9d.; licences, £13 15s.; sheriff's fees, £13 6s. 8d.; corn fees, £15 13s.; venison warrants, £14 4s.; attorneys, Mayor's Court, £26 7s. 9d.; City Remembrancer, £12 12s.; in lieu of baskets, £7 7s.; vote of Common Council, £100; sale of horses and carriages, £450;wine (overplus) removed from Mansion House, £398 18s. 7d. Total received, £6,117 9s. 8d. Cost of mayoralty, as such, and independent of all private expenses, £6,055 14s. 7d."

THE "MARIA WOOD."

That clever but unscrupulous tuft-hunter and smart parvenu, Theodore Hook, who talked of Bloomsbury as if it was semi-barbarous, and of citizens (whose wine he drank, and whose hospitality he so often shared) as if they could only eat venison and swallow turtle soup, has left a sketch of the short-lived dignity of a mayor, which exactly represents the absurd caricature of City life that then pleased his West-end readers, half of whom had derived their original wealth from the till. Scropps, the new Lord Mayor, cannot sleep all night for his greatness; the wind down the chimney sounds like the shouts of the people; the cocks crowing in the morn at the back of the house he takes for trumpets sounding his approach; and the ordinary incidental noises in the family he fancies the pop-guns at Stangate announcing his disembarcation at Westminster. Then come his droll mishaps: when he enters the state coach, and throws himself back upon his broad seat, with all imaginable dignity, in the midst of all his ease andelegance, he snaps off the cut-steel hilt of his sword, by accidentally bumping the whole weight of his body right—or rather, wrong—directly upon the top of it.

"Through fog and glory," says Theodore Hook, "Scropps reached Blackfriars Bridge, took water, and in the barge tasted none of the collation, for all he heard, saw, and swallowed was 'Lord Mayor' and 'your lordship,' far sweeter than nectar. At the presentation at Westminster, he saw two of the judges, whom he remembered on the circuit, when he trembled at the sight of them, believing them to be some extraordinary creatures, upon whom all the hair and fur grew naturally.

"Then the Lady Mayoress. There she was—Sally Scropps (her maiden name was Snob). 'There was my own Sally, with a plume of feathers that half filled the coach, and Jenny and Maria and young Sally, all with their backs tomyhorses, which were pawing with mud, and snorting and smoking like steam-engines, with nostrils like safety valves, and four ofmyfootmen behind the coach, like bees in a swarm.'"

Perhaps the most effective portion of the paper is thereverseof the picture. My lord and ladyand their family had just got settled in the Mansion House, and enjoying their dignity, when the 9th of November came again—the consummation of Scropps' downfall. Again did they go in state to Guildhall; again were they toasted and addressed; again were they handed in and led out, flirted with Cabinet ministers, and danced with ambassadors; and at two o'clock in the morning drove home from the scene of gaiety to the old residence in Budge Row. "Never in the world did pickled herrings or turpentine smell so powerfully as on that night when we re-entered the house.... The passage looked so narrow; the drawing-room looked so small; the staircase seemed so dark; our apartments appeared so low. In the morning we assembled at breakfast. A note lay upon the table, addressed 'Mrs. Scropps, Budge Row.' The girls, one after the other, took it up, read the superscription, and laid it down again. A visitor was announced—a neighbour and kind friend, a man of wealth and importance. What were his first words? They were the first I had heard from a stranger since my job. 'How are you, Scropps? Done up, eh?'

"Scropps! No obsequiousness, no deference, no respect. No 'My lord, I hope your lordship passed an agreeable night. And how is her ladyship, and her amiable daughters?' No, not a bit of it! 'How's Mrs. S. and thegals?' This was quite natural, all as it had been. But how unlike what itwasonly the day before! The very servants—who, when amidst the strapping, stall-fed, gold-laced lackeys of the Mansion House, and transferred, with the chairs and tables, from one Lord Mayor to another, dared not speak, nor look, nor say their lives were their own—strutted about the house, and banged the doors, and spoke of theirmissisas if she had been an old apple-woman.

"So much for domestic miseries. I went out. I was shoved about in Cheapside in the most remorseless manner. My right eye had a narrow escape of being poked out by the tray of a brawny butcher's boy, who, when I civilly remonstrated, turned round and said, 'Vy, I say, who areyou, I wonder? Why are you so partiklar about yourhysight?' I felt an involuntary shudder. 'To-day,' thought I, 'I am John Ebenezer Scropps. Two days ago I was Lord Mayor!'"

"Our Lord Mayor," says Cobbett, in his sensible way, "and his golden coach, and his gold-covered footmen and coachmen, and his golden chain, and his chaplain, and his great sword of state, please the people, and particularly the women and girls; and when they are pleased, the men and boys are pleased. And many a young fellow has been moreindustrious and attentive from his hope of one day riding in that golden coach."

"On ordinary state occasions," says "Aleph," in theCity Press, "the Lord Mayor wears a massive black silk robe, richly embroidered, and his collar and jewel; in the civic courts, a violet silk robe, furred and bordered with black velvet. The wear of the various robes was fixed by a regulation dated 1562. The present authority for the costumes is a printed pamphlet (by order of the Court of Common Council), dated 1789.

"The jewelled collar (date 1534)," says Mr. Timbs, "is of pure gold, composed of a series of links, each formed of a letter S, a united York and Lancaster (or Henry VII.) rose, and a massive knot. The ends of the chain are joined by the portcullis, from the points of which, suspended by a ring of diamonds, hangs the jewel. The entire collar contains twenty-eight SS, fourteen roses, thirteen knots, and measures sixty-four inches. The jewel contains in the centre the City arms, cut in cameo of a delicate blue, on an olive ground. Surrounding this is a garter of bright blue, edged with white and gold, bearing the City motto, 'Domine, dirige nos,' in gold letters. The whole is encircled with a costly border of gold SS, alternating with rosettes of diamonds, set in silver. The jewel is suspended from the collar by a portcullis, but when worn without the collar, is hung by a broad blue ribbon. The investiture is by a massive gold chain, and, when the Lord Mayor is re-elected, by two chains."

Edward III., by his charter (dated 1534), grants the mayors of the City of London "gold, or silver, or silvered" maces, to be carried before them. The present mace, of silver-gilt, is five feet three inches long, and bears on the lower part "W.R." It is surmounted with a royal crown and the imperial arms; and the handle and staff are richly chased.

There are four swords belonging to the City of London. The "Pearl" sword, presented by Queen Elizabeth when she opened the first Royal Exchange, in 1571, and so named from its being richly set with pearls. This sword is carried before the Lord Mayor on all occasions of rejoicing and festivity. The "Sword of State," borne before the Lord Mayor as an emblem of his authority. The "Black" sword, used on fast days, in Lent, and at the death of any of the royal family. And the fourth is that placed before the Lord Mayor's chair at the Central Criminal Court.

The Corporate seal is circular. The second seal, made in the mayoralty of Sir William Walworth, 1381, is much defaced.

"The 'gondola,' known as the 'Lord Mayor's State Barge,'" says "Aleph," "was built in 1807, at a cost of £2,579. Built of English oak, 85 feet long by 13 feet 8 inches broad, she was at all times at liberty to pass through all the locks, and even go up the Thames as far as Oxford. She had eighteen oars and all other fittings complete, and was profusely gilt. But when the Conservancy Act took force, and the Corporation had no longer need of her, she was sold at her moorings at Messrs. Searle's, Surrey side of Westminster Bridge, on Thursday, April 5th, 1860, by Messrs. Pullen and Son, of Cripplegate. The first bid was £20, and she was ultimately knocked down for £105. Where she is or how she has fared we know not. The other barge is that famous one known to all City personages and all civic pleasure parties. It was built during the mayoralty of Sir Matthew Wood, in 1816, and received its name ofMariaWoodfrom the eldest and pet daughter of that 'twice Lord Mayor.' It cost £3,300, and was built by Messrs. Field and White, in consequence of the old bargeCrosby(built during the mayoralty of Brass Crosby, 1771) being found past repairing.Maria Woodmeasures 140 feet long by 19 feet wide, and draws only 2 feet 6 inches of water. The grand saloon, 56 feet long, is capable of dining 140 persons. In 1851 she cost £1,000 repairing. Like her sister, this splendid civic barge was sold at the Auction-mart, facing the Bank of England, by Messrs. Pullen and Son, on Tuesday, May 31, 1859. The sale commenced at £100, next £200, £220, and thence regular bids, till finally it got to £400, when Mr. Alderman Humphrey bid £410, and got the prize. Though no longer civic property, it is yet, I believe, in the hands of those who allow it to be made the scene of many a day of festivity."

FOOTNOTES:[9]A new Act for the conservancy of the Thames came into operation on September 30th, 1857, the result of a compromise between the City and the Government, after a long lawsuit between the Crown and City authorities.[10]These functionaries carve the barons of beef at the banquet on Lord Mayor's Day.

[9]A new Act for the conservancy of the Thames came into operation on September 30th, 1857, the result of a compromise between the City and the Government, after a long lawsuit between the Crown and City authorities.

[10]These functionaries carve the barons of beef at the banquet on Lord Mayor's Day.

SAXON LONDON

A Glance at Saxon London—The Three Component Parts of Saxon London—The First Saxon Bridge over the Thames—Edward the Confessor at Westminster—City Residences of the Saxon Kings—Political Position of London in Early Times—The first recorded Great Fire of London—The Early Commercial Dignity of London—The Kings of Norway and Denmark besiege London in vain—A GreatGemotheld in London—Edmund Ironside elected King by the Londoners—Canute besieges them, and is driven off—The Seamen of London—Its Citizens as Electors of Kings.

Our materials for sketching Saxon London are singularly scanty; yet some faint picture of it we may perhaps hope to convey.

Our readers must, therefore, divest their minds entirely of all remembrance of that great ocean of houses that has now spread like an inundation from the banks of the winding Thames, surging over the wooded ridges that rise northward, and widening out from Whitechapel eastward to Kensington westward. They must rather recall to their minds some small German town, belted in with a sturdy wall, raised not for ornament, but defence, with corner turrets for archers, and pierced with loops whence the bowmen may drive their arrows at the straining workers of the catapult and mangonels (those Roman war-engines we used against the cruel Danes), and with stone-capped places of shelter along the watchmen's platforms, where the sentinels may shelter themselves during the cold and storm, when tired of peering over the battlements and looking for the crafty enemy Essex-wards or Surrey way. No toy battlements of modern villa or tea-garden are those over which the rough-bearded men, in hoods and leather coats, lean in the summer, watching the citizens disporting themselves in the Moorfields, orin winter sledging over the ice-pools of Finsbury. Not for mere theatrical pageant do they carry those heavy axes and tough spears. Those bossed targets are not for festival show; those buff jackets, covered with metal scales, have been tested before now by Norsemen's ponderous swords and the hatchets of the fierce Jutlanders.

In such castle rooms as antiquaries now visit, the Saxon earls and eldermen quaffed their ale, and drank "wassail" to King Egbert or Ethelwolf. In such dungeons as we now see with a shudder at the Tower, Saxon traitors and Danish prisoners once peaked and pined.

We must imagine Saxon London as having three component parts—fortresses, convents, and huts. The girdle of wall, while it restricted space, would give a feeling of safety and snugness which in our great modern city—which is really a conglomeration, a sort of pudding-stone, of many towns and villages grown together into one shapeless mass—the citizen can never again experience. The streets would in some degree resemble those of Moscow, where, behind fortress, palace, and church, you come upon rows of mere wooden sheds, scarcely better than the log huts of the peasants, or the sombre felt tents of the Turcoman. There would be largevacant spaces, as in St. Petersburg; and the suburbs would rapidly open beyond the walls into wild woodland and pasture, fen, moor, and common. A few dozen fishermen's boats from Kent and Norfolk would be moored by the Tower, if, indeed, any Saxon fort had ever replaced the somewhat hypothetical Roman fortress of tradition; and lower down some hundred or so cumbrous Dutch, French, and German vessels would represent our trade with the almost unknown continent whence we drew wine and furs and the few luxuries of those hardy and thrifty days.

In the narrow streets, the fortress, convent, and hut would be exactly represented by the chieftain and his bearded retinue of spearmen, the priest with his train of acolytes, and the herd of half-savage churls who plodded along with rough carts laden with timber from the Essex forests, or driving herds of swine from the glades of Epping. The churls we picture as grim but hearty folk, stolid, pugnacious, yet honest and promise-keeping, over-inclined to strong ale, and not disinclined for a brawl; men who had fought with Danes and wolves, and who were ready to fight them again. The shops must have been mere stalls, and much of the trade itinerant. There would be, no doubt, rudimentary market-places about Cheapside (Chepe is the Saxon word for market); and the lines of some of our chief streets, no doubt, still follow the curves of the original Saxon roads.

The date of the first Saxon bridge over the Thames is extremely uncertain, as our chapter on London Bridge will show; but it is almost as certain as history can be that, soon after the Dane Olaf's invasion of England (994) in Ethelred's reign, with 390 piratical ships, when he plundered Staines and Sandwich, a rough wooden bridge was built, which crossed the Thames from St. Botolph's wharf to the Surrey shore. We must imagine it a clumsy rickety structure, raised on piles with rough-hewn timber planks, and with drawbridges that lifted to allow Saxon vessels to pass. There was certainly a bridge as early as 1006, probably built to stop the passage of the Danish pirate boats. Indeed, Snorro Sturleson, the Icelandic historian, tells us that when the Danes invaded England in 1008, in the reign of Ethelred the Unready (ominous name!), they entrenched themselves in Southwark, and held the fortified bridge, which had pent-houses, bulwarks, and shelter-turrets. Ethelred's ally, Olaf, however, determined to drive the Danes from the bridge, adopted a daring expedient to accomplish this object, and, fastening his ships to the piles of the bridge, from which the Danes were raining down stones and beams, dragged itto pieces, upon which, on very fair provocation, Ottar, a Norse bard, broke forth into the following eulogy of King Olaf, the patron saint of Tooley Street:—

"And thou hast overthrown their bridge, O thou storm of the sons of Odin, skilful and foremost in the battle, defender of the earth, and restorer of the exiled Ethelred! It was during the fight which the mighty King fought with the men of England, when King Olaf, the son of Odin, valiantly attacked the bridge at London. Bravely did the swords of the Volsces defend it; but through the trench which the sea-kings guarded thou camest, and the plain of Southwark was crowded with thy tents."

It may seem as strange to us, at this distance of time, to find London Bridge ennobled in a Norse epic, as to find a Sir Something de Birmingham figuring among the bravest knights of Froissart's record; but there the Norse song stands on record, and therein we get a stormy picture of the Thames in the Saxon epoch.

It is supposed that the Saxon kings dwelt in a palace on the site of the Baynard's Castle of the Middle Ages, which stood at the river-side just west of St. Paul's, although there is little proof of the fact. But we get on the sure ground of truth when we find Edward the Confessor, one of the most powerful of the Saxon kings, dwelling in saintly splendour at Westminster, beside the abbey dedicated by his predecessors to St. Peter. The combination of the palace and the monastery was suitable to such a friend of the monks, and to one who saw strange visions, and claimed to be the favoured of Heaven. But beyond and on all sides of the Saxon palace everywhere would be fields—St. James's Park (fields), Hyde Park (fields), Regent's Park (fields), and long woods stretching northward from the present St. John's Wood to the uplands of Epping.

As to the City residences of the Saxon kings, we have little on record; but there is indeed a tradition that in Wood Street, Cheapside, King Athelstane once resided; and that one of the doors of his house opened into Addle Street, Aldermanbury (addle, from the German wordedel, noble). But Stow does not mention the tradition, which rests, we fear, on slender evidence.

Whether the Bread Street, Milk Street, and Cornhill markets date from the Saxon times is uncertain. It is not unlikely that they do, yet the earliest mention of them in London chronicles is found several centuries later.

We must be therefore content to search for allusions to London's growth and wealth in Saxonhistory, and there the allusions are frequent, clear, and interesting.

In the earlier time London fluctuated, according to one of the best authorities on Saxon history, between an independent mercantile commonwealth and a dependency of the Mercian kings. The Norsemen occasionally plundered and held it as apoint d'appuifor their pirate galleys. Its real epoch of greatness, however ancient its advantage as a port, commences with its re-conquest by Alfred the Great in 886. Henceforward, says that most reliable writer on this period, Mr. Freeman, we find it one of the firmest strongholds of English freedom, and one of the most efficient bulwarks of the realm. There the English character developed the highest civilisation of the country, and there the rich and independent citizens laid the foundations of future liberty.

In 896 the Danes are said to have gone up the Lea, and made a strong work twenty miles above Lundenburgh. This description, says Earle, would be particularly appropriate, if Lundenburgh occupied the site of the Tower. Also one then sees the reason why they should go up the Lea—viz., because their old passage up the Thames was at that time intercepted.

"London," says Earle, in his valuable Saxon Chronicles, "was a flourishing and opulent city, the chief emporium of commerce in the island, and the residence of foreign merchants. Properly it was more an Angle city, the chief city of the Anglian nation of Mercia; but the Danes had settled there in great numbers, and had numerous captives that they had taken in the late wars. Thus the Danish population had a preponderance over the Anglian free population, and the latter were glad to see Alfred come and restore the balance in their favour. It was of the greatest importance to Alfred to secure this city, not only as the capital of Mercia (caput regni Merciorum, Malmesbury), but as the means of doing what Mercia had not done—viz., of making it a barrier to the passage of pirate ships inland. Accordingly, in the year 886, Alfredplantedthegarrisonof London (i.e., not as a town is garrisoned in our day, with men dressed in uniform and lodged in barracks, but) with a military colony of men to whom land was given for their maintenance, and who would live in and about a fortified position under a commanding officer. It appears to me not impossible that this may have been the first military occupation of Tower Hill, but this is a question for the local antiquary."

In 982 (Ethelred II.), London, still a mere cluster of wooden and wattled houses, was almost entirely destroyed by a fire. The new city was, nodoubt, rebuilt in a more luxurious manner. "London in 993," says Mr. Freeman, in a very admirable passage, "fills much the same place in England that Paris filled in Northern Gaul a century earlier. The two cities, in their several lands, were the two great fortresses, placed on the two great rivers of the country, the special objects of attack on the part of the invaders, and the special defence of the country against them. Each was, as it were, marked out by great public services to become the capital of the whole kingdom. But Paris became a national capital only because its local count gradually grew into a national king. London, amidst all changes, within and without, has always preserved more or less of her ancient character as a free city. Paris was merely a military bulwark, the dwelling-place of a ducal or a royal sovereign. London, no less important as a military post, had also a greatness which rested on a surer foundation. London, like a few other of our great cities, is one of the ties which connect our Teutonic England with the Celtic and Roman Britain of earlier times. Her British name still remains unchanged by the Teutonic conquerors. Before our first introduction to London as an English city, she had cast away her Roman and imperial title; she was no longer Augusta; she had again assumed her ancient name, and through all changes she had adhered to her ancient character. The commercial fame of London dates from the early days of Roman dominion. The English conquest may have caused a temporary interruption, but it was only temporary. As early as the days of Æthelberht the commerce of London was again renowned. Ælfred had rescued the city from the Dane; he had built a citadel for her defence, the germ of that Tower which was to be first the dwelling-place of kings, and then the scene of the martyrdom of their victims. Among the laws of Æthelstan, none are more remarkable than those which deal with the internal affairs of London, and with the regulation of her earliest commercial corporations. Her institutes speak of a commerce spread over all the lands which bordered on the Western Ocean. Flemings and Frenchmen, men of Ponthieu, of Brabant, and of Lüttich, filled her markets with their wares, and enriched the civic coffers with their toils. Thither, too, came the men of Rouen, whose descendants were, at no distant day, to form a considerable element among her own citizens; and, worthy and favoured above all, came the seafaring men of the old Saxon brother-land, the pioneers of the mighty Hansa of the north, which was in days to come to knit together London and Novgorod in one bond of commerce, and to dictate laws and distribute crowns among the nationsby whom London was now threatened. The demand for toll and tribute fell lightly on those whom the English legislation distinguished as themen of the Emperor."

BROAD STREET AND CORNHILL WARDS. (From a Map of 1750.)

In 994, Olaf king of Norway, and Sweyn king of Denmark, summoning their robber chieftains from their fir-woods, fiords, and mountains, sailed up the Thames in ninety-four war vessels, eager to plunder the wealthy London of the Saxons. The brave burghers, trained to handle spear and sword, beat back, however, the hungry foemen from their walls—the rampart that tough Roman hands had reared, and the strong tower which Alfred had seen arise on the eastern bank of the river.

But it was not only to such worldly bulwarks that the defenders of London trusted. On that day, says the chronicler, the Mother of God, "of her mild-heartedness," rescued the Christian city from its foes. An assault on the wall, coupledwith an attempt to burn the town, was defeated, with great slaughter of the besiegers; and the two kings sailed away the same day in wrath and sorrow.

During the year 998 a great "gemot" was held at London. Whether any measures were taken to resist the Danes does not appear; but the priests were busy, and Wulfsige, Bishop of the Dorsætas, took measures to substitute monks for canons in his cathedral church at Sherborne; and the king restored to the church of Rochester the lands of which he had robbed it in his youth.

In 1009 the Danes made several vain attempts on London.

LORD MAYOR'S WATER PROCESSION

In 1013 Sweyn, the Dane, marched upon the much-tormented city of ships; but the hardy citizens were again ready with bow and spear. Whether the bridge still existed then or not is uncertain; as many of the Danes are said to haveperished in vainly seeking for the fords. The assaults were as unsuccessful as those of Sweyn and Olaf, nineteen years before, for King Ethelred's right hand was Thorkill, a trusty Dane. "For the fourth time in this reign," says Mr. Freeman, "the invaders were beaten back from the great merchant city. Years after London yielded to Sweyn; then again, in Ethelred's last days, it resisted bravely its enemies; till at last Ethelred, weary of Dane and Saxon, died, and was buried in St. Paul's. The two great factions of Danes and Saxons had now to choose a king."

Canute the Dane was chosen as king at Southampton; but the Londoners were so rich, free, and powerful that they held a rivalgemot, and with one voice elected the Saxon atheling Edmund Ironside, who was crowned by Archbishop Lyfing within the city, and very probably at St. Paul's. Canute, enraged at the Londoners, at once sailed for London with his army, and, halting at Greenwich, planned the immediate siege of the rebellious city. The great obstacle to his advance was the fortified bridge that had so often hindered the Danes. Canute, with prompt energy, instantly had a great canal dug on the southern bank, so that his ships might turn the flank of the bridge; and, having overcome this great difficulty, he dug another trench round the northern and western sides of the city. London was now circumvallated, and cut off from all supply of corn and cattle; but the citizen's hearts were staunch, and, baffling every attempt of Canute to sap or escalade, the Dane soon raised the siege. In the meantime, Edmund Ironside was not forgetful of the city that had chosen him as king. After three battles, he compelled the Danes to raise their second siege. In a fourth battle, which took place at Brentford, the Danes were again defeated, though not without considerable losses on the side of the victors, many of the Saxons being drowned in trying to ford the river after their flying enemies. Edmund then returned to Wessex to gather fresh troops, and in his absence Canute for the third time laid siege to London. Again the city held out against every attack, and "Almighty God," as the pious chroniclers say, "saved the city."

After the division of England between Edmund and Canute had been accomplished, the London citizens made peace with the Danes, and the latter were allowed to winter as friends in the unconquered city; but soon after the partition Edmund Ironside died in London, and thus Canute became the sole king of England.

On the succession of Harold I. (Canute's naturalson), says Mr. Freeman, we find a new element, the "lithsmen," the seamen of London. "The great city still retained her voice in the election of kings; but that voice would almost seem to have been transferred to a new class among the population. We hear now not of the citizens, but of the seafaring men. Every invasion, every foreign settlement of any kind within the kingdom too, in every age, added a new element to the population of London. As a Norman colony settled in London later in the century, so a Danish colony settled there now. Some accounts tell us, doubtless with great exaggeration, that London had now almost become a Danish city (William of Malmesbury, ii. 188); but it is, at all events, quite certain the Danish element in the city was numerous and powerful, and that its voice strongly helped to swell the cry which was raised in favour of Harold."

It seems doubtful how far the London citizens in the Saxon times could claim the right to elect kings. The latest and best historian of this period seems to think that the Londoners had no special privileges in thegemot; but, of course, when thegemotwas held in London, the citizens, intelligent and united, had a powerful voice in the decision. Hence it arose that the citizens both of London and Winchester (which had been an old seat of the Saxon kings) "seem," says Mr. Freeman, "to be mentioned as electors of kings as late as the accession of Stephen. (See William of Malmesbury, "Hist. Nov.," i.II.) Even as late as the year 1461, Edward Earl of March was elected king by a tumultuous assembly of the citizens of London;" and again, at a later period, we find the citizens foremost in the revolution which placed Richard III. on the throne in 1483. These are plainly vestiges of the right which the citizens had more regularly exercised in the elections of Edmund Ironside and of Harold the son of Cnut.

The city of London, there can be no doubt, soon emancipated itself from the jurisdiction of earls like Leofwin, who ruled over the home counties. It acquired, by its own secret power, an unwritten charter of its own, its influence being always important in the wars between kings and their rivals, or kings and their too-powerful nobles. "The king's writs for homage," says a great authority, "in the Saxon times, were addressed to the bishop, the portreeve or portreeves, to the burgh thanes, and sometimes to the whole people."

Thus it may clearly be seen, even from the scanty materials we are able to collect, that London, as far back as the Saxon times, was destined to achieve greatness, political and commercial.

THE BANK OF ENGLAND

The Jews and the Lombards—The Goldsmiths the first London Bankers—William Paterson, Founder of the Bank of England—Difficult Parturition of the Bank Bill—Whig Principles of the Bank of England—The Great Company described by Addison—A Crisis at the Bank—Effects of a Silver Re-coinage—Paterson quits the Bank of England—The Ministry resolves that it shall be enlarged—The Credit of the Bank shaken—The Whigs to the Rescue—Effects of the Sacheverell Riots—The South Sea Company—The Cost of a New Charter—Forged Bank Notes—The Foundation of the "Three per Cent. Consols"—Anecdotes relating to the Bank of England and Bank Notes—Description of the Building—Statue of William III.—Bank Clearing House—Dividend Day at the Bank.

The English Jews, that eminently commercial race, were, as we have shown in our chapter on Old Jewry, our first bankers and usurers. To them, in immediate succession, followed the enterprising Lombards, a term including the merchants and goldsmiths of Genoa, Florence, and Venice. Utterly blind to all sense of true liberty and justice, the strong-handed king seems to have resolved to squeeze and crush them, as he had squeezed and crushed their unfortunate predecessors. They were rich and they were strangers—that was enough for a king who wanted money badly. At one fell swoop Edward seized the Lombards' property and estates. Their debtors naturally approved of the king's summary measure. But the Lombards grew and flourished, like the trampled camomile, and in the fifteenth century advanced a loan to the state on the security of the Customs. The Steelyard merchants also advanced loans to our kings, and were always found to be available for national emergencies, and so were the Merchants of the Staple, the Mercers' Company, the Merchant Adventurers, and the traders of Flanders.

Up to a late period in the reign of Charles I. the London merchants seem to have deposited their surplus cash in the Mint, the business of which was carried on in the Tower. But when Charles I., in an agony of impecuniosity, seized like a robber the £200,000 there deposited, calling it a loan, the London goldsmiths, who ever since 1386 had been always more or less bankers, now monopolised the whole banking business. Some merchants, distrustful of the goldsmiths in these stormy times, entrusted their money to their clerks and apprentices, who too often cried, "Boot, saddle and horse, and away!" and at once started with their spoil to join Rupert and his pillaging Cavaliers. About 1645 the citizens returned almost entirely to the goldsmiths, who now gave interest for money placed in their care, bought coins, and sold plate. The Company was not particular. The Parliament, out of plate and old coin, had coined gold, and seven millions of half-crowns. The goldsmiths culled out the heavier pieces, melted them down,and exported them. The merchants' clerks, to whom their masters' ready cash was still sometimes entrusted, actually had frequently the brazen impudence to lend money to the goldsmiths, at fourpence per cent. per diem; so that the merchants were often actually lent their own money, and had to pay for the use of it. The goldsmiths also began now to receive rent and allow interest for it. They gave receipts for the sums they received, and these receipts were to all intents and purposes marketable as bank-notes.

Grown rich by these means, the goldsmiths were often able to help Cromwell with money in advance on the revenues, a patriotic act for which we may be sure they took good care not to suffer. When the great national disgrace occurred—the Dutch sailed up the Medway and burned some of our ships—there was a run upon the goldsmiths, but they stood firm, and met all demands. The infamous seizure by Charles II. of £1,300,000, deposited by the London goldsmiths in the Exchequer, all but ruined these too confiding men, but clamour and pressure compelled the royal embezzler to at last pay six per cent. on the sum appropriated. In the last year of William's reign, interest was granted on the whole sum at three per cent., and the debt still remains undischarged. At last a Bank of England, which had been talked about and wished for by commercial men ever since the year 1678, was actually started, and came into operation.

That great financial genius, William Paterson, the founder of the Bank of England, was born in 1658, of a good family, at Lochnaber, in Dumfriesshire. He is supposed, in early life, to have preached among the persecuted Covenanters. He lived a good deal in Holland, and is believed to have been a wealthy merchant in New Providence (the Bahamas), and seems to have shared in Sir William Phipps' successful undertaking of raising a Spanish galleon with £300,000 worth of sunken treasure. It is absurdly stated that he was at one time a buccaneer, and so gained a knowledge of Darien and the ports of the Spanish main. That he knew and obtained information from CaptainsSharpe, Dampier, Wafer, and Sir Henry Morgan (the taker of Panama), is probable. He worked zealously for the Restoration of 1688, and he was the founder of the Darien scheme. He advocated the union of Scotland, and the establishment of a Board of Trade.

The project of a Bank of England seems to have been often discussed during the Commonwealth, and was seriously proposed at the meeting of the First Council of Trade at Mercers' Hall after the Restoration. Paterson has himself described the first starting of the Bank, in his "Proceedings at the Imaginary Wednesday's Club," 1717. The first proposition of a Bank of England was made in July, 1691, when the Government had contracted £3,000,000 of debt in three years, and the Ministers even stooped, hat in hand, to borrow £100,000 or £200,000 at a time of the Common Council of London, on the first payment of the land-tax, and all payable with the year, the common councillors going round and soliciting from house to house. The first project was badly received, as people expected an immediate peace, and disliked a scheme which had come from Holland—"they had too many Dutch things already." They also doubted the stability of William's Government. The money, at this time, was terribly debased, and the national debt increasing yearly. The ministers preferred ready money by annuities for ninety-nine years, and by a lottery. At last they ventured to try the Bank, on the express condition that if a moiety, £1,200,000, was not collected by August, 1699, there should be no Bank, and the whole £1,200,000 should be struck in halves for the managers to dispose of at their pleasure. So great was the opposition, that the very night before, some City men wagered deeply that one-third of the £1,200,000 would never be subscribed. Nevertheless, the next day £346,000, with a fourth paid in at once, was subscribed, and the remainder in a few days after. The whole subscription was completed in ten days, and paid into the Exchequer in rather more than ten weeks. Paterson expressly tells us that the Bank Act would have been quashed in the Privy Council but for Queen Mary, who, following the wish of her husband, expressed firmly in a letter from Flanders, pressed the commission forward, after a six hours' sitting.

The Bank Bill, timidly brought forward, purported only to impose a new duty on tonnage, for the benefit of such loyal persons as should advance money towards carrying on the war. The plan was for the Government to borrow £1,200,000, at the modest interest of eight per cent. To encourage capitalists, the subscribers were to beincorporated by the name of the Governor and Company of the Bank of England. Both Tories and Whigs broke into a fury at the scheme. The goldsmiths and pawnbrokers, says Macaulay, set up a howl of rage. The Tories declared that banks were republican institutions; the Whigs predicted ruin and despotism. The whole wealth of the nation would be in the hands of the "Tonnage Bank," and the Bank would be in the hands of the Sovereign. It was worse than the Star Chamber, worse than Oliver's 50,000 soldiers. The power of the purse would be transferred from the House of Commons to the Governor and Directors of the new Company. Bending to this last objection, a clause was inserted, inhibiting the Bank from advancing money to the House without authority from Parliament. Every infraction of this rule was to be punished by a forfeiture of three times the sum advanced, without the king having power to remit the penalty. Charles Montague, an able man, afterwards First Lord of the Treasury, carried the bill through the House; and Michael Godfrey (the brother of the celebrated Sir Edmondbury Godfrey, supposed to have been murdered by the Papists), an upright merchant and a zealous Whig, propitiated the City. In the Lords (always the more prejudiced and conservative body than the Commons) the bill met with great opposition. Some noblemen imagined that the Bank was intended to exalt the moneyed interest and debase the landed interest; and others imagined the bill was intended to enrich usurers, who would prefer banking their money to lending it on mortgage. "Something was said," says Macaulay, "about the danger of setting up a gigantic corporation, which might soon give laws to the King and the three estates of the realm." Eventually the Lords, afraid to leave the King without money, passed the bill. During several generations the Bank of England was emphatically a Whig body. The Stuarts would at once have repudiated the debt, and the Bank of England, knowing that their return implied ruin, remained loyal to William, Anne, and George. "It is hardly too much to say," writes Macaulay, "that during many years the weight of the Bank, which was constantly in the scale of the Whigs, almost counterbalanced the weight of the Church, which was as constantly in the scale of the Tories." "Seventeen years after the passing of the Tonnage Bill," says the same eminent writer, to show the reliance of the Whigs on the Bank of England, "Addison, in one of his most ingenious and graceful little allegories, described the situation of the great company through which the immense wealth of London was constantly circulating. Hesaw Public Credit on her throne in Grocers' Hall, the Great Charter over her head, the Act of Settlement full in her view. Her touch turned everything to gold. Behind her seat bags filled with coin were piled up to the ceiling. On her right and on her left the floor was hidden by pyramids of guineas. On a sudden the door flies open, the Pretender rushes in, a sponge in one hand, in the other a sword, which he shakes at the Act of Settlement. The beautiful Queen sinks down fainting; the spell by which she has turned all things around her into treasure is broken; the money-bags shrink like pricked bladders; the piles of gold pieces are turned into bundles of rags, or fagots of wooden tallies."

In 1696 (very soon after its birth) the Bank experienced a crisis. There was a want of money in England. The clipped silver had been called in, and the new money was not ready. Even rich people were living on credit, and issued promissory notes. The stock of the Bank of England had gone rapidly down from 110 to 83. The goldsmiths, who detested the corporation that had broken in on their system of private banking, now tried to destroy the new company. They plotted, and on the same day they crowded to Grocers' Hall, where the Bank was located from 1694 to 1734, and insisted on immediate payment—one goldsmith alone demanding £30,000. The directors paid all their honest creditors, but refused to cash the goldsmiths' notes, and left them their remedy in Westminster Hall. The goldsmiths triumphed in scurrilous pasquinades entitled, "The Last Will and Testament," "The Epitaph," "The Inquest on the Bank of England." The directors, finding it impossible to procure silver enough to pay every claim, had recourse to an expedient. They made a call of 20 per cent. on the proprietors, and thus raised a sum enabling them to pay every applicant 15 per cent. in milled money on what was due to him, and they returned him his note, after making a minute upon it that part had been paid. A few notes thus marked, says Macaulay, are still preserved among the archives of the Bank, as memorials of that terrible year. The alternations were frightful. The discount, at one time 6 per cent., was presently 24. A £10 note, taken for more than £9 in the morning, was before night worth less than £8.

Paterson attributes this danger of the Bank to bad and partial payments, the giving and allowing exorbitant interest, high premiums and discounts, contracting dear and bad bargains; the general debasing and corrupting of coin, and such like, by which means things were brought to such a passthat even 8 per cent. interest on the land-tax, although payable within the year, would not answer. Guineas, he says, on a sudden rose to 30s. per piece, or more; all currency of other money was stopped, hardly any had wherewith to pay; public securities sank to about a moiety of their original values, and buyers were hard to be found even at those prices. No man knew what he was worth; the course of trade and correspondence almost universally stopped; the poorer sort of people were plunged into irrepressible distress, and as it were left perishing, whilst even the richer had hardly wherewith to go to market for obtaining the common conveniences of life.

The King, in Flanders, was in great want of money. The Land Bank could not do much. The Bank, at last, generously offered to advance £200,000 in gold and silver to meet the King's necessities. Sir Isaac Newton, the new Master of the Mint, hastened on the re-coinage. Several of the ministers, immediately after the Bank meeting (over which Sir John Houblon presided), purchased stock, as a proof of their gratitude to the body which had rendered so great a service to the State.

The diminution of the old hammered money continued to increase, and public credit began to be put to a stand. The opposers of Paterson wished to alter the denomination of the money, so that 9d. of silver should pass for 1s., but at last agreed to let sterling silver pass at 5s. 2d. an ounce, being the equivalent of the milled money. The loss of the re-coinage to the nation was about £3,000,000. Paterson, who was one of the first Directors of the Bank of England, upon a qualification of £2,000 stock, disagreed with his colleagues on the question of the Bank's legitimate operations, and sold out in 1695. In 1701, Paterson says, after the peace of Ryswick, he had an audience of King William, and drew his attention to the importance of three great measures—the union with Scotland, the seizing the principal Spanish ports in the West Indies, and the holding a commission of inquiry into the conduct of those who had mismanaged the King's affairs during his absence in Flanders. Paterson died in 1719, on the eve of the fatal South Sea Bubble.

When the notes of the Bank were at 20 per cent. discount, the Government (says Francis) empowered the corporation to add £1,001,171 10s. to their original stock, and public faith was restored by four-fifths of the subscriptions being received in tallies and orders, and one-fifth in bank-notes at their full value, although both were at a heavy discount in the market.

Back to Index Next