CHAPTER IIITHE TEMPLE CHURCH

‘The Lamb sets forth their innocence,The Horse their expedition.’

The Order of Templars followed the almost invariable practice of such Institutions in accumulating treasure at the expense of the devout, and they succeeded more strikingly than most. By the beginning of the fourteenth century they had long abandoned all pretence to the performance of their original duties, but had at least earned the reputation of being exceedingly wealthy. The Treasury, indeed, of these devotees of Poverty was a prominent feature of their House, and they seem to have acted as Bankers, to whom the charge of money and jewels was entrusted in those troublous times.

Here King John stored his Royal Treasury; here he often lodged, seeking refuge from his Barons; and here he passed the night before he signed the Great Charter at Runnymede. Henry III. followed his example in endowing the Temple with manors and privileges, whilst from his guardian, Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent, whom he had imprisoned in the Tower, he extracted all the Treasure that careful nobleman had committed to the custody of the Master of the Temple.

Hither came King Edward I., and under pretence of seeing his mother’s jewels there laid up, this royal burglar broke open the coffers of certainpersons who had likewise lodged their money here, and took away to the value of a thousand pounds.

Of the Templars’ Treasure House nothing now remains, but the Treasurer survives, one of the chief officials of the Inn, whose duties correspond roughly to those of a Bursar of an Oxford College.

The laying up of treasure upon earth is always apt to provoke the predatory instinct, even in the breast of a Chancellor of the Exchequer, and to the motive of greed was added, in the case of the Templars, the unanswerable charge that they had done nothing for many years to redeem their vows to succour Jerusalem or protect pilgrims. They were also accused, not without reason, of indulging in odious vices, and of being a masonic society devoted to the propagation of some heresy. The rival fraternity of military Knights, the Order of St. John, who had settled themselves in the rural seclusion of Clerkenwell, envied them. The Pope himself turned against them. Philip le Bel, who seems to have been the leading spirit in a general attack, dealt cruelly with the Order in France, causing the chief Members of it to be put to death. In England Edward II. contented himself with confiscating their possessions. The Order was abolished (1312), and, by decree of the Pope,

LAMB BUILDING FROM PUMP COURT, TEMPLEAGLIMPSEof the Temple Church appears on the left.

LAMB BUILDING FROM PUMP COURT, TEMPLE

AGLIMPSEof the Temple Church appears on the left.

confirmed by the Council of Vienne, all their property was granted to the Knights Hospitallers, the rival Order of St. John of Jerusalem. Edward, however, at first ignored their claims. He granted that part of the Templars’ domain which was not within the City boundaries, and which is now represented by the Outer Temple, to Walter de Stapleton, Bishop of Exeter. It was thenceforth known indifferently as Stapleton Inn, Exeter Inn, or the Outer Temple. It passed by purchase to Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex. Essex House was then erected, which, with its gardens, covered the site now occupied by Essex Court, Devereux Court, and Essex Street, and the buildings that abut upon the Strand.

The Gate at the end of Essex Street, with the staircase to the water, is the only portion of the old building that survives. The Outer Temple was never occupied by any College or Society of Lawyers. But the history of the portion of the Templars’ property which lay within the liberties of the City, indicated by Temple Bar, was destined to be very different. This property was granted by Edward II. to Thomas, Earl of Lancaster. On his rebellion the estate reverted to the Crown, and was granted, in 1322, to Aymer de Valence,Earl of Pembroke. He died without issue, and Edward bestowed the property upon his new favourite, Hugh le Despencer, upon whose attainder it passed again to the Crown. At length the claim of the Knights Hospitallers was admitted. For in 1324 Edward II. assigned to them ‘all the lands of the Templars,’ except, of course, some nineteen-twentieths which King and Pope ‘touched’ in transference. The King finally made to them an absolute grant of the whole Temple, apart from the Outer Temple, in consideration of £100 contributed for the wars.

What happened next it is impossible, owing to lack of documentary evidence, with certainty to say. This absence of evidence is partly due, no doubt, to the behaviour of Wat Tyler’s men in 1381, as quoted by Stow. For they not only sacked and burned John of Gaunt’s noble palace, the neighbouring Savoy, but also ‘destroyed and plucked down the houses and lodgings of the Temple, and took out of the Church the books and records that were in Hutches of the apprentices of the law, carried them into the streets and burnt them.’ And later records must have disappeared in other ways, notably in the fire of 1678. Be that as it may, the fact with whicheverybody is familiar is that the Temple property passed into the occupancy, and finally into the possession, of two Societies of Lawyers, who existed, and still exist, on terms of absolute equality, neither taking precedence of the other, and both sharing equally the Round Church of the Knights Templars. These two Societies or Inns are called after the property of the Knights within the boundaries of the City, which they divided between them—the Inner and the Middle Temple.

Now, the first discoverable mention of the Temple as an abode of lawyers occurs in Chaucer’s ‘Prologue to the Canterbury Tales’ (c.1387). Geoffrey Chaucer himself, a fond tradition would have us believe, dwelt for a while in these Courts, and was a student of the Inner Temple. Be that as it may, he tells us

‘A manciple there was of a Temple ...Of Masters had he mo than thrice ten,That were of Law expert and curious;Of which there was a dozen in that houseWorthy to been Stewards of rent and landOf any Lord that is in England,’ etc.

Here, then, we have a clear indication of a Society of Masters dwelling in the Temple, whilstWalsingham’s account of Wat Tyler’s rebellion refers to apprentices of the Law there. But there is nothing to indicate the existence of the two Inns till about the middle of the fifteenth century, when we find references to them in the Paston Letters (1440ff.), and in the Black Book of Lincoln’s Inn (1466ff.). This does not, of course, prove that there was only one Inn before. Such, however, is the traditional account. ‘In spite of the damage done by the rebels under Wat Tyler,’ says Dugdale, ‘the number of students so increased that at length they divided themselves in two bodies—the Society of the Inner and the Society of the Middle Temple.’ Those who believe this maintain that when, in course of natural development—rapid expansion apparently following the rebels’ onslaught—the original Society had attained an unwieldy bulk and outgrown the capacity of the Old Hall, a split was made. Two distinct and divided Societies, upon a footing of absolute equality, took the place of the parent body. A new Hall was built, but equal rights in the Old Church and the contiguous property were maintained.

This form of propagation by subdivision is common enough, of course, in the vegetable and insect world, but it seems highly improbable in thecase of a learned body. It is to me an incredible dichotomy. And it is not necessary to stretch one’s credulity so far. There are indications—faint, it is true, but still indications—of the existence of two Societies of Lawyers settled here on two parcels of land that once belonged to the Knights Templars, and dating from almost the earliest days after Edward’s confiscation.

For, according to Dugdale, who repeats a tradition which is probably correct, the Knights Hospitallers leased the property soon after they had acquired it to ‘divers apprentices of the Law that came from Thavie’s Inn in Holborn’ at an annual rental of £10. This must have been before 1348. For in that year died John Thavye, who bequeathed this Inn to his wife, and described it in his will as one ‘in which certain apprentices of the Lawusedto reside’ (solebant). But there is also evidence of another and earlier settlement of lawyers on this property. Some lawyers, it is recorded, ‘made a composition with the Earl of Lancaster for a lodging in the Temple, and so came thither and have continued ever since.’[14]The Earl of Lancaster, as we have seen above, held the Templec.1315-1322.

Here, then, we have indications of two Societies of Lawyers settling in the Temple. The first body, holding from the Earl of Lancaster, may reasonably be supposed to have had their grant confirmed by the owners who succeeded him. The Society of the Middle Temple must be considered the successors of those tenants. And this Society Mr. Pitt Lewis, K.C.,[15]has traced to a former home in St. George’s Inn, a students’ hostel mentioned by Stow.

The second body, migrating from Thavye’s Inn, obtained a lease of the part not occupied by the former, at an annual rental of £10, as Dugdale states. And from them are descended the Inner Templars of to-day.

From the time when the Order of the Knights Hospitallers was dissolved, till 1608, these two Societies held these two separate parcels of land direct of the Crown by lease, paying two separate rents. Then they discovered that James I. was beginning to negotiate a sale of the freehold.

The present of a ‘stately cup of pure gold, filled with gold pieces,’ presented by the two Societies, converted the Scholar-Monarch. On August 13, 1608, he granted a Charter to the Treasurers andBenchers of the Inner and Middle Temple, conferring upon them the freehold of the Temple, together with the Church, ‘for the hospitation and education of the Professors and Students of the Laws of this Realm,’ subject to a rent charge of £10, payable by each of the two Societies. In 1673 these rents were extinguished by purchase by the two Societies.

This patent of James I. is the only existing formal document concerning the relations between the Crown and the Inns, though it would be strange indeed if no other grant or patent ever existed. It is preserved in the Church in a chest kept beneath the Communion Table, which can only be opened by the keys held by the two Treasurers. The importance of the patent is, for the purpose of our investigation, that it is based almost certainly upon documents that have disappeared, but which reached back to the original conveyance, and it shows that there were two separate parcels, exacting two separate rents. Moreover, it provided thateachSociety should continue to pay a rental of £10. Now, if these two Societies represented a division of the one parent body which had come from Thavye’s Inn and held thewholeInner and Middle Temple at arent of £10, it is hardly conceivable that when this supposed division took place, each Society should have continued to pay the whole rent. The first thing they would have divided, after dividing themselves, would surely have been that rent of £10.[16]

That the theory of a division having taken place early caused much wonderment is shown by a report that was rife in the seventeenth century. This ‘report’ was to the effect that the division arose from the sides taken by the Lawyers in the Wars of the Roses. Those wars, however, took place after the date when there is evidence of the existence of the two Societies. The ‘report’ represents an attempt to explain the existence of the two Societies when their origin was already forgotten, and was perhaps suggested by the fact that it was in the Temple Gardens that Shakespeare placed the famous incident that led to the Wars of the Roses:

‘Plantagenet.Let him that is a true-born gentleman,And stands upon the honour of his birth,If he suppose that I have pleaded truth,From off this briar pluck a white rose with me.‘Somerset.Let him that is no coward, nor no flatterer,But dare maintain the party of the truth,Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me.‘Warwick.This brawl to-day,Grown to this faction in the Temple Garden,Shall send, between the red rose and the white,A thousand souls to death and deadly night.’

‘Plantagenet.Let him that is a true-born gentleman,And stands upon the honour of his birth,If he suppose that I have pleaded truth,From off this briar pluck a white rose with me.

‘Somerset.Let him that is no coward, nor no flatterer,But dare maintain the party of the truth,Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me.

‘Warwick.This brawl to-day,Grown to this faction in the Temple Garden,Shall send, between the red rose and the white,A thousand souls to death and deadly night.’

In 1732, in order to put an end to many questions of property, an elaborate deed of partition was agreed to by the two Inns, and forms the final authority upon what belongs to each.

Itis natural to turn from this story of the Templars to the Round Church in the Temple, which is their chief memorial. We leave the roar and rattle of Fleet Street, and pass through the low Gateway of the Inner Temple into the narrow lane which leads us between the gross modern buildings, called after Oliver Goldsmith and Dr. Johnson, to the west end of the Church—the west end, which is formed by the round building which we have already mentioned.

The Gate-House beneath which we have passed is in itself a building of no ordinary interest. It is, as we now see it, a modern (1905) version of an old timber and rough-cast house, with projecting upper stories, pleasantly contrasting with the Palladian splendour of the adjoining Bank. It was built ‘over and beside the gateway and the lane’ in 1610 by one John Bennett, and was perhaps designedby Inigo Jones. The room on the first floor was, there is every reason to suppose, used by the Prince of Wales as his Council Chamber for the Duchy of Cornwall. It contains some fine Jacobean and Georgian panelling, an admirable eighteenth-century staircase, and an elaborate and beautiful Jacobean plaster ceiling, with the initials, motto, and feathers of Prince Henry, who died 1612.

This is No. 17, Fleet Street. No. 16, to the west of it, with the sign of the Pope’s Head, was the shop of Bernard Lintot, who published Pope’s ‘Homer,’ and later of Jacob Robinson, the bookseller and publisher, with whom Edmund Burke lodged when ‘eating his dinners’ as a student of the Middle Temple.

The Gate-House escaped the Fire of London, and, having been restored, is now preserved to the public use by the London County Council.[17]It forms an appropriate introduction to those narrow lanes and quiet Courts and that lovely Church, whose pavements once resounded with the tread of the mail-clad champions of Christendom, and echo now with the softer footfall of bewigged, begownedLimbs of the Law. Dull and prosaic must he be indeed who cannot here feel the thrill of imagination which stirred the soul of Tom Pinch as he wandered through these Courts:

‘Every echo of his footsteps sounded to him like a sound from the old walls and pavements, wanting language to relate the histories of the dim, dismal rooms; to tell him what lost documents were decaying in forgotten corners of the shut-up cellars, from whose lattices such mouldy sighs came breathing forth as he went past; to whisper of dark bins of rare old wine, bricked up in vaults among the old foundations of the Halls; or mutter in a lower tone yet darker legends of the cross-legged knights, whose marble effigies were in the Church’ (‘Martin Chuzzlewit’).

The Round part of the Church of the Knights Templars, which we now see lying below us, is one of the very few instances of Norman work left in London—the only instance, save the superb fragments of St. Bartholomew’s Church and the splendid whole of the Tower of London. It was dedicated, as we have seen, in 1185 to St. Mary by Heraclius, Patriarch of Jerusalem. This fact was recorded on a stone over the door, engraved in the time of Elizabeth, and said by Stow to be an

INTERIOR OF THE TEMPLE CHURCHA Round Churchof the Order of Knights Templars (dedicated in 1185). The oblong nave is seen through the pillars of polished Purbeck marble (1240).

INTERIOR OF THE TEMPLE CHURCH

A Round Churchof the Order of Knights Templars (dedicated in 1185). The oblong nave is seen through the pillars of polished Purbeck marble (1240).

accurate copy of an older one. It also proclaimed an Indulgence of sixty days to annual visitors, the earliest known example, I believe, of this particular form of taxation. The Church was again dedicated in 1240. The rectangular portion of the Church, the Eastern portion added to the Western Round, was now probably reconstructed, supplanting a former chancel or choir, just at the period when the new Pointed style had ousted the round Norman.

The circular type of church is not peculiar to the Order of Templars, as we have seen, or even to the Christians, but the choice of it was due in this case to the practice of imitating the architecture, as the topography, of the Holy Places at Jerusalem. In England, Round Churches occur at Ludlow and Cambridge (1101), built before the Knights of the Temple were established. St. Sepulchre at Northampton is possibly a Templar Church, but the Round Church at Little Maplestead in Essex belongs to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and was built by the Knights Hospitallers.

The Temple Church escaped the Fire of London as by a miracle, for the flames came as near as the Master’s House at the East End. It escaped thefire of 1678, when the old Chapel[18]of St. Anne, once perhaps the scene of the initiation of the Knights Templars, lying at the junction of Round and Rectangle, was destroyed by gunpowder to save the church. But it could not escape the destroying hands of the nineteenth-century Goths. For here, between 1824 and 1840, the great Gothic Revivalists indulged in one of their most ineffable and ineffaceable triumphs of intemperate enthusiasm. The Round part of the Church was almost rebuilt, and the old carvings were supplanted by inferior modern work. The conical roof was added; the horrid battlements banished. The old marble columns were removed and replaced by new ones, to obtain which the old Purbeck quarries were reopened. This marbletakes an extraordinarily high polish, and presents a surface so clean and lustrous as to be almost shocking in its contrast to our dingy London atmosphere, and buildings begrimed with dirt and soot.

The many brasses, which Camden praised, have disappeared; the rich collection of tablets and monuments and inscribed gravestones that once pleased the eye of Pepys, and formed a feast of heraldic ornament, has been dispersed, and found sanctuary in the tiny Churchyard without, on the north side of the Church, or in the Triforium. The floor of the Church was, at the same time, wisely lowered to its original level, and covered with a pavement of tiles designed after the pattern of the remains of old ones found there, or in the Chapter House of Westminster.

A continuous stone bench, or sedile, which runs round the base of the walls was added at this period, together with the delightful arcade above it, with grotesque and other heads in the spandrels. The wheel window—a lovely thing—was uncovered and filled with stained glass, and the windows in the circular aisle of the Round have since been filled by Mr. Charles Winston with stained glass which is good, but the colour of which it is absurd to compare, as Mr. Baylis does, with the blues andrubies of the glass of the best period. It is to be hoped that the remaining windows will not be filled with coloured glass, as Mr. Baylis[19]suggests, for the interior of the Round is too dark already.

The result of all this Gothic reconstruction is that, save for the old rough stones in the exterior Round walls, and some of the ornate semicircular arches, the Templars’ Church exists no more. The grandeur, beauty, and historical interest of their building can be gathered now from old engravings only; the monuments of many famous men, in judicial robes and with shields rich in heraldry, a representative gallery of unbroken centuries, which once crowded its floors, must be judged by broken and scattered fragments. What we have is a reconstruction such as the Restorers chose to give us—that is, a light and very pleasing Early English interior, fitted into a Round Norman exterior, beneath the remaining arcade of round arches and windows.[20]

If the enthusiasm of the Restorers, however, led them to destroy so that we can never forgive them for having taken from us original work for the sake of indulging their own fancy, yet it is evidentthat there was much for them legitimately to undo. There were plaster and stucco, and dividing gallery and whitewashed ceiling, and all the usual horrors of the eighteenth century, to be got rid of. The graves and monuments were historically interesting, but they crowded the little church unbearably. And at least the Restorers have given us beautiful work of their own, and a seemly and beautiful sanctuary worthy of the place.

The Round is entered by a western door—a massive oaken door superbly hung upon enormous hinges, quite modern. It closes beneath a semicircular arch enriched by deeply-recessed columns with foliated capitals of the transitional Norman style, though all this work, like the Gothic Porch which contains it, is modern restoration. The scene as we enter the Church is one of striking singularity. Near at hand is the arcaded sedile about the walls of the Round, and through six clustered columns of great elegance, made of polished Purbeck marble, which support the dome, we catch a glimpse of the polished marble columns in the Choir, the lancet windows in the North and South walls, and the three stained windows of the East End, beneath which the gilded Reredos glitters. And through the painted windows of theRound itself the light strikes upon a wonderful series of monumental recumbent figures, some of which are made of this flashing Purbeck marble too. It is a strange, unforgettable sight, that summons up unbidden the vision of the Red-Cross Knights, to the tread of whose mailed feet these pavements rang, when, beneath their baucéant banners, they gathered here to the Dedication of their Temple.

These monuments, though re-arranged and restored indeed by Richardson, 1840, are still of great interest. Nine only out of eleven formerly mentioned remain. Two groups of four each lie beneath the Dome, with the ninth close by the South wall, balancing a stone coffin near the North. Two of them belong to the twelfth century and seven to the thirteenth, and these silent figures wear the armour of that period—the chain mail and long surcoats, the early goad spurs, the long shields and swords, the belts, and mufflers of mail.

The Monuments in the Temple Church have been frequently described, by Stow and Weever, for instance, by Dugdale,[21]and by Gough.[22]The tradition that they represent ‘ancient BritishKings,’ or even necessarily Templars, has been long exploded. The theory that every figure whose legs are crossed in effigy belonged to that Order has been consigned to the limbo of vulgar errors. But five of these effigies are mentioned by Stow as being of armed Knights ‘lying cross-legged as men vowed to the Holy Land, against the infidels and unbelieving Jews.’ And it is very probable that cross-legs did indicate those who had either undertaken a Crusade or vowed themselves to the Holy Land. At any rate, I know no evidence to show that this wasnotthe symbolism by which the medieval mason in England and Ireland chose to indicate the Crusader.

None of these remarkable monuments can with certainty be identified. Of those now grouped upon the South side Stow says: ‘The first of the crosse-legged was W. Marshall, the elder Earl of Pembroke, who died 1219; Wil. Marshall, his son, the second, and Gilbert Marshall, his brother, also Earl of Pembroke, slayne in a tournament at Hertford, besides Ware,’ in 1241. And this may or may not be so. The fourth is nameless; the fifth, near the wall, is possibly that of Sir Robert Rosse, who, according to Stow, was buried here.

Of the group upon the North side, only that of the cross-legged knight in a coat of mail and a round helmet flattened on top, whose head rests on a cushion, and whose long, pointed shield is charged with an escarbuncle on a diapered field, can with any probability be named. For these are the arms of Mandeville (de Magnavilla)—‘quarterly, or and gules, an escarbuncle, sable’—and this monument of Sussex marble gives us the first example of arms upon a sepulchral figure in England.[23]It is supposed to be the effigy of Geoffrey Mandeville, whom Stephen made first Earl of Essex, and Matilda Constable of the Tower. A ferocious and turbulent knight, he received an arrow-wound at last in an attack upon Burwell Castle, and was carried off by the Templars to die. But, as he died under sentence of excommunication, it is said that they hung his body in a lead coffin upon a tree in the Old Temple Orchard, until absolution had been obtained for him from the Pope. Then they brought him to the new Temple and buried him there (1182).

The Choir, or rectangular part of the Church, of which the nave is broader than the aisles, but ofthe same height, is a beautiful example of the Early English style, and is lighted by five lancet triplet windows. By the Restorers the old panelling and the beautiful seventeenth-century Reredos were removed. Tiers of deplorable pews, deplorably arranged, and a very feeble Gothic Reredos[24]were substituted. The roof, supported by the Purbeck marble clustered columns that culminate in richly-moulded capitals, was painted with shields and mottoes in painstaking imitation of the thirteenth century. The windows at the East End were filled with very inferior modern stained glass, none of it of the least interest, poor in colour and wretchedly ignorant in design—ignorant, that is, of the rules which guided the art of the medieval glazier.

A bust of the ‘Judicious’ Hooker, Master of the Temple Church, and author of the ‘Ecclesiastical Polity,’ the grave of Selden near the South-West corner of the Choir, and above it a mural tablet to his memory, are the monuments of known men most worthy of attention. The fine fourteenth-century sepulchral effigy near the double piscina of Purbeck marble is supposed to be that of Silvester de Everden, Bishop of Carlisle.

The Organ, frequently reconstructed and finally renewed by Forster and Andrews, 1882, has beenfamous for generations. It was originally built by Bernard Schmidt. Dr. Blow and Purcell, his pupil, played upon it in competition with that built by Harris. The decision of this Battle of the Organs was referred to the famous, or infamous, Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys, who was a good musician, and in this matter, at least, seems to have proved himself a good Judge.

TheTriforium[25]is reached by a small Norman door in the North-West corner of the oblong. A winding staircase leads to the Penitential Cell—4 feet long, by 2 feet 6 inches wide—where many of the Knights were confined. To the Triforium many tablets and monuments (e.g., of Plowden), once in the Church below, have been removed.

Among the epitaphs in brass, quoted at length by Dugdale, is one in memory of John White:

‘Here lieth a John, a burning, shining light;His name, life, actions, were all White.’

The Templars’ Church was equally divided between the two Societies of Lawyers from ‘East to West, the North Aisle to the Middle, the South

THE EAST END OF THE TEMPLE CHURCH AND THE MASTER’S HOUSE

to the Inner Temple.’ This fact, with many others, clearly indicates the basis of perfect equality upon which the two Societies were agreed to stand, and on which, in spite of subsequent claims to precedence on the part of both, declared groundless by judicial authority, they will henceforth continue. As to the Round, it appears to have been used by both Societies in common, largely as a place of business, like the Parvis of St. Paul’s, where lawyers congregated, and contracts were concluded. Butler refers to this custom in his ‘Hudibras’:

‘Walk the Round with Knights o’ the PostsAbout the cross-legged Knights, their hosts,Or wait for customers betweenThe pillar rows in Lincoln’s Inn.’Butler:Hudibras.

Joint property of the two Societies, also, is that exquisite example of Georgian domestic architecture, the Master’s House (1764). This perfect model of a Gentleman’s Town-House owes its great charm almost entirely to its beautiful proportions, and to the appropriate material of good red brick and stone of which it is built. It is a thousand pities that blue slates have been allowed to supplant the good red tiles that should form the roof. The House itself is the successor of onewhich was erected (1700) after the Great Fire.[26]The original Lodge is said to have been upon the site of the present Garden, directly in line with the east end of the Church. In the vaults beneath this Garden many Benchers of both Inns have been laid to rest.

In this Lodge, then, dwells the Master of the Temple Church.

‘There are certain buildings,’ says Camden, ‘on the east part of the Churchyard, in part whereof he hath his lodgings, and the rest he letteth out to students. His dyet he hath in either House, at the upper end of the Bencher’s Table, except in the time of reading, it then being the Reader’s place. Besides the Master, there is a Reader, who readeth Divine Service each morning and evening, for which he hath his salary from the Master.’

A Custos of the Church had been appointed by the Knights Hospitallers, but after the Dissolution of the Monasteries the presentation of the office was reserved to the Crown. The Church is not within the Bishop’s jurisdiction. On appointment by the Crown, the Master is admitted forthwith without any institution or induction. But the Master of the Temple Church is Master of nothingelse. When, in the reign of James I., Dr. Micklethwaite laid claim to wider authority, the Benchers of both Temples succeeded in proving to the Attorney-General that his jurisdiction was confined to his Church.

Masters of real eminence have been few. By far the greatest was the learned Dr. John Hooker, appointed by Elizabeth, who resigned in 1591. Dr. John Gauden, who claimed to have written the ‘Eikon Basilike,’ was Master of the Temple before he became Bishop of Exeter and Worcester. And in our own day Canon Ainger added to the charm of a singularly attractive personality the accomplishments of a scholar who devoted much of his time to the works of another devout lover of the Temple—Charles Lamb.

The Church was once connected with the Old Hall by Cloisters, communicating with the Chapel of St. Thomas that once stood outside the north door of it, and with the Refectory of the Priests, a room with groined arches and corbels at the west end of the present Inner Temple Hall, which still survives (seep. 48). Later on, Chambers were built over the Cloisters, and the Church itself was almost stifled by the shops and chambers that were allowed to cluster about it, along the South Wall,and even over the Porch. Beneath the shelter of these Cloisters the Students of the Law were wont to walk, in order to ‘bolt’ or discuss points of law, whilst ‘all sorts of witnesses Plied in the Temple under trees.’

The Fire of 1678 burnt down the old Cloisters and other buildings at the south-west extremity of the Church. The present Cloisters at that angle, designed by Wren, were rebuilt in 1681, as a Tablet proudly proclaims.

The Cloister Court is completed by Lamb Building, which, though apparently within the bounds of the Inner Temple, belongs (by purchase) to the Middle Temple, and is named from the badge of that Inn, the Agnus Dei, which figures over the characteristic entrance of this delightful Jacobean building, and has now given its title to the whole Court. Here lived that brilliant Oriental Scholar, Sir William Jones, sharing chambers with the eccentric author of ‘Sandford and Merton,’ Thomas Day. And it was to the attics of these buildings, where Pen and Warrington dwelt, that Major Pendennis groped his way through the fog, piloted, as he might be to-day, ‘by a civil personage with a badge and white apron through some dark alleys and under variousmelancholy archways into courts each more dismal than the other.’[27]

The consecrated nature of their tenement resulted in certain inconveniences to the Lawyers. On the one hand, the Temple was a place of Sanctuary, and its character suffered accordingly. Debtors, criminals, and dissolute persons flocked to it as a refuge, so that it became necessary to issue orders of Council (1614) that the Inns should be searched for strangers at regular intervals, whilst, with the vain view of reserving the precincts for none but lawyers, it was ordained that ‘no gentleman foreigner or discontinuer’ should lodge therein, so that the Inns might not be converted into ‘taverns’ (diversoria). On the other hand, the benevolence of the Benchers was taxed by many unnatural or unfortunate parents, who used the Temple as a crèche, and left their babies at its doors. The records give many instances of payments made towards the support of such infants, who were frequently given the ‘place-name’ of Temple.

I have quoted from Thackeray a phrase not so over-complimentary to the surroundings of Lamb Building.

But now, before passing on to the story of the Halls of these renowned Societies, and the Chambers which have harboured so many famous men, I must quote, as an introduction, the passage in which the novelist makes amends, and nobly sums up the spirit of the life men lead there, and the atmosphere of strenuous work and literary tradition which lightens those ‘dismal courts’ and ‘bricky towers.’

‘Nevertheless, those venerable Inns which have the “Lamb and Flag” and the “Winged Horse” for their ensigns have attractions for persons who inhabit them, and a share of rough comforts and freedom, which men always remember with pleasure. I don’t know whether the student of law permits himself the refreshment of enthusiasm, or indulges in poetical reminiscences as he passes by historical chambers, and says, “Yonder Eldon lived; upon this site Coke mused upon Lyttelton; here Chitty toiled; here Barnwell and Alderson joined in their famous labours; here Byles composed his great work upon bills, and Smith compiled his immortal leading cases; here Gustavus still toils with Solomon to aid him.” But the man of letters can’t but love the place which has been inhabited by so many of his brethren or peopled by theircreations, as real to us at this day as the authors whose children they were; and Sir Roger de Coverley walking in the Temple Gardens, and discoursing with Mr. Spectator about the beauties in hoops and patches who are sauntering over the grass, is just as lively a figure to me as old Samuel Johnson rolling through the fog with the Scotch Gentleman at his heels, on their way to Dr. Goldsmith’s chambers in Brick Court, or Harry Fielding, with inked ruffles and a wet towel round his head, dashing off articles at midnight for theCovent Garden Journal, while the printer’s boy is asleep in the passage.’[28]

Thepassage I have quoted from Thackeray at the end of the last chapter shadows forth eloquently enough something of the feeling of respect and awe which the young barrister—and even those who are not young barristers—may naturally feel for the precincts within which the great English Lawyers lived and worked—the Inns of Court, where the splendid fabric of English Law was gradually built up, ‘not without dust and heat.’

But for most laymen the Temple and its sister Inns have other and perhaps more obvious charms. For as we pass by unexpected avenues into ‘the magnificent ample squares and classic green recesses’ of the Temple, they seem to be bathed in the rich afterglow of suns that have set, the light which never was on sea or land, shed by the glorious associations connected with some of the greatest names in English literature. Here, we remember, by fond tradition Geoffrey Chaucer isreputed to have lived. Here Oliver Goldsmith worked and died, and here his mortal remains were laid to rest. Here, within hail of his beloved Fleet Street, Dr. Johnson dwelt, and Blackstone wrote his famous ‘Commentaries.’ Here the gentle Elia was born. Hither possibly came Shakespeare to superintend the production of ‘Twelfth Night.’ Here, in the Inner Temple Hall, was acted the first English tragedy, ‘Gorboduc; or Ferrex and Porrex,’ a bloodthirsty play, by Thomas Sackville, Lord High Treasurer of England, and Thomas Norton, both members of the Inner Temple. And hither, to witness these or other performances, came the Virgin Queen.

The main entrance to the Middle Temple is the gateway from Fleet Street, scene of many a bonfire lit of yore by Inns of Court men on occasions of public rejoicing.[29]This characteristic building, of red brick and Portland stone, with a classical pediment, was designed by Sir Christopher Wren, and built, as an inscription records, in 1684. An old iron gas-lamp hangs above the arch, beneath the sign of the Middle Temple Lamb.

Wren’s noble gate-house replaced a Tudor building, erected, according to tradition, by Sir AmiasPaulet, who, being forbidden—so Cavendish[30]tells the story—to leave London without license by Cardinal Wolsey, ‘lodged in this Gate-house, which he re-edified and sumptuously beautified on the outside with the Cardinal’s Arms, Hat, Cognisance, Badges, and other devices, in a glorious manner,’ to appease him. The fact seems to be that this old Gateway was built in the ordinary way when one Sir Amisius Pawlett was Treasurer.[31]

Adjoining this Gateway is Child’s Bank, where King Charles himself once banked, and Nell Gwynne and Prince Rupert, whose jewels were disposed of in a lottery by the firm. Part of this building covers the site of the famous Devil’s Tavern, which boasted the sign of St. Dunstan—patron of the Church so near at hand—tweaking the devil’s nose. Here Ben Jonson drank the floods of Canary that inspired his plays; hither to the sanded floor of the Apollo club-room came those boon companions of his who desired to be ‘sealed of the tribe of Ben,’ and here, in after-years, Dr. Johnson loved to foregather, and Swift with Addison, Steele with Bickerstaff.

Immediately within the Gateway, on the left, is

THE MIDDLE TEMPLE GATEHOUSE IN FLEET STREETItstands on the south side close to the site of Temple Bar, was designed by Sir Christopher Wren, and built in 1684.

THE MIDDLE TEMPLE GATEHOUSE IN FLEET STREET

Itstands on the south side close to the site of Temple Bar, was designed by Sir Christopher Wren, and built in 1684.

an old and very picturesque stationer’s shop, belonging to the firm of Abram and Sons, in whose family it has been since 1774. It is much more than a stationer’s shop, for Messrs. Abram have accumulated in the course of years a very valuable and interesting collection of old deeds and documents and prints. The overhanging stories of the house rest upon a row of slender iron pillars—pillars which Dr. Johnson used to touch with superstitious reverence each time he passed, in unconscious continuation of that ancient pillar-worship of which many traces linger, for those who have eyes to see, about the Temple and St. Paul’s. We are now in Middle Temple Lane, the narrow street down which the citizens of London were wont to hurry in order to take boat to Westminster from the Temple Stairs, in the days when the River was the highway between the City and the Court, between London and Westminster, the counting-houses of the merchants and the palace and abbey of the King. Of late years the introduction of tramways and of motor traffic on the Embankment has tended largely to revive the popularity of the old route, though not all the thousands of pounds squandered by the London County Council upon an ill-considered scheme ofsteamboats could induce the Londoner to adopt again the water-way, which the bend of the River and the tide must make slow. Next below us on the left is the group of chambers called Hare Court, a plain to ugly, red-brick to stock-brick barracks, through which one can reach the Temple Church. Beyond, on the right, we come to what remains of Brick Court. This is a most charming specimen of the Queen Anne style. An inscription over the doorway of No. 3,Phœnicis instar revivisco, informs us that it rose like the Phœnix from its ashes in 1704. But in this present year of Grace (1909), an old brick building has been removed, which fronted the Hall and the Lane, and which claimed to be the oldest building left in the Temple, the first constructed of brick, erected there in Elizabeth’s reign, and referred to by Spenser in the lines of his ‘Prothalamion’:—

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