 Lessons thirty-six and thirty-seven of the history of London. This Librivox recording is in the public domain, recording by Ruth Golding. The History of London by Walter Besant. Lesson thirty-six Westminster Abbey. Hitherto our attention has been confined to the city within the walls. It is time to step outside the walls. All this time, i.e., ever since peaceful occupation became possible, a town had been growing up on the west side of London. You have seen that formerly there spread a broad marsh over this part. Some rising ground kept what is now the strand above the river, but Westminster, except for certain reed-grown islets, was nothing but a marsh covered over twice in the day by the tide. The river thus spreading out over marshes on either bank was quite shallow, and could in certain places be forded. The spot where any ford existed afterwards became a ferry. Lambeth Bridge spanned the river at one such place, the memory of which is now maintained in the name of the Horse-Ferry Road. The largest of these islets was once called Thawney, i.e., the Isle of Thorns. If you will take a map of Westminster, shift the bank of the river so as to make it flow along Abbingdon Street, draw a stream running down College Street into the Thames, another running into the Thames across King Street, and draw a ditch or moat connecting the two streams along Delahe Street and Princes Street, you will have Thawney, about a quarter of a mile long and not quite so much broad, standing just above High Water Level. This was the original precinct of Westminster. The Abbey of St. Peter's Westminster is said to have been founded on the first conversion of the East Saxons, and at the same time as the foundation of St. Paul's. We know nothing about the foundation of the church. During the Danish Troubles the Abbey was deserted. It was refounded by Dunstan. It was, however, rebuilt in much greater splendour by Edward the Confessor. Of his work something still remains and can be pointed out to the visitor. But the present Abbey contains work by Henry III, Edward I, Richard II, Whittington being commissioner for the work, Henry VII, and Wren, Hawksmore and Gilbert Scott, the architects. There is no monument on British soil more venerable than Westminster Abbey. You must not think that you know the place when you have visited it once or twice. You must go there again and again. Every visit should teach you something of your country and its history. The building itself betraying to those who can read architecture the various periods at which its builders lived. The beauty of the building, the solemnity of the services, these are things which one must visit the Abbey often in order to understand. Then there are the associations of the Abbey, the things that have been done in the Abbey, the crowning of the kings in a long line from Edward the Confessor downwards. Here Edward IV's Queen Elizabeth Woodville took sanctuary when her husband suffered reverse. Here the unfortunate Edward V was born. Here the same unhappy Queen brought her two boys when her husband died. Here Caxton set up his first printing press. Here is the coronation chair. Here is the shrine of the sainted Edward the Confessor. It is robbed of its precious stones and its gold, but the shrine is the same as that before which, for five hundred years, people knelt as to the protector saint of England. This is the burial place of no fewer than twenty-six of our kings and their queens. This is the sacred spot where we have buried most of our great men. To name a few whose monuments you should look for, here are Sir William Temple, Lord Chatham, Fox and Wilberforce among statesmen. Of soldiers there are Prince Rupert and Monk. Of Indian fame here are Lord Lawrence and Lord Clyde. Of sailors Blake, Cloudsley Shovel and Lord Dundonald. Of poets Chaucer, Spencer, Beaumont, Ben Johnson, Dryden, Pryor, Addison, Gay, Campbell. Of historians and prose writers Samuel Johnson, McCawley, Dickens, Livingston, Isaac Newton. Many others there are to look for, notably the great poet Tennyson, buried here in October 1892. Read what was written by Jeremy Taylor, a great divine, on Westminster Abbey. Quote, A man may read a sermon, the best and most passionate that ever man preached, if he shall but enter into the sepulchre of kings. There the war-like and the peaceful, the fortunate and the miserable, the beloved and the despised princes mingle their dust and pay down their symbol of mortality, and tell all the world that when we die our ashes shall be equal to kings, and our accounts easier, and our pains or our crowns shall be less." End of Lesson 36 Lesson 37 The Court at Westminster Although the kings of England have occasionally lodged in the tower, and even at Baynards Castle and other places in the city, the permanent home of the court was always from Edward the Confessor to Henry VIII at the Royal Palace of Westminster. Of this building, large, rambling, picturesque, only two parts are left, Westminster Hall and the Crypt of St Stephen's Chapel. When King Henry VIII exchanged Westminster for White Hall, the rooms of the Old Palace were given over to various purposes. One of them was the Star Chamber, in which the Star Chamber Court was held. One was the Exchequer Chamber. St Stephen's Chapel was the House of Commons, and the House of Lords sat in the Old Court of Bequests. All that was left of the palace, except the Great Hall, was destroyed in the fire of 1834. Very fortunately the Hall was saved. This magnificent structure, one of the largest rooms in the world, not supported by pillars, was built by William Rufus and altered by Richard II. Here have been held parliaments and grand councils. Here have been many state trials. Sir William Wallace was condemned in this Hall. Sir Thomas Moore, the Protector Somerset, Lady Jane Gray, Anne Boleyn, King Charles I, the Rebels of 1745, Lords Kilmarnock, Balmarino and Lovett, Earl Ferris, for murdering his steward, all these were condemned. One or two have been acquitted, Lord Byron, cousin of the poet, for killing Mr. Chowarth, and Warren Hastings, the great Indian statesman. In Westminster Hall used to be held the coronation banquets, at which the hereditary champion rode into the Hall in full armour and threw down a glove. After the removal of the Court, the Hall became the Law Courts. It is almost incredible that three courts sat in this Hall, cases being heard before three judges at the same time. In addition to the Courts, shops or stalls were ranged along the walls, where dealers in toys, milliners, seamstresses, stationers and booksellers sold their wares. A picture exists showing this extraordinary use of the Hall. It is more difficult to restore ancient Westminster than any part of the city. We must remember that the Great Hall formed part of a square or quadrangle, on which were the private rooms of the Sovereign, the state rooms of audience and banquet, the official rooms of the King's ministers and servants. This Court led into others, one knows not how many, but certainly as many as belonged to the older part of Hampton Court, which may be taken as resembling Westminster Palace in its leading features. The Courts were filled with men-at-arms, serving men, pages and minstrels. They went backwards and forwards on their business, or they lay about in the sun and gambled. Sometimes there crossed the Court some great noble, followed by two or three of his servants, on his way to a council. Or a bishop with his chaplain, to have speech with the King. Or a group of townsmen after a brawl, who had been brought here with ropes about their necks, uncertain whether all would be pardoned, or half a dozen hanged. The uncertainty, lending a very repentant and anxious look to their faces. Or it would be the Queen's most excellent highness herself, with her ladies, riding forth to see the hunt. This was the daily life of the Court. We read the dry history of what happened, but we forget the scenery in which it happened, the crowds of nobles, bishops, abbots, knights, men-at-arms, serving men, among whom all these things took place. We are apt to forget as well the extraordinary brightness, the colour, the glitter and gleam that belonged to those times, when every man went dressed in some gay livery, wearing the colours and the crest of his lord. Who rides there, the heart Couchon, the dear, addressed, upon his helm? A knight belonging to the Court, one of the knights of King Richard II. Who march with the bare and ragged staff upon their arms? They are the livery of the Earl of Warwick. The clash and gleam of arms and armour everywhere, colour on the men as well as the women, colour on the trappings of the horses, colour on the hanging aris of the wall, colour on the cloth of scarlet which they hang out of the windows when the royal pageant rides along. Close to the palace, the abbey, that too belongs to the time. Within the abbey precincts the people are almost as crowded as in the palace, but it is a different crowd. There is not so much colour, no arms or armour, an orderly crowd. There are the Benedictine monks themselves, with their crowd of servants, cooks and refectory men, brewers, bakers, clothiers, architects, builders and masons, scribes and lawyers, foresters and farmers from the estates, stewards, cellars, singing-boys, organisers. For the abbey church of St Peter is as great and as rich and maintains as large an army of servants as the Cathedral Church of St Paul. End of Lesson 37 Recording by Ruth Golding Lessons 38 and 39 of the history of London. This Librivox recording is in the public domain, recording by Ruth Golding. The History of London by Walter Besant Lesson 38 Justice and Punishments In the time of the Plantagenets the punishments inflicted on wrongdoers were much more lenient than those which followed in later years. There is none of that brutal flogging which grew up in the last century, the worst time in the whole history of the country for the people. This flogging not only in the army and navy, but also for such offences as vagrancy, lasted even into the present century. In the year 1804 six women were publicly flogged at Gloucester for this offence. Under Whittington this barbarous cruelty would not have been done. There were, it is true, certain punishments which seem excessively cruel. If a man struck a sheriff or an alderman he was sentenced to have his right hand chopped off. That is indeed worse than hanging. But consider the whole strength of London lay in its power to act and its resolution always to act as one man. This could only be affected by habitual obedience to law and the most profound respect to the executive officers. Therefore the worst penalty possible that which deprived a man of his power to work and his power to fight which reduced him to ruin, which made his innocent children beggars, which branded him till death as a malefactor of the most dangerous kind, was inflicted for such an offence. Here again Mercy stepped in, for when the criminal was brought out for execution, if he expressed contrition the offended officer represented by the alderman of the ward begged that he might be pardoned. For burglary criminals were ruthlessly hanged. This crime is bad enough now, it is a crime which ought at all times to be punished with the utmost rigor. But in these days what is it that a burglar can carry away from an ordinary house, a clock or two, a silver ring, a lady's watch and chain, a few trinkets, if any money then only a purse with two or three pounds. The wealth of the family is invested in various securities. If the burglar takes the papers they are of no use to him. There is a current account at the bank, but that cannot be touched. Books, engravings, candlesticks, plated spoons, these are of little real value. Formerly, however, every man kept all his money, all his wealth, in his own house. If he was a rich merchant he had a stone safe or strong box constructed in the wall of his cellar or basement. I have seen such a safe in an old house pulled down about seven years ago. If he was only a small trader or craftsman he kept his money in a box. This he hid. There were various hiding-places behind the bed, under the hearthstone, but they were all known. A burglar therefore might and very often did take away the whole of a man's property and reduce him to ruin. For this reason it was very wisely ordered that a burglar should be hanged. They began in the reign of Henry IV to burn heretics. Later on they burned witches and poisoners. As yet they had not begun to slice off ears and to slit noses. There was no rack, nobody was tortured, nobody was branded on the hand. There was no whipping of women in Bridewell as a public show. That came later. There was no flogging at the cart-tail. Punishments were mild. Sometimes the criminal performed the amont honorable, marching along cheap, bare-headed, and wearing nothing but a white shirt, carrying a great wax taper, escorted by the mayor's sergeants. There was a ducking-stool on the other side of the river at Bankside, in which scoads were ducked. There was the few, which was a chair in which women were made to sit, lifted high above the crowd, exposed to their derision. There was the pillory, which served for almost all the cases which now come before a police magistrate, adulteration, false weights and measures, selling bad meat, pretending to be an officer of the mayor, making and selling bad work, forging title deeds, stealing—all were punished in the same way. The offender was carried or led through the city, sometimes mounted with his head to the horse's tail, always with something about his neck to show the nature of his offence, and placed in pillory for a certain time. There was one punishment always in reserve, the worst of all. This was deprivation of the privileges of a freeman and banishment from the city. Go, said the mayor, thou shalt dwell with us, trade with us, converse with us, no more. Go! And so that source of trouble was removed. We have seen how the trades formed companies, every trade having its own company. It must not, however, be understood that the working man gained much power by their unions. They were organised, they had to obey. Abedience was very good for them, as it is for all of us, always, but it must be obedience to a corporate body, not to a master. This they did not understand, and they tried to form covens or trades unions of their own. The city put down these attempts with a stern hand. The trade companies ruled hours of work, wages and standard of work. Lastly, though there was no city police to guard the streets, there were certain laws for the maintenance of order. Nobody under the rank of night was to carry arms in the streets. No one was to walk about the street after nine at night. Houses were not to be built over streets. In a word, there were not many laws, but the people were law-abiding. And this, perhaps as much as anything else, explains the greatness of London. End of Lesson 38 Lesson 39 The Political Power of London Until the rapid growth of the manufacturing interests created immense cities in the North, the wealth and prosperity and population of London gave it a consideration and power in the political situation, which was unequalled by that of any other medieval city. Even Paris, for instance, has never held an equal importance in the history of France. This power has been especially and significantly employed in the election and proclamation of kings. It is not only that London has been the place of proclamation, it is that the Londoners themselves have repeatedly said, This shall be our king, and as repeatedly, by that very act, have given him to understand that if he would not reign well, he should, like some of his predecessors, be deposed. London chose kings Edmund and Harold Harefoot before the conquest. After the conquest, they elected Stephen at a folk-mote, a gathering of all the citizens. They put him on the throne, and they kept him there. The power of the Londoners is very well put by Foissard, who wrote in the time of Richard II and Henry IV, and was an eyewitness of many things which he relates. The English, he says, are the worst people in the world, the most obstinate and the most presumptuous. And of all England, the Londoners are the leaders. For to say the truth, they are very powerful in men and in wealth. In the city there are twenty-four thousand men, completely armed from head to foot, and full thirty thousand archers. This is a great force, and they are bold and courageous, and the more blood is spilled, the greater is their courage. Take the deposition of Edward II, also described by Foissard. He says that when the Londoners found the king, quote, besotted, unquote, with his favourites, they sent word to Queen Isabella that if she could land in England with three hundred armed men, she would find the citizens of London, and the majority of the nobles and commonalty, ready to join her and place her on the throne. This the Queen effected. The citizens joined the little army, thus collected, without their assistance Foissard says the thing could not have been done, and made Edward prisoner at Barclay Castle. Or there was the capture of Richard II. This also was effected by an army composed entirely of Londoners, twelve thousand strong, led by Henry of Lancaster. Afterward, when Henry of Lancaster was Henry IV, and a conspiracy was formed against him, the Lord Mayor said, Sire, King we have made you, King we will keep you, end quote. The city played almost as great a part against Henry VI, half-heartedly at first, because they thought that as he had no children there would be at some time or other an end. Moreover, they could not readily forget his grandfather, their own King, and his father the Hero of Agincourt. When, however, a son was born, the Londoners became openly and unreservedly Yorkists, and the Yorkists triumphed. The election of Richard III was made in London. When Lady Jane Gray was proclaimed Queen, it was not by the Mayor and Alderman, but by the Duke of Northumberland, and the city looked on in apathy, expecting trouble. The greatest strengths of Elizabeth lay in the affection and support of London, which never wavered. Had Charles I conciliated the city, he might have died in his bed, still King of England. It was the city which forced James II to fly, and called over William Prince of Orange. It was, again, London which supported Pitt in his firm and uncompromising resistance to Napoleon, and in the end Napoleon was beaten. It cannot be too often repeated that two causes made the strengths of London, the unity of the city so that its vast population moved as one man and its wealth. The King thought of the subsidies under the names of loans, grants, benevolences, which he could extort from the merchants. We who enjoy the fruits of the long struggle maintained especially by London for the right of managing our own affairs, especially in the matter of taxation, cannot understand the tyrannies which the people of old had to endure from kings and nobles. Richard II, for instance, forced the citizens to sign and seal blank charts. Try to imagine the Prime Minister making the Lord Mayor, the Alderman, the common Councilman, and all the more important merchants, sign blank checks to be filled in as he pleased. That, however, was the last exact action of Richard II. Henry of Lancaster went out with twelve thousand Londoners and made him prisoner. Another factor, less generally understood, assisted and developed the power of London. It was also the position of the city as the centre of the country, not geographically, which would give Warwick that position, but from the construction of the roads and from its position on the Thames. But, to repeat, the use and won't of the city to act together by order of the Mayor principally made it so great a power. Whatever troubles might arise, here was a solid body, twenty-four thousand men at arms and thirty thousand archers, all acting on one side. The rest of the country was scattered, uncertain, inclined this way and that. The city, to use a modern phrase, voted solid. There were no differences of opinion in the city, and that, even more than its wealth, made London a far more important factor politically than the barons with all their following. End of Lesson 39, Recording by Ruth Golding Lessons 40-42 of the history of London. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, Recording by Ruth Golding. The History of London by Walter Besant Lesson 40, Elizabethan London, Part 1 A map of Elizabethan London drawn by one Agass, which is almost a picture as well as a map, shows us very clearly the aspect of the city. Let us lay down the map before us. First of all we observe the wall of the city. It is carefully drawn of uniform height with battlements, and at regular intervals bastions. Outside the wall there is the ditch, but it is now, as Stowe describes it, laid out in gardens, cows are grazing in some parts of it, and there are mean houses built on the other side of it. There is a single street of houses with large gardens outside Aldgate, which is now Whitechapel. The north side of Houndsditch is already built. A street of houses runs north of Bishop's Gate. No houses stand between this street and two or three streets outside Cripplegate. Moorfields are really fields. There are windmills, gardens with summer houses, pasture fields with cows, a large dog-house, and fields where women appear to be laying out clothes to dry. Really they are tenter fields, i.e. fields provided with tenters or pegs, by means of which cloth could be stretched. North of Moorfields is indicated rising ground with woods. There can be no doubt at all as to the course of the wall, which is here marked with the greatest clearness. On the east of the tower there is already a crowded quarter in the precinct of St Catharines, and a few buildings mark the former site of the Great Monastery of Eastminster. In the Mineries a group of new houses marks the site of the nunnery which stood here. London Bridge is covered with houses. On Bankside Southwark there are two round buildings, the bear-baiting and the bull-baiting. There is also opposite to Blackfriars' Paris Garden, a very favourite place of resort for the citizens. But as yet there are no theatres. Along the river outside the walls we find, beyond Bridewell Palace, an open space where was formerly Whitefriars. Here presently grew up a curious colony called Alsatia, which claimed to retain the right of sanctuary once belonging to the monastery. Arrests for debt could not be made within its limits. That is to say it was so claimed by the residents who resisted any attempt to violate this privilege by force of arms. It was a notorious place in the seventeenth century filled with rogues and broken-down gamblers, spend thrifts and profligates. As yet, when this map was drawn, there are very few houses between Whitefriars and the temple. Beyond the temple there are marked Arendall Place, Padgett Place, Somerset Place, the Savoy, York Place, Duresmi, i.e. Durham Place and the Court, i.e. Whitehall, of which the map gives a plan, which gives us a clear idea of the plan and appearance of this palace, of which only the banqueting hall remains. The Savoy at the time, 1561, was a hospital. Henry the Seventh made a hospital of it, dedicated to St John the Baptist, receiving one hundred poor people. At the dissolution of the monasteries it was suppressed. Queen Mary restored it, and it continued as a hospital till the year 1702, when it was finally suppressed. Like Whitefriars, and for the same reason, it claimed the right of sanctuary. Therefore it became the harbour of people described as rogues and masterless men. In the city itself there are many large gardens and open spaces. The courts of the Grey Friars, now a school, are still standing. There are gardens on the side of the Austin Friars Monastery, and gardens between Broad Street and Bishop's Gate Street. We must not think of London as a city crowded with narrow lanes and courts, the houses almost touching their opposite neighbours. Such courts were only found beside the river. Many streets, it is true, were narrow, but there were broad thoroughfares like Cheapside, Grace Church Street, Canick, now Cannon Street, Tower Street, and Fenn Church Street. The river is covered with boats, one of them is a barge filled with soldiers, which is being tugged by a four-word boat. Pack horses are being taken to the river to drink. Below bridge the lighters begin. Two or three vessels are moored at Billingsgate. The ships begin opposite the tower. Two or three great three masted vessels are shown, and two or three smaller ships of the kind called Ketch, Sloup or Hoy. Along the river front of the tower are mounted cannon. The ditch of the tower is filled with water. On Tower Hill there stands a permanent gallows. Beside it is some small structure, which is probably a pillory with the stocks. Such is a brief account of London from this map. The original is the property of the corporation, and is kept in the Guildhall Library. A facsimile reprint has been made. End of Lesson 40 Lesson 41 Elizabethan London Part 2 We have passed over two hundred years. We left London under the Three Edwards. We find it under Elizabeth. It was a city of palaces, monasteries with splendid churches and stately buildings, townhouses of bishops, abbots and noble lords, every one able to accommodate a goodly following of liveried retainers and servants. The mansions of rich city merchants, sometimes as splendid as those of the lords. The halls of the city companies, the hundred and twenty city churches. Look at London as Shakespeare saw it. Everywhere there are the ruins of the monasteries. Some of the buildings have been destroyed with gunpowder. Some have been pulled down. Where it has been too costly to destroy the monastic chapels, they are used as storehouses or workshops. The marble monuments of the buried kings and queens have been broken up and carried off. The ruins of refectory, dormitory, library, chapter-house stand still, being taken down little by little, as stones are wanted for building purposes. Some of the ruins, indeed, lasted till this very century, notably a gateway of the Holy Trinity Priory at the back of St. Catherine Cree, Leadenhall Street, and some of the buildings of St. Helene's Nunnery beside the Church of Great St. Helene's. One would think that the presence of all these ruins would have saddened the city. Not so. The people were so thoroughly protestant that they regarded the ruins with the utmost satisfaction. They were a sign of deliverance from what their new preachers taught them was false doctrine. Moreover, there were other reasons why the citizens under Queen Elizabeth could not regret the past. The parish churches were changed. The walls once covered with paintings of saints and angels were now scraped or whitewashed. Instead of altars with blazing lights there was a plain table. There were no more watching candles. There were no more splendid robes for the priests and the altar boys. The priest was transformed into a preacher. The service consisted of plain prayers, the reading of the Bible, and a sermon. In very few churches was there an organ. There was no external beauty in religion, therefore external beauty in the church itself ceased for three hundred years to be desired. What was required was neatness, with ample space for all to be seated, so arranged that all might hear the sermon. And whereas under the Plantagenets every other man was a priest, a friar, or some officer, or servant of a monastery, one only met here and there a clergyman with black gown and Geneva bands. This change alone transformed London. But there were other changes. Most of the great nobles had left the city. Long before they went away their following had been cut down to modest numbers. Their great barracks had become useless. They were let out in tenements and were falling into decay. Some of them had been removed to make way for warehouses and offices. One or two remained till the great fire of 1666. Among them were Benard's castle close to Blackfriars and Cold Harbour. A few nobles continued to have houses in the city. In the time of Charles II the Duke of Buckingham had a house on College Hill, and the palaces along the Strand still remained. The merchant's houses took the place of these palaces. They were built either in the form of a quadrangle, standing round a garden, with a cloister or covered way running round, of which Gresham House, pulled down in the last century, was a very fine example. But since few merchants could afford to build over so large a piece of ground, and land was too valuable to be wasted on broad lawns and open courts, the houses were built in four or five stories, with rich carvings all over the front. The house called Sir Paul Pinders House, in Bishopscape Street, pulled down only a year or two ago, was a very fine example of such a house. The Great Hall was henceforth only built in great country houses. In the city the following of the richest merchants in his private house consisted of a few servants only. Small rooms henceforward became the rule. When entertainments and festivities on a large scale are held, the company's halls may be used. The inferior kind of Elizabethan House may still be seen in Holburn outside of Staple Inn, in Witch Street, in Cloth Fair, and one or two other places. They were narrow, three or four stories high. Each story projected beyond the one below. They were gabled, the windows were latticed with small diamond panes of glass. They were built of plaster and timber. Building with brick only began in the reign of James I. Before every house hung a sign on which was painted the figure by which the house was known. Some of these signs may still be seen. There is one in Holywell Street, one in Ivy Lane, and there are many old inns which still keep their ancient signs. End of Lesson 41 Lesson 42 Elizabethan London, Part 3 The population of London at this time was perhaps, for it is not certain, a hundred and fifty thousand. There were no suburbs, unless we call the Strand and Smithfield suburbs, the London citizens stepped outside the gates into the open country. This fact must be remembered when we think of the narrow lanes. The great danger of the city still remained that of fire, for though the better houses were built of stone, the inferior sort, as was stated above, continued to be built of timber and plaster. There were no vehicles in the streets except carts, and the number of these was restricted to 420. When you think of London streets at this time, remember that in most of them, in all except the busy streets and the chief thoroughfares, there was hardly ever any noise of rumbling wheels. The packhorses followed each other in long procession laden with everything. There were doubtless wheel-barrows and hand carts, but the rumbling of the wheels was not yet a part of the daily noise. The Lord Mayor was directed by Elizabeth always to keep a certain number of the citizens drilled and instructed in the use of arms. When the Spanish invasion was threatened, the Queen ordered a body of troops to be raised instantly. In a single day one thousand men fully equipped were marched off to camp. Afterwards ten thousand men were sent off, and thirty-eight ships were supplied. Both men and sailors were raised by impressment. A constant danger to the peace of the city was the turbulence of the Prentices. These lads were always ready to rush into the streets, shouting, ready to attack or destroy whatever was unpopular at the moment. Thus early in the reign of Henry VIII, at a time when there was great animosity against foreign merchants, of whom there were a great many beside the handsome merchants of the steel-yard, there was a riot in which great many houses of foreigners were destroyed, many persons were killed, Newgate was assailed and taken, eleven rioters hanged, and four hundred more taken before the King with halters round their necks to receive his pardon. This was called Evil May Day. The disorderly conduct of the Prentices continued during Elizabeth's reign. She ordered the provost-martial in order to put an end to this trouble, to hang all disorderly persons so convicted by any justice of the peace. There was much complaint of extravagance in dress. Rules were passed by the common council on the subject. Prentices especially were forbidden to dress in any but the warmest and plainest materials. The dress of the blue-coat boy is exactly the dress of the Prentice of the period, including the flat cap which the modern wearer of the dress carries in his pocket. The punishments of this time are much more severe than had been found necessary in the Plantagenet period. They not only carried criminals in shameful procession through the city, but they flogged girls for idleness, apprentices for immorality, and rogues for selling goods falsely described. A pillar of reformation was set up at the standard in cheap. Here, on Sunday morning, the mayor superintended the flogging of young servants. When Lady Jane Gray was proclaimed queen, a young fellow, for speaking slightingly of her title, had his ears nailed to the pillory and afterwards cut off. Heretics were burned, traitors were hanged first for a few minutes, and then taken down and cut open, one of the most horrible punishments ever inflicted. The reformation which suppressed the religious houses at the same time suppressed the hospitals which were all religious houses and the schools which belonged to the religious houses. Saint Bartholomew's, Saint Thomas's, Saint Mary's, Saint Mary of Bethlehem, besides the smaller houses, were all suppressed. The sick people were sent back to their own houses. The brethren and sisters were dispersed. One house contained one hundred blind men, all these were cast adrift. Another contained a number of aged priests, these were turned into the streets. Eight schools perished at the dissolution. For a time London had neither schools nor hospitals. This could not continue. Bartholomew's, Saint Thomas's, Bethlehem, and under Queen Mary the Savoy were refounded under new statutes as hospitals. For schools Saint Paul's which was never closed was endowed by Dean Collett. Saint Anthony's continued, the Blue Coat School was founded on the site of the Franciscan house. The mercers took over the school of Saint Thomas. The merchant Taylor's founded their school. In Southwark schools were founded at Saint Olive's and Saint Saviour's. A few years later Charter House was converted into an arms house and a school. End of Lesson 42 Recording by Ruth Golding Lessons 43 to 45 of the history of London. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Ruth Golding. The History of London by Walter Besant Lesson 43 Trade Part 1 London was anciently the resort of foreign merchants. It was rich because foreign merchants brought and exchanged their goods at this port. There were no ships built in England until the reign of King Alfred. When the kingdom became tranquil he is said to have hired out his ships to foreign merchants. A list of tolls paid by foreign ships in the reign of King Ethelred II shows that the imports were considerable. The foreign merchants, however, were not to quote, forestall their markets from the Burgers of London end quote, so that the retail trade was kept in native hands. When retail trade was separated from wholesale trade all that the London merchants had was the collection, the warehousing and the sale of the exports. It is reasonable to suppose that foreign merchants coming to the city year after year would find it useful to have a permanent settlement, a wharf with officers and servants of their own. Such a settlement was, no doubt, permitted from very early times. But in the year 1169 was founded a trade association which, for wealth, success and importance, might compare with our East India Company. This was the Hanseatic League, so called from the word Hansa, a convention. In the League were confederated first twelve towns in the Baltic, Lübeck at the head, next sixty-four and even eighty German towns. They were first associated for protection against pirates. They speedily became the greatest trading company of the period. In the reign of Henry III the League obtained a royal charter granting them liberty of constant residence at a place in London. They were permitted to have a permanent establishment at a place called the Steel Yard, i.e. the place where the steel yard or scales had formerly been kept, under certain conditions, including the payment of custom dues. They were called the merchants of the Steel Yard. They at once drew to themselves the whole trade of England with the northern ports, and they remained there for nearly four hundred years. There was another association of foreigners called the merchants of the Staple. That is to say they dealt in what was called the Staples of England, in the raw produce as lead, tin, wool, etc. Gradually however the word Staple came to be applied solely to wool as the most important export. The Lord Chancellor to this day is seated on a wool sack. The merchants of the Staple became merged in the merchants of the Steel Yard. These foreign merchants were at all times extremely unpopular with the Londoners, who envied their wealth which they thought was made at the expense of the city, not understanding for a long time that the same way of wealth was open to themselves. When they began to put forth merchant ships on their own account, they at first sought the southern ports, sailing to Dunkirk, Slas, Rouen, Avres, Bordeaux, Lisbon, and even to the Mediterranean ports. Whittington's trade was entirely with the south. It was not at Lubeck or on the shores of the Baltic that he found his cloth of gold, his rich velvets, his silks, his gold embroidery, his scented wood, his wines, his precious stones. And the reason why he sent his ships to the south was that the trade of the north was in the hands of the Steel Yard. Edward III seems first of our kings to have understood the value of manufacturers and a foreign trade. He first passed laws for the repair of the highways. Under his reign the merchant adventurers were encouraged and assisted. He first stimulated the making of English cloth instead of selling our wool. Under him the shipping of the London merchants began to increase and to develop. Still the foreign merchants continued to occupy the Steel Yard. Still our merchants were shut out of the northern ports. Still other foreigners received permission to settle. Even craftsmen came over from Germany and the Low Countries and followed their trade in London. Richard III, in order to please the citizens, ordered their expulsion, but it does not appear that the order was obeyed. Henry VII, on the other hand, persuaded many Flemish woolen manufacturers to come over to this country. Early in the 16th century the exports of English cloth by the foreign merchants amounted to 44,000 pieces, while the English ships took away no more than a thousand pieces. When our own merchants were prepared with ships and had what may be called the machinery of trade as a market, wharves, permission to buy and sell, it is obvious that the old state of things could no longer continue. It was not, however, until the reign of Edward VI, that the foreign merchants were finally deprived of all their privileges and charters. These rivals, with their powerful organisations and their hold over all the northern ports, once out of the way, the English merchants began to push out their enterprises in all directions. You shall see immediately how they prospered. Meantime there remains a monument erected in memory of the Hanseatic League. In the reign of Queen Anne, the merchants of Hamburg presented to the church where the merchants of the steelyard had worshipped, for four hundred years, a splendid screen of carved wood. Unless the church, which is already threatened with destruction, is pulled down, you should go to see that screen and remember all that it means and commemorates. End of Lesson 43 Lesson 44, Trade Part 2 English trade, that is to say trade in English hands, practically began with Edward III and slowly increasing under his successors, gained an enormous development under Elizabeth. Several causes operated to produce this increase. In the first place the abolition of the steelyard, though ordered by Edward VI, was not completely carried out till many years afterwards. During this period the merchants were learning the immense possibilities open to them, when this incubus should be removed. Next the great rival of London, Antwerp, suffered like the rest of the Netherlands from the religious wars. Thirdly the wise and far-seeing action of Gresham transferred the commercial centre of the northern world from that town to London. Antwerp in the 15th century was the richest and most prosperous city in Western Europe. There were two hundred thousand inhabitants, a great many more than could be counted in London. Five thousand merchants met every day in the bourse for the transaction of business. Two thousand five hundred vessels might be counted in the river, five hundred loaded wagons entered every day from the country. It was the port of the great and rich manufacturing towns of Bruges and Ghent. In the latter town there were forty thousand weavers, and an army of eighty thousand men fully armed and equipped could be raised at any moment. The former town, Bruges, was the market, the actual commercial centre of the world. Hither came the merchants of Venice and Genoa bringing the silks, velvets, cloth of gold, spices and precious stones from the east to exchange for the English wool and the produce of Germany and the Baltic. The religious wars of the 16th century, the ferocities, cruelties and savagery of those wars depopulated and ruined this rich and flourishing country. The inquisition drove thousands of Fleming's and industrious and orderly folk to England, where they established silk-manufactures, and the carrying trade which had been wholly in the hands of the Antwerp ship-owners was diverted and went across the narrow seas to London, where it has ever since remained. Before the ruin of Antwerp, Bruges and Ghent, it was of these towns that the kings of England obtained their loans. They were taken up by the merchants of the Low Countries at an interest of fourteen percent. This enormous interest, then thought quite moderate and reasonable, explains how the merchants of that time grew so wealthy. Part of the loans also often had to be taken in jewels. In order to negotiate these loans and to pay the interest, an agent of the English sovereign was kept at Antwerp, called the Royal Agent. Very fortunately for London, the Royal Agent under Edward VI, Mary, and the early years of Elizabeth, was Sir Thomas Gresham. You must learn something about this great man. He was the son of Sir Richard Gresham, formerly Lord Mayor, nephew of Sir John Gresham, also Lord Mayor, who preserved Bethlehem Hospital on the dissolution of the religious houses. He came of a Norfolk family originally of the village of Gresham. Like Whittington he was of gentle birth. He was educated at Cambridge, he was apprenticed to his uncle after taking his degree, and he was received into the Merces Company at the age of twenty-four. It must be observed that from the outset the young man had every advantage, good birth, good education, good society, and wealth. At the age of thirty-two he was appointed Royal Agent at Antwerp. At this time the city was at the height of its splendour and prosperity. Gresham walked upon the long keys, gazed at the lines of ships, saw the river alive with boats and barges loading and unloading, watched the throng of merchants in the boss, saw the palaces, the rows and streets of palaces in which they lived, thought of London, which he had formerly regarded with so much pride, though he now perceived that it was even poor and quiet compared with this crowded centre of an enormous trade. Why, the city which he had taught the envy of the whole world could show no more than three hundred and seventeen merchants in all against Antwerp's five thousand. And these, though there were some esteemed wealthy, could not between them all raise alone of even ten thousand pounds. The king had to go abroad for the money and to pay fourteen percent for it. Then he began to ask himself whether something could not be done to divert some of this trade to his native town. First of all he applied himself to the reduction of the interest. This he managed to lower from fourteen percent to twelve and even to ten. Again a four percent on a loan of say sixty thousand pounds meant a saving of two thousand four hundred pounds a year. When he came back to England he brought with him a discovery which seems simple. It is however the most difficult thing in the world for people to understand we are always discovering it over and over again. His discovery was this. It applies to every kind of business or enterprise. It is that union will affect what single effort is powerless to attempt. The city had for centuries understood this in matters of government. They were now to learn the same thing in matters of trade. The merchants of Antwerp had a central place where they could meet for purposes of union and combination. Those of London had none. As yet union had only been practiced for the regulation of trade prices and work. True the merchant adventurers existed but the spirit of enterprise had as yet spread a very little way. Gresham determined to present to his fellow citizens such a bourse as the merchants of Antwerp had enjoyed for centuries. He built his bourse. He gave it to the city. He gave it as a place of meeting for the merchants. He gave it for the advance of enterprise. The queen opened it with great state and called it the royal exchange. It stood exactly where the present royal exchange stands but its entrance was on the south side not the west. And no gift has ever been made to any city more noble, more far-seeing, more wise, or productive of greater benefits. End of Lesson 44 Lesson 45 Trade Part 3 The merchants got their exchange. What did they do in it? They did most wonderful things with it. Greater things were never done in any exchange. For the first time they were enabled to act together and it was the most favourable opportunity that ever happened to any trading community. The charters of the foreigners were abolished. The markets of Bruges were depressed in consequence of the civil wars already beginning. That city itself, with Antwerp and Ghent, was on the point of ruin. The way was open and the spirit of enterprise was awakened. In ordinary times it would have been the love of gain alone that awakened this spirit, but these were not ordinary times. The people of western Europe took a hundred years to discover that Columbus had doubled the world, that there was a new continent across the ocean. They began to send their ships across. Nobody as yet knew the possibilities of that continent with its islands. The Spaniards had the first run, but the French and the English were beginning to claim their share. Then a way to India and the East had been found out. We were no longer going to be dependent on the Venetians for the products of Persia, India, the Malakas, China. All those turbulent and restless spirits who could not settle down to peaceful crafts or the dull life of the desk longed to be on board ship, sailing westward hoe. Fortune was waiting for them there. Fortune was fighting privation, endurance, perhaps death by fever or by battle, yet a glorious life. Or they might sail southwards and so round the Cape of Good Hope, called at first the Cape of Storms, and across the Indian Ocean to the port of Calicut there to trade. There were dangers enough, even on that voyage, to tempt the most adventurous Moorish pirates off the coast of Morocco, European pirates, English pirates coming out of the rivers and ports of Western Africa, storms off the Cape, hurricanes in the Indian Ocean, the rocks and reefs of seas as yet unsurveyed, treachery of natives. Yet there were never wanting men in plenty to volunteer for these long and perilous voyages. At home then the spirit of enterprise joined with the spirit of adventure achieved mighty things. The merchant adventurers, succeeding to some of the trade of the Hanseatic League, established courts, i.e. branches at Antwerp, Hamburg and Dordrecht. They had also courts at York, Hull and Newcastle. Many other companies were founded. There was the Eastland Company or Merchants of Ebbing. Their trade was with the Baltic. There was the merchant adventurers for the discovery of lands not before known to or frequented by the English. This afterwards became the Russian Company. They sent out Sahou Willoughby with three ships to find a northeast passage to China. He and all his men were frozen to death on the shores of Russian Lapland. The Company afterwards took to Huiling. There was also the Turkey Company which lasted to well into the present century. There was the Royal African Company which has been revived. There were the Merchants of Spain, the Merchants of France, the Merchants of Virginia, the East India Company, the Hudson's Bay Company, the South Sea Company, the Guinea Company, some of these companies were founded later but they are all sprung from the spirit of enterprise first called into existence by Gresham when he built his exchange and brought the Merchants together. By leaps and bounds the prosperity of the city increased and has still continued to increase for the three hundred years that have passed since Queen Elizabeth opened the Royal Exchange. Whether this prosperity will still further advance, whether forces as yet unnoticed will bring about the decay of London no one can venture to prophesy. Antwerp may again become her rival, may perhaps surpass her. The port of Antwerp is rising yearly in importance, and that of Hamburg further north has, like Liverpool, its miles of keys and wharves and its hundreds of vessels. But the trade of London is still far greater than that of any other port in the world, and for its three hundred years of prosperity we must thank above all men that wise merchant Sir Thomas Gresham. He did more than give an exchange to the city. He gave a college. He gave his own house in Broad Street for a college. He endowed it with professorships. He intended it to become for London what Christchurch was to Oxford or Trinity to Cambridge. It has been converted into a place for the delivery of lectures but there are signs that the city will once more have such a college as Gresham intended. End of Lesson 45 Recording by Ruth Golding Lessons 46 to 49 of the History of London This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Ruth Golding The History of London by Walter Besant Lesson 46 Plays and Pagents Part 1 There were no theatres in England nor any plays before the reign of Queen Elizabeth. This is a statement which is true but needs explanation. It is not the case that there was no acting. On the contrary there has always been acting of some kind or other. There was acting at the fairs where the cheap Jack and the quack had their tumbling boys and clowns to attract the crowd. There were always minstrels and tumblers, men and women who played, sang, danced, and tumbled in the hall for the amusements of the great people in the long winter evenings. Not including the wandering mammas, the theatre was preceded by the religious drama, the pageant and the mask. The religious drama was usually performed in churches, but sometimes in marketplaces and in front of churches. They represented scenes from the Bible and acts of saints. In a time when the people could not read, such shows presented sacred history in a most vivid form. No one could possibly forget any detail in the passion of our Lord who had once seen it performed in a mystery, with the dresses complete, with appropriate words and action and with music. In the year 1409 there was a play representing the creation of the world performed at Clarkinwell. It lasted eight days and was witnessed by a vast concourse of all ranks. Here were shown paradise, our first parents, the admonition of the creator, the fall and the expulsion. Such a sight was better than a hundred sermons for teaching the people. The plays were not generally so long and so ambitious. They acted detached scenes, the two men of Emmaus meeting the risen Lord, the raising of Lazarus, the birth of Christ, the flood, the fall of Lucifer, the shepherds of Bethlehem and other scenes. The mystery or sacred play was the Sunday school of the Middle Ages. By those plays they learned the whole of scripture history. The churches taught detached portions by the frescoes on the wall, the painted windows and the carvings, but the history in its sequence was taught by the sacred dramas. We have very full accounts of one miracle play that which was annually performed by the guilds of the city of Chester. It was performed at Whitsentide and lasted three days. The play began with the fall of Lucifer performed by the tanners, went on to the creation by the drapers, then to the flood, and so on. Nine plays were performed on the first day, nine on the second, and seven on the third. Each guild provided a scaffold on wheels. The scaffold was provided with a canopy which would represent the sky or the roof of a house, or a tent or a cave, as the play demanded. The performers were properly dressed for their parts, there was music, and in some cases there were songs. Under the scaffold was the room where the actors dressed and where the properties were kept. Every play was performed in every principal street. When one was finished the scaffold was rolled to another station and the play was repeated. This method prevented crowding. The most sacred persons were exhibited at these plays, and nothing was spared to make them realistic to the last degree. Sometimes devils were put upon the stage, flames issued from their mouths, they performed tricks of buffoonery, they dragged off sinners to their doom. Sometimes comic scenes were introduced, as in the play of the flood, where it was common to represent Noah's wife as a shrew who beats her husband and refuses to go into the ark. These plays were swept away by the Reformation. They had been productive for a long time of mischief rather than of instruction. The profanity of the comic scenes increased, and reverence was destroyed when in the same tableau which presented the most sacred of events appeared the most unbridled buffoons. Religious plays have never been allowed since the Reformation. Should they again be put upon the stage, it must be under the safeguard of those who can be trusted to admit of no other consideration than the presentation in the most reverent manner of sacred subjects. There must be no sort of gain for those who manage or those who act such plays. Many scenes and events of the Bible would lend themselves wonderfully to dramatic rendering, but the choice of these must not be left to the lessee of a theatre, nor must the acting of such plays be permitted to those who live by making the people laugh. End of Lesson 46 Lesson 47. Plays and Pagents, Part 2 After the religious dramas the Pagents gratified the desire for spectacle and show. Pagents were held on every grand occasion to welcome the sovereign, to honour the new Lord Mayor, to celebrate a victory. Then they erected triumphal arches adorned with paste-bored castles, ships, houses, caves, all kinds of things. They either carried with them as part of the procession, or they stationed at some point the city giants. London was not alone in having giants. York, Norwich, Chester possessed city giants. In Belgium the city giant is still carried in procession, in Antwerp, Douay and other towns. The figure of the giant symbolised the strength and power of the city. After Agincourt Henry V was welcomed at the South Gate of London Bridge by two giants. His son Henry VI was also received by a giant seventeen years later. Two giants stood on London Bridge to welcome Philip and Mary, the same two at Temple Bar afterwards welcomed Elizabeth. The pair of giants now in Guildhall were carved in 1707. The names Gog and Magog are wrong. The original names were Gog, Magog and Coronas. The following account of the Pagent to celebrate the return of the victor Henry V after Agincourt is preserved in Stoes, London. The mare and alderman, dressed in scarlet with collars and chains, with four hundred citizens in Murray, all well-mounted, rode out to meet the king at Blackheath. Then, after formal greetings, they all rode to London. In Southwark the king was met by all the London clergy in their most sumptuous robes with crosses and censors. At the entrance of London Bridge on the top of the tower stood a pair of giants, male and female, the former bearing in his right hand an axe, and in his left hand the keys of the city. Around them stood a band of trumpeters. On the drawbridge were two lofty columns, on one of which stood an antelope, and on the other a lion, both the king's crests. At the other end of the bridge was another tower, and within it an image of St George, with a great number of boys representing angels. These sang an anthem, Give thanks, O England, to God for victory. This is supposed to be preserved in the song Our King Went Forth to Normandy. On Corn Hill there was erected a tent of crimson cloth ornamented with the king's arms. Within it was a company of prophets in golden coats. As the king approached they set loose a great number of small birds which fluttered about while the prophets sang Cantate Domino Canticum Novum, sing unto the Lord a new song. In Cheapside the conduit was hung with green. Here sat the twelve apostles and the twelve kings, martyrs and confessors of England. They also sang a chant and made the conduit run with wine. This represented the reception of Abraham by Melchizedek. The cross of Cheap was built over by a high tower of wood covered all over with splendid coats of arms. There was a stage in front on which a crowd of girls came with timbrels dancing and singing. Thus the maidens welcomed David when he returned from the slaughter of Goliath. And all about the building were crowds of boys representing the heavenly host, who showered down coins resembling gold and boughs of laurel, and sang Tadeum Ladamus. Lastly there was another tower at the west end of Cheap. In each corner of this stood a girl who out of a cup strewed golden leaves before the feet of the king. And there was a high canopy painted with blue and stars and beneath a figure all gold to represent the sun surrounded by angels, singing and playing all kinds of musical instruments. This witnessed the king went on to St Paul's to pay his devotions. When you read this bald account of one of the greatest pageants ever celebrated in the city, you must fill it up by imagining the long procession every one in his place. Trumpeters, bowmen in leather jerkins, men at arms in shining helmet and cuirass, horsemen in full armour, knights, nobles, heralds all in full panoply banners and bannerettes, the bishop and all the clergy, the king and his retinue, the Lord Mayor and his four hundred followers. Imagine the blare of the trumpets, the singing of the chants, the roaring of the people, the crimson hangings all along the line of march at every window. There were no police to keep the line. You might see the burgesses running out of the taverns on their way with black jacks of marmsy to regale the gallant soldiers who had fought and won the victory. You would see the king bareheaded. Why was he bareheaded? Because he was so modest, this brave king. Because he would not let the people see his helmet intoed and misshapen with the signs and scars of hard battle in which he had played his part as well as any humble leather-jerk into bowmen in his array. Your ancestors, these soldiers and these citizens, your forefathers, they knew far better than you will ever know how to marshal a gallant show. We have lost the art of making a pageant. It remains with us once a year in the Lord Mayor's show, but think of Henry's riding into London, compared with the Lord Mayor's show. End of Lesson 47 Lesson 48 Plays and Pageants Part 3 Between the pageant and the play stands the mask, a form of entertainment which achieved its greatest splendour both in stage-mounting and in the words and songs in the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. Nowhere was the mask more carefully studied and more magnificently presented than in London. The scenic display which in the early theatre was so meagre was carried in the mask to a height never surpassed until the splendid shows of the present day. Nor did the greatest poets disdain to write words for the mask. The most beautiful of those which remain are to be found in Ben Johnson's works. Every great man's house had a hall which was used for the mask. Bacon, who gives directions for building a house, orders that there must be a room built on purpose for these performances. Under it is to be another room for the actors to dress and for the properties, i.e. the things requisite for the presentation of the mask, such as scenery, the woods, fountains, rocks, palaces, etc., that might be required. Let us show what a mask was like by describing one of Ben Johnson's. It is called the Mask of Oberon, and was performed before Prince Henry, the eldest son of James I, who died in youth. The scene presents a rock with trees beyond it, and, quote, all the wildness that can be presented, end, quote. All is dark. Presently the moon rising shows a satyr, one of the beings with whom the ancients peopled the forests and wild places. They were drawn with the feet and legs of goats, short horns on the head, and the body covered with thick hair. This satyr lifts his head and calls his companions. There is no answer. He blows his cornet. Echo answers him. He blows again, and is again mocked by the echo. A third time he blows, and other satyrs come leaping and dancing upon the stage. Silenus, their leader, bids them prepare to see the young prince Oberon. The scene opens. The rocks and forests disappear. There is shown a glorious palace whose walls and gates are transparent. Before the gates lie asleep two silvens, i.e., men of the woods. The satyrs gather round these sleeping sentinels, and wake them up, with singing, buzz, quote, the blue fly, hum, quote, the bee. Buzz and hum they cry, and so do we. In his ear, in his nose, thus do you see? They tickle them. He ate the door mouse else it was he. The silvens wake. They explain that it is yet too early for the gates to open. Meantime, let them sing and dance to while away the time. One of them sings, therefore. After the song they fall into an, quote, antique dance, full of gesture and swift motion, end, quote. And thus continue till the crowing of a cock gives the signal for the whole palace to open. It is like a transformation seen at a pantomime. There is the palace with all its occupants. The, quote, whole nation of phase, end, quote, or fairies. Some are playing instruments of music. Some are singing. Some are bearing lights. At the back of the stage sit the night's maskers. With them Oberon in his chariot. And then, drawn by two white bears, guarded by three silvens on each side, the chariot moves down the stage. Observe that to produce all these effects, the stage must have been very deep. The song they sing is in praise of the king. Melt earth to sea, sea flow to air, and air fly into fire, whilst we in tunes to Arthur's chair bear Oberon's desire. Then which there's nothing can be higher save James to whom it flies, but he the wonder is of tongues and ears and eyes. The satyrs leap and dance again for joy at so splendid a sight. Then Silenus speaks in praise of Prince Oberon, who is, of course, Prince Henry, the elder son of James, who died young. The flattery is no worse than was usual in masks. Silenus says that the prince stays the time from turning old and keeps the age up in a head of gold. He makes it ever day and ever spring when he doth shine and quickens everything. Then two phase sing a song and all the phase together dance, after which all together sing. Then Oberon and his knights dance. Another song follows. Then they all together dance, quote, measures, corantos, and galliards, end quote, till phosphorus the day star appears and calls them away. To rest, to rest, the herald of the day bright phosphorus commands you hence, obey. They quickly dance their last dance, one by one getting into the palace. Then the star vanishes, the day breaks, and while the last song is sung, the machine closes, i.e. the palace becomes a wall of the room and the show is over. This is the pretty song which ends the mask. Oh, yet how early and before her time the envious morning up doth climb, though she not love her bed! What haste the jealous sun doth make, his fiery horses up to take, and once more show his head! Lest taken with the brightness of this night, the world should wish it last, and never miss his light. End of Lesson 48 Lesson 49 Plays and Pageants Part 4 Through the religious drama, the pageant, the mask, we work our way to the play itself. The first beginnings of the modern drama must here be passed over. There were the rough and unformed comedies such as Gamma Gertin's Needle performed in a college hall, or the tragedy played on board spread over a wagon in the courtyard of an inn. Let us suppose that we are past the beginnings and are in Shakespeare's time, i.e. the end of Queen Elizabeth and the whole reign of James I. The first theatre was built in 1570. Thirty years after there were seven. The Queen had companies of children to play before her. They were the boys of the choirs of St Paul's, Westminster, Whitehall and Windsor. The actors called themselves the servants of some great Lord, Lord Lester, Lord Warwick, Lord Pembroke, Lord Howard, the Earl of Essex, and others all had their company of actors, not all at the same time. The principal houses were those at Sotheck, and especially at Bankside, where there were three, including the famous Globe, the Blackfriars Playhouse, the Fortune in Golden Lane, and the Curtain at Shoreditch. If you will look at the map, you will observe that not one of these theatres is within the city. That at Blackfriars was in the former precinct of the Dominicans and outside the city. No theatre was allowed in the city. Thus early sprang up the prejudice against actors. Probably this was of old standing, and first belonged to the time when the minstrel and the tumbler, the musician and the dancing girl, the buffoon and the contortionist, wandered about the country free of rule and discipline, leading careless and lawless lives. The theatre was octagonal in shape, but circular within. What we call the pit was called the yard. The stage projected into the yard about three or four feet high. The people who filled the yard were called groundlings. Round the house were three galleries, the lowest of which contained rooms or private boxes. What we call the upper circle and the gallery were above. There were no seats in the pit, nor apparently in the upper circles. On either side of the stage sat or lay gentlemen, chiefly of the younger kind, who smoked pipes of tobacco and talked loudly, disturbing the performance. At the back of the stage was a kind of upper stage supported on columns, which gave the players a tower, gallery, wall, a town, or an upper story of a house or anything of the kind that they wanted. There was a great sale of apples, nuts and ale before the play began and between the acts. Boys hawked the newest books about the rooms. The people, while they waited, smoked pipes, played cards. Above the stage on one side was the music. Three times the trumpets sounded. At the first, those who were outside hurried in to get a place. At the second, the card players left off their games. At the third, those who bawled apples and ale and shouted the name of the new book became silent. The audience settled down. The play began. Not much costume was wanted, that of the Elizabethan, noble, courtier, young knight, clown, fitted any and every age. There was little scenery required, blue hangings above meant day, black hangings, night. The actors came out upon the advanced stage and played their parts. No doubt the illusion was as complete as we can contrive with all our scenery, mounting and correctness of costume. The parts of women were taken by boys. No women appeared on the stage until the reign of Charles II. The play began with the prologue spoken by an actor dressed in a long black velvet coat, bowing very humbly to the audience. After the play was over the clowns began to tumble and to sing. In short, a farce succeeded a tragedy. The time of performance was one o'clock, and the performance lasted until five. In the year 1610 the Lord Mayor and Alderman, being alarmed at the increasing popularity of the play, ordered that there should be only two theatres, the Fortune in Golden Lane and the Globe at Bankside. This order, however, like so many other laws, was only passed to satisfy a passing scare, and does not seem to have been carried into effect. It was in such a theatre as this, and with such scenery, that the immortal plays of Shakespeare and Ben Johnson were acted. When next you read a play of Shakespeare, remember the stage projecting into the pit, the people in the pit all standing, the galants on the stage talking and smoking, the ladies in the boxes, the boys enjoying apples and nuts and ale and new books, and the actors playing partly on the stage advanced and partly on the stage behind. End of Lesson 49. Recording by Ruth Golding Lessons 50 and 51 of the History of London. This Librivox recording is in the public domain, recording by Ruth Golding. The History of London by Walter Besant Lesson 50. The Terror of the Plague. Part 1 You have seen the city as it appeared to one who walked about its streets and watched the people. It was three busy and prosperous except at rare intervals when its own internal dissensions, or the civil wars of the country, or the pretensions of the sovereign, disturbed the peace of the city. Behind this prosperity, however, lay hid all through the Middle Ages and down to two hundred years ago, four great and ever-present terrors. The first was the Terror of Leprosy, the second the Terror of Famine, the third was the Terror of Plague, the last was the Terror of Fire. As for the first two, we have seen how laser houses were established outside every town and how public granaries were built. Let us consider the third. The plague broke out so often that there was hardly any time between the tenth and the seventeenth century when some living person could not remember a visitation of this awful scourge. It appeared in London first, i.e. the first mention of it occurs in history, in the year 962, again in 1094, again in 1111. Then there seems to have been a respite for 250 years. In the year 1348 the plague carried off many thousands. In 1361 it appeared again, in 1367 and in 1369. In 1407 30,000 were carried off in London alone by the plague. In 1478 a plague raged throughout the country, which was said to have destroyed more people than the wars of the roses. But we must accept all medieval estimates of numbers as indicating no more than great mortality. With the sixteenth century began a period of 160 years marked with attacks of the plague constantly recurring, and every time more fatal and more widespread. Nothing teaches the conditions of human life more plainly than the history of the plague in London. We are placed in the world in the midst of dangers, and we have to find out for ourselves how to meet those dangers and to protect ourselves. Thus a vast number of persons were crowded together within the walls of the city. The streets were all narrow, the houses were generally of three or more stories, built out in front so as to obstruct the light and air. There were many courts in which the houses were mere hovels. There was no drainage. Refuse of all kinds lay about the streets. Everything that was required for the daily life was made in the city, which added a thousand noisome smells and noxious refuse. Then the plague came and carried off its thousands and disappeared. Then the survivors went on their usual course. Nothing was changed. Yet the plague was a voice which spoke loudly. It said, clean yourselves. Cease to defile the soil of the city with your decaying matter. Build your houses in wider streets. Do not shut out the sunshine which is a splendid purifier or light and air. Keep yourselves clean, body and raiment and house and street. The voice spoke but no one heard. Then came the plague again. Still no one heard the voice. It came again and again. It came in 1500, in 1525, in 1543, in 1563, in 1569, in 1574, in 1592, in 1603, when 30,575 died. In 1625, when 35,470 died. In 1635, when 10,400 died. And lastly, in 1665. And in all that time no one understood that voice and the city was never cleansed. All that was done was to light bonfires in the street in order to increase the circulation of the air. After the last and worst attack, in 1666, the city was burned. And in the purification of the flames it emerged clean, and the plague has never since appeared. The same voice speaks to mankind still in every visitation of every new pestilence. It used to cry aloud in time of plague. It cries aloud now in time of typhoid, diphtheria and cholera. Diseases spring from ignorance and from vice. Physicians cannot cure them, but they can learn their cause and they can prevent. The plague of 1665 began in the autumn of the year before. It had been raging in Amsterdam and Hamburg in 1663. Precautions were taken to keep it out by stopping the importation of goods from these towns, but these proved ineffectual. Certain bales from Holland were landed and taken to a house in long-acre Drury Lane. Here they were opened by two Frenchmen, both of whom caught the disease and died. A third Frenchman, who was seized in the same house, was removed to Bearbinder Lane, St Swithins Lane, where he too died. And then the disease began to spread. A severe frost checked it for a time, but in March, when milder weather returned, it broke out again. The disease, when it seized upon a person, brought upon him a most distressing horror of mind. This was followed by fever and delirium. But the certain signs of the plague were spots, pustules, and swellings which spread over the whole body. Death, in most cases, rapidly followed. Some there were who recovered, but the majority gave themselves over for lost on the first appearance. Many of the physicians ran away from the infected city. Many of the parish clergy deserted their churches. The Lord Mayor and Alderman, however, remained by their presence giving heart to those of the clergy and physicians who stayed, and by their prudent measures, preventing a vast amount of additional suffering which would otherwise have fallen upon the unhappy people. End of Lesson 50 Lesson 51 The Terror of the Plague, Part 2 In the month of May it was found that twenty city parishes were infected. Certain preventions, rather than remedies of which there were none, were now employed by the Mayor. Infected houses were shut up. No one was allowed to go in or to come out. Food was conveyed by buckets, let down from an upper window. The dead bodies were lowered in the same way, from the windows. On the doors were painted red crosses, with the words, Lord, have mercy upon us. Watchmen were placed at the doors to prevent the unhappy prisoners from coming out. All the dogs and cats in the city, being supposed to carry about infection in their fur or hair, were slaughtered. Forty thousand dogs, it is stated, and two hundred thousand cats, which seems an impossible number, were killed. They also tried, but without success, to kill the rats and mice. Everything was tried except the one thing wanted, air and cleanliness. At the outset a great many of the better sort left the city and stayed in the country till the danger was over. Others would have followed, but the country people would not suffer their presence and drove them back with clubs and pikes. So they had to come back and die in the city. Then all the shops closed. All industries were stopped. Men could no longer sit beside each other. The Masters dismissed their apprentices and their workmen and their servants. In the river the ships lay with their cargoes half discharged. On the keys stood the bails unopened. In the churches there were no services except where the scanty congregations sat, singly and apart. The courts of justice were empty. There were no crimes to try. In the streets the passengers avoided each other. In the markets which had to be kept open the buyer lifted down his purchase with a hook and dropped the money into a bowl of vinegar. Many families voluntarily shut their houses and would neither go in or out. Some of these escaped the infection. The history of one such family during their six months in prisonment has been preserved. They thanked God solemnly every morning for continued health. They prayed three times a day for safety. Some went on board ship and as the plague increased dropped down the river. The deaths which in the four weeks of July numbered 725, 1089, 1843 and 2010 respectively rose in August and September to three, four, five and even eight thousand a week. But it was believed that the registers were badly kept and that the numbers were greater than appeared. Every evening carts were sent round. The drivers who smoked tobacco as a disinfectant crying out bring out your dead, bring out your dead and ringing a bell. The church yards were filled and pits were dug outside the city into which the bodies were thrown without coffins. When the pestilence ceased the church yards were covered with a thick deposit of fresh mould to prevent ill consequences. It was observed that during the prevalence of the disease there was an extraordinary continuance of calm and serene sunshine. For many weeks together not the least breath of wind could be perceived. When the summer was over and the autumn came on the disease became milder in its form. It lasted longer and whereas at the first not one in five recovered now not two in five died. Presently the cold weather returned and the plague was stayed. They burned or washed all the linen, flannel, clothes, bedding, tapestry and curtains belonging to the infected houses and they whitewashed the rooms in which the disease had appeared. But they did not take steps for the cleansing of the city. The voice had spoken in vain. The number of deaths during the year was registered as 97,306 of which 68,596 were attributed to the plague. But there seems little doubt that the registers were inefficiently kept. It is believed that the number who perished by plague alone was at least a hundred thousand. It is easy to write down these figures. It is difficult to understand what they mean. Among them a quarter at least would be the breadwinners, the fathers of families. In many cases all perished together, parents and children. In others the children were left destitute. Then there was no work. There were a hundred thousand working men out of employment. All these people had to be kept. The Lord Mayor, assisted by his alderman and two noble lords, Albemarle and Craven, organised a service of relief. The King gave a thousand pounds a week. The city gave six hundred pounds a week. The merchants contributed thousands every week. And so the people were kept from starving. When it was all over, peeps, who kept his diary through the time of the plague, but was not one of those who stayed in the infected city, notes the enormous number of beggars. Who should they be? But the poor creatures, the women and the children, the old and the infirm, who had lost their breadwinners, the men who loved them and worked for them. The history is full of dreadful things. But this amazing crowd of beggars is the most dreadful.