Old and New London Part 55

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

GUILDHALL.

The Original Guildhall--A fearful Civic Spectacle--The Value of Land increased by the Great Fire--Guildhall as it was and is--The Statues over the South Porch--Dance's Disfigurements--The Renovation in 1864--The Crypt--Gog and Magog--Shopkeepers in Guildhall--The Cenotaphs in Guildhall--The Court of Aldermen--The City Courts--The Chamberlain's Office--Pictures in the Guildhall--Sir Robert Porter--The Common Council Room--Pictures and Statues--Guildhall Chapel--The New Library and Museum--Some Rare Books--Historical Events in Guildhall--Chaucer in Trouble--Buckingham at Guildhall--Anne Askew's Trial and Death--Surrey--Throckmorton--Garnet--A Grand Banquet.

The Guildhall--the mean-looking Hotel de Ville of London--was originally (says Stow) situated more to the east side of Aldermanbury, to which it gave name. Richard de Reynere, a sheriff in the reign of Richard I.

(1189), gave to the church of St. Mary, at Osney, near Oxford, certain ground rents in Aldermanbury, as appears by an entry in the Register of the Court of Hustings of the Guildhall. In Stow's time the Aldermanbury hall had been turned into a carpenter's yard.

The present Guildhall (which the meanest Flemish city would despise) was "builded new," whatever that might imply, according to our venerable guide, in 1411 (12th of Henry IV.), by Thomas Knoles, the mayor, and his brethren the aldermen, and "from a little cottage it grew into a great house." The expenses were defrayed by benevolences from the City Companies, and ten years' fees, fines, and amercements. Henry V. granted the City free pa.s.sages for four boats and four carts, to bring lime, ragstone, and freestone for the works. In the first year of Henry VI., when the citizens were every day growing richer and more powerful, the ill.u.s.trious Whittington's executors gave 35 to pave the Great Hall with Purbeck stone. They also blazoned some of the windows of the hall, and the Mayor's Court, with Whittington's escutcheons.

A few years afterwards one of the porches, the Mayor's Chamber, and the Council Chamber were built. In 1501 (Henry VII.), Sir John Shaw, mayor, knighted on Bosworth Field, built the kitchens, since which time the City feasts, before that held at Merchant Taylors' and Grocers' Hall, were annually held here. In 1505, Sir Nicholas Alwin, mayor in 1499, left 73 6s. 8d. to purchase tapestry for "gaudy" days at the Guildhall.

In 1614 a new Council Chamber, with a second room over it, was erected, at an outlay of 1,740.

In the Great Fire, when all the roofs and outbuildings were destroyed, an eye-witness describes Guildhall itself still standing firm, probably because it was framed with solid oak.

Mr. Vincent, a minister, in his "G.o.d's Terrible Voice in the City,"

printed in the year 1667, says: "And amongst other things that night, the sight of Guildhall was a fearful spectacle, which stood the whole body of it together in view for several hours together, after the fire had taken it, without flames (I suppose because the timber was such solid oake), like a bright shining coal, as if it had been a palace of gold, or a great building of burnished bra.s.s."

Pepys has some curious notes about the new Guildhall.

"Sir Richard Ford," he says, "tells me, speaking of the new street"--the present King Street--"that is to be made from Guildhall down to Cheapside, that the ground is already, most of it, bought; and tells me of one particular, of a man that hath a piece of ground lying in the very middle of the street that must be; which, when the street is cut out of it, there will remain ground enough of each side to build a house to front the street. He demanded seven hundred pounds for the ground, and to be excused paying anything for the melioration of the rest of his ground that he was to keep. The Court consented to give him 700, only not to abate him the consideration, which the man denied; but told them, and so they agreed, that he would excuse the City the 700, that he might have the benefit of the melioration without paying anything for it. So much some will get by having the City burned.

Ground, by this means, that was not fourpence a foot afore, will now, when houses are built, be worth fifteen shillings a foot."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MERCERS' CHAPEL, AS REBUILT AFTER THE FIRE. (_From an Old Print._) (_See page 381._)]

In the "Calendar of State Papers" (Charles II., February, 1667), we find notice that "the Committee of the Common Council of London for making the new street called King Street, between Guildhall and Cheapside, will sit twice a week at Guildhall, to treat with persons concerned; enquiry to be made by jury, according to the Act for Rebuilding the City, of the value of land of such persons as refuse to appear."

The Great Hall is 153 feet long, 50 feet broad, and about 55 feet high.

The interior sides, in 1829, were divided into eight portions by projecting cl.u.s.ters of columns. Above the dados were two windows of the meanest and most debased Gothic. Several of the large windows were blocked up with tasteless monuments. The blockings of the friezes were sculptured; large guideron shields were blazoned with the arms of the princ.i.p.al City companies. The old mediaeval open timber-work roof had been swallowed up by the Great Fire, and in lieu of it there was a poor attic storey, and a flat panelled ceiling, by some attributed to Wren.

At each end of the hall was a large pointed window; the east one blazoned with the royal arms, and the stars and jewels of the English orders of knighthood; the west with the City arms and supporters. At the east end of the hall (the ancient dais) was a raised enclosed platform, for holding the Court of Hustings and taking the poll at elections, and other purposes. The panelled wainscoting (in the old churchwarden taste) was separated into compartments by fluted Corinthian pilasters. Over these was a range of ancient canopied niches in carved stone, vulgarly imitated by modern work on the west side. Our old friends Gog and Magog, before Dance's _improvements_, stood on brackets adjoining a balcony over the entrance to the interior courts, and were removed to brackets on each side the great west window.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CRYPT OF GUILDHALL (_see page 386_).]

Stow describes the statues over the great south porch of King Henry VI.'s time as bearing the following emblems: the tables of the Commandments, a whip, a sword, and a pot. By their ancient habits and the coronets on their heads, he presumed them to be the statues of benefactors of London. The statue of our Saviour had disappeared, but the two bearded figures remaining, he conjectured, were good Bishop William and the Conqueror himself. Four lesser figures, two on each side the porch, seemed to be n.o.ble and pious ladies, one of them probably the Empress Maud, another the good Queen Philippa, who once interceded for the City. These figures were taken down during Dance's injudicious alterations in 1789. They lay neglected in a cellar until Alderman Boydell obtained leave of the Corporation to give them to Banks, the sculptor, who had taste enough to appreciate the simple earnestness of the Gothic work. At his death they were given again to the City. These figures were removed from the old screen in 1865, and were not replaced in the new one.

Stow, in relation to the Guildhall statues, and to the general demolition of "images" that occurred in his time, states, "these verses following" were made about 1560, by William Elderton, an attorney in the Sheriffs Court at Guildhall:--

"Though most the Images be pulled downe.

And none be thought remain in Towne.

I am sure there be in London yet Seven images, such, and in such a place As few or none I think will hit, Yet every day they show their face; And thousands see them every yeare, But few, I thinke, can tell me where; Where _Jesus Christ_ aloft doth stand, _Law_ and _Learning_ on either hand, _Discipline_ in the Devil's necke, And hard by her are three direct; There _Justice_, _Fort.i.tude_, and _Temperance_ stand; Where find ye the like in all this Land?"

The true renovation of this great City hall commenced in the year 1864, when Mr. Horace Jones, the architect to the City of London, was entrusted with the erection of an open oak roof, with a central louvre and tapering metal spire. The new roof is as nearly as possible framed to resemble the roof destroyed in the Great Fire. Many southern windows have been re-opened, and layer after layer of plaster and cement sc.r.a.ped from the internal architectural ornamentation. The southern windows have been fitted with stained gla.s.s, designed by Mr. F. Halliday, the subjects being--the grant of the Charter, coining money, the death of Wat Tyler, a royal tournament, &c. The new roof is of oak, with rather a high pitch, lighted by sixteen dormers, eight on each side. The height from the pavement to the under-side of the ridge is 89 feet, the total length is 152 feet; and there are eight bays and seven princ.i.p.als. The roof, which does great credit to Mr. Jones, is double-lined oak and deal, slated. The hall is lighted by sixteen gaseliers. A screen, with dais or hustings at the east end, is of carved oak. There is a minstrels' gallery and a new stone floor with coloured bands.

The fine crypt under the Guildhall was, till its restoration in the year 1851, a mere receptacle for the planks, benches, and trestles used at the City banquets.

"This crypt is by far the finest and most extensive undercroft remaining in London, and is a true portion of the ancient hall (erected in 1411) which escaped the Great Fire of 1666. It extends half the length beneath the Guildhall, from east to west, and is divided nearly equally by a wall, having an ancient pointed door. The crypt is divided into aisles by cl.u.s.tered columns, from which spring the stone-ribbed groins of the vaulting, composed partly of chalk and stone, the princ.i.p.al intersections being covered with carved bosses of flowers, heads, and shields. The north and south aisles had formerly mullioned windows, long walled up. At the eastern end is a fine Early English arched entrance, in fair preservation; and in the south-eastern angle is an octangular recess, which formerly was ceiled by an elegantly groined roof, height thirteen feet. The vaulting, with four centred arches, is very striking, and is probably some of the earliest of the sort, which seems peculiar to this country. Though called the Tudor arch, the time of its introduction was Lancastrian (see Weale's 'London,' p. 159). In 1851 the stone-work was rubbed down and cleaned, and the cl.u.s.tered shafts and capitals were repaired; and on the visit of Queen Victoria to Guildhall, July 9, 1851, a banquet was served to her Majesty and suite in this crypt, which was characteristically decorated for the occasion. Opposite the north entrance is a large antique bowl of Egyptian red granite, which was presented to the Corporation by Major Cookson, in 1802, as a memorial of the British achievements in Egypt." (Timbs.)

"There was something very picturesque," says Brayley, "in the old Guildhall entrance. On each side of the flight of steps was an octangular turreted gallery, bal.u.s.traded, having an office in each, appropriated to the hall-keeper; these galleries a.s.sumed the appearance of arbours, from being each surrounded by six palm-trees in iron-work, the foliage of which gave support to a large balcony, having in front a clock (with three dials) elaborately ornamented, and underneath a representation of the sun, resplendent with gilding; the clock-frame was of oak. At the angles were the cardinal virtues, and on the top a curious figure of Time, with a young child in his arms. On brackets to the right and left of the balcony were the gigantic figures of Gog and Magog, as before-mentioned, giving, by their vast size and singular costume, an unique character to the whole. At the sides of the steps, under the hall-keeper's office, were two dark cells, or cages, in which unruly apprentices were occasionally confined, by order of the City Chamberlain; these were called 'Little Ease,' from not being of sufficient height for a big boy to stand upright in them."

The Gog and Magog, those honest giants of Guildhall who have looked down on many a good dinner with imperturbable self-denial, have been the unconscious occasion of much inkshed. Who did they represent, and were they really carried about in Lord Mayor's Shows, was discussed by many generations of angry antiquaries. In Strype's time, when there were pictures of Queen Anne, King William and his consort Mary, at the east end of the hall, the two pantomime giants of renown stood by the steps going up to the Mayor's Court. The one holding a poleaxe with a spiked ball, Strype considered, represented a Briton; the other, with a halbert, he opined to be a Saxon. Both of them wore garlands. What was denied to great and learned was disclosed to the poor and simple. Hone, the bookseller, or one of his writers, came into possession of a little guide-book sold to visitors to the Guildhall in 1741; this set Mr.

Fairholt, a most diligent antiquary, on the right track, and he soon settled the matter for ever. Gog and Magog were really Corineus and Gogmagog. The former, a companion of Brutus the Trojan, killed, as the story goes, Gogmagog, the aboriginal giant.

Our sketch of City pageants has already shown that two hundred years ago giants named Corineus and Gogmagog (which ought to have put our antiquaries earlier on the right scent) formed part of the procession.

In 1672 Thomas Jordan, the City poet, in his own account of the ceremonial, especially mentions two giants fifteen feet high, in two several chariots, "talking and taking tobacco as they ride along," to the great admiration and delight of the spectators. "At the conclusion of the show," says the writer, "they are to be set up in Guildhall, where they may be daily seen all the year, and, I hope, never to be demolished by such dismal violence (the Great Fire) as happened to their predecessors." These giants of Jordan's, being built of wickerwork and pasteboard, at last fell to decay. In 1706 two new and more solid giants of wood were carved for the City by Richard Saunders, a captain in the trained band, and a carver, in King Street, Cheapside. In 1837, Alderman Lucas being mayor, copies of these giants walked in the show, turning their great painted heads and goggling eyes, to the delight of the spectators. The Guildhall giants, as Mr. Fairholt has shown, with his usual honest industry, are mentioned by many of our early poets, dramatists, and writers, as Shirley, facetious Bishop Corbet, George Wither, and Ned Ward. In Hone's time City children visiting Guildhall used to be told that every day when the giants heard the clock strike twelve they came down to dinner. Mr. Fairholt, in his "Gog and Magog"

(1859), has shown by many examples how professional giants (protectors or destroyers of lives) are still common in the annual festivals of half the great towns of Flanders and of France.

In the middle of the last century, says Mr. Fairholt, in his "Gog and Magog," the Guildhall was occupied by shopkeepers, after the fashion of our bazaars; and one Thomas Boreman, bookseller, "near the Giants, in Guildhall," published, in 1741, two very small volumes of their "gigantick history," in which he tells us that as Corineus and Gogmagog were two brave giants, who nicely valued their honour, and exerted their whole strength and force in defence of their liberty and country, so the City of London, by placing these their representatives in their Guildhall, emblematically declare that they will, like mighty giants, defend the honour of their country and liberties of this their city, which excels all others as much as those huge giants exceed in stature the common bulk of mankind.

The author of this little volume then gives his version of the tale of the encounter, "wherein the giants were all destroyed, save Goemagog, the hugest among them, who, being in height twelve cubits, was reserved alive, that Corineus might try his strength with him in single combat.

Corineus desired nothing more than such a match; but the old giant, in a wrestle, caught him aloft and broke three of his ribs. Upon this, Corineus, being desperately enraged, collected all his strength, heaved up Goemagog by main force, and bearing him on his shoulders to the next high rock, threw him headlong, all shattered, into the sea, and left his name on the cliff, which has ever since been called Lan-Goemagog, that is to say, the Giant's Leap. Thus perished Goemagog, commonly called Gogmagog, the last of the giants."

The early popularity of this tale is testified by its occurrence in the curious history of the Fitz-Warines, composed, in the thirteenth century, in Anglo-Norman, no doubt by a writer who resided on the Welsh border, and who, in describing a visit paid by William the Conqueror there, speaks of that sovereign asking the history of a burnt and ruined town, and an old Briton thus giving it him:--"None inhabited these parts except very foul people, great giants, whose king was called Goemagog.

These heard of the arrival of Brutus, and went out to encounter him, and at last all the giants were killed except Goemagog."

Dance's entrance to the courts was made exactly opposite the grand south entrance. Four large tasteless cenotaphs, more fit for the Pantheon of London, St. Paul's, than for anywhere else, are erected in Guildhall--to the north, those of Beckford, the Earl of Clarendon, and Nelson; on the south, that of William Pitt.

The monument to Beckford, the bold opposer of the arbitrary measures of a mistaken court and a misguided Parliament, is by Moore, a sculptor who lived in Berners Street. It represents the alderman in the act of delivering the celebrated speech which is engraved on the pedestal, and which, as Horace Walpole (who delighted in the mischief) says, made the king uncertain whether to sit still and silent, or to pick up his robes and hurry into his private room. At the angles of the pedestal are two female figures, Liberty and Commerce, mourning for the alderman.

The monument of the Earl of Chatham, by Bacon (executed in 1782 for 3,000 guineas), is of a higher style than Beckford's, and, like its companion, it is a period of political excitement turned into stone. If it were the custom to delay the erection of statues to eminent men twenty years after their death, how many would ever be erected? The usual cold allegory, in this instance, is atoned for by some dignity of mind. The great earl (a Roman senator, of course), his left hand on a helm, is placing his right hand affectionately on the plump shoulders of Commerce, who, as a blushing young _debutante_, is being presented to him by the City of London, who wears a mural crown, probably because London has no walls. In the foreground is the sculptor's everlasting Britannia, seated on her small but serviceable steed, the lion, and receiving into her capacious lap the contents of a cornucopia of Plenty, poured into it by four children, who represent the four quarters of the world. The inscription was written by Burke.

Nelson's fame is very imperfectly honoured by a pile of allegory, erected in 1811 by the entirely forgotten Mr. James Smith, for 4,442 7s. 4d. This deplorable ma.s.s of stone consists of a huge figure of Neptune looking at Britannia, who is mournfully contemplating a very small profile relief of the departed hero, on a small dusty medallion about the size of a maid-servant's locket. To crown all this tame stuff there are some flags and trophies, and a pyramid, on which the City of London (female figure) is writing the words "Nile, Copenhagen, Trafalgar." With admirable taste the sculptor, who knew what his female figures were, has turned the City of London with her back to the spectator. At the base of this absurd monument two sailors watch over a bas-relief of the battle of Trafalgar, which certainly no one of taste would steal. The inscription is from the florid pen of Sheridan.

Facing his father, the gouty old Roman of the true rock, stands William Pitt, lean, arrogant, and with the nose "on which he dangled the Opposition" sufficiently prominent. It was the work of J.G. Bubb, and was erected in 1812, at a cost of 4,078 17s. 3d.; and a pretty mixture of the Greek Pantheon and the English House of Commons it is! Pitt stands on a rock, dressed as Chancellor of the Exchequer; below him are Apollo and Mercury, to represent Eloquence and Learning; and a woman on a dolphin, who stands for--what does our reader think?--National Energy.

In the foreground is what guide-books call "a majestic figure" of Britannia, calmly holding a hot thunderbolt and a cold trident, and riding side-saddle on a sea-horse. The inscription is by Canning. The statue of Wellington, by Bell, cost 4,966 10s.

The Court of Aldermen is a richly-gilded room with a stucco ceiling, painted with allegorical figures of the hereditary virtues of the City of London--Justice, Prudence, Temperance, and Fort.i.tude--by that over-rated painter, Hogarth's father-in-law, Sir James Thornhill, who was presented by the Corporation with a gold cup, value 225 7s. In the cornices are emblazoned the arms of all the mayors since 1780 (the year of the Gordon riots). Each alderman's chair bears his name and arms.

The apartment, says a writer in Knight's "London," as its name tells us, is used for the sittings of the Court of Aldermen, who, in judicial matters, form the bench of magistrates for the City, and in their more directly corporate capacity try the validity of ward elections, and claims to freedom; who admit and swear brokers, superintend prisons, order prosecutions, and perform a variety of other a.n.a.logous duties; a descent, certainly, from the high position of the ancient "ealdormen,"

or superior Saxon n.o.bility, from whom they derive their name and partly their functions. They were called "barons" down to the time of Henry I., if, as is probable, the latter term in the charter of that king refers to the aldermen. A striking proof of the high rank and importance of the individuals so designated is to be found in the circ.u.mstance that the wards of London of which they were aldermen were, in some cases at least, their own heritable property, and as such bought and sold and transferred under particular circ.u.mstances. Thus, the aldermanry of a ward was purchased, in 1279, by William Faryngdon, who gave it his own name, and in whose family it remained upwards of eighty years; and in another case the Knighten Guild having given the lands and soke of what is now called Portsoken Ward to Trinity Priory, the prior became, in consequence, alderman, and so the matter remained in Stow's time, who beheld the prior of his day riding in procession with the mayor and aldermen, only distinguished from them by wearing a purple instead of a scarlet gown.

Each of the twenty-six wards into which the City is divided elects one alderman, with the exception of Cripplegate Within and Cripplegate Without, which together send but one; add to them an alderman for Southwark, or, as it is sometimes called, Bridge Ward Without, and we have the entire number of twenty-six, including the mayor. They are elected for life at ward-motes, by such householders as are at the same time freemen, and paying not less than thirty shillings to the local taxes. The fine for the rejection of the office is 500. Generally speaking, the aldermen consist of those persons who, as common councilmen, have won the good opinion of their fellows, and who are presumed to be fitted for the higher offices.

Talking of the ancient aldermen, Kemble, in his learned work, "The Saxons in England," says:--"The new const.i.tution introduced by c.n.u.t reduced the ealdorman to a subordinate position. Over several counties was now placed one eorl, or earl, in the northern sense a jarl, with power a.n.a.logous to that of the Frankish dukes. The word ealdorman itself was used by the Danes to denote a cla.s.s--gentle indeed, but very inferior to the princely officers who had previously borne that t.i.tle.

It is under c.n.u.t, and the following Danish kings, that we gradually lose sight of the old ealdormen. The king rules by his earls and his huscarlas, and the ealdormen vanish from the counties. From this time the king's writs are directed to the earl, the bishop, and the sheriff of the county, but in no one of them does the t.i.tle of the ealdorman any longer occur; while those sent to the towns are directed to the bishop and the portgerefa, or prefect of the city. Gradually the old t.i.tle ceases altogether, except in the cities, where it denotes an inferior judicature, much as it does among ourselves at the present day."

"The courts for the City" in Stow's time were:--"1. The Court of Common Council. 2. The Court of the Lord Maior, and his brethren the Aldermen.

3. The Court of Hustings. 4. The Court of Orphans. 5. The Court of the Sheriffs. 6. The Court of the Wardmote. 7. The Court of Hallmote. 8. The Court of Requests, commonly called the Court of Conscience. 9. The Chamberlain's Court for Apprentices, and making them free."

In the Court of Exchequer, formerly the Court of King's Bench (where the Mayor's Court is still held), Stow describes one of the windows put up by Whittington's executors, as containing a blazon of the mayor, seated, in parti-coloured habit, and with his hood on. At the back of the judge's seat there used to be paintings of Prudence, Justice, Religion, and Fort.i.tude. Here there is a large picture, by Alaux, of Paris, presented by Louis Philippe, representing his reception of an address from the City, on his visit to England, in 1844. This part of the Guildhall treasures also contains several portraits of George III. and Queen Charlotte, by Reynolds' rival, Ramsay (son of Allan Ramsay the poet), and William III. and Queen Mary, by Van der Vaart. There is a pair of cla.s.sical subjects--Minerva, by Westall, and Apollo washing his locks in the Castalian Fountains, by Gavin Hamilton.

"The greater portion of the judicial business of the Corporation is carried on here; that business, as a whole, comprising in its civil jurisdiction, first, the Court of Hustings, the Supreme Court of Record in London, and which is frequently resorted to in outlawry, and other cases where an expeditious judgment is desired; secondly, the Lord Mayor's Court, which has cognisance of all personal and mixed actions at common law, which is a court of equity, and also a criminal court in matters pertaining to the customs of London; and, thirdly, the Sheriffs'

Court, which has a common law jurisdiction only. We may add that the jurisdiction of both courts is confined to the City and liberties, or, in other words, to those portions of incorporated London known respectively, in corporate language, as Within the walls and Without.

The criminal jurisdiction includes the London Sessions, held generally eight times a year, with the Recorder as the acting judge, for the trial of felonies, &c.; the Southwark Sessions, held in Southwark four times a year; and the eight Courts of Conservancy of the River."

Pa.s.sing into the Chamberlain's Office, we find a portrait of Mr. Thomas Tomkins, by Reynolds; and if it be asked who is Mr. Thomas Tomkins, we have only to say, in the words of the inscription on another great man, "Look around!" All these beautifully written and emblazoned duplicates of the honorary freedoms and thanks voted by the City, some sixty or more, we believe, in number, are the sole production of him who, we regret to say, is the late Mr. Thomas Tomkins. The duties of the Chamberlain are numerous; among them the most worthy of mention, perhaps, are the admission, on oath, of freemen (till of late years averaging in number one thousand a year); the determining quarrels between masters and apprentices (Hogarth's prints of the "Idle and Industrious Apprentice" are the first things you see within the door); and, lastly, the treasurership, in which department various sums of money pa.s.s through his hands. In 1832, the latest year for which we have any authenticated statement, the corporate receipts, derived chiefly from rents, dues, and market tolls, amounted to 160,193 11s. 8d., and the expenditure to somewhat more. Near the door numerous written papers attract the eye--the useful daily memoranda of the multifarious business eternally going on, and which, in addition to the matters already incidentally referred to, point out one of the modes in which that business is accomplished--the committees. We read of appointments for the Committee of the Royal Exchange--of Sewers--of Corn, Coal, and Finance--of Navigation--of Police, and so on. (Knight's "London," 1843.)

In other rooms of the Guildhall are the following interesting pictures:--Opie's "Murder of James I. of Scotland;" Reynolds' portrait of the great Lord Camden; two studies of a "Tiger," and a "Lioness and her Young," by Northcote; the "Battle of Towton," by Boydell; "Conjugal Affection," by Smirke; and portraits of Sir Robert Clayton, Sir Matthew Hale, and Alderman Waithman. These pictures are curious as marking various progressive periods of English art.