Old and New London Part 64

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

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE "MARIA WOOD." (_See page 447._)]

That clever but unscrupulous tuft-hunter and smart parvenu, Theodore Hook, who talked of Bloomsbury as if it was semi-barbarous, and of citizens (whose wine he drank, and whose hospitality he so often shared) as if they could only eat venison and swallow turtle soup, has left a sketch of the short-lived dignity of a mayor, which exactly represents the absurd caricature of City life that then pleased his West-end readers, half of whom had derived their original wealth from the till.

Scropps, the new Lord Mayor, cannot sleep all night for his greatness; the wind down the chimney sounds like the shouts of the people; the c.o.c.ks crowing in the morn at the back of the house he takes for trumpets sounding his approach; and the ordinary incidental noises in the family he fancies the pop-guns at Stangate announcing his disembarcation at Westminster. Then come his droll mishaps: when he enters the state coach, and throws himself back upon his broad seat, with all imaginable dignity, in the midst of all his ease and elegance, he snaps off the cut-steel hilt of his sword, by accidentally b.u.mping the whole weight of his body right--or rather, wrong--directly upon the top of it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The jewelled collar (date 1534)," says Mr. Timbs, "is of pure gold, composed of a series of links, each formed of a letter S, a united York and Lancaster (or Henry VII.) rose, and a ma.s.sive knot. The ends of the chain are joined by the portcullis, from the points of which, suspended by a ring of diamonds, hangs the jewel. The entire collar contains twenty-eight SS, fourteen roses, thirteen knots, and measures sixty-four inches. The jewel contains in the centre the City arms, cut in cameo of a delicate blue, on an olive ground. Surrounding this is a garter of bright blue, edged with white and gold, bearing the City motto, 'Domine, dirige nos,' in gold letters. The whole is encircled with a costly border of gold SS, alternating with rosettes of diamonds, set in silver.

The jewel is suspended from the collar by a portcullis, but when worn without the collar, is hung by a broad blue ribbon. The invest.i.ture is by a ma.s.sive gold chain, and, when the Lord Mayor is re-elected, by two chains."

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

There are four swords belonging to the City of London. The "Pearl"

sword, presented by Queen Elizabeth when she opened the first Royal Exchange, in 1571, and so named from its being richly set with pearls.

This sword is carried before the Lord Mayor on all occasions of rejoicing and festivity. The "Sword of State," borne before the Lord Mayor as an emblem of his authority. The "Black" sword, used on fast days, in Lent, and at the death of any of the royal family. And the fourth is that placed before the Lord Mayor's chair at the Central Criminal Court.

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

"The 'gondola,' known as the 'Lord Mayor's State Barge,'" says "Aleph,"

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

FOOTNOTES:

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

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

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

SAXON LONDON.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is supposed that the Saxon kings dwelt in a palace on the site of the Baynard's Castle of the Middle Ages, which stood at the river-side just west of St. Paul's, although there is little proof of the fact. But we get on the sure ground of truth when we find Edward the Confessor, one of the most powerful of the Saxon kings, dwelling in saintly splendour at Westminster, beside the abbey dedicated by his predecessors to St.

Peter. The combination of the palace and the monastery was suitable to such a friend of the monks, and to one who saw strange visions, and claimed to be the favoured of Heaven. But beyond and on all sides of the Saxon palace everywhere would be fields--St. James's Park (fields), Hyde Park (fields), Regent's Park (fields), and long woods stretching northward from the present St. John's Wood to the uplands of Epping.

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

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

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

In the earlier time London fluctuated, according to one of the best authorities on Saxon history, between an independent mercantile commonwealth and a dependency of the Mercian kings. The Nors.e.m.e.n occasionally plundered and held it as a _point d'appui_ for their pirate galleys. Its real epoch of greatness, however ancient its advantage as a port, commences with its re-conquest by Alfred the Great in 886.

Henceforward, says that most reliable writer on this period, Mr.

Freeman, we find it one of the firmest strongholds of English freedom, and one of the most efficient bulwarks of the realm. There the English character developed the highest civilisation of the country, and there the rich and independent citizens laid the foundations of future liberty.

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

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

In 982 (Ethelred II.), London, still a mere cl.u.s.ter of wooden and wattled houses, was almost entirely destroyed by a fire. The new city was, no doubt, rebuilt in a more luxurious manner. "London in 993,"

says Mr. Freeman, in a very admirable pa.s.sage, "fills much the same place in England that Paris filled in Northern Gaul a century earlier.

The two cities, in their several lands, were the two great fortresses, placed on the two great rivers of the country, the special objects of attack on the part of the invaders, and the special defence of the country against them. Each was, as it were, marked out by great public services to become the capital of the whole kingdom. But Paris became a national capital only because its local count gradually grew into a national king. London, amidst all changes, within and without, has always preserved more or less of her ancient character as a free city.

Paris was merely a military bulwark, the dwelling-place of a ducal or a royal sovereign. London, no less important as a military post, had also a greatness which rested on a surer foundation. London, like a few other of our great cities, is one of the ties which connect our Teutonic England with the Celtic and Roman Britain of earlier times. Her British name still remains unchanged by the Teutonic conquerors. Before our first introduction to London as an English city, she had cast away her Roman and imperial t.i.tle; she was no longer Augusta; she had again a.s.sumed her ancient name, and through all changes she had adhered to her ancient character. The commercial fame of London dates from the early days of Roman dominion. The English conquest may have caused a temporary interruption, but it was only temporary. As early as the days of aethelberht the commerce of London was again renowned. aelfred had rescued the city from the Dane; he had built a citadel for her defence, the germ of that Tower which was to be first the dwelling-place of kings, and then the scene of the martyrdom of their victims. Among the laws of aethelstan, none are more remarkable than those which deal with the internal affairs of London, and with the regulation of her earliest commercial corporations. Her inst.i.tutes speak of a commerce spread over all the lands which bordered on the Western Ocean. Flemings and Frenchmen, men of Ponthieu, of Brabant, and of Luttich, filled her markets with their wares, and enriched the civic coffers with their toils. Thither, too, came the men of Rouen, whose descendants were, at no distant day, to form a considerable element among her own citizens; and, worthy and favoured above all, came the seafaring men of the old Saxon brother-land, the pioneers of the mighty Hansa of the north, which was in days to come to knit together London and Novgorod in one bond of commerce, and to dictate laws and distribute crowns among the nations by whom London was now threatened. The demand for toll and tribute fell lightly on those whom the English legislation distinguished as the _men of the Emperor_."

[Ill.u.s.tration: BROAD STREET AND CORNHILL WARDS. (_From a Map of 1750._)]

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

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

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

In 1009 the Danes made several vain attempts on London.