Old and New London Part 70

A short sketch of the Gresham family is here necessary, to enable us to understand the antecedents of this great benefactor of London. The family derived its name from Gresham, a little village in Norfolk; and one of the early Greshams appears to have been clerk to Sir William Paston, a judge. The family afterwards removed to Holt, near the sea.

John Gresham married an heiress, by whom he had four sons, William, Thomas, Richard, and John. Thomas became Chancellor of Lichfield, the other three brothers turned merchants, and two of them were knighted by Henry VIII. Sir Richard, the father of Sir Thomas Gresham, was an eminent London merchant, elected Lord Mayor in 1537. Being a trusty foreign agent of Henry VII., and a friend of Cromwell and Wolsey, he received from the king five several gifts of church lands. Sir Richard died at Bethnal Green, 1548-9. He was buried in the church of St.

Lawrence Jewry. Thomas Gresham was sent to Gonville College, Cambridge, and apprenticed probably before that to his uncle Sir John, a Levant merchant, for eight years. In 1543 we find the young merchant applying to Margaret, Regent of the Low Countries, for leave to export gunpowder to England for King Henry, who was then preparing for his attack on France, and the siege of Boulogne. In 1554 Gresham married the daughter of a Suffolk gentleman, and the widow of a London mercer. By her he had several children, none of whom, however, reached maturity.

It was in 1551 or 1552 that Gresham's real fortune commenced, by his appointment as king's merchant factor, or agent, at Antwerp, to raise private loans from German and Low Country merchants to meet the royal necessities, and to keep the privy council informed in the local news.

The wise factor borrowed in his own name, and soon raised the exchange from 16s. Flemish for the pound sterling to 22s., at which rate he discharged all the king's debts, and made money plentiful. He says, in a letter to the Duke of Northumberland, that he hoped in one year to save England 20,000. It being forbidden to export further from Antwerp, Gresham had to resort to various stratagems, and in 1553 (Queen Mary) we find him writing to the Privy Council, proposing to send 200 (in heavy Spanish rials), in bags of pepper, four at a time, and the English amba.s.sador at Brussels was to bring over with him 20,000 or 30,000, but he afterwards changed his mind, and sent the money packed up in bales with suits of armour and 3,000 in each, rewarding the searcher at Gravelines with new year presents of black velvet and black cloth. About the time of the Queen's marriage to Philip Gresham went to Spain, to start from Puerto Real fifty cases, each containing 22,000 Spanish ducats. All the time Gresham resided at Antwerp, carrying out these sagacious and important negociations, he was rewarded with the paltry remuneration of 1 a day, of which we often find him seriously complaining. It was in Antwerp, that vast centre of commerce, that Gresham must have gained that great knowledge of business by which he afterwards enriched himself. Antwerp exported to England at this time, says Mr. Burgon, in his excellent life of Gresham, almost every article of luxury required by English people.

Later in Queen Mary's reign Gresham was frequently displaced by rivals.

He made trips to England, sharing largely in the dealings of the Mercers' Company, of which he was a member, and shipping vast quant.i.ties of cloth to sell to the Italian merchants at Antwerp, in exchange for silks. A few years later the Mercers are described as sending forth, twice a year, a fleet of 50 or 60 ships, laden with cloth, for the Low Countries. Gresham is mentioned, in 1555, as presenting Queen Mary, as a new year's gift, with "a bolt of fine Holland," receiving in return a gilt jug, weighing 16-1/2 ounces. That the Queen considered Gresham a faithful and useful servant there can be no doubt, for she gave him, at different times, a priory, a rectory, and several manors and advowsons.

Gresham, like a prudent courtier, seems to have been one of the first persons of celebrity who visited Queen Elizabeth on her accession. She gave the wise merchant her hand to kiss, and told him that she would always keep one ear ready to hear him; "which," says Gresham, "made me a young man again, and caused me to enter on my present charge with heart and courage."

The young Queen also promised him on her faith that if he served her as well as he had done her brother Edward, and Queen Mary, her sister, she would give him as much land as ever they both had. This gracious promise Gresham reminded the Queen of years after, when he had to complain to his friend Cecil that the Marquis of Winchester had tried to injure him with the Queen.

Gresham soon resumed his visits to Flanders, to procure money, and send over powder, armour, and weapons. He was present at the funeral of Charles V., seems to have foreseen the coming troubles in the Low Countries, and commented on the rash courage of Count Egmont.

The death of Gresham's only son Richard, in the year 1564, was the cause, Mr. Burgon thinks, of Gresham's determining to devote his money to the benefit of his fellow-citizens. Lombard Street had long become too small for the business of London. Men of business were exposed there to all weathers, and had to crowd into small shops, or jostle under the pent-houses. As early as 1534 or 1535 the citizens had deliberated in common council on the necessity of a new place of resort, and Leadenhall Street had been proposed. In the year 1565 certain houses in Cornhill, in the ward of Broad Street, and three alleys--Swan Alley, Cornhill; New Alley, Cornhill, near St. Bartholomew's Lane; and St. Christopher's Alley, comprising in all fourscore householders--were purchased for 3,737 6s. 6d., and the materials sold for 478. The amount was subscribed for in small sums by about 750 citizens, the Ironmongers'

Company giving 75. The first brick was laid by Sir Thomas, June 7, 1566. A Flemish architect superintended the sawing of the timber, at Gresham's estate at Ringshall, near Ipswich, and on Battisford Tye (common) traces of the old sawpits can still be seen. The slates were bought at Dort, the wainscoting and gla.s.s at Amsterdam, and other materials in Flanders. The building, pushed on too fast for final solidity, was slated in by November, 1567, and shortly after finished.

The Bourse, when erected, was thought to resemble that of Antwerp, but there is also reason to believe that Gresham's architect closely followed the Bourse of Venice.

The new Bourse, Flemish in character, was a long four-storeyed building, with a high double balcony. A bell-tower, crowned by a huge gra.s.shopper, stood on one side of the chief entrance. The bell in this tower summoned merchants to the spot at twelve o'clock at noon and six o'clock in the evening. A lofty Corinthian column, crested with a gra.s.shopper, apparently stood outside the north entrance, overlooking the quadrangle.

The brick building was afterwards stuccoed over, to imitate stone. Each corner of the building, and the peak of every dormer window, was crowned by a gra.s.shopper. Within Gresham's Bourse were piazzas for wet weather, and the covered walks were adorned with statues of English kings. A statue of Gresham stood near the north end of the western piazza. At the Great Fire of 1666 this statue alone remained there uninjured, as Pepys and Evelyn particularly record. The piazzas were supported by marble pillars, and above were 100 small shops. The vaults dug below, for merchandise, proved dark and damp, and were comparatively valueless.

Hentzner, a German traveller who visited England in the year 1598, particularly mentions the stateliness of the building, the a.s.semblage of different nations, and the quant.i.ties of merchandise.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WREN'S PLAN FOR REBUILDING LONDON. (_See page 501._)]

Many of the shops in the Bourse remained unlet till Queen Elizabeth's visit, in 1570, which gave them a l.u.s.tre that tended to make the new building fashionable. Gresham, anxious to have the Bourse worthy of such a visitor, went round twice in one day to all the shopkeepers in "the upper p.a.w.n," and offered them all the shops they would furnish and light up with wax rent free for a whole year. The result of this liberality was that in two years Gresham was able to raise the rent from 40s. a year to four marks, and a short time after to 4 10s. The milliners'

shops at the Bourse, in Gresham's time, sold mousetraps, birdcages, shoeing-horns, lanthorns, and Jews' trumps. There were also sellers of armour, apothecaries, booksellers, goldsmiths, and gla.s.s-sellers; but the shops soon grew richer and more fashionable, so that in 1631 the editor of Stow says, "Unto which place, on January 23, 1570, Queen Elizabeth came from Somerset House through Fleet Street past the north side of the Bourse to Sir Thomas Gresham's house in Bishopsgate Street, and there dined. After the banquet she entered the Bourse on the south side, viewed every part; especially she caused the building, by herald's trumpet, to be proclaimed 'the Royal Exchange,' so to be called from henceforth, and not otherwise."

Such was the vulgar opinion of Gresham's wealth, that Thomas Heywood, in his old play, _If You know not Me, You know n.o.body_, makes Gresham crush an invaluable pearl into the wine-cup in which he drinks his queen's health--

"Here fifteen hundred pounds at one clap goes.

Instead of sugar, Gresham drinks the pearl Unto his queen and mistress. Pledge it, lords!"

The new Exchange, like the nave of St. Paul's, soon became a resort for idlers. In the Inquest Book of Cornhill Ward, 1574 (says Mr. Burgon), there is a presentment against the Exchange, because on Sundays and holidays great numbers of boys, children, and "young rogues," meet there, and shout and holloa, so that honest citizens cannot quietly walk there for their recreation, and the parishioners of St. Bartholomew could not hear the sermon. In 1590 we find certain women prosecuted for selling apples and oranges at the Exchange gate in Cornhill, and "amusing themselves in cursing and swearing, to the great annoyance and grief of the inhabitants and pa.s.sers-by." In 1592 a tavern-keeper, who had vaults under the Exchange, was fined for allowing tippling, and for broiling herrings, sprats, and bacon, to the vexation of worshipful merchants resorting to the Exchange. In 1602 we find that oranges and lemons were allowed to be sold at the gates and pa.s.sages of the Exchange. In 1622 complaint was made of the rat-catchers, and sellers of dogs, birds, plants, &c., who hung about the south gate of the Bourse, especially at exchange time. It was also seriously complained of that the bear-wards, Shakespeare's noisy neighbours in Southwark, before special bull or bear baitings, used to parade before the Exchange, generally in business hours, and there make proclamation of their entertainments, which caused tumult, and drew together mobs. It was usual on these occasions to have a monkey riding on the bear's back, and several discordant minstrels fiddling, to give additional publicity to the coming festival.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLAN OF THE EXCHANGE IN 1837.]

No person frequenting the Bourse was allowed to wear any weapon, and in 1579 it was ordered that no one should walk in the Exchange after ten p.m. in summer, and nine p.m. in winter. Bishop Hall, in his Satires (1598), sketching the idlers of his day, describes "Tattelius, the new-come traveller, with his disguised coat and new-ringed ear [Shakespeare wore earrings], tramping the Bourse's marble twice a day."

And Hayman, in his "Quodlibet" (1628), has the following epigram on a "loafer" of the day, whom he dubs "Sir Pierce Penniless," from Naish's clever pamphlet, and ranks with the moneyless loungers of St. Paul's:--

"Though little coin thy purseless pockets line, Yet with great company thou'rt taken up; For often with Duke Humfray thou dost dine, And often with Sir Thomas Gresham sup."

Here, too, above all, the monarch of English poetry must have often paced, watching the Antonios and Shylocks of his day, the anxious wistful faces of the debtors or the embarra.s.sed, and the greedy anger of the creditors. In the Bourse he may first have thought over to himself the beautiful lines in the "Merchant of Venice" (act i.), where he so wonderfully epitomises the vicissitudes of a merchant's life:--

"My wind, cooling my broth, Would blow me to an ague, when I thought What harm a wind too great might do at sea.

I should not see the sandy hour-gla.s.s run, But I should think of shallows and of flats, And see my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand, Vailing her high top lower than her ribs, To kiss her burial. Should I go to church, And see the holy edifice of stone, And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks?

Which, touching but my gentle vessel's side, Would scatter all her spices on the stream; Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks; And, in a word, but even now worth this, And now worth nothing? Shall I have the thought To think on this; and shall I lack the thought, That such a thing, bechanced, would make me sad?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FIRST ROYAL EXCHANGE.]

Gresham seems to have died before the Exchange was thoroughly furnished, for in 1610 (James I.) Mr. Nicholas Leete, Ironmonger, preferred a pet.i.tion to the Court of Aldermen, lugubriously setting forth that thirty pictures of English kings and queens had been intended to have been placed in the Exchange rooms, and praying that a fine, in future, should be put on every citizen, when elected an alderman, to furnish a portrait of some king or queen at an expense of not exceeding one hundred n.o.bles. The pictures were "to be graven on wood, covered with lead, and then gilded and paynted in oil cullors."

In Gresham's Exchange great precautions were taken against fire.

Feather-makers and others were forbidden to keep pans of fire in their shops. Some care was also taken to maintain honesty among the shopkeepers, for they were forbidden to use blinds to their windows, which might obscure the shops, or throw false lights on the articles vended.

On the sudden death of Sir Thomas Gresham, in 1579, it was found that he had left, in accordance with his promise, the Royal Exchange jointly to the City of London and the Mercers' Company after the decease of his wife. Lady Gresham appears not to have been as generous, single-minded, and large-hearted as her husband. She contested the will, and was always repining at the thought of the property pa.s.sing away from her at death.

She received 751 7s. per annum from the rent of the Exchange, but tried hard to be allowed to grant leases for twenty-one years, or three lives, keeping the fines to herself; and this was p.r.o.nounced by the Council as utterly against both her husband's will and the 23rd Elizabeth, to which she had been privy. She complained querulously that the City did not act well. The City then began to complain with more justice of Lady Gresham's parsimony. The Bourse, badly and hastily built, began to fall out of repair, gratings by the south door gave way in 1582, and the clock was always out of order. Considering Lady Gresham had been left 2,388 a year, these neglects were unworthy of her, but they nevertheless continued till her death, in 1596. As the same lady contributed 100 in 1588 for the defence of the country against the Armada, let us hope that she was influenced not so much by her own love of money as the importunities of some relatives of her first husband's family.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SECOND ROYAL EXCHANGE, CORNHILL.]

"The Eye of London," as Stow affectionately calls the first Royal Exchange, rapidly became a vast bazaar, where fashionable ladies went to shop, and sometimes to meet their lovers.

Contemporary allusions to Gresham's Exchange are innumerable in old writers. Donald Lupton, in a little work called "London and the Country Carbonadoed and Quartered into Severall Characters," published in 1632, says of the Exchange:--"Here are usually more coaches attendant than at church doors. The merchants should keep their wives from visiting the upper rooms too often, lest they tire their purses by attiring themselves.... There's many gentlewomen come hither that, to help their faces and complexion, break their husbands' backs; who play foul in the country with their land, to be fair and play false in the city."

"I do not look upon the structure of this Exchange to be comparable to that of Sir Thomas Gresham in our City of London," says Evelyn, writing from Amsterdam in 1641; "yet in one respect it exceeds--that ships of considerable burthen ride at the very key contiguous to it." He writes from Paris in the same strain: "I went to the Exchange; the late addition to the buildings is very n.o.ble; but the gallerys, where they sell their pretty merchandize, are nothing so stately as ours in London, no more than the place is where they walk below, being only a low vault." Even the a.s.sociations which the Rialto must have awakened failed to seduce him from his allegiance to the City of London. He writes from Venice, in June, 1645: "I went to their Exchange--a place like ours, frequented by merchants, but nothing so magnificent."

During the Civil War the Exchange statue of Charles I. was thrown down, on the 30th of May, 1648, and the premature inscription, "Exit tyrannorum ultimus," put up in its place, which of course was removed immediately after the Restoration, when a new statue was ordered. The Acts for converting the Monarchy into a Commonwealth were burnt at the Royal Exchange, May 28, 1661, by the hands of the common hangman.

Samuel Rolle, a clergyman who wrote on the Great Fire, has left the following account of this edifice as it appeared in his day:--"How full of riches," he exclaims, "was that Royal Exchange! Rich men in the midst of it, rich goods both above and beneath! There men walked upon the top of a wealthy mine, considering what Eastern treasures, costly spices, and such-like things were laid up in the bowels (I mean the cellars) of that place. As for the upper part of it, was it not the great storehouse whence the n.o.bility and gentry of England were furnished with most of those costly things wherewith they did adorn either their closets or themselves? Here, if anywhere, might a man have seen the glory of the world in a moment. What artificial thing could entertain the senses, the fantasies of men, that was not there to be had? Such was the delight that many gallants took in that magazine of all curious varieties, that they could almost have dwelt there (going from shop to shop like bee from flower to flower), if they had but had a fountain of money that could not have been drawn dry. I doubt not but a Mohamedan (who never expects other than sensual delights) would gladly have availed himself of that place, and the treasures of it, for his heaven, and have thought there was none like it."

In 1665, during the Plague, great fires were made at the north and south entrances of the Exchange, to purify the air. The stoppage of public business was so complete that gra.s.s grew within the area of the Royal Exchange. The strange desertion thus indicated is mentioned in Pepys'

"Notes." Having visited the Exchange, where he had not been for a good while, the writer exclaims: "How sad a sight it is to see the streets empty of people, and very few upon the 'Change, jealous of every door that one sees shut up, lest it should be the Plague, and about us two shops in three, if not more, generally shut up."

At the Great Fire the King and the Duke of York, afterwards James II., attended to give directions for arresting the calamity. They could think of nothing calculated to be so effectual as blowing up or pulling down houses that stood in its expected way. Such precautions were used in Cornhill; but in the confusion that prevailed, the timbers which they had contained were not removed, and when the flames reached them, "they," says Vincent, who wrote a sermon on the Fire, "quickly cross the way, and so they lick the whole street up as they go; they mount up to the top of the highest houses; they descend down to the bottom of the lowest vaults and cellars, and march along on both sides of the way with such a roaring noise as never was heard in the City of London: no stately building so great as to resist their fury; the Royal Exchange itself, the glory of the merchants, is now invaded with much violence.

When the fire was entered, how quickly did it run around the galleries, filling them with flames; then descending the stairs, compa.s.seth the walks, giving forth flaming vollies, and filling the court with sheets of fire. By and by the kings fell all down upon their faces, and the greater part of the stone building after them (the founder's statue alone remaining), with such a noise as was dreadful and astonishing."

In Wren's great scheme for rebuilding London, he proposed to make the Royal Exchange the centre nave of London, from whence the great sixty-feet wide streets should radiate like spokes in a huge wheel. The Exchange was to stand free, in the middle of a great piazza, and was to have double porticoes, as the Forum at Rome had. Evelyn wished the new building to be at Queenhithe, to be nearer the waterside, but eventually both his and Wren's plan fell through, and Mr. Jerman, one of the City surveyors, undertook the design for the new Bourse.

For the east end of the new building the City required to purchase 700 or 800 fresh superficial feet of ground from a Mr. Sweeting, and 1,400 more for a pa.s.sage. It was afterwards found that the City only required 627 feet, and the improvement of the property would benefit Mr.

Sweeting, who, however, resolutely demanded 1,000. The refractory, greedy Sweeting declared that his tenants paid him 246 a year, and in fines 620; and that if the new street cut near St. Benet Fink Church, another 1,000 would not satisfy him for his damage. It is supposed that he eventually took 700 for the 783 feet 4 inches of ground, and for an area 25 feet long by 12 wide.

Jerman's design for the new building being completed, and the royal approbation of it obtained, together with permission to extend the south-west angle of the new Exchange into the street, the building (of which the need was severely felt) was immediately proceeded with; and the foundation was laid on the 6th of May, 1667. On the 23rd of October, Charles II. laid the base of the column on the west side of the north entrance; after which he was plentifully regaled "with a chine of beef, grand dish of fowle, gammons of bacon, dried tongues, anchovies, caviare, &c, and plenty of several sorts of wine. He gave twenty pounds in gold to the workmen. The entertainment was in a shed, built and adorned on purpose, upon the Scotch Walk." Pepys has given some account of this interesting ceremony in his Diary, where we read, "Sir W. Pen and I back to London, and there saw the King with his kettle-drums and trumpets, going to the Exchange, which, the gates being shut, I could not get in to see. So, with Sir W. Pen to Captain c.o.c.kes, and thence again towards Westminster; but, in my way, stopped at the Exchange, and got in, the King being nearly gone, and there find the bottom of the first pillar laid. And here was a shed set up, and hung with tapestry, and a canopy of state, and some good victuals, and wine for the King, who, it seems, did it."

James II., then Duke of York, laid the first stone of the eastern column on the 31st of October. He was regaled in the same manner as the King had been; and on the 18th of November following, Prince Rupert laid the first stone of the east side of the south entrance, and was entertained by the City and company in the same place. (_Vide_ "Journals of the House of Commons.")

The ground-plan of Jerman's Exchange, we read in Britton and Pugin's "Public Buildings," presented nearly a regular quadrangle, including a s.p.a.cious open court with porticoes round it, and also on the north and south sides of the building. The front towards Cornhill was 210 feet in extent. The central part was composed of a lofty archway, opening from the middle intercolumniation of four Corinthian three-quarter columns, supporting a bold entablature, over the centre of which were the royal arms, and on the east side a bal.u.s.trade, &c., surmounted by statues emblematical of the four quarters of the globe. Within the lateral intercolumniations, over the lesser entrance to the arcade, were niches, containing the statues of Charles I. and II., in Roman habits, by Bushnell. The tower, which rose from the centre of the portico, consisted of three storeys. In front of the lower storey was a niche, containing a statue of Sir Thomas Gresham; and over the cornice, facing each of the cardinal points, a bust of Queen Elizabeth; at the angles were colossal griffins, bearing shields of the City arms. Within the second storey, which was of an octagonal form with trusses at the angles, was an excellent clock with four dials; there were also four wind-dials. The upper storey (which contained the bell) was circular, with eight Corinthian columns supporting an entablature, surmounted by a dome, on which was a lofty vane of gilt bra.s.s, shaped like a gra.s.shopper, the crest of the Gresham family. The attic over the columns, in a line with the bas.e.m.e.nt of the tower, was sculptured with two alto-relievos, in panels, one representing Queen Elizabeth, with attendant figures and heralds, proclaiming the original building, and the other Britannia, seated amidst the emblems of commerce, accompanied by the polite arts, manufactures, and agriculture. The height from the bas.e.m.e.nt line to the top of the dome was 128 feet 6 inches.

Within the quadrangle there was a s.p.a.cious area, measuring 144 feet by 117 feet, surrounded by a wide arcade, which, as well as the area itself, was, for the general accommodation, arranged into several distinct parts, called "walks," where foreign and domestic merchants, and other persons engaged in commercial pursuits, daily met. The area was paved with real Turkey stones, of a small size, the gift, as tradition reports, of a merchant who traded to that country.

In the centre, on a pedestal, surrounded by an iron railing, was a statue of Charles II., in a Roman habit, by Spiller. At the intersections of the groining was a large ornamented shield, displaying either the City arms, the arms of the Mercers' Company, viz., a maiden's head, crowned, with dishevelled hair; or those of Gresham, viz., a chevron, ermine, between three mullets.

On the centre of each cross-rib, also in alternate succession, was a maiden's head, a gra.s.shopper, and a dragon. The piazza was formed by a series of semi-circular arches, springing from columns. In the spandrils were tablets surrounded by festoons, scrolls, and other enrichments. In the wall of the back of the arcade were twenty-eight niches, only two of which were occupied by statues, viz., that toward the north-west, in which was Sir Thomas Gresham, by Cibber; and that toward the south-west, in which was Sir John Barnard, whose figure was placed here, whilst he was yet living, at the expense of his fellow-citizens, "in testimony of his merits as a merchant, a magistrate, and a faithful representative of the City in Parliament."

Over the arches of the portico of the piazza were twenty-five large niches with enrichments, in which were the statues of our sovereigns.

Many of these statues were formerly gilt, but the whole were latterly of a plain stone colour. Walpole says that the major part were sculptured by Cibber.

We append a few allusions to the second 'Change in Addison's works, and elsewhere.