THE EARLY HISTORY OF LONDON. XXI failing in its intended effect, Gloucester tried other measures to engage the aid of the citizens, and made their lord mayor Sir Edmund Shaw a privy councillor; by which means he obtained the interest of Dr. Ralph Shaw, his brother, a very eloquent and popular preacher, who abused his faculties and his calling by preaching to the citizens at St. Paul's Cross in favour of the usurper. The impression intended to have been made on the citizens, by this sermon, having failed in its object, a new expedient was resorted to. Orders were sent to the lord mayor, who had become a complete tool of the protector's, to convene without delay a common hall. This meeting was accordingly held, but Mr. Norton has rescued the citizens from a part of the obloquy that has been attached to them for this act, by the discovery* that it was a meeting out of the common course, and not regularly convened according to the statute. No entry of it is therefore to be found. in any of the city books, although every other in Richard's protectorate and reign are duly entered. The plausible speech of the Duke of Buckingham and the conduct of the citizens on this memorable occasion are well known and need not be repeated in this brief abstract of civic history. The result was, that Richard was proclaimed king, and his first act of sovereignty was the murder of his two nephews, one of them being his king, to whom he had twice sworn fealty. The great body of the citizens returned to their homes in grief, but the members of the corporation attended the usurper's coronation, with the lord mayor as cup bearer, in great pomp. Their claim in this particular, it would appear, was formally allowed and still remains on record in the town clerk's office. The new king, Richard III., to testify his gratitude for this honour, took up his residence among the citizens at Baynard Castle. The death of Richard III., in the memorable battle of Bosworth Field, placed his successful rival, the earl of Richmond, on the throne of England, with the title of Henry VII. The first act of the new king was to enter the capital, and he was met on his way by the lord mayor, aldermen and chief citizens at Highgate, and received in Shoreditch by the principal corporate companies in their formalities. Henry, however, entered the city in a close litter, and did not condescend to court the suffrages of the corporation, whose conduct to his predecessor could not much have gratified him; but proceeded direct to St. Paul's, where he returned public thanks for his great and auspicious victory, and deposited the standards taken in the battle. Having taken up his residence at the bishop's palace, on the following day he assembled a council and solemnly renewed the oath he had previously made before the battle of Bosworth. *Norton's Com. p. 170, n. XXII A BRIEF VIEW OF In the session of parliament held in 1487-8, the jurisdiction of the lord mayor of London, and his successors, over the river Thames was confirmed; and although the citizens were liberal in their loans, benevolences and other contributions to the king's necessities, less cordiality subsisted between the monarch and his good citizens of London in this reign than in almost any other in our history. Yet upon one occasion the king gave the citizens a grand entertainment in Westminster Hall, and conferred the honour of knighthood on the lord mayor. On the 4th of October, 1501, Katherine of Arragon, infanta of Spain, landed at Plymouth, and made a grand public entry into the city on the 12th of November. The corporation received the princess with due honours and splendour, and, on the 14th of the same month, she was married in St. Paul's Cathedral to Arthur, prince of Wales, in the presence of the lord mayor and chief citizens, who were subsequently entertained in the great hall of the bishop of London's palace. The newly married couple resided for a few days in the city, and were then escorted by the lord mayor, aldermen and the corporate companies in their splendid barges to Westminster. In the year 1502 king Henry took down the old and decayed lady chapel at the east end of Westminster Abbey and a tavern that adjoined it, and erected on their sites the splendid mausoleum that bears his name. The river Fleet was also this year cleansed out, widened and made navigable to Holborn Bridge; and about five years afterwards Dean Collet founded that excellent institution St. Paul's School, which has been recently augmented, and the school house rebuilt by the Mercers' Company, his trustees. On the 22nd of April, 1509, the king died at his palace of Richmond, leaving an unexampled treasure in money, jewels and plate locked up in its vaults, and was immediately succeeded by his eldest surviving son, who was proclaimed the next day with the usual solemnities, and with the style and title of king Henry VIII. The new king, shortly after his proclamation, married the widow of his deceased brother Arthur, and proceeded with his queen from the Tower to Westminster through the city, the streets, houses and public buildings being splendidly decorated. The new king, imitating the conduct of some of the eastern monarchs, in 1510 went into the city in the garb of a yeoman of the guard, to witness the grand cavalcade of the city watch on the eve of St. John. He was so pleased with the ceremony, which, twice in every year, was accompanied by the lord mayor and city officers in state, that he returned on St. Peter's eve, with his queen and the principal nobility. The procession, which was very grand, was illuminated by nearly a thousand large lanterns fixed on the ends of long poles. The whole formed a grand sight and gave the highest satisfaction to the royal pair. THE EARLY HISTORY OF LONDON. XXIII In In this reign may be dated the commencement of what may be called an English royal navy, of ships of war, established by the government for the national defence. The fraternity of the Trinity House was instituted in 1512, and the dock yards of Woolwich and Deptford established. the following year the batteries or forts at Gravesend and Tilbury were first constructed as a defence for the upper part of the Thames. In 1523 the city ditch was again cleansed, the fortifications looked to, and other public improvements effected. In 1522 the Emperor Charles V. arrived in England on a visit to king Henry, who met him at Dover, and accompanied him to Greenwich. On their arrival in the city, the lord mayor, aldermen and sheriffs, in all their formalities, attended by the principal citizens on horseback, received them with a magnificence that would be almost incredible, did we not know from incontestible authority the pompous habits of the age of Henry VIII. The emperor was conducted to Blackfriars, and the princes and nobility of his retinue to the new palace at Bridewell. The king and queen of Denmark also paid the king a visit in this year, and were as splendidly received and lodged by the citizens. St. Peter's eve occurring during their stay, their majesties went to the King's Head in Cheapside, to witness the splendid ceremony of mustering the city watch. Shortly after this period, Henry, by the advice of his minister Wolsey, ordered a survey of the kingdom, in order to take a tenth of the property of the laity, and a fourth of that of the clergy; but the opposition raised to this measure by the citizens rendered it necessary to avoid a rigid exaction. The sum thus raised being insufficient, a parliament was summoned and met at Blackfriars on the 15th of April, 1523; but the supplies demanded were granted so unwillingly, and with such restrictions, that no parliament was called for seven years after. By an act of parliament of the fourteenth and fifteenth of Henry VIII., c. 2, the jurisdiction of the city corporations was to extend two miles. beyond the city, namely, the town of Westminster, the parishes of St. Martin in the Fields and our Lady in the Strand, St. Clements Danes without Temple Bar, St. Giles's in the Fields, St. Andrew's in Holborn, the town and borough of Southwark, the parishes of Shoreditch, Whitechapel, St. John's Street Clerkenwell, and Clerkenwell, St. Botolph without Aldgate, St. Katherines near the Tower, and Bermondsey. Such were the suburbs of our great metropolis in 1524. They were greatly detached, and the intervals were principally public fields. The Strand was then occupied by mansions and dwellings of the nobility, which were surrounded by large and splendid gardens; and a considerable portion of the parishes of St. Martin and St. Giles were literally, as they are still called, in the fields, as were also a great portion of the city of West minster, and the parishes or villages of Clerkenwell, Shoreditch, and Whitechapel, and the borough of Southwark. The plague raged so fiercely in London, towards the latter part of this year, that the King and his court removed to Eltham; Michaelmas term was adjourned, and the city was so deserted by its inhabitants, that the ensuing Christmas was denominated, from its lack of usual mirth and festivity, "the still Christmas." Wolsey being appointed ambassador extraordinary to the French court, in 1527, made a pompous departure from the city, attended by a numerous train of the chief nobility, gentry, and clergy, to the amount of twelve hundred horsemen; and in the same year two ambassadors extraordinary arrived from the court of France, and made a grand public entry into the city. They were lodged in the bishop of London's palace, and liberally entertained by the lord mayor and corporation. The rumour of the king's intended divorce from queen Katherine was so ill received by the citizens of London, on the arrival of cardinal Campeijus as joint commissioner with Wolsey for that purpose, that insurrections were apprehended. To allay this feeling, the king addressed a numerous assemblage of nobles, prelates, the lord mayor, aldermen, and principal commoners of the city, in the hall of his palace of Bridewell. The behaviour of the citizens, in the measure of Henry's attempt to throw off the power of the papal yoke, so pleased the king, that he granted them extended powers, by his last charter dated the 13th of April in the 22nd year of his reign, which is preserved in the impeximus charter of Charles II.; and commanded a general muster of the defensible men of the city, whom he reviewed in the fields between Whitechapel church and Stepney. The lord mayor, aldermen, recorder, and sheriffs, attended the muster, accoutred in white armour, and black velvet coats embroidered with the city arms, with gold chains about their necks, velvet caps on their heads, and gilt battle axes in their hands, attended by pages, servants, and a great number of the citizens on horseback superbly dressed. They passed in review before the king and his splendid court, who expressed themselves abundantly satisfied with their martial appearance. On the public declaration of the marriage of the king with Anne Boleyn, Henry ordered the lord mayor and citizens to make preparations for conducting her from Greenwich by water to the Tower; and that the city might be decorated on her proceeding the following day to Westminster, to be crowned. This was performed with all the corporation's wonted magnificence and splendour, aided by all the city companies and principal citizens. The queen was highly pleased with the magnificence of the procession, and, on her arrival, returned the mayor and citizens her sincere thanks for their pompous attendance. THE EARLY HISTORY OF LONDON. XXV An act of parliament was passed, in 1534, for paving the west-end of the high street in London, between Holborn and Holborn bridge, and also the streets in Southwark; and in the following year the common council granted two-fifteenths towards defraying the expenses of bringing water from Hackney to Aldgate, where a conduit was erected for the use of the eastern part of the city. In the same year, Henry assumed the title of supreme, head of the church; and, in order to show his title thereto, beheaded Fisher bishop of Rochester, and Sir Thomas More, for denying his supremacy. In May 1536 he imprisoned and beheaded his second queen Anne Boleyn (at which horrible murder, the lord mayor, aldermen, and sheriffs were compelled to attend), and married on the next day Jane Seymour, who died in the October following, twelve days after the birth of Prince Edward. In the year 1538 the common council passed an act for the better regulation and preservation of the navigation of the Thames; and other regulations were made by the citizens for the improvement of the city and its liberties. In the following year, the king, fearing that some of his continental neighbours, stirred up by the pope, might attack his dominions, put himself in a state to receive them :—and, among other means of defence, ordered all his subjects from the age of sixteen to sixty to be mustered. He also issued a similar commission to the lord mayor of London, Sir William Foreman, who immediately mustered the citizens of those ages at Mile-end. This was the greatest muster ever made by the citizens of London previous to those of the volunteers during the French revolutionary war, consisting of three divisions of five thousand men each, exclusive of pioneers and other attendants. They marched in martial order through the city to Westminster, where they were reviewed by the king and the nobility, who expressed great satisfaction at their splendid and soldier-like appearance. On the public entry of the Princess Anne of Cleves, Henry's new bride, she was met on Blackheath on the 3rd of January, 1540, by the king, accompanied by the lord mayor, aldermen, and citizens of London, with all the foreign merchants resident in the city, and escorted in grand state to the royal palace at Greenwich. The royal pair were conveyed in the grand city barges, with the lord mayor and chief citizens, to Westminster, where they were married, and in a few months after divorced. On the 8th of August, of the same year, Catherine Howard, to whom the king had been some time privately married, was publicly declared queen of England. About this time Robert Brocke, one of the king's chaplains, invented the method of making leaden pipes for conveying water under ground, without the use of solder, and Robert Coope, a goldsmith of the city, was the first who made them, and put the invention in practice. In 1541 an act of parliament was passed for paving the street leading from Aldgate |