London in the Olden Time

DA 680 U»85 ^'l' Qass- Book 'U 8 5 I L I D I 3tt. IN THE OLDEN TIME: OR, SKETCHES OF THE ENGLISH METROPOLIS, FROM ITS ORIGIN TO THE E:nD op THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. REVISED BY D. P. KIDDER. ll^m^^oxk: PUBLISHED BY LAT^E & SCOTT, FOR THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHUECH, 200 MULBERRY-STREET. JOSEPH LONG KING, PRINTER. 1851. ^k^'^'^^ A'^^ LIBRARY. SEMINARY \ ^Fm J MVk\V» EDITOR'S PREFACE. Great cities have always been the centres of great influence among men and nations. We have only to think of Nineveh, of Babylon, of Jerusalem, of Athens, of Rome, of Paris, and of London, to call up before our minds the great focal points around which the destinies of large portions of mankind have revolved in different ages of the world. Whatever may be said of the artificial life w^hich is led in cities ; however often it may be demonstrated that the attractions and moral influence of the country are su- perior, yet men wall continue to do as they have done hitherto. They will build cities, and rush into them in the pursuits of busi- ness, of pleasure, and of renown. Christians, therefore, should not be un- mindful of cities. Our Saviour was not. He devoted a large portion of his ministry KDITOR'S PREFACE. to the cities of Palestine. The apostles la- bored much in cities, and in them planted their principal churches. The constitution of society has greatly changed in modern days ; and while it be- comes Christians to see that the gospel is preached to every creature, and furnished to every part of the world that men inhabit, they are especially called upon to do all possible good to the millions that populate the cities of the globe. We make these remarks in this connec- tion, because we intend with this volume to commence a series of books on the principal cities of modern times. London being one of the largest cities of the world, as well as one of the most in- fluential, will claim the space of two vol- umes like the present, which is from the press of the Rehgious Tract Society. Hereafter we shall publish a volume on Modern London. New- York, from the early times to the middle of the nineteenth century, will soon be in readiness. New - YorTcj January, 1851. CONTENTS. Chap. page Introduction 7 I. Roman London 13 n. Saxon London 35 m. Norman London 60 IV. London in the Fourteenth Century 86 V. London in the Fifteenth Century 113 VI. London at the Era of the Reformation 135 Vil. London under Queen Elizabeth 181 Conclusion 213 ; LONDON IN THE OLDEN TIME. INTRODUCTION. London! What pictures does that name call up ! "When one, acquainted with its scenes, sits down in retirement and silence to meditate upon the great Enghsh Babel, what visions rise before the memory and imagination ! No panorama, no succession of dissolving views, can equal them. A city is seen, which encircles with its elastic and ever-stretching belt a population of two millions. Streets, squares, circles, crescents, lanes, alleys, and other avenues for traffic and places for abode, bearing names diversified and almost numberless, spread their intersecting fibres, their complicated network, over its vast area. The silent highway of the Thames cuts in two this kingdom-like metropolis—exhibiting on its ever-flowing stream the ships of all nations, amidst a forest of masts bearing the British flag 8 Lo^"DO^" in the olden time. lined on either side its waters with docks, and wharves, and stores, rich in the treasures of com- merce ; and spanned at short intervals by bridges of various and curious construction, across which unceasing crowds of beings are ever passing. Buildings of all sorts and styles of architecture, ancient and modern, appropriated to all kinds of purposes, good and bad ; the church, the chapel, the senate-house, the literary institute, the inns of court, the hospital, the hall, the shop, the villa, the theatre, the gin-palace, the cellar, the nests of lodgings, floor on floor, cluster strangely together, and are found in close neigh- borhood within the precincts of this great city, which forms an epitome, not of the nation only, but of the world. Here Ues wealth, and there poverty ; here grandeur, there abject wretched- ness ; here purity, there licentiousness ; here re- ligion, there impiety ; here life, there death ; re- minding one of the contrasts, though of a far difi'erent order, which meet the traveler over the Alps, where on one side of his path he can touch the chilling glacier, and on the other crop the beautiful rhododendron. Worlds on worlds, in- tellectual, moral, and religious, lie compressed within this metropolitan world ; modes of existence, circles of life, distinct from each other, and hardly coming in contact. The religious world. INTRODUCTION. 9 the political world, the commercial world, the fashionable world, the literary world, the thea- trical world—all these worlds are found in Lon- don, revolving in their respective spheres, and some have so little to do with others, that what excites the most intense interest in the mind of this man is unknown to that man, as much so as if he were the inhabitant of another planet. London! What a scene of bustle, activity, eager pursuit, and conflict it is ! Men driving to and fro, each intent on his own purposes, and threading his path with an expressive eye, which reveals how much he is in earnest about his own affairs, and how little interest he has in those of the neighbors he passes by ; people making haste to be rich, and scrambling up the path to wealth with amazing agility and speed ; and others ever losing their foothold in the same difficult ascent, falling instead of mounting higher, and catching hold of this man's hand and that man's skirt, seizing on crag or twig, or anything to hang by, and after all tumbling down into ruin and poverty ; people panting after civic honors, or literary renown, or political distinction, or ecclesiastical preferment ; the votaries of pleasure, light and airy mortals, who, with a marvelous levity of thought and feeling, spend life as if they were birds or butterflies, intended by their Creator ! ! 10 LONDON IN THE OLDEN TIME. only to sing and sport away the few brief hours of their existence ; the slaves of vice, the bru- talized children of humanity, who disgrace their species, and get as near as they can to the mere animal, to the mere slug, sliming away then- being, and marking their progress through the world by the foul and offensive trail of their im- moralities—these all, and many more, are found in this great city. London by day ! What a thronged, and noisy, and hive-like place it is ! What an in- cessant flux and reflux of busy and bustling mortals! What an illustration of that Scrip- ture, in which the tumult of the people is com- pared to " the noise of the seas, the noise of the waves !'' How these human waters roll and roar along their dark and pent-up gullies ! How these streams, dashing along in different cur- rents, meet as it were in foaming conflict ! What toil of all kinds is going on from mom to eve What work for the muscle and the brain; for the hand and the head ; for the mind and the heart ! How every power is tasked to the ut- most ; every energy stretched almost to burst- ing ! What weary feet, what panting breath, what aching hands, what wornout minds, what exhausted feeling, what rest-craving, when the day is done — INTRODUCTION. 11 London by niglit, when the streets are empty and silent ; when the long hnes of lamps shine out so calmly on the quiet scene, presenting a mimic counterpart of the bright stars shining over the calm expanse of heaven ; when the pale moon looks down upon it, as if it were a city of the dead, save that now and then a stray foot- step or a solitary vehicle is heard ; when, with the exception of here and there scenes of pleasure or of vice, instances of death or affliction, cases of sleepless anxiety or of prolonged study the milhons of the population are asleep, their voices hushed, their senses closed, their minds unconscious, save of mysterious thoughts and feelings, which form to each one his own world then—worlds of dreams as numerous and distinct as there are sleepers, when some are living over the day again, and others are picturing such days as they have never seen, and never will see ; when some are sinking in unreal sorrow, and others soaring in unreal joy. London by night is, to a mind which realizes the moral and spiritual spectacle, in some respects more inter- esting than London by day. But we must leave these musings on the present state of London, and address ourselves to the subject before us. It is proposed to exhibit sketches—not finished pictures, but sketches of 12 LONDON IN THE OLDEN TIME. London in the olden time ; to recall the memory of ancient things in the minds of those acquainted with them ; and to impart ideas of them to those who have never studied the matter. The aim of the volume is to afford a descriptive ac- count of old London ; of the place, the buildings, the people, their customs and habits, their go- vernment and social life.

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