Читать книгу Old London Town - Will Owen - Страница 4
ОглавлениеINTRODUCTION
A sluggish river meandering through marshes to the sea, a cluster of huts and a primitive fort by Walbrook—such was old London Town when the Romans first appeared. The name is probably derived from the Celtic "Llyn," a pool (that portion of the river below London Bridge is still known as "The Pool"), and "din" or "dun," a hill or fort.
Four centuries of Roman domination and London, or Augusta, as it was then called, had become the principal port of Britain—a walled city with marsh lands surrounding it upon all sides, save one, the north, where stood a dense forest, portions of which still remain at Hampstead and Epping to delight the hearts of Bank Holiday trippers to-day. The Roman Wall, some two miles in length, is said to have been built about 360 A.D., but there is reason to believe it may be a couple of centuries older. Much of it may still be seen; the considerable length of the wall in St. Alphage Churchyard, and a bastion has been discovered quite recently when excavating for the General Post Office extension.
Many of the fragments are on private property hidden away in city cellars, and one portion of the wall I remember to have seen from the staircase window of a city rectory.
It may seem strange to find so little evidence remaining of the Roman occupation. Portions of the wall and Watling Street, a Roman bath and possibly London Stone at St. Swithin's Church, these are the only relics of that time so far as London is concerned. The explanation, however, is a simple one. We have seen that London was surrounded on every side by waste lands, and was therefore dependent for its supplies from far afield.
When the Roman legions were finally recalled owing to urgent private affairs London fell on evil times. A series of invasions of Britain, beginning with Picts and Scots and followed by Angles, Jutes and Saxons and even Irish pirates, cut off London from communication with the surrounding country. The merchants ruined and the inhabitants starved, London became desolate and deserted, the houses and quays fell into decay—Roman Augusta had disappeared. Gradually the East Saxons, forsaking their farming and nomadic life, together with some remnants of the conquered Britons, ventured back to the deserted town, and were shortly followed by foreign merchants. Trade revived and London was born again.
The history of London between 600 A.D. and the Norman Conquest is practically the history of England. It fell into the hands of the Danes and was recovered by Alfred, who made it the capital, York and Winchester having previously occupied that proud position. London was again captured by the Danes without fighting, and surrendered eventually to William of Normandy.
If there is little to remind us of the Roman occupation there is nothing at all to perpetuate the Saxon period. Saxon London was destroyed by the Great Fire of 1135 more effectually than a later London was destroyed by the fire of 1666, when, as the schoolboy stated, the city was purified by the burning of 89 churches. The principal market and trading centre of the city was Chepe—now Cheapside—and the names of the narrow streets branching off that busy highway indicate the trades that were carried on there. We still have our Bread Street, Milk Street, Fish Street and other sustaining byways.
Of Norman remains there are several. The Great White Tower, part of the Church of St. Bartholomew and St. Ethelburga's in Bishopsgate, the crypt of Bow Church and the crypt of St. John's Priory.
Across the river a ferry had existed from earliest times, and when the first London Bridge was built is impossible to say, but one is mentioned as in existence in 994. For a long time the bridges were built of timber, and an early chronicler tells us that in the year 1091 a dreadful "whirlwind coming from Africa" blew upon the city, causing immense damage and incidentally sweeping the bridge away. Another bridge was built, and forty years later was destroyed by fire. Its successor lasted thirty years, and then a stone bridge was decided upon. It took thirty-three years to build, but it served for six and a half centuries.
In Plantagenet times London was entirely dominated by the Church. There was no street without its monastery, its convent garden, with priests, friars, pardoners and other goodly folk.
From early Norman days pilgrimage had been a popular undertaking. It was an agreeable and economical way of seeing the world and obtaining absolution. Even the poorest in the land could so adventure. The pilgrim needed no money, he would receive bed, sup and breakfast at some monastery, and, once his objective was reached, he would receive absolution and return home with such a store of amazing adventures with dragons and demons and stories of one-eyed men and men with tails, to serve him the remainder of his days. The pilgrimage might be to Canterbury or Rome, or it might be farther afield even to the Holy Land.
It is safe to say that one-fourth of the population was dependent directly or indirectly upon the Church for its existence. There was the Priory of Crutched Friars behind Seething Lane, to the north of Broad Street stood the splendid house of Austin Friars. By Newgate Street was the great foundation of the Grey Friars, whose library was given by Dick Whittington. Later this became the Blue Coat School, and has now disappeared to give place to the enlarged General Post Office. Then there were White Friars, Black Friars, Templars and Carmelites. Scarcely anything of their buildings remain, but of two of the priories we still have the wonderful Church of St. Bartholomew and the Gate of St. John. The Carthusians were situated to the north of St. Bartholomew, and the Charterhouse is still with us.
In addition to the religious houses London contained a vast number of palaces. These were the town houses of great nobles, and large enough to accommodate their numerous retinues, consisting of anything from four to eight hundred men. The rich merchants, too, had their mansions not less grand than those of the nobles, and it must not be supposed that these city magnates were of lowly origin. They were almost invariably the younger sons of good families. Dick Whittington was the son of a west-country knight, and his master, Sir John Fitz-Warren, was his cousin.
By the time good Queen Bess had arrived the power of the Church had waned considerably. The monasteries, priories and churches had mostly vanished under Henry's persuasive influence. The memories of Grey Friars still survive in the foundation of Christ's Hospital that sprang from its ruin, but all that remains of the Black Friars is a dismal underground station and an unpicturesque but very useful bridge.
The White Friars and Carmelites remain as street names only.
As the Church and the old feudal system weakened so grew the power of the city merchants and their city companies. In these latter days the powers wielded by the city companies have sadly diminished, and their functions now are mainly gastronomical and charitable. Some of the companies, indeed, have disappeared. What has become of the Whitawers, the Fustarers and the Megusers? Moreover, what was a Whitawer, a Fustarer or a Meguser? Others, such as the Bow String Makers, the Bowyers and the Patten Makers, have outlasted the trades they served.
Many of their halls are of great beauty, but are not open to the general public.
During the spacious days of Elizabeth the trade of London Town increased amazingly, and much of this was due to Sir Thomas Gresham, a Lombard Street shopkeeper—a mercer and a merchant adventurer. His shop bore the sign of a grasshopper, his family crest, and you will find a copy of the old sign in Lombard Street to-day.
London Town in the time of Charles II. was much as it had been during Elizabeth's reign. Apart from the licentiousness of the Court the townspeople lived much as before, but two events occurred at this time to change completely the appearance of the city—the Plague and the Fire. It was not the first plague that had visited London, nor was it the first fire. The plagues of 1407 and 1517 are said to have killed half the population. Read Defoe's account of the Plague, and you will realise the awful and deserted aspect of the town—the streets empty but for the carts gathering up the victims, the deserted churches, grass growing in the streets, and the roads leading to the country covered with fugitives.
And then the fire that followed.
It began early in the morning of a Sunday in September, 1666, in the house of a baker in Pudding Lane, where the Monument now stands. All the houses in the street and round about were of wood covered with pitch, and the projecting upper storeys nearly met. It was the most densely-populated part of the city, and the neighbouring warehouses were stored with oil, pitch and tar, wine and brandy and other combustibles. The baker's shop was stored with faggots and brushwood, so that everything that could be done to make the fire a success seems to have been done and done well. Altogether the fire destroyed five-sixths of the city, including St. Paul's Cathedral, four of the city gates, and some 132,000 houses, and the value of the property consumed amounted to £10,000,000.
Of the new London that arose possibly the most interesting change was the setting up of coffee-houses for the first time. Here assembled the wits of the day, together with their satellites, to discuss any and everything that called for argument. As coffee declined in favour these developed more into taverns and chop-houses.
The gates of London were still standing and were closed at sunset, but were abolished in 1760 and the materials sold. On the front of St. Dunstan's in Fleet Street is a statue of Queen Elizabeth which formerly adorned the Lud Gate.
At this time shops were built against the church walls, as you will still find them against St. Ethelburga's in Bishopsgate Street. Every shop front had its projecting sign hanging precariously over the pedestrian. The roads and pavings were of the petrified kidney pattern with posts to indicate where the paving began.
By all accounts it must have been an anxious time for the citizen of London Town in the days of the Georges. Pickpockets, swaggering bullies and highwaymen abounded, and mad bulls were constantly encountered in the streets, the noise must have been deafening, and in wet weather the rain spouts on the roofs deluged the passers-by.
The great city merchants still lived in town, but the nobles had long since departed. The gardens at Ranelagh and Vauxhall were popular resorts, and the public hangings at Newgate attracted in some strange fashion our rude forefathers. Gibbets were to be seen everywhere, and some remained until the early nineteenth century. It was a time of rough-and-ready justice, or rather injustice. The punishment did not necessarily fit the crime. What do you think of a law that condemned to hanging two children who had stolen a purse containing a couple of shillings? Stocks and the pillory were everywhere, and flogging in the Army and Navy was a matter of course at a time when the press-gang was an institution.
The public were admitted to Bedlam to see the lunatics at one penny each, and from this source the hospital derived an income of £400 a year. Of that home from home, the Fleet Prison, Dickens has given us a perfect picture in the Pickwick Papers. It has long since been swept away, together with much that he described so vividly, but here and there an odd corner still remains exactly as he saw it—a relic of old London Town.
