she through the keyhole could discern something that was not commonly represented to her view, which was the upper end of the mace, but knew not what it was; however, she thought it could not be amiss to acquaint her beloved mother with what she had beheld; and with this resolve she hastens down stairs, and with a voice betwixt fear and joy she cries out, ‘O mother, mother! yonder is the king’s crown in the closet. Pray, mother, come along with me and see it.’
“The admiring mother being something surprised at her daughter’s report, as also having no good opinion of her new lodgers, makes haste, good woman, and goes to the closet-door, and opening the lock with a knife, she entered into the closet, where she soon discerned it was not a crown but a mace, and having heard that such a thing was lost, sends immediately away to acquaint my Lord Chancellor that the mace was in her house; upon which information a warrant was soon granted, and officers sent to Mr. Thomas Northy, constable of Queenhithe ward, who, with a sufficient assistance, went into Knightrider-street to their lodging, and very luckily found them, being five in number, and of both sexes, viz. three men and two women, whom they carried before the Right Worshipful Sir William Turner, who, after examination, according to justice, committed them to the common jail of Newgate.”
It was only five years before that Colonel Blood had attempted to steal the crown from the Tower, but he—more fortunate than Sadler—escaped with his life, while the latter was hanged at Tyburn; the only one, we believe, who was executed for stealing the Lord Chancellor’s mace and purses.
What melancholy processions passed through Knightrider-street, as prisoners to the Tower, the old historian Stowe mentions not: like many another ancient street, it was often the highway of merriment and misery.
St. Paul’s School was founded by the venerable Dean Colet about the year 1500, who made the Company of Mercers his trustees. The present building was erected in 1824. At the commencement of June, when Anne Boleyn passed through the City on her way from the Tower to Westminster, to be crowned, we find, in Hall’s Chronicle, that “at St. Paul’s School, on a scaffold, stood two hundred children, well appareled, who recited various English versions of the ancient poets, to the honour of the king and queen, which her grace highly commended.”
To the church of St. Austin, or Augustin, Old Change and Watling-street, was united that of St. Faith under St. Paul’s, after the Fire. The present church was built by Wren. The church of St. Faith stood in the crypt of old St. Paul’s, beneath the choir. Fuller called it the “babe of old St. Paul’s.” The author of the Ingoldsby Legends, who has never been surpassed in the art of grafting modern incident on the stem of old ballad lore, was the rector of St. Augustin’s.
To see this closely-crowded neighbourhood thoroughly would require many “ups and downs.” Old Fish-street was formerly the great fish-market of London, when Queenhithe rivalled Billingsgate, and was the greatest landing quay in the City; the church of St. Mary Somerset, built by Wren, stands here. The former church was called St. Mary’s Mounthaut, or Mounthaw, as I find it spelt in an old pamphlet, which states that Mr. Thrall was “sequestered and shamefully abused” when the clergymen of London had to make room for the Puritans. Old Fish-street-hill had then two churches, but after the Great Fire that of St. Mary’s Mounthaw was not rebuilt. This is the old Saxon name of the berry of the hawthorn, and there was a time when Old Fish-street-hill was celebrated for its hawthorns, when it was called Hagthorn-hill or Mounthaw, long before old St. Mary’s was built upon it. The pamphlet I have alluded to was printed in 1661, and is entitled, “A general Bill of the Mortality of the Clergy of London, or a brief Martyrology and Catalogue of the learned, grave, religious, and painful Ministers of the City of London, who have been imprisoned, plundered, and barbarously used, and deprived of all livelihood for themselves and their families, in the late Rebellion, for their constancy in the Protestant religion established in this kingdom, and their loyalty to the king under that grand Persecution. London: printed against Bartholom’ Day.” This pamphlet, as the date shews, was issued soon after the restoration of Charles II., no doubt with the view of giving him a broad hint that their loyalty and sufferings ought not to be forgotten in the then “good time coming.” Whether or not any thing was done for them by the “Merry Monarch,” we have no means of ascertaining. We shall occasionally refer to this curious list, to shew the sufferings of the clergy during the period of the Commonwealth.
Stowe tells us that the monuments of the old church of St. Mary Somerset were defaced; but whether by time or sacrilegious hands, he says not, nor can we now know, for the Great Fire destroyed all the traces that time had so long spared. We would rather the old church with the poetical name had been rebuilt on the ancient Hawthorn Mount than this. Stowe thinks that the old name of St. Mary Somerset was Summer Hithe. Summer and hawthorns! how we love the memory of the old historian for calling up these pleasant associations! We may be wrong in the name, but, for the sake of the poetry, we must picture the pretty Saxon maids, before London was a city, wandering down Mounthaw to Summer-wharf between long lines of hawthorn hedges, to see their lovers return from fishing in the Thames, or to watch the arrival of some corn-barque lower down the bank by Queenhithe. In Fish-street we have still a portion of the old burial-ground that belonged to St. Mary’s Mounthaw.
St. Nicholas’s Cold Abbey stands at the corner of Old Fish-street-hill, and is one of the first churches completed after the Fire. There is nothing either remarkable about this church or the neighbouring one called St. Mary’s Magdalen in Old Fish-street, except that both were rebuilt by Wren. In the pamphlet before alluded to I find the following entry: “St. Maudlin, Old Fish-street, Dr. Griffith sequestered, plundered; wife and children turned out of doors; his wife dead with grief. Mr. Weld, his curate, assaulted, beaten in the church, and turned out.” Rather rough handling of the old royalist clergymen in the stormy times of Cromwell. What talk there must have been amongst the parishioners of old St. Mary’s Magdalen, or Maudlin, when the Ironsides walked into the ancient City churches, and thus dragged out and beat the venerable pastors. These brief entries bespeak volumes; and yet we wish the details were more fully given. Some of the worthy citizens no doubt dealt a blow or two in defence of their ministers. Poor Mr. Chestlin seems to have made his escape for a time only to be recaptured. “St. Matthew’s, Friday-street, Mr. Chestlin sequestered, plundered, and imprisoned in Newgate, whence being let out, he was forced to fly, and since imprisoned again in Peter House.”
Peter House stood in Aldersgate-street, and was used by Cromwell as a prison at this period, as were also several other celebrated houses.
Friday-street was famous in former times for its taverns. Our engraving represents the Saracen’s Head, which was taken down about seven years ago.
The stone beside the door in the wall of Allhallow’s, Bread-street, and in Watling-street, tells us that here John Milton was baptised on the 20th of December, 1608—that is, in the old church before the Fire. The well-known lines, commencing “Three poets in three distant ages born,” &c., are engraved on the same stone that records the date of Milton’s baptism. We wish that all the City churches had their names engraved on some stone, like that of Allhallow’s, Bread-street. We shall scarcely be believed, when we say, that in one or two instances the people living next the church did not know its name. When we consider how many churches are crowded together here, on the space of a few acres of ground, we think it would be of service to strangers visiting London, and to thousands who reside in the City and suburbs, to have the names either legibly engraved or painted on each building. Lower down is the church of St. Mildred, also built by Wren. The interior is rather pleasing, and there is some beautiful work about the pulpit; but we know nothing of any interest connected with the church or the street, beyond that Milton was born in it, which, to dreamers like ourselves, makes Bread-street hallowed ground, although the Fire has swept away every trace of the building in which the God-gifted poet first saw the light. That this, the spot on which the great poet was born, was classic ground long centuries ago, the portion of the Roman wall, and the ancient lamp (which we have engraved), and which were discovered in Bread-street