LADY FANSHAWE.

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In Hart Street was born Lady Fanshawe, the authoress of the delightful personal "Memoirs" which bear her name. 'I was born," she writes, "in St. Olave's, Hart Street, London, in a house that my father took of the Lord Dingwall, father to the now Duchess of Ormond, in the year 1625, on our Lady Day, 25th of March." And she adds,-"In that house I lived the winter times, till I was fifteen years old and three months, with my very honoured and most dear mother." Lady Fanshawe appears to have been an intimate acquaintance of the Duchess of Ormond, who, on one occasion, told her she loved her for many reasons, and one was,

that we were both born in one chamber."*

* Lady Fanshawe's "Memoirs," pp. 50 and 81.

ALDGATE, ST. BOTOLPH'S CHURCH, LEADENHALL STREET, ST. CATHERINE CREE, &c.

DERIVATION OF THE NAME ALDGATE.-STOW THE ANTIQUARY.-HIS LABOURS ILL-REQUITED.-CRUEL EXECUTION OF THE BAILIFF OF ROMFORD.-HIS SPEECH.-CHURCH OF ST. BOTOLPH.-MONUMENTS IN THE CHURCH.DEFOE'S ACCOUNT OF THE BURIAL-PITS IN THE CHURCHYARD DURING THE PLAGUE.—WHITECHAPEL.-DUKE'S PLACE.-PRIORY OF THE HOLY TRINITY. STREET.-CHURCH OF ST. CATHERINE CREE. PERSONS BURIED THERE.-CONSECRATION OF THE CHURCH BY ARCHBISHOP LAUD. — CHURCH OF ST. ANDREW UNDERSHAFT.-MONUMENTS.-ST. MARY-AXE.LIME STREET.

-LEADENHALL

FEN

ENCHURCH STREET leads us into Aldgate, which derives its name from one of the principal gates of the city-styled in the reign of King Edgar, Ealdgate, or Oldgate-under which passed one of the Roman roads leading into London. In 1215, during the wars between King John and his barons, it was through this gate that the latter entered London in triumph; when, after having secured the other gates, and plundered the royalists and Jews, they proceeded to lay siege to the Tower. Here too, in 1471, during the wars between the White and Red Roses, the bastard Falconbridge presented himself at the head of a formidable force, consisting of freebooters and partizans of the House of Lancaster, and demanded admittance into the city. After a fierce conflict the gate was forced by some of his followers; but the portcullis having been let down, they were all killed. The portcullis was then drawn up, and the citizens sallying forth, repulsed their assailants with great slaughter.

STOW, THE ANTIQUARY.

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Among the records of the city of London is a lease granting the whole of the dwelling house above the gate of Aldgate to Geoffrey Chaucer, the poet, in 1374.

Close to the pump at Aldgate, at the junction of Leadenhall Street and Fenchurch Street, lived the indefatigable antiquary, John Stow, whose name no historian of London can inscribe without feelings of reverence and gratitude. He was bred a tailor, but gave up his occupation, and with it the means of living with ease and comfort, in order to be able to prosecute his beloved studies of history and antiquities. The manner in which his priceless labours were rewarded by his ungrateful countrymen, is well known. "It was in his eightieth year," writes Mr. D'Israeli, in his "Calamities of Authors," "that Stow at length received a public acknowledgment of his services, which will appear to us of a very extraordinary nature. He was so reduced in his circumstances that he petitioned James the First for a licence to collect alms for himself! 'as a recompense for his labour and travel of forty-five years, in setting forth the Chronicles of England, and eight years taken up in the Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, towards his relief now in his old age; having left his former means of living, and only employing himself for the service and good of his country.' Letters-patent under the Great Seal were granted. After no penurious commendation of Stow's labours, he is permitted to gather the benevolence of well-disposed people within this realm of England: to ask, gather, and take the alms of all our loving subjects.' These letters-patent were to be published by the clergy from their pulpit. They produced so little that they were renewed for another twelvemonth: one entire parish in the City contributed seven shillings and sixpence! Such, then, was the patronage received by Stow, to be a licensed beggar throughout the kingdom

334

REMARKABLE EXECUTION.

for one twelvemonth! Such was the public remuneration of a man who had been useful to his nation, but not to himself!" Stow died on the 5th of April, 1605, at the age of eighty, and was buried in the neighbouring church of St. Andrew Undershaft.

The old historian mentions a remarkable execution which he witnessed in the reign of Edward the Sixth immediately opposite to his own house in Aldgate. In those unsettled times it was a barbarous, and not uncommon practice, to put to death by martial law those who propagated rumours on subjects connected with affairs of state, whether those rumours were true or false. On the present occasion the offender was the Bailiff of Romford, in Essex. "He (the Bailiff)," writes Stow, "was early in the morning of Mary Magdalen's day, then kept holiday, brought by the Sheriffs of London and the Knight-marshal, to the well within Aldgate, there to be executed upon a gibbet, set up that morning; where, being on the ladder, he had words to this effect: Good people, I am come hither to die, but know not for what offence, except for words by me spoken yesternight to Sir Stephen, curate and preacher of this parish, which were these: He asked me, what news in the country? I answered, heavy news. Why? quoth he. It is said, quoth I, that many men be up in Essex, but, thanks be to God, all is in good quiet about us. And this was all, as God be my judge.' Upon these words of the prisoner, Sir Stephen, to avoid reproach of the people, left the City and was never heard of since amongst them to my knowledge. I heard the words of the prisoner, for he was executed upon the pavement of my door, where I then kept house." This Sir Stephen was the incendiary curate of the neighbouring church of St. Catherine Cree, whose fanatical ravings in the pulpit had recently led to the populace destroying the an

ST. BOTOLPH'S CHURCH.

335

cient and celebrated Maypole opposite the church of St. Andrew Undershaft.

On the north side of the High-street, Aldgate, stands the church of St. Botolph, dedicated to a Cornish saint, who lived about the reign of King Lucius. This church appears to have been originally founded at the time of the Norman Conquest. About the year 1418 it was enlarged and beautified at the private expense of one Robert Burford, but was shortly afterwards rebuilt by the Priory of the Holy Trinity within Aldgate, the brethren of which enjoyed the impropriation of the living. St. Botolph's escaped the great conflagration in 1666, but falling into decay in the middle of the last century, it was taken down; and between the years 1741 and 1744, the present ponderous and unsightly edifice was erected on its site.

The only monument in St. Botolph's Church of any historical interest, is that of Thomas Lord Darcy, Knight of the Garter, who was beheaded on Tower Hill for high treason in 1536. This gallant and conscientious nobleman had obtained high honours and distinctions in the reign of Henry the Seventh, and had enjoyed the confidence of his successor. Opposed, however, to the innovations of the new religion, he absented himself from Parliament rather than sanction the dissolution of the monasteries, and having subsequently joined in Ask's rebellion, was convicted on a charge of delivering up Pontefract Castle to the rebels, and led to the block. The monument to his memory stood originally in the chancel of the old church, but is now placed on the east side of the entrance front. It represents the figure of Lord Darcy, wrapped in a winding-sheet, in a recumbent posture, beneath an entablature supported by columns, and bears the following inscription :

"Here lyeth Thomas Lord Darcy of the North, and some