London in Modern Times.
by Unknown.
INTRODUCTION.
This history of an old city opens many views into the realms of the past, crowded with the picturesque, the romantic, and the religious--with what is beautiful in intellect, sublime in feeling, n.o.ble in character--and with much, too, the reverse of all this.
Buildings dingy and dilapidated, or tastelessly modernized, in which great geniuses were born, or lived, or died, become, in connection with the event, transformed into poetic bowers; and narrow dirty streets, where they are known often to have walked, change into green alleys, resounding with richer notes than ever trilled from bird on brake.
Tales of valor and suffering, of heroism and patience, of virtue and piety, of the patriot"s life and the martyr"s death, crowd thickly on the memory. Nor do opposite reminiscences, revealing the footprints of vice and crime, of evil pa.s.sions and false principles, fail to arise, fraught with salutary warnings and cautions. The broad thoroughfare is a channel, within whose banks there has been rolling for centuries a river of human life, now tranquil as the sky, now troubled as the clouds, gliding on in peace, or lashed into storms.
These dwelling-places of man are proofs and expressions of his ingenuity, skill, and toil, of his social instincts and habits. Their varied architecture and style, the different circ.u.mstances under which they were built, the various motives and diversified purposes which led to their erection, are symbols and ill.u.s.trations of the innumerable forms, the many colored hues, the strange gradations of men"s condition, character, habits, tastes, and feelings. Each house has its own history--a history which in some cases has been running on since an era when civilization wore a different aspect from what it does now.
What changeful scenes has many a dwelling witnessed!--families have come and gone, people have been born and have died, obedient to the great law--"the fashion of this world pa.s.seth away." Those rooms have witnessed the birth and departure of many, the death of the guilty sinner or pardoned believer, the gay wedding and the gloomy funeral, the welcome meeting of Christmas groups around the bright fireside, and the sad parting of loved ones called to separate into widely divergent paths. Striking contrasts abound between the outward material aspect and the inward moral scenery of those habitations. In this house, perhaps, which catches the pa.s.senger"s eye by its splendor, through whose windows there flashes the gorgeous light of patrician luxury, at whose door lines of proud equipages drive up, on whose steps are marshaled obsequious footmen in gilded liveries, there are hearts pining away with ambition, envy, jealousy, fear, remorse, and agony.
In that humble cottage-like abode, on the other hand, contentment, which with G.o.dliness is great gain, and piety, better than gold or rubies, have taken up their home, and transformed it into a terrestrial heaven.
All this applies to London, and gives interest to our survey of it as we pa.s.s through its numerous streets; it clothes it with a poetic character in the eyes of all gifted with creative fancy. The poetry of the city has its own charms as well as the poetry of the country. The history of London supplies abundant materials of the character now described; indeed, they are so numerous and diversified that it is difficult to deal with them. The memorials of the mother city are so intimately connected with the records of the empire, that to do justice to the former would be to sketch the outline, and to exhibit most of the stirring scenes and incidents of the latter. London, too, is a.s.sociated closely with many of the distinguished individuals that England has produced, with the progress of arts, of commerce and literature, politics and law, religion and civilization; so that, as we walk about it, we tread on cla.s.sic ground, rich in a thousand a.s.sociations. Its history is the history of our architecture, both ecclesiastical and civil. The old names and descriptions of its streets, houses, churches, and other public edifices, aided by the few vestiges of ancient buildings which have escaped the ravages of fire, time, and ever-advancing alterations, bring before us a series of views, exhibiting each order of design, from the Norman to the Tudor era. In the streets of London, too, may be traced the progress of domestic building, from the plain single-storied house of the time of Fitzstephen, to the lofty and many-floored mansion of the fifteenth century, with its picturesque gables, ornamented front, and twisted chimneys. Then these melt away before other forms of taste and art.
In the days of Elizabeth, churches and dwellings become Italianized.
The architects under the Stuart dynasty make fresh innovation, till, during the last century, skill and genius in this department reached their culminating point. Since that period a recurrence to the study of old models has gradually been raising London to distinction, with regard to the elegance and beauty of its architectural appearance.
The history of London is the history of our commerce. Here is seen gushing up, in very early times, that stream of industry, activity, and enterprise, which from a rill has swelled into a river, and has borne upon its bosom our wealth and our greatness, our civilization, and very much of our liberty.
The London guilds and companies; the London merchant princes; the London marts and markets; the London granaries for corn; the public exchanges, built for the accommodation of money-brokers and traders long before Gresham"s time; the London port, wharfs, and docks, crowded with ships of all countries, laden with treasures from all climes; the London streets, many of which still bear the names of the trades to which they were allotted, and the mercantile purposes for which they were employed:--all these, which form so large a part of the materials, and supply so great a portion of the scenes of London history, are essentially commercial, and bring before us the progress of that industrial spirit, which, with all its failings and faults, has contributed so largely to the welfare and happiness of modern society.
The history of London is a history of English literature. Time would fail to tell of all the memorials of genius with which London abounds; memorials of poets, philosophers, historians, and divines, who have there been born, and lived, and studied, and toiled, and suffered, and died. No spot in the world, perhaps, is so rich in a.s.sociations connected with the history of great minds. There is scarcely one of the old streets through which you ramble, or one of the old churches which you enter, but forthwith there come crowding over the mind of the well-informed, recollections of departed genius, greatness, or excellence.
The history of London is the history of the British const.i.tution and laws. There thicken round it most of the great political conflicts between kings and barons, and lords and commons; between feudalism and modern liberty; between the love of ancient inst.i.tutions and the spirit of progress, from which, under G.o.d, have sprung our civil government and social order.
The history of London is the history of our religion, both in its corrupted and in its purified forms. Early was it a grand seat of Romish worship; numerous were its religious foundations in the latter part of the mediaeval age. Here councils have been held, convocations have a.s.sembled, controversies were waged, and truth exalted or depressed. Smithfield and St. Paul"s Churchyard are inseparably a.s.sociated with the Reformation. The principles proclaimed from the stone pulpit of the one could not be destroyed by the fires that blazed round the stakes of the other. The history of the Protestant Establishment ever since is involved in that of our city; places connected with its grand events, its advocates, and its ornaments, are dear to the hearts of its attached children; while other spots in London, little known to fame, are linked to the memory of the Puritans, and while reverently traced out by those who love them, are regarded as hallowed ground.
In London, too, have flourished many of the excellent of the earth; men who, amidst the engrossing cares and distracting tumults of a large metropolis, have, like Enoch, walked with G.o.d, and leavened, by virtue of their piety and prayers, the ma.s.ses around them. Here also have flourished, and still flourish, those great religious inst.i.tutions, which have made known to the remotest parts of the earth the glad tidings of the gospel, that "G.o.d so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life"--truths more precious than the merchandise of silver, and the gain whereof is greater than pure gold.
Some of the early chapters of London history we have already written;[1] we have given some sketches of its scenes and fortunes, from the time when it was founded by the Romans to what are called, with more of fiction"s coloring than history"s faithfulness, "the golden days of good queen Bess." We now resume the story, and proceed to give some account of London during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
[1] See "London in the Olden Time," No. 492 Youth"s Library.
CHAPTER I.
LONDON UNDER THE FIRST TWO MONARCHS OF THE STUART DYNASTY.
London was hugely growing and swelling on all sides when Elizabeth was on the throne, as may be seen from John Stow, from royal orders and munic.i.p.al regulations. Desperately frightened were our fathers lest the population should increase beyond the means of support, lest it should breed pestilence or cause famine. But their efforts to repress the size of the then infant leviathan, so far as they took effect, only kept crowded together, within far too narrow limits, the ever-increasing number of the inhabitants of the city, thus promoting disease, one of the greatest evils they wished to check. In spite of all restrictions, however, the growth of population, together with the impulses of industry and enterprize, would have their own way, and building went on in the outskirts in all directions. James imitated Elizabeth in her prohibitions, and the people imitated their predecessors in the disregard of them. The king was soon obliged to give way, so far as to extend the liberties of the city; and in the fifth year of his reign he granted a new charter, embracing within the munic.i.p.al circuit and jurisdiction the extra-mural parishes of Trinity, near Aldgate-street, St. Bartholomew, Little St. Bartholomew, Blackfriars, Whitefriars, and Cold Harbor, Thames-street. These grants were confirmed by Charles I., whose charter also enclosed within the city boundaries both Moorfields and Smithfield. These places rapidly lost more and more of their rural appearance, and became covered in the immediate vicinity of the old walls with a network of streets. But London as it appears on the map of that day, was still a little affair, compared with its subsequent enormous bulk. Pancras, Holloway, Islington, Kentish Town, Hampstead, St. John"s Wood, Paddington, Kilburn, and Tottenham Court, were widely separated from town by rural walks; these "ways over the country," as a poet of the day describes them, not being always safe for travelers to cross. St. Giles"s was still "in the fields," and Charing Cross looked towards the west, upon the fair open parks of the royal domain. But the Strand was becoming a place of increasing traffic, and the houses on both sides were multiplying fast. So valuable did sites become, even in the beginning of the seventeenth century, that earls and bishops parted with portions of their domains in that locality for the erection of houses, and Durham Place changed its stables into an Exchange in 1608.
Of the architecture which came into fashion in the reign of James I., three n.o.ble specimens remain in London and the neighborhood.
Northumberland House, which stands on the spot once occupied by the hospital of St. Mary, finally dissolved at the Reformation, was erected by Henry Howard, earl of Northampton, son of the poet Surrey, and originally called from him Southampton House; he died in 1614. It afterwards took the name of Suffolk House, from its coming into the possession of the earl of Suffolk; its present name was given on the marriage of the daughter of Suffolk with Algernon Percy, tenth earl of Northumberland. It was built with three sides, forming with the river, which washed its court and garden, a magnificent quadrangle. Jansen is the reputed architect, but the original front is considered to have been designed by Christmas, who rebuilt Aldersgate about the same time.
The fourth side was afterwards built by the earl of Northumberland, from a design by Inigo Jones. Holland House, at Kensington, now occupied by Lord Holland, belongs to the same period, being erected in 1607 by Sir Walter Cope, and enlarged afterwards by the Earl of Holland, from plans prepared by the ill.u.s.trious architect just named.
These structures are worthy of examination. They evince some lingering traits of the Tudor Gothic, which flourished in the middle of the former age, but exhibit the predominance of that Italian taste which had been introduced in the reign of Elizabeth, and which continued to prevail till it ended in the corrupt and debased style of the last century. The Banqueting House at Whitehall is a more imposing and splendid relic, and presents an instance of the complete triumph of the Italian school of architecture over its predecessors. It was designed by Inigo Jones in the maturity of his genius, and forms only a small part of a vast regal palace, of which the plans are still preserved.
The exterior buildings were to have measured eight hundred and seventy-four feet on the east and west sides, and one thousand one hundred and fifty-two on the north and south. The Banqueting House was finished in 1619, and cost 17,000. It is curious to learn, that the great "architect"s commission" amounted to no more than 8_s._ 1_d._ a day as surveyor, and 46 a year for house-rent, a clerk, and other expenses. It may be added, that further specimens of this architecture and sculpture of that period can be seen in some parts of the Charter House.
Generally, it may be observed, London retained much of its ancient architectural appearance till it was destroyed by the fire. Old public buildings were still in existence; Gothic churches lifted up their gray towers and spires, and vast numbers of the houses of the n.o.bility and rich merchants of a former age displayed their picturesque fronts, and opened their capacious hospitable halls; while the new habitations of common citizens were usually built in the slightly modified style of previous times, with stories projecting one above another, adorned with oak carvings or plastic decorations. Royal injunctions were repeatedly issued to discontinue this sort of building, and to erect houses of stone or brick. A writer of the day affords many peeps into the state of London at the time we now refer to. He describes ladies pa.s.sing through the Strand in their coaches to the china houses or the Exchange. He tells of "a rare motion, or puppet-show," to be seen in Fleet-street, and of one representing "Nineveh, with Jonah and the whale," at Fleet-bridge. Indeed, this was the thoroughfare or the grand place for the quaint exhibitions of the age. Cold Harbor is described as a resort for spendthrifts, Lothbury abounded with coppersmiths, Bridge-row was rich in rabbit-skins, and Panyer"s-alley in tripe. So nearly did the houses on opposite sides of the way approach together, that people could hold a _tete a tete_ in a low whisper from each other"s windows across the street. From another source we learn that dealers in fish betook themselves to the Strand, and there blocked up the highway. "For divers years of late certain fishmongers have erected and set up fish-stalls in the middle of the street in the Strand, almost over against Denmark House, all which were broken down by special commission this month of May, 1630--lest, in short s.p.a.ce, they might grow from stalls to sheds, and then to dwelling-houses, as the like was in former times in Old Fish-street, and in St. Nicholas"s shambles, and other places."[1]
It may be added, that it was still, at this period, the custom for persons of a similar trade to occupy the same locality. "Then," says Maitland, in his History of London, "it was beautiful to behold the glorious appearances of goldsmiths" shops on the south row of Cheapside, which in a continued course reached from Old Change to Bucklersbury, exclusive of four shops only of other trades in all that s.p.a.ce." This "unseemliness and deformity," as his majesty was pleased to call it in an order of council in 1629, greatly provoked the royal displeasure; yet in spite of efforts to the contrary from that high quarter, not only did the four obnoxious tradesmen keep their ground, but a few years after the king had to complain of greater irregularities. Four and twenty houses, he affirmed, were inhabited by divers tradesmen, to the beclouding of the glory of the goldsmiths, and the disturbance of his majesty"s love of order and uniformity. He went so far as to threaten the imprisonment of the alderman of the ward, if he would not see to this matter, and remove the offenders. It is said of Charles V., that after he resigned his crown, he amused himself by trying to make several clocks keep the same time, and on the failure of his experiment observed, that if he could not accomplish that, no wonder he had not succeeded in bringing his numerous subjects into a state of ecclesiastical conformity. Charles I. might, from his inability to make men of the same trade live together in one row, have learned a similar lesson. This trifling conflict exhibits no unapt similitude of one of the aspects of the great evil conflict, the edge of which he was then approaching. Other street irregularities were loudly complained of by the lord mayor. Notwithstanding the numerous laws made to restrain them from so doing, bakers, butchers, poulterers, and others, would persist in enc.u.mbering the public thoroughfares with their stalls and vendibles.
London, during the reign of the first James and Charles, was a sphere of commercial activity. Monopolies and patents did, it is true, greatly cripple the movements of trade. Nothing scarcely could be done without royal permission, for which large sums of money had to be paid.
It was complained of, that "every poor man that taketh in but a horse on a market-day, is presently sent up for to Westminster and sued, unless he compound with the patentees (of inns) and all ancient innkeepers; if they will not compound, they are presently sued at Westminster for enlargement of their house, if they but set up a post, or a little hovel, more than of ancient was there." Yet the very patents sought and granted for exclusive trades and manufactures, though tending to diminish commerce by fettering it, are proofs of demand and consumption, and of the industrial energy of the age. These monopolies were bestowed on courtiers and n.o.blemen, but still, no doubt, some of the citizens of London were employed in their management. Of the wealth yielded by commerce, in spite of these restrictions, ample proof was given in the supplies yielded repeatedly to the exorbitant demands of the crown. Both James and Charles knew what it was to have an empty exchequer, and in their emergencies they usually repaired to the good city of London as to a perfect California.
Loan on loan was obtained. These demands, like leeches, sucked till one would have supposed they had drained the body munic.i.p.al; but soon its veins appear to have refilled, and the circulation of wealth went briskly on. One of the most remarkable enterprises in the reign of James I. was that of Sir Hugh Myddelton, who in 1608 began, and in 1613 finished his project of providing London with water, by means of the ca.n.a.l commonly called the New River. The importance of this laborious and expensive achievement, which reflects great honor on its originator, can be estimated sufficiently only after remembering how difficult, if not impossible almost, it was before to obtain a large supply of the indispensible element in a state at all approaching purity. The opening of the river and the filling of the basin formed a very splendid gala scene, the laborers being clothed in goodly apparel, with green caps, and at a given signal opening the sluices, with the sound of drums and trumpets, and the acclamations of the people; the lord mayor and corporation being present to behold the ceremony.
In the train of wealth came indulgence and luxury. Sad lamentations were expressed on account of the extravagance of the upper cla.s.ses, who spent their money in the city on "excess of apparel, provided from foreign parts to the enriching of other nations, and the unnecessary consumption of the treasures of the realm, and on other vain delights and expenses, even to the wasting of their estates." London, during the sitting of the law courts, seems to have been deluged with people, who came up from the country, and vied with each other in their expensive mode of living; so that, at the Christmas of 1622, the monarch, with a very paternal care of his subjects, ordered the country n.o.bility and gentry forthwith to leave the metropolis, and go home and keep hospitality in the several counties. St. Paul"s Cathedral was desecrated at this time, by its middle walk being made a lounging and loitering place for the exhibition of extravagant fashions, and for indulgence in all kinds of pursuits. There the wealthy went to exhibit their riches, and the needy to make money, the dissolute to enjoy their pleasures, the mere idler to while away his time. Bishop Earle, in his Microcosmographic, published in 1628, gives the following description of the place, and thereby throws light on the habits of the Londoners: "It is the land"s epitome, or you may call it the lesser isle of Great Britain. It is more than this; the world"s map, which you may here discern in its perfectest motion justling and turning. It is a heap of stones, and men with a vast confusion of languages; and, were the steeple not sanctified, nothing liker Babel. The noise in it is like that of bees, a strange humming or buz mixed of walking, tongues, and feet. It is a kind of still roar or loud whisper. It is the great exchange of all discourse, and no business whatsoever but is here stirring and a-foot. It is the synod of all pates politic, jointed and laid together in the most serious posture, and they are not half so busy at the parliament. It is the market of young lecturers, whom you may cheapen here at all rates and sizes. It is the general mint of all famous lies, which are here, like the legends of popery, first coined and stamped in the church. All inventions are emptied here, and not few pockets. The best sign of a temple in it is, that it is the thieves" sanctuary, which rob more safely in a crowd than a wilderness, while every searcher is a bush to hide them. The visitants are all men without exception, but the princ.i.p.al inhabitants and possessors are state knights and captains out of service--men of long rapiers and breeches, which after all turn merchants here and traffic for news.
Some make it a preface to their dinner, and travel for a stomach; but thrifty men make it their ordinary, and board here very cheap."
Riding about in coaches, as well as walking in smart array about St.
Paul"s, was a method of display which those who could afford it were very fond of. Hackney coaches made their appearance in 1625, and so greatly did they multiply, that the king, the queen, and the n.o.bility, could hardly get along; while, to add to the annoyance, the pavements were broken up, and provender much advanced in price. "Wherefore,"
says a proclamation, "we expressly command and forbid that no hackney or hired coaches be used or suffered in London, Westminster, or the suburbs thereof, except they be to travel at least three miles out of the same. And also that no person shall go in a coach in the said streets, except the owner of the coach shall constantly keep up four able horses for our service when required."
The increasing wealth of the citizens made them covetous of honor, and king James, to replenish his exhausted coffers, was willing to sell them t.i.tles of knighthood. The attainment of these distinctions led to some curious displays of human vanity, and excited those mean jealousies which our fallen and debase nature is so apt to cherish. It was a question keenly agitated among the civic dignitaries and their ladies,--Whether a knight commoner should rank before an unt.i.tled alderman--whether a junior alderman just knighted should take precedence of a senior brother, without that distinction, who had long pa.s.sed the chair? A marshal"s court was at length held to decide the matter, and it was arranged that precedence in the city should be attached to the aldermanic office, rather than the knightly name--an instance of flattering respect to munic.i.p.al rank.
While the wealthier cla.s.ses were closely pressing on the heels of their more aristocratic neighbors, the humbler orders were, in their own way, seeking to imitate their superiors. The pride of dress was generally indulged in, and manifested, as is always the case, in times and countries distinguished by mercantile activity. To check extravagance in this respect, sumptuary laws were adopted, after the fashion of former ages, and with a like unsuccessful result. With tailor-like minuteness, the dress of the inferior citizens was prescribed. No apprentice was to wear a hat which cost more than five shillings, or a neck-band that was not plainly hemmed. His doublet was to be made of Kersey fustian, sackcloth, canvas, or leather, of two shillings and sixpence a yard, and under; his stockings to be of woolen, and his hair to be cut short and decent. Like minute directions were issued relative to the attire of servant maids. Linen was to be their clothing, and that not to exceed five shillings an ell.
Pageants, which had been so common in the days of the Tudors, reached an unexampled stage of extravagant and absurd display under the first two monarchs of the house of Stuart. Even grave lawyers, including the great Mr. Selden himself, took part in getting up these exhibitions; and a particular account is given of a masquerade of their devising, which was performed at the expense of the inns of court, before king Charles, in 1633.
Liveries, and dresses of gold and silver, glittering in the light of torches, horses richly caparisoned, and chariots sumptuously fitted up, were set off by contrast with beggars and cripples, who were introduced in the procession, riding on jaded hacks. Very odd devices, ill.u.s.trative of the taste of the period, and of the way in which satirical feelings found vent, through the medium of emblematical characters, were combined with the other quaint arrangements of this show, such as boys disguised as owls and other birds, and persons representing the patented monopolists, who were extremely unpopular. A man was harnessed with a _bit_ in his mouth, to denote a projector who wished to have the exclusive manufacture of that article; another, with a bunch of carrots on his head and a capon on his wrist, caricatured some one who wanted to engross the trade of fattening birds upon these vegetables. The object was to convey to the king an idea of the ridiculous nature of many of the monopolies then conferred. All sorts of pageants and shows, with a dramatic cast in them, were exhibited at Whitehall under royal patronage, and filled the edifice with revelry and riot at Christmas and other festivals. The genius of Inigo Jones was for many years chained down to the invention of scenery and decoration for these trifles, while Ben Jonson exercised his muse in writing verses and dialogues for the masquerades.
At a later period of the reign of Charles I., the year 1638, there was much excitement produced in London by the grand entry of Mary de"Medici, mother of the queen Henrietta, upon which occasion a spectacle of unusual grandeur was exhibited. A very full account of this was published by the Historiographer of France, the Sieur de la Sierre.
After detailing the order of procession, reporting the speeches delivered, and describing the rooms and furniture of the palace, and the manner of the reception of the queen-mother by her daughter Henrietta, the author dwells with wonderful delight on the public illuminations and fireworks on the evening of the day: "For the splendor of an infinite number of fireworks, joined to that of as many stars, which shone forth at the same time, both the heavens and the earth seemed equally filled with light. The smell had all its pleasures of the cinnamon and rosemary wood, which were burning in a thousand places, and the taste was gratified by the excellence of all sorts of wine, which the citizens vied with each other in presenting to pa.s.sengers, in order to drink together to their majesties" health."
"Represent to yourself that all the streets of this great city were so illuminated by an innumerable number of fires which were lighted, and by the same quant.i.ty of flambeaux with which they had dressed the balconies and windows, and from afar off to see all this light collected into one single object, one could not consider it but with great astonishment."
These festive transactions on the surface of London society little indicated the awful convulsion that was near at hand. In the chronicles of London pageantry, the waters look calm and bright, and no stormy petrel flaps his wing as an omen of an approaching tempest. But a time of controversy and confusion was near. A great struggle was impending, both political and religious. What has just been noticed of court and civic life was but
"The torrent"s smoothness ere it dash below."
In some departments of London history, however, premonitions might have been discovered of an approaching crisis. The anti-papal feelings of the people had been aroused by the treaties between James and the king of Spain, and the projected marriage of prince Charles with the infanta. So turbulent was popular emotion on this subject, that on one occasion the Spanish amba.s.sador was a.s.sailed in the streets. When, in the reign of Charles I., ma.s.s was celebrated in the amba.s.sador"s chapel, and English papists were allowed to join in the ceremony, an attack was made upon the house of the emba.s.sy, and the mob threatened to pull it down. But a far deeper and stronger impression was produced upon the minds of sound Protestants by the proceedings of archbishop Laud and his friends. The consecration of St. Catherine Cree church, on the north side of Leadenhall-street, was attended by ceremonies so closely approximating to those of Rome, as to awaken in a large portion of the clergy and laity most serious apprehension. The excitements of later times on similar grounds find their adequate type and representation in the troubled thoughts and agitated bosoms of a mult.i.tude of Londoners in the early part of the year 1631. It was a remarkable era in the ecclesiastical annals of London. The church having been lately repaired, Laud, then bishop of London, came to consecrate it. "At his approach to the west door," says Rushworth, "some that were prepared for it cried, with a loud voice, "Open, open, ye ever-lasting doors, that the king of glory may enter in." And presently the doors were opened, and the bishop, with three doctors and many other princ.i.p.al men, went in, and immediately falling down upon his knees, with his eyes lifted up, and his arms spread abroad, uttered these words, "This place is holy, this ground is holy--in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I p.r.o.nounce it holy." Then he took up some of the dust, and threw it up into the air several times, in his going up towards the church. When they approached near to the rail and communion table, the bishop bowed towards it several times, and returning they went round the church in procession, saying the hundredth Psalm, after that the nineteenth." Then cursing those who should profane the place, and blessing those who built it up and honored it, he consecrated, after sermon, the sacrament in the manner following: "As he approached the communion table, he made several lowly bowings, and coming up to the side of the table, where the bread and wine were covered, he bowed several times, and then, after the reading of many prayers, he came near the bread, and gently lifted up the corner of the napkin wherein the bread was laid; and when he beheld the bread he laid it down again, flew back a step or two, bowed three several times towards it, then he drew near again, and opened the napkin, and bowed as before. Then he laid his hand on the cup which was full of wine, with a cover upon it, which he let go, went back, and bowed thrice toward it; then he came near again, and lifted up the cover of the cup, looked into it, and seeing the wine he let fall the cover again, retired back, and bowed as before: then he received the sacrament, and gave it to many princ.i.p.al men; after which many prayers being said, the solemnity of the consecration ended." The bishop of London consecrated St. Giles"s church in the same manner, and on his translation to Canterbury, studiously restored Lambeth chapel, with its Popish paintings and ornaments. The displeasure awakened by these superst.i.tious formalities and Popish tendencies was not confined to men of extreme opinions. The moderate, amiable, but patriotic Lord Falkland, the brightest ornament on the royalist side in the civil war, sympathized with the popular displeasure, and thus pertinently expressed himself in a speech he made in the House of Commons: "Mr.
Speaker, to go yet further, some of them have so industriously labored to deduce themselves from Rome, that they have given great suspicion that in grat.i.tude they desire to return thither, or at least to meet it half-way; some have evidently labored to bring in an English, though not a Roman Popery. I mean not only the outside and dress of it, but equally absolute, a blind dependence of the people on the clergy, and of the clergy on themselves; and have opposed the papacy beyond the seas, that they might settle one beyond the water, (_trans Thamesin_--beyond the Thames--at Lambeth.) Nay, common fame is more than ordinarily false, if none of them have found a way to reconcile the opinions of Rome to the preferments of England, and be so absolutely, directly, and cordially Papists, that it is all that 1,500 a year can do to keep them from confessing it." This fondness for Romish ceremonies, and these notions of priestly supremacy, cherished and expressed by Laud and his party, were connected with the intolerant treatment of those ministers who were of the Puritan stamp. Some of them were silenced and even imprisoned. Mr. Burton, the minister of Friday-street, preached and published two sermons in the year 1633 against the late innovations. For this he was brought before the High Commission Court, and imprisoned.
About the same time, Prynne, a barrister of Lincoln"s Inn, was imprisoned, and had his ears cut off, for writing against plays and masks; and Dr. Bastwick was also confined in jail for writing a book, in which he denied the divine right of the order of bishops above presbyters. These men were charged with employing their hours of solitude in the composition of books against the bishops and the spiritual courts, and for this were afresh arraigned before the arbitrary tribunal of the Star Chamber. "I had thought," said lord Finch, looking at the prisoner, "Mr. Prynne had no ears, but methinks he has ears." This caused many of the lords to take a closer view of him, and for their better satisfaction the usher of the court turned up his hair, and showed his ears; upon the sight whereof the lords were displeased they had been no more cut off, and reproached him. "I hope your honors will not be offended," said Mr. Prynne; "pray G.o.d give you ears to hear."[2] The sentence pa.s.sed was, that the accused should stand in the pillory, lose their ears, pay 5,000, and be imprisoned for life. When the day for executing it came, an immense crowd a.s.sembled in Palace-yard, Westminster. It was wished that the crowd should be kept off. "Let them come," cried Burton, "and spare not that they may learn to suffer." "Sir," cried a woman, "by this sermon G.o.d may convert many unto him." "G.o.d is able to do it, indeed," he replied. At the sight of the sufferer, a young man standing by turned pale. "Son," said Burton, "what is the matter? you look so pale; I have as much comfort as my heart can hold, and if I had need of more, I should have it." A bunch of flowers was given to Bastwick, and a bee settled on it. "Do you not see this poor bee?" he said, "she hath found out this very place to suck sweet from these flowers, and cannot I suck sweetness in this very place from Christ?" "Had we respected our liberties," said Prynne, "we had not stood here at this time; it was for the general good and liberties of you all, that we have now thus far engaged our own liberties in this cause. For did you know how deeply they have encroached on your liberties, if you knew but into what times you are cast, it would make you look about, and see how far your liberty did lawfully extend, and so maintain it." The knife, the saw, the branding-iron, were put to work. Bastwick"s wife received her husband"s ears in her lap, and kissed them. Prynne cried out to the man who hacked him, "Cut me, tear me, I fear not thee--I fear the fire of h.e.l.l, not thee." Burton fainting with heat and pain, cried out, ""Tis too hot to last." It _was_ too hot to last.
Sympathy with the principles of these Puritan sufferers pervaded, to a great extent, the population of London. Side by side with, but in stern contrast to, the gay merry-makings and pageants of the Stuart age, there lay a deep, earnest, religious spirit at work, mingling with political excitement, and strengthening it. The Puritan preachers of a former age had been popular in London. Their sentiments had tended greatly to mould into a corresponding form the opinions, habits, and feelings of a subsequent generation. An anti-papal spirit, a love of evangelical truth, a desire for simplicity in worship, a deep reverence for the Lord"s day, and a strict morality, characterized this remarkable race of men. The strange doings of Archbishop Laud, the doctrines they heard in some of the parish churches, the profanation of the Sabbath, and the profligacy of the times, filled these worthies with deep dismay, and vexed their righteous souls. Boldly did they testify against such things; and when the Book of Sports came out, the magistrates of London had so much of the Puritan spirit in them, that they decidedly set their faces against the infamous injunctions, and went so far as to stop the king"s carriage while proceeding through the city during service-time. King James, enraged at this, swore that "he had thought there had been no kings in England but himself," and sent a warrant to the mayor, commanding that the vehicle should pa.s.s; to which his lordship, with great firmness and dignity, replied, "While it was in my power I did my duty, but that being taken away by a higher power, it is my duty to obey." In the reign of Charles, the chief magistrate issued very stringent orders in reference to the Sabbath.
The proceedings of the Star Chamber, its barbarous punishments and mutilations, with the accompaniments of fines and captivity, for conscientious adherence to what was considered the path of duty, galled the spirits and roused the indignation of many a Londoner. The citizens went home from the public execution of iniquitous sentences, from the sight of victims pilloried and mangled for their adherence to virtuous principle, with a deep disquietude of soul, which swelled to bursting as they reflected on the tragedies they had witnessed. The avenging hand of Providence on injustice and oppression was about to be manifested, visiting national iniquities with those internal calamities and convulsions which so long afflicted the land. A significant scene, prophetic of the new order of things, took place in London in the year 1640, just after the opening of the Long Parliament. Prynne, Burton, and Bastwick, were restored to liberty. Crowds went forth to meet them. "When they came near London," says Clarendon, "mult.i.tudes of people of several conditions, some on horseback and others on foot, met them some miles from town, very many having been a day"s journey; so they were brought about two o"clock of the afternoon in at Charing Cross, and carried into the city by above ten thousand persons, with boughs, and flowers, and herbs in the way as they pa.s.sed, making great noise and expressions of joy for their deliverance and return; and in these acclamations mingling loud and virulent exclamations against those who had so cruelly persecuted such G.o.dly men." The scarred faces, the mutilated ears of the personages thus honored, would tell a tale of suffering and heroism, sure to appeal to the popular sympathy, and turn it in a stream of violent indignation against the mad oppressors. What followed we shall see in the next chapter. Meanwhile we may remark, that much of what has now been detailed furnishes a singular historical parallel to the events of our own times, and ill.u.s.trates the observation of Solomon of old: "Is there anything whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us." Eccles. i, 10. We have lived in the nineteenth century to witness the revival of superst.i.tious mummeries and popish errors; and taught by the past, the true Christian will earnestly pray that they may be extirpated without the recurrence of those awful calamities, of which their introduction in former times proved the precursor. Meanwhile may each reader remember, that an obligation is laid upon him to counteract these deviations from Scriptural truth by maintaining that unceremonial and spiritual religion which Christ taught the woman of Samaria, and by cultivating that vital faith which rests on Him alone for acceptance, while it works by love, purifies the heart, and overcomes the world!
[1] Howes, edit. 1631.
[2] State Trials. Guizot"s English Revolution, page 64.