The Lord Mayor: a tale of London in 1384

Front matter

" When the charge was read out, after the simple answer of ' Not Guilty. John de Northampton was silent." p. THE LORD MAYOR: a Sale of Xonfcon in 1384. BY EMILY SARAH HOLT, AUTHOR OF "MISTRESS MARGERY," "JOHN DE WYCLIFFE," " IMOGEN," ETC. r " He's a slave who dare not be In the right with two or three." LONDON : JOHN F. SHAW AND CO. 48 PATERNOSTER ROW. [All rights reserved.] To THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE LORD MAYOR (MR. ALDERMAN FOWLER, M.P.), Œbfs Uale, Founded on the labours and sufferings of his great predecessor, JOHN DE NORTHAMPTON, sometime Lord Mayor of London, is, with his kind permission, Urspcctfullg ScBicatcB.

Preface

||agj|HE reader of this tale will find himself in a p3E8| very different state of society from that to which he is accustomed in the nineteenth century. We of the present day can easily discern the great distance to Avhich we have advanced beyond our forefathers in scientific learning and in material comforts. Perhaps we are apt rather to overrate this than otherwise ; for while our ancestors were without many advantages which we enjoy, they also possessed many which we have lost. But the rate of moral progress has really been much greater. They lived in a far more Ishmaelitic state of society, when every man's hand Avas against every other, and sufferings such as we can barely imagine, so far are we removed from them, Avere or might always be the daily portion of many persons. The more good a man tried to do, the more sure was his lot to be an adverse one.

Every thing went by favour or by purchase; vice stalked abroad in the light of day, and many sins now frowned on by society never even attempted to hide their heads in public. Violence, glaring injustice, open bribery, were common every day occurrences. Preface. VI It was this state of things, no less than religious abuses, which that little band of brave men known as the Lollards set forth as spiritual knights-errant to destroy. Perhaps they sometimes attacked the windmill in mistake for the enemy, and undoubtedly at times they acted unwisely. That revolution, like others, " was not made with rose-water." But are we of this nineteenth century so far-seeing and infallible that we can afford to throw stones at them ? They failed to attain their object : but may it not reasonably be added that they did much to make it possible for the Reformers of the sixteenth century to attain theirs ?

The hewer of wood in the primeval forest is as necessary as the mason and carpenter to the building of the city. Their work may show the more ; but his is the harder toil. The names of William Walworth and of Richard Whittington will go, as they have gone, down the stream of history with honour. Ought not posterity to add to them the greater name of John de North ampton, who did more to deserve honour than either of them, and suffered so cruelly, without meriting it, in the attempt to serve his generation according to the will of God ? Surely, in that day when the first shall be last, and the last first, he will have a higher place than many whose names now stand before his on the world's roll of honour. CONTENTS.

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Chapter I. All Saints In The Ropery

"A square-set man and honest : and his eyes, An out-door sign of all the warmth within, Smiled with his lips — a smile beneath a cloud, But Heaven had meant it for a sunny one." — Tennyson. " p?|§$!|LING, clang ! cling, clang ! cling, clang!" Avent fegtsal the great hammer upon the ponderous anvil, wielded by the powerful arm of Roger Astelyn, one of the finest specimens of the genus homo to be found Avithin the liberties of the City. The smithy Avas situated in Old Change, on the western side ; and when the sun drew near its setting, the great shadow of old St. Paul's fell on the little smithy to its east, while just where it ended, the golden rays darted in at the small back window, and bathed the head of the blacksmith in rosy light. He threw down his hammer and critically examined his work.

Perhaps it was not to his satisfaction ; for the moment after, a huge sigh broke from the big blacksmith, and he rubbed his hand across his forehead. At the same moment a door on his left opened about an inch, and a voice came through it which — to put it mildly — was not so sweet as a blackbird's. " Roger Astelyn, thou big lazy loon, art never a coming to thy supper?" "Coming, Mildred, coming!" answered the smith hastily. "I will but finish this key and take off my napron, and " "And leave the eyren1 be as cold as stones, I reckon. Finish a key, forsooth ! Thou shalt finish no keys afore supper, nor begin 'em neither, — not if it were for the King's Grace to lock up all his enemies. Come away this minute, or those eyren '11 not be fit to eat." " Gently, honey-sweet Mildred ! The key's for my Lord Mayor, for the cellar of his house next the Stillwharf."

"Then my Lord Mayor may go down into the cellar and sit on the barrels his self, for no key shall he have this even, as my name is Mildred. I'll key 1 Eggs. thee, and lock thee too, if thou dost not come to thy supper!" The door opened wider, and in came a woman who was not up to Roger's shoulder — a small, spare, wiry, wizened-faced woman, with thin lips and a sharp nose, — who marched up to him and drove him in front of her without mercy. Hastily unfastening his leather apron and flinging it on a bench, the big blacksmith ambled before his little tyrant very like a powerful cart-horse driven by a small boy out of a field. His sole remaining observation was — " Thou mightest have let me wash the blacks off, wife." " Oh, might I so ? " cynically returned his amiable spouse. "Thou takest half an hour to teem the water on thy hands, and another to let th' pump handle fall back.

No, Master Roger; I've got thee, and I'll keep thee." " Gramercy, so thou hast ! " said Roger with another sigh, which might denote that he looked on the fact as less a matter for congratulation than she. " And a pretty tale it is, if I'm to slave my fingers to the bone a-putting eyren in poche for a great lubberly oaf that willn't come and eat 'em when they are a-done ! Dear heart, wherefore I wedded the like o' thee ! " " It's done, wife," said Roger philosophically. Per haps he wished it undone no less than herself. " Well-a-day, the wisdom of him ! " exclaimed Mrs. Astelyn, satirically. " Thou'lt never set the Thames a-fire, Hodge. Sit thee down to them eyren — that's nigh as much as thou art meet for." Roger ate his supper, with as little quarrelling as Mildred would graciously permit ; returned to the smithy and finished his key; and then, taking it in his hand, went out in the golden light of the sunset.

As he quitted the smithy, his opposite neighbour came out of his house, shutting the door behind him. "God give thee good even, smith !" " Christ save you, Master Costantyn ! " "A merry even and a sweet, Hodge." " Outside ! " responded the smith drily. " It's blowing a gale within doors." "Aye so?" said his neighbour with an amused look, for Master Costantyn was pretty well aware of the state of affairs across the street. " Canst not smooth her down, man ? " " Will you try ? " was Roger's answer. " Nay, bless thee, not I ! I'm none so fond of meddling with strife, the rather when it is not mine own. I'm thankful to say there be no gales within my doors. My mistress dwelleth rather of a dead calm." " Are you tired on't ? " slily demanded Roger. " I'll drive a bargain as cheap as e'er a man in Far ringdon Ward."

Mr. Costantyn laughed as if he enjoyed the joke. " Thanks, good Roger ; I have no mind to chaffer to-day. Forsooth, if I had wanted one to raise the wind, I would have wed her at the first." " Good luck ! how are you to know what a woman is made of till you have wed her ? " answered Roger. " I warrant you she was not thus, time gone. Dear heart, nay ! As sleek as a pussy-cat, she was : and it was dear Roger, and good Roger, and might it please you, and I am for ever beholden to you — well-a-day ! Folks change, Master Costantyn." " They do, at times, Roger. Whither away, now ? " Truly, with this key, to my Lord Mayor's. " Hast heard the news o'er yonder ? " " What ? — touching my Lord Mayor ? Never a whit." " His mother is this even come to dwell with him ; the comeliest old gentlewoman ever eyes beheld : hair of silver, and eyes that smile right softly, and a voice like a thrush."

" Bless her ! " said Roger, with honest heartiness. " Whence comes she ? " "Somewhither out of the shires. Mistress Alice cannot make enough of her. Good even, friend." " Humph ! " said Roger to himself, as he went on his way after returning the greeting. " I reckon she shall find it something harder to make enough of Mistress Alice." He walked down to the end of the Old Change, and turned to the left into that portion of Knight Riders' Street then known as the Old Fish Street. This is not in the nineteenth century a particularly aristocratic neighbourhood. But in the days when Roger Astelyn walked down it to carry home his work to the Lord Mayor, it was one of the principal streets of the city. Cheapside was wider and airier ; but Knight Riders' Street was emphatically the Court precinct, and in its neighbourhood or in Thames Street and on the bank, the nobility of England had their town houses.

Here stood Ypres Inn, the superb house where the famous Flemish merchant, Jean de Ypres, had feasted kings and princes; and at its further end was the ancient palace of Tower Royal, then known as the Queen's Wardrobe, where the Princess of Wales resided when she visited the metropolis. Our friend the blacksmith, however, did not pursue Knight Riders' Street thus far, but turned to the right down Bread Street, and came out into the King's highway, then and now known as Thames Street. That these royal and noble persons dwelt within hearing of the City shambles, and that the fish market was held in front of their windows, does not seem to have struck them as either disagreeable or incongruous. The callousness of our ancestors with respect to smells, not to speak of the fevers they produced, is a remarkable instance of that second nature which sustained habits are able to become.

Roger Astelyn pursued his way along Thames Street, past the Vintry, and presently reached that portion of the street then known as the Ropery, because ropes were manufactured there. He passed the narrow lane called the Steelyard or Stillyard, which led down to the Thames, and the still nar rower Cosin Lane, leaving on the right hand the house which had once belonged to the famous Richard Lyons, and was then in the occupation of a dyer, whose name we know not, but he has se cured earthly immortality by giving his occupation as a title to Dyers' Hall Pier below. Four more houses were left behind, and then came Church Lane, separating the block of buildings from the neighbouring Church of All Hallows the More. Roger turned down Church Lane, for the length of one house, and then passed into a very narrow alley, on the right, and parallel with it.

This alley was the place of his destination, and he was bound for the Hood, which was the residence of the Lord Mayor of London. The alley bore the ignoble epithet of Wantgoose Lane, and was not precisely the place where we should now look for distinguished persons. The Hood, however, was a very handsome habitation for the time. It was, of course, extremely low, and comprised but two storeys. There were a few three-storeyed houses in London, but they were not common, and were generally rendered so either by a solar chamber — the French entresol, — or by dormer windows. Roger passed into the little square courtyard through the large archway, sufficiently high and broad to admit a litter or whirle cote — the two carriages of that time — and using as his instrument the key in his hand, struck a clear note on the large bell which hung low in the entry for that purpose.

A servant in livery answered his appeal from the porter's lodge on the left. " Give you good even, Roger," said he. "The like to thee, Simpkin," returned the blacksmith. "All here well and merry, trow? Have here the key of the dyer's cellar, which my Lord sent for; I might not have it ready no sooner." Simpkin took the key, accompanying his answer with a twinkle in his eyes. " Good, Roger. And how doth sweet Mistress Mildred ? " " As the most of sweets do when they be turned sour," said Roger with a grimace. " Nay, I cannot do to 'bide, Simpkin." " What, not to taste my Lord's home-brewed ? " " Nay. I shall get some home-brewed of another cask an' I do." " I'll tell thee what, Roger — if I had thy bones and sinews, and thy wife, I'd make her sing t'other side her mouth a bit afore I'd done with her."

"Ah! "was Roger's incredulous response. "'All men can rule a shrew save he that hath her.' " "Thou'rt too soft-hearted, lad," said Simpkin, laughing. " Pluck up thy courage, and tell her thy mind." "Eh, Simpkin!" came with the shake of Roger's head as he turned away. " ' It needeth a long spoon to eat with the Devil.' Good night." " Good night, and good luck ! " was the reply. While this conversation was being held in the gateway, another was proceeding in the porch chamber which projected over it. The porch chamber of the Hood was a snug and pretty little room, one side of which was almost entirely occupied by a large oriel window looking out into the Ropery. It was hung with dark red say, or upholstering silk, and benches of walnut wood stretched along the wall, fitted with cushions of the same colour of say, while bankers of yellow baldekyn were thrown over the back.

A large chair of carved walnut wood stood upon the hearth, also stocked with red say cushions; and a small leaf-table was fixed to the wall at its side. In the chair sat an old lady dressed in black, her dress cut quite plain, and gored to impart the neces sary fulness, in something of what we now call the princess style. The black sleeves ended below the shoulder, and tight ones of white baldekyn came down beneath them to the wrists. Silver buttons ran down the front of the dress, and two very large pockets, one on each side, completed the accessories. No collar, cuffs, nor any kind of finishing, was worn. The old lady's silver hair was neatly plaited in two thick plaits, of which one came down on each side of her face, and they were kept in place by a black fillet bound round the head. The only other occupant of the chamber was a girl of fifteen, who was on the rushes at the old ladv's feet, resting her arms on her companion's lap, and now and then laying her head beside them.

She wore a blue dress cut in the same fashion, but fas tened round the hips with a black girdle, from which ran a long row of gold beads, almost reaching to her feet. Her hair, of a rich nut-brown, was gathered into a little yellow cap which sat jauntily on her head. Her face was rather pleasing than positively pretty ; but it was decidedly pleasing, giving the idea both of good health and of good temper. She half sat, half knelt, looking up into the face ofthe old lady. " Well, Alice ! " said the latter after a few minutes' silence. " Hast lost thy tongue, my maid ? " " Why, Grammer, have you not had enough of my chatter ? " returned Alice merrily. " I would fain hear you rather, as should be more meet. Tell me, I pray you, what were your thoughts this minute gone?" "Not what thine were, trow," answered her grandmother with a smile.

She seemed disposed to pause there, but after a minute she went on to reply to the question which lingered in Alice's eyes. "Ah, my good maid, the thoughts of the old are seldom those of the young. Six years gone, when thou didst pass from my care, a little child of nine years, thou wert but plain Alice Comberton and no more. And now that we meet again, there is no Alice Comberton, but Mistress Alice de Northampton, daughter of the Lord Mayor of London. And I marvel," said the old lady, softly, laying her hand on the young head, " if these Alices be one or twain." " One, Grammer ! always one, and twain never ! " "Change, doubtless, there must be in all men," continued the old lady. " Here is no longer a little child, but a maid well-nigh grown a woman. That change do mine eyes behold. And those changes that eye can see be the least of all, Alice.

The sorest are the under-current that man may not see, with any save the eyes of his soul — those whereunto you wake but slowly, and when you discover the same, they be too far gone for any return back. Darling, I would not like my little Alice to change into an Orgoylosa — my sely 1 maid into a proud, self-sufficient, heartless gentlewoman, that reckons more of being my Lord Mayor's daughter than of being Christ's pledged handmaiden. The good things of this world are not good enough for me to wish thee, sweet Alice." " I shall not alway be my Lord Mayor's daughter, Grammer. Father shall scarce be elect another year, trow." " I trow not. I had nearly said, I trust not. But a year's grandeur is much at thy time of life. Wilt 1 Simple, innocent. thou come down, thinkest, as merrily as thou wentest up?"

Alice looked up earnestly with grave grey-blue eyes. " O Grammer, did you but know how little it recketh me! 1 I mind it never a whit, in very sooth. Margaret de Champeyne and Philippa de Burnham thought it so mighty a matter, — I ween I could have laughed at them : but Amana Peche was with me, and we thought Grammer, doth it seem to you that this world is a right small place, and all the things in it be very, very little ? " "Very, very little, Alice : and very, very great." Alice shook her head with a laugh. " I am sicker 2 I can see the littleness ; but that things be great, verily nay. It seemeth me we be but ants upon an anthill, running busily in and out. When all the life of man is but fifty years, or forsooth sixty at the most, — -.good lack, but it is a short space, and man a poor thing at the best.

What matter if I be a queen or a cottager, if it tarry but for fifty years ? Grammer, years are not so long as they were once. " Shorter and shorter, Alice, as thou draw toward the end. Aye, what matter? 'Early pass he, as 1 How little I care about it. - Sure. an herb, early flourish he, and pass : in the eventide fall he down, be he hard, and wax dry. The days of our years been in those seventy years : forsooth, if fourscore years been in mighty men, and the more time of them is travail and sorrow.' " 1 Alice listened thoughtfully. " ' The more time of them is travail and sorrow,' " she repeated. " That would not seem short, trow. Grammer, comes that of a book ? " "Whether thou wouldst know,- Alice ? " Methought it had the taste of one," said Alice, with a mischievous smile. "I knowledge3 it, Alice.

It came of the English Psalter, new done into English of Master Nicholas de Hereford, a good man and a true. I would he might come to preach hither in London town. I would like thee to hear him, Alice." " Grammer, there be some new preachers comen to the City these few months gone. Poor priests, men call them. Father is much taken up with them, and hath said divers times he would wish them God speed. Mother went with him these three Sundays past. But I have not heard one of them, and I fain would — if it were some deal unlike other 1 Psalm XC 6, io. Nicholas Hereford's Version, 1381. - Why wouldst thou know ? 3 Acknowledge. 3 Acknowledge. sermons. I gat sore aweary of sermons some time past. But men say these new preachers be other wise. I heard not that name, howbeit." She drew herself suddenly up on her knees.

" Grammer, you are not like other folk. Mother saith maidens should be seen and not heard, and Mistress Costantyn would have me be snod as satin, and even my Lady Peche would fain cut and measure me to be right like other maids — why must maids be all alike, Grammer ? I can see no reason — but you let me speak out as I would, and set me right if I go wrong. And at times I am right like to a boiling caldron — all full of thoughts and feelings ; and if I may not boil over, I shall burst. None other maid seems to understand me when I say, I am weary of this manner of life, and I want to live a life worth living. They think it is worth living if they may deck them up with gewgaws, and feast, and dance : and it is all so hollow, so hollow ! There be times I like it, just the while it lasteth : but when I come home and do off my goodly array, and lie down in my bed, and have nought to do but think, why, then, Grammer, something seems to speak to me that saith, ' Alice, what good cometh of all this ?

Is it worth doing ? Thou hast but one life to live : canst thou make no more of it than so ? ' But it is no use telling other maids— only Amana. She saith the same thing talketh with her by times. Grammer, what is it ? " " It is no thing, Alice," was the solemn answer. " It is God Himself." It was almost a frightened look that came into Alice's eyes. " What should Amana say an' I told her that ? Grammer, why think you so terrible a thing ? " " Alas, is it terrible, Alice ? Aye, in good sooth, it is somewhat a terrible thing to be spoken to of a king, in especial when man knoweth not if he smile or frown at thee. But the king's child thinks no terror that her father speak to her. She knows him too well." Alice had followed the parable, and had under stood it. " Grammer," she said, with moistened eyes, " I do not know Him !

How may man know God ? " " It is the child that knows the father," answered the old lady. "The stranger, standing withoutside in the street, cannot know him. Thou must come within, Alice." " But where is the gate, Grammer ? Methought all baptized were within. How shall man go further?" "As far as the porter's lodge, maybe. That is not the house. There is yet the portcullis between thee and it, and it is drawn down until thou have right to enter." " But what mean you by the gate, Grammer ? " said Alice eagerly : " and how may man have right to enter ? " "Alice," answered her grandmother, disregarding the questions, "thou shalt come with me this next Sunday morrow to hear Father Hereford preach." " Oh, may I, Grammer ? I never heard one of the poor priests yet. Father talks some deal of Father Purvey, and of Father Wycliffe, the parson of Lutterworth, but I never saw none of them."

"Aye, he it was that did send forth the poor priests. Thou shalt go with me, Alice." So it came to pass that among the throng gathered the next Sunday morning in the Church of All Hallows the More, were an old lady with silver hair and a young girl. It was Ouinquagesima Sunday, and the seventeenth of February, which would be the second of March now. The worshippers took their seats in the nave, where they were comparative spectators until it came to the reading of the Gospel. Then all stood up, men and women alike removing their head-gear while the portion of Scripture was read. Mass over, many went away, and many more poured into the church for the expected sermon. Into the pulpit came a tall, thin man, old, for his hair was white, yet active enough, for his motions were quick and energetic, and his eyes like those of a young eagle.

" Lack-a-day ! yon is not Father Hereford ! " muttered old Mistress Comberton in a disappointed tone. " Grammer," said Alice in an excited whisper, " I hear men saying behind that it is Father Wycliffe himself." " Well ! so much the better," was the reply. Up to that day Alice had known of only two classes of sermons — the scientific disquisition and the pouring forth of a stream of vulgar, chatty talk. The former she could never understand, and the latter had always disgusted her. Some of the older legends of the saints, with which the last class of sermon was replete, were perhaps true, and were pure, beautiful, and touching in them selves, when they came from pure lips : but there were very few of those in the pulpits of the fourteenth century. In the lips of most preachers the pure became coarse, and the romance grew into buffoonery.

It was more than time that some reformer should arise to purify the pulpit. The poor priests, it was generally understood, preached in a very different manner, and attracted vast crowds to hear them. Attracted them, — but how ? Not by music and pageant, — they had very hard words for those who came to church for such things. They told them in the plainest terms that they were not wanted. Not by elegant diction and beautiful language, — they carefully eschewed every thing approaching to it. Those enticing words of man's wisdom, so diligently cultivated in this nineteenth century, the poor priests of the fourteenth cast behind them, as wanderers from the opposite camp. Where was the use of gilding refined gold and painting the lily ? They had the grand truth : why should they conceal it by strewing gewgaws over it ?

They had the virgin honey : why should they present it in vessels of painted porcelain, so that men would stop to admire the jar and would not taste the contents ? The attractions that they offered were two-fold: and they did the work, as those twin attractions always do, and as no other will ever do. They held up Jesus Christ before the multitude, and they did it with hearts on fire — with a great, passionate yearning for the souls of men, whichjan from heart to heart with an electric thrill. The power of the Holy Ghost was with these men : and no attractions which do not include that heavenly magnet will ever draw the steeled hearts of sinful men. This was the sermon which Alice de Northampton heard, with the text — the Epistle for the day — read first in sonorous Latin, and afterwards given in English, bit by bit, as the discourse proceeded.

The text was i Cor. xiii., and the sermon covered the whole chapter.1 Most of Wycliffe's sermons were rather in an expository style than a predicatory. But to hearers in days when the Bible was little known, the text was a far more important portion of the discourse than to us, to whom it is so familiar that we are too apt to let it slip. " Paul telleth in this epistle," rang out the powerful voice of the Evangelical Doctor, " how men should know charity, and how men should keep charity, and this lore is full needful to each member of holy Church. First, Paul telleth how needful is chanty before other [virtues], and beginneth at the highest work that man hath in holy Church. Paul saith, if he speak with man's tongues and angel tongues, and 1 The sole liberties which have been taken with this genuine sermon of John Wycliffe are to modernise the spelling and such expressions as would otherwise now be unintelligible, and to indicate a year and a place in which it is supposed to have been preached. he hath not charity, he is made as brass sounding and a cymbal tinkling.