Curious: Survivals

Front matter

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Rice s ie a ‘ey

742 °39

Preface

N American writer some time ago stated that, in his opinion, England was like a house where nothing was ever thrown away, where not only the family pictures but “the old meat-

tins, nutshells, cracker-cases, empty bottles, old gowns, discarded collars and worn-out boots ” were carefully kept, and although this is perhaps rather a crude statement, yet it has a certain element of truth about it, and is an acute observation. Wein England have a strange capacity for preserving things. It extends not merely to objects, but actually to forms, and we retain the forms of things in this country long after their meaning has been forgotten. It was my good fortune once to see an amazing collection of treasures that had been retained in a house belonging to a member of the Touchet family, where the costumes and ornaments of the members of the family had been treasured from a remote period. There were velvets, silks and brocades that went back to the time of Elizabeth, and with them were the gloves, sashes, stockings, and even corsets, that had formed part of elaborate costumes. There was a long series of the magnificent attire of the men of the family in the time of Charles II, beautiful silk and velvet costumes complete and hats magnificent with fine ostrich feathers. There were all the garments worn by ancestors in Queen Anne’s time, and the series went right down to the early days of Victoria, and included elaborately flounced costumes worn over crinolines at the time of the Queen’s wedding. Shoes, gloves and sunshades were preserved, and there was also a quantity of old jewellery, tortoiseshell combs, wigs, snuffboxes, old spectacles, rings, chatelaines, and all the paraphernalia that went to make up the attire of the members of this ancient family. The collection was one of survivals, illustrative of manners and habits of the past.

Vv vi PREFACE

I have striven, in these pages, to bring together a somewhat similar collection of forms, habits, ceremonies and customs equally reminiscent of days that are past. The idea of the volume originated in some remarks made by an American correspondent, to whom I had occasion to write concerning a fee charged to him by a man of my acquaintance, and set out in terms of guineas. He was puzzled by the word. He had never been in England, and he did not know that a coin called a guinea, now obsolete, was still used in reckoning out certain values.

He could not understand why professional fees were still reckoned in a term which is nothing more than a survival from past times. I explained the circumstances to him, and the resulting correspondence showed me that there are many habits in England which puzzle even those who are of English parentage, and who speak the same language as wedo. It was at the desire of this correspondent, and of others in America, that I have brought together these chapters.

I make no claim to originality. The information they contain can be had from many sources, some of it less well known than other. Part of it is constantly cropping up in the newspapers and periodicals of the day, and for much I am indebted to the ordinary works of reference, notably to Dr. Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, a marvellous mine of unexplored and very useful material ; to Professor Skeat’s Etymological Dictionary (from which, as far back as 1889, when some first thoughts on this subject came to me, he gave me, in Cambridge, full permission to quote) ; to the Encyclopedia Britannica ; to Scriven’s Law of Copyholds ; Carter’s History of Legal Institutions ; Hood’s Conveyancing Acts, and Halsbury’s Laws of England, Vol. 8; to an exceedingly useful book by Ackermann, called Popular Fallacies; to the pages of The Antiquary and the Antiquarian Magazine, Notes and Queries and similar sources ; - to a volume called Curiosities of the Church; a delightful book by Professor Walter W. Skeat, called The Past at our Doors; and to the various volumes concerning the different Companies of the City of London, with Mr. Carew Hazlitt’s wonderful work on the Livery Companies,

PREFACE vii which summarises the results of considerable investigation.

For information on Parliament I am deeply indebted to that famous book, The Pageant of Parliament, by Mr. Michael McDonagh, and to the new edition of The Complete Peerage, now in course of issue.

All these works have been laid under contribution, and I am indebted also to many anonymous writers in the Press, who, from time to time, record with much delight the existence of some of these ancient customs. I have also had occasion often to refer to those important books by Mr. and Mrs. Quennell, Everyday Life in England; In Feudal Times, by Dr. Tappan; Traill’s Social England ; London’s Story, by Mullins ; Wright’s Homes of Other Days ; Turner’s Domestic Architecture in England; Ollards and Crone’s famous Dictionary of English Church History (1912) ; Litchfield’s Antiques; Bell’s Unknown London, and the same author’s Move About Unknown London; to various publications of the Royal Numismatic Society, the American Numismatic Society, and other kindred learned bodies, to the Westminster Cathedral Chronicle and to various religious pamphlets.

Many of the customs I have personally investigated, but for others, I have had to rely on those who have already written about them, and the references that occur in the journals. Where it has been possible, I have acknowledged the sources of my information, but in many cases, especially with reference to the books I have just mentioned, it would have overloaded my pages with footnotes to have referred in every case to the source of the material.

I have endeavoured not to be unfair with regard to quotations, and would beg leave to offer my hearty thanks to the authors and publishers of the various works which I have ventured to lay under contribution for the material that has been used in this book. My object has simply been to bring together, for the sake of interest and convenience, such of these strange survivals as seemed important to mention, in order that in one volume there should be a series of references to old customs still remaining in England, and tending to recall the interesting days of the past.

If I should have misquoted, or drawn too freely on the viii PREFACE writings of any of those who have preceded me, may I beg leave, in advance, to offer my apologies. Every writer on a subject of that kind has to furnish himself with material from those who have been in the field before, but I hope that, in gleaning from the ripe cornfields of other authors, I have not infringed too much on the privileges that are customary in the harvest.

I have to thank Mr. G. Rooke Collingridge for the loan of a rare book concerning the ceremonials of the City, and for several valuable hints which he gave me in connection withit. Iam, moreover, particularly grateful to my friends, Dr. Laing and Mr. C. J. J. Bolton-Clark, and to my son, Mr. C. A. Williamson, for their kindness in reading my proofs, and making many important suggestions and corrections. My publisher and friend, Mr. Jenkins, has also made many happy suggestions and supplied important information.

I have to express my very hearty thanks to Mr. R. P. Stone and to the members of his family for the graceful permission they have so generously afforded me, and which has enabled me to copy certain of the excellent photographs taken by Sir Benjamin Stone, and deposited at the British Museum and at the Corporation Gallery of Birmingham for

_the advantages of students ; this permission having allowed me to produce scenes of which there are no other photographs. Ihave also to thank the officials of the Print Room, notably my friend Mr. Hogg, for the courtesy extended to me, and to my photographer, Mr. Oswell, who prepared the negatives, and I have to thank the officials of the Birmingham Art Gallery, the London Press Agency, and Mr. Norman Grut, of Guernsey, for similar permissions, most obligingly rendered to me for the purposes of this book.

I am also warmly grateful to the Mayor of Ripon, the Rectors of Helston, Painswick, Knutsford and Corby, the Archdeacon of Man and Mr. Camburn of Hungerford for loans, gifts and information relative to their respective localities.

Burcu Hoven, GEORGE C. WILLIAMSON.

HAMPSTEAD.

Christmas, 1922.

CHAPTER

XVII.

Contents

PREFACE . ‘ 4 5 ; List oF ILLUSTRATIONS ; - ;

IN THE City oF LONDON: CONCERNING THE LorRD Mayor AND ALDERMEN 3 : _

IN THE CiTY OF LONDON: CONCERNING THE CITY COMPANIES . d : 4 5

Chapter I In The City Of London Concerning The Lord Mayor And Aldermen

HERE is no place in England in which old customs have been more carefully preserved than the square mile known as the City of London, and within its boundaries there are

probably enshrined more of these ancient habits and survivals than in any other place in the world.

The City of London is, by very instinct, conservative. In antiquity, it has been stated to precede every other corporation in the Kingdom, although I believe there is still a certain amount of dispute between London and Winchester in relation to precedence, but in importance and dignity it leaves the Hampshire cathedral city far behind, and in its ancient and unrivalled Corporation, London possesses a body which has stood for English freedom and English liberty, from the days when William the Conqueror granted its earliest charter. This the City still preserves as its greatest treasure, though the charter itself is preceded in antiquity by the famous crystal sceptre still used by the Lord Mayor, the mounting of which is believed to belong to Anglo-Saxon times.

It should be remembered that, although the privileges of the City are carried on under the charter granted by William the Conqueror, yet that charter contained words saying that the citizens were to be ‘‘as they were in the days of King Edward,” and therefore these privileges were only re-granted by the Conqueror, when he said “I grant you to be all law-worthy,”’ and then, further on, “T will not suffer any person to do you wrong, God keep you.” So that, although Norman regulations were introduced for the rest of the kingdom, London was to possess the ancient privileges it had held from Anglo-Saxon times, and it is under these that it is still governed.

The City of London and its officials are exceedingly tenacious of all the customs which link them with remote antiquity, and year by year the question is put by the Livery, who are the electing body, to the various candidates for the office of Lord Mayor, as to whether they are prepared to protect their liberties and the customs of the City, and much depends upon the manner in which the answer to that question is given.

Perhaps the oldest ceremony that has been handed down from ancient times to the present day is that by which the Corporation of the City pays its rent to the King for two pieces of land, by the presentation of horse-shoes and horse-shoe nails, and by the cutting of faggots with a billhook and a hatchet. The first reference to this remarkable quit-rent ceremony occurs in 1118, when the piece of land in question is described as being situate at the north-west corner of what is now called Chancery Lane. In r162, the Knights Templars were in possession of very much land bordering on the River Thames, to-day represented by the estates known as ‘‘ The Temple,” and still belonging to the Benchers of the Inner and Middle Temple.

Adjacent to this ground was a large field, upon which the Knights Templars held their tournaments, and it. is \\ stated that in 1235 a certain Walter le Brun, who was engaged in a tournament, required the assistance of a smith for shoeing the forefeet of his horse, and called in the aid of a man who, at that moment, was in possession of a forge erected in the field for carrying out repairs to armour. In consideration of the assistance given by this smith, he appears to have been granted the privilege of building a forge on this corner of land, and placing his

Services at the disposal of the knights who fought in the tournaments, and who might require repairs to their armour, at a rental of so many horse-shoes and nails, but how exactly it fell about that the Corporation of London came into possession of the site of this forge, no one can in the least explain. S It has been stated that, when Wat Tyler got into the City, and burned in Holborn a large quantity of papers belonging to the Temple, the documents relating to the descent of this property were destroyed, but the one thing certain is that for over seven hundred years the Corporation, claiming to possess this piece of freehold land, now covered by the Law Courts, has paid its feudal quit-rent to the Crown, year by year, by presenting to the King’s Remembrancer, who represents the Sovereign, certain gigantic horse-shoes, suitable for the fore-feet of a great Flemish mare, and sixty-one nails, to be used in fastening them on. The shoes are six in number; they are solemnly handed to the King’s Remembrancer by the City Solicitor; and the nails are counted out. The warrants from the Sheriff _ and the Remembrancer respecting this ancient quit-rent are duly read out by the Secondary, and ordered to be filed and recorded, and then this strange ceremony of the presentation of horse-shoes is followed by another of almost equal antiquity.

- A piece of land, known as “The Moors,” Shropshire, was granted to the Corporation in 1211, and the rent to be paid for it, to the Crown, consisted at that time of two knives, one blunt and the other good. In process of time, this rent appears to have been changed to a billhook and a hatchet, although no one is able to explain why the change took place, or at what date the alteration was made, but the City Solicitor produces a small bundle of faggots and proceeds to chop them in pieces with a billhook and with a hatchet, and then he solemnly presents to the King’s Remembrancer this billhook and hatchet ; and so the rent is satisfactorily paid to the Crown by the City for a piece of land which cannot now be identified, which the City does not appear ever to have occupied, or to have received

Fak “ER rent for, but for which the Crown makes its annual demand of this quit-rent, and this demand is duly paid by the Corporation year after year, and has been so paid for 700 © years.

Probably there is no other ceremony performed in England, other than the Corohation, older than this strange payment of quit-rent. It has gone on century after century in exactly the same fashion. It is conducted with the gravest of judicial importance, the King’s Remembrancer attending at a special court, in complete judicial attire with full-bottomed wig, and taking away with him, on behalf of the King, the billhook and hatchet which the City Solicitor hands over. It would appear that the horse-shoes and the nails are not actually taken away, although by a fiction of the law they are supposed to have been transferred to the King, but they appear year after year in the ceremony, and are on each occasion duly counted and handed over. A new hatchet and a new billhook, however, are provided annually by the Corporation and presented to the Crown.

I have referred in a previous sentence to the Livery. The word perhaps needs some explanation. The election of Lord Mayor does not rest in the hands of the general citizens of the City of London. It is still the peculiar prerogative of the members of the ancient City Companies to elect the chief magistrate. They are termed the Livery. They originally wore the gowns pertaining to the Company, which at one time were coloured in accordance with the field and principal charge of the armorial shield appertaining to the Company.

Livery is just simply that which is delivered, and we now apply it almost exclusively to the clothes of a manservant, delivered to him by his master as an emblem of his service; while it is also used for the stables to which a horse is delivered for keep; but it originally referred to the costumes worn by persons attached to great establishments, such as the members of a Royal household or the retainers of a Baron or high official. The only persons who now are called “‘ The Livery ” are the members of the

‘ J x ancient Trade Guilds which have their home in the City.

When a man becomes a Liveryman of the City he is clothed with a fur gown, and the shape, colour and characteristics of these gowns differ in the various Companies. As a rule, it is only the Master and Wardens of the Court of a Company who continue to wear the gowns, and they do so when presiding in the Halls of the various Companies, or attending on official occasions either at church or at the Guildhall. Each Liveryman, however, in his turn, has to be clothed with the Livery of his Company, and is entitled to wear, if he chooses to purchase it, the fur gown appertaining to the Company in question.

The members of the Livery are summoned to attend at Guildhall on the 24th of June for the election of Sheriff, and on the 29th of September for the election of Lord Mayor. Prior to these dates, a barrier is stretched across King Street, shutting out all unauthorised persons from the entrance to Guildhall. This barrier is composed of a series of small doors, and over each door appear the names of certain companies. It would be impossible to have nearly a hundred doors, and in consequence the companies divide the doors between them, and three or four names are on each. Behind these doors stand the Beadles of the various Companies in their rich and varied costumes, carrying their maces and wearing their three-cornered hats, ready to identify the Liverymen as they pass in, for no one who does not belong to one or other of the City Companies is supposed to enter Guildhall on these occasions.

Each man presents himself at the door over which appears the name of his Company, is identified by the Beadle in charge, and then passed in, to hear, before the commencement of what is known as Common Hall, a solemn proclamation, stating that all unauthorised persons, who do not belong to the Livery, are to leave the Hall, under pain of being committed to the Tower by the Lord Mayor.

The election of Lord Mayor is from a certain group of the Court of Aldermen, those who have not yet passed the Chair but have served the office of Sheriff, no one being

B eligible as Lord Mayor unless he has been Sheriff. As a rule, the election is a matter of precedence, the next senior Alderman receiving the suffrages of the assembled Liverymen. The names of the Aldermen who are next in succession to the Chair have already been painted upon large boards, and these are exhibited to the assembled Liverymen, who vote by acclamation for the favourite candidate.

Prior to this election taking place, the Lord Mayor and the Aldermen who have passed the Chair retire into the Court Room belonging to the Aldermen, in order that the election should be free and unfettered. The names are announced, the voting is taken, and the two Aldermen who are next on the rota are sent in to the Court of Aldermen as the selected candidates. The final selection rests with the Court of Aldermen, and the signal pointing out the person selected is given to the assembled Livery when the procession returns, and it is noticed which of the two candidates is walking by the side of the Lord Mayor.

Well can I remember how in 1883 a change from the ordinary procedure took place and the Alderman whose name was second on the list was found, when the procession returned, to be walking by the side of the Lord Mayor, instead of the man who had been accepted by acclamation, and whose election was most confidently anticipated. The Court of Aldermen was in possession of some information respecting the rejected candidate which was not generally known, and very wisely they passed over the popular choice, selecting the man next in succession.

There was at first great disturbance in Common Hall and considerable anger was expressed at the action of the Court, but a few weeks later it was proved how wise had been the decision of the Court of Aldermen, and, as Mr. Welch writes, ‘‘ subsequent events fully justified the course taken.” 1

The procedure when the candidates reach the Alderman’s Court is remarkable. The City Sword is laid in a bed of

1 Welch’s Modern History of the City of London, p. 362.

London News Agency, Photo

REMEMBRANCER.

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Tue City SoLicirorR HANDING THE HatTc

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Peay o roses, recalling the old classical legend, when Cupid gave to Harpocrates, the God of Silence, a rose, to bribe him not to betray the amours of Venus. The flower has therefore been taken as the emblem of silence. The phrase “sub rosa’’ or “under the rose ”’ still means that a statement is made in strict confidence, and roses have frequently been sculptured on the ceilings of banquet rooms, to remind the guests, as has been well said, that what was spoken “sub vino ”’ was not to be uttered “ sub divo.”

The banqueting room ceiling at Haddon Hall is one of those which survive with its original decoration of roses. The rose, in 1526, was also placed over the doors of confessionals, with similar intent. When the sword has been deposited on its bed of roses, a high official of the Corporation addresses each Alderman in turn, and receives a whispered reply. These replies are duly noted down, and the choice is made by the majority of the Aldermen. Then the Lord Mayor calls to him the selected candidate and conveys the congratulations of his brother Aldermen, and the procession returns to Guildhall in the manner just mentioned.

There follows an interesting ceremony connected with the congratulations offered to the Lord Mayor Elect and his speech in reply. These are followed by speeches referring to the year of office that has just expired, and to the excellent manner in which the Lord Mayor has carried out his duties. Almost without exception, expressions of warm gratitude to the Lord Mayor are presented by certain spokesmen acting on behalf of the Aldermen, and he is congratulated upon whatever honours may have accrued to him during his year of office.

Then the insignia pertaining to this high dignity are duly presented to the Lord Mayor Elect by the various officials who hold the keys, the purse, and the City sceptre, ‘who making solemn obeisance to the new Chief Magistrate, proffer to him these insignia of his office. He signs certain documents, acknowledging to have received into his custody the City plate, and to have taken upon himself the position of Lord Mayor; and shortly after that the _ proceedings terminate.

Prior to the assembling of Common Hall, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen attend a religious service in state, in the church of St. Lawrence Jewry, immediately adjacent to Guildhall. The newly chosen Chief Magistrate is then known as the Lord Mayor Elect, but his appointment awaits the confirmation of the Crown, because, although the Livery, in the exercise of their “ free and undoubted privilege,’ select the Lord Mayor; yet he does not possess full jurisdiction over the City until his appointment has been ratified by the Crown. This ceremony takes place at the House of Lords, and the consent of the King is given to the election of the Lord Mayor by the Lord Chancellor, still called in England “the Keeper of the King’s Conscience.”” This title points back to the days when the Chancellor was an ecclesiastic, and the King’s Confessor, and it is evidence of this old ecclesiastical position that he is still the chief custodian of parochial appointments in the kingdom, having at his disposal a far larger number of livings than appertains to any other person, and to these he appoints in the name of the Crown.

The Corporation of the City attends at the House of Lords to receive the Royal approval, when the Recorder introduces the Lord Mayor Elect, testifying to his character and repute, and dealing at some length with his career. The Lord Chancellor at once announces that the King ratifies the choice of the Livery, and he drinks to the health of the Lord Mayor and the Corporation in a loving-cup, which is then passed round to the assembled officials.

There was at one time a peculiarly interesting ceremony which took place on these occasions, but, for some reason or other, I am given to understand, it has been allowed to lapse. The City sword, covered with an elaborate velvet scabbard, used to be borne in the presence of the Lord Chancellor as the representative of the King. This scabbard was removed by the Lord Chancellor and retained as the Royal perquisite, evidence of the fact that the Crown alone possessed the right to sheathe the sword, and that it was to be borne naked in the presence of the Sovereign, to protect the Crown from any source of danger, the Lord

IN THE CITY OF LONDON 2t

Mayor having no power to sheathe it because the scabbard was retained by the King.

The Beadles who attend upon the Aldermen occupy an office at least six hundred years old. The very earliest records of the City of London refer to the fact that each “ Bedel”’ should make arrangements in his own ward for setting two men to watch at the gates of the ward. His own duties consisted in warning the inhabitants who were liable to serve as watchmen, supporting the Aldermen in their efforts to keep the peace, and he had also to do with the arrest of evil-doers and the searching for and reporting upon, any nuisances that occurred in the ward. The duties are now much simpler than they were, but the Beadles are in evidence at any Ward-Mote, and whenever the Aldermen are carrying out their special official duties, and it is they who prepare the lists of the various licensed victuallers within the ward, and who wait on the Aldermen with them. The Beadles have in their custody the maces belonging to the wards, and many of these maces are of extreme importance, and of considerable beauty. They date back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and they vary in appearance according to the nature of the ward, usually having upon them some representation of the important building or buildings which the ward possesses, as, for example, the mace of the Tower Ward is in ‘the shape of a representation of the White Tower. These maces, which have been the subject of a special book, are carried by the Beadles upon all important occasions, and are placed on the table before the Aldermen, when the Ward-motes are held, and without their presence, as in the House of Commons, the Ward-mote is not legally constituted.

_ Ihave referred to the ceremony of the loving-cup. Drinking from a loving-cup is one of the notable features of the feasts that take place at the halls of the various City Companies. The cup, as a rule, is.a very large one, of silver or silver gilt, filled with a special spiced wine, which from time immemorial has been known as sack. The word is simply a corruption of the French word “sec” or “ dry,”

but it used to be applied to various kinds of wine, as one spoke of Canary sack, or Madeira sack, or sherry sack.*

To return to the ceremony of the loving-cup. It takes place immediately after dinner and grace, when the Master and Wardens drink to their guests a hearty welcome, and the cup is passed round the table. Then comes the interesting ceremony whereby three persons stand up at the same time. The person who pledges with the loving-cup bows to his neighbour, who, also standing, removes the cover of the cup with his right hand,? and holds it while the other one drinks, a custom said to have originated in the precaution to keep the right or dagger hand employed, that the person who drinks may be assured of no treachery, like that practised in medieval times, when people were often slain while drinking.

As an even greater precaution, the person who has next to drink from the cup stands up also behind the coverbearer, so the three are standing at the same time, and it, is to keep up this old custom that the loving-cup possesses a cover. The drinker solemnly bows to the person who is

1Jt has no connection as such with the word that is generally applied to a bag, and which, of itself, has a strange origin, and is connected with a curious story. We probably got that word “sack” from a Coptic or Egyptian word “‘ sok,’’ applied to a kind of canvas or cloth from which a bag was made, and we still have the word in use, when we speak of sack-cloth. It has been said, however, that this word “‘sok’’ was the very last word uttered before the tongues were confounded at Babel, and that in consequence it appears in every language, almost in identical form. Curiously enough, this is very much the case. The Irish “sac”’ is the same as the French word, the Latin ‘‘ saccus ”’ is closely attached to the Italian “sacco’’? and the Spanish ‘‘saco.” In Greek it is ‘‘ odxxoc,’’ in Hebrew “sak” or ‘‘saq,’” in Egyptian or in Coptic ‘ sok,” in Dutch “‘ zak’ and Swedish “ sack,’’ and the same result is seen in many other languages, the word having only slight changes. As is well known, we now apply it in quite another fashion, when we talk of a person getting the sack, or having the sack given to them, as a felicitous way of describing his being discharged, and this use we probably derive from the Eastern habit of putting a person into a sack and throwing him into the Bosphorus, in order to get him out of the way.