CHAPTER V.

SMITHFIELD, CLERKENWELL, AND CANONBURY.

BY

Y St. Sepulchre's Church is the entrance of Giltspur Street, which was formerly a continuation of Knightrider Street, and is named from the gilded spurs of the knights who rode that way to the tournaments. Near the end of Giltspur Street on the left is the entrance of Cock Lane, of which we shall hear more when we reach Canonbury, and hard by is Pie Corner, where the Great Fire ended, which began in Pudding Lane. It is probably some association with these names which caused the inscription (now obliterated) beneath the commemorative figure of a very fat boy (once painted in colours), still existing against the wall of a public-house near the corner of Cock Lane:— "This boy is in memory put up of the late Fire of London, occasioned by the sin of gluttony, 1666." Pie Corner is frequently mentioned in the Plays of Ben Jonson, Massinger, and Shadwell. Hard by is Hosier Street, which was the especial centre for the hosiers in the fourteenth century.

Giltspur Street leads into Smithfield or Smoothfield, around which many of London's most sacred memories are folded. But as its market is the first object which strikes

the eye, we are naturally drawn first to notice its great cattle-fair, which is not without its reminiscences, for it is celebrated by Shakspeare. Falstaff asks—

"Where's Bardolph ?"

and a page answers—

"He's gone into Smithfield to buy your worship a horse."

The first market- -"Bartholomew Fair "- -was established here by Rahere, king's jester to Henry I., by whom it was granted for the eve of St. Bartholomew, the day itself, and the day after. Ben Jonson's coarsest and wittiest comedy, Bartholomew Fair, lets us into many of its attendant abuses and customs, especially that of having booths at which pigs were dressed and sold-the "little tidy Bartholomew boar-pigs" of Shakspeare.* In the reign of Charles II. the duration of the Fair was extended from three to fourteen days, and Pepys "at Bartholemew Fayre, did find my Lady Castlemaine at a puppet-show, and the street full of people expecting her coming out." Gradually Smithfield grew to be the great and only cattle-market of London. As many as 210,757 cattle, and 1,518,510 sheep, were sold here annually; but the market was always inconvenient, and was a great nuisance to its neighbourhood. Dickens describes its miseries in his picture of Smithfield in "Oliver Twist "

"It was market morning, the ground was covered nearly ankle-deep with filth and mire, and a thick steam perpetually rising from the reeking bodies of the cattle, and mingling with the fog which seemed to rest upon the chimney-tops, hung heavily above. All the pens in the centre of the large area, and as many temporary ones as could be

* Henry IV., act ii. sc. Iv.

crowded into the vacant space, were filled with sheep; and tied up to posts by the gutter-side were long lines of oxen, three or four deep. Countrymen, butchers, drovers, hawkers, boys, thieves, idlers, and vagabonds of every low grade, were mingled together in a dense mass. The whistling of drovers, the barking of dogs, the bellowing and plunging of beasts, the bleating of sheep, and grunting and squeaking of pigs; the cries of hawkers, the shouts, oaths, and quarrelling on all sides, the ringing of bells, and the roar of voices that issued from every public-house; the crowding, pushing, driving, beating, whooping, and yelling, the hideous and discordant din that resounded from every corner of the market, and the unwashed, unshaven, squalid, and dirty figures constantly running to and fro, and bursting in and out of the throng, rendered it a stunning and bewildering scene, which quite confused the senses."

The market for living animals in Smithfield was abolished in 1852, when the new Meat-Market was built. It is a perfect forest of slaughtered calves, pigs, and sheep, hanging from cast-iron balustrades-actually 75 acres of meat.

In the open space now occupied by the market tournaments were formerly held. Edward III., forgetting his good queen Philippa, shocked London by parading her maid Alice Pierce as his mistress, as "the Lady of the Sun," at a public tournament in Smithfield in 1374. Another famous tournament was held here by Richard II., to celebrate the arrival of his child-queen Isabel. It was here that Wat Tyler was killed on the 15th of June, 1381. His partisans had been everywhere successful, had broken into the Tower of London and beheaded the Archbishop of Canterbury, had broken into the Tower Royal and terrified the Fair Maid of Kent, had broken into and pillaged the palace of John of Gaunt at the Savoy. At length the young King Richard agreed to hear fully the demands of the Commons in Smithfield. They met, the King standing, says Stow, "towards the east near St.

Bartholomew's Priory, and the Commons towards the west in order of battle." The insolence of Wat Tyler's manner knew no bounds, he drew his dagger upon the knights whom the king sent to meet him; finally, he approached the king and seized the bridle of his horse. It was then that the Lord Mayor, Walworth, plunged a dagger into his throat. It was a terrible crisis, and a massacre was only evaded by the presence of mind of Richard II., then only in his fifteenth year, who rode at once up to the rebels and said, "Why this clamour, my liege-men? What are ye doing? Will you kill your King? Be not displeased for the death of a traitor and a scoundrel. I will be your captain and your leader: follow me into the fields, and I will grant you all you ask." The insurgents, captivated by his courage, at once allowed themselves to be led into Islington Fields, where they were quietly dispersed without difficulty, and Jack Straw, Wat Tyler's second in command, was afterwards hanged in Smithfield.

The Elms in Smithfield "betwixt the horse-pool and the river of the Wels or Turnmill Brook "* was the place for public executions before it was removed to Tyburn in the reign of Henry IV. It was here that William Fitzosbert, surnamed the Longbeard, the first popular reformer, was hanged and beheaded in (1196) the reign of Richard I. Here Sir William Wallace was executed on St. Bartholomew's Eve, 1305, being dragged by horses from the Tower, hung, and then quartered while he was still living. Here also Mortimer, the favourite of Queen] Isabella the Fair, was hung by her eighteen-years-old son Edward III. Endless. persons were burnt here for witchcraft; two persons were

* Stow, p. 142.

boiled alive here for poisoning;* but most of all is the name of Smithfield connected with religious persecutions and intolerance-Catholics burning Protestants; then, Protestants Catholics; then, Catholics Protestants again; those who had cruelly caused the sufferings of others often in their turn having to endure the same. Kings and princes were themselves sometimes present, and took a part at these horrible scenes; thus in Sir. N. H. Nicholas' "Chronicle of London" (1089 to 1483) we read of the Prince of Wales assisting at the death of John Badby, who was burnt in a tun filled with fire, a ceremony of cruelty which was peculiar to him alone.

"This same yere there was a clerk that beleved nought on the sacrament of the auter, that is to saye, Godes body, which was dampned and brought into Smythfield to be burnt, and was bounde to a stake where as he schulde be burnt. And Henry, Prynce of Walys, thanne the kynge's eldest sone, consalled him for to forsake his heresye and hold the righte way of holy chirche. And the prior of seynt Bertelmewes in Smythfield broughte the holy sacrament of Godes body, with xij torches lyght before, and in this wyse cam to the cursed heretyk: and it was asked hym how he beleved: and he ansuerde, that he beleved well that it was hallowed bred and nought Godes body; and thanne was the tonne put over hym and fyre kyndled therein; and whanne the wrecche felt the fyre he cryed mercy; and anon the prynce comanded to take away the tonne and to quenche the fyre, the whiche was don anon at his comandement; and thanne the prynce asked hym if he wolde forsake his heresye and taken hym to the faithe of holy chirche, whiche if he wolde dou, he schulde have hys lyf and good ynow to liven by; and the cursed shrew wolde nought, but contynued forth in his heresye; wherefore he was brent."

Passing rapidly on to the reign of Henry VIII., we find in 1539, Forest, an Observant Friar, burnt for denying the King's supremacy, and Latimer, himself burnt in 1556,

* The last was a woman; the first, in 1531, was the cook of Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, whom he was accused of trying to poison in his soup.