The "Chapter" closed as a coffee-house in 1854, the reign of Edward III. Thomas Newton, first and was altered into a tavern.

One tragic memory, and one alone, as far as we know, attaches to Paternoster Row. It was here, in the reign of James I., that Mrs. Anne Turner lived, at whose house the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury was planned. It was here that Viscount Rochester met the infamous Countess of Essex; and it was Overbury's violent opposition to this shameful intrigue that led to his death from arsenic and diamond-dust, administered in the Tower by Weston, a servant of Mrs. Turner's, who received £180 for his trouble. Rochester and the Countess were disgraced, but their lives were spared. The Earl of Northampton, an accomplice of the countess, died before Overbury succumbed to his three months of torture.

"Mrs. Turner," says Sir Simonds d'Ewes, had "first brought up that vain and foolish use of yellow starch, coming herself to her trial in a yellow band and cuffs; and therefore, when she was afterwards executed at Tyburn, the hangman had his band and cuffs of the same colour, which made many after that day, of either sex, to forbear the use of that coloured starch, till at last it grew generally to be detested and disused."

parson there, was buried in the quire, in the year 1361, which was the 35th of Edward III. At the east end of this church stood an old cross called the Old Cross in West-cheap, which was taken down in the 13th Richard II.; since the which time the said parish church was also taken down, but new builded and enlarged in the year 1430; the 8th Henry VI., William Eastfield, mayor, and the commonalty, granting of the common soil of the City three foot and a half in breadth on the north part, and four foot in breadth towards the east, for the inlarging thereof. This church was repaired, and with all things either for use or beauty, richly supplied and furnished, at the sole cost and charge of the parishioners, in 1617. This church was burnt down in the Great Fire, and remains unbuilt, and laid into the street, but the conduit which was formerly at the east end of the church still remains. The parish is united to St. Vedast, Foster Lane. At the east end of this church, in place of the old cross, is now a water-conduit placed. William Eastfield, maior, the 9th Henry VI., at the request of divers common councels, granted it so to be. Whereupon, in the 19th of the said Henry, 1,000 marks was granted by a common councel towards the works of this conduit, and the reparation of others. This is called the Little Conduit in West Cheap, by Paul's Gate. At the west end of this parish church is a small passage for people on foot, thorow the same church; and west from the same

Paternoster Row, and is called (of such a sign)
Panyer Alley, which cometh out into the north,
over against St. Martin's Lane.

'When you have sought the city round,
Yet still this is the highest ground.
August 27, 1688.'

This is writ upon a stone raised, about the middle
of this Panier Alley, having the figure of a panier,
with a boy sitting upon it, with a bunch of grapes,
as it seems to be, held between his naked foot
and hand, in token, perhaps, of plenty."

In a curious old print of West Chepe, date 1585, in the vestry-room of St. Vedast's, Foster Lane, we see St. Michael's Church on the north side of Paternoster Row. It is a plain building, with a low square tower and pointed-headed windows. It was chiefly remarkable as the burial-place of that inde-church, some distance, is another passage out of fatigable antiquary, John Leland. This laborious man, educated at St. Paul's School, was one of the earliest Greek scholars in England, and one of the deepest students of Welsh and Saxon. Henry VIII. made him one of his chaplains, bestowed on him several benefices, and gave him a roving commission to visit the ruins of England and Wales and inspect the records of collegiate and cathedral libraries. He spent six years in this search, and collected a vast mass of material, then retired to his house in the parish of St. Michael-le-Quern to note and arrange his treasures. His mind, however, broke down under the load: he became insane, and died in that dreadful darkness of the soul, 1552. His great work, "The Itinerary of Great Britain," was not published till after his death. His large collections relating to London antiquities were, unfortunately for us, lost. The old church of "St. Michael ad Bladum," says Strype, "or 'at the Corn' (corruptly called the ' Quern') was so called because in place thereof was some time a cornmarket, stretching up west to the shambles. It seemeth that this church was first builded about

At the end of a somewhat long Latin epitaph to Marcus Erington in this church occurred the following lines:

"Vita bonos, sed pœna malos, æterna capessit, Vitæ bonis, sed pœna malis, per secula crescit. His mors, his vita, perpetuatur ita.” John Bankes, mercer and squire, who was interred here, had a long epitaph, adorned with the following

verses:

"Imbalmed in pious arts, wrapt in a shroud
Of white, innocuous charity, who vowed,
Having enough, the world should understand
No need of money might escape his hand;

CHAPTER XXIV.

BAYNARD'S CASTLE AND DOCTORS' COMMONS.

Baron Fitzwalter and King John-The Duties of the Chief Bannerer of London-An Old-fashioned Punishment for Treason-Shakespearian Allusions to Baynard's Castle-Doctors' Commons and its Five Courts-The Court of Probate Act, 1857-The Court of Arches--The Will Office-Business of the Court -Prerogative Court-Faculty Office-Lord Stowell, the Admiralty Judge-Stories of Him-His Marriage→ Sir Herbert Jenner Fust-The Court "Rising "-Dr. Lushington-Marriage Licences-Old Weller and the "Touters "-Doctors' Commons at the Present Day.

powder over a poached egg-at least, so the legend
runs), and soon placed himself at the head of those
brave barons who the next year forced the tyrant
to sign Magna Charta at Runnymede. He was
afterwards chosen general of the barons' army, to
keep John to his word, and styled "Marshal of
the Army of God and of the Church." He then,
not having received knocks enough in England,
joined the Crusaders, and was present at the great
siege of Damietta. In
1216 (the first year of
Henry III.) Fitz-Walter
again appears to the

"The said Robert and his heirs are and ought to be chief bannerets of London in fee, for the chastiliary which he and his ancestors had by Castle Baynard in the said city. In time of war the said Robert and his heirs ought to serve the city in manner as followeth-that is, the said Robert ought to come, he being the twentieth man of arms, on horseback, covered with cloth or armour, unto the great west door of St. Paul's, with his

banner displayed before

him, and when he is so come, mounted and apparelled, the mayor, with his aldermen and sheriffs armed with their arms, shall come out of the said church with a banner in his hand, all on foot, which banner shall be gules, the image of St. Paul gold, the face, hands, feet, and sword of silver; and as soon as the earl seeth the mayor come on foot out of the church, bear

ing such a banner, he shall alight from his horse and salute the mayor, saying unto him, 'Sir mayor, I am come to do my service which I owe to the city.' And the mayor and aldermen shall reply, 'We give to you as our banneret of fee in this city the banner of this city, to bear and govern, to the honour of this city to your power;' and the earl, taking the banner in his hands, shall go on foot out of

to the door, shall bring a horse to the said Robert, value twenty pounds, which horse shall be saddled with a saddle of the arms of the said earl, and shall be covered with sindals of the said arms. Also, they shall present him a purse of twenty pounds, delivering it to his chamberlain, for his charges that day."

by his son Walter, who was summoned to Chester | the gate; and the mayor and his company following in the forty-third year of Henry III., to repel the fierce and half-savage Welsh from the English frontier. After Walter's death the barony of Baynard was in the wardship of Henry III. during the minority of Robert Fitz-Walter, who in 1303 claimed his right as castellan and banner-bearer of the City of London before John Blandon, or Blount, Mayor of London. The old formularies on which FitzWalter founded his claims are quoted by Stow from an old record which is singularly quaint and picturesque. The chief clauses run thus:

The record goes on to say that when Robert is mounted on his £20 horse, banner in hand, he shall require the mayor to appoint a City Marshal (we have all seen him with his cocked hat and subdued

stayeth, he ought to give them to the town bailiff, or to whom he will, by the counsel of the mayor." This old record seems to us especially quaint and picturesque. The right of banner-bearer to the City of London was evidently a privilege not to be despised by even the proudest Norman baron, however numerous were his men-at-arms, however thick the forest of lances that followed at his back. At the gates of many a refractory Essex or Hertfordshire castle, no doubt, the Fitz-Walters flaunted that great banner, that was emblazoned with the image of St. Paul, with golden face and silver feet; and the horse valued at £20, and the pouch with twenty golden pieces, must by no means have lessened the zeal and pride of the City castellan as he led on his trusty archers, or urged forward the half-stripped, sinewy men, who toiled at the catapult, or bent down the mighty springs of the terrible mangonel. Many a time through Aldgate must the castellan have passed with glittering armour and flaunting plume, eager to earn his hundred shillings by the siege of a rebellious town. Then Robert was knighted by Edward I., and the family continued in high honour and reputation through many troubles and public calamities. In the reign of Henry VI., when the male branch died out, Anne, the heiress, married into the Ratcliffe family, who revived the title of Fitz-Walter.

It is not known how this castle came to the Crown, but certain it is that on its being consumed by fire in 1428 (Henry VI.), it was rebuilt by Humphrey, the good duke of Gloucester. On his death it was made a royal residence by Henry VI., and by him granted to the Duke of York, his luckless rival, who lodged here with his factious retainers during the lulls in the wars of York and Lancaster. In the year 1460, the Earl of March, lodging in Castle Baynard, was informed that his army and the Earl of Warwick had declared that Henry VI. was no longer worthy to reign, and had chosen him for their king. The earl coquetted, as usurpers often do, with these offers of the crown, declaring his insufficiency for so great a charge, till yielding to the exhortations of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Exeter, he at last consented. On the next day he went to St. Paul's in procession, to hear the Te Deum, and was then conveyed in state to Westminster, and there, in the Hall, invested with the sceptre by the confessor.

At Baynard's Castle, too, that cruel usurper, Richard III., practised the same arts as his predecessor. Shakespeare, who has darkened Richard almost to caricature, has left him the greatest wretch existing in fiction. At Baynard's Castle

our great poet makes Richard receive his accomplice Buckingham, who had come from the Guildhall with the Lord Mayor and aldermen to press him to accept the crown; Richard is found by the credulous citizens with a book of prayer in his hand, standing between two bishops. This man, who was already planning the murder of Hastings and the two princes in the Tower, affected religious scruples, and with well-feigned reluctance accepted "the golden yoke of sovereignty."

Thus at Baynard's Castle begins that darker part of the Crookback's career, which led on by crime after crime to the desperate struggle at Bosworth, when, after slaying his rival's standard-bearer, Richard was beaten down by swords and axes, and his crown struck off into a hawthorn bush. The defaced corpse of the usurper, stripped and gory, was, as the old chroniclers tell us, thrown over a horse and carried by a faithful herald to be buried at Leicester. It is in vain that modern writers try to prove that Richard was gentle and accomplished, that this murder attributed to him was profitless and impossible; his name will still remain in history blackened and accursed by charges that the great poet has turned into truth, and which, indeed, are difficult to refute. That Richard might have become a great, and wise, and powerful king, is possible; but that he hesitated to commit crimes to clear his way to the throne, which had so long been struggled for by the Houses of York and Lancaster, truth forbids us for a moment to doubt. He seems to have been one of those dark, wily natures that do not trust even their most intimate accomplices, and to have worked in such darkness that only the angels know what blows he struck, or what murders he planned. One thing is certain, that Henry, Clarence, Hastings, and the princes died in terribly quick succession, and at most convenient moments.

Henry VIII. expended large sums in turning Baynard's Castle from a fortress into a palace. He frequently lodged there in burly majesty, and entertained there the King of Castile, who was driven to England by a tempest. The castle then became the property of the Pembroke family, and here, in July, 1553, the council was held in which it was resolved to proclaim Mary Queen of England, which was at once done at the Cheapside Cross by sound of trumpet.

Queen Elizabeth, who delighted to honour her special favourites, once supped at Baynard's Castle with the earl, and afterwards went on the river to show herself to her loyal subjects. It is particularly mentioned that the queen returned to her palace at ten o'clock.