Sir George Monoux, requiring him to sell certain houses in Lombard Street, to the Mayor and Commonalty, for the purpose of erecting a Burse on the ground of the same for the use of the Merchants.' * Three years afterwards the King sent Letters to the City, directing the building of a Burse at Leadenhall; but the Court of Common Council having voted that the place of meeting should not be removed from Lombard Street, nothing further was then accomplished. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Sir Thomas Gresham, son to Sir Richard, who very laudably persevered in his father's design, proposed to the Corporation, (Anno 1564,) That if the City would give him a piece of ground in a commodious spot, he would erect an Exchange at his own expense, with large and covered walks, wherein the Merchants and Traders might daily assemble, and transact business at all seasons, without interruption from the weather, or impediments of any kind.' This offer was accepted; and in 1566, various buildings, houses, tenements, &c. in Cornhill, and the adjoining alleys, were purchased for rather more than 3,5301. and the materials re-sold for 4781. on condition of pulling them down, and carrying them away. The ground plot was then levelled at the charge of the City, and possession was given to Sir Thomas, . The above application of Sir Richard Gresham proves the mistake of Pennant, who affirms that the original hint for erecting the Royal Exchange was given by a Welchman, named Richard Clough, (afterwards knighted,) who was first the servant, and "in 1561, by his merit and industry, advanced, by Sir Thomas Gresham, to be his correspondent and agent in the then Emporium of the world, Antwerp. Clough," he continues," wrote to his master, to blame the citizens of London for neglecting so necessary a thing; bluntly telling him that they studied nothing else but their own private profit ; that they were content to walk about in the rain more like pedlars than merchants; and that there was no kind of people but had their place to transact business in, in other countries." Hist. of Lond. Though Clough might have written thus, the honour of giving the original hint must certainly be awarded to Sir Thomas's father, rather than to his servant; yet the fact is, that the idea of erecting an Exchange, or Burse, as it was then called, was not a new thought, even in Sir Richard's time. Thomas, who, in the deed, is styled Agent to the Queen's Highness,' and who laid the foundation of the new Exchange on the 7th of June following. The superstructure was carried on with rapidity, and the whole covered in with slate before the end of the year 1667. The plan adopted by Sir Thomas in the formation of his building, was in general similar to that of the Exchange at Antwerp. It was an oblong square of brick, with an arcade, as at present, the supporting pillars being of marble. Beneath the arcade were ranges of shops for traders; and others were fitted up in what were denominated the lower vaults; but the darkness and damps rendered the latter so inconvenient, that they were subsequently let out for the storing of bales, pepper, &c. Above the inner pannelling within the arcade, were sculptures of river gods; and in niches over the arches were statues of the English sovereigns. Two cornices were continued round the quadrangle; and the attic was furnished with casement windows. On the north side, but not exactly from the centre, rose a Corinthian pillar, surmounted with a grasshopper, (the crest of Sir Thomas,) and the figure of a grasshopper was also elevated above each corner of the building. The success of the shops, for two or three years after the edifice was completed, was not answerable to the expectations of the founder; and previously to the Queen's visit on January the 23d, 1570-71, he deemed it expedient to offer such of them, as were untenanted, rent free for a twelve-month, to any persons who would engage to "furnish and adorn them with wares and wax lights," against the time appointed for Elizabeth's coming.* On the above day, says Stow," the Queene's Majestie, attended with her Nobilitie, came from her house at the Strande, called Somerset House, and entered the Citie by Temple Bar, through Fleete Street, Cheape, and so by the north side of the Burse, to Sir Thomas Gresham's in Bishopsgate Streete, where she dined; after dinner, her Majestie returning through Cornhill, entered See preceding Volume, p. 627, note. the the Burse on the south side, and after that shee had viewed every part thereof above the ground, especially the Pawne, which was richlie furnished with all sortes of the finest wares in the City; she caused the same Burse by an Herralde and a Trompet to bee proclaimed the Royall Exchange, and so to be called from thenceforth, and not otherwise." Among the tenants of the shops, as enumerated by Howe, in his continuation of Stow's Annals, were Haberdashers, Armourers, Apothecaries, Booksellers, Goldsmiths, and Glasssellers. ↑ Sir Thomas Gresham, by his last will and testament, dated on May the 20th, 17th of Eliz. bequeathed" the building called the Royal Exchange, with all the pawns and shops, cellars, vaults, messuages, tenements, and other hereditaments, parcell, or adjoining to the same," after the determination of the particular uses, estates, and interest for life, and intail thereof upon the Lady Anne, his wife, "jointly for ever, to the Corporation of London, and the Company of Mercers;" upon trust, that the Citizens out of their moiety should pay 501. per annum each, to four Professors who should read Lectures on Divinity, Astronomy, Geometry, and Music, at his mansion-house between Bishopsgate Street and Broad Street, afterwards called Gresham College; 61. 13s. 4d. per annum each, to eight alms-people, living behind the said mansion; and 101. annually, to each of the Prisons of Newgate, Ludgate, the Marshalsea, King's Bench, and Wood Street Compter: and that the Mercers, out of their moiety, should pay annual salaries of 501. each, to three persons who should read Lectures on Law, Physic, and Rhetoric, at his mansion-house; 1001. per annum for four Dinners, quarterly, at their own Hall, for the entertainment of their whole Company; and 101. yearly to Christ's, St. Bartholomew's, St. Thomas's, and Bethlehem, Hospitals, the Spital, and the Poultry Compter. The emoluments derived by the Lady Gresham from the Royal Exchange in rents, fines, &c. are stated to have amounted to June 9th, 1813. 7511. 2 I Sur. of Lond. p. 151. Edit. 1598. + Howe's Stow, pp. 868, 869. 7511. 5s. Od. per annum; and these she continued to enjoy till her decease in the year 1596. The haste with which the edifice was built, seems to have been inimical to its due stability, for the Ward-Book of Cornhill, under so early a date as 1581, contains the copy of a 'Supplication,' presented by the Wardmote Inquest to the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, requiring them "to take speedy orders," for "repayring the upper pts. or arches of the Royall Exchange, beinge on the sh. weste and south pts. thereof, within, the said warde, whereunto the Merchaunts do comenly resorte, have accesse, and do walke, beinge the chairge of repacons on pte of the Lady Gresham to be done, [which] hath byn, and is greatly defective, and very perilous to the walkers thereunder; in such as the mayne freestones of the arches thereof, have fallen, and a great pt. of the same arches are reddy to fall, to the great danger of the lives of persons yonge and olde, daily walkinge thereunder, and resortinge to the same Exchange." In 1602, the south wall was presented" to be crazie and ruinous;" and the continual need which the whole building had of reparation, is proved by other passages in the same Book.* Another entry in the Ward-Book, under the year 1594, gives some information of the manner in which the vaults were appropriated: it runs thus;-" Presented. Will". Grimbel, for keping typlinge in the vaults under the Exchange, and for broyling of herringes, sprotts, and bacon, and other thinges, in the same vaulte, noisome to the michaunts and others resortinge to the Exchange." In the tremendous conflagration of 1666, this fabric shared the common fate, and was burnut almost to the ground, "No stately building was so great," says an eye-witness of the calamity +, as to "resist the fury of the flames." "The Royal Exchange itself," he continues, "the glory of merchants, is now See Londina Illustrata, P. 1.; in which Hollar's print of the Royal Ex change as erected by Sir Thomas Gresham, is re-engraved. The Rev. T. Vincent, in his God's Terrible Voice in the City,' |