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the Order of the Garter; besides being rector of Hasleley in Oxfordshire. He died at Windsor in 1677, aged eighty-one, and was buried in St. George's chapel. His Mercurius Rus ticus is well known; he also published several other works.

QUEEN STREET, or New Queen Street, was formerly called Broad Lane, on account of its more convenient space for carting goods from Vintry Wharf. At the south end of this street are broad stairs, where the lord mayor and sheriffs usually took water on the 30th of September, and 9th of November, when they went to be sworn into office at Westminster Hall. Within a few years Black-friars Stairs have been appointed for these purposes, as being more convenient, and without danger,

This street was formed after the fire as a continuation of Sopar Lane, and at the same time a more direct passage from Guildhall to the Thames. To accomplish this it was deemed necessary that the church of St. Thomas the Apostle, which had stood across where the new street is formed, should continue in its ruin, except a part now occupied as a burial ground; the opposite side also has been built upon; but is paved with flag stones, and forms a handsome area before the houses in Queen Street.

MAIDEN LANE, on the east side of Queen Street, passing to College Hill, was antiently called Kerions Lane, from a possessor of that name. RICHARD CHAWCER, citizen and vintner, gave to the church of St. Mary Aldermary, Bow Lane, his tenement and tavern, the corner of Kerion Lane.

Trusting, that by the assistance of Stow and other authorities, we have been successful in ascertaining the true origin and residence of Sir Richard Whittington, we will endeavour, as far as probability goes, to trace the family of GEOFFREY CHAUCER.

Mr. Urry seems to contemn the idea of Speght, in thinking that one Richard Chaucer was his father; and states it as an improbability, because that Richard was a vintner, and at his death left his house, tavern, and stock, &c. Stow mentions nothing concerning stock, but only tenement and tavern; and we have before stated that Taberna was merely a ware.

house

house for depositing goods previous to sale;* this conjecture is strengthened by the donation of his tenement and tavern; that is his house and warehouse; for the merchants of the Vintry were distinguished by the names Vinetarii and Tabernarii, till the reign of Edward III. the first were those who dealt in the importation of wine; the latter were the warehousemen, who retailed it. So that a Vintner and Taverner were very different persons.

Richard Chaucer was therefore not a tavern keeper, but an affluent wine merchant: and that the family were conversant in trade, is evident from Geoffrey; the son, being employed as comptroller of the customs in the port of London, with the proviso that he should personally execute the office, and write the accounts relating to it with his own hand.Thomas his first son was also a merchant, and married to Maud, daughter of Sir John Burghershe, brother of Bartholomew lord Burghershe, who we have before mentioned as one of the patrons of the chantry in St. Martin, Vintry; and of whom we shall have occasion to say more when we come to speak of Worcester House.

It is also to be recollected that Kerion's Lane was in the neighbourhood of the Tower Royal, which Edward III. called his Inn, and that the houses of the principal nobility were scattered round in various parts of the Royal; therefore the residence of Richard Chaucer being near the court, must have been an expensive dwelling; Urry seems also to say that it must have been very unnatural in the father to leave the whole of his property to the church, when his son was a minor at college. The above bequest does not imply the whole of his possessions; + and we conjecture also that the neighbourhood of the palace and Chaucer's house, might cause the king to make Geoffrey his page, and to qualify him in the university at the royal expence; and this might induce the poet, when he left the university to apply to court for the preferments which he afterwards attained. There was not that distance between nobility and merchandize which

*Vol. II. p. 538.

+ See the bequests of Stow's father, Vol. II. p. 132.

has since taken place; and till it can be discovered who the John Chaucer was that attended Edward III. in his expedition to Flanders, in 1388, we must be on the side of those who affirm that Richard Chaucer, wine-merchant, was the father of Geoffrey, who was ten years of age when the above John Chaucer was in the train of king Edward, Richard was buried in the church of St. Mary Aldermary, when his son was twenty years of age.

SAINT THOMAS THE APOSTLE.

THIS church stood in Cloak Lane, and belonged from time immemorial to the canons of St. Paul's cathedral; it continues still in the collation of the dean and chapter.

Here was a perpetual chantry founded for the souls of Thomas Romain and of Julian his wife, of which the mayor of London for the time being was patron. There were other chantries in addition, for the better maintenance of a priest.

Sir William Littlebury, alias Horn, was so named by Edward IV. on account of his excellent blowing of the horn, according to Stow, who, however, mentions him again as mayor of London in 1437, and that he was the son of Thomas Horn of Snaylewell in the county of Cambridge, and had been knighted on the field by Henry VII. This knight was buried in the church of St. Thomas, and gave his house in Bread Street, called the George, to the company of Salters, of which he was a member, to maintain a priest here, who was to have a yearly pension of 6l. 13s. 4d. He also gave to every preacher at Paul's Cross and at the Spital 4d. for ever; to the prisoners at Newgate, Ludgate, the Marshalsea, and King's Bench, 10s. at Christmas, and the same donation at Easter, for ever, "but," says Stow, "these legacies are not performed." He appointed by his testament, the bells in this church to be changed for four new bells, but that also was not performed; and gave five hundred marks towards repairing the high roads between London and Cambridge, and his dwelling house, with the garden and appurtenances to be sold, and bestowed in charitable actions, as his executors should answer before God.

There

There were several other benefactions to this church, which was burnt je the year 1666, and the parish united to that of St. Mary Aldermary, Bow Lane.

Among the clergy who officiated here, was THOMAS CARTWRIGHT, bishop of Chester in the reign of James II. Granger says of this prelate, " that he had been a forward and confident preacher at the time of the Interregnum, and proceeded in exact conformity with the powers then in being, but struck in with the royal party at the Restoration, and was no less forward upon all occasions to express his loyalty.He was made one of the king's chaplains; was successively a prebendary of St. Paul's, and of Durham, and had a hard struggle with Dr. Womack for the bishopric of St. David's. In the reign of James, he enlisted himself on the side of the prerogative, and was made bishop of Chester for boldly asserting in one of his sermons," that the king's promises to his parliament were not binding." It is probable, that on such slavish terms he might have been made archbishop of Canterbury, if that prinee had continued on the throne. He sat in the Ecclesiastical Commission, and was one of the judges sent by the king to intimidate the fellows of Magdalen College in Oxford, in the affair of Dr. Parker, whom they had refused to elect their president, according to the royal mandate. Upon the Revolution, he fled into France, where he officiated as minister to the Protestant part of the king's household. Upon the death of Jeth Ward, he became titular bishop of Salisbury. James, who looked upon him as neither Protestant nor Papist, had little or no esteem for him. He died of the flux in Ireland, whither he had followed the royal adventurer, the fifteenth of April, 1689." †

This part of CLOAK LANE was antiently called KnightRiders Street, on account of the knights armed at all points, who mounted at Tower Royal, and proceeded through this street till they came to Creed Lane, whence crossing Ludgate Street, they passed into Smithfield, to display their feats of chivalry before the royal family, nobility, and other dignified characters of the realm.

* See Vol. I. p. 276.

+ Hist. of England, Vol. IV. p. 29.

On

On the south side of Upper Thames Street, nearly adjoining to Anchor Alley, is situated

VINTNERS' HALL.

THIS bandsome building is situated on the spot once occupied by the house of Sir John Stody, mayor of London in 1357, and at that time called Stody Place, or, the Manor of the Vintry; which place Sir John afterwards gave to the Vintners Company.

The present edifice incloses a square, court, with a large handsome iron gate in the front next the street, hung upon columns wreathed with grapes and leaves, and a Bacchus upon three tuns on each pillar. The hall is exceedingly handsome, and behind it is a garden with a passage to the Thames. "In the great hall is a good picture of St. Martin, on a white horse, dividing his cloak with our Saviour, who appeared to him in the year 337, in the character of a beggar: Hic Christo chlamydem Martinus dimidiavit;

Et faciamus idem nobis exemplificavit.

There is, besides, a statue of that saint in the same room; and another picture of him above stairs. "Why this saint was selected as patron of the company I know not, except they imagined that the saint, actuated by good wine, had been inspired with good thoughts; which, according to the argument of James Howel, producing good works brought a man to heaven. And, to shew the moral in a contrary effect, here is a picture of Lot and his incestuous daughters, exemplify-ing the danger of the abuse of the best things."*

The VINTNERS form a very antient company; were known by the name of Merchant-wine-tunners of Gascoyne, and were distinguished into importers, who were called 'ineatrij, or wholesale dealers in wine; and Tabernarij, or retailers, who kept taverns or cellars to retail wine bought of the merchant. They were incorporated by Edward III. and confirmed by Henry VI. who granted them a charter to form them a body politic, by the name of "The Master, Wardens, and Freemen, and Commonalty of the Mystery of

VOL. III. No. 56,

* Pennant.

U

Vintners

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