Bill

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Second Reading

About Stocks Market

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Stocks Market. A market for fish and flesh in Walbrook Ward, on the site of the present Mansion House. It was established in 1282 by Henry Walis, Lord Mayor, "where some time had stood (the way being very large and broad) a pair of stocks for punishment of offenders; this building took name of these stocks."

The Stocks Market remained a market for the sale of meat and fish until destroyed in the Great Fire of r666. When rebuilt it was converted into a market for fruit and vegetables.

In the market stood a statue of Charles I. and one intended to be taken for Charles II., of which latter, however, Pennant gives the following account:—

In it stood the famous equestrian statue, erected in honour of Charles II. by his most loyal subject Sir Robert Viner, lord mayor. Fortunately his lordship discovered one (made at Leghorn) of John Sobieski trampling on a Turk. The good knight caused some alterations to be made, and christened the Polish monarch by the name of Charles, and bestowed on the turbaned Turk that of Oliver Cromwell.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

And so, of course, Andrew Marvell had a little fun:

But now it appears, from the first to the last.
To be all a revenge, and a malice forecast;
Upon the King’s birth-day to set up a thing.
That shows him a monkey more like than a King.

When each one that passes finds fault with the horse,
Yet all do affirme that the King is much worse;
And some by the likeness Sir Robert suspect.
That he did for the King his own statue erect.
...
But Sir Robert, to take all the scandal away.
Does the errour upon the artificer lay;
And alledges the workmanship was not his own,
For he counterfeits only in gold — not in stone.
---A Poem on The Statue at Stocks–Market

About Bankside

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Bankside (The), SOUTHWARK, comprehends that portion of ground on the river-bank between "Bank-end" by Barclay's brewery, and "Bank-end" by the Castle or Falcon, near Blackfriars Bridge. These appear in the Token-books of about 1600 respectively as the "hether end of the Bank" east and "Bancke-ende" west. Bankside was of old the chief seat of vice and dissipation in London, and contained the Stews, Bear Gardens, and Playhouses.

The playhouses and bear gardens were nearly all put down in the time of the Commonwealth, one or two surviving to the time of Charles II. or a little later, until the sports were removed to Hockley in the Hole.

Afterwards the Bankside was chiefly occupied by gardens, riverside public-houses, and breweries, by founders, glassmakers, and largely by dyers.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Aldgate Street

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Aldgate High Street. The main street from Leadenhall Street to Jewin Street, the site of the ancient City gate, is known as Aldgate; the street eastward to Mansell Street and Petticoat Lane (now Middlesex Street), where Whitechapel High Street commences, is called Aldgate High Street. At the north-west corner of Aldgate High Street is St. Botolph's Church. The Three Nuns' Inn, and the Pye Tavern, over against the end of Houndsditch, are mentioned by De Foe in his History of the Plague.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Aldgate

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Aldgate, a gate in the City wall towards the east, and, according to most authorities, called Aldgate from its antiquity or age, but in the earliest records the spelling is Alegate (1325-1344), or Algate (1381), which is suggestive of another derivation. The gateway, a stately structure, stood in the midst of the High Street, south of Aldgate Church. Duke's Place and Poor Jury Lane—now called Duke Street and Jewry Street—being immediately inside the gate and wall. In 1215 the barons who were at war with King John entered the city with ease at Aldgate, which was then in a ruinous condition. Shortly afterwards they rebuilt the gate.

In 1374 a lease was granted for the term of his life to Geoffrey Chaucer of "the whole of the dwelling-house above the gate of Algate with the rooms built over, and a certain cellar beneath the same gate, on the south side of that gate, and the appurtenances thereof," he undertaking that he "will competently and sufficiently maintain and repair" them under penalty of being "ousted" on the neglect to do so.

---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Aldersgate Street

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Aldersgate Street, the continuation northward of St. Martin's-le-Grand, extends from Aldersgate to the Barbican, south of Aldersgate Bars. The main entrance to the City from the north, and in early times famed for mansions and inns. A street "very spacious and long, and although the buildings are old and not uniform, yet many of them are very good and well-inhabited; and of the principal of them two are very large," wrote Seymour in 1736.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Barber-Surgeons' Hall

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In the court-room is one of the most remarkable of Holbein's works in this country — Henry VIII. giving the Charter to the Company, 1541. It is painted on vertical oak panels; is about 6 feet by 10 feet 3 inches, and contains nineteen figures the size of life, the King, however, being much above the rest in stature.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki…

About Bridewell Prison (formerly Bridewell Palace)

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Bridewell, a manor or house, so called—presented to the City of London by King Edward VI., after an appeal through Mr. Secretary Cecil, and a sermon by Bishop Ridley, who begged it of the King as a Workhouse for the Poor, and a House of Correction "for the strumpet and idle person, for the rioter that consumeth all, and for the vagabond that will abide in no place."

But the gift was found before long to be a serious inconvenience. Idle and abandoned people from the outskirts of London and parts adjacent, under colour of seeking an asylum in the new institution, settled in London in great numbers, to the great annoyance of the graver residents. The citizens became alarmed, and Acts of Common Council were issued against the resort of masterless men "upon pretence to be relieved by the almes of Christ Church and Bridewell."

The house was destroyed in the Great Fire.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About The Dutch Church

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Austin Friars, Old Broad Street, Broad Street Ward, the house of the Augustine Friars, founded by Humphrey Bohun, Earl of Hereford and Essex, in the year 1253. Henry VIII., at the Dissolution, bestowed the house and grounds on William Paulet, first Marquis of Winchester, who transformed his new acquisition into a town residence for himself, called, while it continued in his family, by the name of Paulet House and Winchester House (hence Winchester Street adjoining). The church, reserved by the King, was granted by his son "to the Dutch nation in London, to be their preaching place," the "Dutch nation" being the refugees who fled out of the Netherlands, France, "and other parts beyond seas, from Papist persecutors."
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Covent Garden

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The allusions to the square, the church, and the piazza are of constant occurrence in the dramas of the age of Charles II. and Queen Anne. The allusions are, however, for the most part to the loose morality of those who dwelt in Covent Garden, and the libertinism of those visitors; and Kit Smart's Epilogue to the Lying-in Hospital, written in 1755, and spoken by Shuter, shows that, even as late as the middle of the last century, almost any coarseness would be tolerated in reference to Covent Garden. Among the now happily scarce publications, for which collectors of miscalled facetia readily give long prices, are Harris's Lists of Covent Garden Ladies, published annually from about 1760 to nearly the end of the century.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Clerkenwell

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Clerkenwell, a parish extending northwards from St . Andrew's, Holborn, and Smithfield to the Pentonville Road, and having the Fleet River—the old River of Wells—for its western, and Goswell Road for its eastern boundary from the Charter House to the Angel at Islington. The original village grew up about the Priory of St. John of Jerusalem, the site of which is marked by St. John's Square and its still remaining gatehouse.

After the suppression of the monasteries, and especially in the early part of the 17th century, Clerkenwell became the residence of many families of distinction. The Bruces, Earls of Aylesbury, obtained a grant of the site of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, and built a mansion which is commemorated by Aylesbury Street. Spencer Compton, Earl of Northampton, possessed considerable property, since held by his descendants, and had a mansion where is now Northampton Square.

In Clerkenwell Close, the St. Mary's Close of the ancient nunnery, was Newcastle House, the residence of the Dukes of Newcastle, which has bequeathed its name to Newcastle Place and Newcastle Row. On the opposite side of this close, where is now Cromwell Place, was another large house commonly called Cromwell House, which was popularly connected with the Protector and with his secretary John Thurloe. It was probably the "fair large house" built by Sir Thomas Chaloner, distinguished alike as statesman, soldier, and writer in the great Elizabethan days.

Isaak Walton came to live here about 1650. He wrote in his family Prayer-book, "My last son Isaac, born September 7, 1651, was baptized in the evening in my house in Clerkenwell."
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Billingsgate

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A BILLINGSGATE, a scolding impudent slut.
---An Universal Etymological English Dictionary. N. Bailey, 1731.

The Other Day, the great Charpentier fell into such a Passion about a Trifle, that he reproach'd the Learned Taleman of being the Son of a broken Apothecary at Rochell, to which Taleman with as much heat reply'd, Charpentier was the Son of a poor hedge Ale-draper at Paris. From this Billingsgate Language they came to Blows.
---Letters from the dead to the living. T. Brown, 1702.

The work in question [The Dictionary of the French Academy] was attacked by songs, epigrams, libels, private letters, and in conversations. It is interspersed, was it said on these occasions, with all the filth of Billingsgate and with quibbles of every kind.
---A general dictionary. P. Bayle, 1741.

About Billingsgate

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Billingsgate, a river, gate, wharf, and fish-market, on the Thames, a little below London Bridge, the great fish-market of London. In very early times Queenhithe and Billingsgate were the chief City wharfs for the mooring of fishing vessels and landing their cargoes. The fish were sold in and about Thames Street, special stations being assigned to the several kinds of fish. Queenhithe was at first the more important wharf, but Billingsgate appears to have gradually overtaken it and eventually to have left it hopelessly in the rear, the troublesome passage of London Bridge leading ship-masters to prefer the below bridge wharf. Corn, malt, and salt, as well as fish, were landed and sold at both wharfs, and very strict regulations were laid down by the City authorities as to the tolls to be levied on the several articles, and the conditions under which they were to be sold.

The coarse language of the place has long been notorious. "One may term this the Esculine Gate of London," says old Fuller. "Here one may hear linguas jurgatrices;" and he places "Billingsgate language" among his proverbs.

At this rate there is not a scold at Billingsgate but may defend herself by the pattern of King James and Archbishop Whitgift. —Andrew Marvell, The Rehearsal Transprosed, 1672.

The style of Billingsgate would not make a very agreeable figure at St. James's. —E. Smith, On John Philips, the poet.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Bethleham ("Bedlam") precinct

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Bethlehem Royal Hospital (vulg. Bedlam), Lambeth Road, St. George's Fields, a hospital for insane people, founded in Bishopsgate Without, and for a different purpose, in 1246, by Simon Fitz-Mary, one of the Sheriffs of London. "He founded it to have been a priory of canons with brethren and sisters." The site of the original hospital was that known long after its removal as Old Bethlemcn, subsequently as Liverpool Street.

By the beginning of the 17th century Bethlehem Hospital had become one of the London sights, and it so continued till the last quarter of the 18th century. In Webster's Westward Ho! (1607), some of the characters, to pass the time while their horses are being saddled at "the Dolphin, Without Bishopsgate," resolve to "cross over" the road "to Bedlam, to see what Greeks are within," and a highly comic scene ensues. One of the party happening to turn his back the rest persuade the keeper that their friend is a lunatic, that his "pericranium is perished."
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Dorset House

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Dorset House, Fleet Street, the town house of Thomas Sackville, Baron Buckhurst and Earl of Dorset, the poet (d. 1608), formerly the Inn or London house of the Bishops of Salisbury, alienated to the Earl of Dorset's father by John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury. Bacon for a time lived here.
The loyal Marquis of Newcastle inhabited a part of Dorset House at the Restoration. The last procession of the cavalcade of the Order of the Garter took place from Dorset House, May 13, 1635. The house was divided into "Great" and "Little Dorset House." Great Dorset House was the jointure house of Cicely Baker, Dowager Countess of Dorset, who died in it October 1, 1615. The whole structure was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, and not rebuilt.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Counter/Compter

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Compter (The), St. Margaret's Hill, Southwark, a prison for the Borough of the City of London, wherein debtors and others for misdemeanours were imprisoned. It was so called from Computare, "because," says Minsheu, "whosoever slippeth in there must be sure to account, and pay well too, ere he get out again." It was built on the site of old St. Margaret's Church, opposite the Tabard, and was destroyed in the great Southwark fire of 1676. Counter Street, Counter Row, and Counter Alley, in the locality of St. Margaret's Hill, preserve a street recollection of a place once sufficiently well known.

Five jayles or prisons are in Southwarke placed,
The Counter once St. Margaret's Church defaced,
The Marshalsea, the King's Bench and White Lyon;
Then there's the Clinke, where handsome lodgings be,
And much good may it do them all for me.
--Taylor, the Water Poet, 1630.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Sir Edward Hyde (Earl of Clarendon, Lord Chancellor 1658-67)

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Clarendon, in his autobiography, admits the "weakness and vanity" he had exhibited in the erection of [Clarendon] house, and "the gust of envy" which it drew upon him; while he attributes his fall more to the fact that he had built such a house than to any misdemeanour he was thought to have been guilty of. Lord Rochester (Clarendon's second son) told Lord Dartmouth that when his father left England he ordered him to tell all his friends "that if they could excuse the vanity and folly of the great house, he would undertake to answer for all the rest of his actions himself."
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

Clarendon House: http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…

About Clarendon House, Picadilly

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Clarendon House, PICCADILLY, the town house of Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, "the great Lord Chancellor of Human Nature." It stood on the north side of Piccadilly, exactly fronting St. James's Palace. Charles II. granted the ground, and Pratt, we are told by Evelyn, was the name of the architect . The date of the grant is June 13, 1664. The populace called it Dunkirk House, Holland House, and Tangier Hall.

Clarendon, in his autobiography, admits the "weakness and vanity" he had exhibited in the erection of this house, and "the gust of envy" which it drew upon him; while he attributes his fall more to the fact that he had built such a house than to any misdemeanour he was thought to have been guilty of. Lord Rochester (Clarendon's second son) told Lord Dartmouth that when his father left England he ordered him to tell all his friends "that if they could excuse the vanity and folly of the great house, he would undertake to answer for all the rest of his actions himself." There was much in the house to call up popular clamour against him. Part of it was built with stones designed, before the Civil War, for the repair of old St. Paul's. He was said to have turned to a profane use what he had bought with a bribe. Old St. Paul's supplied stones for the palace of another great minister of State; but Somerset stole, Clarendon bought. The popular feeling is embodied in the following lines :—

Lo ! his whole ambition already divides
The sceptre between the Stuarts and Hydes.
Behold, in the depth of our Plague and Wars,
He built him a Palace outbraves the stars;
Which house (we Dunkirk he Clarendon names)
Looks down with shame upon St. James;
But 'tis not his golden globe will save him,
Being less than the Custom-house farmers gave him;
His chapel for consecration calls,
Whose sacrilege plundered the stones from Paul's.
--Clarendon's House-warming, by Andrew Marvell.

---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Christ Church Hospital

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Christ's Hospital, Newgate Street, a school on the site of the Greyfriars Monastery, founded by Edward VI., June 26, 1553, ten days before his death, as a hospital for poor fatherless children and others.
...
April 21, 1657. — I saw Christ Church and Hospital, a very goodly Gothic building; the hall, school, and lodgings in great order for bringing up many hundreds of poor children of both sexes; it is an exemplary charity. There is a large picture at one end of the hall representing the Governors, Founders, and the Institution.—Evelyn
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Tuesday 10 July 1660

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St Neots, sn nîts
[î as "ee" in "see"]
---A Manual of English Pronunciation & Grammar for the Use of Dutch Students. JHA Gunther, 1899.