ST. OLAVE'S CHURCH.

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she was married at the age of fourteen, and that she died at the age of twenty-nine.

Some of the notices in Pepys's "Diary," of his attendances at Divine Service in St. Olave's Church, are not a little curious, more especially where they refer to the revolution. in manners and customs occasioned by the recent discomfiture of the Puritans, and by the revival of the religious ceremonials of the Church of England :

"4th Novr., 1660.-Lord's Day. In the morn to our own church, where Mr. Mills did begin to nibble at the Common Prayer, by saying 'Glory be to the Father,' &c., after he had read the two psalms; but the people had been so little used to it, that they could not tell what to answer. My wife seemed very pretty to-day, it being the first time I had given her leave to wear a black patch."

"30th January, 1660-1.-Fast Day.* The first time that this day hath yet been observed, and Mr. Mills made a most excellent sermon, upon 'Lord forgive us our former iniquities;' speaking excellently of the justice of God in punishing men for the sins of their ancestors. To my Lady Batten's, where my wife and she are lately come back from seeing of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw hanged and buried at Tyburn."

"26th October, 1662.-Lord's Day. Put on my new Scallop, which is very fine. To church, and there saw, the first time, Mr. Mills in a surplice; but it seemed absurd for him to pull it over his ears in the reading-pew, after he had done, before all the church, to go up to the pulpit."

"9th August, 1663.-To church, and heard Mr. Mills preach upon the authority of the ministers, upon these words, 'We are therefore ambassadors of Christ.' Wherein, among other high expressions, he said, that such a learned man used to say, that if a minister of the word and an angel should meet

* The anniversary of the decapitation of Charles the First.

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WHITTINGTON'S PALACE.

him together, he should salute the minister first; which methought was a little too high."

"4th February, 1665-6.-Lord's Day; and my wife and I, the first time, together at the church since the plague, and now only because of Mr. Mills his coming home to preach his first sermon; expecting a great excuse for his leaving the parish before anybody went, and now staying till all are come home; but he made but a very poor and short excuse, and a bad sermon. It was a frost, and had snowed last night, which covered the graves in the churchyard, so as I was the less afraid for going through."

Daniel Mills, D.D., to whose sermons in St. Olave's Church Pepys so often listened, and which he so frequently criticises, was thirty-two years rector of the parish. He died in October, 1689, at the age of sixty-three, and was buried in the church. On the 4th of June, 1703, Pepys was himself interred in a vault in the middle aisle of St. Olave's Church, by the side of his wife and brother.

In Hart Street, four doors from Mark Lane, stood, till within a few years, an ancient mansion styled in the old leases Whittington's palace, and said to have been the residence of Richard Whittington, Lord Mayor of London, whose tale is familiar to us from our childhood. On pulling down the old mansion to make room for some contemplated improvements, the following curious discovery was made. On removing the basement walls, the workmen came to a small brick chamber, the only opening to which was from the top. On breaking into it, it was found to contain many human bones, mixed with hair, and so disposed of, as to afford much reason to believe that the chamber had been the scene of foul play. This impression was still further strengthened by the discovery of a dagger-about twelve inches in length, and with its point broken-which was found lying among the bones.

LADY FANSHAWE.

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In Hart Street was born Lady Fanshawe, the authoress of the delightful personal "Memoirs" which bear her name. "I was born," she writes, "in St. Olave's, Hart Street, London, in a house that my father took of the Lord Dingwall, father to the now Duchess of Ormond, in the year 1625, on our Lady Day, 25th of March." And she adds,-"In that house I lived the winter times, till I was fifteen years old and three months, with my very honoured and most dear mother." Lady Fanshawe appears to have been an intimate acquaintance of the Duchess of Ormond, who, on one occasion, told her she loved her for many reasons, "and one was, that we were both born in one chamber."

"

* Lady Fanshawe's "Memoirs," pp. 50 and 81.

ALDGATE, ST. BOTOLPH'S CHURCH, LEADENHALL STREET, ST. CATHERINE CREE, &c.

DERIVATION OF THE NAME ALDGATE.-STOW THE ANTIQUARY.-HIS LABOURS ILL-REQUITED.-CRUEL EXECUTION OF THE BAILIFF OF ROMFORD.-HIS SPEECH.-CHURCH OF ST. BOTOLPH.-MONUMENTS IN THE CHURCH.DEFOE'S ACCOUNT OF THE BURIAL-PITS IN THE CHURCHYARD DURING THE PLAGUE.-WHITECHAPEL.-DUKE'S PLACE.-PRIORY OF THE HOLY TRINITY. -LEADENHALL STREET.—CHURCH OF ST. CATHERINE CREE. -PERSONS BURIED THERE.-CONSECRATION OF THE CHURCH BY ARCHBISHOP LAUD.CHURCH OF ST. ANDREW UNDERSHAFT.-MONUMENTS.-ST. MARY-AXE.— LIME STREET.

FEN

ENCHURCH STREET leads us into Aldgate, which derives its name from one of the principal gates of the city-styled in the reign of King Edgar, Ealdgate, or Oldgate-under which passed one of the Roman roads leading into London. In 1215, during the wars between King John and his barons, it was through this gate that the latter entered London in triumph; when, after having secured the other gates, and plundered the royalists and Jews, they proceeded to lay siege to the Tower. Here too, in 1471, during the wars between the White and Red Roses, the bastard Falconbridge presented himself at the head of a formidable force, consisting of freebooters and partizans of the House of Lancaster, and demanded admittance into the city. After a fierce conflict the gate was forced by some of his followers; but the portcullis having been let down, they were all killed. The portcullis was then drawn up, and the citizens sallying forth, repulsed their assailants with great slaughter.

STOW, THE ANTIQUARY.

333

Among the records of the city of London is a lease granting the whole of the dwelling house above the gate of Aldgate to Geoffrey Chaucer, the poet, in 1374.

Close to the pump at Aldgate, at the junction of Leadenhall Street and Fenchurch Street, lived the indefatigable antiquary, John Stow, whose name no historian of London can inscribe without feelings of reverence and gratitude. He was bred a tailor, but gave up his occupation, and with it the means of living with ease and comfort, in order to be able to prosecute his beloved studies of history and antiquities. The manner in which his priceless labours were rewarded by his ungrateful countrymen, is well known. "It was in his eightieth year," writes Mr. D'Israeli, in his "Calamities of Authors," "that Stow at length received a public acknowledgment of his services, which will appear to us of a very extraordinary nature. He was so reduced in his circumstances that he petitioned James the First for a licence to collect alms for himself! 'as a recompense for his labour and travel of forty-five years, in setting forth the Chronicles of England, and eight years taken up in the Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, towards his relief now in his old age; having left his former means of living, and only employing himself for the service and good of his country.' Letters-patent under the Great Seal were granted. After no penurious commendation of Stow's labours, he is permitted to gather the benevolence of well-disposed people within this realm of England: to ask, gather, and take the alms of all our loving subjects.' These letters-patent were to be published by the clergy from their pulpit. They produced so little that they were renewed for another twelvemonth one entire parish in the City contributed seven shillings and sixpence! Such, then, was the patronage received by Stow, to be a licensed beggar throughout the kingdom