Picturesque Sketches of London, Past and Present by Thomas Miller

Author:Thomas Miller [Miller, Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Fiction, Nonfiction, Historical, Reference & Language, Reference, History, British, Literary, Biography & Memoir
ISBN: 9783752418767
Google: yMf1DwAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Outlook Verlag
Published: 2014-08-22T04:00:00+00:00

ST. GILES’S, CRIPPLEGATE.

ST. GILES’S, CRIPPLEGATE.

Over the south-east door of the church is a figure of Time, with his scythe, &c., beautifully sculptured. Part of the ancient City-wall is still remaining on the south and east sides of the churchyard; particularly one of the bastions, which is close against the back of Barbers’ Hall, in Monkwell-street.

CHAPTER IX.

CHRIST’S HOSPITAL.

WE have often wondered how the mind of a stranger to London is impressed by seeing bare-headed young men moving about our city-thoroughfares wearing the costume of the period of the boy-king Edward VI.;—what he thinks of the blue-gown, orange-coloured petticoat, leather belt, yellow stockings, and clerkly band worn by the unmonk-like young gentry, who have succeeded the old Grey-Friars, those who in their day were seen in the narrow streets of ancient London. We have often seen a green-looking countryman peeping through the palisades in Newgate-street, while the boys have been at play in the open space before the hall; but could never divine what he thought, though his open mouth and fixed eyes told that something or another was passing through his brain; but whether he was struck by the dimensions of the building, the quaint dress of the schoolboys, or their cheerful laughter and merry romps, was alone known to himself. How few, except they are lovers of history, know or care any thing about Edward VI.! They may have heard that his brutal father beheaded wives as fast as he married them; that Lady Jane Grey perished on the scaffold; but of the events between, during the brief reign of the boy-king, they know nothing. More than one of our old chroniclers assert that he was poisoned. We often marvel that no one has closely examined contemporary authorities, and, by comparing them with the many documents of that period, which have of late years been brought to light, endeavoured to settle this disputed point of history.

The remains of the monastery of Grey Friars were repaired for the reception of the “poor fatherless children” in 1552; and before the close of the year nearly four hundred found shelter within the old monastic walls. At first they wore a dress of russet-cotton, which was afterwards changed for blue, and which colour they have no doubt worn ever since.

Stowe has left us a most interesting and beautifully-written account of the origin of Christ’s Hospital, with something so nervous and touching in the language, that we feel the good old man’s heart must have been fixed on the subject while he wrote. He tells us how “Mr. Doctor Ridley, then Bishop of London, came and preached before the king’s majesty at Westminster, in which sermon he made a fruitful and goodly exhortation to the rich to be merciful to the poor; and also to move such as were in authority to travail by some charitable way and means to comfort and relieve them.”

The boy-king was so struck by the appeal, that he sent for the bishop as soon as the service was over, when

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