Medieval London (Vol. 1&2). Walter Besant
divers and many; and spared none for mede nor for favour, that were by the law atteynted, notwithstanding that he might have taken xl pounds of redy money to hym offerid for to have spared one from that jugment.” (Fabyan.)
Henry’s remains lay in state at St. Paul’s and at Blackfriars. It was necessary that people should understand that he was really dead and out of the way. They were then carried to Chertsey where they were buried. Edward knighted all the Aldermen. Sharpe gives the list, in which one is grieved to find neither Robert Basset nor Ralph Jocelyn.
In the year 1475 by an Act of Common Council the election of the Mayor was ordered to be made henceforth by the Mayor, Aldermen, Common-Councilmen, and Liverymen of the City. And so it has remained ever since. Only while the City gave the election to the Liverymen it included all those who had the freedom of the City, excluding any other residents, tenants, foreigners, great Lords, or their followers. The house called “Gildhalla Teutonicorum,” the Steelyard, was in this year granted to the Hanseatic League. The history of this house will be considered separately.
Two more charters were obtained from the King. One granted permission to hold lands in mortmain to a limited extent: the other gave the City the privilege of package, portage, garbling of spices, gauging, wine-drawing, etc., a charter of a commercial and technical kind.
As for the rest of the acts of King Edward they concern not much the City of London. He entertained the Mayor and Aldermen at a hunt; he also sent the Lady Mayoress six fat bucks and a tun of wine, of which they made a great feast at Drapers’ Hall; he murdered his brother, the Duke of Clarence; he invaded France and came back again;—one must needs speak of his mistress, Jane Shore;—and he borrowed a great deal of money which he did not repay.
The history of the King’s mistresses should hardly claim a place in the history of London. There are, however, one or two of these favourites who, in some way inexplicable, have captured the imagination of the people, and have won their sympathies. Why do we think more of Jane Shore than of Alice Perrers? Why, out of the long list of frail beauties about the court of Charles II., do we fix our eyes upon Nell Gwynne and neglect the rest? Certain it is that, not only in her own lifetime but also long afterwards, Jane Shore was remembered with kindliness and pity. Everybody knows her story: she was the wife of a London citizen, a goldsmith; she attracted the attention of the man who is commonly believed to have been the handsomest man in the country, as he was certainly the most dissolute. If, however, the portrait of Edward IV. in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries is to be trusted, his beauty did not lie in his face; it must have been his stature and his strength which gave him this reputation. When he died, Jane Shore, whose husband had cast her off, fell into the power of Hastings or of the Marquis of Dorset. When Hastings was beheaded, Richard endeavoured to convict her of witchcraft, probably he had some private reason for personal malice against Jane Shore. This attempt failing, he accused her of unchastity, which was not to be denied. She was taken to the Bishop’s Palace there clothed in a white sheet, a wax taper was placed in her hand, and she was led to the Cathedral beside the Palace, where she offered the taper, and to Paul’s Cross, where she made confession of her sins. One is glad to think that the poor creature had so short a distance to walk in this deplorable guise. Some, as Stow says, may think this woman “too slight a thing” to be written of: yet who can read the words of the grave Sir Thomas More, and still think so? And one cannot read the words of Stow himself without feeling that it was no common woman who could thus draw all hearts to her; who could leave behind her the memory of so many good deeds; who expiated a youth of such splendid sin by an old age of such terrible poverty and neglect.
Here are the words of Sir Thomas More:—
“Her stature was mean: her hair of a dark yellow, her face round and full, her eye grey, delicate harmony being betwixt each part’s proportion, and each proportion’s colour; her body fat, white, and smooth; her countenance cheerful, and like to her condition. That picture which I have seen of her, was such as she rose out of her bed in the morning, having nothing on but a rich mantle, cast under her arm, over her shoulder, and sitting in a chair on which her naked arm did lie. What her father’s name was, or where she was born, is not certainly known: but Shore, a young man of right goodly person, wealth, and behaviour, abandoned her bed, after the King had made her his concubine.”
And, next, hear Stow:—“This woman was borne in London, worshipfully friended, honestly brought up, and very well married, saving somewhat too soone, hir husband an honest citizen, yong and godly, and of good substance. But for as much as they were coupled ere they were wel ripe, she not very fervently loved, for whom she never longed, which was happily the thing that the more easily made hir incline unto the King’s appetite, when he required hir. Howbeit the respect of his royaltie, the hope of gay apparell, ease, pleasure, and other wanton wealth, was able soone to pierce a soft tender heart.
But when the King had abused hir, anone hir husband (as he was an honest man) left hir up to him altogether.
When the King died, the Lord Chamberlain tooke hyr, which in the King’s dayes, albeit he was sore enamoured upon hir, yet he forebare hir, eyther for reverence, or for a certain friendly faythfulnesse. Proper she was and fayre: nothing in hir bodie that you would have chaunged, but if you would have wished hir somewhat higher.
Thus say they that knewe hir in hir youth. Albeit some that nowe see hir (for yet she liveth) deeme hir never to have bene wel visaged, whose judgement seemeth me somewhat like as though men should gesse the beautie of one long before departed, by her scalpe taken out of the charnelhouse: so now is she olde, leane, withered, and dryed up, nothing left but riveled skin and hard bone. And yet being even such: who so wil advise her visage, might gesse and devise, which parts how filled would make it a faire face. Yet delited not men so much in her beautie, as in her pleasant behaviour. For a proper wit had she, and coulde both reade well and write, merrie in companye, readie and quicke of aunswere, neyther mute nor full of bable, sometime taunting without displeasure, and not without disporte.
The King would say that he had three concubines, which in their diverse properties diversly excelled. One the merriest, another the wyliest, the third the holyest harlot in his realme, as one whom no man could get out of the Church lightly to any place, but it were to his bed. The other two were somewhat greater personages, and nathelesse of their humility content to be namelesse, and to forbeare the praise of those properties. But the meriest was this Shors wife, in whom the King therefore took special pleasure. For many he had but hir he loved, whose favour to saye the truth (for sinne it were to belie the Devil) she never abused to any man’s hurt, but to manye a mannes comforte and relief: where the Kyng tooke displeasure, she would mitigate and appease his mynde: where men were out of favour she woulde brynge them in his grace. For manye that hadde highlye offended shee obtayned pardon. Of great forfeytures she gat men remission. And finally, in many weightie sutes she stoode many men in great steade, eyther for none or very small rewardes, and those rather gaye than riche: eyther for that she was content with the deed selfe well done, or for that shee delyted to bee sued unto, and to shewe what she was able to doe with the King, for what wanton women and wealthy be not always covetous.
I doubt not some shall thinke this woman too sleyghte a thing to be written of, and set among the remembrances of great matters: whych they shall specially thinke, that happilye shall esteem hir onely by that they nowe see hir. But me seemeth the chaunce so muche the more worthy to be remembered, in how much she is nowe in the most beggerlye condition, unfriended and worn out of acquaintance, after good substance, after as great favour with the Prince, after as greate sute and seekyng to with all those that those dayes had businesse to speede, as many other men were in theyr tymes, which be now famous only by the infamye of theyr yl dedes. Hir doings wer not much lesse albeit they be much lesse remembered because they were not so evil. For men use if they have an evill turne to write it in Marble; and who so doeth us a good turne, we write it in duste, whiche is not worst proved by hir: for at this day she beggeth of manye at thys daye lyving, that at this day had begged if she had not bin.”
“THE HIERARCHY OF THE SCIENCES,” AS CONCEIVED BY MEDIÆVAL THOUGHT
From the Berri Bible in British Museum. Harl. 1585.
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