Note 289 — PART III.

Hollinshed mentions the “multitude of chimnies latelie erected” as one of the “three things marvellouslie altered in England” about the beginning of the sixteenth century. (Chronicles of England, etc. edit. of 1807, vol. i. p. 317; and Strutt’s Horda Angel-Cynnan, 1774, vol. i. p. 104.) When we consider this we shall scarcely wonder that the smoke of coals was formerly looked upon as a noted cause of disease, and was at one time actually prohibited in London and Southwark. (Stow’s Survey of London, p. 925. Evelyn’s Fumifugium, 1661. Macpherson’s Annals of Commerce, vol. i. p. 474.) In 1307 fires were ordered not to be lighted near the Tower because the Queen was going to reside there. (Macpherson, ut supra, see the edict in Rymer’s Foedera, vol. ii. p. 1057.)