Volume 1 — I (continued 2)

From the days of Henry the builder down to those of Henry of Richmond the Tower, as the strongest place in the south of England, was by turns the magnificent home and the miserable jail of all our princes. Here Richard the Second held his court and gave up his crown. Here Henry the Sixth was murdered. Here the Duke of Clarence was drowned in wine. Here King Edward and the Duke of York was slain by command of Richard. Here Margaret of Salisbury suffered her tragic fate.

Henry of Richmond kept his royal state in the Tower, receiving his ambassadors, counting his angels, making presents to his bride, Elizabeth of York. Among other gifts to that lady on her nuptial day was a Royal Book of verse, composed by a prisoner in the keep.

ST. JAMES'S PALACE [Footnote: From "Walks in London."]

BY AUGUSTUS J.C. HARE

The picturesque old brick gateway of St. James's Palace still looks up St. James's Street, one of the most precious relics of the past in London, and enshrining the memory of a greater succession of historical events than any other domestic building in England, Windsor Castle not excepted. The site of the palace was occupied, even before the Conquest, by a hospital dedicated to St. James, for "fourteen maidens that were leprous." Henry VIII. obtained it by exchange, pensioned off the sisters, and converted the hospital into "a fair mansion and park," in the same year in which he was married to Anne Boleyn, who was commemorated here with him in love-knots, now almost obliterated, upon the side doors of the gateway, and in the letters "H.A." on the chimney-piece of the presence-chamber or tapestry room. Holbein is sometimes said to have been the king's architect here, as he was at Whitehall. Henry can seldom have lived here, but hither his daughter, Mary I., retired, after her husband Philip left England for Spain, and here she died, November 17, 1558.

James I., in 1610, settled St. James's on his eldest son, Prince Henry, who kept his court here for two years with great magnificence, having a salaried household of no less than two hundred and ninety-seven persons. Here he died in his nineteenth year, November 6, 1612. Upon his death, St. James's was given to his brother Charles, who frequently resided here after his accession to the throne, and here Henrietta Maria gave birth to Charles II., James II., and the Princess Elizabeth. In 1638 the palace was given as a refuge to the queen's mother, Marie de Medici, who lived here for three years, with a pension of £3,000 a month! Hither Charles I. was brought from Windsor as the prisoner of the Parliament, his usual attendants, with one exception, being debarred access to him, and being replaced by common soldiers, who sat smoking and drinking even in the royal bedchamber, never allowing him a moment's privacy, and hence he was taken in a sedan chair to his trial at Whitehall.

On the following day the king was led away from St. James's to the scaffold. His faithful friends, Henry Rich, Earl of Holland, the Duke of Hamilton, and Lord Capel were afterward imprisoned in the palace and suffered like their master.

Charles II., who was born at St. James's (May 29, 1630), resided at Whitehall, giving up the palace to his brother, the Duke of York (also born here, October 25, 1633), but reserving apartments for his mistress, the Duchess of Mazarin, who at one time resided there with a pension of £4,000 a year. Here Mary II. was born, April 30, 1662; and here she was married to William of Orange, at eleven at night, November 4, 1677. Here for many years the Duke and Duchess of York secluded themselves with their children, in mourning and sorrow, on the anniversary of his father's murder. Here also Anne Hyde, Duchess of York, died, March 31, 1671, asking, "What is truth?" of Blandford, Bishop of Worcester, who came to visit her.

In St. James's Palace also, James's second wife, Mary of Modena, gave birth to her fifth child, Prince James Edward ("the Old Pretender") on June 10, 1688.

It was to St. James's that William III. came on his first arrival in England, and he frequently resided there afterward, dining in public, with the Duke of Schomberg seated at his right hand and a number of Dutch guests, but on no occasion was any English gentleman invited. In the latter part of William's reign the palace was given up to the Princess Anne, who had been born there February 6, 1665, and married there to Prince George of Denmark July 28, 1683. She was residing here when Bishop Burnet brought her the news of William's death and her own accession.

George I., on his arrival in England, came at once to St. James's. "This is a strange country," he remarked afterward; "the first morning after my arrival at St. James's I looked out of the window, and saw a park with walks, and a canal, which they told me were mine. The next day Lord Chetwynd, the ranger of my park, sent me a fine brace of carp out of my canal; and I was told I must give five guineas to Lord Chetwynd's servant for bringing me my own carp, out of my own canal, in my own park."

The Duchess of Kendal, the king's mistress, had rooms in the palace, and, toward the close of his reign, George I. assigned apartments there on the ground floor to a fresh favorite, Miss Anne Brett. When the king left for Hanover, Miss Brett had a door opened from her rooms to the royal gardens, which the king's granddaughter, Princess Anne, who was residing in the palace, indignantly ordered to be walled up. Miss Brett had it opened a second time, and the quarrel was at its height when the news of the king's death put an end to the power of his mistress. With the accession of George II. the Countesses of Yarmouth and Suffolk took possession of the apartments of the Duchess of Kendal. As Prince of Wales, George II. had resided in the palace till a smoldering quarrel with his father came to a crisis over the christening of one of the royal children, and the next day he was put under arrest, and ordered to leave St. James's with his family the same evening. Wilhelmina Caroline of Anspach, the beloved queen of George II., died in the palace, November 20, 1737, after an agonizing illness, endured with the utmost fortitude and consideration for all around her.

Of the daughters of George II. and Queen Caroline, Anne, the eldest, was married at St. James's to the Prince of Orange, November, 1733, urged to the alliance by her desire for power, and answering to her parents, when they reminded her of the hideous and ungainly appearance of the bridegroom, "I would marry him, even if he were a baboon!" The marriage, however, was a happy one, and a pleasant contrast to that of her younger sister Mary, the king's fourth daughter, who was married here to the brutal Frederick of Hesse Cassel, June 14, 1771. The third daughter, Caroline, died at St. James's, December 28, 1757, after a long seclusion consequent upon the death of John, Lord Harvey, to whom she was passionately attached.

George I. and George II. used, on certain days to play at Hazard at the grooms' postern at St. James's, and the name "Hells," as applied to modern gaming-houses is derived from that given to the gloomy room used by the royal gamblers.

The northern part of the palace, beyond the gateway (inhabited in the reign of Victoria by the Duchess of Cambridge), was built for the marriage of Frederick Prince of Wales.

The State Apartments (which those who frequent levees and drawing-rooms have abundant opportunities of surveying) are handsome, and contain a number of good royal portraits.

The Chapel Royal, on the right on entering the "Color Court," has a carved and painted ceiling of 1540. Madame d'Arblay describes the pertinacity of George III. in attending service here in bitter November weather, when the queen and court at length left the king, his chaplain, and equerry "to freeze it out together."…

When Queen Caroline (wife of George II.) asked Mr. Whiston what fault people had to find with her conduct, he replied that the fault they most complained of was her habit of talking in chapel. She promised amendment, but proceeding to ask what other faults were objected to her, he replied, "When your Majesty has amended this I'll tell you of the next."

It was in this chapel that the colors taken from James II. at the Battle of the Boyne were hung up by his daughter Mary, an unnatural exhibition of triumph which shocked the Londoners. Besides that of Queen Anne, a number of royal marriages have been solemnized here; those of the daughters of George II., of Frederick Prince of Wales to Augusta of Saxe Cobourg, of George IV. to Caroline of Brunswick, and of Queen Victoria to Prince Albert.

The Garden at the back of St. James's Palace has a private entrance to the Park. It was as he was alighting from his carriage here, August 2, 1786, that George III. was attacked with a knife by the insane Margaret Nicholson. "The bystanders were proceeding to wreak summary vengeance on the (would-be) assassin, when the King generously interfered in her behalf. 'The poor creature,' he exclaimed, 'is mad: do not hurt her; she has not hurt me.' He then stept forward and showed himself to the populace, assuring them that he was safe and uninjured."

LITERARY SHRINES OF LONDON [Footnote: From "Shakespeare's England." By arrangement with the publishers, Moffat, Yard & Co. Copyright by William Winter, 1878-1910.]

BY WILLIAM WINTER

The mind that can reverence historic associations needs no explanation of the charm that such associations possess. There are streets and houses in London which, for pilgrims of this class, are haunted with memories and hallowed with an imperishable light that not even the dreary commonness of everyday life can quench or dim. Almost every great author in English literature has here left some personal trace, some relic that brings you at once into his living presence. In the time of Shakespeare,—of whom it should be noted that, wherever found, he is found in elegant neighborhoods,—Aldersgate was a secluded, peaceful quarter of the town, and there the poet had his residence, convenient to the theater in Blackfriars, in which he owned a share. It is said that he dwelt at No. 134 Aldersgate Street (the house was long ago demolished), and in that region, amid all the din of traffic and all the discordant adjuncts of a new age, those who love him are in his company. Milton was born in a court adjacent to Bread Street, Cheapside, and the explorer comes upon him as a resident in St. Bride's churchyard,—where the poet Lovelace was buried,—and at No. 19 York Street, Westminster, in later times occupied by Jeremy Bentham and by William Hazlitt. When secretary to Cromwell he lived in Scotland Yard, now the headquarters of the London police. His last home was in Artillery Walk, Bunhill Fields, but the visitor to that spot finds it covered by the Artillery barracks. Walking through King Street, Westminster, you will not forget the great poet Edmund Spenser, who, a victim to barbarity, died there, in destitution and grief. Ben Jonson's terse record of that calamity says: "The Irish having robbed Spenser's goods and burnt his house and a little child new-born, he and his wife escaped, and after he died, for lack of bread, in King Street." Ben Jonson is closely associated with places that can still be seen. He passed his boyhood near Charing Cross—having been born in Hartshorn Lane, now Northumberland Street; he attended the parish school of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields; and persons who roam about Lincoln's Inn will call to mind that he helped to build it—a trowel in one hand and a volume of Horace in the other. His residence, in his day of fame, was outside the Temple Bar, but all that neighborhood is new.

The Mermaid,—which Jonson frequented, in companionship with Shakespeare, Fletcher, Herrick, Chapman, and Donne,—was in Bread Street, but no trace of it remains, and a banking house stands now on the site of the old Devil Tavern, in Fleet Street, a room in which, called "The Apollo," was the trysting place of the club of which he was the founder. The famous inscription, "O, rare Ben Jonson!" is three times cut in the Abbey; once in Poets' Corner and twice in the north aisle, where he was buried,—a little slab in the pavement marking his grave. Dryden once dwelt in a quaint, narrow house, in Fetter Lane,—the street in which Dean Swift has placed the home of "Gulliver," and where the famous Doomsday Book was kept,—but, later, he removed to a liner dwelling, in Gerrard Street, Soho, which was the scene of his death. (The house in Fetter Lane was torn down in 1891.) Edmund Burke's house, also in Gerrard Street, is a beer-shop, but the memory of the great orator hallows the abode, and an inscription upon it proudly announces that here he lived. Dr. Johnson's house, in Gough Square, bears (or bore) a mural tablet, and standing at its time-worn threshold, the visitor needed no effort of fancy to picture that uncouth figure shambling through the crooked lanes that afford access to this queer, somber, melancholy retreat. In that house he wrote the first dictionary of the English language and the characteristic, memorable letter to Lord Chesterfield. The historical antiquarian society that has marked many of the literary shrines of London has rendered a signal service. The custom of marking the houses that are associated with renowned names is, obviously, a good one, because it provides instruction, and also because it tends to vitalize, in the general mind, a sense of the value of honorable repute: it ought, therefore, to be everywhere adopted and followed. A house associated with Sir Joshua Reynolds and a house associated with Hogaith, both in Leicester Square, and houses associated with Benjamin Franklin and Peter the Great, in Craven Street; Sheridan, in Savile Row; Campbell, in Duke Street; Carrick, in the Adelphi Terrace; Mrs. Siddons, in Baker Street, and Michael Faraday, in Blandford Street, are only a few of the notable places which have been thus designated. More of such commemorative work remains to be done, and, doubtless, will be accomplished. The traveler would like to know in which of the houses in Buckingham Street Coleridge lodged, while he was translating "Wallenstein"; which house in Bloomsbury Square was the residence of Akenside, when he wrote "The Pleasures of Imagination," and of Croly, when he wrote "Salathiel"; or where it was that Gray lived, when he established his residence in Russel Square, in order to be one of the first (as he continued to be one of the most constant) students at the then newly opened British Museum (1759)…. These records, and such as these, may seem trivialities, but Nature has denied an unfailing source of innocent pleasure to the person who can feel no interest in them. For my part, when rambling in Fleet Street it is a special delight to remember even so little an incident as that recorded of the author of the "Elegy"—that he once saw there his contemptuous critic, Dr. Johnson, shambling along the sidewalk, and murmured to a companion, "Here comes Ursa Major." For true lovers of literature "Ursus Major" walks oftener in Fleet Street to-day than any living man.

A good leading thread of literary research might be profitably followed by the student who should trace the footsteps of all the poets, dead and gone, that have held, in England, the office of laureate. John Kay was laureate in the reign of King Edward the Fourth; Andrew Bernard in that of King Henry the Seventh; John Skelton in that of King Henry the Eighth, and Edmund Spenser in that of Queen Elizabeth. Since then the succession has included the names of Samuel Daniel, Michael Drayton, Ben Jonson, Sir William Devenant, John Dryden, Thomas Shadwell, Nahum Tate, Nicholas Rowe, Lawrence Eusden, Colley Cibber, William Whitehead, Thomas Warton, Henry James Pye, Robert Southey, William Wordsworth, and Alfred Tennyson. Most of those bards were intimately associated with London, and several of them are buried in the Abbey. It is, indeed, because so many storied names are written upon gravestones that the explorer of the old churches of London finds in them so rich a harvest of instructive association and elevating thought. Few persons visit them, and you are likely to find yourself comparatively alone, in rambles of this kind. I went one morning into St. Martin's,—once "in-the-fields," now at the busy center of the city,—and found there only a pew-opener, preparing for the service, and an organist, practising music. It is a beautiful structure, with graceful spire and with columns of weather-beaten, gray stone, curiously stained with streaks of black, and it is almost as famous for theatrical names as St. Paul's, Covent Garden, or St. George's, Bloomsbury, or St. Clement Danes. There, in a vault beneath the church, was buried the bewitching, generous Nell Gwynn; there is the grave of James Smith, joint author with his brother Horace,—who was buried at Tunbridge Wells,—of "The Rejected Addresses"; there rests Richard Yates, the original "Sir Oliver Surface"; and there were laid the ashes of the romantic Mrs. Centlivre, and of George Farquhar, whom neither youth, genius, patient labor, nor sterling achievement could save from a life of misfortune and an untimely, piteous death. A cheerier association of this church is with the poet Thomas Moore, who was there married. At St. Giles's-in-the-Fields are the graves of George Chapman, who translated Homer; Andrew Marvel, who wrote such lovely lyrics; Rich, the manager, who brought out "The Beggar's Opera," and James Shirley, the fine dramatist and poet, whose immortal couplet has often been murmured in such solemn haunts as these:

Only the actions of the just Smell sweet and blossom in the dust.

Shirley was one of the most fertile, accomplished, admirable, and admired of writers, during the greater part of his life (1596-1666), and the study of his writing amply rewards the diligence of the student. His plays, about forty in number, of which "The Traitor" is deemed the best tragedy and "The Lady of Pleasure" the best comedy, comprehend a wide variety of subject and exhibit refinement, deep feeling, and sustained fluency of graceful expression. His name is associated with St. Albans, where he dwelt as a school-teacher, and, in London, with Gray's Inn, where at one time he resided.