Elizabethan London was a city expanding
at an extraordinary, apparently ungovernable
pace. In the second half of the sixteenth
century the city's population almost
doubled, and the rate of growth was ever
increasing. Since throughout this period
the death rate in London exceeded the birth
rate, the city's growth was due entirely
to immigration from the countryside. A royal
proclamation of 1602, "Prohibiting Further
Building or Subdividing of Houses in London," was
one of many official attempts to stem the
city's growth, none of which had any
appreciable effect.
The civic and royal authorities
were highly conscious of several dangers
entailed by the urban population boom. They
were worried by the prospect of social unrest,
especially in the hungry 1590s, and by the
threat of plague, which on several occasions
in the Elizabethan age carried off more than
10,000 of London's inhabitants. They
worried about a collapse in the rural economy,
as agricultural laborers crowded into London
in search of better wages and prospects.
And some worried too that London, a city
ceaselessly reinventing itself to meet the
demands of its growing population, was losing
touch with its own magnificent past. Fine
old houses were being demolished to make
way for the showy mansions of the rising
middle class; medieval graves and memorials
were dug up on a regular basis to make room
for London's latest dead.
The face of London has of course
changed many times since then; the gaudy
Tudor mansions are themselves a distant memory.
What we know today of both medieval and Elizabethan
London owes much to the tireless efforts
of John Stow (1525–1603), the city's
self-appointed surveyor and chronicler. A
tailor by profession, Stow devoted every
spare hour and penny to researching the history
of his nation in general, and its capital
in particular. The fruits of his labors are
found in his many chronicle histories of
England and in the enduring Survey of
London (1598; expanded edition 1603).
The Survey traverses London and its suburbs
methodically, street by street, describing
churches and alehouses alike. His description
is enlivened by many personal memories, both
his own and those of men who were old when
he was young.
The first excerpt from the Survey
describes the repeated desecration of an
image of the Virgin Mary and her child on
an old cross standing in the middle of one
of London's chief highways. These shocking
acts of vandalism, to which the city authorities
seem to have found it difficult to respond
effectively, were presumably the work of
extreme Protestants lashing out at what they
perceived as a Catholic idol. Yet Stow hints
that the vandalism may also have had a more
practical motive. London's streets were
getting busier all the time, and the cross
in Westcheap was blocking traffic.
The second excerpt reveals
the citizens of London again taking the law
into their own hands, to tear down the hedges
erected by enclosing landlords just outside
the city. This incident took place early
in the Tudor century, around the time Thomas
More was writing his Utopia — a
work that also criticizes enclosures and
the greed of private land-owners.
This cross in West Cheap . . .
being by length of time decayed, John Hatherly,
mayor of London, procured in the year 1441
license of King Henry VI to re-edify the
same in more beautiful manner for the honor
of the city. . . . It was
new gilt over in the year 1522, against
>> note 1 the coming of Charles V, emperor;
in the year 15[3]3, against the coronation
of Queen Anne; new burnished against the
coronation of Edward V; and again new gilt
1554, against the coming in of King Philip;
since the which time the said cross having
been presented by divers juries (or inquests
of the wardmote
>> note 2) to stand in the highway to
the let
>> note 3 of carriages (as they alleged),
but could not have it removed.
It followed that in the year 1581, the 21st
of June, in the night, the lowest images
about the said cross (being of Christ's
resurrection, of the Virgin Mary, King Edward
the Confessor, and suchlike) were broken
and defaced. Proclamation was made that whoso
would bewray the doers should have forty
crowns, but nothing came to light. The image
of the Blessed Virgin, at that time robbed
of her Son, and her arms broken, by which
she stayed him on her knees; her whole body
also was haled
>> note 4 with ropes, and left likely
to fall, but in the year 1595 was again
fastened and repaired. And in the year
next following a new misshapen son, as
born out of time, all naked, was laid in
her arms, the other images remaining broke
as afore. But on the east side of the same
cross, the steps taken thence, under the
image of Christ's resurrection defaced,
was then set up a curiously wrought tabernacle
of gray marble, and in the same an image
alabaster of Diana, and water conveyed
from the Thames prilling
>> note 5 from her naked breast for a
time, but now decayed.
In the year 1599, the timber of the cross
at the top being rotted within the lead,
the arms thereof bending, were feared to
have fallen, to the harming of some people,
and therefore the whole body of the cross
was scaffolded about, and the top thereof
taken down, meaning in place thereof to have
set up a [pyramid]. But some of her majesty's
honorable councillors directed their letters
to Sir Nicholas Mosley, then mayor, by her
highness' express commandment concerning
the cross, forthwith to be repaired, and
placed again as it formerly stood, etc. Notwithstanding,
the said cross stood headless more than a
year after: whereupon the said councillors,
in greater number, meaning not any longer
to permit the continuance of such a contempt,
wrote to William Rider, then mayor, requiring
him, by virtue of her highness' said
former direction and commandment, that without
any further delay to accomplish the same
her majesty's most princely care therein,
respecting especially the antiquity and continuance
of that monument, an ancient ensign of Christianity,
etc. Dated the 24th of December, 1600. After
that a cross of timber was framed, set up,
covered with lead, and gilded, the body of
the cross downward cleansed of dust, the
scaffold carried thence. About twelve nights
following, the image of Our Lady was again
defaced, by plucking off her crown, and almost
her head, taking from her her naked child,
and stabbing her in the breast, etc. Thus
much for the cross in West Cheap. . . .
And now concerning the enclosures
>> note 6 of common grounds about this
city, whereof I mind not much to argue,
Edward Hall setteth down a note of his
time, to wit, in the 5th, or rather the
6th of Henry VIII. Before this time, saith
he, the inhabitants of the towns about
London, as Iseldon, Hoxton, Shoreditch,
and others, had so enclosed the common
fields with hedges and ditches, that neither
the young men of the city might shoot,
nor the ancient persons walk for their
pleasures in those fields, but that either
their bows and arrows were taken away or
broken, or the honest persons arrested
or indicted; saying 'that no Londoner
ought to go out of the city, but in the
highways.' This saying so grieved the
Londoners, that suddenly this year a great
number of the city assembled themselves
in a morning, and a turner
>> note 7 in a fool's coat, came
crying through the city, 'Shovels and
spades! Shovels and spades!' So many
of the people followed that it was a wonder
to behold. And within a short space, all
the hedges about the city were cast down,
and the ditches filled up, and everything
made plain, such was the diligence of these
workmen.
The king's council hearing of this assembly,
came to the Greyfriars and sent for the mayor
and council of the city to know the cause,
which declared to them the injury and annoying
done to the citizens and their liberties,
which though they would not seek disorderly
to redress, yet the commonalty and young
persons could not be stayed thus to remedy
the same. When the king's council had
heard their answer, they dissimuled
>> note 8 the matter, and commanded the
mayor to see that no other thing were attempted,
but that they should forthwith call home
the younger sort; who having speedily achieved
their desire, returned home, before the
king's council and the mayor [parted]
without further harm; after which time
(saith Hall) these fields were never hedged.
But now we see the thing in worse case than
ever, by means of enclosure for gardens,
wherein are built many fair summer houses;
>> note 9 and, as in other places of
the suburbs, some of them like Midsummer
pageants, with towers, turrets, and chimney
tops, not so much for use or profit as
for show and pleasure, betraying the vanity
of men's minds, much unlike the disposition
of the ancient citizens, who delighted
in the building of hospitals and alms-houses
for the poor, and therein both employed
their wits, and spent their wealths, in
preferment of the common commodity
>> note 10 of this our city.