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one to consider them as solid, were discovered to be hollow, and also full of money.

Cradles are very ancient. One of the oldest of which we have any representation is one of the time of Henry V. It is a wooden, oblong chest-more safe than elegant-swinging by links of iron, between two short posts, which are surmounted by birds for ornament.

Looking-glasses, when first used, were very small, and were carried about by persons of quality. Shakspeare makes Richard II. speak of one

K. Rich.-"Go, some of you, and fetch a looking-glass."

Looking-glasses, as articles of furniture, were not introduced till the time of Charles II.

We spoke, a short time ago, of the louvre, or lantern, in the roof of old mansions, from which the smoke issued before chimneys were used for carrying off

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that unpleasant and unconsumeable part of carbon to which we are indebted s largely for our London blacks and fogs; but we must not confound these lanterns with those other architectural lanterns to be seen in certain fine, open, ornamental church-towers, which, by some writers, are supposed to have been intended to hold lights, intended to aid travellers in those dreary days. If tradition may be credited, a large lamp was formerly hung from the steeple of All-Saints', York, which was lit at night as a mark for people in their passage over the wide forest of Galtres to York; and there is still the hook of the pulley on which the lamp hung

in the steeple. Stowe tells us that the steeple of Bow Church, in Cheapside (finished about 1516), had five lanterns, one at each corner, and one on the top, in the middle, upon the arches; in these lanterns lights were placed, in the winter, "whereby travellers to the city might have the better sight thereof, and not miss their way."

But these church-towers were often used, not only as lights to guide wanderers, but as beacons to warn of the approach of the enemy. Before the reign of Edward III., beacons were but stacks of wood, set up on high places, which were fired when the coming of enemies was descried; but in his reign, pitchboxes were set up instead of stacks, and most probably it was something of this sort which was used at Hadley Church tower. Hadley is so called from its elevated situation-head-leagh signifying, in Saxon, a "high place," which would, of course, be the best possible situation for the elevation of a beacon. Hadley is in Middlesex, about eleven miles from London, not far from Chipping Barnet. The tower, which is at the west end of the parish church, is dedicated to St. Mary, and built of flint, with stone quoins; the date on the front being 1494, accompanied with the device of a rose and a wing-the cognizance, most probably, of one of the abbots of Walden. At the top of the tower is the iron beacon to which we have alluded; it was blown down by the high wind of the 1st of January, 1779, but it was soon after repaired and replaced, and is most likely the only one left in the kingdom.

Street lamps were adopted in London upwards of four centuries since; for, as early as 1414, the citizens were ordered to hang out lanterns to light the streets; and Stowe informs us that Henry Barton, during his mayoralty in 1417, ordered lanterns, with wax lights, to be hung out on the winter evenings betwixt Hallowtide (autumn) and Candlemas. During three centuries after, the citizens were reminded of this regulation, under penalties for its neglect; but the frequency of the repetition only proves how ill the order was obeyed. Candle-making may, therefore, claim to be considered quite a venerable, if not a remarkably odorous occupation; indeed, the employment of candles in the ceremonies of the Catholic Church is of great antiquity, for, as soon as 1478, they were considered expiatory offerings. Many thousands of wax candles were formerly thus used in England; but the Reformation brought forward the great Light of the World, before which all these lesser lights were compelled (comparatively, at least) to pale their ineffectual fires. The use of tápers at vespers and litanies prevailed before the time of Luther, all through the winter, from All-Hallow-mass to the following Candlemas; hence the origin of our old English proverb

"On Candlemas-day

Throw candle and candlestick away."

That a reformation was needed, and came not one day too soon, is abundantly shown by such facts as we have now stated, and by those bitter and cruel persecutions of the Lollards, of whose prison our artist gave us so interesting and so truthful a delineation last month; but it would be tedious to relate the trials of all the Lollards during the primacy of Archbishop Chicheley-persecutions worthy of the man who thought it more profitable to pray for the souls of the dead than to relieve the bodies of the living.

By one of his laws-for such the decrees of the bishops of those days must indeed

be called-three of the most respectable inhabitants of every parish were solemnly sworn to make diligent inquiry if there were any Lollards, or any suspected of Lollardism, or any who had English books in their houses, or had anything singular in their way of living within their parish, and to send an account in writing to the archdeacon, twice every year, of their names and all other circumstances. By this means a strict search after the Lollards was set on foot, prodigious numbers of them were detected, thrown into prison, cruelly harassed, and persecuted. So great, indeed, was this primate's hatred of the Lollards, that, by his influence, a very severe law was passed against them by the Parliament held at Leicester A.D. 1415, in which it was enacted that "The chancellor, the judges of both benches and of assize, all justices of the peace, sheriffs, mayors, and bailiffs, should take an oath, at their admission to their offices, to do everything in their power to extirpate all Lollards out of the kingdom, and to assist the ordinaries in persecuting the Lollards."

But great changes were effected in dress during this age, as well as in architecture and religion. The tight sleeves of the preceding reigns were now out of fashion, and wide, deep appendages called pokys, and shaped like a bagpipe, were worn indifferently by servants as well as masters; they were commonly called the devil's receptacles, for whatever could be stolen was popped in them. Some were so long and so wide that they reached to the feet, others to the knees, and were full of slits. As the servants were bringing up pottage, sauces, &c., these pokys “would go into them and have the first taste." Physicians were dressed in scarlet, according to Chaucer, "furred well, as such an one ought to be;" and the serjeantat-law's dress was a medley coat with a girdle of silk, ornamented with small bars or stripes of different colours. The miller was clothed in a white coat and a blue hood, and was armed with a sword and buckler. His hose on holidays were of red cloth, when he also twisted the tippet of his hood about his head-a custom that was fashionable among the gallants.

To the decoration of the garter-so well known, with its inimitable and chivalric motto was added, in the time of Richard II., the badge of the white hart, which was worn by all his courtiers and adherents, both male and female, cither embroidered on their dresses or suspended by chains or collars round their necks. This device seems to have been derived from Richard's mother, whose cognizance was a white hind. In the wardrobe accounts of that King is an entry of a belt and sheath of red velvet, embroidered with white harts crowned with rosemary branches. One of the few friends who attended the unfortunate Prince after his capture by the Earl of Northumberland was Jenico d'Artois, a Gascon, who still wore the device of his master-that is to say, a white hart-and would not put it from him, neither by threats nor persuasion; by reason whereof, when the Duke of Hereford understood it, he caused him to be committed to prison within the castle of Chester. "This man," says Hollingshed, "was the last which bare that device, and shewed well thereby his constant heart towards his master." The white hart still remains, painted, of a colossal size, on the wall over the door leading to the east cloister from the south aisle of Westminster Abbey. It is generally represented crowned, collared, and chained, and couchant under a tree. Other badges of this monarch were the sun in his splendour, and the pod of the planta genista, or broom, with which, indeed, the robe of his monumental effigy is covered.

The aurcoats of the knights of the garter were, in the seventh year of Richard

II., made of "violet ingrain ;" in the eleventh year it was white, and in the fifteenth and nineteenth of long blue cloth; and the military costume partook of the sumptuous extravagance of the age.

Milan was the grand emporium from whence the most splendid suits were forwarded to the chivalry of Europe. The most characteristic novelty was the visor of the bascinet; and, as a most interesting subject, we give the following

M

WOMEN WITH HELMETS.

engraving from an illuminated MS. copy of the "Roman de la Rose" of this date, in which are several figures of females armed with sword, spear, and shield, and wearing the visored bascinet and camail. Some of these extraordinary visors were hooked like the beak of a bird; the bascinet itself was richly ornamented round the edges, and a band of the most splendid workmanship encircles it like a diadem. The "bascinet a visieri" was worn only in war. In tournaments the visor was removed, and the helmet, surmounted by its mantling wreath and crest, placed over the bascinet.

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The trade of Britain, to which we have before so frequently referred, met with many obstructions at this period; and the foreign or domestic wars, in which our kings were so constantly engaged, retarded for a time the progress which commerce was making. Another great drawback to the success of the merchants was the fact that our kings had so few ships of their own that, whenever they had occasion to transport their armies, they pressed into their service all the ships as well as all the sailors that could be found-than which nothing more ruinous to trade could be devised.

Thus, to give one example out of many, Henry V., at his first invasion of France, A.D. 1415, pressed all the ships (and fine ships they were, as our engraving testifies) in all the ports of England, of twenty tons and upwards, to transport his army to the Continent. The consequence was that, after the wars were over, the sailors and merchants were so influenced, and had imbibed so much of the martial spirit, that plunder and petty piracy on their own account soon became quite a common practice. This obliged the mariners of other nations to make loud com plaints; and, when they could not obtain redress (which was often the case), they

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were compelled to make reprisals, which increased the dangers of navigation and interrupted the intercourse between the countries even when they were not at war. But, be the policy of the kings what it might, one thing is certain, that the inhabitants of this country were very soon fully awake to the importance of being masters of the seas; and, in a rhyming pamphlet, written about 1433, it is asserted "that, if the English kept the seas, and especially the narrow seas, they would compel all the world to be at peace with them, and court their friendship ;" and, if the dominion of Britannia is continued as hitherto (for the greater part, at least) for the good of the whole as well as the especial benefit of herself, long, long may she retain her sovereignty as mistress of the seas!

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