in 1531; after which the dignity was supported by a temporal citizen elected by the free inhabitants of the ward.

These various privileges and boundaries were acknowledged and confirmed by several English monarchs, the right being contested by the city, and allowed against all invaders of their property; and they enjoyed, among other liberties belonging to the citizens of London, and ratified by divers parliaments, "That no arrest, attachment, or execution, should be made by any officers of the king within the said liberty, either by writ or without writ; but only by the officers of the city. That the inhabitants of Portsoken, and the Tower, were to be impleaded only in the courts of the City, for all matters, causes, and contracts, howsoever arising. That the Tower had no proper court of its own, but only the court of the baron, which is no court of record, as appears by various records exemplified in the King's Bench. That when any murder or drowning had been within the said hospital of St. Catharine, or the Tower, the City officers attached the malefactors within the Tower, notwithstanding that the king himself sometimes happened to be present within the said Tower; and have carried the said men, so arrested, into some of the king's prisons within the City. That, when the justices itinerant have used to come to keep assizes in the Tower, the officers have had the keeping both of the inner and outer gates of the said Tower; and that nothing was executed within the Tower, which pertained to the office of a serjeant, but by the servants of the City. That the sheriffs of London have had the charge of all the prisons in the Tower, so often as the said justices itinerant had come, as appears by the many rolls of pleas of the crown, and of the said itinerant jus

tices."

These valuable privileges, by violence on one side, and by neglect and compliance on the other, have long since been abolished.

Returning towards Tower Hill, over the wooden bridge which crosses the dock, in a small enclosure denominated St. Catharine's Square, stands the collegiate church of

VOL. II. No. 36.

Cc

ST.

THE hospital, with its precincts, liberties, and particularly the parish church, is reckoned in the bills of morality among the out-parishes in Middlefex ; but as Stow, and others, have plainly proved it to belong to Portsoken ward, we describe the whole in this place, as part of the liberties of the city of London. It is situated on the east side of the Tower, and upon the north bank of the Thames.

Historians seem to have mistaken its original foundation; some contending that honour to belong to Maud, queen to king Stephen; whilst others are equally strenuous for Eleanor, widow of Henry III.; the preference is certainly due to the former. By the consent of her husband, in the year 1148, she founded and richly endowed an hospital dedicated to St. Catharine, in pure and perpetual alms, for the repose of the souls of her son Baldwin, and her daughter Matilda; who, dying in her life time, were both buried in the church of Trinity priory; and she obtained the ground on which it was built, of that priory, with a mill: in exchange for which, she gave a yearly sum of 67. out of the manor of Bracching, in Hertfordshire. Her foundation consisted of a master, brothers, sisters, and other poor per

sons.

The perpetual custody of this hospital was bestowed by the queen, on Trinity Priory, being at that time the richest

and

and most respectable in London: she, however, reserved to herself and the succeeding queens of England, the nomination of the master, or custos of the hospital, upon every vacancy. The grant was confirmed by the king, queen, and Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury, with the sanction of pope Alexander II.; to this, William de Ypres, a short time afterwards, added the grant of a tract of land, called Edredes-hede, since denominated Queenhithe, to the priory, on condition of the payment of the annual sum of 201. to this hospital.

The prior and convent having enjoyed the custody of St. Catharine's hospital for the space of one hundred and seven years, were displaced, and the hospital dissolved in the most arbitrary and unjust manner. An abstract of these extraordinary proceedings may be amusing at this distance of time.

"In the thirty-ninth of Henry III. John de Totynge, prior, and some of the canons of the Holy Trinity, appeared at Westminster before William de Kilkenny, lord chancellor, Thomas Lovell, lord treasurer, and others, in a suit brought against them by one Stephen, a clerk, by virtue of a suit from queen Alienore, concerning their right to the perpetual custody of this hospital. In their defence they exhibited not only the charters of king Stephen and queen Maud; but a more recent one by the present appellant's husband, and their various confirmations. They likewise produced an antient composition entered into between them and the hospital of St. Catharine, by which they had granted thirty-four shillings and fourpence, in small rents, within divers parishes of London, in consideration of twenty-nine marks sterling, paid them in money by the said hospital for an annual service of fourpence. These statements appeared so just to the judges, that they unanimously decreed in favour of the monastery."

Not being able to succeed with the judges, the conscientious Alienore issued a mandate to Ralph Hardel, mayor of London, that an inquisition, in the nature of a Quo Warranto, might be taken before him and all the aldermen.

But the queen was equally unsuccessful with the magis tracy, for their unanimous verdict was very pointed and peremptory. They returned, "that the custody of this hospital did then belong, and always had belonged, to the prior and convent of the Holy Trinity, from the time of king Stephen to that day, 39 Henry III."

The temporal laws being ineffectual for the purpose which the queen intended, she wrote a letter to Fulk Basset, bishop of London; wherein she set forth, "that the patronage of the hospital had belonged to her and her predecessors; that it was become destitute of all discipline, and the goods thereof wasted by the prior and canons of the Holy Trinity, whom she had often by letters desired to restore what they had unjustly purloined, and to repair the delapidations they had occasioned; all which letters proving ineffectual, she prayed the bishop that he would, for the honour of God and St. Katharine, make proper inquisitions concerning the damages, grievances, &c. and the detention of the charters and seals of the said hospital, by good and honest men of the city of London, as well clerks as laymen, that the truth might appear, and the monks be compelled, by law, to do what they had refused at her request; that the persons found guilty might be removed, and justice done to all parties: she further prayed the bishop to restore this house to God and St. Katharine entire, and free from all encumbrances; and appointed one Stephen, a brother of this house, to act as her attorney."

To prove the queen's desire at obtaining possession, the subsequent irrelevant examination by the bishop is very re

markable.

"On St. Giles's day, 1257, the bishop, attended by many other great men, visited this hospital; having previously cited the prior and several of the canons to appear before him, to answer such questions as he should propound to them. On their appearance, he demanded of them what temporal right they had in the said hospital? to which they answered, that they had the same right over the brothers and sisters of this hospital, as they had over others of their brothers

brothers at different places, who all received the habits of their order in chapter, and took their respective oaths before the prior and convent.

"Being asked what spiritual right they had? they answered, that they had a spiritual right by reason of their parochial right, because the said hospital was situated in their parish of St. Botolph without Aldgate, and upon their own land. Moreover, that whatever spiritual right they had in the said hospital, they had it by grunt from the bishop of London. And being questioned by the said bishop how, and in what manner, they had this spiritual right? it was asserted, that he himself had appointed the present prior, who was legally constituted such and in as ample a manner as any of his predecessors. To which the bishop replied that all this was true. He then enquired why the said monks had placed one of their own body at the head of this hospital? They said, that finding the brothers of this hospital used to get drunk, and quarrel every day, they had constituted one of their own body master, in order to reform them, and to bring them to a sense of religion, sobriety, and devotion."

This plain statement did not operate on the bishop's mind; he had received his instructions from the higher powers, and was determined to act accordingly; he, therefore, without further process, removed their canon from the mastership of this hospital, and inhibited the prior and convent, under pain of ecclesiastical censures, from ever after intermeddling with the custody of the said hospital; he likewise inhibited the brothers and sisters, under the same penalty, from obeying the said prior in any thing; and immediately granted the custody and mastership of this hospital, in spirituals and temporals, to one Gilbert, a chaplain of the house; and he obliged the brothers and sisters to renounce, upon oath, all obedience to the prior, under pain of ecclesiastical censure. This just decision continued till the bishop's death in 1261. His successor, Henry de Wyngeham, at the suggestion of Alienore, went another way to work with the prior and convent. In 1261,