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graver, "being made prisoner at Basing House, was brought to London and confined in Aldersgate, where he resorted to his profession, and among other heads did a small one of the first Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, in the manner of Mellan."-Walpole, Catalogue of Engravers, p. 49. In the last year of its existence the rooms over the gate were appropriated as "the dwelling of the Common Crier of the City, for the time being." Among the State Papers there is mention of a cage, or prison, situated near the gate.-Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1639-1640, p. 496.

Aldersgate Bars, GOSWELL STREET, at the northern end of Aldersgate Street, formed the City boundary in that direction. In Stow's time "a pair of posts" marked the spot. The name long continued in use, but is now obsolete. The site of the old bar is marked by two granite obelisks with drinking-fountains attached.

Aldersgate (Ward of), one of the twenty-six wards of London, and so called from the old City gate of the same name, which stood across the high road, near the church of St. Botolph. [See the preceding article]. This ward is divided into two distinct portions— Aldersgate Within, and Aldersgate Without. Thus, St. Martin's-leGrand lies within the gate, and Aldersgate Street without the gate. General Boundaries.-Aldersgate Bars, Goswell Street; the General Post Office. Stow enumerates six churches in this ward-St. John Zachary; St. Mary Staining; St. Olave, in Silver Street; St. Leonard, in Foster Lane; St. Anne within Aldersgate; St. Botolph without Aldersgate. The first four were destroyed in the Great Fire, and not rebuilt the last two remain. Little Britain and Goldsmiths' Hall are in this ward. The ward-mace has a crown which unscrews to form a loving cup. [See all these names.]

Aldersgate Street, the continuation northward of St. Martin's-leGrand, extends from Aldersgate to the Barbican, south of Aldersgate Bars. The main entrance to the City from the north, and in early times famed for mansions and inns. A street "very spacious and long, and although the buildings are old and not uniform, yet many of them are very good and well-inhabited; and of the principal of them two are very large," wrote Seymour in 1736 (Survey of London, p. 771); but, he adds, "the politeness of the town is far removed from hence." Eighty years earlier it was said :

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This street resembleth an Italian street more than any other in London, by reason of the spaciousness and uniformity of buildings, and straightness thereof, with the convenient distance of the houses; on both sides whereof there are divers fair ones, as Peter House, the palace now and mansion of the most noble [Henry Pierrepont] Marquess of Dorchester. Then is there the Earl of Thanet's house [Thanet House], with the Moon and Sun tavern[s], very fair structures. Then is there from about the middle of Aldersgate Street, a handsome new street [Jewin Street] butted out, and fairly built by the Company of Goldsmiths, which reacheth athwart as far as Redcross Street.-Howell's Londinopolis, 1657, p. 342.

Redehall, a house "without Aldredesgate," is mentioned in 1289

as belonging to Henry de Galeys; and in the Patent Rolls of Edward IV. a place is entered as Queen Jane's Wardrobe.1

On the east side (distinguished by a series of eight Ionic pilasters, with festoons of flowers pendent from the volutes) stood Thanet House, one of Inigo Jones's fine old mansions, the London residence of the Tuftons, Earls of Thanet. From the Tufton family it passed into the family of Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury (d. 1682-1683): hence Shaftesbury Place and Shaftesbury House, as Walpole calls it in his account of Inigo Jones. Locke, on his return from the continent, May 1679, resided for some time in the house of Lord Shaftesbury, who was then at the head of the Ministry.-Lord King, Life of John Locke, p. 86; Fox-Bourne, Life of Locke, vol. i. p. 411. Thanet House continued to be Locke's home, when in London, as long as Shaftesbury lived. On one occasion at least during Shaftesbury's occupancy of Thanet House the Duke of Monmouth was concealed in it. In 1708 it was once more in the possession of the Thanet family; in 1720 it was a handsome inn; in 1734 a tavern; in 1750, and till 1771, the London Lying-in Hospital; then as a General Dispensary,2 the first established in London, removed in 1850 to Bartholomew Close. The lower part of the building was then divided, and let as shops; part serving for the meetings of the Metropolitan Scientific Association, and Shaftesbury Upper Hall used as a girl's school. Shaftesbury House was pulled down in 1882, and Shaftesbury Hall and several shops have been built on the site.

A little higher up, on the same side, where Lauderdale Buildings stand (Nos. 58 and 59), stood Lauderdale House, the London residence of John Maitland, Duke of Lauderdale (d. 1682), one of the celebrated Cabal in the reign of Charles II. On the same side, still higher up, and two doors from Barbican, stood the Bell Inn, "of a pretty good resort for waggons with meal." From this inn, on July 14, 1618, John Taylor, the Water Poet, set out on his penniless pilgrimage to Scotland.3

At last I took my latest leave, thus late,
At the Bell Inn, that's extra Aldersgate.

Taylor's Works, 1630, p. 122.

On the west side, a little beyond the church of St. Botolph, Aldersgate, is Trinity Court, so called from a brotherhood of the Holy Trinity, licensed by Henry VI., suppressed by Edward VI., and first founded in 1377, as a fraternity of St. Fabian and Sebastian. The Hall was standing in 1790.4 Higher up, on Higher up, on the same side, Westmoreland Buildings preserves a memory of the London residence of the Nevilles, Earls of Westmoreland, taken down about 1760, after having been long divided and let out in tenements. At the back of Rutland House Sir

1 Riley, Memorials of London, xi.

2 Hatton, p. 633; Strype's Stow, B. iii. p. 121; Ralph's Crit. Rev. Pennant.

3 Taylor, in his Carrier's Cosmographie (4to, 1637), mentions four inns in this street :-the Pea

cock; the Bell; the Three Horse Shoes; the Cock.

4 There is a view of the old Hall in Brayley's Londiniana, 4 vols. 12mo, 1829.

William Davenant was, in 1656, permitted to get up an opera for recitations with music and scenery; the first dramatic entertainment licensed since the establishment of the Commonwealth. Still higher up is the Albion Tavern, famed for its good wines and its good dinners; while nearly opposite Shaftesbury House, stood Petre House, the townhouse until 1639 of the Lord Petre. Richard Lovelace, the poet, was, in 1648, confined in Lord Petre's house in Aldersgate by order of the House of Commons; and it continued to be used as a prison by Cromwell and his colleagues. In 1657 it was the residence of Henry Pierrepont, Marquis of Dorchester. After his death it was bought by the See of London, when the Great Fire had destroyed the Episcopal residence in St. Paul's Churchyard. Bishop Henchman died in London House, Aldersgate Street (as Petre House was then called), in 1675. Here Compton, Bishop of London, lived; and hither the Princess Anne (afterwards Queen) fled from Whitehall at the Revolution. In 1720 Bishop Robinson was residing in it. Shortly after the nonjuror, Thomas Rawlinson ("Tom Folio "), removed his great library to London House, where he died in 1725. In 1747 it was in the possession of Mr. Jacob Ilive.2 Bishop Sherlock, in 1749, obtained parliamentary power to dispose of London House for the benefit of the See. It was some years later purchased by Mr. Seddon, “an eminent upholsterer," and was destroyed by fire, July 14, 1768, but rebuilt, and the upholstery business was continued here till a few years back. 1814 was made here, at an expense of £500, the cradle for Joanna Southcott's "Prince of Peace," with the inscription, "The freeoffering of Faith to the Promised Seed," and great crowds flocked to see it. The baby-linen with its laces, etc., cost £500 more. London House was taken down and shops built on the site in 1871. Eminent Inhabitants, not already mentioned.-Countess of Pembroke, "Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother;" she died here in 1621. Thomas Flatman, poet, painter, and lawyer, was born in Aldersgate Street in 1633.-Walpole's Anecdotes, p. 300. Robert Greene (d. 1592), though not an inhabitant, was a familiar visitant at a "well-willer's house of mine" in Aldersgate Street.3 Bryan Walton, Bishop of Chester, editor of the Polyglot Bible, died here in 1661. John Milton.

In

He made no long stay in St. Bride's Church Yard; necessity of having a place to dispose his books in, and other goods fit for the furnishing of a good handsome house, hastening him to take one: and accordingly a pretty garden-house he took in Aldersgate Street, at the end of an entry; and therefore the fitter for his turn, by the reason of the privacy, besides that there are few streets in London more free from noise than that.-Philips's Life of Milton, 12mo, 1694, p. xx.

His own words are: As soon as I was able I hired a spacious house in the City for myself and my books, where I again with rapture renewed my literary pursuits, and where I calmly awaited the issue of the contest, which I trusted to the wise conduct of Providence, and to the courage of the people.-Second Defence of the People of England.

1 Dugdale's Troubles, p. 568.

2 Wilkinson's Londina Illustrata.

3 Robert Greene's Repentance.

Milton's house was at the lower end of Lamb Alley (now Maidenhead Court), by No. 30, on the east side of Aldersgate Street, the court next to Shaftesbury Place southwards.

Samuel Simmons, printer and publisher, "next door to the Golden Lion in Aldersgate Street," was the purchaser, April 27, 1667, of the copyright of Paradise Lost, but it is only the second edition, 1674, which professed to be printed by S. Simmons. Thomas Brown-Tom Brown the facetious-died here in 1704. James Petiver, the botanist (d. 1718), was an apothecary in Aldersgate Street. He was one of the earliest and ablest English collectors of specimens of natural history. Sir Hans Sloane offered £5000 for his collection. "At his house, against Little Britain in Aldersgate Street," lived John Pine the engraver, and received subscriptions (1738) for his exquisite edition of Horace. In Aldersgate Street, "against Jewin Street," lived Sutton Nicholls, the publisher, to whose industry we are indebted for so many engravings and valuable memorials of old London buildings now no more.

In Trinity Chapel, Aldersgate Street, the last Nonjuring congregation in London met under John Lindsay, the translator of Mason de Ministerio Anglicano. He died in 1768.1

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It was in a house in this street that John Wesley received that 'assurance of salvation" which was the great turning point in his career, and to which the world owes the origin of Methodism. He writes in his Journal under Wednesday, May 24, 1738:

In the evening I went, very unwillingly, to a Society in Aldersgate Street where one was reading Luther's Preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed; I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation, and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. I began to pray with all my might for all those who had in an especial manner despitefully used me and persecuted me. I then testified openly to all what I now first felt in my heart.

It was to "the house called the Mouth, near Aldersgate in London, which was then the usual meeting-place of Quakers," that the body of "Free-born John" Lilburne was conveyed on his death, August 29, 1657.2 This house, the well-known Bull and Mouth Inn, really situated in St. Martin's-le-grand, was destroyed in the Great Fire; and the inn of the same title became the Queen's Hotel, which has been cleared away for the enlargement of the General Post Office. The inns of Aldersgate were especially travellers' houses, and looked after by the watch accordingly. Fynes Morison, on his return from his ten years' wanderings, 1595, arriving in London on Sunday "at four of the clock in the morning. . . this early hour being unfit to trouble my friends"—

I went to the Cock (an inn of Aldersgate Street), and there, apparelled as I was, laid me down upon a bed, when it happened that the constable and watchmen (either being more busy in their office than need was, or having extraordinary charge to search upon some foreign intelligence, and seeing me apparelled like an Italian), took me for a Jesuit or priest.—Morison's Itinerary.

1 Lathbury, History of Nonjurors, p. 402. 2 Wood, Athen. Oxon (1692), vol. ii. p. 102.

A century and a half later the Cock was described as "a good inn, resorted to by waggons that bring meal and other goods."1 The George Inn, formerly the White Hart, is "very large and convenient for the reception 'of coaches, waggons, and travellers. It hath galleries that lead to the chambers, as customary in many great inns. There is in Thanet House, which adjoins to this inn, a Lace Chamber of very good resort for buyers and sellers." 2 The Bell Inn, whence Taylor the Water Poet set out on his travels, was still "of good resort;" it stood near Lauderdale House. There were besides the Half-Moon, "the place of resort of the most noted wits of the 16th century."-Lambert. The Sun, "large and of a good trade," and many more. The Aldersgate inns were the usual starting-place for the Northern Counties,3 as it seems to have been for Ireland some years later. Thus Swift, describing the visit to London (1721) of an Irish acquaintance, says: "He was just getting on horseback for Chester: he has as much curiosity as a COW. He lodged with his horse in Aldersgate Street."-Journal to Stella. Gay and Pope write to Swift (October 22, 1727), "To our great joy you have told us your deafness left you at the inn in Aldersgate Street; no doubt your ears knew there was nothing worth hearing in England."

In 1879 a row of old houses, some with projecting upper storeys on the west side of Aldersgate Street, was pulled down to make way for a pile of larger and more substantial buildings. One of these, No. 134, attracted much notice from its being absurdly called "Shakespeare's London House." It was not unpicturesque in its dilapidated condition, and was probably of 17th century date, but in no other respect remarkable. The name, Shakespeare's London House, was first given to it within memory by an imaginative newsvendor who then occupied it, as a sort of advertisement. One of the most noticeable of the new buildings is the Manchester Hotel, a large structure of considerable architectural pretension at the corner of Long Lane, opposite to which is the Aldersgate Station of the Metropolitan Railway.

Aldewych. [See Wych Street.]

Aldgate, a gate in the City wall towards the east, and, according to most authorities, called Aldgate from its antiquity or age, but in the earliest records the spelling is Alegate (1325-1344), or Algate (1381), which is suggestive of another derivation. The gateway, a stately structure, stood in the midst of the High Street, south of Aldgate Church. Duke's Place and Poor Jury Lane-now called Duke Street and Jewry Street-being immediately inside the gate and wall. In 1215 the barons who were at war with King John entered the city with ease at Aldgate, which was then in a ruinous condition. Shortly afterwards they rebuilt the gate.

In 1374 a lease was granted for the term of his life to Geoffrey 1 Seymour, Survey of London, 1736, p. 772.

3 De Laune, Anglia Metropolis, 1690.

2 Ibid.

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