In 1229 came over to England Stephen, the Pope’s Nuncio, with orders to levy a tenth upon all property, spiritual or temporal, for the Pope. After much hesitation, and only to avoid excommunication, the Bishops and Abbots consented; but the temporal Lords refused, in some cases giving way when they were compelled to do so, and in others holding out. The Earl of Chester, for instance, would not allow the tax to be levied on any part of his lands or upon any priest, or Religious House. The Nuncio made himself odious, partly by his grasping demands, even taking the gold and silver chalices when there was no money; partly by the tax itself, which gave over, as it seemed, the whole country into the hands of the Pope; and partly because the Nuncio brought over with him certain “Caursines,” or Caursini, agents for the Pope, who collected the tax. These foreigners remained, and, as will be seen, increased yearly in wealth and in the detestation of the people.
In this reign, also, the country people received other lessons as to the duty of affection for the Pope by the arrival among them of foreigners intruded into their benefices from Rome; these priests knew no English and were unable to instruct the people. The troubles which arose on account of these evils belong to the history of the country.
Despite his Charters the King’s exactions grew continually more grievous. He levied a Poll Tax in the City and a Ward Tax, and after a fire which destroyed a large part of the City, he exacted a sum of £20,000. In 1231 the Jews built a synagogue “very curiously,” but the citizens, by permission of the King, obtained possession of it, and caused it, humorously, to be dedicated to the Virgin Mary. About the same time the King built “a fair church adjoining thereto in the City of London near the old temple,” e.g. the Domus Conversorum or House of Converts. Stow says that there were a great many converts who were baptized and instructed in the laws of Christ and “did live laudably under a learned man appointed to govern them.” The “fair church” was the Rolls Chapel, wantonly destroyed in the year 1896.
The Chronicles of this date contain a great deal of information about the weather. I have not thought it necessary to note the hard frosts, the high tides, and the storms, which were remarked in London and elsewhere. The weather seems to have been much the same at all times in this country. Now and then a storm more than commonly severe is experienced. For instance, on January 25, 1230, while the Bishop was celebrating High Mass in St. Paul’s, there arose a terrible storm of thunder and lightning, and so dreadful a “savour and stinke withal” that a panic seized the people and they rushed out of the church headlong, falling over each other, priests and choristers and all, saving only the Bishop and one deacon. When the storm passed away, they all went back again, and the Bishop continued the Mass. In 1233 there was a wet summer with floods in all parts of the country and a bad harvest. We are not yet out of the age of prodigies and miracles and monsters. Four suns appeared in the sky at the same time, together with a great circle of crystalline colour; and in the South of England two dragons were seen fighting in the air until one overcame the other, when both plunged into the sea. In the North of England and also in Ireland bodies of armed men sprang out of the ground and fought in battle array and then sank into the ground again. To show that this was no mere apparition the ground was trodden down where they had fought. And once a strange star appeared with a flaming tail. What could these prodigies portend?
In the year 1236 the City received the new Queen with every outward sign of welcome, and, unfortunately for themselves, of wealth. What was Eleanor of Provence, what was the young King, to think of the resources of the city which could receive them with so brave a show? Thus writes Stow concerning this Riding:—
“The cittie was adorned with silkes, and in the night with lampes, cressets, and other lights without number, besides many pageants and strange devices which were shewed. The citizens rode to meete the king and queene, beeing clothed in long garmentes embrodered about with golde and silke of divers colours, their horses finely trapped in arraie to the number of three hundred and sixty, every man bearing golden or silver cuppes in their hands, and the king’s trumpeters before them sounding. The citizens of London did minister wine as butlers.” (Howe’s edition of Stow’s Chronicles, p. 184.)
In the year 1236 water was first brought into the City by pipes from the Tyburn, or from wells or springs in the district called Tyburn, now Marylebone. These pipes were of lead and discharged the water into cisterns which were afterwards castellated with stone. The most important of them was that in Chepe: there were in all, when other pipes had been laid down, nineteen conduits: and it became the custom, once a year, for the Mayor and Aldermen to ride out in order to inspect the Heads from which the conduits were supplied, after which they were wont to hunt a hare before dinner and a fox after dinner in the fields about Marylebone.
In the year 1238 a singular procession passed out of St. Paul’s Cathedral along Fleet Street and the Strand as far as Durham House, then the palace of the Legate. The procession consisted of a large body of ecclesiastics, Doctors in Divinity and Law, followed (or preceded) by a company of young men: they were ungirded, without gown, bareheaded and barefooted. There were the Heads of Houses, the Master and Students of the University of Oxford headed by Ado de Kilkenny, Standard Bearer to the scholars: they were on their way to pray the Legate’s pardon for a late lamentable outbreak in Oxford. It began with an Irish undergraduate, who went into the Legate’s kitchen to beg for food. The cook in reply took up a pot filled with hot broth and threw it in his face. A Welsh student, also come on the same errand, was so exasperated at the sight of the outrage that he killed the cook, there and then. After which the students rose in a body and attacked the house. The Legate fled for his life, taking refuge in a church steeple whence he escaped under cover of the night. As soon as he was safe he interdicted the University, and excommunicated all concerned in the riot. But on their submission he granted his forgiveness and removed the Interdict.
In 1250 the King sent for the principal citizens, and assured them that he would no longer oppress them by taxation. This promise was never meant to be kept. On a frivolous complaint of Richard, the King’s brother, the City liberties were seized and a custos appointed, who remained in office until the City had paid a fine of six hundred marks. Five hundred more were demanded for a new charter by which the incoming Mayor might be presented to the Barons of the Exchequer every year instead of the King. The old jealousy with which the citizens looked upon the Tower was about this time revived and strengthened by the erection of a wall round the Tower. Longchamp had made the ditch, but his work remained incomplete. Henry resolved to carry it on and to make an independent fortress surrounded by its own walls and having its own communications with the river and the country outside. The citizens looked upon the rise of this wall with suspicion and misgiving. Before the work was completed the wall fell down. It was put up again, and again it fell down, to the great joy of the people, who looked upon it as a direct intervention of Heaven on their behalf. That this was really the case was proved by a story which ran about the City that the overthrow of the wall was done by St. Thomas à Becket himself.
“A vision appeared by night to a certain priest, a wise and holy man, wherein an archprelate, dressed in pontifical robes, and carrying a cross in his hand, came to the walls which the King had at that time built near the Tower of London, and, after regarding them with a scowling look, struck them strongly and violently with the cross, saying, ‘Why do ye rebuild them?’ Whereupon the newly-erected walls suddenly fell to the ground, as if thrown down by an earthquake. The priest, frightened at this sight, said to a clerk who appeared following the archprelate, ‘Who is this archbishop?’ to which the clerk replied, ‘It is St. Thomas the martyr, a Londoner by birth, who considered that these walls were built as an insult, and to the prejudice of the Londoners, and has therefore irreparably destroyed them.’ The priest then said, ‘What expense and builders’ labour have they not cost.’ The clerk replied,‘If poor artificers, who seek after and have need of pay, had obtained food for themselves by the work, that would be endurable; but inasmuch as they have been built, not for the defence of the kingdom, but only to oppress harmless