Part 8 (1/2)

Men of the same trade still congregated together for convenience. When all lived together the output would be regulated, prices maintained, and wages agreed upon. Nothing was more hateful to the mediaeval trader than forestalling and regrating. To forestall was to buy things before they arrived at market with intent to sell at a higher price. To regrate was to buy up in the market and sell again in the same market at an advanced price. To undersell your neighbour was then also an unpardonable crime.

You discover, therefore, that trade in Plantagenet London was not like trade in Victorian London. Then, all men of the same trade stood by each other and were brothers: now, too often, men of the same trade are enemies.

The names of streets show the nature of the trades carried on in them.

Turners and makers of wooden cups and platters, Wood Street: ironmongers, in their Lane: poultry sellers, the Poultry: bakers, Bread Street: and so on. Chepe was the great retail market of the City. It was built over gradually, but in early times it was a broad market covered with stalls, like the market-place of Norwich, for instance; these stalls were ranged in lines and streets: churches stood about among the lines. Then the stalls, which had been temporary wooden structures, were changed into permanent shops, which were also the houses of the tenants: the living room and kitchen were behind the shop: the master and his family slept above, and the prentices slept under the counter.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LARGE s.h.i.+P AND BOAT OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

(_The mainsail of the s.h.i.+p has the Beauchamp arms, and the streamer the bear and ragged staff. From the 'Life of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick,' by John Rous; drawn about 1485._)]

30 WHITTINGTON.

PART I.

The story of d.i.c.k Whittington has been a favourite legend for many generations. The boy coming up to London poor and friendless; lying despairing on the green slope of Highgate; resolved to return to the country since he can find no work in London: the falling upon his ears of the bells of Bow, wafted across the fields by the south wind--every child knows all this. What did the bells say to him--the soft and mellow bells, calling to him across four miles of fields? 'Turn again, Whittington--Turn again, Whittington--Lord Mayor of London--Turn again, Whittington.' He did turn, as we know, and became not once, but four times Lord Mayor of London and entertained kings, and was the richest merchant of his time. And all through a cat--we know how the cat began his fortune.

That is the familiar legend. Now you shall learn the truth.

There was a d.i.c.k Whittington: and he was Lord Mayor of London--to be accurate, he was Mayor of London, for the t.i.tle of Lord Mayor did not yet exist.

He was not a poor and friendless lad by any means. He belonged to a good family, his father, Sir William Whittington, Knight, being owner of an estate in Herefords.h.i.+re called Soler's Hope, and one in Gloucesters.h.i.+re called Pauntley. The father was buried at Pauntley Church, where his s.h.i.+eld may still be seen. Richard was the youngest of three sons of whom the eldest, William, died without children: and the second, Robert, had sons of whom one, Guy, fought at Agincourt. From the second son there are descendants to this day.

Richard, at the age of fourteen, was sent to London, where he had connections. Many country people had connections in London who were merchants. Remember that in those days it would be impossible for a boy to rise from poverty to wealth and distinction by trade. Such a lad might rise in the church, or even, but I know not of any instance, by distinguished valour on the field of battle. Most certainly, he would be prenticed to a craft and a craftsman he would remain all his life.

Whittington was a gentleman: that was the first and necessary condition to promotion: he came to London, not to learn a craft at all, but to be apprenticed to his cousin Sir John Fitzwarren, Mercer and Merchant Adventurer. The Mercers were the richest and most important company in London: the merchant adventurers were those--the foremost among the Mercers--who owned s.h.i.+ps which they despatched abroad with exports and with which they imported stuffs and merchandise to the Port of London.

Whittington's master may have had a shop or stall in Chepe--but he was a great importer of silks, satins, cloth of gold, velvets, embroideries, precious stones, and all splendid materials required for an age of splendid costume.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A SEA-FIGHT.

(_From the 'Life of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick'; drawn by John Rous about 1485._)]

What is the meaning of the 'cat' story? Immediately after Whittington's death the story was spread about. When his executors repaired Newgate they placed a carven cat on the outside: when Whittington's nephews, a few years later, built a house in Gloucester they placed a carven cat over the door in recognition of the story. All sorts of explanations have been offered. First, that there never was any cat at all. Next, that by a 'cat' is meant a kind of s.h.i.+p, a collier. Thirdly, that the cat is symbolical and means something else. Why need we go out of our way at all? A cat at that time was a valuable animal: not by any means common: in certain countries where rats were a nuisance a cat was very valuable indeed. Why should not the lad entrust a kitten to one of his master's skippers with instructions to sell it for him in any Levantine port at which the vessel might touch? Then he would naturally ever afterwards refer to the sale of the cat, the first venture of his own, as the beginning and foundation of his fortune. But you must believe about the cat whatever you please. The story has been told of other men.

There was a Portuguese sailor, named Alphonso, who was wrecked on the Coast of Guinea. He carried a cat safely ash.o.r.e and sold her to the King for her weight in gold: with this for his first capital he rapidly made a large fortune. Again, one Diego Almagro, a companion of Pizarro, bought the first cat ever taken to South America for 600 pieces of eight. And the story is found in Persia and in Denmark, and I dare say all over the world. Yet I believe in its literal truth.

In the year 1378 Whittington's name first appears in the City papers. He was then perhaps twenty-one--but the date of his birth is uncertain--and was already in trade, not, as yet, very far advanced, for his a.s.sessment shows that as yet he was in the lowest and poorest cla.s.s of the wholesale Mercers.

31. WHITTINGTON.

PART II.

For nearly fifty years after this Whittington leads an active, busy, prosperous life. It was a distracted time, full of troubles and anxieties. A Charter obtained in 1376, two or three years before he began business, was probably the real foundation of Whittington's fortune. For it forbade foreign merchants to sell by retail. This meant that a foreign s.h.i.+p bringing wine to the port of London could only dispose of her merchandise to the wholesale vintners: or one bringing silk could only sell it to wholesale mercers. The merchants, no doubt, intended to use this Charter for the furtherance of their own s.h.i.+pping interests.

This important Charter, presented by the King, was nearly lost a little after, when there was trouble about Wycliffe. The great scholar was ordered to appear at St. Paul's Cathedral before the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, to answer charges of heresy. He was not an unprotected and friendless man, and he appeared at the Cathedral under the protection of the powerful John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, son of King Edward III. The Bishop of London rebuked the Duke for protecting heretics, so the Duke, enraged, threatened to pull the Bishop out of his own church by the hair of his head. The people outside shouted that they would all die before the Bishop should suffer indignity. John of Gaunt rode off to Westminster and proposed that the office of Mayor should be abolished and that the Marshal of England should hold his court in the City--in other words, that even the liberties and Charters of the City should be swept clean away. Then the Londoners rushed to the Savoy, the Duke's palace, and would have sacked and destroyed it but for the Bishop. This story indicates the kind of danger to which, in those ages, the City was liable. There were no police; a popular tumult easily and suddenly became a rebellion: no one knew what might happen when the folk met together and wild pa.s.sions of unreasoning fury were aroused.

Another danger of the time for the peaceful merchant. For some years the navigation of the North Sea and the Channel was greatly impeded by a Scottish privateer or pirate named Mercer. In vain had the City made representations to the King. Nothing was done, and the pirate grew daily stronger and bolder. Then Sir John Philpot, the Mayor, did a very patriotic thing. He built certain s.h.i.+ps of his own, equipped them with arms, went on board as captain or admiral, and manned them with a thousand stout fellows. He found the pirate off Scarborough, fell upon him, slew him with all his men and returned to London Port with all his own s.h.i.+ps and all the pirate's s.h.i.+ps--including fifteen Spanish vessels which had joined Mercer.