Whitefriars

Whitefriars

A precinct or liberty comprising the site of the former House of Carmelite or White Friars on the south side of Fleet Street between Bridewell and the Temple.

Site marked by the precinct of Whitefriars, O.S. 1880.

"Fratres beatae Mariae de monte Carmeli," founded by Sir Richard Gray, 1241 (S. 399). Licence granted to them to enlarge their house by the enclosure of "Crockerelane" (q.v.), 1349, and again by a plot of ground 500 ft. long by 20 broad, 24 Ed. III. (Cal. P.R. 1348–50, pp. 298 and 512).

Again enlarged by grant of land 100 ft. in length, extending to the Thames, 19 Rich. II. (ib. 1391–6, p. 705).

Lane near the house to be cleansed and gate to be kept locked at night, 49 Ed. III. (Cal. L. Bk. H. p. 7).

Chapel of St. Nicholas within the White Friars, 1540 (L. and P. H. VIII. XV. p. 567).

Forms of name: "S. Mary of the Carmelite Friars," 1349 (Ct. H.W. I. 620). "Manor of the Carmelite friars, Fletestrete," 1341 (Cal. P.R. 1340–3, p. 267). "Friars of St. Mary de Fletestrete," 1375 (Ct. H.W. II. 184). "lez Whyte Frers," 5 Ed. VI. (Cal. L. and M. Ft. of Fines, II. 81).

Buildings described as existing at the dissolution of the monastery, 32 H. VIII. (L. and P. H. VIII. XV. 478, and XVI. 327).

Surrendered 30 H. VIII. (S. 400).

Mansions and buildings within the site granted to William Buttes or Butte, doctor of medicine, 1540 (H. MSS. Corn. 13th Rep. 407).

It is evident from the foregoing entries that the Friars received substantial additions of land, subsequent to the original grant and that the house was considerably enlarged by this means from time to time.

After the grant of the site by H. VIII. to private individuals, the church and house fell into disrepair and were pulled down, or rebuilt, so that within a comparatively short period of time the monastic buildings had completely disappeared and the site was covered by small courts and alleys as shown in the maps of the precincts of the 18th and 19th centuries.

The present Ashentree Court seems to occupy part of the site of the cloisters of the monastery, and there is a very interesting 17th century survey of the precinct in the British Museum, showing how the site was occupied at that date.

White Friars Wall was found to appertain to the Inner Temple, 1614 (I.T.R. II. 79).

The eastern boundary wall of the monastery seems to have been in Water Lane, and the western boundary wall at the corner of Lombard Street (Gent. Mag. Lib. XVI. 103), and extending south to the west of Temple Lane.

An interesting crypt, which formed part of the Monastery was discovered in 1895 in Britton's Court, Whitefriars Street, used as a cellar to one of the houses in the Court. It had a groined vault, of late 14th century date. A similar crypt adjoined it on the north, destroyed about twenty years previously (M. and H. Notes and Q. No. V. p. 37).

The precinct comprised the area from Whitefriars Street east to Temple Lane west, and north from the Thames almost to Fleet Street, in Farringdon Ward Without.

The inhabitants of the precinct claimed in 1580 to be exempt from the jurisdiction of the City and to enjoy their liberties as the friars had done before them (L. and P. Ed. VI. 1. 654). They obtained further privileges from James I. in 1608. These privileges were only finally abolished by Act of Parliament in 1697.

There is an interesting account of the topography of the precinct and of the discoveries made of remains of the monastic house in the Journal of the British Archæological Association, 1910, N.S. 16.

The name Whitefriars commemorates the white habit worn by the Carmelite Friars.

White Friars, a number of lanes, alleys, and passages extending from the west side of Water lane to the Temple, and from Fleet street to the Thames. It took its name from the White Friars, or Carmelites, who had their house in this place next to Fleet street, and their garden probably extended from thence to the water side. They were cloathed in white, and having made a vow of poverty lived by begging. Their convent was founded by Sir Richard Gray, Knt. ancestor to the Lord Gray of Codnor in Derbyshire in the year 1241, and was afterwards rebuilt by Hugh Courtney, Earl of Devonshire, about the year 1350. In the conventual church were interred many persons of distinction.

This convent and its church were surrendered to Henry VIII. in the thirtieth year of his reign, when they were valued at no more than 261l. 7s. 3d. and being soon after pulled down, other houses were built in their room. Maitland.

In the year 1608, the inhabitants obtained several liberties, privileges and exemptions by a charter granted them by King James I. and this rendered the place an asylum for insolvent debtors, cheats, and gamesters, who gave to this district the name of Alsatia: but the inconveniences the city suffered from this place of refuge, and the riotous proceedings carried on there, at length induced the legislature to interpose; and to deprive them of privileges so pernicious to the community.

Whitefriars,—on the N. side the River Thames, between New Bridge-st. Blackfriars, and the Temple.

Whitefriars, is a district of the city, which extends from the western side of Water-lane, Fleet-street, to the Temple, and from Fleet-street to the Thames. It derives its name from being the site of the ancient Convent of Carmelites, or Whitefriars, who were so called from their white garments. This convent was founded in 1241, by Sir Richard Grey, ancestor of the Lord Greys, of Codnor, in Derbyshire, and was afterwards rebuilt about 1350, by Hugh Courtney, Earl of Devonshire, when the ground given to the order by Edward I. to enlarge their buildings was taken in. The conventual church was built by Sir Robert Knowles, a great warrior in the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II., and ti was the burial place of many persons of distinction.

At the dissolution of the religious houses, in the reign of Henry VIII., this convent and its church were surrendered to the crown, and the king conferred different portions of the buildings to his favourites; and in 1557 Edward VI. granted the church, chapter house, and other parts of the priory to the Bishop of Worcester and his successors.

In 1608, the inhabitants of this district obtained several liberties, privileges and exemptions, by a charter granted them by James I., which placed them out of the jurisdiction of the City of London. This soon rendered the place an asylum for insolvent debtors, cheats and gamblers, who gave it the name of Alsatia, which figures so conspicuously in Sir Walter Scott's lively tale of the Fortunes of Nigel. The inconvenience became at last so intolerable, that in 1696 an act of parliament was passed to deprive the district of privileges that were so injurious to the community.

Whitefriars, a precinct or liberty, between Fleet Street and the Thames, the Temple walls and Water Lane. Here was the White Friars' Church, called "Fratres Beatæ Marise de Monte Carmeli," first founded by Sir Richard Gray in 1241. Among the benefactors were King Edward I., who gave the ground; Hugh Courtenay, Earl of Devon, who rebuilt the church; and Robert Marshall, Bishop of Hereford, who built the choir, presbytery, and steeple. The church was surrendered at the Reformation, and in place thereof were "many fair houses built, lodgings for noblemen and others."¹ The hall was used as the first Whitefriars Theatre (1609). The privileges of sanctuary, continued to this precinct after the Dissolution, were confirmed and enlarged in 1608 by royal charter. Fraudulent debtors, gamblers, prostitutes, and other outcasts of society made it a favourite retreat. Here they formed a community of their own, adopted the language of pickpockets, openly resisted the execution of every legal process, and extending their cant terms to the place they lived in, new-named their precinct by the well-known appellation of Alsatia, after the province which formed a debateable land between Germany and France. [See Alsatia.]

Though the immunities legally belonging to the place extended only to cases of debt, cheats, false witnesses, forgers and highwaymen found refuge there. For amidst a rabble so desperate no peace officer's life was in safety. At the cry of "Rescue," bullies with swords and cudgels, and termagant hags with spits and broom-sticks, poured forth by hundreds; and the intruder was fortunate if he escaped back into Fleet Street, hustled, stripped, and pumped upon. Even the warrant of the Chief Justice of England could not be executed without the help of a company of musketeers. Such relics of the barbarism of the darkest ages were to be found within a short walk of the chambers where Somers was studying history and law, of the chapel where Tillotson was preaching, of the coffee-house where Dryden was passing judgment on poems and plays, and of the hall where the Royal Society was examining the astronomical system of Isaac Newton.—Macaulay's Hist., chap. iii.

This vicious privilege was at length abolished by the Act 8 and 9 William III., c. 27 (1697), but it was only by slow degrees that Whitefriars was cleared of its lawless inhabitants and became a safe resort and dwelling-place for respectable citizens. There had, however, at all times been a portion of the old precinct wholly removed from this lawless community. Many of the Greys were buried in the monastery, and at the Dissolution the Friary House seems to have been secured by the head of this powerful family. Henry Grey, the ninth Earl of Kent (d. 1639), the friend of Selden, and his widow, the something more than friend, lived here in ædibus carmeliticis. At the death of the Countess (1651) the mansion was bequeathed to Selden, who continued to live in it till his death in 1654. Here, in the reign of James I., Turner, the fencing-master, kept his school, and here, while drinking with a friend at a tavern door on a fine evening in May, he was shot through the heart by assassins hired for the purpose by Lord Crichton of Sanquhar. Turner had accidentally put out the eye of Lord Sanquhar while fencing at Rycote, in Oxfordshire, and was never forgiven. The actual assassins were hanged in Fleet Street at the Whitefriars Gate, and Lord Sanquhar himself in Old Palace Yard. In another part of the Whitefriars Sir Balthazar Gerbier established his Academy for Foreign Languages;² and here, in Charles II.'s reign, Banister established a music school, and Ogilby, the poet, a warehouse for his maps. Banister's music-room was "a large room near the Temple back-gate."³ The George Tavern in Whitefriars—in which Shadwell laid some of the scenes of his Squire of Alsatia, and which Mrs. Behn mentioned in The Lucky Chance (1687)—became the printing-office of William Bowyer, the elder. The house, which he converted into a printing-office, was situated in Dogwell Court. On January 30, 1713, the premises were entirely destroyed by fire, and so high did Bowyer's character stand, that his brother stationers, the Stationers' Company and the two Universities assisting, subscribed enough to set him up again in business. The unusual course was taken of issuing a "Brief," which produced £1514; this, with the amount contributed by his friends, made a total sum of £2539 received by Mr. Bowyer. His loss was estimated at £5146.⁴ In this house the second and more eminent William Bowyer, "the learned printer," was born, December 17, 1699, and lived in it for sixty-seven years, only quitting it for a roomier house in Red Lion Passage in 1767. The house was occupied later by Thomas Davison, and is now a part of the establishment of Messrs. Bradbury and Agnew, famed as printers, and the proprietors of Punch.

During recent years great changes have been made within the precinct of Whitefriars. On the eastern side considerable spaces have been cleared and large offices and warehouses erected. The Thames Embankment has been carried along its southern border, and here, instead of gas-works, coal wharfs, and river-side rookeries, the ground is now occupied by the City of London School and Sion College.

Gentleman. Towards Chertsey, noble lord?
D. of Gloucester. No, to Whitefriars; there attend my coming.
Shakespeare, Richard III.

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¹ Stow, p. 148.
² Whitelocke, ed. 1732, p. 441.
³ Roger North's Memoirs of Musick.
⁴ Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, vol. i. pp. 59–63.