Lincoln's Inn Fields

Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, is on the western side of the preceding [Lincoln's Inn], and is the most extensive square in the metropolis, the area containing not less than ten acres, and is said to be of the same size as the base of the great Pyramid of Egypt. It is bounded on the east by the gardens and stone buildings of Lincoln's-inn, on the north by Holborn, on the south by Portugal-Street, and on the west by several streets, and a row of houses, designed by Inigo Jones. In this square, Lord Russell was beheaded on the 21st July, 1683. The centre is laid out as a pleasure-garden in a very tasteful style, on the north side is the dwelling-house, museum,and offices of John Soane, Esq., and on the south the College of Surgeons.

Lincoln's Inn Fields, a noble square, immediately west of Lincoln's Inn. In the reign of Elizabeth and the early years of James I. the site was an open waste, the haunt of beggars and idle persons, and the occasional scene of military exercises and of public executions. Babington and his thirteen associates in the conspiracy which bears his name were executed here on September 20 and 21, 1586, seven on the first day and seven on the second. In George Whetstone's contemporary narrative (1587) the place is described as "a field at the upper ende of Holborne, harde by the high waye side to S. Giles." The Lords of the Privy Council wrote to the County Justices in September 1613 to restrain certain proposed buildings in Lincoln's Inn Fields. James I. having resolved to have it "laid out in walks like Moorfields,"⁴ by a patent of November 16, 1618, appointed Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor, and others, a commission "to reduce Lincoln's Inn Fields into walks." The commissioners called Inigo Jones to their aid, and he, it is said, reduced the fields to the exact dimensions of the base of one of the pyramids of Egypt—but the great pyramid occupies 13½ acres, while this square contains only 12 acres. The west side, all that Inigo lived to build upon, was called The Arch Row; here he designed Ancaster House, afterwards called Lindsay House; the east side was bounded by the wall of Lincoln's Inn Gardens (as it now is by the hall of that Inn); the south side was known as Portugal Row, and the north as Holborn Row, but in the 18th century it was more commonly called Newman's Row. The laying out of the walks did not check the concourse of idlers, and it stimulated the passion for building, much to the annoyance of the members of Lincoln's Inn, till Oliver Cromwell put a peremptory stop to it by a Proclamation, dated Whitehall, August 11, 1656:—

Upon consideration of the Humble Petition of the Society of Lincoln's Inn, and of divers persons of quality, inhabitants in and about the fields, heretofore called by the several names of Pier's Field, Cup Field, and Fitchet's Field, and now known by the name of Lincoln's Inn Fields, adjoining to the said Society, and to the cities of London and Westminster, and of the inhabitants of other places adjacent to the said fields, setting forth among other things that divers persons have prepared very great store of bricks for the erecting of new buildings upon the said Fields: Ordered by his Highness the Lord Protector and the Council that there be a stay of all further buildings, as well in Lincoln's Inn Fields, as also in the fields commonly called St. James's Fields, upon any new foundation, and likewise of all further proceedings in any such buildings already begun, and that it be recommended to the Justices of the Peace for the City of Westminster and liberties thereof to take care that there be no such new buildings, nor proceeding in any such buildings already begun.

On bringing in a Bill the year following (June 1657) to check the increase of buildings a proviso was inserted "for the erection and finishing of certain houses and new buildings on three sides of the fields called Lincoln's Inn Fields; and for the conveying and opening the rest and residue of the said fields unto the Society of Lincoln's Inn; and for the laying of the same into walks for common use and benefit; whereby the great annoyances which formerly have been to the said fields will be taken away, and passengers there for the future better secured."²

Through these fields, in the reign of Charles II., Thomas Sadler, a well-known thief, attended by his confederates, made his mock procession at night with the mace and purse of the Lord Chancellor Finch, which they had stolen from the Chancellor's closet in Great Queen Street, immediately adjoining, and were carrying to their lodging in Knightrider Street. One of the confederates walked before Sadler, with the mace of the Lord Chancellor exposed on his shoulder, and another followed after him carrying the Chancellor's purse, equally prominent. Sadler was executed at Tyburn for this theft, March 16, 1676–1677. Here, July 21, 1683, William, Lord Russell, was executed.

Some have said that the Duke of York moved that he might be executed in Southampton Square before his own house, but that the king rejected that as indecent. So Lincoln's Inn Fields was the place appointed for his execution. ... After he had delivered this paper he prayed by himself: then Tillotson prayed with him. After that he prayed again by himself, and then undressed himself, and laid his head on the block without the least change of countenance; and it was cut off at two strokes.—Burnet's Own Times, ed. 1823, vol. ii. p. 377.

Evelyn says the executioner gave "three butcherly strokes." In 1686 "The Recolet Franciscan Fryers built a Chappel in lincolnsinn fields," as James II. records in his Memoirs. It was one of the first of these establishments with which James in his blind folly sought to cover the land, and it was one of the first to fall a sacrifice to the popular fury on the memorable night of December 12, 1688. On the same night Wild House, by Lincoln's Inn Fields, the residence of the Spanish ambassador Ronquillo, was "sacked without mercy; and a noble library which he had collected perished in the flames."³ These fields were frequented from an early period down to the year 1735 by wrestlers, bowlers, cripples, beggars, and rabble of all kinds. Here Lilly, the astrologer, when a servant at Mr. Wright's, at the corner house over against Strand Bridge, spent his idle hours in bowling with "Wat the cobler, Dick the blacksmith, and such like companions;" and here, Blount tells us in his Law Dictionary (fol. 1670), that he had seen the game played by idle persons of "The Wheel of Fortune," "wherein they turn about a thing like the hand of a clock," which some had supposed, he says, to have been the same as the old game of "closh," forbidden by a statute of the reign of Edward IV., and very similar to the game played now at races and places of public resort round London.

Cully (drunk—a blind fellow led before him).—Villains, sons of unknown fathers, tempt me no more. (The boys hoot at him, he draws his sword.) I will make a young generation of cripples, to succeed in Lincoln's Inn Fields and Covent Garden.—Etherege, Love in a Tub, 1664.

We went into the Lame Hospital, where a parcel of wretches were hopping about by the assistance of their crutches, like so many Lincoln's Inn Fields Mumpers, drawing into a body to attack the coach of some charitable lord.—Ned Ward, The London Spy, pt. v.

March 24, 1668.—Great talk of the tumult ... among the 'prentices, taking the liberty of these holidays to pull down brothels. ... So Creed and I to Lincolne's Inn Fields, thinking to have gone into the fields to have seen the apprentices; but here we found the fields full of soldiers all in a body, and my Lord Craven commanding of them, and riding up and down to give orders, like a madman.—Pepys.

Locke, in the directions he wrote for a foreigner visiting England, (1679) says, among sports he may see "wrestling in Lincoln's Inn Fields all the summer."

November 17, 1696.—His Excellency Stepney is here still, but going towards Frankfort to hinder broken heads, for winter quarters, and to stand between the Hessians and Palatines to see fair play like Vinegar in the ring at Lincoln's Inn Fields.—Mat Prior to Lord Lexington (Lexington Papers, p. 230).

Where Lincoln's Inn, wide space, is rail'd around,
Cross not with venturous step; there oft is found
The lurking thief, who, while the daylight shone,
Made the walls echo with his begging tone:
That crutch, which late compassion mov'd, shall wound
Thy bleeding head, and fell thee to the ground.
Though thou art tempted by the linkman's call,
Yet trust him not along the lonely wall;
In the mid-way he'll quench the flaming brand.
And share the booty with the pilfering band.
Still keep the public streets where oily rays,
Shot from the crystal lamp, o'erspread the ways.—Gay's Trivia.

The rail to which Gay alludes in the above quotation was only a wooden post-and-rail; the square itself was enclosed with iron rails for the first time, pursuant to an Act passed in 1735, enabling the inhabitants, on and after June 2, 1735, to make a rate on themselves for raising money sufficient to enclose, clean, and adorn the said fields. This desirable change had been hastened by an accident which had occurred to Sir Joseph Jekyll, thus described in a newspaper of the time:—

June 7, 1733.—Yesterday in the evening His Honour the Master of the Rolls, crossing Lincoln's Inn Fields, was rode over by a boy who was airing an horse there; by which accident he was much bruised.

The plan for beautifying Lincoln's Inn Fields is now before his grace the Duke of Newcastle. There are to be four iron gates, one at each corner, and dwarf walls with iron palisades: this plan has been agreed to by the inhabitants.—Daily Journal, July 9, 1735.

Eminent Inhabitants.—Digby, Earl of Bristol, and Montague, Earl of Sandwich, of the time of Charles II.; Sir Richard and Lady Fanshawe.

The next day being the 13th we all went to my own house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, on the north side, where the widow Countess of Middlesex had lived before; and the same day likewise was brought the body of my dear husband.—Lady Fanshawe's Memoirs, p. 246.

The famous Duchess of Marlborough. In the Auckland Correspondence is a letter from Mr. Hatsell, dated November 1812, mentioning that he had lived to see eight generations of the Marlborough family, the earliest being "Sarah in Lincoln's Inn, consulting Mr. Fazakerly, who stood close to her Grace's chair." John Locke after leaving Dorset Court had chambers in Little Lincoln's Inn Fields, his usual residence being at Oates.

I lodge at Mr. Pawling's, over against the Plough Inn, in Little Lincoln's Inn Fields.—Locke to Sir Edward Harley, September 25, 1694; Fox Bourne's Life of John Locke, vol. ii. p. 310.

Lord Cowper in both his chancellorships. Lord Chancellor Harcourt occupied the same house in the interval. "My new old house," the second Lady Cowper calls it in her Diary. Here, in 1716, she made the amusing entry: "Bit in the night—I'm afraid by a Bug; 'tis as bad an Enemy as a Scotch Highlander." Lord Chancellor Northington lived for many years in a house on the south side, now the College of Surgeons. The great Lord Somers and the minister Duke of Newcastle in Powis House. Lord Macclesfield, when Chancellor, and at the time of his impeachment and trial, 1725. He had also a house at Kensington, in which, as was said, his wife received money. The proud Duke of Somerset.

Old Somerset is at last dead. ... To Lady Frances, the eldest, he has conditionally given the fine house built by Inigo Jones in Lincoln's Inn Fields (which he had bought of the Duke of Ancaster for the Duchess) hoping that his daughter will let her mother live with her.—H. Walpole to Mann, December 15, 1748, vol. ii p. 137.

Sir Philip Yorke (afterwards Earl of Hardwicke) took a house in the Arch Row, which he continued to occupy for some years. He had previously had chambers in the Old Buildings, with a residence in Red Lion Square.

April 15, 1771.—The Lord Mayor and Oliver were brought this morning, by writ of Habeas Corpus, from the Tower to Lord Chief Justice De Grey's in Lincoln's Inn Fields.—Mrs. Harris to her son, the Earl of Malmesbury.

William Pitt, in 1778.¹ Lord Chancellor Loughborough. Sir William Blackstone "died, February 14, 1780, at his house in Lincoln's Inn Fields." John Dunning, Lord Ashburton, died at his house here, August 18, 1783. Fletcher Norton, Lord Grantley, died at his house here in 1789. Lord Kenyon (d. 1802) at No. 35.

He occupied a large gloomy house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, in which I have seen merry days when it was afterwards transferred to the Verulam Club. I have often heard this traditional description of the mansion in his time: "All the year through it is Lent in the kitchen and Passim Week in the parlour."—Lord Campbell's Life of Lord Kenyon.

Lord Erskine at No. 35 in 1805. Spencer Perceval at No. 57, now No. 59.

June 13, 1817.—Dined at Joseph Henry Green's, No. 22, Lincoln's Inn Fields—Coleridge and Ludwig Tieck of the party.—H. Crabb Robinson, vol. ii. p. 53.

Professor Green, the most devoted of Coleridge's disciples, gave up his practice and professorship in 1843 and retired to Hadley, by Barnet, "in order to devote himself to the task of systematizing and publishing the philosophical doctrines he had received from Coleridge," and there, having lived to complete, but not long enough to publish, his work, he died in December 1863. Henry Cline, the great surgeon (who attended Gibbon on his deathbed), lived for many years at No. 2, on the north side, and here he died in 1827. Here he regularly celebrated Horne Tooke's acquittal by a dinner. Henry Brougham was living at No. 50 in 1819. Mr. Justice Park lived at No. 33; Sir William Grant at No. 56; George Cornewall Lewis at No. 3 in 1829; Thomas Campbell was living "in spacious chambers" at No. 61 in 1837 [See Lindsay House; Powis House; Newcastle House; Portugal Row, etc.] No. 13, on the north side, is Sir John Soane's Museum; Nos. 20 to 22 the Inns of Court Hotel; and Nos. 40 to 42, on the south side, the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. At No. 59 (part of Lindsay House) is a good mantelpiece of the Inigo Jones time. Several of the houses have been rebuilt and raised to a great height. No. 63 has a very singular elevation. The windows, in groups of three, form the distinctive feature of the architecture.

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¹ Cal. State Pap., 1619–1623, p. 53.
² Burton, Diary, vol. ii. p. 258.
³ Macaulay, History of England, chap. x.
⁴ Stanhope, p. 287.