I. Sir Richard Whittington
(1353-1423])

Chief of all the great merchants of London during the Middle Ages is Richard Whittington, not quite the same Dick Whittington who lives in the story-book, but a Whittington whose worth is only shown more clearly by divesting the popular narrative of its fables, and adding to it the sure facts of history.

Dick was not a beggar-boy who, running away, when he was seven years old, from a home in which there was nothing to make him happy, and, hearing that the streets of London were paved with gold and silver, worked his way thither to be saved from starvation by a good-natured merchant of Leadenhall Street, named Fitzwarren. He was the youngest son of Sir William Whittington, who was descended from an old Warwickshire family, and owned estates in Gloucestershire and Hereford. The father died in 1360, and the estates passed to the eldest son. Dick, who was then only a child not more than five or six years old, seems, as soon as he was old enough, to have been sent up to London, there to become a merchant. A London merchant, at any rate, he became, though in what precise way we are not told.

SIR RICHARD WHITTINGTON, LORD MAYOR OF LONDON.

We may, if we like, accept the version of the story-book, and believe that he was for a long time little better than a scullion in his master's house; that he was much favoured by Mistress Alice, his master's daughter, but much persecuted by a "vile jade of a cook," whose bidding he had to follow; that at length his master, sending a shipful of merchandise to Barbary, permitted each one of his servants to add something to the cargo: and that he, poor fellow, having nothing better, contributed a cat, which he had bought for a penny, and set to destroy the rats and mice which infested his garret; that, while the ship was on its voyage the cook's tyranny so troubled him that he ran away, and had gone as far as Bunhill Fields, when the bells of Bow Church seemed to call to him,

"Turn again, Whittington, Lord Mayor of London;"

and that when, in obedience to the call, he went back to Leadenhall Street, he found that his cat had been sold to the King of Barbary for a large sum of money; and that this money helped him to become the richest merchant of his time. The money paid for the cat must have been vastly less than the £100,000 of which tradition speaks, and most of the wealth with which he started in business on his own account must have been made up of his patrimony and of the fortune that came with his wife, who, though a Mistress Alice, was the daughter, not of a merchant, but of a Sir Hugh Fitzwarren, owner of much property in Gloucestershire and other counties.

The popular account of his youth, however, may be partly true. No one, however rich and high-born, might, in those days, follow any important trade in London who was not a member of one of the city companies or guilds, and for admission to these companies it was necessary to pass through some years of rough apprenticeship. Whittington, we know, was so apprenticed to a member of the Mercers' Guild, which at that time engrossed one of the most prosperous branches of the tradesman's calling. In front of one of the shops in Cheapside or Cornhill, which then were open stalls or booths, such as we now see in the markets, he must have had to stand, day after day, offering coats, caps, and other articles of haberdashery and the like, to passers-by; and when the day was over, he must have gone indoors to live in a garret, or worse, to do, in spite of his gentle birth, whenever he was bid, such jobs as scullions now-a-days would think beneath them; and to associate with rude and lawless fellow apprentices—lads whose play was generally coarse and brutal, and to whom fierce brawls and deadly fighting only offered special opportunities of amusement. His was rare luck if there was any kind Mistress Alice at hand to heal the wounds of body and of spirit that must have befallen him.

They were rough times in which he lived, times in which the modern history of England was fairly beginning, after a thousand years and more of rude preparation. London had been growing for at least fourteen centuries. Tacitus, who lived in the days of the Emperor Nero, spoke of it as being then "famous for its merchants and the abundance of its merchandise." Five hundred and fifty years afterwards, the venerable Bede called it "a mart town of many nations, which repaired thither by sea and land." The Romans had found it in some sort of prosperity, and it had prospered much more under their dominion. The prosperity had continued during the centuries of Anglo-Saxon colonisation and progress; and if there was some hindrance to this during the turmoil of the Norman Conquest, London began to be a far more influential town than ever as soon as those turmoils were over.

"London," says one of the old chroniclers, writing in the twelfth century, "is a noble city, renowned for the opulence of its citizens, who, on account of the greatness of the city, are among the first rank of noblemen. It is filled with goods brought by the merchants of all countries, but especially with those of Germany; and when there is a scarcity of corn in other parts of England, it is a granary at which the article may be bought more cheaply than anywhere else."

"To this city," says another writer of the same century, "merchants repair from every nation of the world, bringing their commodities by sea:

"Arabia's gold, Sabsea's spice and gums, Scythia's keen weapons, and the oil of palms From Babylon's deep soil, Nile's precious gems, China's bright shining silks, the wines of France, Norway's warm peltry, and the Russian sables, All here abound."

That is a highly-drawn picture of London commerce under the early Plantagenets. The "nations of the world" then within reach of England were few in number, and the merchants were more like modern pedlars and small shopkeepers than the great millionaires of recent times. But the London of that period was as great, in comparison with other towns both in and out of England, as is the London of to-day; and then, as now, its greatness was chiefly caused by its commerce. This commerce, however, was mostly in the hands of foreigners. English merchants worked hard and fared well at home; but they were less enterprising than the merchants of other countries, who, not content with pursuing their calling in their own lands, established themselves in all other districts where they had a chance of getting trade and making money.

The foreign merchants who came to London and settled in it were chiefly Germans [Hansaetic League] and Italians, the Germans being the first in the field. From very early times there was a curious little colony of German traders in the heart of London. On the banks of the Thames, near what is now Dowgate Wharf, they had a home during several centuries. Until the reign of Richard II. one large building served both as a residence for the merchants, and as a warehouse for their goods. Then a second building was granted to them; and soon afterwards a third was added, which having been previously known as the Steel-house or Steelyard, gave its name to the whole establishment: in it a colony of German merchants continued to reside down to the time of Elizabeth. There they carried on their trade, having constant supplies of all sorts of goods brought across the seas and up the Thames, to be deposited at their own door, and thence sold to the London traders. A colony somewhat of the same sort was formed of Italians, chiefly Lombards, a little farther from the river-side: and the record of their settlement still exists in the name of Lombard Street. Near it is Old Jewry, once the special residence of the Jewish colonists.

These little colonies of foreigners, bound together by strict rules, and pledged in all ways to help one another in their various occupations, set the fashion of guilds or trading companies of Englishmen. When and how they first began, we do not know. They seem to have existed in some shape even before the Norman Conquest, and soon after that event they became of great importance. Edward III., seeing how useful they were to the progress of commerce and of the nation which owed so much to commerce, did all he could to strengthen them. Forty-eight separate guild's were recognised by him, between which all the business of the city was divided. No one was allowed to take part in trade unless he was a member of the guild established for his special calling, and bound himself to work in friendship with all the other members, and to have no dealings with any unlawful traders who were members of no guilds.

One good feature in these guilds was the care with which they were pledged to assist their aged and unfortunate members and the orphans of all who died young, excellent relics of which appear in the many city charities now existing. They were not merely good, however, but necessary to the times. The times were too violent, and commerce was too small and weak for separate traders to be able to hold their own against tyrannical barons at home, pirates on the sea, and enemies in foreign lands. It was only by association that they became strong; and certainly strength came thus to the merchants of the Middle Ages.

Some of the old guilds were devoted to work which modern merchants would repudiate. The chandlers, the masons, the bakers, the hatters, the barbers, the painters, the wood-sawyers, and the brushmakers, were concerned in occupations that are now held proper for small tradesmen and artisans, not for merchants. Fishmongers are now generally plebeians: yet the old Fishmongers' Guild was almost the most aristocratic, as well as the oldest, of the ancient city companies.

The names of some are misleading. The most influential of all were the Grocers' and the Mercers' Guilds. In olden times the mercers dealt not in silks, but in toys, small haberdasheries, spices, drugs and the like. They were at first in the position of pedlars, and afterwards had a miscellaneous trade in stray commodities, like village shopkeepers of the present day. Ultimately they came to be wholesale dealers and great merchants though their business was still nominally confined to trade in all goods intended for retail sale, all that were weighed by the "little balance." The grocers, who were also called pepperers, came to have almost the same trade. Pepper, cloves, mace, ginger, saffron-wood, and other spices; drugs and dyes; currants, almonds, rice, soap, cotton, silver, tin, and lead, were the chief articles in which it was proper for them to deal. All their wares, however, were to be sold by the "gross balance," or the beams, and in a wholesale way.

Besides these trading societies, which were limited to London, and had counterparts in nearly every other English town, there was a more strictly commercial institution, founded nearly two hundred years before Whittington's time. This was the Society of Merchants of the Staple.

"The merchants of the staple," says an old writer, "were the first and ancientest commercial society in England, so named from their exporting the staple wares of the kingdom. Those staple wares were then only the rough materials fot manufacture: wool and skins, lead and tin, sheepskins and leather, being the chief. The grower of wool contented himself at first with the sale of it at his own door, or at the next town. Thence arose a sort of middleman, who bought it of him, and begot a traffic between them and the foreign clothmakers, who, from their being established for the sale of their wools in some certain city commodious for intercourse, were first named staplers."

These staplers, or merchants of the staple, came to include all the most enterprising members of the various guilds in and out of London.

This, then, was the trading world of London in which Whittington was to make himself famous. There had been famous merchants before him. Foremost of all was Henry Fitz-Alwyn, of the Drapers' Guild, first Mayor of London, and holder of the office for a quarter of a century—from its establishment in 1189 to the time of his death in 1214. He it was who first encouraged the citizens to build their houses of enduring stone, instead of the wood and thatch, which, easily catching fire, caused whole quarters to be frequently burnt down. After him were William de Farendon, of the Goldsmiths' Guild, who was Sheriff in 1281, and his son, Nicholas Farendon, who was four times chosen Mayor between 1308 and 1323, and who, dying when Whittington was eight or ten years old, left his name in Faringdon Street, which, with all the neighbourhood, belonged to him.

Two other great merchants were also alive in Whittington's youth. One of these was William Walworth, owner of the suburb still called Walworth, who was a leading member of the Fishmongers' Guild, and Mayor in 1373 and again in 1381. The latter year was the year of Wat Tyler's rebellion. It was Walworth himself, we are told, who rushed single-handed among the crowd of insurgents, and slew Wat Tyler.

"Good citizens and pious all!" he exclaimed, when the rebels were preparing to take vengeance for that deed, "Give help without delay to your afflicted King; give help to me, your Mayor, encompassed by the self-same dangers. If you do not choose to succour me, at any rate beware how you sacrifice your King!"

The answer came in prompt and energetic combination of the citizens, by which the rebellion was suppressed.

A worthier merchant of that time, "a man of jolly wit and very rich in substance," according to the quaint old chronicler, was John Philpot, of the Grocers' Guild, who lived on the site of Philpot Lane. He did many famous things for the relief of his country, chief of all perhaps being his punishment of John Mercer, a Scotch merchant and pirate in 1378, the year in which Philpot was Mayor of London, Mercer's father had also been a pirate. Being caught, and imprisoned in Scarborough Castle, in 1377, his son carried on the strife with yet more boldness. Collecting a little fleet of Scotch, French, and Spanish ships in 1378, he captured several English merchantmen off Scarborough, slaying their commanders, putting their crews in chains, and appropriating or destroying their cargoes. This mischief, thought Lord Mayor Philpot, must be stopped, and stopped at once. Therefore, at his own expense, he promptly collected a number of vessels, put in them a thousand armed men, and sailed for the north. Within a few weeks he had retaken the captured vessels, had effectually beaten their impudent captors, and, as a revenge, had seized fifteen Spanish vessels, full of wine, that came in his way. On his return from this notable exploit, we are told by the old historian, "there was great joy made among the people, all men praising the worthy man's bountifulness and love towards the king."

But the peers of England by no means echoed the praises of the commoners. "First, they lay in wait to do him some displeasure, and afterwards they spake against him openly, saying that it was not lawful for him to do such things without the orders of the king and his realm."

Philpot was accordingly summoned before Richard II's council, and accused of illegal conduct in going out to fight the enemy without authority from the Crown. Philpot was angry with good reason.

"Know, sir," he said to the Earl of Stafford, who was loudest in his reproaches, "that I did not expose myself, my money, and my men, to the dangers of the sea, that I might deprive you and your mates of your knightly fame, or that I might win any for myself; but in pity for the misery of the people and the country, which, from being a noble realm, with dominion over other nations, has, through your slothfulness, become exposed to the ravages of the vilest race. Not one of you would lift a hand in her defence. Therefore it was that I gave up myself and my property for the safety and deliverance of England."

His rivals at Court could find no real complaint against him; and his friends among the people praised him as one of their greatest benefactors. Philpot died in 1384, and Walworth at about the same time. Whittington, then nearly thirty years old, was their successor, and surpassed them as a type of the merchants of England during the Middle Ages at their best.

Of his early occupations as a mercer and a citizen of London we know nothing in detail; but we can guess something of them from the illustrations that have been given of the state of the times in which he was schooled. They were times in which, Richard II. being king, England was given up to jealousies and quarrels, rebellion and tyranny. Richard was not wise enough or strong enough to keep his realm in order. In trying to do so, he only made mischief. Nobles were at feud with nobles, only leagued together for frequent opposition to him, and for constant resistance of the attempts made by the common people to rise out of the degradation in which they had long been kept, and violently to seize a share in the government of the country. The merchants of London did their best to keep out of the strife; but they were often forced to become soldiers, as when Walworth led the citizens against Wat Tyler; and sailors, as when Philpot went out to punish John Mercer and the Scottish pirates. Whittington, a young and enterprising man, must have watched the turmoil with close interest, keeping out of it as much as possible, and doing his utmost, with wonderful success, to become a rich and influential trader.

We first hear of him in 1393, when he must have been nearly forty years old. He was then a master-mercer, and a member of the Mercers' Guild, with five apprentices working under him; and before the year was out he was elected Sheriff of London, having previously been made an alderman.

As an alderman he had just before taken part in a curious ceremony. Richard II. had called upon the city for a loan of £1000. The city had refused, and the mayor and other chief officers had accordingly been deposed and sent to prison, the management of affairs being placed in the hands of a "guardian," appointed, in violation of all civic laws and privileges, by the King himself. The effect of this severity was, that after a few months the citizens had consented to buy back their rights for £10,000, ten times the sum which they had formerly declined to pay. Thereupon there was a great show of peace-making. On the 29th of August, King Richard proceeded from his palace at Shene or Mortlake, into the city, there to be entertained with a famous pageant. Rich tapestry, choice silks, and cloths of gold adorned the streets, garlands and festoons of sweet-smelling flowers being freely mingled with them. All the members of the city guilds and all their apprentices, matrons, maids, and children, thronged the narrow streets almost from daybreak, while a thousand and twenty young men on horseback marched up and down, keeping order, and adding to the pomp of the occasion.

In the afternoon a procession was formed. The "guardian" appointed by the King led the way. After him came the four-and-twenty aldermen, Whittington being one of them, all arrayed in red and white, and they were followed by the leading representatives of the various trades, each in its own livery. "None seeing this company," says the delighted chronicler, "could doubt that he looked upon a troop of angels." The procession passed over London Bridge, and met another procession, consisting of King Richard and Queen Anne, and a host of attendant courtiers. Then all turned back, crossed London Bridge, and traversed the city, to be delighted with fresh sights and wonders at every turn.

In Cheapside there were fountains pouring forth wine, and allegorical appearances of sweet youths with crowns. At the doorway of Saint Paul's Cathedral there was heavenly music. From the summit of old Ludgate, angels strewed flowers and perfumes on the royal party; and at Temple-Bar there was a wonderful representation of a forest, and a desert full of wild beasts, with John the Baptist in the midst of them, leading the Lamb of God. These entertainments having been admired, the whole procession hurried on to Westminster, where the King seated himself on his throne, and formally pardoned the citizens ot London for their naughtiness in not lending him money as soon as it was asked for. At the same time he gave them back the privileges that had been taken from them.

It was in consequence of that restitution of privileges, and just three weeks after the ceremony, that Whittington was chosen Sheriff. Five years afterwards, in 1398, he was appointed Mayor, and he held that office for a second time in 1406, and for a third time in 1419. In 1416, also, he was elected a member of Parliament for the city of London.

All through these years Whittington was a busy merchant. Besides all the minor trade that was proper to the mercer's calling, he dealt extensively with foreign merchants in the raw wool and hides which were then the chief articles exported from England, and in the silks and other costly articles from distant lands that were exchanged for native wool and leather. Much of his wealth also was derived from an irregular sort of banking, which brought him into close connexion with the two famous monarchs, Henry IV. and Henry V., who reigned in England after the overthrow of Richard II. By lending money to them and others, aad arranging all their complicated business in money matters, he became in the course of his long life, very rich.

He was as magnanimous as he was rich, although some of the stories illustrating his magnanimity can hardly be believed. One of these stories tells how, on the occasion of his being knighted, apparently in 1419, he invited Henry IV. and his queen to a sumptuous entertainment at Guildhall. Among the rarities prepared to give splendour to the festival was a marvellous fire of sweet-smelling woods, mixed with cinnamon and other costly spices. While the King was praising this novelty, we are told Whittington went to a closet, and took from it bonds to the value of £60,000—worth nearly a million pounds of modern money—which he had diligently bought up from the various merchants and money-lenders to whom they had at various times been given by Henry. This bundle he showed to the King, and then threw into the fire. "Never had prince such a subject!" exclaimed Henry: "And never had subject such a prince!" answered Whittington.

That story may or may not be true; but of other and nobler acts of liberality done by Whittington we have ample proof.

"The fervent desire and busy intention of a prudent, wise, and devout man," he is reported to have said not long before his death, "shall be to cast before and make sure the state and the end of this short life with deeds of mercy and pity, and especially to provide for those miserable persons whom the penury of this world insulteth, and to whom the power of seeking the necessities of life by art or bodily labour is interdicted." And that was certainly the rule of his own life.

GUILDHALL CHAPEL, LONDON.

Four hundred years before John Howard appeared as the prisoner's friend, Whittington began to rebuild Newgate prison, hitherto "a most ugly and loathsome prison, so contagious of air, that it caused the death of many men;" and dying before the work was done, he left money that it might be duly completed.

Saint Bartholomew's Hospital, in Smithfield, founded in 1102 for the help of sick and lame paupers, and long fallen into decay, was repaired soon after his death, in obedience to the instructions of this "worthy and notable merchant, the which," according to the testimony of his executors, "ad right liberal and large hands to the needy and poor people."

As a small but significant illustration of his large-hearted charity, we are told that "there was a water conduit east of the church of Saint Giles, Cripplegate, which came from Highbury, and that Whittington, the mayor, caused a tap of water to be made in the church wall,"—a forerunner, by nearly five centuries, of the modern drinking fountains.

A long list might be made of all Whittington's acts of charity. In 1400 he obtained leave to rebuild the church of Saint Michael Paternoster, and found there a college, "consisting of four fellows, clerks, conducts, and chorbters, who were governed by a master," an institution out of which grew not only the reorganised Whittington College in the City, but also the Whittington almshouses at Highgate. In his will he provided for the paving and glazing of Guildhall, which was built in his lifetime. These were luxuries at that time almost confined to palaces. To the famous building he also added the beautiful chapel which was pulled down in 1822. The Guildhall Library, too, was built by his directions in 1419.

CHRIST'S HOSPITAL, LONDON.

During the last years of his life Sir Richard Whittington was busy about the foundation of the library of the Grey Friars' monastery, in Newgate Street. It was a building 129 feet long, and 31 feet wide, furnished, at starting, with books worth £556, 10s., (more than £6000 in the present value of money) of which £400 was subscribed by Whittington. In the reign of Henry VIII., the monastery and its library were given to the City of London at the request of Sir Richard Gresham, a great merchant, who was father of a greater merchant. Sir Thomas Gresham; and in the reign of Edward VI., through the influence of Sir Richard Dobbs, another worthy merchant, and Lord Mayor, they were converted into the excellent Christ's Hospital, "where poor children, innocent and fatherless, are trained up to the knowledge of God and virtuous exercises, to the overthrow of beggary."

For some years before his death, the good Sir Richard Whittington appears to have lived in a large house, which he built for himself in Crutched Friars, which was pulled down not very long ago. He worked hard in all good ways to the last. In September and October 1422, he was in attendance at Guildhall, helping to elect the mayor and sheriffs for the following year; but in the winter he sickened, never to recover. He died on the 24th of March 1423, not far short of seventy years old.

"His body," says Stow the chronicler, "was three times buried in his own church of Saint Michael Paternoster,—first by his executors, under a fair monument; then, in the reign of Edward VI., the parson of the church thinking some great riches, as he said, to be buried with him, caused his monument to be broken, his body to be spoilt of its leaden sheet, and again the second time to be buried; and, in the reign of Queen Mary, the parishioners were forced to take him up, clap him in lead as before, to bury him the third time, and to place his monument, or the like, over him again."

But both church and tombstone were destroyed by the great fire of 1666; and now Sir Richard Whittington's only monument is to be found in the records of the city which he so greatly helped by his noble charities, and by his perfect showing of the way in which a merchant prince should live.