Tag Archives: Sir Dudley Carleton

“The Fatall Vesper”, or “A pittiful accident in the black friers” (John Chamberlain, 1623)

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a-contemporary-engraving-of-the-accident-in-blackfriars

In  1623, John Chamberlain wrote in a  letter to Dudley Carleton:

“The next day after I wrote last  here fell out a pittiful incident in the black friers, where the papists had hired a house next to the French Ambassadors (that so they might be as it were under his protection) to hold …  masse, … and perform all other their exercises and rites after the Romish manner; a great multitude being met there on the 26th of the last month [October] to heare father Drurie a famous Jesuit among them preach in an upper roome, the floore sunke under them, or rather the beames and joystes not able to bear the weight brake in the midst.  Many [possibly as many as one hundred] perished, partly battered and bruised, but for the most part smothered, for the first floore fell with such violence that it brake down a second under it.  A number were hurt …, which found little helpe or comfort at first, our people being growne so savage … that they refused to assist them … in their necessitie, but rather insulted upon them with taunts and gibes in their affliction …, but there was as much goode … to represse the insolencie and inhumanitie of the multitude, and for reliefe of the distressed”.

Blackfriars is visited on our “London Wall“ standard walk, and on our “Tudor and Stuart London” themed special.

Further details of all our walks are available in the Our Guided Walks section of this web-site.

Bookings may be made through the “Contact/Booking” section of the web-site, or by e-mail (lostcityoflondon@sky.com).

Shrove Tuesday riots (John Chamberlain, 1617)

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Bawdy House in 17th Century England — Image by © Bettmann/CORBIS

According to the endlessly fascinating “A London Year” by Travis Elborough and Nick Rennison, a riot took place in London on this day in 1617.  Four days later John Chamberlain described the event in a letter to Sir Dudley Carleton, as follows:

“On … Shrove Tuesday, the ‘prentices, or rather the unruly people of the suburbs, played their parts in divers places, as Finsbury Fields, about Wapping, by St Catherine’s, and in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, …  in pulling down of houses, and beating of guards that were set to keep rule, specially at a new playhouse, some time a cockpit, in Drury Lane, where the queen’s players used to play.  Though the fellows defended themselves as well as they could, and slew three of them with shot, and hurt divers, yet they entered the house and defaced it, cutting the players’ apparel into pieces, and all their furniture, and burnt their playbooks, and did what other mischief they could… .  There be divers of them taken since and clapped up, and I make no question but we shall see some of them hanged next week, as it is more than time they were”.

It was not an isolated event.  Between 1606 and 1641, there were a total of 24 such Shrove Tuesday riots, generally targeting “bawdy-houses”.   And on Tuesday March 24th, 1668, there was another particularly large one, involving tens of thousands of the populace, and described by Samuel Pepys  in his diary.

John Chamberlain

John Chamberlain, who lived from 1553/4-1628, and was baptised and buried in the church of St Olave Jewry in the City of London, is best known now as the author of a large number of letters written between 1597-1626, that “constitute the first considerable body … in English history and literature that the modern reader can easily follow”.

Most of the nearly 500 that still survive were written to Sir Dudley Carleton while he   was serving as an ambassador in Venice and The Hague, and were evidently intended to keep the ambitious diplomat abroad  informed  of events – especially those befalling “the better sort of people” – at home  (incidentally, Carleton went on to become Secretary of State).  The letters contain descriptions of such  important events in Elizabethan and Jacobean history as the trial of the Earls of Essex and Southampton in 1601, the Gunpowder Plot in 1605, the trial  of the Earl and Countess of Somerset in 1615, and the execution of Sir Walter Ralegh in 1618.  They also contain much court, City and country tittle-tattle (“who’s in, who’s out”), picked up, no doubt,  in St Paul’s Cathedral, which at the time had a reputation as  the fount of all such – it appears that  Chamberlain was an inveterate “Paul’s walker”!

“The Fatall Vesper”, or “A pittiful accident in the black friers” (John Chamberlain, 1623)

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A contemporary engraving of the incidentOctober 26th – On this day in 1623, Father Drurie preached to a great multitude in an upper room in Blackfriars, with dire consequences.

John Chamberlain wrote about it in a letter to Dudley Carleton:

“The next day after I wrote last here fell out a pittiful incident in the black friers, where the papists had hired a house next to the French Ambassadors (that so they might be as it were under his protection) to hold …  masse, … and perform all other their exercises and rites after the Romish manner; a great multitude being met there on the 26th of the last month to heare father Drurie a famous Jesuit among them preach in an upper roome, the floore sunke under them, or rather the beames and joystes not able to bear the weight brake in the midst.  Many [possibly as many as one hundred] perished, partly battered and bruised, but for the most part smothered, for the first floore fell with such violence that it brake down a second undfer it.  A number were hurt …, which found little helpe or comfort at first, our people being growne so savage … that they refused to assist them … in their necessitie, but rather insulted upon them with taunts and gibes in their affliction …, but there was as much goode … to represse the insolencie and inhumanitie of the multitude, and for reliefe of the distressed”.

A contemporary engraving of the incident

A contemporary engraving of the incident

Blackfriars is visited on our “London Wall“ standard walk, and on our “Tudor London” themed special.

Further details of all our walks are available in the Guided Walks section of this web-site.

Bookings may be made through the “Contact/Booking” section of the web-site, by e-mail (lostcityoflondon@sky.com), or by phone (020-8998-3051).

Bear baiting (John Chamberlain, 1623)

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July 12th –  On this day in 1623, John Chamberlain*  wrote in a letter to Sir Dudley Carleton:

“The Spanish Ambassador is much delighted in beare baiting: he was the last weeke at Paris garden [in Southwark], where they shewed him all the pleasure they could  … and then turned a white [polar] beare into the Thames, where the dogges baited him swimming, which was the best sport of all”.

A Medieval depiction of bear baiting

A Medieval depiction of bear baiting

The Swiss visitor Thomas Platter had written of the practice of bear-baiting earlier, in 1599:

“Every Sunday [!] and Wednesday in London there are bear-baitings.  … The theatre is circular, with galleries … for spectators, [and] the space … below, beneath the clear sky, … unoccupied. In the middle of this place a large bear on a long rope was bound to a stake, then a number of English mastiffs were brought in and first shown to the bear, which they afterwards baited … .  [N]ow the excellence … of such mastiffs was evinced, for although they were much … mauled by the bear, they did not give in, but had to be pulled off by sheer force … .  The bears’ teeth were not sharp so to they could not injure the dogs; they have them broken short.  When the first mastiffs tired, fresh ones were brought in … .  When the bear was weary, another one was supplied … .  … When this bear was tired, a … bull was brought in … .  Then another powerful bear … .  Lastly they brought in an old blind bear which the boys hit  with … sticks; but he knew how to untie his leash and … ran back to his stall”.

*For more (on other topics) from John Chamberlain’s writings, see also March 4th and March 10th postings.

Cutting his nose off to spite his face (John Chamberlain)

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Sir Ralph Winwood

Sir Ralph Winwood

On 10th March 1613, John Chamberlain wrote in a letter to Sir Ralph Winwood:

“[A]n odd fray … happened much about that time near the Temple, ‘twixt one Hutchison of Grays-Inn and Sir German Pool; who, assaulting the other upon Advantage, and cutting off two of his Fingers, besides a wound or two before he could draw, the Gentleman finding himself disabled to revenge himself by the Sword, flew in upon him, and getting him down, tore away all his Eyebrow with his Teeth, and then seizing on his Nose, tore away all of it, and carried it away in his Pockett”.

Ear attack, Temple Church! (Soul in torment)

Ear attack, Temple Church! (Soul in torment)

As noted in the March 4th posting, John Chamberlain, who lived from 1553/4-1628, and was baptised and buried in the church of St Olave Jewry in the City of London, is best known now as the author of a large number of letters written between 1597-1626, that “constitute the first considerable body … in English history and literature that the modern reader can easily follow”.

Dudley CarletonMost of the nearly 500 that still survive were written to Sir Dudley Carleton, who, like the aforementioned Sir Ralph Winwood, went on to become Secretary of State.

“The Fatall Vesper”, or “A pittiful accident in the black friers” (John Chamberlain, 1623)

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A contemporary engraving of the incidentOctober 26th – On this day in 1623, Father Drurie preached to a great multitude in an upper room in Blackfriars, with dire consequences.

On November 8th, 1623, John Chamberlain wrote in another letter to Dudley Carleton:

“The next day after I wrote last here fell out a pittiful incident in the black friers, where the papists had hired a house next to the French Ambassadors (that so they might be as it were under his protection) to hold …  masse, … and perform all other their exercises and rites after the Romish manner; a great multitude being met there on the 26th of the last month to heare father Drurie a famous Jesuit among them preach in an upper roome, the floore sunke under them, or rather the beames and joystes not able to bear the weight brake in the midst.  Many [possibly as many as one hundred] perished, partly battered and bruised, but for the most part smothered, for the first floore fell with such violence that it brake down a second undfer it.  A number were hurt …, which found little helpe or comfort at first, our people being growne so savage … that they refused to assist them … in their necessitie, but rather insulted upon them with taunts and gibes in their affliction …, but there was as much goode … to represse the insolencie and inhumanitie of the multitude, and for reliefe of the distressed”.

A contemporary engraving of the incident

A contemporary engraving of the incident

Blackfriars is visited on our “London Wall“ standard walk, and on our “Tudor London” themed special.

Further details of all our walks are available in the Guided Walks section of this web-site.

Bookings may be made through the “Contact/Booking” section of the web-site, by e-mail (lostcityoflondon@sky.com), or by phone (020-8998-3051).

Bear baiting (John Chamberlain, 1623)

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July 12th – On this day in 1623, John Chamberlain wrote in a letter to Sir Dudley Carleton:

“The Spanish Ambassador is much delighted in beare baiting: he was the last weeke at Paris garden [in Southwark], where they shewed him all the pleasure they could with bull beare and horse, … and then turned a white beare into the Thames, where the dogges baited him swimming, which was the best sport of all”.

A Medieval depiction of bear baiting

A Medieval depiction of bear baiting

As noted in this posting from March 4th and this from March 11th, John Chamberlain, who lived from 1553/4-1628, and was baptised and buried in the church of St Olave Jewry in the City of London, is best known now as the author of a large number of letters written between 1597-1626, that “constitute the first considerable body … in English history and literature that the modern reader can easily follow”.

Most of the nearly 500 that still survive were written to Sir Dudley Carleton while he  was serving as an ambassador in Venice and The Hague, and were evidently intended to keep the ambitious diplomat abroad  informed  of events – especially those befalling “the better sort of people” – at home  (Carleton went on to become Secretary of State).  The letters contain descriptions of such  important events in Elizabethan and Jacobean history as the trial of the Earls of Essex and Southampton in 1601, the Gunpowder Plot in 1605, the trial  of the Earl and Countess of Somerset in 1615, and the execution of Sir Walter Ralegh in 1618.  They also contain much court, City and country tittle-tattle (“who’s in, who’s out”), picked up, no doubt,  in St Paul’s Cathedral, which at the time had a reputation as  the fount of all such – it appears that  Chamberlain was an inveterate “Paul’s walker”!