The streets of London through the centuries / Thomas Burke.

  • Thomas Burke
Date:
1949
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The streets of London through the centuries / Thomas Burke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    *3 Street-walkers were punished by having their hair cut off in public, and being made to walk through the streets in their petticoats, accom¬ panied by rough music on basins and hand-bells. The penance of Jane Shore in 1483 is a familiar story. Richard III had accused her protector, Lord Hastings, of treason, and had had him beheaded. Unable to make a charge against Jane Shore he denounced her to the Church as a woman of incontinent habits. The sentence of the church was that she should walk in her petticoat, bare-headed and bare-footed, from the bishop’s palace to St. Paul’s Cross, where she was to make open confession as a woman of loose morals. Holinshed, in his Chronicles, gives an impression of the scene: In her penance she went, in countenance and pace demure, so womanly that albeit she were out of all array, save her kirtle only, yet went she so fair and lovely, namely, while the wondering of the people cast a comely rud in her cheeks, that her great shame won her much praise among those that were more amorous of her body than curious of her soul. And many good folks that hated her living (and glad were to see sin corrected), yet pitied they more her penance than rejoiced therein, when they considered that the Protector procured it more of a corrupt intent than any virtuous affection. Other penances were the ducking-stool, for the common scold, the “riding” for the woman who had made her husband a cuckold, and the whipping out of the gates for vagrant beggars, women as well as men. The people had, indeed, as much amusement as those of to-day, and more public holidays; but with all their labour and merriment went plagues, fires, riots, rebellions, and sudden death. Many of the riots were begun by the prentices, but others were uprisings of the citizens against the demands of the king. In the early years of the fourteenth century, Edward II, having a quarrel with the barons, demanded from the citizens a forced loan and a troop of soldiers. The citizens objected, and Edward deposed the Mayor and put the city in charge of the Bishop of Exeter. On this news, an armed band of citizens marched to the Mayor, before the keys of the gates were taken from him, and themselves took the keys. Then, gathering numbers as they marched, they went to the house of the Bishop, set fire to it, and captured the Bishop, who was warned of their coming, at the door of St. Paul’s. From there they dragged him to the Standard at Cheapside, denounced him as a traitor, and asked for sentence. The mob pronounced sentence, an axe was produced, and there and then he was executed. They then went to the house of a citizen who had favoured the king’s cause, and took him too to the Standard and executed him on the same block. A brother of the Bishop was also seized, and one of his retainers. These were both dealt with in a few minutes, and the bodies of all four dragged through the streets and flung into one of the ditches. Some time later, in 1376, the citizens rose again. The cause was a
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