Another notorious political offender, whose fate is associated with Cheapside, was the handsome and accomplished Perkin Warbeck. After his arrest in the priory of Sheen, in Surrey, he was brought to London, and compelled to sit for a whole day in the stocks before the entrance of Westminster Hall. On the following day he was brought to Cheapside, where he was again placed in the stocks, and forced to read a confession, which he is said to have written with his own hand. At night he was lodged in the dungeons of the Tower. His subsequent fate is well known. Having been discovered, in conjunction with the ill-fated Edward Plantagenet Earl of Warwick, in an attempt to escape from the Tower, he was brought to trial on various charges of high treason, and, on the 23rd of November 1499, was hanged at Tyburn.

The

The Standard in Cheapside, the spot where criminals were anciently executed, is said to have stood in the middle of the street, near Bow Church. date of its foundation has not been ascertained; but as early as the reign of Henry the Fourth we find it in such a ruinous state, that it was necessary to rebuild it, together with "a conduit in the same." It was at the Standard in Cheapside, that William Fitz-Osbert, commonly called William Longbeard, after having been dragged with his concubine from the neighbouring church of St. Mary-le-Bow, where he had defended himself by force of arms, was executed in 1199. So

devoted were the populace to his memory, that they stole his gibbet, which they regarded with scarcely less veneration than if it had been the Holy Cross.*

Here, also, Walter Stapleton, Bishop of Exeter, was beheaded by the mob in the reign of Edward the Second. On this ground, in 1293, three men were decapitated for rescuing an offender from the officers of justice; and here, in 1461, John Davy had his hand cut off for striking a man before the judges at Westminster. It was at the Standard, that Henry the Fourth, in 1399, caused the blank charter of Richard the Second to be publicly burnt; and from this spot it was, when convicted of sorcery and witchcraft, that Eleanor Cobham, wife of Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, was compelled to walk, with a sheet over her and a taper in her hand, to St. Paul's Cross.

Cheapside is intimately associated with the celebrated riots which took place on the 1st of May 1517, and which obtained for it the name of "Evil May-day." "A great heart-burning and malicious grudge," says Stow, "had grown amongst the Englishmen of the city of London against strangers; the artificers finding themselves much aggrieved, because such a number of strangers were permitted to resort hither with their wares, and to exercise handicrafts, to the great hindrance and impoverishing of the King's liege people. The "heart-burnings" this excited had for some time

*Hume's "History of England," ii. 36.

shown indications of an impending outbreak; so much so that, according to Stow, a general impression was abroad that "on May-day next following, the city would slay all the aliens; insomuch that diverse strangers fled out of the city." At length, the fears of the Corporation being thoroughly aroused, they issued orders, strictly enjoining every householder to close his habitation on the evening of the 1st of May, and to keep his sons, apprentices, and servants within doors from nine o'clock at night till the same hour on the following morning. In all probability, but for the following trifling incident, these precautions would have had the desired effect. One of the Aldermen, it seems, happening to pass through Cheapside a few minutes after nine o'clock, observed two apprentices playing at "bucklers" in the middle of the street. Instead of quietly expostulating with them on the impropriety of their conduct, the zealous functionary, in a peremptory tone of voice, threatened to send them to the Compter, unless they instantly desisted from their sport. An insolent reply on the part of one of the apprentices led to high words, when the Alderman, attempting to seize one of the offenders, the bystanders raised the then familiar war-shout of the youths of London, "Prentices, prentices! clubs, clubs!" Almost immediately every door in the neighbourhood was thrown open, and numbers of persons, consisting principally of apprentices, servants, and watermen, rushed to join the fray. Having beaten every

reinforcement which the Lord Mayor could array against them, they dispersed themselves in different directions, and continued to plunder and destroy the houses and warehouses of the unoffending foreigners till the break of day. At length, exhausted by want of sleep, and by their own acts of violence, the great majority of the rioters dispersed and returned to their several homes, on which the Lord Mayor seized his opportunity, and captured about three hundred of the remainder. A commission was immediately issued to the Duke of Norfolk, and other noblemen, to try the offenders, of whom their reputed leader, John Lincoln, and twelve others, were subsequently hanged in different parts of London. The remainder, many of whom were women and boys, were also sentenced to death, but were reprieved at the King's pleasure, and subsequently pardoned.*

On the occasion of Queen Elizabeth proceeding from the Tower to her coronation in Westminster Abbey, we find her received in great state and ceremony at the Standard in Cheapside. This street, as well as the others through which she passed, were hung with costly drapery; being lined by the members of the different city companies, "well apparelled with many rich furs, and their livery hoods upon their shoulders." The young Queen,-" the observed of all observers," sat in an open chariot, sumptuously decorated; being "most honourably accompanied," says Holinshed, "as well with gen

* See ante, First Series, i. 343, &c.

ELIZABETH'S CORONATION PROCESSION. 63

tlemen, barons, and other nobility of her realm; as also with a notable train of goodly and beautiful ladies, richly appointed." On reaching the Standard, the Recorder of London, in the name of the City, presented her with a purse of crimson velvet, containing a thousand marks in gold, as a token of their affectionate loyalty. At the same time a child, intended to personify Truth, was made to descend by machinery, as if from Heaven, and presented her with an English translation of the Bible; a gift which, we are told, she accepted with the greatest marks of reverence, declaring that it gave her more real gratification than all the other endearing proofs which she had that day experienced of her people's love. Other fantastic pageants had previously arrested her progress in the different streets through which she had passed. In Fenchurch Street, a beautiful child had addressed her in a befitting oration; in Gracechurch Street there had been a "goodly pageant;" and at Cornhill her progress had been delayed by a representation of the Cardinal Virtues trampling on Ignorance and Superstition. Subsequently, in Fleet Street, a female, representing Deborah seated under a palm-tree, prophesied the restoration of the House of Israel; and lastly, at Temple Bar, two citizens, personifying Gogmagog and Corineus, were stationed with a scroll of Latin verse, explaining the meaning of the different pageants which had been prepared for her entertainment.

Besides the Standard, there were two other re