Burnings, rumour, and stink - Life in London – February 1555
The burning of John Rogers at Smithfield. February 4th 1555.
Burnings, rumour, and stink - Life in London – February 1555
Let me take you back to London in February, 1555. Let’s assume you have only been in the city a few years. You were born a country person, toiling the land and making your living through farming. But the wool trade has changed your life. When landowners realised the money they could make off a sheep’s fleece, they enclosed the lands, threw families onto the road, and made an instant profit with no recompense to the people they had once called their tenants. They threw you into poverty.
You remember Kett’s rebellion – thousands of hard-working men, loyal to the king but desperate. They marched on Norwich to demand the right to farm the land. They were slaughtered. Those who escaped pretended they had never been there. Those who did not, died badly. With no land to return to, people walked to the City in search of a living. So the London you live in now is swelling with people, all pushing through the great walls to see if they can make their daily bread – and this City suffers all the ups and downs of people living in close quarters.
The first thing you notice when you wake in the morning is the smell. You yearn for the sweet smell of rain on grass, the tang of animal dung, even the smell of the damp clay floor of your farmhouse. It was simple, but clean and fresh air blew through the unglazed windows. Your children were rarely sick though often cold. In London you wake to the stench of humanity. You have lost two children to disease already and the baby is very sickly.
Today you wake in a narrow, two-story dwelling in a poor part of London – let’s put you in Southwark. The smell of the river Thames is bad enough, but the streets are worse. People empty chamber pots and throw their vegetable peelings into the middens. Yes, there are rules about keeping the streets clean of dead animals, but who is going to see the man who dumps his waste or a dead dog in the dark of the night? Over the years, good people have tried to make drains to carry the worst to the river. But every day those drains block up with shit and corpses. On a Monday the stink is even higher as the breweries dump their hops into the river and pray the tide is strong enough to take the whole sorry mess to the sea.
When you go out to buy your food, worry rises. Prices rise every day. There are many reasons – land which once grew crops is now grassed over for sheep, Queen Mary is financing her husband’s foreign policy and that means taxation, the currency was debased by King Henry and the reign of his son, Edward, did nothing to remedy the situation. Coins which were once silver are now adulterated with copper and their worth falls. Food is not the only commodity in shortening supply. People are talking of a fuel crisis with not enough wood to keep fires burning and the biting chill from your dwelling. You remember how the Thames froze over just a few months ago and how you nursed the chilblains on your children’s feet.
As you walk through the streets of Southwark, you see all the good and the evil of humanity. The bells of St Mary Overy peel their reminder to think of your God. When they stop you hear the shouts of merchants selling goods, shop holders shouting for people to come in and see their wares, doxies calling their price to sailors as they disembark their ships. Then there is the roar of the animals leashed in the bearpit and the pathetic pleas of beggars who have not eaten in days, You hold our money inside your shirt for cut pursing is a trade around here. You look down at the oozing filth around your shoes and remember the rich earth and grass of your early years. Further up the street and you pass the stocks where a few miscreants are held fast only to amuse young lads who throw rotten vegetables and anything vile they can find.
These days you drink – for there is little cheer for a poor person. You huddle into a tavern, maybe The Tabard Inn as depicted in The Conjuror’s Apprentice, rushes on the floor to mop up spilled beer and the vomit of a man who had drunk too far. The atmosphere is smoky, heavy, and the air full of gossip. Only a few years ago the talk was of scandal – of how John Dudley, Earl of Northumberland had stolen the throne from Mary Tudor – the rightful queen in they eyes of the common man. He had married his whining son, Guilford to Lady Jane Grey and then convinced the dying King Edward to make Jane his heir. When young Edwards died a terrible death, Northumberland’s’ plot went into motion. You would have looked across the river and seen the barges taking Lady Jane to the Tower to await her coronation. People gossiped about the bruises on her arms inflicted by her parents when she cried at the wrong she had been pulled into. Only ten days later you would have heard the shouts through the streets as Mary Tudor rode into London, backed by the Earls of Norfolk and thousands of country folk. She claimed her throne, London rose behind her and Lady Jane and the conspirators found the Tower was now their prison and not their palace. London rejoiced – for a little while anyway.
The first few months of Mary’s reign had been quiet – but then the rumours started. She was changing the laws set down by her own father and in doing that making her brother and sister illegitimate. She was insisting that all churches and priests returned to the Catholic faith. Worse, she had chosen a Spanish husband in Philip of Spain and suddenly London was awash with Spaniards. You know your English countrymen are wary of foreigners, but enmity is at its peak. The Spanish are deemed to be filthy, lazy criminals with a penchant for taking the virtue of English maids. Fights break out daily and no-one will have a Spaniard in their home or their tavern.
Last September there was a little hope when it was announced in churches that Queen Mary was to bear a son – a little prince to take the line forward. People rejoiced and thought it would bring good cheer to court. But soon the good feelings gave way to horror as the burning started. The first was John Fox – a good man of he church who had listened to the Protestant doctrine and found it suited his soul. When he was led to the pyre in early February, he was walked past his wife and ten children, one still suckling at the breast. They tied him to the stake and set the faggots alight. He died bravely – but slowly and terribly. Since then another three have screamed their way to the next life and more are in prison awaiting their fate. By the end of this year, 76 souls will have gone up in flames. At first people went to see the spectacle for burning was not a common execution in Edwards reign. It was new, exciting, a story. But the people had turned already – sickened by the cruelty. Now they see the stake being erected at Smithfield or Tyburn or Westminster and turn away in despair. Mary is a cruel queen.
As you walk down the street you see a pamphlet in the gutter. It depicts Mary as a demon, her husband stoking the fires of hell and many stakes burning good souls. It speaks of her evil and devil-led madness. You have heard these pamphlets are printed on the land of William Cecil. But who is to say?
You see only one glimmer of hope – that a prince will be borne and bring out Mary’s maternal nature or that, like so many women, she will die in the birthing and her sister, Elizabeth will ascend the throne. She has already been imprisoned in the Tower but has been removed to Woodstock under house arrest. The people speak well of her. They say she is a good and kind woman – she is the beacon of hope in a city bedevilled by fear.
When you go to church on Sunday, you will pray for the soul of Lady Elizabeth and pray for her to be your queen. But you will tell no-one. For to even think of the death of a reigning monarch is to commit treason – and you do not want to end your life being hanged, drawn and quartered. So, you look at the filthy street, cover your nose, go about your business, keep your hand on your purse, your eyes away from the Spanish and pray for better days.
