EMPEROR'S HEAD LANE is remarkable for a custom which still prevails. In a book of chantries, among the Harleian manuscripts in the British Museum, it is noted that John Breikelles gave an annual rent of 91. issuing from a tenement called the Emperor's Head, in the parish of St. Martin in the Vintry, to keep an obit. The annual donation of bread and cheese is given to the poor, who stand on the hearth of the house where it is distributed, and drink to the pious memory of Mr. Brickelles and his wife in a cup of sack, a Latin grace being pronounced at the time.

THREE CRANES LANE. This was so called from three large cranes of timber antiently placed on the Vintry Wharf to crane up wines. The lane was also called PAINTED TAVERN LANE, on account of a tavern which was painted, probably with emblematical figures, as early as the reign of Richard II. The original name, from the cranes used in merchandize, has been grossly mistaken; it is now represented by three birds, bearing the same distinction.

At the north end of this lane was THE VINTRIE, whence the whole ward derives its denomination.+ This was a spacious mansion, built of stone and timber; it was first the residence of Sir John Gisors, mayor, and also constable of the Tower, in 1311. Pennant informs us, that in the tur bulent times of Edward II. he was charged with several harsh and unjust proceedings, and, being summoned to appear before the king's justices to answer the accusation, in 1319, he and other principal citizens fled, and put themselves under the protection of the rebellious barons. It was in this house that Henry Picard, mayor in 1356, afterwards feasted four sovereign princes, in the year 1363.

CHURCH LANE was formerly called Vanners Lane, from one of its owners. It obtained the present denomination on. account of facing the place where stood the church of

* An Obit was an office performed at funerals, when the corpse was in the church, and before it was buried; which afterwards came to be an anniversary, and then money or lands were given towards the maintenance of a priest who should perform this office every year.

See Vol. 11. p. 93.

+ Vol. I. p. 80.

SAINT MARTIN, VINTRY.

THIS church was as antient, at least, as the reign of Wil. liam I.; for Ralph Peverell, who was living at that period, gave the advowson to the abbey of St. Peter, Gloucester; the abbot and convent of which presented to the living in the year 1388, and till the alteration of the conventual to a ca thedral church by Henry VIII. After many inter-changes of the living, which by the above alteration had devolved to the erown, Edward VI. granted the advowson to the bishop of Worcester and his successors, with whom the presentation continues.

The fabric was rebuilt about the year 1399, by the execu tors of Matthew Columbars, a Bourdeaux merchant in wines, and new roofed by Sir Ralph Astry, mayor, in 1493. This magistrate died next year, and was buried in the choir.

Here was also the place of sepulture for Sir John Gisors, and his family. Sir John founded a chantry for the souls of himself and Isabel his wife. Its first patron was Bartholomew, lord Burghersh, in 1368, and after him John Cornwalleys, Esq. who presented to it several times.

The church having been burnt in the great fire, the parish was united to St. Michael Royal, and the site appropriated as a burial ground.

Among the eminent clergymen of this parish the following cannot with propriety be passed over: Dr. JOHN Lesley, descended from an antient family of that name in the north of Scotland. Having been matriculated at Aberdeen, he afterwards pursued his studies at Oxford, and then travelling into Germany, France, &c. became famous for his erudition and his polished manners. He conversed in French, Spanish, and Italian with the facility of the natives; and he had such an extraordinary command of Latin, that he was complimented whilst he resided in Spain, with the expression that "Lesley alone can speak Latin." It was also said of him and of another divine, bearing the same name, that "No man preached more gracefully than the one, nor with more authority than the other." These various accomplish

ments recommended him to James I. Charles I. and Charles II. who admitted him of their council for Scotland and Ireland. He vacated this living in 1628, on his promotion to be bishop of the Isles. He was afterwards translated to the see of Raphoe in Ireland; where by his persevering management he increased the revenue of that diocese above one third; and built a palace for the use of the bishopric, so contrived for strength as well as beauty, that it served as a fortress during the Irish rebellion and massacre in 1641, From this palace it was, when Sir Ralph Gore at Matchribeg, with other British inhabitants were reduced to great extremity, by a long siege, and the necessity of a sudden and unconditional surrender of their lives to the merciless cruelty of the Irish, that bishop Lesley sallied amidst the flames of the whole country and relieved them, at the moment that they had converted their dishes, &c. into balls. This also, was after the Loggan forces, consisting of three regiments, had refused to hazard the relief. He raised and maintained a regiment of loyalists, besides enduring a siege in his episcopal castle, and held out to the last extremity before he surrendered to Cromwell's forces. The news of the Restoration was so grateful to him that he rode from Chester to London in twenty-four hours, a vast distance at that time. In 1661 he was advanced to the see of Clogher, and might have had higher preferments; but The excused himself, being resolved to end his labours among those with whom he had been a joint sufferer. He died at Castle Lesley in 1671, aged upwards of one hundred years. The oldest bishop then in Europe.

BRUNO RYVES, D. D. was a famous and eloquent preacher; besides this living, he had the vicarage of Stanwell, and was chaplain to Charles I. He was also a sufferer by the grand rebellion, sequestered from his rectory, and driven from his vicarage, he wandered about in danger and poverty. His sovereign conferred on him the deanery of Chichester, which, however produced little or no profit, till the Restoration, when being sworn one of the chaplains in ordinary, he had the deanaries of Windsor and Wolverhampton conferred on him. He was also rector of Acton in Middlesex, and Registrar of

the

the Order of the Garter; besides being rector of Hasleley in Oxfordshire. He died at Windsor in 1677, aged eighty-one, and was buried in St. George's chapel. His Mercurius Rusticus is well known; he also published several other works.

QUEEN STREET, or New Queen Street, was formerly called Broad Lane, on account of its more convenient space for carting goods from Vintry Wharf. At the south end of this street are broad stairs, where the lord mayor and sheriffs usually took water on the 30th of September, and 9th of November, when they went to be sworn into office at Westminster Hall. Within a few years Black-friars Stairs have been appointed for these purposes, as being more convenient, and without danger.

This street was formed after the fire as a continuation of Sopar Lane, and at the same time a more direct passage from Guildhall to the Thames. To accomplish this it was deemed necessary that the church of St. Thomas the Apostle, which had stood across where the new street is formed, should continue in its ruin, except a part now occupied as a burial ground; the opposite side also has been built upon; but is paved with flag stones, and forms a handsome area before the houses in Queen Street.

MAIDEN LANE, on the east side of Queen Street, passing to College Hill, was antiently called Kerions Lane, from a possessor of that name. RICHARD CHAWCER, citizen and vintner, gave to the church of St. Mary Aldermary, Bow Lane, his tenement and tavern, the corner of Kerion Lane. .. Trusting, that by the assistance of Stow and other authorities, we have been successful in ascertaining the true origin and residence of Sir Richard Whittington, we will endeavour, as far as probability goes, to trace the family of GEOFFREY CHAUCER.

Mr. Urry seems to contemn the idea of Speght, in thinking that one Richard Chaucer was his father; and states it as an improbability, because that Richard was a vintner, and at his death left his house, tavern, and stock, &c. Stow mentions nothing concerning stock, but only tenement and tavern; and we have before stated that Taberna was merely a ware

house

house for depositing goods previous to sale;* this conjecture is strengthened by the donation of his tenement and tavern; that is his house and warehouse; for the merchants of the Vintry were distinguished by the names Vinetarii and Ta bernarii, till the reign of Edward III, the first were those who dealt in the importation of wine; the latter were the warehousemen, who retailed it. So that a Vintner and Taverner were very different persons.

Richard Chaucer was therefore not a tavern keeper, but an affluent wine merchant: and that the family were conversant in trade, is evident from Geoffrey, the son, being employed as comptroller of the customs in the port of London, with the proviso that he should personally execute the office, and write the accounts relating to it with his own hand.— Thomas his first son was also a merchant, and married to Maud, daughter of Sir John Burghershe, brother of Bartholomew lord Burghershe, who we have before mentioned as one of the patrons of the chantry in St. Martin, Vintry; and of whom we shall have occasion to say more when we come to speak of Worcester House,

It is also to be recollected that Kerion's Lane was in the neighbourhood of the Tower Royal, which Edward III. called his Inn, and that the houses of the principal nobility were scattered round in various parts of the Royal; therefore the residence of Richard Chaucer being near the court, must have been an expensive dwelling; Urry seems also to say that it must have been very unnatural in the father to leave the whole of his property to the church, when his son was a minor at college. The above bequest does not imply the whole of his possessions; and we conjecture also that the neighbourhood of the palace and Chaucer's house, might cause the king to make Geoffrey his page, and to qualify him in the university at the royal expence; and this might induce the poet, when he left the university to apply to court for the preferments which he afterwards attained. There was not that distance between nobility and merchandize which * Vol. II. p. 538.

+ See the bequests of Stow's father, Vol. II. p. 132.