Here are several houses belonging to persons of distinction, and in this neighbourhood Richard Cromwell, who had been protector, but abdicated, passed the last part of his life in a very private manner. THEOBALD’S _court_, 1. in the Strand: 2. Theobald’s row.† THEOBALD’S _row_, Red Lion street, Holbourn.† THIEVING _lane_, King street, Westminster. So called from thieves passing that way to the Gatehouse prison, during the continuance of the sanctuary. _Maitland._ THISTLEWORTH, or ISLEWORTH. See ISLEWORTH. _Maitland._ _St._ THOMAS APOSTLES, a church which stood where the cemetry is now in Queen street, Cheapside, and was of great antiquity, since we have an account of the state thereof so early as the year 1181. It owes its name to its dedication to St. Thomas the Apostle. This church being destroyed by the dreadful fire of London in 1666, and not rebuilt, the parish was by act of parliament united to the church of St. Mary Aldermary, which is become the place of public worship for both, whereby the incumbent’s profits are considerably increased. _St._ THOMAS OF ACARS, or ACONS, an hospital formerly situated where Mercers chapel now stands in Cheapside. This hospital was under this name dedicated to St. Thomas a Becket archbishop of Canterbury, probably upon the following occasion: when the city of Acars or Acon in the Holy Land was besieged by the Christians, an Englishman, chaplain to Radulphus de Diceto, dean of London, going to Jerusalem, bound himself by a vow that if he should prosperously enter Acon he would build a chapel to St. Thomas the Martyr at his own charge, and also procure a church-yard to be consecrated there to the honour of that supposed Martyr; this he actually performed, when many resorting to his chapel, he took the character of prior, and employed himself sometimes in fighting as a soldier, and at others, in burying the bodies of such as died either naturally or were slain by the enemy. _Maitland._ Matthew Paris however says that the order of St. Thomas was instituted by Richard surnamed Cœur de Lyon, after the surprisal of Acars, in honour of Thomas a Becket; that they held the rule of St. Augustine, and wore a white habit, and a full red cross, charged in the middle with a white scallop, and that Peter de Rupibus, bishop of Winchester, being in the Holy Land, caused the patriarch of Jerusalem to direct that the brethren of this church should be under the order of the Templars. _M. Paris in vita Hen._ III. [Illustration: _S. Wale delin._ _Elliot. sculp._ _S^t. Thomas’s Hospital._] However it is evident, that as the Templars and other orders, formed societies in England in imitation of those founded in Palestine, so this in Cheapside was founded in imitation of that at Acon, and therefore had the same name.