Close by where the Victoria Embankment ends at Blackfriars Bridge and
extending broadly to the north was the Black Friars Monastery, dating
from 1276. This Monastery grew in time to great importance because of
the favours bestowed upon it by Edward I. Here this king deposited the
heart of his beloved queen Eleanor although her body was placed in
Westminster Abbey. And it was here, in 1529, Cardinals Wolsey and
Campeggio gave judgment against Catherine of Aragon in her divorce.
Playhouse Yard covers the site of the first theatre set up in the
Blackfriars neighbourhood. The larger part of the Monastery was
demolished by Sir Thomas Cawarden, Master of the King's Revels, when it
was granted to him by Edward VI. Cawarden's executor, Sir William More,
continued the demolition, granting a bit of the site for the Blackfriars
Theatre to James Burbage the actor. Burbage conducted the Blackfriars
Theatre as a private playhouse, in contrast to the public theatres of
the time. Nobility supported it almost entirely. Unlike the other
playhouses the pit as well as the galleries was entirely roofed over.
Also in the pit there were seats, an unusual feature. In ordinary
theatres the pit was filled with persons who ate, drank and made merry
while the play went on as best it could, but at the Blackfriars nothing
of the sort was permitted. There was, too, an unusually good orchestra,
the musicians paying for the privilege of performing here where they
were sure of attracting the attention of the nobility.
Famous Bridewell Prison, founded by King Edward VI., stood on what is
now the westerly side of New Bridge near by Tudor Street. Fleet Brook
occupied the space which is now New Bridge Street, extending as far as
to the Holborn Viaduct of this day. The prison got its name from the
holy spring of St. Bride's in this neighbourhood, the waters of which
were supposed to effect miraculous cures. Before the prison was built,
the site was occupied by the Palace of the Bridewell. Here the Lords of
Court together with the Mayor and Aldermen were summoned by Henry VIII.
when he was smitten with love for Anne Boleyn, to hear of the scruples
that tormented him because of his marriage with Catherine of Aragon. It
was here, too, that Shakespeare places an act of his play of Henry VIII.
The wonderful City of London was once a cluster of huts on a wooded
slope of ground which in these days is known as Ludgate Hill. Roman
London was enclosed by a wall which extended from about where the Tower
is now to Ludgate Hill, and from Ludgate Circus to the Thames River. It
had several gates now called to mind by the streets Aldgate,
Bishopsgate, Moorgate, Cripplegate, Aldersgate, Newgate and Ludgate.
This wall was built of brick and cement as hard as stone. The old Lud
Gate stood about three parts of the way down Ludgate Hill and the name
was derived from the legendary king, Lud. It was removed in 1760.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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