Old and New London, Volume I: A Narrative of Its History, Its People, and Its PlacesThornbury, Walter
History
Old and New London, Volume I: A Narrative of Its History, Its People, and Its Places
Thornbury, Walter
London (England) -- Description and travel; London (England) -- History
Not many recorded crimes have taken place in the Temple, for youth,
however poor, is hopeful. It takes time to make a man despair, and when
he despairs, the devil is soon at his elbow. Nevertheless, greed and
madness have upset some Templars' brains. In October, 1573, a crazed,
fanatical man of the Middle Temple, named Peter Burchet, mistaking John
Hawkins (afterwards the naval hero) for Sir Christopher Hatton, flew at
him in the Strand, and dangerously wounded him with a dagger. The queen
was so furious that at first she wanted Burchet tried by camp law; but,
being found to hold heretical opinions, he was committed to the
Lollards' Tower (south front of St. Paul's), and afterwards sent to the
Tower. Growing still madder there, Burchet slew one of his keepers with
a billet from his fire, and was then condemned to death and hung in the
Strand, close by where he had stabbed Hawkins, his right hand being
first stricken off and nailed to the gibbet.
In 1685 John Ayloff, a barrister of the Inner Temple, was hung for high
treason opposite the Temple Gate.
In 1738 Thomas Carr, an attorney, of Elm Court, and Elizabeth Adams, his
accomplice, were executed for robbing a Mr. Quarrington in Shire Lane
(see page 74); and in 1752 Henry Justice, of the Middle Temple, in spite
of his well-omened name, was cruelly sentenced to death for stealing
books from the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, but eventually he
was only transported for life.
The celebrated Earl of Mansfield, when Mr. Murray, had chambers at No.
5, King's Bench Walk, _apropos_ of which Pope wrote--
"To Number Five direct your doves,
There spread round Murray all your blooming loves."
(Pope "to Venus," from "Horace.")
A second compliment by Pope to this great man occasioned a famous
parody:--
"Graced as thou art by all the power of words,
So known, so honoured at the House of Lords"
(Pope, of Lord Mansfield);
which was thus cleverly parodied by Colley Cibber:
"Persuasion tips his tongue whene'er he talks,
And he has chambers in the King's Bench Walks."
One of Mansfield's biographers tells us that "once he was surprised by a
gentleman of Lincoln's Inn (who took the liberty of entering his room in
the Temple without the ceremonious introduction of a servant), in the
act of practising the graces of a speaker at a glass, while Pope sat by
in the character of a friendly preceptor." Of the friendship of Pope and
Murray, Warburton has said: "Mr. Pope had all the warmth of affection
for this great lawyer; and, indeed, no man ever more deserved to have a
poet for his friend, in the obtaining of which, as neither vanity,
party, nor fear had a share, so he supported his title to it by all the
offices of a generous and true friendship."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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