Inns of Court; London (England) -- Description and travel
It is noticeable that all the Inns of Court and Chancery cluster about
the borders of the City Ward called Faringdon Without, and were once
placed, as old Sir John Fortescue observed, ‘in the suburbs, out of the
noise and turmoil of the City.’
The Lawyers were thus conveniently placed between the seat of judicature
at Westminster and the centre of business in the City of London, and
secured the advantage of ‘ready access to the one and plenty of
provisions in the other.’ In the wall which bounds the Temple Gardens
upon the modern Embankment of the Thames is set a stone which marks the
western boundary of the Liberty of the City and the spot where Queen
Victoria received the City Sword (1900); the old Bar of the City, which
took its name from the Temple, and
[Illustration: MIDDLE TEMPLE LANE
THE overhanging buildings just inside Sir Christopher Wren’s Gateway in
Fleet Street (see p. 67).]
Holborn Bar, marked the limit farther north. It is to be remembered that
this famous Temple Bar did not mark the boundary of the City proper, but
only of the later extension known as the Liberty of the City, and the
Temple buildings within the Bar were yet without the narrower boundary
of the City.
Temple Bar consisted originally of a post, rails, and chain. Next, a
house of timber was erected across the street, with a narrow gateway and
entry on the south side under the house.[5] This was superseded about
1670 by the stone gate-house, designed by Christopher Wren, which was
the scene of so many historic pageants when Lord Mayors have received
their Sovereigns, and presented to them the keys of the City. It was
here, notably, that the Lord Mayor delivered the City sword to good
Queen Bess when she rode to St. Paul’s to return thanks for the victory
over the Spanish Armada. Hereon, as upon London Bridge, the heads of
famous criminals or rebels were stuck to warn the passers-by; and in the
pillory here stood Titus Oates and Daniel de Foe--the latter for
publishing his scandalous and seditious pamphlet, ‘The Shortest Way with
the Dissenters.’ The citizens, however, pelted De Foe, not with rotten
eggs, but with flowers. This noble gate-house was removed when the
Strand was widened and the new Law Courts erected. It was rebuilt at
Meux Park, Waltham Cross, and its original site is marked by a column
surmounted by a griffin, representing the City arms (1880).
It would appear that the Lawyers in choosing sites just outside the City
boundaries for the Inns of their University were further influenced by
the ordinance of Henry III. (1234), which enjoined the Mayor and
Sheriffs to see to it that ‘no man should set up Schools of Law within
the City.’ The object of this prohibition is a matter of dispute;
Stubbs, for instance, maintaining that it applied to Canon Law, and
others[6] that only Civil Law was intended, the object being to confine
the clergy to the Theology and Canon Law, which seemed more properly
their province.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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