The Town: Its Memorable Characters and Events — John Shaqi
The Town: Its Memorable Characters and EventsHunt, Leigh
History
The Town: Its Memorable Characters and Events
Hunt, Leigh
London (England) -- Description and travel; London (England) -- History
"This," says Brayley, on the authority of Fox's Martyrology,
"was the scene of at least one 'foul and midnight murder,'
perpetrated in 1514, on a respectable citizen, named Richard
Hunne, by Dr. Horsey, chancellor of the diocese, with the
assistance of a bell-ringer, and afterwards defended by the
Bishop Fitz-James and the whole body of prelates, who protected
the murderers from punishment, lest the clergy should become
amenable to civil jurisdiction. Though the villains, through
this interference, escaped without corporal suffering, the King
ordered them to pay 1,500_l._ to the children of the deceased,
in restitution of what he himself styles the 'cruel
murder.'"[41]
The clergy, with almost incredible audacity, afterwards commenced a
process against the dead body of Hunne for heresy; and, having
obtained its condemnation, they actually burned it in Smithfield. The
Lollards' Tower continued to be used as a prison for heretics for some
time after the Reformation. Stow tells us that he recollected one
Peter Burchet, a gentleman of the Middle Temple, being committed to
this prison, on suspicion of holding certain erroneous opinions, in
1573. This, however, is, we believe, the last case of the kind that is
recorded.
It remains to say a word of St. Paul's School, founded, as we have
already mentioned, by Dean Colet, and destined to become the most
illustrious of all the buildings on the spot, in giving education to
Milton. We have dwelt more upon the localities of St. Paul's
Churchyard than it is our intention to do on others. The dignity of
the birth-place of the metropolis beguiled us; and the events recorded
to have taken place in it are of real interest. Milton was not the
only person of celebrity educated at this school. Bentley, his critic,
was probably induced by the like circumstance to turn his unfortunate
attention to the poet's epic in after life, and make those gratuitous
massacres of the text, which give a profound scholar the air of the
most presumptuous of coxcombs. Here also Camden received part of his
education; and here were brought up, Leland, his brother antiquary,
the Gales (Charles, Roger, and Samuel), all celebrated antiquaries;
Sir Anthony Denny, the only man who had the courage and honesty to
tell Henry the Eighth that he was dying; Halley, the astronomer;
Bishop Cumberland, the great grandfather of the dramatist; Pepys, who
has lately obtained so curious a celebrity, as an annalist of the
court of Charles the Second; and last, not least, one in whom a
learned education would be as little looked for as in Pepys, if we are
to trust the stories of the times, to wit, John Duke of Marlborough.
Barnes was laughed at for dedicating his _Anacreon_ to the duke, as
one to whom Greek was unheard of; and it has been related as a slur on
the great general (though assuredly it is not so), that having alluded
on some occasion to a passage in history, and being asked where he
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