Greetings my well regarded readers, I hope that in the
north hemisphere your Fall or Autumn isn’t proving too much of a trial after
the joys of Summer.
Today I have a few announcements before we move on to
the body of the blog. Firstly my Tudor
novella The Fetter Lane Fleece will be available free for two days from
the 15/10/13 at Amazon USA/Aust and Amazon UK so I encourage you to call by
and if you haven’t already download a copy for your entertainment. In the mean time I’d like to thank those of
my readers who’ve stopped by and left a review, every of them (even the obvious
sock puppets) help improve the position of an Indie writer.
Now on to the meat of our discourse;
In a 1601 speech to the House of
Commons, Stephen Soame, MP for the City of
London, spoke in support of a bill
that would have extended the City’s jurisdiction into
the neighbouring liberty of St
Katherine by the Tower. The privileges enjoyed by the
Liberties, he argued, ‘are the very
sincke of sinne, the nurserye of nawghtie and lewd
places, the harbors of thieves,
roagues and beggars, and maynteyners of ydle persons,
ffor when our shoppes and howses be
robbed, thether they ffly ffor releife and sanctuarie, and we cannot helpe our
selves.’
The prorogation of Parliament a few days later
killed his bill, but Soame’s characterisation of St Katherine’s proved more
durable. Such descriptions of the liberties, made by Soame and other
contemporaries, have led many modern scholars to assume that the Liberties
posed a constant threat to metropolitan order. There is, however, reason to
believe that the Liberties were more complex and less purely problematic than
their general historiographical portrayal would suggest.
In 1530 two dozen religious
foundations dotted the landscape of the capital. The sixteen religious houses
within or immediately adjacent to the City of London were joined by eight
others in Spitalfields, Clerkenwell, Westminster and Southwark.
Extract The
City of London and the Problem of the Liberties, c1540 – c1640
A thesis
submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Modern
History
Anthony Paul
House Christ Church Trinity Term 2006.
So what are the Liberties? My main character Ned Bedwell seems to spend
an inordinate amount of time frequenting the Liberties rather than attending to
his duties as a Law apprentice. What
could be the attraction? Well for a
start the reason Stephen Soame was frothing so fervently about the disorders of
the Liberties was a very simple one.
They were exempt from the normal processes of civil and royal jurisdiction
by fact of belonging to the English Church.
Over time the Church had accumulated a lot of properties in and around
London via grants, purchase or deeds, before the Great Dissolution under Henry
VIII it is possible that around a fifth of the city of London was under their direct
control as owners or landlords. And
where they held sway so did Canon law, it was as if the city and surrounding
regions were covered in a patchwork of independent tax and law free zones
pretty much like the Virgin or Channel Islands today for the obscenely rich. To escape local justice if any thief or other
insalubrious person made to one of the Liberties then they were immune to seizure
or prosecution by the local constables and justice of the peace. Of course the upholders of civic law could
always petition the Church to gain hold of the miscreant, however such proceedings
were both expensive and long drawn out. The
Church was jealous of its rights and maintained its exemption from civil laws. At least Until King Henry VIII clipped their
wings.
Of course this refuge form common law
was an opportunity that the denizens of deceit and depravity found irresistible,
especially since the Church wasn’t very effective in policing its own property.
Thus by the 1530’s the various Liberties
were considered over run by thieves, beggars’ vagrants’ whores, malcontents,
coiners, forgers and murderers. The fact
that they also housed brothels, gaming dens stews and other places of vile
debauchery and sin probably made them more attractive for the average Londoner,
especially the young lads of the Inns of Court.
Though they weren’t the only inhabitants, it was also a favoured refuge
for foreigners, debtors, Guildless tradesmen and surprisingly evangelicals
spreading the word of the Bible in the English tongue. However the situation of the Liberties in and
around London is somewhat more complex than this simple explanation. The legal or other position of these areas
was frequently a useful carrot or occasionally goad for the Royal Sovereign to
use in his negotiations with the London Guildhall and the Church over taxes and
privileges. For London the Liberties
also served as a useful excuse for ‘failing’ to deal with crimes or imposing royal
writs since these ‘territories’ made a ‘mockery of their zeal and commitment to his Majesties lawful demands’. Come the Great Dissolution in the late 1530’s
the status of the Liberties changed though you’ll have to wait a few novels until
Ned Bedwell undergoes this transformation of England to see what survives and
what goes under. Though I suspect there
will always be a place for rogues, whores and dice men in the Tudor realm.
Regards Greg
The Fetter Lane Fleece Links from the 15/10/13-17/10/13
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