Greshamsbury

“ God bless you, Mary!' and away the doctor went on his cold bleak ride to Boxall Hill.
'Who will be his heir?' As the doctor rode along, he could not quite rid his mind of this question. The poor man now about to die had wealth enough to make many heirs. What if his heart should have softened towards his sister's child! What if Mary should be found in a few days to be possessed of such wealth that the Greshams should be again happy to welcome her at Greshamsbury! ”

“ Very fortunately for London, the Royal Agent under Edward VI., Mary, and the early years of Elizabeth, was Sir Thomas Gresham.
You must learn something about this great man. He was the son of Sir Richard Gresham, formerly Lord Mayor: nephew of Sir John Gresham, also Lord Mayor (who preserved Bethlehem Hospital on the Dissolution of the Religious Houses) : he came of a Norfolk family originally of the village of Gresham: like Whittington he was of gentle birth. ”

“ Once more Master Gresham returned to Antwerp. At length news came from England. It was observed that he looked more serious than was his wont.
The young Protestant King Edward the Sixth was very sick. There would probably be disturbances in England, for he had set aside the devise of Henry the Eighth to his daughters Mary and Elizabeth, and had given the Crown to the heirs of the Lady Frances, the Duchess of Suffolk, she herself being passed over. The Lady Jane Grey was the eldest of her three daughters; she had no male heir. ”

“ Gresham is splendid. It is a beautiful building, red brick with great white columns, giving it the look of a modern Parthenon. It is on top of a hill overlooking the little town and has a beautiful lawn with great chestnut trees and oaks. But best of all is the view of the mountains. When it is clear they seem quite close, almost as though we could walk to them, and at other times they disappear altogether.
The first day or two the girls seemed to think if they did not do a lot of bawling and blubbering some one might think they did not love their homes. ”

“ Gresham Street. After Sir Thomas Gresham, founder of the Royal Exchange. His residence in Old Broad Street, on the site of the present Gresham House, was converted by him into a college, which in 1843 was removed into Gresham Street. The word Gresham comes from the German Grassheim, “grass home”; hence the grasshopper on the summit of the Royal Exchange.
Greville Street. Marks the site of the mansion of Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, one of the ministers of James I.
Grey Friars. See “Franciscans.” ”

“ Gresham’s garden was in Broad Street, with its lectures on music and all science. King Richard’s Crosby Hall, and Shoreditch with its unhappy leman of Edward IV, were hard by; whilst Milton’s birth-place, his retreat, and his grave were close at hand.
The picturesque character of old London, graced by the sparkling Thames of olden time, is a circumstance not to be forgotten, when we are calling up the memories of any class of its inhabitants.
In 1677 the city was full of fine residences for merchants; and in this list we meet with names of entertainers of wits of the time. ”

“ All history begins with geography. Grasmere was from early times the centre of a parish that embraced the twin valleys of Rothay and Brathay, whose waters drain into the lake of Windermere, while the lake empties itself into the great bay of Morecambe. ”

“ Shrewsbury is a clean, cheerful, yet withal picturesque-looking city, where the tide of modern progress rolls to and fro along the steep old streets beside its ancient castle, past venerable parish churches and the quaint, half-timbered mansions of the ancienne noblesse.
Hotels and lodging-houses are not far to seek, while highroads and lines of railway ramificate from Shrewsbury throughout the county; so the traveller who intends to explore the nooks and corners of the surrounding district cannot do better than take up his quarters for a time in the proud old city upon Severn side. ”

“ London in this reign of Elizabeth has become very rich and prosperous. Well, its riches and its prosperity have been so greatly increased by Sir Thomas Gresham, that I must tell you something about him. He is a great merchant who in this year, 1590, has a goldsmith’s shop in Lombard Street at the sign of the Grasshopper. ”

“ We had been one day in London, standing out in Lombard Street, where the merchants were wont to meet to transact business, and had been exposed to much damp and cold; the heavy rain frequently compelling us, with other persons, to seek shelter in the shops near where we happened to be standing, when, on our return to Gresham House, Sir Thomas exclaimed:
“Why should not a great commercial city like London possess a Bourse like that of Antwerp? It would be a great benefit to our merchants; and yet I fear that unless some private person undertakes it, we may never see such a building erected. ”

“ By surviving five brothers—several of whom were bachelors like himself—he succeeded to the family estate; and the old Furness homestead had been added to his other residences. [158] The Rydal squire notes in that Account Book—which became practically a diary:—
Little as Grasmere had known him, the old man remembered the place in his will, and bequeathed £50 for the school, under trust to the "minister and such persons as shall be of the four and twenty of the parish of Grasmere." ”

“ Shrewsbury was a sleepy old town, where life went on very placidly from day to day, and the sight of these busy, though narrow, streets with their many fine buildings and their swarms of people, the dogs drawing little carts of merchandise, the river with its bridges, the floating basin with many tall ships, the quays thronged with sailors and lightermen, filled me not only with wonder, but with a sense of loneliness and insignificance. ”

“ The natural beauty of the spot, combined with its associations, has given rise to a copious literature; and its praises have been rehearsed in poetry and prose of a high order. But by the historian Grasmere has been neglected. Its geographical position has tended to its eclipse. In ancient times locked up from the world in the farthest chamber of the mountains, and still the remotest parish of Westmorland (itself a neglected county) , it has missed the attention of the careful chronicler, and no serious attempt has been made to penetrate its past. ”

“ Gresham was author of 'Memorials' to Edward VI and Queen Mary, a manuscript journal quoted by Ward (Gresham Professors; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. vii. 416) , and his letters are numerous. He also left a manuscript containing musical lessons and songs in English and Italian (Millington, Bibliotheca Massoviana, 1687, p. 63) . In person he seems to have been above the middle height, and grave and courteous in his deportment.
Gresham married in 1544 Anne, the daughter of William Ferneley of West Creting, Suffolk, and widow of William Read, also of Suffolk, and a citizen and mercer of London. ”

“ That portion of the grounds of the Gresham estate which faced Broad Street, was occupied by the almshouses founded by Sir Thomas Gresham in 1575, and bequeathed by him in trust to the Lord Mayor and Commonalty of the City of London. They consisted of eight tenements for eight poor men, with an annual allowance of £6 13s. ”

“ After a lapse, when Yorkists sat on the throne, and Sir William Parr of Kendal held it, the Fee (now including the advowson of Grasmere) returned to Margaret and passed to her grandson Henry VIII. He sold the advowson and patronage of Grasmere. Its subsequent history will be given later.
Such was the illustrious line of our church's early patrons—some of them the most striking figures in a chivalrous age. But it is not to be supposed that they [52] knew much of the little parish hidden amongst the mountains. ”

“ His generosity (which may have had a political bias) extended even to this remote quarter of the Barony. In those days £10 was a large sum; and the coin (as a precise entry under February, 1685, informs us) was conveyed to Kendal by a servant, delivered to the mayor, who passed it on to the Rydal Squire. One half was for Windermere, the other for Grasmere; and one wonders how large was the gathering at the church for the dole.
Other charitable gifts to the poor are written on boards hanging in the church, viz.:—
Edward Partridge and others of Grasmere £50, the interest to be distributed on St. ”

“ Before 1565 he set up mills on the estate for paper, oil, and corn, the paper-mills being the earliest of the kind in England. Subsequently Gresham purchased the manor of Heston, in which Osterley House stood. He had other houses at Intwood and Westacre, Norfolk, and Ringshall, Suffolk. The goods at Westacre were valued at 1,655l. 1s. In London Gresham lived at Gresham House, Bishopsgate Street, which he built a few years before 1566. The furniture there was valued at 1,127l. 15s. 8d. At Gresham House he dispensed a lavish hospitality, of which all classes were glad to take advantage. ”

“ As you leave Shrewsbury for the north, you gain a most agreeable view of the town, which stands on a fair peninsula in the bright embrace of the Severn. It is a place full of poetry. On one side are the Welsh Mountains; on the other, amid Salopian fields, you descry the columnar monument of Lord Hill; but the tall spires and the Abbey Tower tell more eloquently of Hotspur. ”

“ Times have altered since the days of Old Gresham, the site of whose Exchange cost less than £4,000, while the present building comes to £150,000, exclusive of the cost of the ground. In his time, grave and sober citizens had mustachios and imperials; and wild young fellows, bent upon mischief and dissipation, repaired to the taverns of the city. In our days everybody is smooth shaved, and there is a chapel in every corner. Formerly the merchants relied on their own understanding and the honesty of their high-born debtors ”

“ But one who, appointed in 1879, served the office of verger (substituted for clerk) up to 1906, must be mentioned. Edward Wilson was son of the carpenter of the same name, and he pursued the craft himself. No custodian of old could have filled the office with greater reverence or dignity, nor graced it by a finer presence. Intelligent, calm, quietly humourous, he was also gifted with an accurate memory of the events of his youth; and his death, in 1910, at the age of 88 seems truly to have shut to finally the door of Grasmere's past. ”

“ All these arrangements were made before the return of Master Gresham: he had been presiding at a meeting of the Mercers’ Company. Seldom had he appeared so much out of spirits, even before he heard the account Ernst had to give him. The merchants of London, he said, were universally against this Spanish marriage. They were too well acquainted with the affairs of Europe, and with the character of the Emperor and his son, not to dread the worst consequences to England. The cruelties exercised over the inhabitants of the Low Countries had driven numerous skilled artisans to England ”

“ It is thus that the history of a family may minister to that of the nation, may teach us, as nothing else could teach us, the stirring stormy character of the Middle Ages in England.
'In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,' we read, 'the Gresleys were wealthy landowners with influence and position in all the three counties which converge near Drakelowe'; and indeed, about the end of the fourteenth, we find Sir John Gresley granting to his grandson all his manors in six counties. ”

“ In Wordsworth's early days at Grasmere, a wild woodland path of quiet beauty led from Dove Cottage along the margin of the lake to the "Point" referred to in this poem, leaving the eastern shore truly "safe in its own privacy"—a "retired and difficult way"; the high-way road for carriages being at that time over White Moss Common. The late Dr. Arnold, of Rugby and Foxhowe, used to name the three roads from Rydal to Grasmere thus: the highest, "Old Corruption"; the intermediate, "Bit by bit Reform"; the lowest and most level, "Radical Reform." ”

“ We do also give, for the consideration aforesaid, and of our certain knowledge and mere motion for us, our heirs and successors, do grant to the aforesaid John Bell and Robert Brokelsbye, the advowson, donation, denomination, presentation, free disposition, and right of patronage of the Rectory of Gresmere in our county of Westmorland, which, as parcel of the possessions and revenues of the late Monastery of St. Mary near the wall of the City of York, or otherwise or in any other manner or by any reason whatsoever, has or have fallen, or may fall, into our hands. ”

“ Thou art far too beautiful to live in these cold Northern climes, among rough and brutal men. Come with me, and I will dress thee in cloth-of-gold, and take thee along with me to London. King Edward will welcome thee, for thy beauty will add lustre to his court, and we shall be married with all speed. I warrant the Countess of Salisbury will be a person of importance at the English court, and thou shalt have a retinue such as in this barren country ye little dream of. Thou shalt have both lords and knights to ride in thy train, and twenty little page boys to serve thee on bended knee ”

“ Printed briefs, that called upon the churches to succour the unfortunate by offerings in money, reached Grasmere, remote as it was. Such of these sheets, as were found [214] to be sufficiently intact, were quite recently gathered together and bound as a volume. Within the register-book the amount realised by some of these collections is set down. At Christmas, 1668, the offering made for the poor of London after the fire, reached the high figure of £17 6s. 3d., which shows how that great calamity affected the popular mind. ”