Walworth

“ Walworth ‘most manfully, by himself, rushed upon the captain of the said multitude, Walter Tylere by name, and as he was altercating with the king and the nobles, first wounded him in the neck with his sword, and then hurled him from his horse mortally pierced in the breast.’ Walworth made good his retreat from the fury of Tyler's followers, who were demanding his head of the king, and raised a strong force of citizens for the king's protection. ”

“ William Walworth, the mayor, had been called to the Tower to advise with the boy King Richard and his council. Now portcullis was down and guards doubled at the gate. Captain Craddock saw the sleek alderman of Bridge, Walter Sybyle, setting a watch over the drawbridge that linked the arches with Southwark. One of the gapers told him that the men of Kent had sworn to burn London black as sea-coal, and draw and quarter the King. Captain Craddock had known a man swear to swallow the moon. In the hall he found the old woman still polishing pewter, and her little eyes twinkled at him. ”

“ In 1381 the memorable meeting between King Richard and the Kentish rebels took place in Smithfield, when their leader, Wat Tyler, was [241] stabbed by Lord Mayor Walworth, and when the boy king, by a bold and masterly act, appeased the mob, who were preparing to avenge the death of their captain. Speed informs us that Walworth, after the fall of Tyler, rushed into the City and returned accompanied by Sir Robert Knowles and a thousand citizens in armour, when he "commanded the head of Wat Tyler to be chopt of from his dead carcase and borne before him on a speare to the king." ”

“ In vain Walworth urged the king and his royal council to act. Richard had sent to Tyler asking for a written statement of the grievances of the commons, and had been told in reply158 that the king must meet his commons face to face, and hear with his own ears their demands. In the evening Walworth proposed that the garrison at the Tower should be despatched against Tyler, “to fall upon these wretches who were in the streets, and amounted to 60,000, while they were asleep and drunk. They might be killed like flies,” Walworth added, “for not one in twenty had arms.” ”

“ It was Walworth who smothered their adventurous truculence. He had his spies in the crowd. Two of them had been let in at the water-gate, and he had spoken with them after leaving the King’s chamber.
“Sir, a few thousand tipplers do not make up the whole mob. Do you think that the men who have raised this storm against us are mere sots and fools? I tell you I know the truth, and how matters lie out yonder. The Tiler and his comrades have thousands of fellows ready in the streets, men who are too savage against us to throw away their chances for a pot of ale. ”

“ With boorish insolence, Tyler lay hold of the king’s bridle, when Walworth, Lord Mayor of London, stabbed him in the throat. Falling from his horse, the rebel leader was despatched by an esquire. The courage and tact of the young king are historical, and the way in which he quelled the hostility of the [Pg 30] insurgents, and drew their sympathies to himself, is well known ”

“ If the peasants can be drawn forth of the city and the gates closed, sire, said Walworth, methinks we may hold against them. There be many loyal citizens of London, and many more since yesterday, for there begin to be murmurings against Wat Tyler.
My Lord Mayor, said Buckingham harshly, you will do well to remember that one walketh at the King's bridle who maketh boast to serve these rebels.
I am the King's servant likewise, said Stephen.
Were the good Archbishop on live, quoth Salisbury very grave, I make no doubt he would say a man may not serve two masters. ”

“ His name frequently figures as advancing loans to the king, and he supported John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, in the city, where there was a strong opposition to the king's uncle. His most famous exploit was his encounter with Wat Tyler in 1381, during his second term of office as lord mayor. In June of that year, when Tyler and his followers entered south London, Walworth defended London Bridge against them ”

“ It there was a prouder woman in Walworth on the evening of the visit to Eaton Square than Mrs. Knight, that prouder woman would have required a good deal of tracing. Every window within sight was occupied by a bunch of heads ”

“ The popularity of this and other paintings obtained for Northcote a commission from the city of London to paint a large picture of ‘Sir William Walworth, Lord Mayor of London, A.D. 1381, killing Wat Tyler,’ now in the Guildhall in London. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1787, and engraved by Anker Smith. He was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1786, and an academician on 13 Feb. ”

“ These be village churls, untrained to matters of war,—they 'll fly before a sword. So saith Master Walworth likewise. Peasants and prentices be no warriors. Moreover, Sir Robert Knolles holdeth his own house against them in the city,—he will help us.
The Earl of Salisbury lifted his head as he would speak, but Richard was before him.
My lords, he said, and all they marvelled to hear his voice how it was assured,—my lords, I am going forth on the morrow to have speech of my people;—to hear what it is they will have. Etienne saith they desire freedom and no more to be called villeins. ”

“ England without its nobility would be a desert, and at all costs such an irreparable calamity as the loss of England’s nobility must be prevented.
So Walworth got no help in his plans for resistance; and when that night a messenger from Tyler warned the king that if he refused to meet the commons of England in open conference, the people would seize the Tower, Richard sent word in reply159 promising to meet his subjects on the morrow at noon at Mile End, and there hear their complaints. ”

“ There were in the Tower with the King his two maternal brothers, the Earls of Salisbury, Suffolk, and Warwick, the Grand Prior of the Templars, Sir Robert de Namur, the Lord of Vertain, Sir Henry de Sanselles, and a number of knights, squires, and yeomen. The Kent and Sussex rebels could count on the great mass of the common people within the city, and the easterlings and the midlanders were on the march. Walworth shrugged his shoulders and spoke of opening the gates.
“I tell you, sirs, there is nothing for it but to keep these gentry in a good temper. The King alone can shepherd them. ”

“ Then Calote was 'ware of Master Chaucer on his other hand, who steadied him that he should not fall.
Sire, said the Archbishop, this man hath cursed Holy Church and impeached the counsellors of the King. He is a traitor to God and to England. He is mine to—
But now Mayor Walworth was come in great haste to the dais, and kneeled down, and Pray you, mercy, sire, he cried. This man is well-beloved in the city; and is this a time to stir up London? He is a little mad, but I know him for an honest fellow,—the prentices will not brook—
Peace! said Richard. ”

“ The feuds arose from the increased power of the livery companies and the antagonism between the victualling and clothing trades. This division existed in most of the towns of the land, but the battle was{236} fought out with deadly effect in the City of London. Walworth, a fishmonger, was the chief of the victualling party, but the two prominent leaders of the two parties were Nicholas Brembre and John of Northampton. ”

“ An error in the foregoing inscription has been corrected by the venerable Stow. "Whereas," saith he, "it hath been far spread abroad by vulgar opinion, that the rebel smitten down so manfully by Sir William Walworth, the then worthy Lord Maior, was named Jack Straw, and not Wat Tyler, I thought good to reconcile this rash-conceived doubt by such testimony as I find in ancient and good records. ”

“ Such appears to be the situation in the office of the Massachusetts Brass Company.
"'We are living upon Pine Street.'"
Walworth is tilted back comfortably in one of his handsome chairs and sends out a casual glance through the nearest window. The sun is struggling with a half-luminous haze, and through this haze a hundred streaks of smoke are driving headlong towards the lake. A tall clock-tower looms up three or four streets away, and one of its faces—on the looker's own level—gives the hour as half-past ten.
"Well, we are living up on Pine Street, Mr. Ogden," he is saying ”

“ Walworth even gave George a small lunch at his club.
For some weeks previous Ogden had watched for the right opportunity to make a formal announcement of his plans to the head of the bank and to ask for a week's leave. For nearly a month, now, Brainard had not looked at him, had not spoken to him; and when he entered the old man's office to make his request Brainard still refrained from looking at him, and in speaking to him was as curt as possible.
"We need all our men right here; you must give up any idea of going off." ”

“ Our breakfast was as good as the supper, and at half-past eight precisely we started for Little Britain. By degrees, Wemmick got dryer and harder as we went along, and his mouth tightened into a post-office again. At last, when we got to his place of business and he pulled out his key from his coat-collar, he looked as unconscious of his Walworth property as if the Castle and the drawbridge and the arbour and the lake and the fountain and the Aged, had all been blown into space together by the last discharge of the Stinger. ”

“ Letter 490, &c.
308 Modern history would afford more instances than perhaps some of us suspect. I cannot pass over an illustration of my principle, which I shall take from two very notorious politicians—Wat Tyler and Sir William Walworth!
Wat, when in servitude, had been beaten by his master, Richard Lyons, a great merchant of wines, and a sheriff of London. This chastisement, working on an evil disposition, appears never to have been forgiven; and when this Radical assumed his short-lived dominion, he had his old master beheaded, and his head carried before him on the point of a spear! ”

“ On this subject Maitland and other historians have taken so much only from Stow as seemed to them to suit their purpose; what that author relates, therefore, is here extracted verbatim. He introduces it by saying, “In the year 1381, William Walworth, then maior, a most provident, valiant, and learned citizen, did by his arrest of Wat Tyler, (a presumptuous rebell upon whom no man durst lay hands,) deliver the king and kingdome from the danger of most wicked traitors, and was for his service knighted in the field as before hath been related.” ”

“ She began by contributing poems to the periodicals, but her one-act comediette, entitled Where was Elsie? or the Saratoga Fairies (New York, 1888) , written [Pg 210] before she was of age, made her widely known. This little comedy is now out of print, and it is exceedingly scarce. Miss Walworth was graduated from Vassar College in 1896, being poet of the class, and one of the editors of The Vassarian. She then taught in a woman's college for a time, when the war with Spain was declared and she determined to go to the front as a volunteer nurse. ”

“ Son of Reuben Walworth, infra. A Roman Catholic clergyman who was one of the founders of the Paulist order in the United States, a prominent temperance advocate, and since 1864 rector of St. Mary’s, Albany. The Gentle Sceptic; The Doctrine of Hell; Andiatorocté, and Other Poems. Walworth, Mrs. Ellen [Hardin] . Il., 1832- ——. Wife of M. T. Walworth, infra. A Saratoga writer who has published Saratoga, the Battle Ground. [Pg 404] Walworth, Ellen Hardin. N. Y., 1858- ——. Daughter of M. T. Walworth, infra. An Old World as Seen Through Young Eyes. ”

“ Walworth was the most eminent member of the Fishmongers' Company, and, as in the case of Whittington, a halo of romance has surrounded his memory. More than two hundred years after his death the company included a representation of him in the mayoralty pageants which they provided for members of their company who reached the civic chair. The drawings of the elaborate pageant with which they honoured Sir John Leman for his mayoralty in 1616 are still preserved at Fishmongers' Hall, and were reproduced under the editorship of Mr. ”

“ Close to the thorn on which Sir Walter lean'd,
Stood his dumb partner in this glorious act;
Weak as a lamb the hour that it is yean'd,
And foaming like a mountain cataract.
Upon his side the Hart was lying stretch'd:
His nose half-touch'd a spring beneath a hill,
And with the last deep groan his breath had fetch'd
The waters of the spring were trembling still.
And now, too happy for repose or rest,
Was never man in such a joyful case,
Sir Walter walk'd all round, north, south and west,
And gaz'd, and gaz'd upon that darling place. ”

“ The rugged patriot, strong of heart and strong of hand, had been brought to London in his chains the day before the fair was opened, and on the day of the opening of the fair was arraigned and condemned at Westminster as a traitor, and without even a day’s respite, at once sent on to his death. Under the Elms, therefore, in Smithfield, stood all the concourse of Bartholomew fair, when William Wallace was dragged thither in chains at the tails of horses, bruised, bleeding, and polluted with the filth of London. ”

“ Prince of Wales. The latter and he had met again at last in a necessary connexion, for no party would have anything to do with either. [92]
Lord Chief Justice Willes was designed for Chancellor. He had been raised by Sir Robert Walpole, though always brow-beaten by haughty Yorke, and hated by the Pelhams, for that very attachment to their own patron. As Willes’s nature was more open, he returned their aversion with little reserve. He was not wont to disguise any of his passions. That for gaming was notorious; for women, unbounded. ”