Broad Sanctuary

Sanctuary (Westminster) is by St. Margarets Church yard, betn the Old gate house SW, and King str. NE, from Cha+ [Charing Cross] near S. 840 Yds.

The Broad Sanctuary, formerly of more Note than at present, when it enjoyed the Privilege of a Sanctuary. It is a very handsome broad and open Place, adjoining to St. Margaret's Church-yard, from whence it is severed by a Wall, and hath the Prospect of the Abbey: At the West End is a Place called Love Lane, being against the old Gate-house. About the Middle of this Place is a handsome Court called Green's Alley, which hath a Passage into Thieving Lane; and more Eastwards is the Little Sanctuary which cometh into King-street, near St. Margaret's Church, an indifferently large Place, with well built Houses: Then is St. Margaret's Church, a very decent large Church, being the Parish-Church for the Use of the Inhabitants.

Broad Sanctuary row, near the Abbey, Westminster: is thus called from its being formerly a sanctuary or place of refuge. It is now called by the vulgar the Century.

Broad-Sanctuary, Westminster,—on the N. side of the Abbey, extending from King-st. to Tothill-st.

Broad Sanctuary, Westminster, is on the north side of the Abbey, it extends from King-street to Tothill-street. It derives its name from having been formerly a sanctuary or place of refuge.

Sanctuary, Westminster, a privileged precinct, under the protection of the abbot and monks of Westminster, and adjoining Westminster Abbey on the west and north side. The privileges survived the Reformation, and the bulk of the houses which composed the precinct were not taken down till 1750.¹ In this Sanctuary Edward V. was "born in sorrow, and baptized like a poor man's child;" and here Skelton, the rude-railing satirist, found shelter from the revengeful hand of Cardinal Wolsey.

Sir Thomas More's account of the taking of sanctuary by the widow of Edward IV. is very picturesque.

Therefore nowe she [Queen Elizabeth Woodville] toke her younger sonne the Duke of Yorke and her doughters and went out of the Palays of Westminster into the Sanctuary, and there lodged in the Abbote's Place, and she and all her chyldren and compaignie were registred for sanctuary persons. ... Whereupon the Bishop [Rotheram, Archbishop of York and Lord Chancellor] called up all his servantes and toke with hym the great seale and came before day to the Quene, about whom he found much heavynesse, rumble, haste, businesse, conveighaunce, and carriage of hir stuffe into snnctuarye; every man was busye to cary, beare and conveigh stuffe, chestes, and fardelles, no man was unoccupied, and some caried more than they were commaunded to another place. The Queen sat alone belowe on the rushes all desolate and dismayde.—Sir Thomas More's Pitifull Life of King Edward V., p. 49; Hall's Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Famelies of Lancastre and Yorke, reprint, p. 350.

What is styled the Broad Sanctuary contains St. Margaret's Church, the Guild Hall and Sessions House, and the Westminster Hospital. In the Broad Sanctuary Edmund Burke resided for many years. He begins to date from it November 7, 1772. Sir John Hawkins died, May 21, 1789, at his house by the Broad Sanctuary, formerly the residence of Admiral Vernon. Here are the Westminster Guild Hall, erected in 1805 from the designs of Mr. S.P. Cockerell; Westminster Hospital, erected in 1832 from the designs of Mr. W. Inwood. The portion styled the Sanctuary extends from the open space in front of Westminster Hospital to Great Smith Street. Here are the Central Office of the National Society; and at the south end, facing Dean's Yard, the Memorial to Old Westminsters who died in the Crimean War, designed by Sir Gilbert Scott.

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¹ See the oath on admission in Lansdowne MS., No. 24, Art. 84.

The Westminster Sanctuary. "Not far from the Abbey," writes Pennant, "stood the Sanctuary, the place of refuge, absurdly indulgenced in old times to criminals of certain descriptions. The church belonging to it was in the form of a cross, and double; one (chapel) being built over the other. Such is the account that Dr. Stukely gives of it, for he remembered it standing, as we are told in the first volume of the 'Archæologia;' it was of vast strength, and only with much labour was it demolished. It is supposed to have been the work of the Confessor." The right of sanctuary, Stow tells us, extended not only to the church itself, but to the churchyard and close adjoining, and even to a considerable distance. "At the entrance of the Close," he writes, "there is a lane that leadeth towards the west, called Thieving Lane, for that thieves were led that way to the Gate House while the Sanctuary was in force." This lane is now absorbed in Prince's Street, between Storey's Gate and the Broad Sanctuary.

A short account of the privilege of sanctuary may be of interest here. It appears that under our Norman kings this privilege was of a twofold character, protecting both debtors and criminals from arrest—the one general, and belonging to all churches; the other peculiar and particular, granted to sundry places by royal charter. Among such places in London were the Minories and St. Katharine's Hospital, near the Tower; Fulwood's Rents and Baldwin's Gardens, near Gray's Inn; Whitefriars, between Fleet Street and the Thames; the old Mint in Southwark; and the neighbourhood of the Abbey.

"The general sanctuary afforded a refuge to those only who had been guilty of capital felonies. On reaching it, the felon was bound to declare that he had committed felony, and came to save his life. By the common law of England, if a person guilty of felony (excepting sacrilege) fled to a parish church or churchyard for sanctuary, he might, within forty days afterwards, go clothed in sackcloth before the coroner, confess the full particulars of his guilt, and take an oath to abjure the kingdom for ever; swearing not to return unless the king's licence were granted him to do so. Upon making his confession and taking his oath, he became attainted of the felony; he had forty days, from the day of his appearance before the coroner, allowed him to prepare for his departure, and the coroner assigned him such port as he chose for his embarkation, whither the felon was bound to repair immediately, with a cross in his hand, and to embark with all convenient speed. If he did not go directly out of the kingdom, or if he afterwards returned into England without licence, he was condemned to be hanged, unless he happened to be a clerk, in which case he was allowed the benefit of clergy."

A peculiar sanctuary might (if such privilege were granted by the king's charter) afford a place of refuge even to those who had committed high or petty treason; and a person escaping thither might, if he chose, remain undisturbed for life. He still, however, had the option of taking the oath of abjuration and quitting the realm for ever. Sanctuary, however, seems in neither case to have been allowed as a protection to those who escaped from the sheriff after having been delivered to him for execution.

"The right of sanctuary," says Mr. Timbs, "was retained by Westminster even after the dissolution of the monasteries, &c., in 1540. Sanctuary men were allowed to use a whittle only at their meals, and compelled to wear a badge. They could not leave the precinct, without the Dean's licence, between sunset and sunrise."

Formerly, as we learn from Blackstone's "Common Laws of England," "the benefit of the clergy used to be pleaded before trial or conviction, and was called a declinatory plea, which was the name given also to that of sanctuary. But as the prisoner upon trial had an opportunity of being acquitted and totally discharged, and, if convicted of a clergyable felony, was entitled equally to his clergy after as before his conviction, this course was deemed extremely disadvantageous; and therefore the benefit of the clergy was rarely pleaded, excepting it was prayed by the convict before judgment was passed upon him."

Henry VII. wrote to Pope Alexander, desiring him to exercise his authority in prohibiting sanctuary to all such as had once enjoyed it; and to adjudge all Englishmen who fled to the sanctuary for the offence of treason, to be enemies to the Christian faith. "This request," as Baker in his "Chronicles" tells us, "was granted by the Pope, to the great contentment of the king and quiet of the realm."

The Westminster Sanctuary is thus noticed in Capgrave's "Chronicles of England" in 1409:—"In this tyme Jon Prendigest, Knyte, and William Longe, kepte the se so weel, that no Englichman had harm. But many of the kyngis hous had envye with him, that he was compelled to take Westminster; and there so streytid, that he dwelled in the porch of the cherch both nyte and day. William Longe kepte stille the se, onto [the time that the] Chaunceler sent for him, and hite him he schuld no harm have; but whan he had him he sent him to the Toure."

Whatever may have been the advantages and benefits resulting from the right of sanctuary to the weaker classes in a rude and lawless age, it must be owned that in the course of time the charitable charter of Edward the Confessor became a curse to the metropolis; the sanctuary at Westminster becoming the home and head-quarters of all that was low and disreputable, and indeed a very sink of iniquity. It grew into an asylum for vagabonds, debtors, thieves, highwaymen, coiners, and felons, who could defy the law as long as they remained within its precincts. Here they formed a community of their own, adopted a common language and a code of habits, and demoralised each other and their neighbours as well.

Dean Stanley observes, respecting the right of sanctuary at Westminster, that it "was shared by the Abbey with at least thirty other English monasteries, but probably in none did the building occupy so prominent a position, and in none did it play so great a part." The grim old fortress, which was still standing in the seventeenth century, is itself a proof that the right reached back, if not to the time of Edward the Confessor, at least to the period when additional sanctity was imparted to the whole Abbey by his canonisation in 1198; and the right professed to be founded on charters by King Lucius.

Some instances of its use may be of interest here. To the Sanctuary at Westminster Judge Tresilian (temp. Richard II.) fled for refuge, but was dragged thence to Tyburn, where he was hanged. In 1441 the Duchess of Gloucester fled thither, being accused of witchcraft and high treason, but the wonted privilege was denied to her; and the same lot shortly afterwards befell one Thomas Barret, a gallant soldier who had served under the Duke of Bedford in the French wars, for he was "barbarously taken hence to death." In 1456 the Protector (the Duke of York), the Earl of Warwick, and others, "were noted with an execrable offence of the Abbot of Westminster and his monks, for that they took out of Sanctuarie at Westminster John Holland, Duke of Excester, and conveyed him to the Castle of Pontfracte." In 1460 Lord de Scales, as he was on his way to seek shelter at Westminster, was killed in crossing the Thames. It is known to every reader of history how Elizabeth Woodville, the Queen of Edward IV., in the year 1471, escaped from the Tower, and registered herself and her companions here as "Sanctuary women;" and how here, "in great penury, and forsaken of all her friends," she gave birth to Edward V., who was "born in sorrow and baptised like a poor man's child." She is described by Sir Thomas More as sitting here "alow in the rushes," in her grief and distress. Here the unhappy queen was induced by the Duke of Buckingham and the Archbishop of York to surrender her little son, Edward V., to his uncle Richard, who carried him to the Tower, where the two children shared a common fate.

In the year 1487, during the pontificate of Innocent VIII., a bull was issued, by which a little restraint was laid on the privileges of sanctuary here. It provided that if thieves, murderers, or robbers, registered as sanctuary men, should sally out, and commit fresh crimes, which they frequently did, and enter again, in such cases they might be taken out of their sanctuaries by the king's officers; and also, that as for debtors, who had taken sanctuary to defraud their creditors, their persons only should be protected; but that their goods out of sanctuary should be liable to seizure. As for traitors, the king was allowed to appoint keepers for them in their sanctuaries to prevent their escape.

Long before this these privileged places had become great evils, and Henry VII. had applied to the Pope for a reformation of the abuses connected with them, but he could obtain only the concession here recorded, a concession which was confirmed by Pope Alexander VI. in 1493.

In the Sanctuary died the poet Skelton, tutor and poet Laureate to Henry VIII. He had fled thither to escape the vengeance of Cardinal Wolsey, whom he had lampooned in verses which show more dulness than malice.

The old sanctuaries and "spitals" continued in full force till the dissolution of the religious houses under Henry VIII., when several statutes were passed regulating, limiting, and partly abolishing the privilege of refuge, though it was not until the 21st of James I. that the latter was wholly swept away—in theory at least. The change introduced by Henry, as we learn from history, was followed by what has been termed the "age of beggars and thieves;" for when the poorer classes, who had grown up in dependence on the old abbeys and monasteries, came to be suddenly deprived of the means of subsistence by the stoppage of their alms, society had to suffer—not altogether undeservedly—for the change which the tyrannical king had brought about. It became necessary, there fore, to enact further laws for the punishment of sturdy and wilful beggars, and ultimately to bring in sundry "poor laws" to meet the case of the other large population which had been reduced to poverty by the stoppage of the alms on which they had lived. How far these measures tended to the happiness and social improvement of the lower orders it is not difficult for any reader of history to judge.

At the Reformation these places of sanctuary began to sink into disrepute. They were, however, still preserved, and though none but the most abandoned resorted to them, the dread of innovation, or some other cause, preserved them from demolition, till, in the year 1697, the evils arising from them had grown so enormous that it became absolutely necessary to take some legislative measures for their destruction.

The privilege of sanctuary caused the houses within the precinct to let for high rents, but this privilege was totally abolished by James I., though the bulk of the houses which composed the precinct was not taken down till 1750.

It may be questioned how far it was politic to invest any place with such sanctity as that it should shelter a murderer against the strong hand of the law; for it will be remembered that the "cities of refuge" in the Old Testament were appointed for the benefit of none but those who had killed a neighbour by mischance (see Deut. iv. 42). Taking sanctuary was well understood among the ancient Jews. There were three cities of refuge on the east and three on the west side of Jordan. The Rabbins say that the high roads leading to these cities were kept free and in good repair, that finger-posts pointed in the direction leading to them, and that every facility was given to the refugee to make his escape from the hands of the avenger of blood. The Rev. Mr. Nightingale, in the "Beauties of England and Wales," says, "It is certain that among the Hebrews, with whom the practice originated, these privileged places were not designed to thwart or obstruct the ends of justice, but merely to protect the offender against the revenge of the friends of the slain."

As a proof of the extent to which the privilege of sanctuary was used in the Middle Ages, it may be mentioned here that the Rev. A. G. L'Estrange, the author of the work "From the Thames to the Tamar," states that at Beaulieu Abbey, near Southampton, in the year 1539, there were no less than "thirty-two sanctuary men for debt, felony, and murder." He adds that the sanctuary at Beaulieu was held in such reverence that even monarchs dared not violate it. "The greatest criminal or most obnoxious rebel who gained its gates and registered himself upon its books, was safe from his pursuers." It is said that after the rough work of the Reformation had been carried out in London the great church in the royal city of Lancaster was specially reserved by Henry VIII. as conferring that privilege on murderers.

In Machyn's "Diary" (written in 1556) is the following amusing description of a procession of Sanctuary men:—"The vj. day of December the Abbot of Westminster went a procession with his convent. Before him went all the Santuary men, with crosse keys upon their garments, and after whent iij for murder; on was the Lord Dacre's sone of the North, was wypyd with a shett abowt him for kyllyng of on Master West squyre dwellyng besyd ... ; and anodur theyff that dyd long to one of Master Comtroller ... dyd kylle Recherd Eggylston, the Comtroller's tayller, and kylled him in the Long Acurs, the bak-syd Charyng Crosse; and a boy that kyld a byge boye that sold papers and prynted bokes with horlying of a stone, and yt hym under the ere in Westmynster Hall; the boy was one of the chylderyn that was at the sckoll ther in the Abbey; the boy ys a hossear sune aboyff London-stone."

We have given at the commencement of this chapter Dr. Stukeley's description of the Sanctuary. There were, however, here really two sanctuaries, the Great and the Little; or rather, perhaps, two branches of the same institution. At the west end of the latter, in the time of Maitland, towards the end of the reign of George II., there were remains of "a prodigious strong stone building, of two hundred and ninety feet square, or seventy-two feet and a half the length of each side; and the walls in thickness no less than twenty-five feet." This fabric originally had but one entrance or door below, and that in the east side, with a window hard by, which seems to have been the only one below the height of twenty-two feet of the building, where the walls were reduced to three feet in thickness, and contained four windows on the south side. "The area of this exceedingly strong tower," continues Maitland, "(exclusive of the arched cavities in the walls), by a wall from east to west, three feet in thickness, was divided into two spaces, about eleven feet each in width, representing a frame for bells, which plainly evinces it to have been the strong Bell Tower that was erected in the Little Sanctuary, by Edward III., for the use of the collegiate church of St. Stephen, and not, as Strype imagines it to have been, the church of the Holy Innocents, for that was the church of St. Mary-le-Strand." The walls of this building, says Mr. Mackenzie Walcott, were of Kentish rag-stone, cemented with mortar made of the same material. "Three angles of the lower church were built solid, sixteen feet square. In the upper church square rooms were made over these corners: probably one was the sacristan's parvise, and another the revestry. The principal gate was covered with plates of stout iron, while the esplanade at the top was paved with flat stones, and built upon with many little houses. The little circular staircase towards the east, and upon the outside near the principal entrance, led to the upper church, and may have been the work of King Edward III., when the larger staircase on the south-east angle was appropriated to his new clochard; it contained seventeen stairs, built in large blocks of stone."

Stow, in his description of Westminster, says, with reference to this ancient structure, "He [i.e. King Edward III.] also builded to the use of this chappell (though out of the Palace Court), some distance west, in the Little Sanctuarie, a strong clochard of stone and timber, covered with lead, and placed therein three great bels, since usually rung at coronations, triumphs, funerals of princes, and their obits. Of those bels, men fabuled that their ringing sowred all the drinke in the towne."

This strong tower, or a part of it, was afterwards converted into a tavern, which bore the sign of the "Three Tuns;" and its vaults served the purposes of a wine-cellar. The church was demolished about the year 1750, and on part of its site a meat-market was subsequently built. The market was removed early in the present century, and in its place was erected the present Guildhall, or Sessions House, of which we shall have more to say when dealing with the modern memories of Westminster.

In the Great Sanctuary was formerly a tavern called the "Quaker." Pepys, on the 3rd of August, 1660, informs us that he dined at an ordinary called the "Quaker"—a somewhat unusual godfather for a sinful tavern. This house was pulled down only in the beginning of the present century to make way for an extension of the market-place, which in its turn has made room for a new Sessions House, as above mentioned. The last landlord opened a new public-house in Thieving Lane, and adorned the doorway of this house with twisted pillars decorated with vine-leaves, brought from the old "Quaker" tavern. Mr. J. T. Smith has given a view of this house in the additional plates to his "Antiquities of Westminster."