Hospitals: St Katharine by the Tower

21. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. KATHARINE BY THE TOWER

The hospital of St. Katharine by the Tower was founded about 1148 (fn. 1) by Matilda the wife of King Stephen for a master, brethren, sisters, and thirteen poor persons (fn. 2) on land in the parish of St. Botolph without Aldgate, bought for that purpose from the priory of Holy Trinity, Aldgate. (fn. 3) The queen gave to the hospital for its maintenance a mill near the Tower of London with the land belonging to it, (fn. 4) and confirmed the grant made by William de Yprès of an annual rent of £20 from 'Edredeshethe,' (fn. 5) afterwards Queenhithe. The perpetual custody of the hospital was conferred on the priory of Holy Trinity by Queen Matilda, who, however, reserved for herself and the queens, her successors, the choice of the master. (fn. 6)

Nothing further is heard of the house until 1255, when Queen Eleanor of Provence disputed the claim of the priory to its custody. (fn. 7) The condition of the hospital shortly before must have been most unsatisfactory, for the canons of Holy Trinity had appointed one of their own number master in order to reform the brothers who were always drinking and quarrelling, (fn. 8) and a suspicion arises that the priory may have been partly responsible for this by previously neglecting its duty of supervision. (fn. 9) Whether the queen's action was determined by her desire to secure a better working of the hospital, or by her resentment at the encroachment on her right of presentation, it is impossible to say. The court of the Exchequer decided that the priory had established its claim to the custody, and an inquisition taken by the mayor and aldermen of London resulted in a similar verdict. (fn. 10) The queen then called to her aid the bishop of London, who, in 1257, visited the hospital, removed the master appointed by the canons, and without a shadow of right ordered the prior and canons to refrain henceforth from all interference with the hospital. (fn. 11) In 1261 Henry de Wengham, bishop of London, the bishops of Carlisle and Salisbury, with others of the king's council, prevailed on the prior to assent verbally to the renunciation of the convent's right, and then made a formal surrender of the hospital to the queen. (fn. 12)

Eleanor waited for some years and then dissolved the hospital, refounding it 5 July, 1273. (fn. 13) This new foundation she endowed with land in East Smithfield, and all her lands and rents in Rainham (fn. 14) and Hartlip, co. Kent, and in the vill of Reed, (fn. 15) co. Herts., for the support of a master and three brothers, priests, who were to say mass daily for the soul of Henry III and the souls of past kings and queens of England, (fn. 16) some sisters and twenty-four poor persons, (fn. 17) of whom six were to be poor scholars. On the anniversary of the death of Henry III a thousand poor men were each to receive ½d. The right of appointing the master, of filling vacancies among the brethren and sisters, and of changing the articles of the charter was reserved by the queen for herself and her successors, queens of England.

In 1293 Thomas Leckelade who had been made master by Eleanor of Provence resigned, and the post was granted to Walter de Redinges for life. (fn. 18) His administration appears to have been the cause of the dilapidation and deterioration of which the brothers and sisters complained and which caused the king in April, 1300, to order a visitation of the hospital to be made by John de Lacy and Ralph de Sandwich. (fn. 19)

The hospital was harassed in 1310 by a demand of the Exchequer for a sum due from a former owner of the lands in Kent given to them by Queen Eleanor, but the king ordered the barons of the Exchequer to give the hospital a discharge. (fn. 20)

The right of the queen to make any change she thought fit in the hospital was called in question in 1333 and the point was decided completely in her favour. Richard de Lusteshull, who had been made master for life by Queen Isabella on 24 June, 1318, (fn. 21) was removed for wasting the goods of the hospital, (fn. 22) and his post given by Queen Philippa to Roger Bast. Lusteshull brought his case before the king and council in Parliament, and at first the king in 1333 ordered the justices to proceed to a trial and judgement even if Bast refused to appear. (fn. 23) Queen Philippa, however, showed that by the terms of the foundation charter the judges had no jurisdiction, and the king decided that the matter rested with the queen and her council. (fn. 24)

It is evident that Queen Philippa took a keen interest in the hospital. She tried on two occasions (fn. 25) to secure the appropriation to its use of the church of St. Peter, Northampton, with the chapels of Kingsthorpe and Upton, the patronage of which had been granted to the hospital in 1329 by the king. (fn. 26) In 1350 she founded a chantry in the hospital and provided for the maintenance of an additional chaplain by the gift of lands worth £10 a year. (fn. 27) At this time too she drew up a number of ordinances (fn. 28) to be observed by the inmates: the brothers and sisters were to have no private property except by the consent of the master; they were not to go out without his leave nor to stay out after curfew; the sisters were allowed 20s. a year for their clothing, the brothers 40s.; the costume was to be black with the sign of St. Katharine, and the wearing of green or entirely red clothes was prohibited; the brethren were to have no private conference with the sisters or any other women; negligence or disobedience on the part of the brethren and sisters was punishable by lessening their portion of food and drink but not by stripes; each sister was to receive in her room her daily allowance of a white and a brown loaf, two pieces of different kinds of meat value 1½d. or fish of the same value, and a pittance worth 1d.; the portion of both brothers and sisters was to be doubled on fifteen feast days; the master was to dine in the common hall with the brothers; the almswomen were to wear caps and cloaks of a grey colour; they were not to go out without leave of the master; if their conduct was bad they could be removed by the master with consent of the brethren and sisters. Other ordinances concern the care of the sick and the transaction of business relating to the property of the house.

The rebuilding of the church was begun by William de Kildesby the master, in 1343, (fn. 29) and Queen Philippa had directed that all surplus revenues of the hospital should be devoted to this work. (fn. 30) Judging, however, from the report following a visitation by the chancellor and others in 1377, (fn. 31) the master can have found it no easy matter to secure a surplus. Some time before it had been necessary to give up the distribution to the thousand poor persons on St. Edmund's Day in order to provide properly for the poor women and clerks; the income of the hospital was less than the expenditure by £14 14s. 6d. without reckoning provision for the master or for the repair of the church and its possessions, and although John de Hermesthorp, then master, had spent £2,000 on rebuilding (fn. 32) the nave of the church and other necessary work, much still remained to be done. The petition of one of the ladies of the princess of Wales to have possession of a corrody granted her by the king was refused by the chancellor, who said that no corrody existed there and that the hospital was unable to support one. (fn. 33) It seems not unlikely that a reduction of the numbers on the foundation was gradually effected as a result of the report, for in 1412 (fn. 34) there were ten poor women and not eighteen as before.

Meanwhile the hospital had been adding to its resources: Edward III in 1376 made a perpetual grant of £10 a year from the Hanaper for a chaplain to celebrate in the chantry founded by Queen Philippa, (fn. 35) and left in trust for the hospital the reversion of the manor of Rushindon in the Isle of Sheppey, and of a messuage, 60 acres of land, 200 acres of pasture, and 120 acres of salt marsh in the parish of Minster to provide another chaplain; (fn. 36) in 1378 Robert de Denton, who had intended to found a hospital for the insane in his messuages in the parish of Allhallows Barking, granted the property instead to St. Katharine's to establish a chantry; (fn. 37) John de Chichester, goldsmith of London, bequeathed to the hospital in 1380 lands and tenements in the parishes of St. Botolph Aldgate, St. Mary Abchurch, St. Edmund Lombard Street, and St. Nicholas Acon for a similar purpose; (fn. 38) in 1381 a messuage in Bow Lane was granted to St. Katharine's for daily celebrations for Thomas bishop of Durham; (fn. 39) and in 1380 Richard II allowed the hospital to acquire in mortmain from the alien abbey of Isle Dieu the manor of Carlton, co. Wilts., and the advowson of the church of Upchurch, in Kent, (fn. 40) in return for an annual payment of £40 during the war with France and for the maintenance of three additional chantry chaplains.

The hospital benefited considerably by the appointment of Thomas Beckington, the king's secretary, as master in 1440. (fn. 41) Henry VI not only gave to it in August of that year the manors of Chisenbury and Quarley, parcel of the alien priory of Ogbourne, (fn. 42) but on Beckington's representing that the revenues of the house were still insufficient, he granted to it in 1441 an annual fair of twenty-one days from the feast of St. James, to be held on Tower Hill. (fn. 43) He, moreover, exempted the hospital and precinct from all jurisdiction save that of the Lord Chancellor and the master, (fn. 44) and acquitted it from payment of all aids, subsidies, (fn. 45) and clerical tenths; (fn. 46) no royal stewards, marshals, or other royal officers were to lodge in the hospital or its houses without the consent of the master, (fn. 47) and no royal purveyor was to take the goods and chattels of the hospital against the master's wish; (fn. 48) the master was to have court-leet and view of frankpledge within the bounds of the hospital; (fn. 49) and the master, brothers, and sisters were to have the chattels of felons, fugitives and suicides, waifs and strays, deodands and treasure trove, (fn. 50) assize of bread and ale, custody of weights and measures, the cognizance and punishment of all offences against the peace in the same place, (fn. 51) and the cognizance of all pleas and the fines and amercements of all persons residing in the precinct; (fn. 52) any writs they needed were to be given to them free of all payment; (fn. 53) they were not to be deprived of any of the above privileges because they neglected to use them. (fn. 54)

John Holland, duke of Exeter, who died in 1448, was buried in the church of St. Katharine, to which he made an important bequest of plate (fn. 55) and tapestry. He also directed that in the little chapel where his body rested a chantry of four priests should be erected, to be endowed with his manor of Great Gaddesden in Hertfordshire, though apparently some other endowment was arranged, for the manor figures in the possessions of his son Henry, on whose death it passed to the crown. (fn. 56)

The general pardon to the warden, brethren, and sisters on the accession of Henry VIII (fn. 57) must have been a matter of form, since it is evident that the hospital enjoyed the favour of both Henry VII and Henry VIII: at the funeral of the former the large sum of £40 was given to the sisters; (fn. 58) Henry VIII (fn. 59) and Queen Catherine established in the hospital church in 1578 a Gild of St. Barbara, to which belonged Cardinal Wolsey, the duke of Norfolk, the duke of Buckingham, and many other dis tinguished persons, (fn. 60) and amid the dissolution of so many monasteries and hospitals the king not only spared this house but in 1537 remitted the annual tenth, and the first fruits due from Gilbert Latham, who had been appointed master by Queen Jane Seymour. (fn. 61) The income of the house in 1535 was said to be £315 8s. 4d., (fn. 62) and its expenses £284 8s. 4d., £186 15s. being paid to the inmates of the hospital, viz., to the three brothers, £24; three sisters, £24; three priests, £24; six clerks serving in the church, £40; ten bedeswomen, 10½d. a week each; the master of the children, £8; for the maintenance of the six children, £24; and £5 each to the steward, butler, cook, and undercook. (fn. 63)

The possessions of the hospital then included rents and ferms in the City and suburbs of London of an annual value of £211 19s. 6d., (fn. 64) the manor of Queenscourt, with the farm of Berengrave, (fn. 65) land in the parish of Rainham, (fn. 66) Rushindon Manor, with the farm of Daudeley, (fn. 67) in co. Kent; the manor of Quarley, (fn. 68) co. Hants; the manors of Chisenbury Priors (fn. 69) and Carlton, (fn. 70) co. Wilts.; and the manor of Queenbury, co. Herts. (fn. 71)

In 1303 and 1428 the master held half a knight's fee in Reed, co. Herts. (fn. 72) The house also owned the advowsons of St. Peter, Northampton, with its chapels of Kingsthorpe and Upton, (fn. 73) of Queenbury, (fn. 74) and of Quarley. (fn. 75) The advowson of Frinsted, co. Kent, had been granted to St. Katharine's in 1329 by Sir John de Crombwell, (fn. 76) who two years later obtained a papal mandate for its appropriation to the hospital. (fn. 77)

The religious changes must have greatly affected the house. The suppression of chantries under Edward VI not only deprived it of much of its property but of the principal reason of its existence. The new order of things was marked by the king's appointment of a layman as master in 1549, (fn. 78) and henceforth the post was regarded mainly as a reward for a servant of the crown. Fortunately most holders of the office held a more exalted view of their duty than Dr. Thomas Wilson, who used his position merely as an opportunity for plunder. He first attempted to sell the privileges of the liberty to the City Corporation, and when he was baulked in this by the action of the inhabitants, who appealed to Cecil in 1565, (fn. 79) he surrendered the charter of Henry VI to the queen and obtained a confirmation in 1566, (fn. 80) omitting the grant of the fair, which he sold to the City for £466 13s. 4d. (fn. 81)

The history of the house for more than a century was marked by no events of importance. In 1692 a certain Dr. Payne, in virtue of a patent he had obtained to visit exempt churches, attempted a visitation of St. Katharine's, but the brothers absolutely declined to acknowledge his jurisdiction, (fn. 82) and were successful in maintaining the privileges of their house. Complaints against the master, Sir James Butler, caused a visitation to be made in 1698 by Lord Chancellor Somers, who removed Butler and drew up some rules for the government of the hospital. (fn. 83) These order that the master shall be resident; (fn. 84) that provision shall be made for the performance of religious services by the brothers; (fn. 85) that chapters shall be held (fn. 86) at which all business is to be considered; (fn. 87) that the fines at the renewals of leases shall be divided into three parts, of which one is to be devoted to the repair of the church, another to be given to the master, and the third to the brothers and sisters; (fn. 88) any increase of the annual revenues shall be disposed of as follows: the allowance of the bedeswomen is to be doubled; the stipend of £8 then given to each brother is to be increased until it reaches the sum of £40; the sisters' stipends are to be gradually raised to £20 each; the surplus is then to go to the master until his whole income amounts to £500; any further revenues shall be devoted to the maintenance of an additional brother, of another sister, of two more bedeswomen, and if more still remain, it shall be used to provide a school. (fn. 89) The income of the house seems to have benefited by Lord Somers' regulation, for a school was established there in 1705. (fn. 90) The church, which seems to have been repaired about 1640, (fn. 91) escaped damage from the fires which occurred in the precinct in 1672 and 1734, and from the Gordon Riots, (fn. 92) to be destroyed with the rest of the hospital buildings in 1825, when the site was needed for the St. Katharine's Docks. (fn. 93) A new church and hospital were then built in Regent's Park to continue Queen Eleanor's foundation, though numerous changes have made the house of the present day very unlike that of 1273. (fn. 94) However, there still are sisters, bedesmen, bedeswomen, brothers with religious duties to perform, and a master now also in holy orders, for Queen Victoria appointed clergymen in both the vacancies which occurred during her reign. (fn. 95)

Masters of St. Katharine's Hospital

Gilbert, appointed 1257 (fn. 96)
Walter de Runachmore, clerk, appointed 1263 (fn. 97)
John de Sancta Maria, occurs 1264 (fn. 98)
Thomas de Chalke, clerk, appointed 1266 (fn. 99)
Stephen de Fulborne, occurs 1269 (fn. 100)
Thomas de Lechlade, appointed 1273, (fn. 101) resigned 1293 (fn. 102)
Walter de Redinges, appointed 1293 (fn. 103)
John Sendale, occurs 1306 (fn. 104) and 1315 (fn. 105)
Adam de Eglesfeld, appointed 1317 (fn. 106)
Richard de Lusteshull, king's clerk, appointed 1318, (fn. 107) occurs 1326 (fn. 108)
Roger de Bast or Basse, appointed 1327, (fn. 109) occurs 1333 (fn. 110)
William de Culshoe, occurs 1336 (fn. 111)
William de Kildesby, appointed 1339, (fn. 112) occurs 1343 (fn. 113)
Walter de Wetewang, occurs 1347 (fn. 114)
William de Hygate, occurs 1348 (fn. 115)
Paul de Monte Florio or Monte Florum, occurs 1351 (fn. 116)
John de Clisseby, occurs 1363 (fn. 117)
John de Hermesthorp, occurs 1368, (fn. 118) 1377, (fn. 119) 1380, (fn. 120) 1398, (fn. 121) and 1403 (fn. 122)
Richard Prentys, occurs 1411 (fn. 123)
William Wrixham, D.D., occurs 1413 (fn. 124)
John Francke, occurs 1438 (fn. 125)
Thomas de Beckington, LL.D., appointed 1440 (fn. 126)
John Delabere, occurs 1446 (fn. 127)
Henry Trevilian, occurs 1461, (fn. 128) 1462, (fn. 129) 1464, (fn. 130) and 1469 (fn. 131)
Lionel de Wydeville, clerk, occurs 1475 (fn. 132)
William Wryxham or Wrexham, occurs 1484 (fn. 133)
Richard Payne, clerk, occurs 1499 (fn. 134)
John Preston, clerk, appointed 1508, (fn. 135) occurs 1509 (fn. 136)
George de Athequa, occurs 1527 (fn. 137)
Gilbert Latham, M.A., appointed 1536, (fn. 138) occurs 1541 (fn. 139)
Sir Thomas Seymour, kt., appointed 1547 (fn. 140)
Sir Francis Fleming, kt., appointed 1549 (fn. 141)
Dr. Francis Mallett, dean of Lincoln, appointed 1554, (fn. 142) surrendered 1560 (fn. 143)
Sir Edward Warner, kt., appointed 1560 (fn. 144)
Thomas Wilson, LL.D., appointed 1560, (fn. 145) died 1581 (fn. 146)
David Lewys, LL.D., appointed 1581 (fn. 147)
Ralph Rookeby, appointed 1587, (fn. 148) occurs 1595 (fn. 149)
Sir Julius Caesar, appointed 1596, (fn. 150) died 1636 (fn. 151)
Sir Robert Ayton, kt., appointed 1636, (fn. 152) died 1640 (fn. 153) or before
Dr. Coxe, appointed 1653 (fn. 154)
George Montagu, occurs c. 1665, (fn. 155) died 1681 (fn. 156)
William, Lord Brouncker, Viscount of Castle Lyons, appointed 1681, (fn. 157) died 1684 (fn. 158)
Sir James Butler, appointed 1684, (fn. 159) removed 1698 (fn. 160)
Louis de Duras, earl of Faversham, appointed 1698, died 1709 (fn. 161)
Sir Henry Nelson, kt., LL.D., appointed 1709, died 1715 (fn. 162)
William Farrar, appointed 1715, died 1737 (fn. 163)
Hon. George Berkley, appointed 1738, died 1746 (fn. 164)
Edmund Waller, jun., appointed 1747 (fn. 165)
Hon. Stephen Digby, appointed 1786 (fn. 166)
Major William Price, appointed 1800 (fn. 167)
Colonel Edward Disbrowe, appointed 1816 (fn. 168)
Maj.-Gen. Sir Herbert Taylor, K.G.H., appointed 1818 (fn. 169)
Rev. A. L. B. Piele, occurs 1904 (fn. 170)

A seal of the sixteenth century, (fn. 171) pointed oval and cabled borders, represents St. Catherine standing on a carved corbel, slightly turned to the left, holding in her right hand a wheel, in her left hand a book. Legend :—

S. HOSPITALIS: ITE: CATERINE: IVXTA: TVRS: LONDŌ.

A later seal, (fn. 172) pointed oval, with carved borders, bears a full length representation of St. Catherine, with nimbus; the saint holds in her right hand a wheel, in the left a book. At her feet is a flower. A space has been left for the legend, but not filled up.

The royal seal, (fn. 173) 'ad causas ecclesiasticas,' is a pointed oval, and shows an ornamental shield of the royal arms of Edward VI. Over it a crown with royal supporters. On a corbel an entablature in base, the inscription, SCĀ KATERINA IVXTA . TVR IN LONDON' S' REGIAE MAIESTATS AD CAVSAS ECCLESUS.