The Sun.
London, England, 1864-07-20 00:00:00

Historical Anecdotes about the Savoy,

The Church of St. Mary•le-Savoy, as it had long
been improperly called, last week perished by fire
—all but the bare walls. Properly, it was the
royal chapel of St. John the Baptist, which the
parishioners of St. Mary-le-Strand were empowered
to use, under certain conditions, as a parochial
church, Its antiquity was not very great—three
hundred and sixty years—but it was nevertheless of
interest, from the history connected with it, and
from the locality in which it stood. It had nothing
in common with the palatial edifice in which
Eleanor of Equitaine housed her uncle, Peter Earl
of Savoy, six centuries ago. It was not even in
that old palace in which the conscientious French
King, John, died in honourable captivity, in the
14th century. John died in the new palace, built on
the site of the old one, by that Henry Plantagenet
who won the ducal coronet of Lancaster by his
prowess at Poictiers, and whose daughter, Blanche,
carried the paternal title to her husband, John of
Gaunt. This newer palace had no long life of it,
for Wat Tyler and his fellows, in their especial rage
against John of Gaunt, burnt all that would burn
of the edifice in 1381. Till the beginning of the
16th century the place lay in ruins, but in 1505
Henry VII. built the church, or chapel, which has
been an recently destroyed, as the chapel of the hos-
pital of St. John the Baptist, for the relief of 100 poor
men, In about fifty years this religious foundation
went the way of all others in England, and though
the hcspital was subsequently restored and for some
time maintained, the Savoy precinct became as
notorious for thieves and beggars, as for the lame,
the sick and the vagabond, who considered them-
selves privileged to claim succour from the Master
of theellospital of the Savoy, an efface which was
much coveted, and which Cowley struggled ineffec.
tually to obtain. The old hall was partitioned out
among noisy handicraftsmen who plied their respec-
tive callings therein, end it also served for a prison
in which debtors, and infected soldiers, and deser-
ters, and pressed men, and recruits, and robbers
waiting transportation were all alike kept under
lock and key, And yet within the precinct there
was sanctuary for those who dwelt there, and
danger of life or limb to the audacious official who
should venture to make arrest there. It is barely
necessary to say that the Savoy Conference for the
revision of the Liturgy was held on this spot. This
Savoy had its literary aspect, too ; all proclamations,
acts of Parliament, and Gazettes used to issue from
the royal printing press established in the precinct ;
and there Fuller lectured, if he did not write his
Worthies.' The walls of the old cruciform hospi-
tal were standing in Pennant's time, and in 1816,
Ackermann published a view of the ruins as they
were in their last condition, before they were swept
away. They look far more picturesque than the
ancient palace itself does, in the picture of Dulwich
College. The royal chapel, which was made paro-
chial after the "impious destruction" of the parish
church of St. Mary-lc-Strand, by the Duke of
Somerset, did not always hold its own with dignity.
While the Dutch, German, and French congrega-
tions met quietly within the preninct,a favour which
was originally owing to Charles the Second, all sorts
of unseemly marriages were celebrated by the
" Savoy parsons." The minister advertised his
readiness to unite couples in the bonds of matri-
mony " with privacy," which was the chief matter,
and it was added, for the form's sake, "with de-
cency and regularity," and all for a guinea, the five
shilling stamp included. Very significant are the
concluding lines of the advertisement, which tell
lovers longing to be married in haste and secrecy,
that "there are five private ways by land to this
chapel, and two by water." The Act of Parliament
forbidding such celebrations of marriage did not
deter the " Savoy parsons" till the Rev. Mr Wilkin-
son came to grief. For performing the illicit cere-
mony, Wilkinson was informed against by—among
others—no less a person than Garrick, and the reve-
rend gentleman was transported. His son, but for
this catastrophe, would prubably have gone into the
Church, but losing his chance, he crossed from the
Savoy to Drury-lane, and the man who had trans-
ported his father helped to make an actor of him,
and to give to the history of the stage the name of
eccentric Tait Wilkinson. In George the Fourth's
days the royal chapel was restored chiefly through
that king's liberality, and her present Majesty has
acted as munificently as her royal uncle ; but it was
the parishioners who put up the beautiful painted
glass window representing St. John the Baptist.
That window was entirely destroyed by the fire
of last week. The splendid roof lies in charred
fragments on the encumbered floor; and as
the flames, bursting forth, no one could
well tell whence or how, though the blame is
laid on the gas, swept through the structure, down
fell many a noble monument of the noble dead, or
stood but to be unsightly and marred--for there
slept Itokebys, and Douglases, and ladies of note,
and soldiers of renown, with monuments to some
buried elsewhere, and " the bowels only" of one,
and he, the great Earl of Clifford, with no memo-
rial at all ; and, perhaps more truly worthy than
any of them, the poet who chanted the praises of
liberty under a tyrant, and piety in a licentious
age, cheerful and religious George Withers Fes now
under the superincumbent ruins caused by the fire.
Her Majesty has graciously announced her intention
to repair this ruin at her own cost. Vivat _Regina'

M. HACHETTE, THE FAMOUS PUBLISHER OF THE
64 CHEMIN DE FER"—recently reported to be dead
—has an establishment Which is one of the Paris lions. Of
the enterprising
Way in which business is carried on there,
some opinion may be formed from the fact that a young
and talented avooat is paid 12,000 francs a year for writing
the advertisements of the works which are brought out in
it." A branch establishment is in London, at the corner
of King William-street, Strand, a spot that has recently
become quite a market for dealers in books, and which bids
fair to Noma a sort of Weat-end Paternoster-row,