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Hearnshaw Tudor House

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THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES

Description and History

OK

TUDOR HOUSE

AND OF THE NORMAN HOUSE TRADITIONALLY KNOWN AS

"King Johns Palace,"

WITH NOTES ON

THE GUARD ROOM, UNDERCROFT and NORMAN VAULT,

IN THE

County Borough of Southampton.

SET FORTH BY

F. J. C. HEARNSHAW, M.A., LL.D.,

Professor of History in the University of London :

R. MACDONALD LUCAS, F.R.I.B.A.,

Hon. Sec. of the Hampshire Architects' Society ; AND

W. DALE, F.S.A., F.G.S.,

Hon. Sec. of the Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society.

2nd Five Thousand.

SOUTHAMPTON.

At the Tudor House.

1914.

By Order of the Estates Committee of the

County Borough Council.

Cl.Ht

\>J(4A<A.^ a-fij^ fh iZUj /i /^^

SET FORTH BY

F. J. C. HEARNSHAW, M.A., LL.D.,

Professor of History in the University of London ;

R. MACDONALD LUCAS, F.R.I.B.A.,

Hon. Sec. of the Hampshire Architects' Society ;

AND

W. DALE, F.S.A., F.G.S.,

Hon. Sec. of the Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society.

2nd Five Thousand.

SOUTHAMPTON.

At the Tudor House.

1914.

By Order of the Estates Committee of the

County Borough Council.

^^ J^

Description .\nd History

OF

TUDOR HOUSE

AND OF THE NORMAN HoUSE TRADITIONALLY KNOWN AS

"King John's Palace,'

WITH NOTES ON

THE GUARD ROOM, UNDERCROFT and NORMAN VAULT.

IN THE

County Borough of Southampton.

PREFACE

PREFACE.

Tudor House and the Norman House which is traditionally known as "King John's Palace" were pur- chased by the Southampton County Borough Council in 1911, at the instigation and during the Mayoralty of Colonel Edward Bance, V.D., D.L., J. P., who was also Chairman of the Estates Committee of the Corporation, and were opened to the public as a Hampshire Antiquar- ian Museum in 1912 by the then Mayor, Lieut. H. Bowyer, R.N.R.

That these profoundly interesting buildings have been preserved for future generations is also largely due to the admirable public spirit of W. F. G. Spranger, Esq., J. P., of Springhill Court, Southampton, who bought the properties some years ago when they came into the market,' spent a large sum in restoring them, and ultimately sold them to the Town at a price very much below his actual outlay upon them.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT TO AUTHORS.

To the accomplished gentlemen, Professor F. J. C. Hearnshaw, M.A., LL.D., R. Macdonald Lucas, Esq., F.R.I.B.A., and W. Dale, Esq., F.S.A., F.G.S., who have given so freely of their knowledge and limited leisure to the writing of this little pamphlet, very grateful but inadequate thanks are tendered. How such busy persons found the time necessary for what is a much heavier task than it seems at first sight, is best known to them- selves ; but they have helped equally to make the pamphlet what it is, and each has for the public weal given freely of his best without fee or reward.

R. E. Nicholas, Hon. Curator. 1st. October, 1914.

^7 {^ ^ INTRODUCTORY

The Norman House and Tudor House, Southampton

ARCHITECTURALLY DESCRIBED BY R. MACDONALD LUCAS, F.R.I.B.A.

INTRODUCTORY.

TpHESE buildings present a very marked difference

in character, interesting not only as a matter of

construction but also as an indication of the greatest

change a nation can undergo — the change from internecine

war to peace.

Nowhere else in this country, I believe, can two dwellings which are such fine specimens of their respec - tive styles be found in proximity to each other : and the contrast between them is emphasized by their position. It is one so obvious that it may be desirable to invite visitors to dwell upon it a little, as attention is apt to be diverted from a broad fact when it is over -shadowed by interesting details ; and one might thus chance to over- look the repellant character of the one building and the hospitable nature of the other.

The Norman House shows us the dwelling of men established in the country but not yet of the country, enforcing their laws by the sword, and secure against but not with their neighbours, while the Tudor House was clearly built by a man who was at home in the land, safe in the companionship of his kindred and bom to abide under the same settled laws as his neighbours.

The actual period at which the Norman House was built is not certainly known, nor have we any knowledge of its first owner ; but all authorities agree that the character of its details and masonry is that of early twelfth century work. It is possible, perhaps probable,

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THE NORMAN HOUSE

that of the few surviving fragments of Norman domestic architecture in England, this is actually the oldest. What we see now is a plain square stone building at the south- west corner of Blue Anchor Lane. Its northern wall remains practically intact for a length of about fifty feet, and its western for about twenty-eight feet. How much more of it there was we cannot be sure.

The entrance is through a semi-circular-headed door- way in Blue Anchor Lane, with arch and jambs simply chamfered. The necking or capital from which the arch springs is one of those crude Norman mouldings that hark back through Roman to Greek architecture ; and over the arch is a small double-chamfered label or dripstone, in connection with which it may be noted that the earliest "dripstones" were not devised to drip, and were thus obviously not invented for the purpose of throwing water away from the arch as did the later ones. It is not un - reasonable to think that the Norman label may be but the impoverished descendant of the Greek cornice repeatedly diminished since the Roman period, during which it was adapted for use over round-headed openings.

In the northern wall is the doorway just mentioned ; and in the western are chamfered jambs indicating two wide openings which were filled in (probably during the fourteenth century) with masonry in which two oillets are formed. The walls are rather over two feet thick.

Two windows in the west wall and one in the north, are of the same size but not of precisely similar construction ; and there is a difference of three inches or so in the thickness of the walls, the western being the thicker. Every one of the windows is divided ex- ternally by a balluster-shaft with base and foliated capital into a pair of narrow round - headed openings, while on the inside of the wall the whole opening is spanned by one arch about three and a half feet wide. Of these open - ings,the one on the north has plain internal jambs, but those on the west have five-inch "roll-mouldings" worked on the angles, continued up each side and around the arch, starting from square bases of slight projection at the level of their sills.

THE NORMAN HOUSE

In the north wall portions of a stone fireplace, a chimney supported on corbels, and two recesses, one round -arched, with oillet, the other square -headed, may still be seen/

THE TUDOR HOUSE.

In the Tudor House, built by a wealthy townsman named Henry Huttoft, and completed and occupied by him in 1535, Southampton possesses a remarkably inter- esting building designed and arranged for the double purpose of a house of business and a private residence. Huttoft was the chief officer of Customs ; and it is no doubt owing to the fact that he occupied this house in a dual capacity that there are two front doors opening upon St. Michael's Square. It is a large house of four stories, including extensive cellars and attics ; and many families have inhabited it since Huttoft's time, for it has been divided and subdivided again and again. In the course of these alterations many features of the old building were mutilated or destroyed, and to some extent the original plan has been obliterated. All therefore that I can attempt to do is to endeavour to indicate with due diffidence a few points upon which others, who also like to study and dream over the works of their forefathers, may reconstruct for themselves and to their own ideas the house which Henry Huttoft built for his business and pleasure in the early part of the sixteenth century.

The entrance now used by visitors is at the north end of the front and the door under the curious open porch gave direct access originally to the Great Hall. Before the recently -erected partition was put up to form a passage, this apartment had a length of 32 feet ; and as the partition is quite unnecessary, it may perhaps some day be removed and the proportions of the Hall again displayed. This was the entrance to the domestic

* Forty-five years aKo there was a secret passaKe in the iipt<er t»rt of the East wall, but the inner side fell away through neglect. Near the South end of this wall can still be seen a narrow window-slit which afforded light and ventilation to the passage.

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THE TUDOR HOUSE

apartments occupied by the family of Huttoft. The other street entrance at the south end of the same front was used by persons coming to Huttoft on business ; and the small room adjoining and the spacious hall out of which that room opens (and in which a modern staircase has been recently constructed) were his offices for the use of himself and his clerks. Under this entrance is a fine stone -vaulted cellar, with remains of an old doorway indicating the level of the street in Huttoft's time, and a small doorway of sixteenth -century date at the opposite end, where the vault has been cut into and the floor-space reduced by a modern stone wall enclosing a flight of steps. The three stone steps ascending from this doorway are original ; but the cemented steps continuing the ascent are modern. These steps were formed to gain access to the very extensive cellars, in the walls of which masonry of the Norman period may be noticed. A large stone corbel facing the foot of the flight now supports nothing except archaeological conjecture and is useless save as an indication that a beam -end of some earlier building rested on it. An interesting suggestion has been put forward by Mr. Charles Cooksey that the whole of this site was once covered by stone buildings of a pre -Norman and even pre -Saxon period, and that in these cellars, in the Norman house and elsewhere, we see their remains ; but, as is perhaps inevitable, the basis of this theory is at present very slight. The great size of some of the oak iDeams in the cellars should be noted, as also the large stone -arched fire-place directly under a similar one in the Banqueting Hall.

With such an extensive basement ready to his hand, Huttoft perhaps utilized it for under -ground kitchens, buttery, larders and stores. He may thus have been the inventor of an arrangement which is still the bane of the terrace house, and have so earned the hatred of genera- tions of weary-footed domestics. However, it is quite possible the kitchens were on the ground floor in a western wing, with an entrance from Blue Anchor Lane.

At the back of the Great Hall is another large and much more lofty apartment, possibly the Banqueting

THE TUDOR HOUSE

Hall. Here the ceiling is of panelled oak, and I am indebted to Mr. Inkpen (of Messrs. Stevens and Co., the builders who did extensive restorations a few years ago) for the information that three ceilings had to be cleared away to open it up. Of the two windows, the small one was found almost in its present condition, but the large is practically new except for two or three stones which gave slight indications as to size and design. The stone- work of the doorway is original, and one half of the fireplace exists as Huttoft left it.

At the north end of this room a screen shuts off one passage and carries another on the first floor which later probably served as a gallery for musicians on festive occasions ; and it is thought that the main staircase of the house may have been in the place now occupied by the staircase of the caretaker's rooms ascending to the west end of the gallery, from the opposite end of which three or four steps led up to the rooms over the Great Hall. This would be quite in accordance with what we know about staircases of periods anterior to Elizabeth's time ; they were small and insignificant, often tortuous, and seldom decorated in any way.

The arrangement of the first floor rooms and those in the roof does not call for any detailed description, but the elaborately arched and panelled ceilings of oak should l^ noticed, and also a large cupboard on the right hand side at the top of the attic stairs. This it is conjectured, may have been what is called a " Priest's Hole," or place of refuge during the persecution of Roman Catholics in the days of Henry the Eight and Queen Elizabeth, but to my mind this is not probable.* A real hiding place of this kind existed till 1912 at No. 17, High Street, where there were considerable remains of a house once occupied

'Since Mr. K. Macdonald Lucas wrotetbis, the removal of the panelling at the side of a cupboard in the North-Kast first floor room of Tudor House has revealed the entrance to a hidden way to the floor above. Many ancient bouses contain these quaint passages and hidie-holes, the commonest beintt the Priest's Koom, from which the Rev. Father emerged to practice the rites of tbe forbidden religion While not necessarily an escape for priests, this secret passage speaks of the curiously furtive life which the gentlemen of England were compelled to lead in the late 16th and I7th centuries— Roman Catholics at first, ai>d later those who " held for the King."

THE TUDOR HOUSE

by Charles I., but this house was entirely destroyed in the year mentioned to make way for furniture - showrooms.

In Huttoft's time oak was in general use both for ships and houses, and very often when ships were broken up, their timbers were used again on land. In the floor over the cellars, near the arched fireplace, may be seen timbers that have served previous uses ; and there are probably more in the building that have spent many years at sea. Here and there are quaint bits of carving representing foliage, grotesque figures or animals. Huttoft's son-in-law, an Italian named Guidotti, may have had a hand in this if, as I surmise, he lived at No. 50, High Street, and appreciated spirited carving such as may be seen in the two magnificent fireplaces, now in the Magistrates and Barristers' rooms at the Guildhall Offices, Bargate Street. These fireplaces were rescued at a cost of only £60 from the former building during alterations which were made in 1906.

The upright timbering now visible in the internal walls may have been originally covered with plaster or tapestry, such having been the custom in the middle ages.

After a careful study of the building it is pleasant, and by no means difficult to conjure up a mental vision, hazy but still alluring, of a Tudor household, and of the respected Master Henry Huttoft building for himself and his family a house and offices worthy of his position as Chief Customer of Southampton and sometime Mayor of the town ; and for the pleasure we derive from such dreams of bygone days we owe him our gratitude for having built so lastingly and well.

THE NORMAN HOUSE

THE NORiMAiN HOUSE

HISTORICALLY DESCRIBED BY PROFESSOR F. J. C. HEARNSHAW, M.A., LL.D.

ITS TRADITIONAL NAME : "KING JOHN'S PALACE."

The popular name of the Norman House at the present day is " King John's Palace." This name would have suited it well if it had ever been a palace, and if it had had any association with King John ; but as we have no cause to suppose that it had any connection whatsoever either with John or any other king, the name is open to the objection which Voltaire urged against the term "Holy Roman Empire" viz: that each individual portion of it connotes a distinct and separate historical error. If we ask how and when the erroneous name "King John's Palace" became attached to the Norman House, I think that we shall have to place responsibility upon Mr. John Duthy, who in his "Sketches of Hampshire," published posthumously in 1839, wrote concerning this building : — *We venture the conjecture that it was a royal palace, and though we cannot even guess at the date of its found- ation, or the name of its first possessor, there seems suffi- cient reason to conclude that it was inhabited by King John on the occasions of his not unfrequent visits to the town." Mr. Duthy admits that he is merely making a conjecture ; but as he proceeds to give the grounds of his supposition it is necessary that we consider them.

Mr. Duthy finds in the Close Rolls of the thirteenth century two facts ; first that the King had some houses in Southampton, and secondly that they were situated upon or close to a quay. In 1222 the bailiffs of South- ampton were ordered to repair, "our quay in front of our houses," and two years later they were again commanded to attend to " our quay at Southampton, lest In- means of that quay some damage accrue to our houses at South - ampton." Now Mr. Duthy rightly concludes that the

THE NORMAN HOUSE

terms of these extracts from the Close Rolls prevent us from identifying the King's houses either with the Castle itself on the one hand, since that stood high above any reach of the water, or with the Norman building (mis- called "Canute's Palace") in Porter's Lane, on the other hand, since the quay near which that stands was not constructed till the thirteenth century.

Hence Mr. Duthy infers that " King John's Palace " near the West Quay must be alluded to : but he fails to note two points which to my mind irresistibly lead to a different conclusion. In the first place, he does not remark that the quay, equally with the houses, is called the King's : it is " Kayum nostrum." In the second place, he ignores the significance of the fact that in the Close Rolls for both 1214 and 1215 the quay is expressly called "Kayum castri nostri " i.e. the quay of the King's Castle. Now the quay known as the West Quay, which faces "King John's Palace," was the town quay and not the King's quay. Moreover it did not serve the Castle, which had a quay of its own, known as the Barbycan. Hence I conclude that the "King's houses" abutted upon the Castle quay and were in fact none other than the Castle outbuildings which lay along the shore at the foot of the castle mound, between the sites now occupied by the forty steps to the North and Corporation workmen's cottages to the South. It is quite possible that the still -existing vaults on the western esplanade formed a part of these King's houses. For, as Mr. Hudson Turner, the eminent authority on Mediaival Architecture, remarks, "it is well known that the term 'domus' was applied to various structures raised within the enceinte of a Mediaeval fortress" and was by no means confined to dwelling-houses.

I see, then, no reason at all for accepting the " conjecture " that the Norman house at the bottom of Blue Anchor Lane was ever a " King's house," still less a " Royal Palace." It has interest enough of its own as a very early example of Norman domestic architecture, without attaching to it baseless legends connecting it with King John or any other monarch more respectable than King John.

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THE NORMAN HOUSE

The Norman and Angevin Kings, on the occasions of their visits to Southampton, would no doubt always stay at the Castle, and not in any low -lying, undefended house. This is not wholly a matter of conjecture, for the one royal letter dated from Southampton which remains to us, \ iz. that of Henry V. to the King of France, is inscribed from the "Chastel de Hantonne au rivage de la mer." We may dismiss, then, from our minds as devoid of historical foundation the legend that the Norman house was a "Royal Palace" of any King whatsoever, whether Angevin or earlier than Angevin.

ITS HISTORY.

The date of the building of the Norman house is assigned by Mr. Hudson Turner to the first half of the twelfth century. These are his words : *' It is nearly perfect, except the roof, and is probably one of the oldest houses remaining in England, being of rather earlier character than either the Jews' house at Lincoln, or those at Christ Church in Hampshire, lioothby Pagnell in Lincolnshire, or Minster in the Isle of Thanet, all well- known instances of the domestic architecture of England in the twelfth century, many of them belonging to the latter part, whilst the present example may perhaps be safely referred to the earlier half of that century."

Of the history of the Norman house during the first two centuries of its existence we know nothing. Nor do we know anything of its successive inhabitants, though the structure of the basement of the house suggests that they were merchants whose business lay upon the West Quay, whether it were import of wine or export of wool, or both. The first incident in its career which is reasonably certain is that, in common with many other houses in the south-west quarter of the town, it met with disaster at the hands of the French on 4th October, 1337. On that day the town of Southampton was sacked and all but ruined. The event made a great sensation tiirough- out England at the time and it is recorded in nearly a dozen contemporary chronicles. Stow, the Elizabethian

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THE NORMAN HOUSE

Antiquary, has summarised the more vivid details of the invasion thus : — " The 4th of October fifty galleys, well manned and furnished, came to Southampton about nine of the clock and sacked the town, the townsmen running away, for feare. By the break of the next day they which fled, by the help of the country thereabout, came against the pyrates and fought with them, in the which skyrmish were slain to the number of three hundred pyrates together with their captain, the King of the Sicilies sonne." To this young man the French King had given whatsoever he got in the Kingdom of England. "But, he being beaten down by a certain man of the country, cried out ' Rancon, rancon ' : notwithstanding which the husband- man laid him on with his clubbe till he had slain him, speaking these words, 'Yea,' quoth he, 'I know thee well enough ; thou art a Francon, and therefore thou shalt die,' for he understood not his speech, neither had he any skill to take gentlemen prisoners and to keep them for their ransome. Wherefore the residue of these Genoways, after they had set the towne on fire and burned it up quite, fledde to their galleys, and in their flying certain of them were drowned. After this the inhabitants of the town encompassed it about with a great and strong wall."

This statement concerning the wall means that the town's fortifications, which had hitherto been strongest on the landward side, were completed on the seaward side, where naturally the main brunt of the French attack had been felt. Hence over the west front of the Norman house was erected, probably with materials found in the ruined interior, part of that curious arcade work which still remains as one of Southampton's most remarkable architectural relics. Moreover the wide archways which had given entrance to the basement of the house from the quay were filled with masonry, only oillets being left through which archers could shoot their shafts.

From that date down to the present — a period of nearly six centuries — the external appearance of the Norman house has, in all probability, undergone but little change. The interior, however, has no doubt seen many mutations before attaining its present condition.

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THE NORMAN HOUSE

THE TLDOR HOUSE

HISTORICALLY DESCRIBED BY PROFESSOR F. J. C. HEARNSHAW, M.A., LL.D.

ITS LINK WITH THE NORMAN HOUSE.

The Tudor house is linked to the Norman not only by the circumstance that they are near to one another and form parts of one property, but also by the closer arch aio logical tie that the foundations and cellars of the Tudor house are of Xorman construction. It is probable that the Norman superstructure was destroyed in the great conilagration of 1337, and that on the base which survived a fourteenth century house was erected, which, in turn, at the beginning of the sixteenth century gave place to the present splendid half-timbered mansion.

ITS BUILDING.

When Leland, Antiquary to King Henry \TII, visited Southampton during the course of his extended tour round England and Wales, to which he devoted the eight years 1534-42, he remarked : "There be many fair merchauntes houses in Hampton, but the chefest is the house that Huttoft, late custumer of Hampton builded in the west side of the town."

He mentioned, in addition to Huttoft's house, four other fine houses, among them that of Guidote, an Italian.

Now there is every reason to believe that " the house that Huttoft builded " is'the present Tudor house. First, Leland himself tells us that it was situated "in the west side of the town " ; and Tudor House is the only con- spicuously fine house in that quarter. Secondly from a Muster Roll of 1544 preserved among the borough documents, we learn what arrangements were made at

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THE TUDOR HOUSE

that date for the defence of the walls. We find that Mr. Huttoft's garden came down to the walls of the town and we are able to fix its precise situation by reference to the other properties mentioned in order. The tower behind Bugle Hall was assigned to the coopers : the West Gate to Mr. Baker; the tower behind Thomas Marsh's to the vintners and others ; the tower " against Mr. Huttoft's " to the weavers and others ; and the tower next Bedille's Gate to the butchers and others. The tower "against Mr, Huttoft's " can only have been that which commanded the portal of Blue Anchor Lane, and Mr. Huttoft's garden can only have been that of the Tudor house. The date of the building of the house by Huttoft cannot be precisely determined ; but in an extant letter of his preserved in the Public Record Office he speaks of it as complete in 1535. Under date 16th June, 1535 he writes, " I have made little waste [of money] except in building my poor house."

ITS BUILDER AND HIS FAMILY

Now, who was Henry Huttoft, the builder of Tudor House ? Our local records do not tell us much. From the lists of borough ofificers we learn that he was sheriff in 1521, and mayor in 1525 and 1534. From the Burgesses' Book we discover that during his second mayoralty he conferred the dignity of burgess upon Anthony Guidotti, of Florence, "without the consent of his brethren and contrary to the order of the town "—a circumstance which led to Guidotti's expulsion from the burgesship in 1541, when Mr. Baker was mayor.

But if the Southampton borough documents tell us little, their deficiency is by a happy chance more than made up by the exceptional fulness of information which comes to us from the State Papers preserved in the Public Records Office, for it appears that Henry Huttoft attached himself and his fortunes to Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, and among the Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII, calendered by Mr. Brewer and Mr. Gairdner, are a score or more of letters in Huttoft's

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THE TUDOR HOUSE

own hand which reveal to us a good deal concerning the man and his affairs.

Huttoft obtained his appointment as collector of the King's customs in 1534 by favour of Cromwell. He was seeking it, however, as long before as 1522 through favour of Cardinal Wolsey. On 28th August, 1522, James Betts, of Southampton, wrote to Wolsey to announce the expected demise of Richard Palshide, the then customer. He begged Wolsey's support for Huttoft, who he said had been brought up and trained in the work by Sir John Dawtry, himself once customer, and he assured Wolsey that Huttoft was " a man of gravity and substance and one of the best in the town." Palshide, however, had twelve more years of life in him; and Huttoft had to wait till 1534.

During the intervening years, nevertheless, he was often engaged upon the King's business. In April, 1523, for instance, he was at Portsmouth consulting the Vice- Admiral concerning the detention of a merchant vessel which the Spaniards had captured and brought into Southampton Water. In 1524 he collected and sent up to London £182 6s. 8d. as a loan towards the war with France. In 1531 he accompanied the Earl of Wiltshire on an expedition to Spain, the object of which was to get hold of and destroy two enemies of the Government, sea-rovers, probably Papists supported by Spain, named Thomas King and William Calverley. For his trouble and expense he received from the Treasury £64 4s. Od.

In 1533 (18th August) began his extant correspond- ence with Thomas Cromwell, who at that time was just rising into power and importance. His first letter was concerned with Beaulieu Abbey. The abbot, Thomas Skevington, had just died, and Huttoft begged -and begged successfully — that John Browning, Abbot of Waverley, might be appointed to the office. " He will do his duty every way, " wrote Huttoft, " and if you knew his manner of living, you would be his assured good master. " A fortnight later he wrote to Cromwell again, thanking him for granting his petition and sending to him for transmission to the king a present brought by some

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THE TUDOR HOUSE

merchants from distant lands. This present consisted of " two musk cats, three little monkeys, a marmazat, a shirt of fine fabric, a chest of Indian nuts, and four earthenware pots called purselandes." In April, 1534, he was busily engaged in hunting down on Cromwell's behalf a certain Gilbert Pecock, warden of the Friary in Southampton, who had been marked down for punish- ment by reason of his anti- Reformation zeal. Before long he managed to secure him, and he sent him to Cromwell together with a letter begging favour for him on the ground that his behaviour had been good and his government of his convent excellent. That same month (April, 1534) Palshide, the customer, died, and Huttoft was appointed to succeed him. His letter of thanks to Cromwell is dated May 8th, 1534. Twelve months after- wards (I6th June, 1535) he was writing to his patron in a very different strain. His prosperity had received a rude and unexpected check. The blow had come from Anthony Guidotti who, we learn, was his son-in-law, "so taken in an unfavourable hour." Guidotti, who was an importer of wine on a large scale and a buyer for the King himself, had absconded, leaving Huttoft heavily bound for his debts. He wrote to Cromwell in a state of distraction : " An urgent cause of adversity," he began, " constrains me to desire your favour." Then he told him of the flight of Guidotti, in whose truth and honesty he had fully but mistakenly trusted. The desperate part of the case was that Guidotti owed the King £753, with another £587 customs duty soon to fall due. It was in respect of this that he begged Cromwell's aid. " You have known me about 25 years," he pleaded, "and never to have done contrary to my word and promise. For this unhappy Guidotti I have so entangled myself that unless you help me I am undone." "l will," he promised, " strain myself to the uttermost, but hope the King will be gracious to me and give me time." With the letter he sent his son, John Huttoft, to plead his cause in person. " Give credence to my son " he begged ; and finally, in a postscript : " Whatever becomes of me, be good to my son."

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THE TUDOR HOUSE

In reponse to this appeal Huttoft apparently obtained some relief, for on 25th January, 1537, he wrote to Cromwell : " I shall never forget your benefits to me at all times." The debts, however, in which his defaulting son-in-law, Guidotti, had involved him were still undis- charged, and the creditors were very troublesome. Huttoft, in fact, never managed to the day of his death to rid himself of this load of vicarious liability. In 1539 he sent his *' poor wife " to intercede for him with Cromwell. She carried with her a " simple and rude letter " from her husband in which he declared his " sorrowful state." One gathers that his health was failing at the time, for next year (December 1540) John Mille was made customer of Southampton in his place, and in 1542 he was dead. There is in the Public Records Office a memorandum, dated 26th April, 1542, of the " Debts owing by Harry Huttoft and Anthony Guydotte unto the King's Majesty." Guidotti's liabilities reach the very large sum of {6,Q51. For £l,Z11 of this total Huttoft is bound and in addition he owes ;^100 on his own account. That these debts had troubled Huttoft much more than they had disturbed the King's serenity is amusingly evident from a report of an interview which Huttoft had with the King himself at Kingston-on- Thames on 21st March, 1540. Huttoft enlarged on the villainy of Guidotti and was much surprised to find that the king knew nothing of the matter at all. However, the king cheerfully promised that, if Guidotti did not behave properly in the future, " his body should be punished."

Guidotti's debts were not the only source of trouble to Huttoft during his declining years. In 1537 his mercantile ventures suffered heavily from pirates. One of his ships, he told Cromwell in a letter dated 21st August, had been boarded off Scilly and completely despoiled ; another had been stripped by Spaniards as she was on a voyage to Bordeaux ; while a hoy laden with wheat had fallen a prey to the men of Dieppe. Further, he was involved in local quarrels. So early as October, 1534, he had been summoned to London to repel

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THE TUDOR HOUSE

charges made by his " adversaries." In 1538 he was engaged in a conflict with Sampson Thomas, his successor in the mayoralty, in which both the Bishop of Bangor, at that date occupying North Stoneham House, and Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, were called upon to intervene. In 1541 the unfriendliness of the mayor, Walter Baker, and the Corporation was shown by the harsh words (already quoted) with which they dis- burgessed Guidotti — an act which in itself was probably not distasteful to Huttoft. In 1541, indeed, the fortunes of Huttoft were clearly in the descendant. During the preceding year his patron himself, Thomas Cromwell, had fallen, and he had no longer a powerful friend at Court.

The great work of Thomas Cromwell during the years of his ascendancy (1533-40) had been the dissolu- tion of the monasteries. It is not marvellous, therefore, that Huttoft had become involved in the business. He was apparently a religious man, on excellent terms with the regular clergy. In 1533 he had secured, as we have seen, the appointment of his friend, John Browning, the Abbot of Waverley, to the Abbacy of Beaulieu. In 1535 (16th September) he and John Mille jointly wrote to Cromwell begging his favour on behalf of the religious houses at Beaulieu, Quarre, Netley, St. Denys and Mottisfont. He seems to have been on specially friendly terms with the last Prior of Mottisfont, William Crysse- church (Christchurch). That he himself had been a benefactor of the Priory of Mottisfont is shown by the fact that upon the soffit of the still extant pulpitum his arms as sheriff appear together with those of the founder of the priory and six other benefactors.

In June, 1533, he had secured for the prior a lease of King's Somborne Rectory for forty years at a rent of twenty marks a year. On 26th March, 1536, he wrote a special plea to Cromwell that, amid the general destruc- tion, he would spare Mottisfont. " There is much talk here," he said, " of the suppression of religious houses. Let me be a suitor for one, viz., the house at Motifunt where there is a good friend of mine with as good a

I8

THE TUDOR HOUSE

master and convent as is in the country." He realised, however, that his plea was a forlorn hope, and that the fate of Mottisfont as a religious house was sealed, for he added : " If none are to be reserved, but all must pass one way, please let me have it towards my poor living," He probably hoped to be able to make some provision for his friend, the prior. The priory was duly dissolved before the close of the year: but Huttoft did not get it It went to a more powerful claimant, Lord Sandys of the Vyne. Possibly as some compensation for his disappoint- ments respecting Mottisfont, before the close of the same year (November, 1536), Huttoft was made Keeper of the house and park of the royal manor of Wade, Hants, and bailiff of the same manor, with 6d. a day. On 20th March, 1538, Huttoft wrote an intercessory letter on behalf of Thomas Stevens, the successor of his old protege, as Abbot of Beaulieu. Perhaps it was not wholly vain, for though the Abbey was dissolved and given to Wriothesly, the Abbot (who had made himself complacent to the government) was consoled by a pension and a rich living. The religious conflict to which the dissolution of the m.onasteries gave rise was one of peculiar bitterness. In 1536 it led to the rebellion known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. Huttoft was one of those who received special letters from the government respect- ing measures to he taken for its suppression. Even when armed resistance was put down, hostility manifested itself in violent words. On 14th September, 1539, Huttoft was one of a bench of magistrates who examineda certain Edward F^oster, a gunner, concerning seditious utterances said to have been made by him, " If the King's blood and his own," he was alleged to have said, " were both in a dish or saucer, what difference were between them, or how should a man know one from the other ? " : and further, " If the Great Turk would give one penny a day more than the King, he would serve him against the King."

Concerning Huttoft's family, some slight informa- tion can be gleaned from these same Letters iitid Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII. Allusion is made to a wife

19

THE TUDOR HOUSE

and three children. Who the wife was we do not know. We gather that she survived her husband, and continued to live in the Tudor House. In 1550, however, the Gardens formerly rented from the town by Henry Huttoft were in the occupation of x^dryan Mason, parson of All Saints. The heirs of Henry Huttoft — or Whittoft as he is sometimes called — are mentioned year by year as Freesuitors of the Court Leet down to the year 1594. Of the three children mentioned in the State Papers, one was a daughter, married in an evil hour to Anthony Guidotti, the Florentine merchant. She must have spent several unhappy years during her husband's exile and her father's alienation. Guidotti, however, whatever his faults, strove diligently to discharge his obligations and make his peace with Cromwell and Henry VIH. W^e have a long letter written in Italian from Naples (20th March, 1537) to Cromwell in which he tries to win favour by reporting that he has arranged for twenty -five Floren- tine silk weavers to migrate to Southampton and to settle there in order to plant the silk industry in the town. He takes occasion to beg Cromwell's grace on behalf of his father-in-law Henry Huttoft, who he admits has "suffered enough " on his behalf. That Guidotti even- tually succeeded in satisfying the Government is evidenced by the fact that in April, 1550 he was knighted by Edward VI. for services to the State. He died in December, 1555. Fourteen years afterwards (March, 1569) his Southampton house, " late called my lady Guidotte's" — i.e. the home of Henry Huttoft's daughter — was in dangerous disrepair.

One of Henry Huttoft's sons was called John. Several of his letters, written from Southampton, sur- vive. His father's influence with Thomas Cromw'ell sufficed to procure for him Government employment. On 2nd October, 1539, he was appointed a clerk of the signet. In 1540 he received the exalted office of Secre- tary in the Household of the Queen — the Queen at this particular time being Anne of Cleves, the elect of Crom- well. We do not know what subsequently happened to John ; but his good fortune can hardly have survived

20

THE TUDOR HOUSE

the shock of the execution of Cromwell and the divorce of Anne.

A second son of Henry Huttoft was distinguished by the name of " Cokerell." He is mentioned once only in one of John's letters (20th August, 1537). We have no information about him.

I have dwelt at rather disproportionate length on the personal histories of Henry Huttoft and his family, because they throw light on the stirring events of the period, and because, though the materials for their construction lie open in the Public Records Office, no one else so far has taken the trouble to collect them and put them together. Perhaps the prolixity of personal detail is the more pardonable because there is so little to say respecting Tudor House itself.

ITS ROYAL VISITORS.

If only the old house itself could speak, what stories it could tell of the doings of the dozen generations who have dwelt within its walls or have passed athwart the Square beneath its windows. Tradition associates it doubtfully with two royal visits. Henry VHI. is said to have brought Anne Boleyn beneath its roof. Philip of Spain is supposed to have made it his lodging during his three days sojourn in Southampton (20th to 23rd July, 1554) prior to his marriage with Queen Mary at Win- chester. It is impossible at this late day either to confirm or disprove these legends. There is nothing impossible or even improbable in either of them.

21

THE GUARD ROOM

The Guard Room.

DESCRIBED BY W. DALE, F.S.A., F.G.S.

Immediately by the side of the West Gate of Southampton is preserved a large room which is commonly called the "Guard-room." Viewed from Cuckoo Lane, the exterior does not appear to carry with it any great air of antiquity. The room itself is on an upper floor, and the boarding of the outside has doubtless often been renewed. Upon looking at it more closely, it will be seen that the limits of the room are marked by stone work to a considerable h-eight, and that the super -structure only is wood. The flight of stone steps by the side of the Gate was evidently designed, not only to give access to the chambers over the Gate, but also to the room, the present entrance being only a temporary one cut through the flooring. The fine timbered roof is also ancient, and has a good effect when seen from end to end. A few portions of the old wattle and daub " walling also survive, particularly where it divides the room from the "allure" or passage which runs along the wall. To what purpose the basement was put we do not know. Possibly it was only used for Stores. It is evident, however, that there was an object in making this large upper room level with the walk along the wall, and in connecting it so intimately with the defences of the Town. Here was the great landing-place for Southampton, the West Quay. The Town Quay did not exist ; and thick mud banks as well as a more exposed situation rendered landing elsewhere difficult. The picturesque arcading a little further West was not done for effect but economy, the object being to make the wall wide enough for men at arms to walk up and down. There is little doubt but that this space for patrolling extended through the West Gate and to the arcaded wall, the " allure " by the side of the " guard room " being part of it. It must also have extended further, controlling, in fact,

22

THE GUARD ROOM

just that part of the Town most liable to attack. The arcading and strengthening of the walls date from the closing decades of the 14th Century, when our neighbours the P'rench were particularly hard upon us ; and we are probably not far wrong in assigning the guard - room to the same period, and in saying that it was constructed for the use of those who kept watch over the defence of the Town. It is but fair to add, however, that there are those who consider it was simply a room used by one of the Trading Guilds of the town.

The '' Undercroft."

DESCRIBED BY W. DALE, F.S.A., F.G.S.

This charming fragment of 14th century domestic architecture has been spared from destruction almost by miracle, workmen actually standing ready to destroy it in anticipation of the order to do so. When we consider how little we know of the domestic buildings of the middle ages, we must feel proud that Southampton can shew, within one stone throw, specimens of dwelling- houses of the 12th, 14th and 16th centuries. The " Undercroft " was not originally below the level of the ground, although the street has risen, with the lapse of time, above the windows. The apartment here preserved was but the ground- floor of a considerable house, and the steps which remain led to the upper apartment. At the period when it was built, stone was scarce in these parts, and brick -making not practised, so that the upper part was only timbered, and so has perished. The house was either the habitation of some important resident or was used for public purposes. As to its date there is no doubt, for by the side of the beautiful hooded fire-place, so like that in the " Novices" Room " at Netley Abbey, appears the "ball -flower" ornament in use only in the earlier years of the 14lh century. One of the corbels from which the ribbing springs is also the head of a woman wearing the wimple of the same period. Tradition has called this

23

THE UNDERCROFT

building " Pilgrims' Pit " ; and we know that the great religious house of Beaulieu had possessions in this street. In this part of Southampton great numbers of pilgrims landed to visit the shrine of St. Swithin at Winchester, and so to journey to Canterbury. The "Pilgrims' Hall" at Winchester was built for their accommodation ; and " Pilgrims' Pit," close to the landing place at the West Quay, may have been an establishment maintained by the Abbot of Beaulieu for the same purpose, and supplementary to the greater hostel of God's House further round the Shore.

The Norman Vault.

DESCRIBED BY W. DALE, F.S.A., F.G.S.

Just to the north of the ancient sally-port of the Castle is a fine barrel vault, of Norman date, and some 60 feet in length. Up to quite a recent period the only entrance to this Vault was by a small window in the Town Wall : but a few years since the doorway which gave access to it from the water was opened up by the Corpor- ation and it can now be entered and viewed in comfort. Situated between the Town Wall and the Castle mound, it was probably constructed partly to resist the thrust of the buildings near it; but its main purpose was to accom- modate the stores required for the Kings who lodged in the Castle, their retainers and guests. Through the doorway now available these stores of wine and food were brought in from the water, which then washed the shore ; and the inner angles of the door -way are rubbed round at a height which, allowing for the rise in the level of the floor, corresponds with the shoulders of the Norman labourers. The ribbing has been removed from the roof, as has the vaulting stone, if indeed it ever had any. The arch was turned by pouring hot lime on to a temporary roofing of planks, the impressions of which are as plain as on the day when the wood was removed after the lime had set. At the North end there are remains of stairs and a doorway to the Castle area.

24

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