5 
12 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
LONDINIANA. 
No. IV. 
HALIWELL PRIORY. 
HIS priory, of which f{carce a fingle 
veltige now remains, took its name 
from a well originally fituated at the eatt- 
ern extremity of Finfbury-fields, near 
which, in 1127, a houfe was built by Ro- 
bert Fitz-Gelran, canon of St. Paul’s, for 
the reception of fome Benedictine nuns. 
The lands which were given them, though 
not particularly extenfive in any one place, 
were humerous and fcattered ; and they 
had the patronage .of feveral churches. 
Richard de Blemeis and Stephen de Gravef- 
end, bithops of London, were among the 
principal of their early benetaétors ; but 
their createft friend appears to have been 
Sir Thomas Lovel, in the reign of Henry 
VII., who not only added to the houfe 
and revenues of the nuns, but built himfelf 
a fiately manfion in the neighbourhood. 
He died May 25, 1524, and was buried in 
a chapel he had himfelf fourded on the 
fouth fide the choir of the church, where 
till the diflolution of the houfe ‘two pricits 
faid daily maffes for his foul ; ard the nuns 
are related to have inferibed this diftich in 
almof every window of their church: 
All ye nunns of Halywell 
Pray for the foul of Sir Thomas Lovel. 
The following is as correct a lift of the 
prioreffes as can be now obtained : 
Clementia occurs about 1190. 
‘Agnes, 1239. 
Juliana, 1248. 
Benigna, .. + 
Tfabella, 1251. 
hriftiana, 1269. 
- « . .. Montague, fifter tothe Ab- 
befs of Berking, 1341. 
Ffabella Norton, 1390. 
Clemencia, 1445. 
Eliz. Prudde, 1474. 
Joan Lynde, 1516. 
Sibilla Nudigate, 1535. 
At the diffolution of the houfe in 1539, : 
the revenues appear to have amounted to 
fomething more than 340]. Its fite and 
appurtenances were afterwards folicited 
for by Henry Webb, and the application 
being feconded by the Queen, they were 
granted tohim and his heirs, by letters 
patent, on the sth of Augué, 1544. 
The demolition of the church appears 
to have been effected: foon after the fup- 
preffion of the monaftery ; and among 
other perfons who dwelt upon its fite was 
the Earl of Rutland. In Queen Mary’s 
; 
Londiniana. 
[May 1, 
Council-Book is the mention of a letter, 
> dated September the 7th, 1553, directing” 
her Highnefs’s Council at London to en- 
large the Earl of Rutland from ‘* the 
Fleet home to his houfe at Hallywell,- 
where to remaine till the Queene’s highnes 
pleafure be further known towards him,” 
_And four years after, on the 21it of O&o. 
ber, his wife, Lady Margaret Rutland, . 
was buried from > Halliwell at Shoreditch. 
Soon after this the family appear to have_ 
changed their refidence to Stepney. 
THE FLEET PRISON. 
The Fleet prifon is a place of great an- 
‘tiquiry, and was ufed for its prefent pur- | 
poie fo early as the reign of Richard I. 
At the time of the Reformation the frate-, 
fide was crowded with thofe who fuffered 
for religion 5 and it was alfo a receptacle 
for the unhappy victims of the Star- 
‘Chamber. Eut tince the latter was fup- 
preffed, in 1640, ithas been a prifon only 
for debtors, and contempt of the Court of 
Chancery. Members of parliament, whofe 
imprudence may have.occafioned them to 
-vifit this abode, have always been reclaim- 
ed by the Commons; though few in- 
ftances, it is probable, of the kind have . 
occurred of late years. In the middle of, 
the lat century it was a fafhionable fcene 
with fome of our bef novelifis, who de~ 
feribed its manners with fingular fidelity., 
And in 1780 the old building was de- 
firoyed by an infatuated mob. 
WEAVERS. 
' From the Rolls of Parliament of 142175 
oth pf Henry V., it appears that the 
“ epevers alicignes’ were not. only en- 
couraged, but chartered by Edward IIT.,. 
who when conquering France, feems. not 
to have forgotten encouraging the emigra-. 
tion of its manufaGurers. (See Rot. Parl., 
vol.iv., p. 162.) 
* BLOOMSBURY. 
The origin of Bloomfbury has not been. 
accounted for by the hiltorians of London. 
From record, however, among the ~ 
** Oviginalia’” in the Exchequer, it ap- 
pears that the King, in the eighteenth 
year of Edward H1., 1325, received the 
fealty of Richard the fon-of Richard de | 
Gloucefter, who defended himfelf for a | 
meffuage in the parifh of St. Giles’s in the 
Fields called Bloemundefbury. 
BRIDEWELL. ee. 
Bridewe!! Hefpital is well. known ‘to 
have been built by Henry VILL, for the 
reception of the Emperor Charles V>, and | 
as the place where the foimer very often J 
held his ftate. bat ae 
The fitting up of the interior, Tq 
gard to architeftural ornaments, was pro- 
bably 
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