The Famous Christmas Celebration at Gray's Inn, 1594: Getting the Money and the Guest List Right.

In the Famous Christmas Celebration at Gray's Inn, 1594 series:

• Letters go out under Privy Seal.
• Getting the Money and the Guest List Right.
• the Coronation of the Prince of Purpoole.

After the first round of “Royal letters,” demanding tribute from the fellow members, reprinted in the previous installment of “The Famous Christmas Celebration at Gray's Inn,” a second was sent to recalcitrant subjects.

WHereas upon our former Letters to you, which required your Personal Appearance and Contribution, you have returned us Answer that you will be present, without satisfying the residue of the Contents for the Benevolence,...

They have accepted the invitation to join in the festivities but haven't made the suggested contribution “as may express your good affection to the State, and be answerable to your quality [social rank].”

The result of this, we learn, was more satisfactory. England's Lord Great Treasurer, and Queen Elizabeth's most trusted advisor, sent along a contribution worth mentioning individually.

By this means the Prince's Treasure was well increased; as also by the great Bounty of divers honourable Favourers of our State, that imparted their Liberality, to the setting forward of our intended Pass-times. Amongst the rest, the Right Honourable Sir William Cecill, Kt. Lord Treasurer of England, being of our Society, deserved honourable Remembrance, for his liberal and noble Mindfulness of us, and our State; who, undesired, sent to the Prince, as a Token of his Lordship's Favour, 10l. and a Purse of fine rich Needlework.

It is not for the quality of the present alone that William Cecil, the Baron Burghley, is mentioned, however. Since shortly after he entered Gray's Inn as a student in 1541 he became a special advocate for it at the actual Royal Court that the Prince of Purpoole and his courtiers were mimicking.

One of the principal goals of Burghley's government, since the ascension of Elizabeth, was to replace unskilled headstrong young noblemen, such as traditionally held office, and their haunch-men subordinates, with men well-trained in law and accounting. Toward this end he sent many a young man — common and noble — to his alma mater for training.

Who received the “ Purse of fine rich Needlework” we can only guess. The 10l. Surely went into the party fund.

The next order of business was to invite their ally, the Inner Temple, to join the festivities.

To the most Honourable and Prudent, the Governors, Assistants and Society of the Inner Temple.

Most Grave and Noble,

WE have, upon good Consideration, made choice of a Prince, to be predominant in our State of Purpoole, for some important Causes that require an Head, or Leader: And as we have ever had great Cause, by the Warrant of Experience, to assure our selves of your unfeigned Love and Amity, so we are, upon this Occasion, and in the Name of our Prince Elect, to pray you, that it may be continued; and in Demonstration thereof, that you will be pleased to assist us with your Counsel, in the Person of an Ambassador, that may be Resident here amongst us, and be a Minister of Correspondence between us, and to advise of such Affairs, as the Effects whereof, we hope, shall sort to the Benefit of both our Estates. And so, being ready to requite you with all good Offices, we leave you to the Protection of the Almighty.

Your most Loving Friend and Ally Grays-Inn.

Dated at our Court of Graya, this 14th. of December, 1594.

Henry Edward Duke, informs us, in his 1912 lecture on Gray's Inn,¹ that it is probable that the concept of Inns of Court and Chancery began to be realized during the reign of Edward I, in the late 13^th century.

The Inner Temple was so named because it was constructed around the New Round Temple (with chancel added) that replaced the Old built by the Knights Templar during the reign of Henry II. In order to confiscate to the crown the vast sums the Templars had come to store on the grounds of the various Temples in Britain and Europe the order was outlawed in 1312.

Hugh H. L. Bellot informs us² that by 1337 two halls on the Temple grounds were in possession of lawyers. By the middle of the 15^th century, several Inns of Court, including Lincoln's Inn, the Inner Temple and the Middle Temple, are referred to in letters as already being “ancient” (then a term of respect). The consecrated Temple grounds inside the city of London became known as The Inner Temple, the unconsecrated as The Middle Temple.

Bellot continues, stating that the Temple Round (temple and grounds) appear

to have been used by both Houses in common, and continued after [1638] to be one of the customary places where rents could be paid, mortgages discharged, and other contracts completed, and to be used as a place for lounge and conversation, for conferences between the two Houses,...³

He cites examples of doing business in the Temple in the works of Ben Jonson and Samuel Butler. He does not think of one other. The reader may remember this from Shakespeare's 1 Henry IV.

Iacke, meete me to morrow in the temple haule

At two of clocke in the afternoone,

There shalt thou know thy charge, and there receive

Money and order for their furniture,

The land is burning, Percy stands on high,

And either we or they must lower lie. [III.iii]

Curiously enough, being immediately next door, it is also likely where the young Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, resident at Gray's Inn, met to do the same business with his retainer Thomas Churchyard before sending him off to the Low Countries as his representative.

Doing business on the Round was forbidden a decade or so after Vere departed only to become the practice again sometime around the mid-1590s. Exactly when the practice resumed is not clear but a row of stalls and shops running from the south wall of the church to its eastern extent dubbed “Cloister Court” existed in 1596.

Surely, the famous Paul's Walk, at London's St. Paul's Cathedral, was inspired by the round. It can genuinely be said to have been England's first shopping mall. For decades, beginning sometime in the 1590s, anyone with public business or information strolled along the aisles of the cathedral and pasted notices up on the columns. Along the walls, inside and out, were stalls fit up as shops for every kind of ware. The place was a mass of shoppers, and weddings, funerals and other religious services were performed in side-chapels while the crowd went about its business and pleasure in the main body of the church.

Like any mall, we may picture it, about now, gaily decorated for the holy days.

1 Duke, Edward Henry. “Gray's Inn.” Six Lectures on the Inns of Court and of Chancery (1912). 186-219.

2 Bellot, Hugh H. L. The Inner and Middle Temple (1902).

3 Ibid., 223.

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