In 1888, the writer William Rendle noted that the historic White Hart Inn in Southwark was nestled alongside a number of other historic inns, which included The Pope’s Head and The King’s Head, the latter at that time standing in ruins and facing demolition. The White Hart itself was not far off. Other inns at various times nearby included The George, The Talbot, The Tabard and The Queen’s Head. With its large number of inns and their close proximity to one another, this was where travellers, courtiers, merchants and anyone else needing a place to stay in London past the curfew bell headed.
The White Hart in particular has an interesting story, and was the site of a number of events in the capital’s turbulent past. It stood in 1450, when it was recorded by chroniclers as the place the rebel leader Jack Cade based himself, before he set upon London in a flurry of spontaneous ‘justice-seeking’ executions and burning houses. From the words of a Mr Payn, who was known to the Pastons, we know that not only Cade but some of his followers stayed here. Payn was captured by Cade, and lodged at the inn before being commanded to join the rebels in their attack on London. Cade of course rebelled against what he considered the ‘malicious’ people advising the king, then Henry VI.
 |
| The White Hart Inn, Wikimedia Commons |
The courtyard that Cade would have ridden into was large, the inn consisting of a quadrangle with rooms on three sides over three levels, and balconies outside the upper storeys. Not only did these walls and precincts witness Cade’s rallying of men, but also some of the most brutal actions of the early Wars of the Roses. The Greyfriars Chronicle states that a man called ‘Haywardyne’ was beheaded at the inn, while the decapitated body of James Fiennes Lord Say was brought to the courtyard. A similar fate was reserved for Cade, who shortly afterwards was apprehended, killed, and then presented to the woman of the White Hart, who correctly identified his body before it was sent for its ritual hanging and beheading.
The inn was also prominent during the early Tudor period. In 1529 Thomas Cromwell received a message to say that an acquaintance was waiting for him at the White Hart, and so it is likely that he walked through its doors to conduct business. In 1634 the inn was listed among a number of other establishments in London where churchwardens went drinking during Divine service and by 1637 it was a boarding point for coaches heading as far as Dover and Canterbury. In 1640 the inn witnessed some of its former aggression, with ‘traitorous assemblages, traitorous insolences of base people’, lodging here, with ‘soldiers’ recorded staying at the inn.
Tragedy came for the building in the later seventeenth century, with two fires that rendered it unusable. It seems to have escaped the Great Fire of 1666, only to have been seriously damaged during another fire in 1669. It was repaired, but just seven years later sustained another larger blaze that turned the historic building to ash. It was rebuilt, and regained some of its former glory by 1720, when it was considered one of the best inns in Southwark. By the end of the following century however it was a ruin and marked for demolition, no longer surviving today.
Like this? You might also like: The Medieval and Tudor Archers of Finsbury, London and Tudor Tourists: Sightseeing in Tudor London.
Would you like to find out more about the role of the inn during the Wars of the Roses, or Cousins' War? In Forgotten Women of the Wars of the Roses I talk about a number of innkeepers who gave well-known medieval characters places to stay, plates of food and looked after their correspondence. Grab your copy at the Pen and Sword website or ask your local bookshop. Order here.
Notes:
William Rundle, The Inns of Southwark and Their Associations, Longmans, Green, 1888
see also: Jo Romero, Forgotten Women of the Wars of the Roses, Pen and Sword, Yorkshire, 2024.
Comments
Post a Comment