n consolidated
out of four others, which had been preached at St. Paul's Cross, on Good
Friday, and the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in Easter week; giving
afterwards a sermon of his own. At these sermons the mayor and aldermen
attended, dressed in different coloured robes on each occasion. This
custom continued till the destruction of church government in the civil
wars. They have since been transferred to St. Bride's Church. Queen
Elizabeth, in April, 1559, visited St. Mary Spittal, in great state,
probably to hear a sermon delivered from the cross. This princess was
attended by a thousand men in harness with shirts of mail and corslets,
and morice pikes, and ten great pieces carried through London unto the
court, with drums and trumpets sounding, and two morice-dancers, and in
a cart two white bears."

The priory of St. Mary, of St. Mary Spittle, contained at its
dissolution, about the year 1536, no less than 180 beds for the
reception of sick persons and travellers. Richard Tarleton, the famous
comedian, at the Curtain Theatre, it is said, "kept an ordinary in
Spittle-fields, pleasant fields for the citizens to walk in;" and the
row called Paternoster Row, as the name implies, was formerly a few
houses, where they sold rosaries, relics, &c. The once celebrated
herbalist and astrologer, Nicholas Culpepper, was another inhabitant of
this spot. He died in 1654, in a house he had some time occupied, very
pleasantly situated in the fields; but now a public house at the corner
of Red Lion Court, Red Lion Street, east of Spittlefields market. The
house, though it has undergone several repairs, still exhibits the
appearance of one of those that formed a part of old London. The weaving
art, which has arrived at such an astonishing perfection, was patronized
by the wise and liberal Edward III., who encouraged the art by the most
advantageous offers of reward and encouragement to weavers who would
come and settle in England. In 1331, two weavers came from Brabant and
settled at York. The superior skill and dexterity of these men, who
communicated their knowledge to others, soon manifested itself in the
improvement and spread of the art of weaving in this island. Many
Flemish weavers were driven from their native country by the cruel
persecutions of the Duke d'Alva, in 1567. They settled in different
parts of England, and introduced and promoted the manufacture of baizes,
serges, crapes, &c. The arts of spinning, throwing, an