Mediaeval Leicester/Chapter 3
III.
THE INNS.
IT is commonly asserted that, whereas the use of signs was generally optional, publicans were on a different footing from other traders in this respect. "As early as the 14th century," we are told by the writer on "Signboards" in the Encyclopædia Britannica, "there was a law in England compelling them to exhibit signs, for in 1393 the prosecution of a publican for not doing so is recorded." The reference seems to be to the case of Florence North, a brewer of Chelsea, who was "presented" in that year for not putting up the usual sign. But, whatever may have been the case elsewhere, it does not appear that any regulations of this kind were in force at Leicester before the year 1570. No doubt most of the early taverns would display a bush, or some other kind of sign, but the practice does not seem to have been universal. At any rate in 1570, when there were as many as seventy innkeepers in Leicester, the Governing Body of the town found it necessary to provide "that every common victualler of the town of Leicester shall set forth an outward sign of his or their victualling." This rule was applied in practice only to innkeepers.
The records of the Borough contain no allusion to the signs of inns until the 15th century. In earlier times the hostelries were described by the name of their owner or holder. We are told, for instance, that Sir John Chandos, "Knight of the Earl," was entertained in 1310 at "Stephen Giffard's tavern." And in the following year some of the Earl's household were feasted by the Mayor at the tavern of Roger of Glen, who represented the Borough in Parliament in the years 1301 and 1302. At other times they made use of "Henry le Mercer's tavern," "Simon of the Buttery's tavern," situate near the East Gate, "Walter the Tailor's tavern," "Robert the Porter's tavern," and the taverns of William of Grantham, John Cook, Walter of Bushby, and William Tubbe, who was Mayor in 1363, and who lived in or near the Swinesmarket, the present High Street. Another inn frequently mentioned in the 14th century was kept by a Frenchman, Hugh del Ile, or de Lyle, who came from Lille, entered the Leicester Guild Merchant in 1345, and kept a tavern somewhere in the North quarter of the town. It may be noted that "Kepegest" occurs as a Leicester surname during the 12th and 13th centuries. The common name for a restaurateur was then keu, cocus, or cook.
During the first three centuries after the Conquest, most of the Leicester inns lay in or close to the old High Street, for at that time, and long afterwards, the life of the community gathered round the High Cross, but as trade increased in volume and importance, the Saturday Marketplace, on the South-East side of the town, became a more populous centre than the High Cross, and during the 15th and 16th centuries many hostelries grew up in that neighbourhood. They were almost, indeed, rendered necessary by the regulations of the Borough, which laid down in the year 1467 that "all men, women, and children that bring horses laden with corn or other victuals to the market shall lead them out of it, as soon as they are unladen, to the inns."
The earliest mention in the Borough Records of sign-bearing inns occurs in the year 1458, when the Chantry of Corpus Christi are said to have received a rent of ten shillings per annum from a certain "hospicium quod vocatur Bell," and also a rent of sixpence per annum "de hospicio quod vocatur Gorge." This ancient hostelry of the Bell was situated in the Swinesmarket, the present High Street, and not on the site of the later hotel of the same name. In October, 1587, as we learn from the Records of the Borough of Nottingham, Richard Wright, of Cambridge, stayed a night at this old inn, and rode off next morning on someone else's horse — unless, indeed, he was speaking the truth, when he told the Nottingham Justices that he had bought it from a man, who lived at Kirby Muxloe, for £3 cash and £1 16s. 4d., "to be paid on this side Easter next." The Bell in the Swinesmarket was still existing in 1605, when the Chamberlains received a rent of ten shillings per annum from Thomas Nurse, butcher, "out of a tenement in the Swinesmarket in his occupation, called the Bell." The George also lay in the Swinesmarket. It was still in the possession of the Corpus Christi Guild in 1519 and 1534. The George, or George and Dragon Inn, existing in the 17th century, seems to have been situated at the angle of Friar Lane and Hotel Street.
In an undated Subsidy Roll of the 15th century, "the Lord Mungey" (Mountjoy) was taxed for "The Talbot," among lands which lay in the "South and West quarters of Leicester"; and in 1493 the Chantry of Corpus Christi paid a rent of two shillings to the King for "The Talbot," which they had let for 24 shillings a year, but in that year the name of no tenant was given and it seems to have been unoccupied. According to Miss Bateson, this was the Talbot Inn, which stood from an early date in Talbot Lane. But it was a common fashion to call any small piece of land after some creature whose shape it suggested, and the "Talbot" may perhaps have been such a plot of ground, called after the hound of that name, and both Inn and Lane may have derived their title from the land. Throsby speaks of the Talbot Inn as "the house at the Talbot." It is probable, however, that the Talbot Inn, which was standing in the 16th century in Belgrave Gate, near to the place where the Maypole used to be set up, and which in 1519 belonged to the Corpus Christi Guild, was so designated after the talbot's head that formed the crest of the Belgrave family. The "messuagium vocatum le Pecocke," owned by the same Guild, was probably not an inn, but the piece of land so called which gave its name to Peacock Lane, and to the Peacock Inn, in Southgate Street, that is mentioned in the i8th century. The "Antelope," in Humberstonegate, was also a piece of ground. North concluded from a Tradesman's Token that an Antelope Inn was in existence about 1666, but the sign to which he referred was that of a hart.
More famous than any of these inns is the Blue Boar, situated in the old High Street, at the corner of the lane which led to the Guild Hall. The tragic history of this ancient house is related elsewhere in this volume. It ceased to be used as an inn sometime after the events there mentioned, but remained long in existence, a very beautiful specimen of the domestic architecture of the middle ages, until it was finally destroyed by the hand of man in the year 1836.The most important of the other 16th century inns seem to have been the Angel, the White Hart, the Bull's Head, the Green Dragon and the Horse and Trumpet.
The most famous of all Leicester hostelries was the Angel, which stood in Cheapside, near the present Victoria Parade, and stretched back to the town wall overlooking Gallowtree Gate. In the year 1534 the Guild of Corpus Christi possessed a "tenement called ye aungell," and it is referred to in the Chamberlains' accounts for 1549. In 1550 "my lord Cromwell and Sir Richard Manners" stayed there, and in the following year the Earl of Shrewsbury; and from that time onward it accommodated a long succession of notable visitors. A curious statement is made by Nichols, that, in the middle of the 16th century, the Horse and Trumpet Inn was known as the Angel, and was sold, about the year 1558, for £26 13s. 4d. by John Cressey, glover, to John Stanford, butcher. Now it is quite certain that the Horse and Trumpet stood near the High Cross, and also that the historic Angel stood near the East Gate. It was described in 1586 as "l'hostellerie des faulxburgh de l'Ange," so that it evidently lay then on the outskirts of the town. Unless Nichols was mistaken, there must have been an old Angel of the High Cross, which took wing some time between 1558 and 1586 from the centre of the town to the East end, whereupon its former habitation degenerated into the Horse and Trumpet.
Among the distinguished guests of the Angel who are mentioned in the annals of the Corporation, chiefly as receiving civic presents of wine and sugar, may be noticed Henry, the third Marquess of Dorset, Lord Derby, Lord Talbot, Lord Morley (1557); Mr. Barker, Chancellor (1560); Mr. Day, the Town Preacher, and "another Preacher" (1564); Mr. Raven (1565); "A Scottysshe beshoppe whiche rode to the Courte in poste" (1568); John Hall, Auditor of the Duchy of Lancaster, (1590); the Earl of Huntingdon, and the Earl of Shrewsbury (1597); Lady Arabella Stuart (1605 and 1608); the Princess Elizabeth, eldest daughter of King James I. (1606); John Frederick, Prince of Wirtenberg (1608); Sir Oliver Cromwell, and "my lord Cavendishe and his lady who lay at the Angell and dined yesterday at the Abbey with Sir Henry and a sort of gallons that came with them" (1613); Sir William Herrick and his lady, (1622); Prince Charles Louis, son of the Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia, and nephew of Charles I. (1636); the Earl of Arundel (1639); and the Earl of Stamford (1642). The account of the visit of Prince Charles Louis, contained in the Hall Book for 1636, may be worth quoting as an example of civic hospitality. "Upon the twelfth day of August 1636, Ludovicus Prince Palsgrave of the Rhine did dine at the Angell in Leicester, coming from our royal King Charles" (who was then at Tutbury), "to go to Holmby, where the Queen then lay at. The Mayor, Recorder and most of the Four-and-twenty went thither and presented unto him a banquet presently after the meat was taken from his table, which cost £23, and something more; and three gallons of Canary sack, three gallons of Claret, and three gallons of white wine; which was very kindly accepted of by the Prince, and Mr. Mayor, Mr. Recorder, and his brethren most courteously used by him."
The bells of St. Martin's Church were rung sometimes to celebrate the arrival at the Angel of an illustrious visitor, as when the Countess of Huntingdon alighted there at Christmas 1626, and when the Bishop of York arrived in 1630. Before the Recorder's Chamber was fitted up at the Guildhall in 1582, Mr. Recorder stayed at the Angel, as in 1580; it was also used as the resort of various Commissioners, and for other business purposes. Thus, when there was an invasion scare in 1580, Mr. Mayor and other Justices took wine at the Angel, on meeting there the Justices of the Shire "about the demilances and light horse that certain of the Mayor's brethren by the Council were charged to find." In 1584 Mr. Skevington and Mr. Wensley were at the Angel, "then sitting of a commission for Fenton"; and in 1587 the six Commissioners, who had been appointed to enquire into the decay of houses in Leicester town and the cost of repairing them, dined there on no penurious fare, but on "bread and bear, boyld meat, boyld bef, rost veall, caponettes, rabetes, pygons, frut and ches, wyne and suger, etc." Among the Judges, Mr. Justice Beaumont lodged at the Angel in 1598, and received from the Corporation a "pottell of claret and a pottell of secke"; while Mr. Thomas Cave, who was sitting that year "for the subsidy," received there a present of wine and sugar. And in 1609 there is a charge for wine and sugar given to the Justices of the County at their first sitting at the Angel in Leicester "about aide to make the noble Prince Henry, The King's Majesty's eldest son, Knight."
Even men of quality staying in Leicester for the races were entertained at the expense of the town. Thus, in 1603, a gallon of sack and 2 gallons of claret were given to "Sir Thomas Griffyn, Sir William Faunt, and other gentlemen at the Angel at the horse running." During the civil wars the Angel was the scene of great activity. It was probably occupied by Prince Rupert, when, after extracting £500 from the Corporation, he established his headquarters at Leicester in 1642. He had visited the town once before in that year, and received a gallon of white wine, one pottle of claret, one pottle of canary and one pound of sugar. In the Chamberlains' accounts for 1642 the following items refer to his doings:— "Item, paid, which was spent at the Angel by Mr. Mayor's appointment, when the Prince sent in carriages to be guarded by the town ............... v.s. od. Item, paid, for a dinner at the Angel for Sir Henry Hungate by Mr. Mayor's appointment, himself and diverse aldermen being then present there ............... j.li iiij.s. od.".. Sir Henry Hungate, it will be remembered, was the bearer of Prince Rupert's letter demanding £2,000 from the Leicester Corporation. Again in 1643-44:— "Item, paid to Mr. Browne for a pottle of sack, one gallon of clarrett and suger which Mr. Mayor gave to the Governer and certaine captaines at the Angell, and by his appointment ...... viij.s iiij.d."
After the defeated King had been delivered up to the Parliament, he was taken by the commissioners under a guard to Holdenby House in Northamptonshire, and on his journey thither he passed the night of February 13th, 1647, in Leicester, probably at the Angel, where lodging had been bespoken for him, if necessary. Thompson, in his History of Leicester, says definitely that Charles slept the night at the Angel Inn. His authority would seem to be a letter bespeaking rooms at that house "if no private house be available." Thompson gives the 12th as the date of the King's visit, but the letter, which is itself dated the 12th, says "He will be here tomorrow night." Sixty-one years earlier, another victim of destiny, more pitiable and more innocent than Charles, had stayed at the same hostelry. Mary, Queen of Scots, when she was on the way to her trial at Fotheringay Castle, arrived at Leicester on September 23rd, 1586, and the physician who was in attendance states in his diary that she lodged at the Angel. The Leicester Chamberlains' accounts imply that she remained there two nights.
A year after the visit of Charles, his Conqueror and successor was at Leicester, when the Mayor and Aldermen entertained Lt.-General Cromwell with "wine, biscuits, beare and tabacko," but history does not relate where he lodged.
In the year 1688 a feast was held at the Angel, which was then the house of Mr. Joseph Cradock, the Mayor of the town, in order to celebrate the birth of the Prince of Wales (afterwards known as the Pretender).
When William of Orange and Mary were crowned in April, 1689, the Corporation of Leicester celebrated that joyful event also by dining together at the Angel Inn, and entertaining there, at the expense of the town the neighbouring gentry "and persons of good quality and fashion." In the autumn of the same year another banquet took place, when the Earl of Stamford was entertained "at a feast at the Angel," and the Companies that dined there were paid for at the Corporation's charge, and such gentlemen as he should bring with him, and such other gentlemen and others were allowed every person sixpence apiece in wine. In 1707 the Union with Scotland was celebrated by a civic feast held at the Angel, and in 1715 the first anniversary of the Accession of King George was welcomed by a twelvepenny Ordinary at that Inn. At the celebration of his Coronation, and on the day of Thanksgiving for his Accession to the Throne, the municipal banquets had been held elsewhere on a more lavish scale. Indeed, the great days of the old hostelry were now drawing to a close. It seems to have been demolished some time in the 18th century, when another building was erected on a portion of the ancient site, occupying the centre of the large court-yard. This edifice remained, bearing the sign of the Angel, until the year 1854, when it finally disappeared. Some twenty-five years ago, it was described by an old inhabitant of Leicester in the following words :— "The front of this inn was in the yard which is now occupied by Morley and Sons. It was a posting Inn, and was occupied by Mrs. Whitehead for many years, her son conducting the business for her. After her death he became the proprietor. The sign, a hanging one, bore the representation of an Angel in vivid colours." The locality of the old hostelry is now pointed out only by the popular name of a partly covered passage from Cheapside to Gallowtree Gate, "the Angel Gateway." One surviving relic of this famous inn is a farthing token, issued in the year 1667 by Nathaniel Baker, which bears on the obverse his name encircling the figure of an angel, and on the reverse "1667 in Lester" — surrounding his initials N.B. conjoined.
About the year 1894 there was dug up on the site of the old Angel Inn a fragment of stone bearing the Arms of Hastings, Wake, Peveril of Cornwall and another coat.
The White Hart Inn is mentioned in 1547, when Henry Grey, of Bradgate, Marquis of Dorset, stayed there. At the end of the 16th century it belonged to the Herrick family, having been conveyed in 1570, with other property, to John Herrick for the term of 1,000 years for the annual rent of a rose flower. His eldest son, Robert, by his Will, dated 1617, gave the White Hart Inn to Dorcas, one of his nine daughters, who was then unmarried. It was valued in the previous year at £200, "which is well worth it and more," wrote Robert Herrick, in one of his letters. It lay outside the East Gate, and became a favourite place of resort in the early years of the 18th century. When George the First was crowned, in September, 1714, the Corporation of Leicester, after attending St. Martin's Church, and listening to an appropriate sermon, returned to the Town Hall, whence they were "to decently walk to the White Hart to an Ordinary," the Corporation to allow "a bottle of wine between two of all such as shall have tickets that dine, and as much ale as shall be then necessary." Early in the following year the programme was repeated, a hundred and twenty bottles of wine and a hogshead of ale being specially ordered for the occasion. On the Coronation of George the Second, the Corporation again dined at the White Hart, and celebrated the event with wine "and as much ale as Mr. Mayor should think fit and necessary." When the Assembly Rooms were built in the Haymarket, the White Hart was found a convenient place for fashionable gatherings. After a morning concert, for example, which took place at those Rooms in 1770, two hundred gentlemen adjourned to dine at that inn. In 1779 the Court of Assistants established for the Stockingmakers of Leicester held its sitting in the same building.
A Bull's Head is mentioned as early as 15 18, standing near the High Cross. Later, a Bull's Head stood next door to the Green Dragon in the Market Place, "a better house, three stories high, built of red bricks." A "Bull" Inn is mentioned in 1590.
The Green Dragon, which stood opposite the great elmtree in the Market Place, was probably an Elizabethan building. "It had a gable front, and was white-washed in the last" (18th) "century. The sign was a swing one, and bore the representation of a dragon, painted green." This Inn acquired some notoriety in later days on acount of the murder of its landlord, Fenton, who lies buried, beneath a caustic epitaph, in St. Martin's Churchyard. This epitaph, which reflected on the purity of the law, gave great offence to the authorities, and the Spiritual Court ordered the stone to be removed ; but this order was never executed. The story of Fenton's murder is thus related by a contemporary, William Gardiner :— "Among many persons that were returning to France I met with M. Soulé, who in the year 1778 shot Fenton, the landlord of the Green Dragon in the Market Place, Leicester. This person was not the man upon whom the Frenchman sought to be revenged; but was the brother of the landlord who had insulted him; and as it was known he came to challenge him, he was rudely treated by the family. In thrusting him out of doors he drew from his pocket a pistol, and shot the person that maltreated him." The jury by the direction of the Judge, returned a special verdict grounded on the plea that Soulé, or Soulés (who was a French teacher), went to the house in search of his property (a pistol which Fenton had taken from him). This plea was not allowed by the twelve Judges; but Soulés afterwards received His Majesty's pardon. Nichols' statement, that Soulés was killed by the Paris mob in 1792, is contradicted by Gardiner's account of his meeting the man in 1802.
The Horse and Trumpet was thought by Thompson to have been the large house near the High Cross where the whole of the inmates were killed during the siege of Leicester in 1645. In the following century, however, it seems to have developed Jacobin tendencies, for in the year 1754 the Grand Jury enquired why the persons who drank treasonable toasts at this inn, with the connivance of its landlord, had not been arrested. The popular Horse and Trumpet toast, at the time when Mayor Mitford was standing as the Whig candidate at the Parliamentary election of that year, was "Damnation to King George and Mitford." The house was described by Throsby in 1791 as "a large inn, now occupied as a private house." Afterwards it became a warehouse. It is said that Gabriel Newton, who founded Alderman Newton's School, was at one time master of this house, the signboard of which swung across the street and was attached to the High Cross itself.
The White Horse was in Gallowtree Gate, nearly opposite to the low rambling tavern, called the Magpie, that once stood on part of the site of the modern Victoria Parade. It had a large, swinging sign, which, as I am informed, bore a rhyming inscription, that ran something like this:—
"My White Horse shall beat the Bear,
And make the Angel fly;
He'll turn the Three Tuns upside down.
And drink the Three Cups dry."
In front of this house, in the road near the Causeway, was placed the stone coffin which was traditionally said to be that of Richard III., used as a horse-trough. William Gardiner said the stone trough, in his time, stood in the stable-yard of the inn. Celia Fiennes, at the end of the 17th century, forgetting the name of the inn, wrote, "I saw a piece of his" (Richard III.'s) "tombstone he lay in, which was cut out in exact form for his body to lie in; it remains to be seen at the Greyhound in Leicester, but is partly broken." The house at one time belonged to the Leicester Corporation, having been included in the Conveyance to them from the Crown contained in Queen Elizabeth's Charter of 1589, where it is described as "The White Horse in Galtregate alias Galtergate." It flourished for many years, and when it was pulled down in the early part of the 19th century, Mansfield Bank, which afterwards became the Stamford and Spalding Bank, was erected on the site.
Other 16th century inns were the Cross Keys, where the Recorder stayed in 1551, where, in 1553, the Queen's Solicitor was regaled with half a fresh salmon and two hundred oysters, and where, in 1589, gifts were sent by the Town Council "to certain players playing upon ropes"; the Star, which Mr. Woodall, the Queen's Receiver, visited in 1564, and 1565; the Fox, in the North Gate; the Swan, in the South Gate, older, probably, than the White Swan in the Market Place, the birthplace of a counterfeited Duke of Monmouth, which was pulled down about 1890; the Crown, situated in the old Swinesmarket; the Cardinal's Hat; the Red Lion, in Southgate Street, which was in its day one of the principal inns in Leicester; the Cock in Belgrave Gate; the ancient sign of the Saracen's Head, fronting the modern Hotel Street, which was demolished in the last century, and rebuilt on its old site; the Hare and Pheasant in the old Swinesmarket, destroyed about 1890, and the Mitre and Keys in Applegate Street. In 1509 one John Baker was tenant of a hospice "at the sign of the Lion" in the Parish of St. Peter. This inn may have been the Lion which stood where the sign of the King's Arms afterwards hung till about 1670. Silver Street, the old Sheepmarket, was formerly known as the "street on the backside of the Lion." The ancient inn called the Porter's Lodge, at the corner of South and East Bond Streets, was formerly the lodge at one of the entrances to the Earl of Huntingdon's residence in the Swinesmarket called the Lord's Place. The Bird-in-Hand in Red Cross Street, which is comprised in a Corporation rental of 1711, may have been a 16th century inn. The White Lion, still standing, is also an old inn, and so is the Bee-hive near the West Bridge.
The Eastward drift of civic life in Leicester, which has been noticed before, and which was caused not only by the increase of trade in the markets, but by other factors, such as the decline of the Castle, and the dissolution of the great Abbey and of the religious houses that lay within the town west of the old High Street or in its immediate neighbourhood, received further impetus in the 17th century from a very different cause. The course of traffic going from South to North, instead of passing, as formerly, through the town, became deflected outside the East walls. "The road running through Belgrave and terminating in Belgrave Gate at the Clock Tower, owes its existence as a main entrance into the town to one of the visitations of the Plague. The original road from the North turned off at the bottom of Birstall Hill, some two miles from the Clock Tower, and, passing the Abbey, entered the town by the North Gate, and emerged again at the South Gate. But fear of the Plague led travellers to take a side road by Belgrave as a preferable alternative, as by so doing they could pass by the old town, bounded by its four walls, without actually entering it on their way to the South or North. Hence it came into general use."
The visitation of the Plague referred to is that of 1669, but long before that time the flow of traffic must have been turned outside the walls, owing to precautions taken by the Leicester authorities to protect their town from the infection of the Plague which raged in London and elsewhere. As early as the year 1624 watchmen were appointed "to keep Londoners out of the town during the plague there"; and in the following year it was ordered that "no inhabitant should lodge any person coming from London or other place infected with the plague without consent of Mr. Mayor or the Aldermen of the Ward; neither shall receive or send any wares from London or other place infected without the like consent." In 1631 a considerable sum of money was paid "to keep Loughborough people forth of the town"; and the charges incurred in 1641 "in watching to keep the sickness from Leicester which prevails at Thurmaston, Birstall, Whetstone and Oakham," were no less than £46 8s. 7d. The gates and bridges were kept locked and chained. All these measures, preventing travellers from entering the town, must have furthered the use of the thoroughfare lying East of its walls; and the more important inns began to open their doors outside the ancient borough, in the neighbourhood of the present Clock Tower. The advent of the diligence about 1760, and the mail-coach, which reached Leicester in 1785, brought increased prosperity to the large hostelries which lay about that new centre.
The most celebrated of the coaching houses, besides the old White Horse, were the Three Crowns, the Three Cranes, the Lion and Lamb, the Nag's Head, the Golden Lion, the Swan with Two Necks, the Queen's Head, the Lion and Dolphin, and the Bell.
The Three Crowns, which stood on the site of the National Provincial Bank, was built about the year 1726, and was named after the union of the three crowns of England, Scotland and Hanover, which was effected by the accession of George I. It was a large building "extending a long way up Horsefair Street. It was three storeys high, containing about fifty windows, plastered and painted stone colour on the front. Its entrance faced down Gallowtree Gate, and its gateway into the yard in Granby Street. It had a balcony on the front entrance, where addresses were delivered at the time of elections. The sign hung at the corner of the house, bearing on it three crowns, and a sceptre in gilt. The house in Horsefair Street was guarded with posts and rails, and at the end of them was a Town Pump." The Three Crowns was one of the social headquarters of the Leicester Whigs, the other being its neighbour the Three Cranes; while the revolutionary and dissenting spirits used to assemble at the Lion and Lamb, the Bear and Swan, the Horse and Trumpet and the White Lion; although the last inn was selected in 1665 for a banquet that was presented by the Mayor to Captain Bassett, Commander of His Majesty's Own Troop.In 1745 the Corporation were sufficiently Hanoverian to hold their Venison Feast at the Three Crowns, and in the following year they met there to express by a banquet their thankfulness at the quelling of the late Rebellion. The Constitutional Society, which was formed in 1789 as a countermeasure to the Revolution Club, there enjoyed some of its dinners. Various business meetings were also held there, connected with the woollen manufactures, the circulation of base coin, the sale of the Town Gates in 1774, and the Leicester Navigation in 1791. William Gardiner offers us a casual glance through the windows of this inn at the close of the i8th century, which permits us to catch sight of the Due de Chartres, the father of King Louis Philippe, who happened to be staying there at that time, having come to Leicester to hunt with the Prince of Wales. On hearing the sound of music, coming from some local amateurs who were engaged in singing glees and catches, "he was curious enough to enter the room, and remain a short time as an auditor." In 1801 the annual meeting of the subscribers to the Leicester Permanent Library was held at the Three Crowns, "dinner on the table at half-past two."
The most important rival of the Three Crowns in the affection of Hanoverians was the Three Cranes, which stood nearly facing it on the Eastern side of Gallowtree Gate.
Although the Three Cranes was a favourite sign in London, the original name of this house seems to have been the Crane. It is so called in 1730 and in 1754. In 1759 and 1762 it is described as the Cranes, but thereafter it is usually named the Three Cranes, except in an official poster, where it appears as "The Cranes Inn." Possibly the Cranes became multiplied to match the number of Crowns over the way. It was from this house that one of the earliest of the Leicester mailcoaches began to run in 1764, the Flying Machine, which left Leicester at 2 a.m. and was timed to arrive at London the same night. The Venison Feast, and the Constitutional Society's dinners were held here from time to time, on one occasion as many as 900 persons sitting down "at the Cranes and Crowns." It is more worthy of record that a meeting was held at the Three Crowns in 1766, at which a resolution was adopted for the formation of an Infirmary at Leicester, and in 1771, when that institution was opened, the gentlemen dined at the Three Cranes and the ladies at the Three Crowns. The Cranes also witnessed in the year 1791 the birth of the Literary Society, which first brought forward the idea of establishing a Permanent Library in the town of Leicester.
One or two of the more illustrious visitors of the Cranes may be mentioned. It is doubtful if that epithet can be applied to "two princes of Mount Lybanus in Syria," whose charges were defrayed by the Corporation, and who received from the Town a present of ten guineas and an armed escort to Coventry. In 1768 the Cranes had a royal guest of more consequence. On the morning of Sunday, September 3rd, a carriage drove up to the door, and "a traveller stepped out of it into the principal parlour of that establishment. Walking to the window, the stranger threw up the sash, showed himself, and bowed with affability and condescension to the people assembled. He was about the middle size; he had light hair and a fair complexion. He was dressed in a light drab coat and blue waistcoat edged with silver, wearing on his breast a star and the ensigns of the Order of the Elephant. This was the King of Denmark, the unworthy husband of George the Third's youngest sister. Part of the Regiment of Horse Guards Blue were drawn up opposite to the Three Cranes to receive His Majesty, who called to the officer on guard, and conversed familiarly with him for several minutes." The Blues, it appears, were on several occasions quartered at Leicester, and their officers lodged at the Cranes. A few years after this episode a more romantic visit took place. "On Tuesday, May the 18th. Lord Townshend, accompanied by a gentleman and several servants, came to the Cranes Inn and remained there all that day and the day following. Lord Townshend sent expresses in different directions, and numerous were the conjectures as to the motives of his lordship's visit to Leicester. On Wednesday four postchaises arrived at the inn, bringing several ladies and two gentlemen, one of the former being young and exceedingly beautiful. After dining at the Cranes they all set out for the metropolis. In a day or two the London Evening Post cleared up all the mystery by making the following announcement: "Yesterday Lord Townshend was married to Miss Mountgomery. She is said to be about 17, and his lordship about 50 years of age."
The landlord of the Three Cranes, about this time, who was named Oliver, was Mayor of Leicester in the year 1762, and is remembered as the builder of the first house in Stoneygate and of the mansion on the hill at Birstall to which he retired.
Facing the Three Cranes on the other side of Horsefair Street stood the Lion and Lamb, whose biblical sign, alluding to the lion of the millennium, suggests a Puritanical origin. This inn became, at any rate in the latter years of the i8th century, a strong nucleus of dissent. There the Revolution Club held their fortnightly meetings, and there ministers met in 1789 and in the following year, to endeavour to obtain the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts, and to secure religious freedom. When the Revolution Club celebrated the hundredth anniversary of the landing of William of Orange, there were as many as 672 diners at the Lion and Lamb and two other inns.
The Manchester and London coaches, which commenced running in 1777, used to stop for the night at Leicester, at the Inn known as the Swan with Two Necks. This thirsty bird makes a fine Pantagruelian sign, and it is quite a mistake to suppose, as some do, that its name is derived from the two nicks, or notches, cut in the swan's bill to distinguish its ownership. This popular derivation is negatived by the consideration that these nicks were so small that they would not be perceptible on a signboard. The Nag's Head was not demolished until 1876. It stood at the junction of the old High Street with Town Hall Lane. An illustration of this picturesque old building is given in Mrs. Fielding Johnson's "Glimpses of Ancient Leicester." The date 1663 was over its porch. The Golden Lion stood at the corner of the old High Street and Thornton Lane. The Queen's Head, which displayed its sign in Town Hall Lane, at the east end of St. Martin's Church, was, in all probability, the house from the gateway of which the first stage coaches started from Leicester to Nottingham and London. It was probably the same house and the same sign as the Maiden Head, which is mentioned in the Chamberlains' Accounts for 1591-2. "Recd. of Wm. Hobbye for a messuage or tent, with the appurtenances called the Maydenheadd and a garden thereunto belonging lying on the East syde of St. M'tyn's Churche in his occupation." The Maiden Head is said to have been adopted as a sign by many inns in compliment to Queen Catharine Parr, the last wife of Henry VIII, whose family bore for a crest, "a female's head, coup'd below the shoulders, habited az. on her head a wreath of roses alternatively ar. and gu."
The Lion and Dolphin stood in the Market Place, and coaches used to start from its doors for London, running through Northampton, St. Albans and Barnet. These Post-coaches with postilions "on a new plan," commenced running in 1765, leaving London every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday mornings at four o'clock, and starting from the Lion and Dolphin on the return journey at the same hour on the same days.
At the end of the 18th century the Bell in Humberstone Gate was a great coaching house. Every morning the London stage-coach started from its doors, and another coach used to leave three times weekly for Derby, Buxton and Manchester. It was the rendezvous of the Whigs during the unsuccessful candidature of Major Mitford in 1754, on which occasion the windows of the Three Crowns and the Lion and Lamb were broken by riotous mobs. The inn at that time seems to have been sometimes known as the "Blue Bell," for one of the popular election rhymes which were then being sung at Leicester began thus:—
"As I was going to the Blue Bell
I met Major Mitford going to hell."
Few Leicester hostelries have found a place in Literature, but the Bell has acquired fame as the inn at which Drunken Barnaby was lodging, when he received such a severe lesson from the watchmen of Leicester:—
"Veni Leicester ad Campanam,
Ubi mentem laesi sanam;
Prima nocte mille modis
Flagellarunt me custodes,
Pelle sparsi sunt livores,
Meos castigare mores."
Perhaps, however, it was at the old Bell in the Swinesmarket that Barnaby put up. His visit to Leicester must have taken place some time before 1638, for it was in that year that his Journal first appeared, and the Swinesmarket Bell was certainly existing, as we have seen, as late as 1605.
The history of the old inns of Leicester can be sketched only in the barest outline. Wider research might, no doubt, discover many more interesting allusions to their ancient life, but their doings must remain for the most part closed in darkness, and the cheerful clatter of their busy days is now silent for ever.