THE STORY AND HISTORY OF DICK WHITTINGTON

“Turn again, Whittington,
Lord Mayor of London!”

Bow bells sang these words on All-Hallows Day many years ago, and on Highgate Hill a boy stood listening to them. If I ask you who the boy was, I am sure you will answer, “Dick Whittington.”

The story of Dick Whittington can be told in two very different ways: there is, first, the old tale which long ago men told their children, and these children told their children. Thus it was passed on from father to son, and we do not know that it was ever written down until the days of James I., nearly two hundred years after Whittington died. Of course, everyone who told this tale wanted to make it as interesting as possible, so little bits were added to it, and it gradually grew more and more wonderful. It is not surprising, then, that learned men have not been satisfied with it, and they have searched the Chronicles and Records of London to find out what they tell us of Richard Whittington, and thus a second story has been made. Now I will tell you first the older story.

Dick Whittington was born in the West of England. While he was still only a little boy his father and mother died, and left him so poor that he had no home, and was thankful to do even the hardest work for just his bare food. One day someone told him that the streets of London were paved with gold. “Can it be true?” he thought to himself. “Is there so much gold in London that it is trodden underfoot? Then it is my own fault if I starve here in the West Country, for am I not big enough and brave enough to tramp all the way up to London? Who could prevent me from picking up some of that gold which surely no one needs, or they would not pave the streets with it? And I need it so much! Courage, Dick Whittington; off with you to London!” So off he set, and tramped all the weary way to the great city.

When he reached it, up and down its streets he went, streets far narrower than those of to-day, and darkened by the overshadowing houses, for often each of their stories stood out a little beyond the story below. Very dirty we should have thought those streets, for people often threw out into them their rubbish and refuse. And what of the gold? Dick saw none. At last, utterly wearied out, utterly disappointed, so weak from hunger that he could hardly stand, he sank down to rest on the doorstep of one of the houses. Now the story says that presently the cook of this house caught sight of him sitting there. She was a bad-tempered woman. She flung open the door and scolded Dick well for an idle fellow, and bade him be off. Dick begged her to give him work so that he might earn some food, but she would not listen to him, and only scolded the more; and while this was going on up came the master of the house, a rich merchant, whose name was Hugh Fitzwarren. He asked the meaning of all these angry words, and he too was vexed to see a boy sitting idly on his doorstep, and bade him go to his work.

“Ah,” said Dick, “I have no work, and I have had nothing to eat for three days. I am a poor country lad, and here no one knows me, no one will help me.” And he rose up to wander away again, but he was so tired, so weak, he could hardly stand. The merchant saw this, and said to the cook, “Take him in; feed him well, and set him to work to help thee in thy kitchen.”

Now, she was, as I said, a bad-tempered woman. Her master’s orders she must and did obey, but if Dick now had work and food and a resting-place, he had also many a sharp word, many a sour look, many a cruel blow. Though he worked hard he could not please her. Indeed, in all the household and it was a large one the only person who was friendly to him was the merchant’s little daughter, Mistress Alice, who not only spoke kindly to him herself, but tried to make his fellow-servants treat him better.

Dick slept in a garret which was overrun with rats and mice; they were so bold that they even crept about over him when he was in bed, and prevented him sleeping. What could he do about this? In all the world he had but one penny; how he came by this penny I do not know, but I feel sure he earned it by doing some extra work. With it he bought a cat and took her up to his garret, and there she lived and made war on the rats and mice. Henceforth Dick slept in peace.

Whenever the merchant, Hugh Fitzwarren, sent a ship to trade with foreign countries, he allowed each of his servants to have some little share in her; each might send out in her some silk or cloth, or even a very little thing, whatever he had or could afford to buy; and the money for which this thing was sold was the servant’s own. This the merchant did that “so God might give him greater blessing.” Thus it came about that one day Dick was called with all the other servants, and each was asked what he would send out in the good ship Unicorn, which was now ready for sea. When it came to Dick’s turn, he said, “I have nought to send.” “Think again,” said his master; “hast thou no little thing thou canst spare? Hast thou nought to venture?” “Nought, nought,” answered Dick, “except my cat, and thou wilt not take her.” “Nay, why not?” said the merchant. “Send thy cat by all means.” So, though his fellow-servants laughed and mocked, Dick’s cat was sent on board the Unicorn.

Now he was lonely indeed; so lonely that the cook’s angry words and cross tempers were harder to bear than ever, and Dick made up his mind to run away. Very early one morning it was the Feast of All-Hallows while his fellow-servants were still fast asleep, he slipped out of Master Fitzwarren’s house and made his way northward out of London. On Highgate Hill he sat down to rest. Hark! what was that he heard? Now the wind brought the sound to him more clearly; now it died away again. It was the chime of Bow bells, and this is what it said to him:

“Turn again, Whittington,
Lord Mayor of London!”

Lord Mayor of London! Was he to be Lord Mayor? If so, must he not work faithfully, and, if need be, endure hardships yes, even such little hardships as the cruel words and blows of the bad-tempered cook? Up he jumped, and hurried back so fast that he reached Master Fitzwarren’s house before the cook had missed him.

The Unicorn had sailed to the Barbary Coast of Africa. The King of this country was rich and great, yet he was most miserable and uncomfortable, for his kingdom simply swarmed with rats and mice. They were everywhere, even in the beds and on the King’s table, where they ate the food which had been prepared for him. When the men of the Unicorn came to the Court to show the King the goods their ship had brought, fancy how surprised they were to see rats and mice here, there, and everywhere! “That cat we have on board,” said they, “would soon stop this.” “Then let the cat be sent for at once!” cried the King. So Dick’s cat was brought, and now in the palace, as once in Dick’s garret, she made fierce war on the rats and mice, and before long she had driven them all away. The King was so delighted that he bought the cat for ten times more money than he paid for all the Unicorn’s rich merchandise.

When the ship came home, here was fine news for Dick, no more kitchen-work for him; he was a rich man now. He became a merchant like his master, Hugh Fitzwarren, and by-and-by he married Mistress Alice; and, as Bow bells had promised him, he was made Mayor of London, not once, but three times. He was a good Londoner and a good Englishman, for the story says that when King Henry V. came home after he had conquered France, Whittington entertained him at a great banquet. Look at the picture of this which faces page 41; near the table a fire is burning, and Whittington is just going to throw something into it. How eagerly everyone is watching him, and well they may; for before the King went to France he had borrowed great sums of money from the City and its merchants to pay the cost of his wars, and now Whittington is flinging into the fire the papers in which the King had promised to pay back 37,000 crowns that is, L60,000 in our money. Thus he set the King free from his debt, or, in other words, gave him all this money. Was not this a princely gift for the great merchant to give the great King?

Now I must tell you what the Chronicles and Records of London tell us about Richard Whittington. He was indeed born in the West of England, but he belonged to a good family. We do not know why and when he came to the City. In those days it was certainly no disgrace for the younger sons of good families to be London merchants; for the City was great and prosperous, able to raise large sums of money to help the King in his wars; and we read that at a council held at the Guildhall about this very matter, to which came the Archbishop of Canterbury and the King’s brothers, the Lord Mayor was given the seat of honour above them all, so greatly was he respected because he was London’s chief officer.

All the workmen, according to their trades, had to belong to companies called “guilds.” Each guild had its own officers and made its own rules for looking after its members; and it had to see not only that these members knew how to do their work, but also that they did it properly and charged a fair price for it. We may still read the rules about all this made by the Guilds of the Blacksmiths, the Plumbers, the Glovers, and many others. Truly, the merchants and workmen of London were honourable and upright, and turned out good honest work. No wonder, then, that Richard Whittington became a London merchant.

He was a mercer that is, he sold cloth and silk and velvet and such things; and so we hear of him providing velvet for the servants of that Earl of Derby who afterwards became King Henry IV.

Whittington became a great man in the City, was Alderman and Sheriff, and from June, 1397, until November, 1399, he was Mayor. Mayor for a year and five months? Are not Mayors appointed every year in October? and do they not rule only for one year, from November to November? Yes, but the Mayor chosen in October 1396 died during his year of office, and the King, Richard II., appointed Whittington to take his place; and at the year’s end the Aldermen chose him to be Mayor again for the next year.

He was still carrying on his business, and when Henry IV. became King, and the Princesses, his daughters, were to be married, Whittington sold to them the cloth of gold and other things necessary for their weddings. He often lent great sums of money to Henry IV., and in later days to his son, Henry V., and in the reign of this King he was Mayor twice. He died in the year 1423; on his gravestone were carved some Latin words which mean that he was the Flower of Merchants. His wife’s name was certainly Alice Fitzwarren, but she was the daughter of a Dorsetshire Knight.

So you see the real Richard Whittington was a very great and rich merchant. But many another has been as rich and great, yet no stories are told of them; what makes Whittington different from all others?

First of all, he was Lord Mayor three times, or, rather, may we not say three and a half times? And then he was very wise and generous; he gave, as I have already told you, a library to the Grey Friars; and he arranged that after his death a great deal of his money should be used to help London. His friends, who had to see to this, knew that good water is one of the things most necessary for a great city, so they arched over a spring to keep it clean and sweet, and they placed “drinking-bosses,” or taps, in the conduits or channels and pipes which brought the water from country springs and streams into London. Newgate Prison was “feble, over-litel, and so contagious of eyre [air] yat [that] hit caused the deth of many men,” so Whittington’s money was used to rebuild it. It was also used to repair St. Thomas’s Hospital, and to make a new hospital or almshouse where always thirteen old men should live, who were to pray for Dick Whittington’s soul, and the souls of his father and mother and wife. These almshouses are no longer in the City; they have been moved out to Highgate, and stand not far from the stone which marks the place where Whittington heard the chime of Bow bells; and through them Dick Whittington’s wealth is still doing good to the poor of London.