The church of St. Michael’s, Crooked Lane, standing a short distance from Billingsgate, is enriched with the tombs of many fishmongers of renown; and as every profession has its galaxy of glory and its constellation of great men, I presume the monument of a mighty fishmonger of the olden time is regarded with as much reverence by succeeding generations of the craft, as poets feel on contemplating the tomb of Virgil or soldiers the monument of a Marlborough or Turenne.
I cannot but turn aside, while thus speaking of illustrious men, to observe that St. Michael’s, Crooked Lane, contains also the ashes of that doughty champion, William Walworth, Knight, who so manfully clove down the sturdy wight, Wat Tyler, in Smithfield--a hero worthy of honorable blazon, as almost the only Lord Mayor on record famous for deeds of arms, the sovereigns of Cockney being generally renowned as the most pacific of all potentates.
* The following was the ancient inscription on the monument of this worthy, which, unhappily, was destroyed in the great conflagration.
Hereunder lyth a man of Fame, William Walworth callyd by name: Fishmonger he was in lyfftime here, And twise Lord Maior, as in books appere; Who, with courage stout and manly myght, Slew Jack Straw in Kyng Richard’s sight. For which act done, and trew entent, The Kyng made him knyght incontinent And gave him armes, as here you see, To declare his fact and chivaldrie. He left this lyff the yere of our God Thirteen hundred fourscore and three odd.
An error in the foregoing inscription has been corrected by the venerable Stow. “Whereas,” saith he, “it hath been far spread abroad by vulgar opinion, that the rebel smitten down so manfully by Sir William Walworth, the then worthy Lord Maior, was named Jack Straw, and not Wat Tyler, I thought good to reconcile this rash-conceived doubt by such testimony as I find in ancient and good records. The principal leaders, or captains, of the commons, were Wat Tyler, as the first man; the second was John, or Jack, Straw, etc., etc.”--STOW’S London.
Adjoining the church, in a small cemetery, immediately under the back window of what was once the Boar’s Head, stands the tombstone of Robert Preston, whilom drawer at the tavern. It is now nearly a century since this trusty drawer of good liquor closed his bustling career and was thus quietly deposited within call of his customers. As I was clearing away the weeds from his epitaph the little sexton drew me on one side with a mysterious air, and informed me in a low voice that once upon a time, on a dark wintry night, when the wind was unruly, howling, and whistling, banging about doors and windows, and twirling weathercocks, so that the living were frightened out of their beds, and even the dead could not sleep quietly in their graves, the ghost of honest Preston, which happened to be airing itself in the churchyard, was attracted by the well-known call of “Waiter!” from the Boar’s Head, and made its sudden appearance in the midst of a roaring club, just as the parish clerk was singing a stave from the “mirre garland of Captain Death;” to the discomfiture of sundry train-band captains and the conversion of an infidel attorney, who became a zealous Christian on the spot, and was never known to twist the truth afterwards, except in the way of business.