The beautiful old church of St. Helen, filled with monuments curious and quaint, was formerly the Church of the Priory of St. Helen. This nunnery was founded by William Basing, dean of St. Paul's, in the reign of Richard I. The church, as it now stands, consists of the old Parish Church and the Nun's Chapel, formerly separated by a partition wall. The Leathersellers' Company acquired some of their ground after the Dissolution, and the old Hall of the Nunnery, afterwards the Leathersellers' Hall, was standing until the year 1799.
On the north of Broad Street stood the splendid House of Austin Friars; that is, the Friars Eremites of the Order of St. Augustine. The House was founded by Humphrey Bohun, Earl of Hereford, in the year 1253. It rapidly became one of the wealthiest Houses in the City; its church, very splendid, was filled with monuments. Part of it stands to this day. It is now used by the Dutch residents in London. The quiet courts and the square at the back of the church retain something of the former monastic arrangement and of the old tranquillity. The square is certainly one of the courts of the monastery, but I know not whether the Refectory or the Library or the Abbot's House stood here.
The next great House following the wall westward was that of St. Martin's le Grand, of which I have already spoken. It was a House of Augustine Canons. It formed a Precinct with its own Liberty. William of Wykeham was its most famous Dean. In the sanctuary Miles Forrest, one of the murderers of the two Princes in the Tower, died--"rotted away piecemeal." The Liberty survived long after the Dissolution.
Adjoining St. Martin's was the great Foundation of the Grey Friars.
They were Franciscans. Who does not know the story of St. Francis and the foundation of his great order? They were the Preachers of the poor. The first Franciscans, like the Buddhist priests, lived upon alms; they had no money, no endowments, no books, no learning, no great houses. Those who came to England--it was in the year 1224--nine in number, of whom only one was a priest, were penniless. They first halted in Canterbury, where they were permitted to sleep at night in a room used by day as a school. Four of them presently moved on to London, where they hired a piece of ground on Cornhill, and built upon it rude cells of wattle and clay with their own hands. Already the Dominicans, their rivals--Preachers of the learned and the rich--had obtained a settlement in Oxford. The Franciscans stayed a very short time on Cornhill. In the year 1225 one John Ewin bought and presented to them a piece of ground north of Newgate Street, whither they removed. Their austerity, their poverty, their earnestness, their eloquence drew all hearts towards them. And, as always happens, their very popularity proved their ruin. Kings and queens, great lords and ladies, strove and vied with each other to show their love and admiration for the men who had given up all that the world can offer for the sake of Christ and for pity of their brothers and sisters. They showed this love in the manner common with the world. They forced upon the friars a portion of their wealth; they made them receive and enjoy the very things they had renounced. It is a wonderful record. First, the citizens began. One Lord Mayor built a new choir for their church, with a splendor worthy of the order and of the City; another built the nave to equal the choir; a third built the dormitories--no more wattle and daub for the dear friars; other citizens built Chapter House, Vestry House, Infirmary, and Refectory. Their Library was given by Dick Whittington, thrice Mayor of London. Then came the turn of the great people. Queen Margaret thought the choir of the church should be still more splendid, and added to it or rebuilt it. Queen Isabel and Queen Philippa thought that the nave should be more splendid, and with the help of the Earl and Countess of Richmond, the Earl of Gloucester and his sisters, Lord Lisle and others, built a new nave, 300 feet long, 89 feet broad, and 64 feet high. Here were buried, as in ground far more sacred than that of St. Paul's or any acre of ordinary consecration, Margaret, wife of Edward I.; Isabel, wife of Edward II.; Joan of the Tower, Queen of Scots, daughter of Edward II.; Isabel, daughter of Edward III.; Beatrice, daughter of Henry III.; and an extraordinary number of persons great and honorable in their day. What became of their monuments and of the church itself belongs to Tudor London.