From Threadneedle Street let us pass into Throgmorton Street, which not improbably derives its designation from the family name of the accomplished Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, who, from the circumstance of his having been buried in the neighbouring church of St. Catherine Cree, very possibly resided in this vicinity. On the north side of Throgmorton Street stood, in the reign of Henry the Eighth, a magnificent mansion, erected by the ill-fated Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex. In carrying out his favourite project of enlarging and beautifying his new domain, the great minister showed a disregard for the rights and comforts of his fellow citizens which is curiously illustrative of the arbitrary power of a royal favourite under the rule of the Tudors. "This house being finished," says Stow, "and having some reasonable plot of ground left for a garden, he (Cromwell) caused the pales of the gardens adjoining to the north part thereof on a sudden to be taken down, twenty-two feet to be measured forth right into the north of every man's ground, a line there to be drawn, a trench to be cast, a foundation laid, and a high brick wall to be built. My father had a garden there, and a house standing close to his south pale. This house they loosed from the ground, and bare upon rollers into my father's garden twenty-two feet, ere my father heard thereof. No warning was given him, nor other answer, when he spoke to the surveyors of that work,

but that their master, Sir Thomas, commanded them so to do. No man durst go to argue the matter but each man lost his land; and my father paid his whole rent, which was six shillings and eight pence the year, for that half which was left."

After the fall of Cromwell, his mansion and gardens were purchased of the Crown by the Drapers' Company, whose hall now occupies their site. It was from this company that the first Lord Mayor of London, Henry Fitz-alwyn, was elected. In their hall is a large and interesting picture, ascribed to Zuchero, said to represent Mary Queen of Scots and her son, afterward James the First. As the unfortunate queen, however, never beheld her child after he was a twelvemonth old, the portrait, of course, could not have been drawn from the life.

Lothbury, a continuation of Throgmorton Street, was, according to Stow, anciently called Lathberie. or Loadberie, probably from the name of some person who kept a court or "berry" here. "This street," says Stow, "is possessed for the most part by founders that cast candlesticks, chafing-dishes, spice-mortars, and such like copper or laton works, and do afterward turn them with the foot, and not with the wheel, to make them smooth and bright with turning and scrating (as some do term it), making a lothsome noise to the by-passers, that have not been used to the like, and therefore by them disdainfully called Loth-berie."

"This night I'll change

All that is metal, in my house, to gold:
And early in the morning will I send
To all the plumbers and the pewterers,
To buy their tin and lead up; and to Lothbury
For all the copper."

– Ben Jonson, The Alchemist.

This street, as well as the narrow and populous thoroughfares adjoining it, appear to have suffered dreadfully during the visitation of the great plague. "In my walks," writes Defoe, "I had many dismal scenes before my eyes, as particularly of persons falling dead in the streets, terrible shrieks and screechings of women, who in their agonies would throw open their chamber windows, and cry out in a dismal, surprising manner. Passing through Tokenhouse yard in Lothbury, of a sudden a casement violently opened just over my head, and a woman gave three frightful screeches, and then cried, 'Oh, death, death, death!' in a most inimitable tone, and which struck me with horror, and a chillness in my very blood. There was nobody to be seen in the whole street, neither did any other window open, for people had no curiosity now in any case, nor could anybody help one another. Just in Bell Alley, on the right hand of the passage, there was a more terrible cry than that, though it was not so directed out at the window; but the whole family was in a terrible fright, and I could hear women and children run screaming

about the rooms like distracted; when a garret window opened, and somebody from a window on the other side the alley called and asked, 'What is the matter?' upon which, from the first window it was answered, O Lord! my old master has hanged himself.' The other asked again, Is he quite dead?' and the first answered, Ay, ay, quite dead and cold!' This person was a merchant, and a deputy alderman, and very rich. But this is but one. It is scarce credible what dreadful cases happened in particular families every day. People, in the rage of the distemper, or in the torment of their swellings, which was, indeed, intolerable, running out of their own government, raving and distracted, oftentimes laid violent hands upon themselves, throwing themselves out at their windows, shooting themselves, etc.; mothers murdering their own children in their lunacy; some dying of mere grief, as a passion; some of mere fright and surprise, without any infection at all; others frighted into idiotism and foolish distractions, some into despair and lunacy; others into melancholy madness."

In the reign of Henry the Eighth, we find a conduit erected in Lothbury, which was supplied with water from "the spring of Dame Anne's the Clear," at Hoxton, but no trace of it now exists.

Tokenhouse Yard, Lothbury, was built in the reign of Charles the First, on the site of the princely mansion of Thomas, twentieth Earl of

Arundel, the collector of the famous Arundel marbles. He subsequently removed to a suburban mansion on the banks of the Thames, of which Arundel Street in the Strand points out the site.