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" Worthy John Lovekyn, stock-fishmonger, of London, here is layd ;
WALWORTH. 1 83
He died 1383, and was buried in the north chapel by the choir in the
church of St. Michael's, Crooked Lane, now pulled down.
His monument, defaced in the time of Edward VI., was renewed by
the fishmongers, June, 1562, with his effigy in alabaster, richly gilt, at the
cost
Street.
of William Parvis, fishmonger, who dwelt at " The Castle," New Fish
The epitaph ran thus
" Here under lyeth a man of fame,
William Walworth called by name,
Fishmonger he was in lyfftime here,
And twise Lord Maior (as in books appear);
Who with courage stout and manly myght,
Slew Jack Straw in King Richard's syght;
For which act done and trew contend
The King made him knight incontinend,
And gave him arms (as here you see)
To declare his fact and chivalrie.
He left this lyff the year of God
Thirteen hundred, four score, and three odd."
He left
money to relieve the prisoners in Newgate, and founded, in
the said parish, a college for a master and nine priests. He also augmented
with one mill, one dovecote, and 140 acres of land, the chapel of St. Mary
Magdalene at Kingston, which his old master, John Lovekyn (to whom
he had been apprenticed as stock-fishmonger), had founded. There is
something rather touching in this kindly act of remembrance on his part
for one in whose honourable steps he was treading, and to whom, perhaps,
he felt he owed much of his success in life. Indeed, by his epitaph in
Kingston church, Master Lovekyn seems to have been as worthy a person,
in his generation, as Walworth.
Four times of the city Lord Mayor he was, if truth be sayd
Twice he was by election of citizens then being,
And twice by the commandment of his good lord the King.
Chief founder of this church in his lifetime was he ;
Such lovers of the commonwealth too few there be.
On August the fourth, thirteen hundred and sixty and eyght,
His flesh to earth, his soul to God went streyght."*
The religious institution which these good men had established for
the poor did not survive the dissolution. In 3ist Henry VIII., Charles
Carew, the last master, was attainted of felony, probably some act against
the Six Articles, and died 1540; it is not improbable that he suffered
capitally. In ist Edward VI., 1547, the institution was dissolved, and came
to the Crown. f
*
Thornbury, vol. i. p. 335. t Manning's History of Surrey.