Anon Londons Ordinarie 1629 ?

This broadside ballad “To a pleasant new tune” survives in a variety of editions.  The English Broadside Ballad Archive has two dated from 1619-1629 and 1630, while the Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads lists three further versions dated between 1674 and 1679. All of these include similar text which lists places, mainly hostelries (ordinaries) linked with the characters of the people who used them. Notably it is the spendthrifts who go to Beggars Bush – which is consistent with the literary usage of the phrase. It is sometimes connected to a song by Thomas Heywood, first published in 1608. For the full text see Londons Ordinarie.

Londons Ordinarie or Every Man in his humour

Through the Royall Exchange as I walked,
where Gallants in Sattin did shine:
At midst of the day, they parted away
at severall places to dine.

The Gentry went to the Kings head,
the Nobles into the Crowne:
The Knights went to the golden Fleece,
and the Plow-man to the Clowne.
. . .
The Keepers will to the white Hart,
the Mariners unto the Ship:
The Beggers they must take their way,
to the Egshell and the Whip.
. . .
The Hosiers will dine at the Leg,
the Drapers at the signe of the Brush:
The Fletchers to Robin-hood will goe,
and the Spend-thrift to Beggers Bush.

Text

There are four columns of four line verses with the second and fourth lines rhyming.

A portion of it, with some variations, under the title of the Tavern Song is included in the third edition of Wit and Mirth, an Antidote against Melancholy, a popular collection of songs collected by Thomas D’Urfey and published by Henry Playfair in London, 1682, and it is reproduced in collections such as Percy’s Reliques.

A version of London’s Ordinary is included in the modern edition of Larwood and Hotten’s, English Inn Signs, which includes elaborate and unconvincing explanation for the names of the two Beggar Bush pubs they list.

Usage

Notably it is the spendthrifts who go to Beggars Bush – which is consistent with the literary usage of the phrase.

The beggars do not go to Beggars Bush but to the Eggshell and the Whip, neither of which is recorded as an inn sign. The Whip undoubtedly refers to the punishments imposed on rogues, vagrants and vagabonds. The Eggshell probably arises from eggshells being a metaphor for worthlessness. In 1618 Sir Walter Raleigh wrote, “Without the Kings acceptation, both the publicke and priuate aduices be but as emptie Egg-shels”.

Ordinaries

Inns and taverns were places to do business. Thomas Dekker advised any man that “desires to be a man of good reckoning in the city . . . [to] take his continual diet in a tavern”. An ordinary was an inn serving meals, which were meeting places like the coffee shops. A contemporary description read;
An Ordinary is a handsome house, where everyday, about the hour of twelve, a good dinner is prepared by way of ordinary, composed of dishes, in season, well dresed, will all other accomodations fit for that purpose, whereby many gentlemen of great Estates and good repute make this their resort, who after dinner play a while for recreation, both moderately and commonly without deserving reproof.

Ordinaries and their patrons

The song is a list of occupations or characters paired with inns with suitable names. The associations are likely to be literary than real; there is no evidence that inn-keepers used signs to attract particular trades as clientele until the nineteenth century.

There are 64 inn names which probably all refer to actual inn names. There was at least one Beggars Bush pub in London in the reign of Charles II although the places do not have to have been real, and the associations are not.

There are contemporary records for inns using almost all the names. Also large inns such as the Mouth in Bishopsgate had many rooms, each with their own name, so the untraced names may refer to such rooms. John Taylor’s Carrier’s Cosmographie (1637) records inns used by carriers. He includes sixteen inns with the same or very similar names to those in the ballad, including the Maidenhead, Green Dragon, Axe, Greyhound, Ram, Swan, Bull, and Dolphin. Samuel Pepys between 1660 and 1665 mentions seventeen inns with names used in the ballad, including six King’s Heads, one of which was near the Royal Exchange, three Mitres, three Ships, a Goat, a Leg and a Hoop. Stow’s list from 1722 includes only coaching inns, but it lists fifteen names which occur in the ballad; the Crown, the Three Nuns, the Greyhound, the Ram, the Red and Black Lion, the White, Black and Four Swans, the White Hart, the Bull (and the Bull and Mouth) the Dolphin, the Axe, the Three Cups, the Pewter Pot, the Chequer, and the Vine.

Thomas Heywood

London’s Ordinary is sometimes connected to a song in the play The Rape of Lucrece by the playwright and poet Thomas Heywood, first published in 1608. Heywood seems to have been an expert on inns – he later wrote a list of the names of the fashionable drinking cups. There are superficial similarities; the first three lines are the same, as is the rhyming pattern. However, there is an extra syllable in each line of London’s Ordinary, Heywood’s song is much shorter, only 24 lines presented continuously.

The Bush and Pub Signs

An alehouse, with alewife and her bush, or “ale-stake”

A bush was a recognised sign for a roadside alehouse. John Taylor the Water Poet, who was known to Heywood, records dining at a Bush in Staines.

A real bush was probably the original sign for an inn. Small alehouses would brew in small quantities so could not always satisfy the thirst of their prospective customers. It is well established that in the medieval period proprietors of alehouses would put up a bush or other foliage on a stick to show that they had ale for sale. This possibly dates back to the Roman occupation, seems to have been common nationwide. In some places it was enforced by local orders. There is a record in 1613 of a female alehouse keeper “coming forth out of her house with a pitchfork and beating away a man that was cutting down her ale-rod”.

The use of signs was developing during the seventeenth century, perhaps to denote superior status and associated with the ability to supply continuously. In 1602 a writer recorded that inns used a box brush or an old post “but if they be graced with a sign complete it is a sign of good custom!” A poem of 1622 refers to “a bush and a sign”. An inn with only a bush and no sign may by 1600 have become indicative of a down-market establishment. Robert Greene in his pamphlet The Blacke Bookes Messenger (1592) in a list of cant terms used by card sharps & coney-catchers names “The Taverne where they goe; the Bush“. Notably these are not beggars, nor does Greene use Beggars Bush in this work, although he does in another.

A tract of the 1630s describes how “Mother Red Cap” may have a sign painted on “an aged piece of decayed canvas . . . if she aspire to the conceit of a sign”. Except for the largest establishments the signs were personal to the proprietor rather than staying with the premises. The images on such signs were sometimes taken from the heraldic devices associated with freeholder, or another powerful local patron, whose support for a licence as a Justice of the Peace may have been essential. Even where it was not association with such a person, or guild, may have been good advertising in a period when retainers still wore livery.

Sources

Ballads

“Londons ordinary: or, Every man in his humour” (Printers: Coles, F. (London); Vere, T. (London); Wright, J. (London); Clarke, J. (London); Date: between 1674 and 1679; Imprint: Printed for F. Coles, T. Vere, J. Wright, and J. Clarke)

There are three versions in the Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads
and two in the UCL Santa Barbara English Broadside Ballad Archive.

Mackey, Charles, (Ed.) A Collection of Songs and Ballads relative to the London Prentices and Trades ; and to the affairs of London generally during the Fifteenth, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, London, Percy Society, 18, MDCCCXLI.
see also “In ye Royal Exchange as I walked,” BL MS Add. 22603, f. 57

Inns

Lillywhite, Bryant, London signs: a reference book of London signs from earliest times to about the mid-nineteenth century Allen & Unwin, London, 1972
A Dictionary of London (1918)
Stow, W., Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster (1722)
Shelley, Henry C. Inns and Taverns of Old London, Boston (1909)
J. Larwood and J.C Hotten, English Inn Signs, London (1866, reprinted 1951)
George Redmonds, Names and History: People, Places, and Things, London, 2004
Clark, P., The English Alehouse: A social history, 1200-1830 (London, 1983)
Hayden, P., The English Pub, A History, London, 1994

Thanks

H. Forsyth, Museum of London

Posted: March 20th, 2011 | Filed under: Places | Tags: Ballads, John Taylor, London, Londons Ordinary, Robert Greene, Southwark, St Giles, The Oath, The Play, Thomas Heywood, derogatory, pubs | No Comments »