after much reluctance in view of Bonetti's indebted condition, to a lease for seven years in 1586.[1] As regards the butler's lodging, he was mainly interested in the reversion after Mrs. Pole's death, and of this reversion he granted Bonetti a ten years' term by a lease of 20 March 1585.[2] The holding is described in much the same terms as those used in Bywater's lease of 1564. The measurements, however, are also given. The length from north to south was 25 ft. 2 in., and the width from east to west 22 ft. 6 in. But 4 ft. 6 in. of the length and 2 ft. of the width were not covered by Mrs. Pole's lease, and were taken, probably by an encroachment which the lease was intended to regularize, from More's tenement to the west. For the sake of greater accuracy, the measurements and boundaries of this western tenement are given. It was 33 ft. from north to south and 39 ft. 8 in. from east to west. It was bounded on the north by More's yard, on the south and west by a house of Mrs. Pole's, on the south by the way to Sir George Carey's house, and on the east by More's house in Bonetti's tenure, that is to say the house which is the subject of the lease.[3]
Sir George Carey was the eldest son of Lord Hunsdon, and himself became Lord Hunsdon on 22 July 1596.[4] He is not traceable in the Blackfriars before 1585, but continued to reside there until his death in 1603. The way to his house corresponds in position with the way to Lady Kingston's house of the 1548 survey, and he had pretty clearly acquired some or all of her property, including the infirmary under the upper frater.[5] The way must have followed a line from Water Lane, much the same as that of the present Printing House Lane. The fencing-school was accessible from it by a door next to Carey's.[6] Certain other data of the early surveys are a little difficult to reconcile with those of the later documents. The surveys indicate three parallel rows of buildings, of a comparatively insignificant character, extending over a space roughly 80 ft. square between the frater
- ↑ Wallace, i. 189; M. S. C. ii. 122. I do not think the lease of the fencing-school was in question between More and Bonetti. Both Raleigh's letter and the workmen's petition imply house-building, not mere internal repairs. Bonetti could have added no building to the fencing-school except perhaps the kitchen which adjoined in 1596 (ibid. 61). But the western house had been extensively rebuilt by 1584.
- ↑ Ibid. 55.
- ↑ Ibid. 56. The whole description from 'All w^{ch} six foote & a halfe' (l. 18) to 'xxxix foote & viij inches' (l. 29) is parenthetic, a point which the punctuation obscures.
- ↑ Cf. chh. ii, xiii (Chamberlain's).
- ↑ M. S. C. ii. 124; cf. p. 490.
- ↑ Ibid. 62; cf. p. 504.
