Catalogue description Paper roll giving order of vestry Oct.12, 1707, to the effect that £40 should be...

Paper roll giving order of vestry Oct.12, 1707, to the effect that £40 should be borrowed at 6 from Mr. Tho. Herbert, apothecary, to pay off r. Simcock's annuity.

Signed, Jo. Himberley (vicar), Joh. Miller, Joh. Neale, John Holt and Abr. Gibbs (churchwardens) and others.

With further action relating to this loan.

(To "atturn tenant" (DR429/247) is to acknowledge by some formal act allegiance to a fresh land-lord.)

Ric. Taylor, "roper," or, as the mayor-lists describe him, "flax-dresser," evidently came to inhabit the West Orchard corner house, once occupied by the Davenports (DR429/251). In his year (8 Dec., 1692) there was a further accident to the spire, the south-east pinnacle - one of four - falling down into the church: "whereupon," the mayor-lists says, the Parishioners took down all the rest to prevent such accidents for the future." The zeal for destruction which just then possessed the citizens found vent also in the removal of a fine ancient landmark, the conduit, which stood, as will be remembered, just opposite this mayor's dwelling place. "The Conduit in the Cross Cheaping was removed from the Middle of the Street just below West Orchard end to a place that was formerly the Gatehouse of the White Bull, for which cause great difference in the Council-House being, all the Alderman except one were for continuing it, esteem'd an ancient Monument and Grace to the City, but the younger Pen in the House, who out-voted them, alledged it stopped the Passage and hindered the Prospect of the Street."

Ric. Hopkins appears in these deeds in his capacity of money-lender. He held a mortgage on the Brinklow property (253) and evidently foreclosed, as the feoffees did not pay up the sum required by the given date. He belonged to the hig Party, represented the city in Parliament, and, as we have seen, entertained King James in 1687. In the following year Princess Anne spent two days under his roof. "The Prince of Orange coming into England (says the "Mayor-lists"), and the Princess Anne of Denmark retiring from London for security, came hither on the eleventh of December, 1688, being accompanied by the Earl of Devonshire, the Bishop of London, etc., and near 100 Horseman, and entered this City at Bishop Gate, where her Royal Highness was met by the Mayor and Aldermen and the several Companies with their streamers, etc., where Thos. Hopkins, Esq., Steward, made a speech to Her Highness. Then they conducted her to the House of Ric. Hopkins, Esq., near the Drapery door, where she continued two Days and then went to Warwick. The same Day her Highness went hence, there was a strong report that the Irish that belonged to King James's Army were coming hither to cut throats, which terrified many very much, but none came, but men armed themselves what they could."