The Mirror of Charity, by Richard Grafton

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HE also builded a great part of the east end of the Guildhall, beside many other good works that I know not.*

But among all other I will shew unto you one very notable, which I received credibly by a writing of his own hand, which also he willed to be fixed as a schedule to his last will and testament, the contents whereof was that he willed and commanded his executors as they would answer before God at the day of the resurrection of all flesh, that if they found any debtor of his that ought* to him any money, that if he were not in their consciences well worth three times as much, and also out of the debt of other men, and well able to pay, that then they should never demand it,* for he clearly forgave it, and that they should put no man in suit* for any debt due to him.

Look upon this, ye aldermen, for it is a glorious glass.*

by Richard Grafton ?-1572

From ‘Grafton’s Chronicle or History of England Vol. 1 (1189-1558) (1809) by Richard Grafton (?-1572). Additional information from ‘The Model Merchant of the Middle Ages, exemplified in the story of Whittington and his cat: being an attempt to rescue that interesting story from the region of fable, and to place it in its proper position in the legitimate history of this country’ (1860) by Samuel Lysons (1806-1877); ‘The History of Whittington, by T.H.’ (1885) ed. H. G. Wheatley; and ‘A Survey of London’ (1842) by John Stow (?1525-1605) ed. William J. Thoms.

* In 1397, Whittington negotiated the repurchase of City lands confiscated by Richard II five years earlier. In 1413, he raised funds for repairs to the nave of Westminster Abbey. He helped fund the Siege of Harfleur in 1415 during Henry V’s Agincourt campaign (in which his nephew Guy fought). In 1420, at the marriage of Henry V and Catherine of Valois, the Lord Mayor threw £60,000 of the King’s bonds onto the banquet bonfire, some £50m in today’s money. Thomas Byttering’s setting of the hymn En Katerine Solennia was almost certainly written for the wedding, at which Whittington would be present as Mayor of London: you can hear it in the video that follows below.

* Ought is an obsolete past form of owe, equivalent to owed.

* That is, the executors should ask a debtor to repay his debts to the estate only if he had total wealth of at least three times the debt, had paid off all his debts to other people, and could readily raise the funds. Whittington left £7,000 to charity (about £3m today), some of which went on civic building works, including (as mentioned above) Whittington College and its almshouses, repairs to St Bartholomew’s Hospital and a library in the Guildhall, and also some of the first public drinking fountains.

* That is, the executors may request well-to-do debtors to pay up, but they must not initiate a civil action against anyone.

* “Alas, good Master Grafton!” wrote Thomas Keightley (1789-1872). “I fear it is a glass in which but few aldermen have ever dressed themselves.”

Précis

Grafton added one other act of Whittington’s that especially pleased him. In an instruction fixed to his Will, the four-time Lord Mayor ordered his executors not to bring any of his debtors to court, and to ask money only of those who could easily pay. Whittington, said Grafton, was a very mirror of the ideal City alderman.

Questions for Critics

1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?

2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?

3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?

Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.

Précis

Questions for Critics

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