Royal Visitors and Ministers
In the 16th century the area was connected to the court of Henry VIII. The king himself used a house on the south side of the Green as a base for hunting the wild bulls, stags and wild boars that roamed the surrounding forest.
In 1523 a resident of the north side of the Green, the future 6th Earl of Northumberland, Henry Percy became engaged to Anne Boleyn. At the time he was page to Cardinal Wolsey. Lord Percy had not sought permission from either his father or the king, causing Wolsey to scold him and his father to refuse the marriage. He later found himself a member of the jury that convicted Anne of adultery. His home, Brook House, stood at the northeast corner of the square. It contained a central courtyard and was decorated with gilded and painted wainscotting. It was later demolished, renamed Bishop's Place, and divided into tenements for the poor.
In 1535 Henry VIII's chief minister (i.e. prime minister), Thomas Cromwell, took up residence at Canonbury Tower to the south of the area, from where he organised the Dissolution of the Monasteries and their transfer into royal ownership. (Just a year later Cromwell was accused of treason and executed on spurious evidence.) Other Tower residents included, in the 16th century, John Dudley, Earl of Warwick and afterwards Duke of Northumberland, general, admiral, and politician; in the 17th century, Francis Bacon, the father of the scientific method, at that time the Attorney General, and Sir Thomas Coventry, afterwards Lord Keeper of the Great Seal; in the 18th century, Oliver Goldsmith, the writer.
Read more about this topic: Newington Green
Famous quotes containing the words royal, visitors and/or ministers:
“But while meditating
What we can’t or can
Let’s keep starring man
In the royal role.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Neighboring farmers and visitors at White Sulphur drove out occasionally to watch ‘those funny Scotchmen’ with amused superiority; when one member imported clubs from Scotland, they were held for three weeks by customs officials who could not believe that any game could be played with ‘such elongated blackjacks or implements of murder.’”
—For the State of West Virginia, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Only men of moral and mental force, of a patriotic regard for the relationship of the two races, can be of real service as ministers in the South. Less theology and more of human brotherhood, less declamation and more common sense and love for truth, must be the qualifications of the new ministry that shall yet save the race from the evils of false teaching.”
—Fannie Barrier Williams (1855–1944)