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THE MITRE, in Fenchurch street,
Was one of the political taverns of the Civil War, and was kept by Daniel
Rawlinson, who appears to have been a staunch royalist : his Token is preserved
in the Beaufoy collection. Dr. Richard Rawlinson, whose Jacobite principles are
sufficiently on record, in a letter to Hearne, the nonjuring antiquary at
Oxford, says of " Daniel Rawlinson, who kept the Mitre Tavern in Fenchurch
street, and of whose being suspected in the Rump time, I have heard much. The
Whigs tell this, that upon the King's murder, January 30th, 1649, he hung his
sign in mourning: he certainly judged right; the honour of the mitre was much
eclipsed by the loss of so good a parent to the Church of England ; these rogues
[the Whigs] say, this endeared him so much to the Churchmen, that he strove
amain, and got a good estate."
Pepys, who expressed great personal fear of the Plague, in his Diary, August 6,
1666, notices that not-withstanding Dan Rowlandson's being all last year in the
country, the sickness in a great measure past, one of his men was then dead at
the Mitre of the pestilence ; his wife and one of his maids both sick, and
himself shut up, which, says Pepys, " troubles me mightily. God preserve us "
Rawlinson's tavern, the Mitre, appears to have been destroyed in the Great Fire,
and immediately after, rebuilt ; as Horace Walpole, from Vertue's notes, states
that "Isaac Fuller w r as much employed to paint the great taverns in London ;
particularly the Mitre, in Fenchurch-street, where he adorned all the sides of a
great room, in panels, as was then the fashion ;" " the figures being as large
as life ; over the chimney, a Venus, Satyr, and sleeping Cupid ; a boy riding a
goat, and another fallen down :" this was, he adds, " the best part of the
performance. Saturn devouring a child, the colouring raw, and the figure of
Saturn too muscular; Mercury, Minerva, Diana, and Apollo ; Bacchus, Venus, and
Ceres, embracing; a young Silenus fallen down, and holding a goblet into which a
boy was pouring wine. The Seasons between the windows, and on the ceiling, in a
large circle, two angels supporting a mitre. "
Yet, Fuller was a wretched painter, as borne out by Elsum's Epigram on a Drunken
Sot : —
" His head does on his shoulder lean,
His eyes are sunk, and hardly seen :
Who sees this sot in his own colour
Is apt to say, 'twas done by Fuller."
References :
Lots of references are made to two sources on the
internet archive
:
Edward Callows, Old London Taverns &
John Timbs, Club life of London Volume 2
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