At the heart of the City, near Cheapside, the Guildhall has since the Middle Ages been the seat of London's civic government — the City's 'town hall'. Its Great Hall of the early fifteenth century, one of the few to have survived, was also the setting of some of the most dramatic trials in Tudor history.
The civic heart of London
The Guildhall houses the municipal power of the City: it is here that the Lord Mayor, the aldermen and the guilds who made London's mercantile power meet. Its medieval Great Hall, its crypt and its porch bear witness to the wealth of a city that, in Tudor times, was becoming one of the great commercial hubs of Europe. But this solemn setting also served as a court for affairs of state: when the Crown wished to try its enemies publicly, the trials were often held at the Guildhall.
The trials that shook the reign
Two cases have marked the memory of the place. On 18 June 1546, Anne Askew, a young woman accused of Protestant heresy, was tried and condemned here; tortured at the Tower, she was burned at Smithfield on 16 July 1546 — one of the rare cases of the torture of a high-born woman in England. Then, on 13 November 1553, under Mary I, the Guildhall saw brought for treason Lady Jane Grey, the 'nine-days' queen', her husband Guildford Dudley, her brothers-in-law and Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, architect of the English Reformation: all were condemned. To see: the medieval Great Hall, the porch and façade, the civic monuments and the medieval crypt.
Did you know?
When Lady Jane Grey was led from the Tower to the Guildhall for her trial, the procession was preceded by a man carrying an axe — but with the blade turned outward, away from the prisoner: the agreed sign that no sentence had yet been passed. On the return, the axe would be turned, edge towards her.
Notes
The Guildhall lies in the City of London, near Cheapside; seat of the City of London Corporation, with an art gallery and Roman amphitheatre remains nearby. Access to check according to official events.
Quiz
- What is the function of the Guildhall?
- The seat of the City's civic government
- A cathedral
- A royal palace
- Who was tried here for treason in November 1553?
- Lady Jane Grey
- Anne Boleyn
- Elizabeth I
- Which architect of the Reformation was condemned here in 1553?
- Archbishop Thomas Cranmer
- Thomas More
- John Fisher