Greyfriars, p. 13). With others he handed over Leadenhall to the corporation in 1411, and he opened Bakewell Hall for the sale of broadcloths (Lysons, p. 84; Besant, p. 169). By his directions his executors, one of whom was the well-known town clerk, John Carpenter (1370?–1441?) [q. v.], who compiled the ‘Liber Albus’ in Whittington's third mayoralty (1419), obtained license to rebuild Newgate, which served as a city prison, on the ground that it was ‘feble, over litel and so contagious of Eyre, yat hit caused the deth of many men’ (Fœdera, x. 287; Rot. Parl. iv. 370). They also contributed to the repair of St. Bartholomew's Hospital and the restoration and enlargement of the Guildhall (Stow, i. 261). But they were directed to use the bulk of his wealth for the foundation of a hospital or almshouse, and the collegiation of his parish church of St. Michael de Paternoster-church. He had taken some preliminary steps in his lifetime, though Stow's authority for the statement that he obtained a royal license in 1410 does not appear (Stow, iii. 3; cf. Lysons, p. 84). In 1411 he gave land for the rebuilding of the church (Riley, p. 578). His executors obtained the consent of the archbishop of Canterbury to the collegiation of St. Michael's, which was an archiepiscopal peculiar, on 20 Nov. 1424, and on 17 and 18 Dec. issued a charter of foundation and regulations for a college dedicated to the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary, to consist of five priests, one of whom was to be master. They were to reside in a building newly erected east of the church, and say masses for the souls of Whittington and his wife, his father and mother, Richard II, Thomas of Woodstock, and their wives (Monasticon, vi. 739–41). Further endowments and rules were added on 13 Feb. 1425 (ib. vi. 743). Reginald Pecock [q. v.] became master in 1431. The college was suppressed in 1548, and the building sold for 92l., but its memory is kept alive by College Street. Simultaneously with the creation of Whittington College, the executors founded (21 Dec. 1424) a hospital between the church and Whittington's house for thirteen poor men, one of whom was to be tutor, and whose prayers were to be offered for the souls of the persons mentioned above, and also for those of the parents of the founder's wife (ib. vi. 744–7). An illuminated copy of their ordinances is preserved by the Mercers' Company, who manage the hospital now removed to Highgate (Rep. Livery Companies' Commission, 1884, iv. 39–44).
It has been Whittington's singular fate to become the hero of a popular tale which has found an ultimate lodgment in the nursery. The Whittington of the old ballads, chap-books, and puppet play started life as a poor ill-treated orphan in the west of England, and made his way to London on hearing that its streets were paved with gold. Arriving in a state of destitution, he attracted the commiseration of a rich merchant, one Mr. Hugh FitzWarren, who placed him as a scullion in his kitchen, where he suffered greatly from the tyranny of the cook, tempered only by the kindness of his master's daughter, Mrs. Alice. From this state of misery he was presently released by a strange piece of good fortune. It was the worthy merchant's custom when sending out a ship to let each of his servants venture something in it, in order that God might give him a greater blessing. To the freight of the good ship Unicorn Whittington could only contribute his cat, which he had bought for a penny to keep down the vermin in his garret; but the vessel happening to touch at an unknown part of the Barbary coast, the king of the country, whose palace was overrun with rats and mice, bought the cat for ten times more than all the freight besides. Meanwhile her owner, unconscious of his good luck and driven desperate by the cook's ill-usage, stole away from Leadenhall Street early in the morning of All Hallows day, and left the city behind him, but as he rested at Holloway he heard Bow bells ring out a merry peal, which seemed to say:
Turn again, Whittington,
Lord Mayor of London.
Whereupon he returned to his pots and spits, and, the Unicorn soon coming in, married Mrs. Alice, and rose to be thrice lord mayor of London and entertain Henry V, after his conquest of France, at a great feast, in the course of which he threw into the fire the king's bonds for thirty-seven thousand marks. The story of the venture of a cat leading to fortune is in one form or another very widely diffused. It has been traced in many countries both of southern and northern Europe, and occurs in a Persian version as early as the end of the thirteenth century. The germ of the story seems suggested by the mention of the custom of shipmasters taking the ventures of the poor whose prayers were thought to bring good luck. Ralston and Clouston claim a Buddhistic origin for the tale. One of the reasons adduced in support of this view is that in some of the older versions the cat is saved from ill-treatment by the person whose fortune it is destined to make. The English version has more in common with the Scandinavian
