“Hitherto, Mr. Geoffrey Barbican, I have quoted you an abundance of authorities which make mention of the history, or appearance, of London Bridge, but notwithstanding my researches I find only a very few ancient representations of it. If, however, you would see an interesting and sweetly-touched portraiture of it about the year 1500, look into that stout roan-coated folio, marked 16 F. ii. xv. in the Royal Library of Manuscripts in the British Museum, and you will be enraptured. The volume professes to treat of ‘Grace entiére sur le gouvernement du Prince,’ and it is written in prose and verse, in the common large black script of the fifteenth century, on vellum, with most noble illuminations, executed in the best style of the best period of the art in England, and by one of the most gifted of the Brethren of St. Luke. The Author of the poems was Charles, Duke of Orleans, father of Louis XII.; and this particular copy of his works seems to have been illuminated for Henry the Eighth, when Prince of Wales; for it not only contains numerous initial letters and borders richly coloured and embossed with gold; but in the frontispiece, on the first page, are his father’s well known badges of the red and white roses; the former ofwhich are supported by the white hound, and red dragon: with glorified white roses in the margin. The poems are divided into several books of various amatory subjects, as ‘Venus et Cupidon,’—‘Epitres d’Abelard et Eloise,’—‘Les Demandes d’Amours;’ and the second division of the volume is adorned with a large and beautiful illumination representing the Duke of Orleans in the Tower, sending despatches to his friends abroad. The Tower, wharf, and river before them, occupy the whole foreground of the painting; and in the back appears the East side of London Bridge, with numerous houses standing upon it, the Chapel of St. Thomas reaching down to the sterlings, and the violent fall of the river through the different arches; whilst, beyond it, rise the spires of several Churches, especially the very high one of old St. Paul’s, and the other buildings of London erected along the banks of the Thames. It is, indeed, hardly possible to give you an adequate idea of the spirit and beauty of this view ofLondon Bridge in the Year 1500,the colouring is so vivid and harmonious: a sky of ultra-marine blue is spread over the whole of the back-ground, against which the distant buildings appear in white, the nearer ones being touched with different shades of brown. You will, however, find a fair copy of this noble painting, engraved by Basire, in Gough’s ‘History of Pleshy,’ which I have already cited, page 193; and thesame platehas also been published as an additional illustration to the Rev. T. D. Fosbrooke’s ‘Encyclopædia of Antiquities,’ London, 1825, volume ii., page 923.“You must, doubtless, recollect that in November 1501, Arthur, Prince of Wales, and son to King Henry VII., was married to Katherine, daughter of Ferdinand V., King of Spain, and that on Friday, the 12th of that month, the young Princess was conveyed from Lambeth, through London, to witness the pageants which had been prepared by the Citizens to do honour to her nuptials. The whole City was full of triumph and splendour; and Stow, in his ‘Annals,’ page 482, says that on London Bridge there was ordained a costly pageant of St. Katherine and St. Ursula, with many virgins. ‘I passe ouer,’ says Hall, in a very brilliant paragraph, folio, liii a, and using that most powerful oratorical figure called Paralepsis, or Omission, which declares that of which it denies saying any thing:—‘I passe ouer,’ says the old Chronicler,—‘the wyse deuises, the prudent speches, the costly woorkes, the conninge portratures practised and set foorth in vij goodly beautifull pageauntes erected and set vp in diuers places of the Cite. I leaue also the goodly ballades, the swete armony, the musicall instrumentes, which sounded with heavenly noyes on every side of the strete. I omit farther the costly apparel both of goldsmythes woorke and embraudery, the riche jewelles, the massy cheynes, the styrrynge horsses, the beautifull bardes and the glytteryng trappers bothe with belles and spangles of golde. I pretermyt also the ryche apparell of the Pryncesse, the straunge fasshion of the Spanishe nacion, the beauty of the Englishe ladyes, the goodly demeanoure of the young damoselles, the amourous countenaunce of the lusty bachelers. I passe ouer also the fyne engrayned clothes, the costly furres of the Citizens standing on skaffoldes, rayled from Gracechurche to Paules. What should I speake of the oderiferous skarlettes, the fyne veluet, the plesaunt furres, the massye chaynes, which the Mayre of London with the Senate, sitting on horseback, at the Litle Condyte in Chepe, ware on their bodyes, and about their neckes. I will not molest you with rehersyng the ryche arras, the costly tapestry, the fyne clothes bothe of golde and syluer, the curious veluettes, the beautiful sattens, nor the pleasaunt sylkes, which did hang in every strete wher she passed, the wyne that ranne continually out of the condytes, the graueling and rayling of the stretes nedeth not to be remembered.’ I have given you the whole of this fine, but certainly extended, extract, that you may derive from it somegeneral idea of the pageantry of this festival, concerning which our Bridge historians are, in general, altogether silent.“The night of Thursday, November 21st, 1504, was rendered memorable by a dreadful Fire, which commenced at the sign of the Pannier, at the Northern end of London Bridge, where six tenements were consumed, ‘that could not be quenched.’ Fabyan and Holinshed tell us this in their ‘Chronicles,’ page 534 and volume II., page 791; adding, that on the 7th of the following month certain other houses were also destroyed, near St. Botolph’s Church, in Thames Street. It was, probably, when the repairs occasioned by these conflagrations were completed, that another of those sculptured stones which I lately mentioned, was placed at the Bridge. It measures 10 inches in height, by 13¾ inches broad; and, carved in the same characters, and figures, as the former, are the words ‘Anno Domini1509.’ At the end of the date is an arbitrary mark of a cross charged with a small saltire, which is supposed to have been the old device for Southwark, or the estate of London Bridge: and you know that the Arms used for those places are still Azure, an Annulet, ensigned with a Cross pateé, Or interlaced with a saltire conjoined in base, of the second. I have yet to mention a third sculptured stone, which, it is supposed, records the public benefits conferred by Sir Roger Achiley, Draper, upon the City during his Mayoralty in 1511. This tablet is 11½ inches wide, by 9½ high; and the inscription is‘Anno’—the City sword—‘Domini.R. 1514 A;’ these letters being the initials of that very eminent Citizen, who was then senior Alderman, representing the Ward of Bridge Within. Such were the other twoAncient stones found at London Bridge in 1758.“I have already mentioned to you the situation, and general intent, of the Bridge-House and Yard, and I have now to remark, that they seem, at a very early period, to have been used for the erection of Granaries for the City to preserve Corn, &c. in, during the times of famine and scarcity of provisions. This information we derive from Stow’s ‘Survey,’ volume ii., page 24; where he adds, that there were also certain public ovens built in the same places, for the baking of such bread-corn as was there laid up, for the relief of the poor Citizens at such seasons. These ovens were ten in number, six of them being very large, and the remainder only half the size; and for their erection, Stow observes, that John Throstone, or Thurston, Citizen and Goldsmith, one of the Sheriffs in 1516, gave, by his testament, the sum of £200.“We have now arrived at the days of King Henry the Eighth, about the period when Pope Alexanderthe Sixth sent over the celebrated Polydore Vergil to receive the tribute called Peter-pence, of which he was the last Collector in England. As he was already celebrated for his Poems and his books, ‘On the Invention of Things,’ and ‘on Prodigies,’ he met with great encouragement in this country; where he not only received several ecclesiastical preferments, being made Archdeacon of Wells, and Prebendary of St. Paul’s, but in 1521 he was employed by the King to write a History of England, which he performed in most elegant Latin, and which was first printed at Basil, bearing the date of 1533 for 1534. He left England in 1550, and died at his birth-place, Urbino, in Italy, in 1555. The best edition of this work, entitled ‘Polydori Vergilii Urbinatis Historiæ Angliæ,’ which contains a descriptive eulogy on London Bridge, is that of Leyden, 1651, octavo;—though I quote from the Basil folio of 1570,—and if you turn to page 4 of that volume, you will find the passage commencing ‘Is fluvius amœnissimus,’ &c. of which I shall attempt to give you a translation. ‘This most delightful river’—the Thames,—‘rises a little above the road to Winchcomb, whence flowing several ways, it is first increased at Oxford; and the beautiful wonder, having washed the City of London, pours itself into the Gallic Ocean, who welcomes it into the impetuous waves of his seas; from which, twice in the space of twenty-four hours, it flows and returns more than the distance of sixty miles, and is of the greatest national advantage, for, by it, merchandise may easilybe returned to the City. In this River there is a stone Bridge, certainly a most wonderful work! for it is erected upon twenty square piers of stone, 60 feet in height, 30 feet in breadth, and distant from each other about 20 feet, united by arches. Upon both sides of the Bridge there are houses erected, so that it might appear not to be a Bridge, but one substantial and uninterrupted street.’ The same author, at page 25 of the same ‘History,’ says farther of London Bridge:—‘This part of the City, which looks Southward, is washed by the River Thames, in which stands the Bridge, as we have said before, leading towards Kent, erected upon 19 arches, and having a series of extensive magnificent houses standing upon both sides of it.’—But I fear you are drowsy, Mr. Barbican; take another draught of the sack, good Master Geoffrey, and then we’ll to it again.”“Eh!—What!”—said I, starting up and shaking myself, “drowsy, did you say? Oh no! Heaven defend that I should be drowsy, when a gentleman of your inveterate learning and lungs condescends to give me a lecture! I was, indeed, for a moment thinking of the Chinese devotee who vowed never to sleep at all, and so cut off his eyelids: but I never slept, my ancient; I never winked over your homily, though I would fain have you come to your nineteenthly, lastly, and to conclude. However, whilst we live we must drink, and so here’s to your reformation, friend Postern. Now, by St. Thomas of the Bridge!” ejaculated I, as I took up the tankard, “you’re either awizard, Master Barnaby, or else this tankard hath no bottom; and, truly, it’s the first time I ever saw wine keep hot on a mahogany table.”
“Hitherto, Mr. Geoffrey Barbican, I have quoted you an abundance of authorities which make mention of the history, or appearance, of London Bridge, but notwithstanding my researches I find only a very few ancient representations of it. If, however, you would see an interesting and sweetly-touched portraiture of it about the year 1500, look into that stout roan-coated folio, marked 16 F. ii. xv. in the Royal Library of Manuscripts in the British Museum, and you will be enraptured. The volume professes to treat of ‘Grace entiére sur le gouvernement du Prince,’ and it is written in prose and verse, in the common large black script of the fifteenth century, on vellum, with most noble illuminations, executed in the best style of the best period of the art in England, and by one of the most gifted of the Brethren of St. Luke. The Author of the poems was Charles, Duke of Orleans, father of Louis XII.; and this particular copy of his works seems to have been illuminated for Henry the Eighth, when Prince of Wales; for it not only contains numerous initial letters and borders richly coloured and embossed with gold; but in the frontispiece, on the first page, are his father’s well known badges of the red and white roses; the former ofwhich are supported by the white hound, and red dragon: with glorified white roses in the margin. The poems are divided into several books of various amatory subjects, as ‘Venus et Cupidon,’—‘Epitres d’Abelard et Eloise,’—‘Les Demandes d’Amours;’ and the second division of the volume is adorned with a large and beautiful illumination representing the Duke of Orleans in the Tower, sending despatches to his friends abroad. The Tower, wharf, and river before them, occupy the whole foreground of the painting; and in the back appears the East side of London Bridge, with numerous houses standing upon it, the Chapel of St. Thomas reaching down to the sterlings, and the violent fall of the river through the different arches; whilst, beyond it, rise the spires of several Churches, especially the very high one of old St. Paul’s, and the other buildings of London erected along the banks of the Thames. It is, indeed, hardly possible to give you an adequate idea of the spirit and beauty of this view ofLondon Bridge in the Year 1500,the colouring is so vivid and harmonious: a sky of ultra-marine blue is spread over the whole of the back-ground, against which the distant buildings appear in white, the nearer ones being touched with different shades of brown. You will, however, find a fair copy of this noble painting, engraved by Basire, in Gough’s ‘History of Pleshy,’ which I have already cited, page 193; and thesame platehas also been published as an additional illustration to the Rev. T. D. Fosbrooke’s ‘Encyclopædia of Antiquities,’ London, 1825, volume ii., page 923.
“Hitherto, Mr. Geoffrey Barbican, I have quoted you an abundance of authorities which make mention of the history, or appearance, of London Bridge, but notwithstanding my researches I find only a very few ancient representations of it. If, however, you would see an interesting and sweetly-touched portraiture of it about the year 1500, look into that stout roan-coated folio, marked 16 F. ii. xv. in the Royal Library of Manuscripts in the British Museum, and you will be enraptured. The volume professes to treat of ‘Grace entiére sur le gouvernement du Prince,’ and it is written in prose and verse, in the common large black script of the fifteenth century, on vellum, with most noble illuminations, executed in the best style of the best period of the art in England, and by one of the most gifted of the Brethren of St. Luke. The Author of the poems was Charles, Duke of Orleans, father of Louis XII.; and this particular copy of his works seems to have been illuminated for Henry the Eighth, when Prince of Wales; for it not only contains numerous initial letters and borders richly coloured and embossed with gold; but in the frontispiece, on the first page, are his father’s well known badges of the red and white roses; the former ofwhich are supported by the white hound, and red dragon: with glorified white roses in the margin. The poems are divided into several books of various amatory subjects, as ‘Venus et Cupidon,’—‘Epitres d’Abelard et Eloise,’—‘Les Demandes d’Amours;’ and the second division of the volume is adorned with a large and beautiful illumination representing the Duke of Orleans in the Tower, sending despatches to his friends abroad. The Tower, wharf, and river before them, occupy the whole foreground of the painting; and in the back appears the East side of London Bridge, with numerous houses standing upon it, the Chapel of St. Thomas reaching down to the sterlings, and the violent fall of the river through the different arches; whilst, beyond it, rise the spires of several Churches, especially the very high one of old St. Paul’s, and the other buildings of London erected along the banks of the Thames. It is, indeed, hardly possible to give you an adequate idea of the spirit and beauty of this view ofLondon Bridge in the Year 1500,
the colouring is so vivid and harmonious: a sky of ultra-marine blue is spread over the whole of the back-ground, against which the distant buildings appear in white, the nearer ones being touched with different shades of brown. You will, however, find a fair copy of this noble painting, engraved by Basire, in Gough’s ‘History of Pleshy,’ which I have already cited, page 193; and thesame platehas also been published as an additional illustration to the Rev. T. D. Fosbrooke’s ‘Encyclopædia of Antiquities,’ London, 1825, volume ii., page 923.
“You must, doubtless, recollect that in November 1501, Arthur, Prince of Wales, and son to King Henry VII., was married to Katherine, daughter of Ferdinand V., King of Spain, and that on Friday, the 12th of that month, the young Princess was conveyed from Lambeth, through London, to witness the pageants which had been prepared by the Citizens to do honour to her nuptials. The whole City was full of triumph and splendour; and Stow, in his ‘Annals,’ page 482, says that on London Bridge there was ordained a costly pageant of St. Katherine and St. Ursula, with many virgins. ‘I passe ouer,’ says Hall, in a very brilliant paragraph, folio, liii a, and using that most powerful oratorical figure called Paralepsis, or Omission, which declares that of which it denies saying any thing:—‘I passe ouer,’ says the old Chronicler,—‘the wyse deuises, the prudent speches, the costly woorkes, the conninge portratures practised and set foorth in vij goodly beautifull pageauntes erected and set vp in diuers places of the Cite. I leaue also the goodly ballades, the swete armony, the musicall instrumentes, which sounded with heavenly noyes on every side of the strete. I omit farther the costly apparel both of goldsmythes woorke and embraudery, the riche jewelles, the massy cheynes, the styrrynge horsses, the beautifull bardes and the glytteryng trappers bothe with belles and spangles of golde. I pretermyt also the ryche apparell of the Pryncesse, the straunge fasshion of the Spanishe nacion, the beauty of the Englishe ladyes, the goodly demeanoure of the young damoselles, the amourous countenaunce of the lusty bachelers. I passe ouer also the fyne engrayned clothes, the costly furres of the Citizens standing on skaffoldes, rayled from Gracechurche to Paules. What should I speake of the oderiferous skarlettes, the fyne veluet, the plesaunt furres, the massye chaynes, which the Mayre of London with the Senate, sitting on horseback, at the Litle Condyte in Chepe, ware on their bodyes, and about their neckes. I will not molest you with rehersyng the ryche arras, the costly tapestry, the fyne clothes bothe of golde and syluer, the curious veluettes, the beautiful sattens, nor the pleasaunt sylkes, which did hang in every strete wher she passed, the wyne that ranne continually out of the condytes, the graueling and rayling of the stretes nedeth not to be remembered.’ I have given you the whole of this fine, but certainly extended, extract, that you may derive from it somegeneral idea of the pageantry of this festival, concerning which our Bridge historians are, in general, altogether silent.
“The night of Thursday, November 21st, 1504, was rendered memorable by a dreadful Fire, which commenced at the sign of the Pannier, at the Northern end of London Bridge, where six tenements were consumed, ‘that could not be quenched.’ Fabyan and Holinshed tell us this in their ‘Chronicles,’ page 534 and volume II., page 791; adding, that on the 7th of the following month certain other houses were also destroyed, near St. Botolph’s Church, in Thames Street. It was, probably, when the repairs occasioned by these conflagrations were completed, that another of those sculptured stones which I lately mentioned, was placed at the Bridge. It measures 10 inches in height, by 13¾ inches broad; and, carved in the same characters, and figures, as the former, are the words ‘Anno Domini1509.’ At the end of the date is an arbitrary mark of a cross charged with a small saltire, which is supposed to have been the old device for Southwark, or the estate of London Bridge: and you know that the Arms used for those places are still Azure, an Annulet, ensigned with a Cross pateé, Or interlaced with a saltire conjoined in base, of the second. I have yet to mention a third sculptured stone, which, it is supposed, records the public benefits conferred by Sir Roger Achiley, Draper, upon the City during his Mayoralty in 1511. This tablet is 11½ inches wide, by 9½ high; and the inscription is‘Anno’—the City sword—‘Domini.R. 1514 A;’ these letters being the initials of that very eminent Citizen, who was then senior Alderman, representing the Ward of Bridge Within. Such were the other twoAncient stones found at London Bridge in 1758.
“The night of Thursday, November 21st, 1504, was rendered memorable by a dreadful Fire, which commenced at the sign of the Pannier, at the Northern end of London Bridge, where six tenements were consumed, ‘that could not be quenched.’ Fabyan and Holinshed tell us this in their ‘Chronicles,’ page 534 and volume II., page 791; adding, that on the 7th of the following month certain other houses were also destroyed, near St. Botolph’s Church, in Thames Street. It was, probably, when the repairs occasioned by these conflagrations were completed, that another of those sculptured stones which I lately mentioned, was placed at the Bridge. It measures 10 inches in height, by 13¾ inches broad; and, carved in the same characters, and figures, as the former, are the words ‘Anno Domini1509.’ At the end of the date is an arbitrary mark of a cross charged with a small saltire, which is supposed to have been the old device for Southwark, or the estate of London Bridge: and you know that the Arms used for those places are still Azure, an Annulet, ensigned with a Cross pateé, Or interlaced with a saltire conjoined in base, of the second. I have yet to mention a third sculptured stone, which, it is supposed, records the public benefits conferred by Sir Roger Achiley, Draper, upon the City during his Mayoralty in 1511. This tablet is 11½ inches wide, by 9½ high; and the inscription is‘Anno’—the City sword—‘Domini.R. 1514 A;’ these letters being the initials of that very eminent Citizen, who was then senior Alderman, representing the Ward of Bridge Within. Such were the other twoAncient stones found at London Bridge in 1758.
“I have already mentioned to you the situation, and general intent, of the Bridge-House and Yard, and I have now to remark, that they seem, at a very early period, to have been used for the erection of Granaries for the City to preserve Corn, &c. in, during the times of famine and scarcity of provisions. This information we derive from Stow’s ‘Survey,’ volume ii., page 24; where he adds, that there were also certain public ovens built in the same places, for the baking of such bread-corn as was there laid up, for the relief of the poor Citizens at such seasons. These ovens were ten in number, six of them being very large, and the remainder only half the size; and for their erection, Stow observes, that John Throstone, or Thurston, Citizen and Goldsmith, one of the Sheriffs in 1516, gave, by his testament, the sum of £200.
“We have now arrived at the days of King Henry the Eighth, about the period when Pope Alexanderthe Sixth sent over the celebrated Polydore Vergil to receive the tribute called Peter-pence, of which he was the last Collector in England. As he was already celebrated for his Poems and his books, ‘On the Invention of Things,’ and ‘on Prodigies,’ he met with great encouragement in this country; where he not only received several ecclesiastical preferments, being made Archdeacon of Wells, and Prebendary of St. Paul’s, but in 1521 he was employed by the King to write a History of England, which he performed in most elegant Latin, and which was first printed at Basil, bearing the date of 1533 for 1534. He left England in 1550, and died at his birth-place, Urbino, in Italy, in 1555. The best edition of this work, entitled ‘Polydori Vergilii Urbinatis Historiæ Angliæ,’ which contains a descriptive eulogy on London Bridge, is that of Leyden, 1651, octavo;—though I quote from the Basil folio of 1570,—and if you turn to page 4 of that volume, you will find the passage commencing ‘Is fluvius amœnissimus,’ &c. of which I shall attempt to give you a translation. ‘This most delightful river’—the Thames,—‘rises a little above the road to Winchcomb, whence flowing several ways, it is first increased at Oxford; and the beautiful wonder, having washed the City of London, pours itself into the Gallic Ocean, who welcomes it into the impetuous waves of his seas; from which, twice in the space of twenty-four hours, it flows and returns more than the distance of sixty miles, and is of the greatest national advantage, for, by it, merchandise may easilybe returned to the City. In this River there is a stone Bridge, certainly a most wonderful work! for it is erected upon twenty square piers of stone, 60 feet in height, 30 feet in breadth, and distant from each other about 20 feet, united by arches. Upon both sides of the Bridge there are houses erected, so that it might appear not to be a Bridge, but one substantial and uninterrupted street.’ The same author, at page 25 of the same ‘History,’ says farther of London Bridge:—‘This part of the City, which looks Southward, is washed by the River Thames, in which stands the Bridge, as we have said before, leading towards Kent, erected upon 19 arches, and having a series of extensive magnificent houses standing upon both sides of it.’—But I fear you are drowsy, Mr. Barbican; take another draught of the sack, good Master Geoffrey, and then we’ll to it again.”
“Eh!—What!”—said I, starting up and shaking myself, “drowsy, did you say? Oh no! Heaven defend that I should be drowsy, when a gentleman of your inveterate learning and lungs condescends to give me a lecture! I was, indeed, for a moment thinking of the Chinese devotee who vowed never to sleep at all, and so cut off his eyelids: but I never slept, my ancient; I never winked over your homily, though I would fain have you come to your nineteenthly, lastly, and to conclude. However, whilst we live we must drink, and so here’s to your reformation, friend Postern. Now, by St. Thomas of the Bridge!” ejaculated I, as I took up the tankard, “you’re either awizard, Master Barnaby, or else this tankard hath no bottom; and, truly, it’s the first time I ever saw wine keep hot on a mahogany table.”
“Fancy, Mr. Geoffrey, mere fancy,” replied the placid old man with a shrewd smile; “but even as it is, it will serve as a good prelude to some of the more amusing scenes with which the fragments of Bridge history furnish us in the sixteenth century. Indeed, all I have been able to lay before you are but fragments: cyphers which derive their value by connection, and look considerable only by their number.“It was then in the year 1526, when Cardinal Wolsey was meditating a marriage between King Henry VIII., and the Duchess of Alençon, that his adversaries had anxiously contrived for him to be despatched on an embassy to France, in order to remove him from about the throne, or, at the least, to weaken his power. On July the 26th, the Cardinal left England, and in that extraordinary and entertaining piece of biography, called ‘Cavendish’s Life of Cardinal Wolsey,’ we have a particular account of the grand procession in which he rode through the City to cross London Bridge, on his road to Dover. The best edition of this work is, past question, that by Samuel Weller Singer, Esq., 1825, octavo, 2 volumes; in the first of which, at page 86, you may see an engraving of the Cardinal’s progress, from a Manuscript in the possession of Francis Douce, Esq., and read the passage I have alluded to in the following words. ‘Then marched he forward out ofhis own house at Westminster, passing all through London, over London Bridge, having before him of gentlemen a great number, three in a rank, in black velvet livery coats, and the most part of them with great chains of gold about their necks. And all his yeomen, with noblemen’s and gentlemen’s servants following him in French tawny livery coats; having embroidered upon the backs and breasts of the said coats these letters: T. and C., under the Cardinal’s hat. His sumpter mules, which were twenty in number and more, with his carts and other carriages of his train, were passed on before, conducted and guarded with a great number of bows and spears. He rode like a Cardinal, very sumptuously, on a mule trapped with crimson velvet upon velvet, and his stirrups of copper and gilt; and his spare mule following him with like apparel. And before him he had his two great crosses of silver, two great pillars of silver, the Great Seal of England, the Cardinal’s Hat, and a gentleman that carried his valaunce, otherwise called a cloak-bag; which was made altogether of fine scarlet cloth, embroidered over and over with cloth of gold very richly, having in it a cloak of fine scarlet. Thus passed he through London, and all the way of his journey, having his harbingers passing before to provide lodging for his train.’“As the Account Rolls of the Bridge estates, in 1533, furnish us with a very good conception of its prosperity and revenues at that period, I shall request you to listen to only a very short abstract of the chargesas they appear upon a printed document which I have already quoted. ‘1533, Thomas Crull and Robert Draper, Wardens of London Bridge, Salary to each of them, £16. 8s.4d.—£32. 16s.8d.Winter’s Livery to each, £1.—£2. Reward to each, £10.—£20. For horse-keeping to each, £2.—£4. Total to each of them, £29. 8s.4d.Sum of the whole, £58. 16s.8d.Rental this year, £840. 9s.3¼d.’“I have next to speak of an event occurring on London Bridge, in 1536, which is probably better known, and more often related, than most other portions of its history; I allude, as you will guess, to the anecdote of Edward Osborne leaping into the Thames from the window of one of the Bridge Houses, to rescue his master’s daughter. The particulars of this circumstance are given by Stow in his ‘Survey,’ volume ii., page 226, in the list of Lords Mayors of London; when having arrived at the year 1559, and the Mayoralty of Sir William Hewet, a Cloth-worker, he farther speaks of him as follows:—‘This Mayor was a Merchant, possessed of a great estate, of £6000 per Annum; and was said to have had three sons and one daughter,’—Anne,—‘to which daughter this mischance happened, the father then living upon London Bridge. The maid playing with her out of a window over the River Thames, by chance dropped her in, almost beyond expectation of her being saved. A young gentleman, named Osborne, then Apprentice to Sir William, the father, which Osborne was one of the ancestors of the Dukeof Leeds, in a direct line, at this calamitous accident leaped in, and saved the child. In memory of which deliverance, and in gratitude, her father afterwards bestowed her on the said Mr. Osborne, with a very great dowry, whereof the late estate of Sir Thomas Fanshaw, in the Parish of Barking, in Essex, was a part, as the late Duke of Leeds told the Reverend Mr. John Hewyt, from whom I have this relation; and together with that estate in Essex, several other lands in the Parishes of Hartehill, and Wales, in Yorkshire; now in the possession of the said most noble family. All this from the old Duke’s mouth to the said Mr. Hewyt. Also that several persons of quality courted the said young lady, and particularly the Earl of Shewsbury; but Sir William was pleased to say ‘Osborne saved her, and Osborne should enjoy her.’ The late Duke of Leeds, and the present family, preserve the picture of the said Sir William, in his habit as Lord Mayor, at Kiveton House in Yorkshire, to this day, valuing it at £300.’ Pennant, in his collection of anecdotes, called ‘Some Account of London,’ which I have already cited, page 322, says, after relating this story, ‘I have seen the picture of Osborne’s master at Kiveton, the seat of the Duke of Leeds, a half-length on board; his dress is a black gown furred, and red vest and sleeves, a gold chain, and a bonnet.’ There is also an engraved portrait of Osborne himself, said to be unique, in a series of wood-cuts in the possession of Sir John St. Aubyn, Bart. They consist of the portraits of forty-threeLord Mayors in the time of Queen Elizabeth, reduced copies of six of which, exclusive, however, of Osborne, one of the most interesting, were, between the years 1794 and 1797, published by Richardson, the print-seller, of Castle-street, and the Strand.“This gallant action of Osborne has, likewise, been the subject of a graphical record; for there is a small, but rather uncommon, engraving of him leaping from the window, executed for some ephemeral publication, from a drawing by Samuel Wale. As this artist died in 1786, it is of course but little authority as being a representation of the fact, but it is, nevertheless, interesting as giving a portraiture of the dwellings on London Bridge in his time; and with this print I may also mention one designed by the same hand, and engraved by Charles Grignion, of the first Duke of Leeds pointing to a portrait of Hewet’s daughter, and relating to King Charles II. the foregoing anecdote of his ancestor. You will find it in William Guthrie’s ‘Complete History of the Peerage of England,’ having ‘vignettes at the conclusion of the history of each family,’ London, 1742, quarto, volume i., page 246.”“Before you pass on to any other event, Mr. Postern,” said I, as the old gentleman came to a period, “letmesay a word or two of the fortunate hero of this anecdote. Sir Edward Osborne was the son of Richard Osborne, of Ashford, in Kent, a person certainly in a most respectable situation in life, if not immediately of gentilitial dignity. He became Sheriff of London in 1575, and Lord Mayor in 1583-84, the25th of Queen Elizabeth, when he received the honour of Knighthood at Westminster. ‘He dwelled,’—says a manuscript in the Heralds’ College, to which I have already referred, Pb. No. 22, folio 18 a,—‘in Philpot Lane, in Sir William Hewet’s house, whose da: and heire he married, and was buried’—in 1591,—‘at St. Dennis in fanchurch Streete.’ His Armorial Ensigns, according to the same authority, were Quarterly, 1st and 4th. Quarterly, Ermine and Azure, a Cross Or; for Osborne: 2nd. Argent, 2 bars Gules, on a Canton of the second, a Cross of the first; 3rd. Argent, a Chevron Vert, between three annulets Gules. To these we may add the coat of Hewet on an Escutcheon of Pretence, it being Parted per pale, Argent and Sable, a chevron engrailed between three rams’ heads erased, horned Or; all counterchanged, within a bordure engrailed Gules, bezantée. On the 15th of August, 1675, Sir Thomas Osborne, the great-grandson of Sir Edward, was raised to the Peerage by the titles of Viscount Latimer, and Baron Kiveton, in the County of York, by Patent from King Charles the Second; on the 27th of June, in the year following, he was created Earl of Danby; on April the 20th 1680, he was advanced to the dignity of Marquess of Caermarthen; and he became First Duke of Leeds on May the 4th, 1694. So much then, Mr. Postern, for an historical and genealogical illustration of the anecdote of the gallant apprentice of London Bridge.”“I regret, Mr. Geoffrey Barbican,” recommenced my visitor, after thanking me for having added theabove information to his narrative, “I regret that I have so little to lay before you, touching the state and revenues of the Chapel of St. Thomas on London Bridge, at the time of the Dissolution of Monasteries, &c. by the famous act of the 31st year of King Henry VIII.,—1539,—Chapter the 13th. It does not appear that its revenues yielded any considerable profit to the King’s Augmentation Office; but yet it certainly must have existed even in the form of a religious establishment so late as that King’s reign, because we find it mentioned in several lists of those institutions in London made about that period; though it does not appear in the ‘Valor Ecclesiasticus,’ also made by order of the same Monarch. This celebrated and most authentic historical record, was an ecclesiastical survey of England, made in pursuance of an Act of Parliament passed in the 26th of Henry VIII.,—1534,—chapter iii., section x., for the payment of First Fruits, Pensions, &c. to the King. The survey was, of course, executed by Commissioners, and many of the original returns to their enquiries are yet preserved in the First-Fruits and Tenths’ Office, in the Court of Exchequer: whilst the ‘Valor Ecclesiasticus’ itself has been printed under the direction of the Commissioners of Records, in five volumes folio, London, 1810-1821. The survey for the City of London is contained in the first volume, in which we find London Bridge frequently mentioned as receiving certain reserved rents from the property of other establishments. Thus, on page 388, column ii., in therents paid to divers persons by St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in West Smithfield, 9s.are set down as being paid ‘to the Master or Keeper of the Bridge of London, out of the corner tenement at the Litill Bayly without Ludgate.’ On page 390, column i., Elsyng Spital is stated to pay 33s.4d.to the Master of London Bridge, out of the tenements in the Parish of St. Benedict, Grace-Church: and on page 431, column ii., it is recorded that the House of the Carthusians was to pay 9s.4d.to the House of London Bridge: though the Chapel of St. Thomas is never mentioned in the valuation of St. Magnus’ Rectory, which amounted to £71. 7s.3½d.“I have hardly less regret in stating our absolute want of information relating to the Bridge Chapel at the Dissolution, than I have to speak of that concerning the Common Seal belonging to the officers of London Bridge. Stow tells us, as you may remember, in volume ii., page 25, of his ‘Survey,’ that‘at a Common Council, July 14th, Anno 33, Henry VIII.—1540,—it was ordered, that the Seal of the Bridge-House should be changed; because the image of Thomas Becket, sometime Archbishop of Canterbury, was graven therein; and a new Seal to be made, devised by Mr. Hall, to whom the old Seal was delivered.Note, this was occasioned by a Proclamation, which commanded the names of the Pope, and Thomas of Becket, to be put out of all books and monuments; which is the reason you shall see them so blotted out in all old Chronicles, Legends, Primers, and Service-books, printed before these times.’ Of these erasures, the best account is in Bishop Burnet’s ‘History of the Reformation of the Church of England,’ London, 1681, folio, volume i., book iii., page 294; where it is asserted that such alterations were but slight, and that the old Mass-books were still in use, until the time of Queen Mary, when the castrated volumes were every where brought in, and destroyed; all Parishes being compelled to furnish themselves with new copies of the Church Offices: and Stow, on page 191 of the second volume of his ‘Survey,’ states that in the book marked D of the City Records, the name of St. Thomas was omitted, in pursuance of the King’s edict.“We have thus come down to the times of that most eminent and laborious Antiquary, John Leland, to whose works I have already made some slight illustrative references; and the volume to which I am now about to request your attention, is one of the most rare, and curious, though not the greatest, of his productions. Let me remind you, however, before I mention the work itself, that Leland was, very probably, born in the Parish of St. Michael le Quern, London, in September, about the year 1506; that he was educated at St. Paul’s School, in both the Universities, and in France; that he made a literary and an antiquarian tour, of amazing minuteness and research, by virtue of a commission from King Henry VIII., in 1533; and that he died in a state of mental derangement, April the 18th, 1552, havinglived about five years under its heaviest pressure. The particular volume of his writings to which I would refer you, as containing much original and curious matter concerning London Bridge, is a Latin poem, written in verses of five feet, yet not strictly in pentameters, entitled ‘Kykneion Asma, Cygnea Cantio: A Swan’s Song: the Author, John Leland, the Antiquary.’ Of this book there are two editions; a quarto, printed at London in 1545; and a duodecimo, also published here in 1658: though the poem and commentary were again inserted in the 9th volume of Hearne’s edition of ‘Leland’s Itinerary;’ since, as he states in his Preface thereto, they ‘ought to be looked upon as part of the Itinerary;’ and that they were grown so very rare, that though twice reprinted, they had sold, even so far back as 1712, for forty shillings in auctions. Bishop Nicolson, in his ‘English Historical Library,’ page 3, characterises this work as ‘a poetical piece of flattery, or a panegyric on King Henry; wherein the author brings his Swan down the River of Thames, from Oxford to Greenwich, describing, as she passes along, all the towns, castles, and other places of note within her view. And the ancient names of these, being sometimes different from what the common herd of writers had usually given, therefore, in his commentary on this Poem, he alphabetically explains his terms, and, by the bye, brings in a great deal of the ancient geography of this island.’ The first passage that I shall cite you from this curious volume, is from page 8, verse 213, edition 1658; which commences‘Mox et nobilium domos virorum;’ but as I have, for the first time, done it into English verse, I will repeat you only my paraphrase, rather than the original Latin, observing that I have strictly adhered to all the actual facts.‘More plainly now, as o’er the tideWith swift, but gentle course we glide;The sight embraces in its kenThose dwellings of illustrious men,Where Thames upon his banks descriesThe brave, the courteous, and the wise.But, Oh! that sight too well recallsThe name of one, whose love was shrinedWithin his river-seated halls,Less richly furnish’d than his mind!For Wisdom had endow’d his heartWith all that gilds mortality;But hewasman, and Death’s keen dartChanged so much of him ascoulddie,Into his body’s native earth,To give his soul an heavenly birth.Yet, whilst we muse on Time’s career,And hail his care-worn kindred here,The streaming river bears us onTo London’s mighty Babylon:And that vast Bridge, which proudly soars,Where Thames through nineteen arches roars,And many a lofty dome on highIt raises towering to the sky.‘There are, whose truth is void of stain,Who write, in Lion Richard’s reign,That o’er these waves extended stoodA ruder fabric framed of wood:But when the swift-consuming flamesDestroy’d that bulwark of the Thames,Rebuilt of stone it rose to view,Beneath King John its splendours grew,Whilst London pour’d her wealth around,The mighty edifice to found;The lasting monument to raiseTo his, to her eternal praise,Till, rearing up its form sublime,It stands the glory of all time!‘Yet here we may not longer stayBut shoot the Bridge and dart away,Though, with resistless fall, the tideIs dashing on the bulwark’s side;And roaring torrents drown my songAs o’er the surge I drift along.’“Such then, Mr. Barbican, is my rapid version of those interesting verses contained in the ‘Cygnea Cantio;’ and we shall next refer to the famous passage in the Commentary upon it, though, in order to be perfectly explicit, I must previously mention some of the circumstances which caused it to be written.“John Bale, an intimate friend, and most fervent admirer of Leland, admits, in the Preface attached to his ‘New Year’s Gift,’ that he was not quite free from the weakness of boasting and vain-glory. An instance of this is to be found in the Commentary on that part of the ‘Cygnea Cantio,’ where he is speakingof London Bridge; and you will find the passage referred to in a work to which I have been greatly indebted for these notices of Leland and his writings:—‘The Lives of those eminent Antiquaries John Leland, Thomas Hearne, and Anthony à Wood,’ Oxford, 1772, 8vo., volume i., page 47, where it is also stated, that London Bridge was then the subject of much public attention. By far the most curious reference to Leland’s invective, however, is to be seen in an original Letter written from Hearne to Bagford, and preserved in the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts, No. 5910, Part iv. at the end; whence I shall give it you in all its original simplicity.‘Oxf. 11th July, 1714.“‘Sir,’Tis a pretty while since I received another part of your observations about London, together with some fragments and books, and a copy of Leland’s ‘Encomia illustrorum virorum.’ The gentleman who lent this copy is a person for whom I have a great honour, and I desire you would return him my service and thanks, altho’ I have already done this myself in a letter I writ to him. I should be glad to know whether he be Esq., or what other title I may call him by, if I should have occasion to make public mention of his name. I am extremely obliged to you for your care and trouble, and for your readiness to assist me. As for what Leland says about London Bridge, ’tis in the wordPontificesin hisCom. upon the ‘Cygnea Cantio.’ Some ignorant persons, and particularly one, had found fault with his making onlynineteen arches, in London Bridge, when, as they alleged, there weretwenty. Mr. Leland acknowledges there weretwenty cataracts, orpassages, but observes that one of them was only a sluice, or Draw-Bridge, and that there were onlynineteen stone arches. Upon this he takes occasion to animadvert in short upon the aforesaid person, who had been so pert, and promises to take more notice of him afterwards, and at the same time to expose him according to his deserts. He tells us he had survey’d the whole City, and took notes of every thing of consequence in it, and insinuates that he would publish a most full and exact account of its History and Antiquities. ’Twas in this work the remarks of the aforesaid Observator were to be fully considered; but Mr. Leland dying before he could finish either this, or divers other undertakings, his papers came into other hands, and those about London (which were considerable) coming to Mr. Stowe, many of them are published in the Survey of London as Mr. Stowe’s own, and others are entirely lost, or, at least, ’tis not at present known who has the possession of them.’****‘For Mr. John Bagford, at theCharter House, London.’“After this flourish of trumpets, concerning Leland and London Bridge, I proceed to translate for you thevery amusing passage itself, premising only that you will find it on page 133, in that edition of the work which I have already cited.—‘Pontifices: Bridge Masters, officers who derive their name from the nature of their employment, namely, the constructing of Bridges, or the keeping of them in order; of whom also are the two Governors charged with the care of London Bridge. These officers have an excellent house in the suburb of Southwark, as well as a storehouse containing every thing belonging to their occupation. Rodolphus à Diceto relates in his History, that Peter of Colechurch, a Priest, laid the foundations of a new Bridge: but though it was at first very inconsiderable, Royal and Civic munificence afterwards brought it to be the edifice which it now appears. Upon this subject, Courteous Reader, I am assailed by a whole herd of blustering smatterers, of whom there is one more insignificant than even the rest; a fellow more notorious for loquacity than eloquence, and prodigiously self-conceited; he, truly, shamelessly asserts me to have mistaken in my enumeration of the Arches of London Bridge. And he being, I warrant you, a critic of rare sagacity, plucks up by the roots, rends, and mangles, all by his own mighty authority, an’t please you, the pretended oversight on my part. But no more at present; for upon another opportunity I am about to overwhelm his intolerable stupidity, and trample down his arrogance: I merely then reply to him, that one eye-witness is of more value than ten hearsays. I am a Citizen of London,nor do I repent me of my country; and I hope also that she may never have any reason to repent her of her son. To thee then, thou vile companion, Geta,’—the name, you may remember, of a very knavish servant in Terence’s ‘Phormio,’—‘to thee I sayTo none the City better knowncanbe,All London is a monument to me!Suppose thou wert to try thy skill at searching into that antiquity which involves this wonder of our City? Perchance thou mayest learn something, unless thou art half-ashamed to learn under my tuition. But why should we not now return to the matter of the Bridge? London Bridge then, as it extends itself from North to South, hastwenty cataracts; but ofarches, incurvated passages formed of solid stone, there are no more thannineteen. That platform, having the figure of a Bridge, made of level wooden planks, capable of being raised or lowered by machines, that an enemy may not find an open passage, I neither can, nor will, nor ought reasonably to call an arch. And yet thou wert greatly in hope of a mighty triumph over me in this matter; but by these words thus easily do I snatch away from thee thine air-built castles.For though Antæus thou should’st be, or Polyphemus vast,Or Atlas, on whose shoulders broad the world itself was cast,To hope to triumph o’er me were but labour spent in vain,And thou, I deem, wilt wiser be if e’er we meet again.‘And now, get thee hence, thou Geta, and fail not to proclaim to all your pot-companions, your notable discovery oftwenty arches in London Bridge!’“I have next, Mr. Barbican, to commend to your notice the account of London Bridge and the Thames, given to us by that most learned man and voluminous writer, Paulus Jovius, Bishop of Nocera, an historian who was born at Como, in Italy, in 1483, and died in 1552. The passage to which I allude, is in his ‘Descriptio Britanniæ, Scotiæ, Hyberniæ, et Orchadum,’ Venice, 1548, small quarto, or octavo, page 12 a, beginning ‘Sed harum et denique omnium et famam Londinum penitus obscurat;’ but I shall here again take the freedom to anticipate time a little, and give you under one year a translation of Paulus Jovius, and Sir Paul Hentzner’s description of the same object; since the former is cited by the latter, and both are excellently well rendered into English in that very curious and rare production of the Strawberry-Hill press, entitled ‘A Journey into England, by Paul Hentzner, in the Year M.D.XC.VIII.,’ printed in 1757, octavo; on page 4 of which the passage thus commences. ‘On the South is a Bridge of stone, 800 feet in length, of wonderful work; it is supported upon 20 piers of square stone, 60 feet high, and 30 broad, joined by arches of about 20 feet diameter. The whole is covered on each side with houses, so disposed as to have the appearance of a continued street, not at all of a Bridge. Upon this is built atower, on whose top the heads of such as have been executed for high treason are placed upon iron spikes: we counted above thirty. Paulus Jovius, in his description of the most remarkable towns of England, says, ‘All are obscured by London; which, in the estimation of many, is Cæsar’s City of the Trinobantes, the capital of all Britain, famous for the commerce of many nations; its houses are elegantly built, its churches fine, its towers strong, and its riches and abundance surprising. The wealth of the world is wafted to it by the Thames, swelled by the tide, and navigable to merchant ships, through a safe and deep channel for 60 miles, from its mouth to the City. Its banks are every where beautified with fine country seats, woods, and farms; below, is the Royal Palace of Greenwich; above, that of Richmond; and between both, on the West of London, rise the noble buildings of Westminster, most remarkable for the Courts of Justice, the Parliament, and St. Peter’s Church, enriched with the Royal tombs. At the distance of 20 miles from London, is the Castle of Windsor, a most delightful retreat of the Kings of England, as well as famous for several of their tombs, and for the most renowned ceremonial of the Order of the Garter. This river abounds in swans, swimming in flocks; the sight of them, and their noise, are vastly agreeable to the fleets that meet them in their course. It is joined to the City by a Bridge of stone wonderfully built; is never encreased by any rains, rising onlywith the tide, and is every where spread with nets, for the taking of salmon and shad.’ Thus far Paulus Jovius.’“I have given you the whole of this passage, because it is curious in itself, most elegantly translated by Lord Orford, and because, in the accounts of ancient London which we derive from the foreigners who have visited it, there is most commonly a delineation of some feature which others have neglected; as I shall have several opportunities of shewing you hereafter. I have only to add at present, that Paul Hentzner was an eminent German Counsellor and traveller, who died in 1623; and whose work, whence I have extracted the foregoing description, is entitled ‘Itinerarium Germaniæ, Galliæ, Angliæ, et Italiæ,’ &c. best edition, Nuremberg, 1629, 4to. It was written during a journey which he made through those countries with the young Count Rhediger, with whom he had been at the University of Strasburg; its elegance of language is particularly remarkable, and the part relating to England is generally considered as the best.“In the fourth year of the reign of King Edward the Sixth,—1550,—those extensive Letters Patent were granted to Southwark, by which the famous Fair was instituted in that Borough, to be held on the 7th, 8th, and 9th of September. The Patent was dated the 20th of April, and the sum of £647. 2s.1d.was paid for it to the King, by the Mayor and Corporation of London. At the time of this Fair, ancientlycalled ‘Our Lady Fair in Southwark,’ the Lord Mayor, and Sheriffs, used to ride to St. Magnus’ Church after dinner, at two o’clock in the afternoon; the former being vested with his collar of SS., without his hood, and all dressed in their scarlet gowns, lined, without their cloaks. They were attended by the Sword-Bearer wearing his embroidered cap, and carrying ‘the Pearl Sword;’ and, at the Church, were met by the Aldermen, all of whom, after Evening Prayer, rode over the Bridge in procession, passed through the Fair, and continued either to St. George’s Church, Newington Bridge, or to the stones pointing out the City liberties at St. Thomas of Waterings. They then returned over the Bridge, or to the Bridge-House, where a banquet was provided, when the Aldermen took leave of the Lord Mayor, and, all parties being returned home, the Bridge-Masters gave a supper to the Lord Mayor’s officers. Stow and his continuators are my authorities for these particulars; see volume ii. of his ‘Survey,’ pages 5, 249.“Our voyage down the stream of history, and of time, has at length conducted us to the reign of Queen Mary, and the year 1554; when her proposed marriage with Philip II., of Spain, alarmed all the nation, lest the Inquisition should be established in England, and the people become the vassals of the Spanish crown. But although the Protestants were the most alarmed at this marriage, when the treaty was made public the complaints and murmurs against it became almost universal; and, finally, produced aconspiracy against Mary, of which it was certainly either the cause, or the pretence. One of the principal leaders of this plot was Sir Thomas Wyat, a gentleman of Kent, who had frequently been Ambassador to Spain, where the cruelty and subtilty of the people had alarmed him for the future fate of his own country. As the insurrection was intended to be general,hissphere of action was to be Kent; whilst Sir Peter Carew excited a rising in Cornwall, and the Duke of Suffolk in Warwickshire, as being the centre of the kingdom. From too hasty preparations, however, and too rapidly assembling his forces, the designs of Carew were discovered before they were entirely perfected; one of his accomplices was arrested; and he saved himself only by deserting the enterprise and escaping to France. This unexpected discovery accelerated all the other measures; for, though it was intended to await the arrival of King Philip, to give a colour to the rebellion, Wyat, notwithstanding he was unprepared, marched his few followers to Maidstone, and gave out that he took up arms to preserve England from being invaded. He had little success on his way to London, but the City Trained-bands being, by a manœuvre, induced to desert to him, he arrived with about 4000 men in Southwark, on Saturday, February the 3rd, 1553-54. The prudence of that excellent man, Sir Thomas White, then Lord Mayor, had, however, already prepared for his coming; added to which, the Queen, who remained in Guildhall, appointed Lord WilliamHoward Lieutenant of the City. The Draw-Bridge at London Bridge was then cut down and thrown into the River; the Bridge gates were shut; ramparts and fortifications were raised around them; ordnance was planted to defend them; and the Mayor and Sheriffs, well armed for the conflict, commanded all persons to shut their shops and windows, and to stand ready harnessed at their doors for any event which might occur. As Wyat found there was no opposition made to him in Southwark, some of his soldiers completely sacked the Bishop of Winchester’s Palace, and destroyed his extensive library; whilst at the Bridge foot he laid two pieces of ordnance, and dug an extensive trench between the Bridge and his forces. In order to gain an entrance to the Bridge, Sir Thomas brake down the wall of a house adjoining the gate, by which he ascended the leads over the gate, and then coming down into the Porter’s lodge, about eleven at night, he found the Porter sleeping, but his wife, with several others, watching over a coal fire. On beholding Wyat, they suddenly started, when he commanded them to be silent, as they loved their lives, and they should have no hurt; and, they timidly yielding to him, he and some others went upon the Bridge to reconnoitre. On the other side of the Draw-Bridge he saw the Lord Admiral, the Lord Mayor, Sir Andrew Judd, and one or two more in consultation, for defence of the Bridge, as we may suppose, by fire or torch light; and after, for some time, carefully observing their deliberations, he returned tohis party, unseen and in safety. Having stated to his followers the active measures of the Citizens, they began to consult what course they had better adopt to secure their own success and safety. The advice of some was to return to Greenwich, and crossing the water into Essex, enter London at Aldgate; others, though they were suspected of treachery, were for going back into Kent to meet some friends and supplies; when, at length, it was concluded that they should march along the Thames towards Kingston, and, crossing the Bridge of that place, enter the City on the West.“On the night previously to their departure, Monday, the 5th of February, as ‘Thomas Menschen, one of the Lieutenant’s men of the Tower,’—says Stow, in his ‘Annals,’ page 619,—‘rowed with a sculler over against the Bishop of Winchester’s Palace, there was a water-man of the Tower stayres, desired the sayd Lieutenant to take him in, who did so, which being espied of Wyatt’s men, seauen of them with harquebusses called to them to land againe, but they would not, whereupon each man discharged their piece, and killed the sayd Waterman, which foorthwith falling downe dead, the sculler with much paine rowed through the Bridge to the Tower wharfe, with the Lieutenant’s man and the dead man in his boat; which thing was no sooner knowne to the Lieutenant, but even the same night, and the next morning, hee bent seauen great pieces of ordnance, cvluerings and demi-canons, full against the foote of the Bridge, andagainst Southwarke, and the two steeples of Saint Olaues and Saint Mary Oueries, besides all the pieces on the White Tower, one culuering on the Diueling Tower, and three fauconets ouer the Water-gate: which so soone as the inhabitants of Southwarke vnderstood, certaine both men and women came to Wyat in most lamentable wise, saying, ‘Sir, wee are all like to bee vtterly vndone, and destroyed for your sake, our houses shall by and by bee throwne downe vpon our heads, to the vtter spoyle of this borrough, with the shot of the Tower, all ready bent and charged towards vs, for the loue of God therefore take pittie vpon vs:’ at which wordes hee being partly abashed, stayed a while, and then sayd: ‘I pray you my friends bee content a while, and I will soone ease you of this mischiefe, for God forbid that you, or the least here, should be killed, or hurt, in my behalfe.’ And so, in most speedie manner, hee marched away.’“He next proceeded to Kingston, where he devised the means of crossing the river, though the bridge was destroyed; and on the 7th of February he entered London. His unhappy story is no farther connected with that of London Bridge; and it will therefore be sufficient to observe that he was executed on the 11th of April, on Tower-hill, his quarters being set up in several places, and his head on the gibbet at Hay-hill, near Hyde Park; whence, however, it was soon after stolen and carried away. In addition to Stow’s ‘Annals,’ let me observe that Ihave also quoted from Holinshed’s ‘Chronicle,’ volume iii., page 1097.
“Fancy, Mr. Geoffrey, mere fancy,” replied the placid old man with a shrewd smile; “but even as it is, it will serve as a good prelude to some of the more amusing scenes with which the fragments of Bridge history furnish us in the sixteenth century. Indeed, all I have been able to lay before you are but fragments: cyphers which derive their value by connection, and look considerable only by their number.
“It was then in the year 1526, when Cardinal Wolsey was meditating a marriage between King Henry VIII., and the Duchess of Alençon, that his adversaries had anxiously contrived for him to be despatched on an embassy to France, in order to remove him from about the throne, or, at the least, to weaken his power. On July the 26th, the Cardinal left England, and in that extraordinary and entertaining piece of biography, called ‘Cavendish’s Life of Cardinal Wolsey,’ we have a particular account of the grand procession in which he rode through the City to cross London Bridge, on his road to Dover. The best edition of this work is, past question, that by Samuel Weller Singer, Esq., 1825, octavo, 2 volumes; in the first of which, at page 86, you may see an engraving of the Cardinal’s progress, from a Manuscript in the possession of Francis Douce, Esq., and read the passage I have alluded to in the following words. ‘Then marched he forward out ofhis own house at Westminster, passing all through London, over London Bridge, having before him of gentlemen a great number, three in a rank, in black velvet livery coats, and the most part of them with great chains of gold about their necks. And all his yeomen, with noblemen’s and gentlemen’s servants following him in French tawny livery coats; having embroidered upon the backs and breasts of the said coats these letters: T. and C., under the Cardinal’s hat. His sumpter mules, which were twenty in number and more, with his carts and other carriages of his train, were passed on before, conducted and guarded with a great number of bows and spears. He rode like a Cardinal, very sumptuously, on a mule trapped with crimson velvet upon velvet, and his stirrups of copper and gilt; and his spare mule following him with like apparel. And before him he had his two great crosses of silver, two great pillars of silver, the Great Seal of England, the Cardinal’s Hat, and a gentleman that carried his valaunce, otherwise called a cloak-bag; which was made altogether of fine scarlet cloth, embroidered over and over with cloth of gold very richly, having in it a cloak of fine scarlet. Thus passed he through London, and all the way of his journey, having his harbingers passing before to provide lodging for his train.’
“As the Account Rolls of the Bridge estates, in 1533, furnish us with a very good conception of its prosperity and revenues at that period, I shall request you to listen to only a very short abstract of the chargesas they appear upon a printed document which I have already quoted. ‘1533, Thomas Crull and Robert Draper, Wardens of London Bridge, Salary to each of them, £16. 8s.4d.—£32. 16s.8d.Winter’s Livery to each, £1.—£2. Reward to each, £10.—£20. For horse-keeping to each, £2.—£4. Total to each of them, £29. 8s.4d.Sum of the whole, £58. 16s.8d.Rental this year, £840. 9s.3¼d.’
“I have next to speak of an event occurring on London Bridge, in 1536, which is probably better known, and more often related, than most other portions of its history; I allude, as you will guess, to the anecdote of Edward Osborne leaping into the Thames from the window of one of the Bridge Houses, to rescue his master’s daughter. The particulars of this circumstance are given by Stow in his ‘Survey,’ volume ii., page 226, in the list of Lords Mayors of London; when having arrived at the year 1559, and the Mayoralty of Sir William Hewet, a Cloth-worker, he farther speaks of him as follows:—‘This Mayor was a Merchant, possessed of a great estate, of £6000 per Annum; and was said to have had three sons and one daughter,’—Anne,—‘to which daughter this mischance happened, the father then living upon London Bridge. The maid playing with her out of a window over the River Thames, by chance dropped her in, almost beyond expectation of her being saved. A young gentleman, named Osborne, then Apprentice to Sir William, the father, which Osborne was one of the ancestors of the Dukeof Leeds, in a direct line, at this calamitous accident leaped in, and saved the child. In memory of which deliverance, and in gratitude, her father afterwards bestowed her on the said Mr. Osborne, with a very great dowry, whereof the late estate of Sir Thomas Fanshaw, in the Parish of Barking, in Essex, was a part, as the late Duke of Leeds told the Reverend Mr. John Hewyt, from whom I have this relation; and together with that estate in Essex, several other lands in the Parishes of Hartehill, and Wales, in Yorkshire; now in the possession of the said most noble family. All this from the old Duke’s mouth to the said Mr. Hewyt. Also that several persons of quality courted the said young lady, and particularly the Earl of Shewsbury; but Sir William was pleased to say ‘Osborne saved her, and Osborne should enjoy her.’ The late Duke of Leeds, and the present family, preserve the picture of the said Sir William, in his habit as Lord Mayor, at Kiveton House in Yorkshire, to this day, valuing it at £300.’ Pennant, in his collection of anecdotes, called ‘Some Account of London,’ which I have already cited, page 322, says, after relating this story, ‘I have seen the picture of Osborne’s master at Kiveton, the seat of the Duke of Leeds, a half-length on board; his dress is a black gown furred, and red vest and sleeves, a gold chain, and a bonnet.’ There is also an engraved portrait of Osborne himself, said to be unique, in a series of wood-cuts in the possession of Sir John St. Aubyn, Bart. They consist of the portraits of forty-threeLord Mayors in the time of Queen Elizabeth, reduced copies of six of which, exclusive, however, of Osborne, one of the most interesting, were, between the years 1794 and 1797, published by Richardson, the print-seller, of Castle-street, and the Strand.
“This gallant action of Osborne has, likewise, been the subject of a graphical record; for there is a small, but rather uncommon, engraving of him leaping from the window, executed for some ephemeral publication, from a drawing by Samuel Wale. As this artist died in 1786, it is of course but little authority as being a representation of the fact, but it is, nevertheless, interesting as giving a portraiture of the dwellings on London Bridge in his time; and with this print I may also mention one designed by the same hand, and engraved by Charles Grignion, of the first Duke of Leeds pointing to a portrait of Hewet’s daughter, and relating to King Charles II. the foregoing anecdote of his ancestor. You will find it in William Guthrie’s ‘Complete History of the Peerage of England,’ having ‘vignettes at the conclusion of the history of each family,’ London, 1742, quarto, volume i., page 246.”
“Before you pass on to any other event, Mr. Postern,” said I, as the old gentleman came to a period, “letmesay a word or two of the fortunate hero of this anecdote. Sir Edward Osborne was the son of Richard Osborne, of Ashford, in Kent, a person certainly in a most respectable situation in life, if not immediately of gentilitial dignity. He became Sheriff of London in 1575, and Lord Mayor in 1583-84, the25th of Queen Elizabeth, when he received the honour of Knighthood at Westminster. ‘He dwelled,’—says a manuscript in the Heralds’ College, to which I have already referred, Pb. No. 22, folio 18 a,—‘in Philpot Lane, in Sir William Hewet’s house, whose da: and heire he married, and was buried’—in 1591,—‘at St. Dennis in fanchurch Streete.’ His Armorial Ensigns, according to the same authority, were Quarterly, 1st and 4th. Quarterly, Ermine and Azure, a Cross Or; for Osborne: 2nd. Argent, 2 bars Gules, on a Canton of the second, a Cross of the first; 3rd. Argent, a Chevron Vert, between three annulets Gules. To these we may add the coat of Hewet on an Escutcheon of Pretence, it being Parted per pale, Argent and Sable, a chevron engrailed between three rams’ heads erased, horned Or; all counterchanged, within a bordure engrailed Gules, bezantée. On the 15th of August, 1675, Sir Thomas Osborne, the great-grandson of Sir Edward, was raised to the Peerage by the titles of Viscount Latimer, and Baron Kiveton, in the County of York, by Patent from King Charles the Second; on the 27th of June, in the year following, he was created Earl of Danby; on April the 20th 1680, he was advanced to the dignity of Marquess of Caermarthen; and he became First Duke of Leeds on May the 4th, 1694. So much then, Mr. Postern, for an historical and genealogical illustration of the anecdote of the gallant apprentice of London Bridge.”
“I regret, Mr. Geoffrey Barbican,” recommenced my visitor, after thanking me for having added theabove information to his narrative, “I regret that I have so little to lay before you, touching the state and revenues of the Chapel of St. Thomas on London Bridge, at the time of the Dissolution of Monasteries, &c. by the famous act of the 31st year of King Henry VIII.,—1539,—Chapter the 13th. It does not appear that its revenues yielded any considerable profit to the King’s Augmentation Office; but yet it certainly must have existed even in the form of a religious establishment so late as that King’s reign, because we find it mentioned in several lists of those institutions in London made about that period; though it does not appear in the ‘Valor Ecclesiasticus,’ also made by order of the same Monarch. This celebrated and most authentic historical record, was an ecclesiastical survey of England, made in pursuance of an Act of Parliament passed in the 26th of Henry VIII.,—1534,—chapter iii., section x., for the payment of First Fruits, Pensions, &c. to the King. The survey was, of course, executed by Commissioners, and many of the original returns to their enquiries are yet preserved in the First-Fruits and Tenths’ Office, in the Court of Exchequer: whilst the ‘Valor Ecclesiasticus’ itself has been printed under the direction of the Commissioners of Records, in five volumes folio, London, 1810-1821. The survey for the City of London is contained in the first volume, in which we find London Bridge frequently mentioned as receiving certain reserved rents from the property of other establishments. Thus, on page 388, column ii., in therents paid to divers persons by St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in West Smithfield, 9s.are set down as being paid ‘to the Master or Keeper of the Bridge of London, out of the corner tenement at the Litill Bayly without Ludgate.’ On page 390, column i., Elsyng Spital is stated to pay 33s.4d.to the Master of London Bridge, out of the tenements in the Parish of St. Benedict, Grace-Church: and on page 431, column ii., it is recorded that the House of the Carthusians was to pay 9s.4d.to the House of London Bridge: though the Chapel of St. Thomas is never mentioned in the valuation of St. Magnus’ Rectory, which amounted to £71. 7s.3½d.
“I have hardly less regret in stating our absolute want of information relating to the Bridge Chapel at the Dissolution, than I have to speak of that concerning the Common Seal belonging to the officers of London Bridge. Stow tells us, as you may remember, in volume ii., page 25, of his ‘Survey,’ that‘at a Common Council, July 14th, Anno 33, Henry VIII.—1540,—it was ordered, that the Seal of the Bridge-House should be changed; because the image of Thomas Becket, sometime Archbishop of Canterbury, was graven therein; and a new Seal to be made, devised by Mr. Hall, to whom the old Seal was delivered.Note, this was occasioned by a Proclamation, which commanded the names of the Pope, and Thomas of Becket, to be put out of all books and monuments; which is the reason you shall see them so blotted out in all old Chronicles, Legends, Primers, and Service-books, printed before these times.’ Of these erasures, the best account is in Bishop Burnet’s ‘History of the Reformation of the Church of England,’ London, 1681, folio, volume i., book iii., page 294; where it is asserted that such alterations were but slight, and that the old Mass-books were still in use, until the time of Queen Mary, when the castrated volumes were every where brought in, and destroyed; all Parishes being compelled to furnish themselves with new copies of the Church Offices: and Stow, on page 191 of the second volume of his ‘Survey,’ states that in the book marked D of the City Records, the name of St. Thomas was omitted, in pursuance of the King’s edict.
“We have thus come down to the times of that most eminent and laborious Antiquary, John Leland, to whose works I have already made some slight illustrative references; and the volume to which I am now about to request your attention, is one of the most rare, and curious, though not the greatest, of his productions. Let me remind you, however, before I mention the work itself, that Leland was, very probably, born in the Parish of St. Michael le Quern, London, in September, about the year 1506; that he was educated at St. Paul’s School, in both the Universities, and in France; that he made a literary and an antiquarian tour, of amazing minuteness and research, by virtue of a commission from King Henry VIII., in 1533; and that he died in a state of mental derangement, April the 18th, 1552, havinglived about five years under its heaviest pressure. The particular volume of his writings to which I would refer you, as containing much original and curious matter concerning London Bridge, is a Latin poem, written in verses of five feet, yet not strictly in pentameters, entitled ‘Kykneion Asma, Cygnea Cantio: A Swan’s Song: the Author, John Leland, the Antiquary.’ Of this book there are two editions; a quarto, printed at London in 1545; and a duodecimo, also published here in 1658: though the poem and commentary were again inserted in the 9th volume of Hearne’s edition of ‘Leland’s Itinerary;’ since, as he states in his Preface thereto, they ‘ought to be looked upon as part of the Itinerary;’ and that they were grown so very rare, that though twice reprinted, they had sold, even so far back as 1712, for forty shillings in auctions. Bishop Nicolson, in his ‘English Historical Library,’ page 3, characterises this work as ‘a poetical piece of flattery, or a panegyric on King Henry; wherein the author brings his Swan down the River of Thames, from Oxford to Greenwich, describing, as she passes along, all the towns, castles, and other places of note within her view. And the ancient names of these, being sometimes different from what the common herd of writers had usually given, therefore, in his commentary on this Poem, he alphabetically explains his terms, and, by the bye, brings in a great deal of the ancient geography of this island.’ The first passage that I shall cite you from this curious volume, is from page 8, verse 213, edition 1658; which commences‘Mox et nobilium domos virorum;’ but as I have, for the first time, done it into English verse, I will repeat you only my paraphrase, rather than the original Latin, observing that I have strictly adhered to all the actual facts.
‘More plainly now, as o’er the tideWith swift, but gentle course we glide;The sight embraces in its kenThose dwellings of illustrious men,Where Thames upon his banks descriesThe brave, the courteous, and the wise.But, Oh! that sight too well recallsThe name of one, whose love was shrinedWithin his river-seated halls,Less richly furnish’d than his mind!For Wisdom had endow’d his heartWith all that gilds mortality;But hewasman, and Death’s keen dartChanged so much of him ascoulddie,Into his body’s native earth,To give his soul an heavenly birth.Yet, whilst we muse on Time’s career,And hail his care-worn kindred here,The streaming river bears us onTo London’s mighty Babylon:And that vast Bridge, which proudly soars,Where Thames through nineteen arches roars,And many a lofty dome on highIt raises towering to the sky.‘There are, whose truth is void of stain,Who write, in Lion Richard’s reign,That o’er these waves extended stoodA ruder fabric framed of wood:But when the swift-consuming flamesDestroy’d that bulwark of the Thames,Rebuilt of stone it rose to view,Beneath King John its splendours grew,Whilst London pour’d her wealth around,The mighty edifice to found;The lasting monument to raiseTo his, to her eternal praise,Till, rearing up its form sublime,It stands the glory of all time!‘Yet here we may not longer stayBut shoot the Bridge and dart away,Though, with resistless fall, the tideIs dashing on the bulwark’s side;And roaring torrents drown my songAs o’er the surge I drift along.’
‘More plainly now, as o’er the tideWith swift, but gentle course we glide;The sight embraces in its kenThose dwellings of illustrious men,Where Thames upon his banks descriesThe brave, the courteous, and the wise.But, Oh! that sight too well recallsThe name of one, whose love was shrinedWithin his river-seated halls,Less richly furnish’d than his mind!For Wisdom had endow’d his heartWith all that gilds mortality;But hewasman, and Death’s keen dartChanged so much of him ascoulddie,Into his body’s native earth,To give his soul an heavenly birth.Yet, whilst we muse on Time’s career,And hail his care-worn kindred here,The streaming river bears us onTo London’s mighty Babylon:And that vast Bridge, which proudly soars,Where Thames through nineteen arches roars,And many a lofty dome on highIt raises towering to the sky.
‘There are, whose truth is void of stain,Who write, in Lion Richard’s reign,That o’er these waves extended stoodA ruder fabric framed of wood:But when the swift-consuming flamesDestroy’d that bulwark of the Thames,Rebuilt of stone it rose to view,Beneath King John its splendours grew,Whilst London pour’d her wealth around,The mighty edifice to found;The lasting monument to raiseTo his, to her eternal praise,Till, rearing up its form sublime,It stands the glory of all time!
‘Yet here we may not longer stayBut shoot the Bridge and dart away,Though, with resistless fall, the tideIs dashing on the bulwark’s side;And roaring torrents drown my songAs o’er the surge I drift along.’
“Such then, Mr. Barbican, is my rapid version of those interesting verses contained in the ‘Cygnea Cantio;’ and we shall next refer to the famous passage in the Commentary upon it, though, in order to be perfectly explicit, I must previously mention some of the circumstances which caused it to be written.
“John Bale, an intimate friend, and most fervent admirer of Leland, admits, in the Preface attached to his ‘New Year’s Gift,’ that he was not quite free from the weakness of boasting and vain-glory. An instance of this is to be found in the Commentary on that part of the ‘Cygnea Cantio,’ where he is speakingof London Bridge; and you will find the passage referred to in a work to which I have been greatly indebted for these notices of Leland and his writings:—‘The Lives of those eminent Antiquaries John Leland, Thomas Hearne, and Anthony à Wood,’ Oxford, 1772, 8vo., volume i., page 47, where it is also stated, that London Bridge was then the subject of much public attention. By far the most curious reference to Leland’s invective, however, is to be seen in an original Letter written from Hearne to Bagford, and preserved in the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts, No. 5910, Part iv. at the end; whence I shall give it you in all its original simplicity.
‘Oxf. 11th July, 1714.
“‘Sir,
’Tis a pretty while since I received another part of your observations about London, together with some fragments and books, and a copy of Leland’s ‘Encomia illustrorum virorum.’ The gentleman who lent this copy is a person for whom I have a great honour, and I desire you would return him my service and thanks, altho’ I have already done this myself in a letter I writ to him. I should be glad to know whether he be Esq., or what other title I may call him by, if I should have occasion to make public mention of his name. I am extremely obliged to you for your care and trouble, and for your readiness to assist me. As for what Leland says about London Bridge, ’tis in the wordPontificesin hisCom. upon the ‘Cygnea Cantio.’ Some ignorant persons, and particularly one, had found fault with his making onlynineteen arches, in London Bridge, when, as they alleged, there weretwenty. Mr. Leland acknowledges there weretwenty cataracts, orpassages, but observes that one of them was only a sluice, or Draw-Bridge, and that there were onlynineteen stone arches. Upon this he takes occasion to animadvert in short upon the aforesaid person, who had been so pert, and promises to take more notice of him afterwards, and at the same time to expose him according to his deserts. He tells us he had survey’d the whole City, and took notes of every thing of consequence in it, and insinuates that he would publish a most full and exact account of its History and Antiquities. ’Twas in this work the remarks of the aforesaid Observator were to be fully considered; but Mr. Leland dying before he could finish either this, or divers other undertakings, his papers came into other hands, and those about London (which were considerable) coming to Mr. Stowe, many of them are published in the Survey of London as Mr. Stowe’s own, and others are entirely lost, or, at least, ’tis not at present known who has the possession of them.’
****
‘For Mr. John Bagford, at theCharter House, London.’
“After this flourish of trumpets, concerning Leland and London Bridge, I proceed to translate for you thevery amusing passage itself, premising only that you will find it on page 133, in that edition of the work which I have already cited.—‘Pontifices: Bridge Masters, officers who derive their name from the nature of their employment, namely, the constructing of Bridges, or the keeping of them in order; of whom also are the two Governors charged with the care of London Bridge. These officers have an excellent house in the suburb of Southwark, as well as a storehouse containing every thing belonging to their occupation. Rodolphus à Diceto relates in his History, that Peter of Colechurch, a Priest, laid the foundations of a new Bridge: but though it was at first very inconsiderable, Royal and Civic munificence afterwards brought it to be the edifice which it now appears. Upon this subject, Courteous Reader, I am assailed by a whole herd of blustering smatterers, of whom there is one more insignificant than even the rest; a fellow more notorious for loquacity than eloquence, and prodigiously self-conceited; he, truly, shamelessly asserts me to have mistaken in my enumeration of the Arches of London Bridge. And he being, I warrant you, a critic of rare sagacity, plucks up by the roots, rends, and mangles, all by his own mighty authority, an’t please you, the pretended oversight on my part. But no more at present; for upon another opportunity I am about to overwhelm his intolerable stupidity, and trample down his arrogance: I merely then reply to him, that one eye-witness is of more value than ten hearsays. I am a Citizen of London,nor do I repent me of my country; and I hope also that she may never have any reason to repent her of her son. To thee then, thou vile companion, Geta,’—the name, you may remember, of a very knavish servant in Terence’s ‘Phormio,’—‘to thee I say
To none the City better knowncanbe,All London is a monument to me!
To none the City better knowncanbe,All London is a monument to me!
Suppose thou wert to try thy skill at searching into that antiquity which involves this wonder of our City? Perchance thou mayest learn something, unless thou art half-ashamed to learn under my tuition. But why should we not now return to the matter of the Bridge? London Bridge then, as it extends itself from North to South, hastwenty cataracts; but ofarches, incurvated passages formed of solid stone, there are no more thannineteen. That platform, having the figure of a Bridge, made of level wooden planks, capable of being raised or lowered by machines, that an enemy may not find an open passage, I neither can, nor will, nor ought reasonably to call an arch. And yet thou wert greatly in hope of a mighty triumph over me in this matter; but by these words thus easily do I snatch away from thee thine air-built castles.
For though Antæus thou should’st be, or Polyphemus vast,Or Atlas, on whose shoulders broad the world itself was cast,To hope to triumph o’er me were but labour spent in vain,And thou, I deem, wilt wiser be if e’er we meet again.
For though Antæus thou should’st be, or Polyphemus vast,Or Atlas, on whose shoulders broad the world itself was cast,To hope to triumph o’er me were but labour spent in vain,And thou, I deem, wilt wiser be if e’er we meet again.
‘And now, get thee hence, thou Geta, and fail not to proclaim to all your pot-companions, your notable discovery oftwenty arches in London Bridge!’
“I have next, Mr. Barbican, to commend to your notice the account of London Bridge and the Thames, given to us by that most learned man and voluminous writer, Paulus Jovius, Bishop of Nocera, an historian who was born at Como, in Italy, in 1483, and died in 1552. The passage to which I allude, is in his ‘Descriptio Britanniæ, Scotiæ, Hyberniæ, et Orchadum,’ Venice, 1548, small quarto, or octavo, page 12 a, beginning ‘Sed harum et denique omnium et famam Londinum penitus obscurat;’ but I shall here again take the freedom to anticipate time a little, and give you under one year a translation of Paulus Jovius, and Sir Paul Hentzner’s description of the same object; since the former is cited by the latter, and both are excellently well rendered into English in that very curious and rare production of the Strawberry-Hill press, entitled ‘A Journey into England, by Paul Hentzner, in the Year M.D.XC.VIII.,’ printed in 1757, octavo; on page 4 of which the passage thus commences. ‘On the South is a Bridge of stone, 800 feet in length, of wonderful work; it is supported upon 20 piers of square stone, 60 feet high, and 30 broad, joined by arches of about 20 feet diameter. The whole is covered on each side with houses, so disposed as to have the appearance of a continued street, not at all of a Bridge. Upon this is built atower, on whose top the heads of such as have been executed for high treason are placed upon iron spikes: we counted above thirty. Paulus Jovius, in his description of the most remarkable towns of England, says, ‘All are obscured by London; which, in the estimation of many, is Cæsar’s City of the Trinobantes, the capital of all Britain, famous for the commerce of many nations; its houses are elegantly built, its churches fine, its towers strong, and its riches and abundance surprising. The wealth of the world is wafted to it by the Thames, swelled by the tide, and navigable to merchant ships, through a safe and deep channel for 60 miles, from its mouth to the City. Its banks are every where beautified with fine country seats, woods, and farms; below, is the Royal Palace of Greenwich; above, that of Richmond; and between both, on the West of London, rise the noble buildings of Westminster, most remarkable for the Courts of Justice, the Parliament, and St. Peter’s Church, enriched with the Royal tombs. At the distance of 20 miles from London, is the Castle of Windsor, a most delightful retreat of the Kings of England, as well as famous for several of their tombs, and for the most renowned ceremonial of the Order of the Garter. This river abounds in swans, swimming in flocks; the sight of them, and their noise, are vastly agreeable to the fleets that meet them in their course. It is joined to the City by a Bridge of stone wonderfully built; is never encreased by any rains, rising onlywith the tide, and is every where spread with nets, for the taking of salmon and shad.’ Thus far Paulus Jovius.’
“I have given you the whole of this passage, because it is curious in itself, most elegantly translated by Lord Orford, and because, in the accounts of ancient London which we derive from the foreigners who have visited it, there is most commonly a delineation of some feature which others have neglected; as I shall have several opportunities of shewing you hereafter. I have only to add at present, that Paul Hentzner was an eminent German Counsellor and traveller, who died in 1623; and whose work, whence I have extracted the foregoing description, is entitled ‘Itinerarium Germaniæ, Galliæ, Angliæ, et Italiæ,’ &c. best edition, Nuremberg, 1629, 4to. It was written during a journey which he made through those countries with the young Count Rhediger, with whom he had been at the University of Strasburg; its elegance of language is particularly remarkable, and the part relating to England is generally considered as the best.
“In the fourth year of the reign of King Edward the Sixth,—1550,—those extensive Letters Patent were granted to Southwark, by which the famous Fair was instituted in that Borough, to be held on the 7th, 8th, and 9th of September. The Patent was dated the 20th of April, and the sum of £647. 2s.1d.was paid for it to the King, by the Mayor and Corporation of London. At the time of this Fair, ancientlycalled ‘Our Lady Fair in Southwark,’ the Lord Mayor, and Sheriffs, used to ride to St. Magnus’ Church after dinner, at two o’clock in the afternoon; the former being vested with his collar of SS., without his hood, and all dressed in their scarlet gowns, lined, without their cloaks. They were attended by the Sword-Bearer wearing his embroidered cap, and carrying ‘the Pearl Sword;’ and, at the Church, were met by the Aldermen, all of whom, after Evening Prayer, rode over the Bridge in procession, passed through the Fair, and continued either to St. George’s Church, Newington Bridge, or to the stones pointing out the City liberties at St. Thomas of Waterings. They then returned over the Bridge, or to the Bridge-House, where a banquet was provided, when the Aldermen took leave of the Lord Mayor, and, all parties being returned home, the Bridge-Masters gave a supper to the Lord Mayor’s officers. Stow and his continuators are my authorities for these particulars; see volume ii. of his ‘Survey,’ pages 5, 249.
“Our voyage down the stream of history, and of time, has at length conducted us to the reign of Queen Mary, and the year 1554; when her proposed marriage with Philip II., of Spain, alarmed all the nation, lest the Inquisition should be established in England, and the people become the vassals of the Spanish crown. But although the Protestants were the most alarmed at this marriage, when the treaty was made public the complaints and murmurs against it became almost universal; and, finally, produced aconspiracy against Mary, of which it was certainly either the cause, or the pretence. One of the principal leaders of this plot was Sir Thomas Wyat, a gentleman of Kent, who had frequently been Ambassador to Spain, where the cruelty and subtilty of the people had alarmed him for the future fate of his own country. As the insurrection was intended to be general,hissphere of action was to be Kent; whilst Sir Peter Carew excited a rising in Cornwall, and the Duke of Suffolk in Warwickshire, as being the centre of the kingdom. From too hasty preparations, however, and too rapidly assembling his forces, the designs of Carew were discovered before they were entirely perfected; one of his accomplices was arrested; and he saved himself only by deserting the enterprise and escaping to France. This unexpected discovery accelerated all the other measures; for, though it was intended to await the arrival of King Philip, to give a colour to the rebellion, Wyat, notwithstanding he was unprepared, marched his few followers to Maidstone, and gave out that he took up arms to preserve England from being invaded. He had little success on his way to London, but the City Trained-bands being, by a manœuvre, induced to desert to him, he arrived with about 4000 men in Southwark, on Saturday, February the 3rd, 1553-54. The prudence of that excellent man, Sir Thomas White, then Lord Mayor, had, however, already prepared for his coming; added to which, the Queen, who remained in Guildhall, appointed Lord WilliamHoward Lieutenant of the City. The Draw-Bridge at London Bridge was then cut down and thrown into the River; the Bridge gates were shut; ramparts and fortifications were raised around them; ordnance was planted to defend them; and the Mayor and Sheriffs, well armed for the conflict, commanded all persons to shut their shops and windows, and to stand ready harnessed at their doors for any event which might occur. As Wyat found there was no opposition made to him in Southwark, some of his soldiers completely sacked the Bishop of Winchester’s Palace, and destroyed his extensive library; whilst at the Bridge foot he laid two pieces of ordnance, and dug an extensive trench between the Bridge and his forces. In order to gain an entrance to the Bridge, Sir Thomas brake down the wall of a house adjoining the gate, by which he ascended the leads over the gate, and then coming down into the Porter’s lodge, about eleven at night, he found the Porter sleeping, but his wife, with several others, watching over a coal fire. On beholding Wyat, they suddenly started, when he commanded them to be silent, as they loved their lives, and they should have no hurt; and, they timidly yielding to him, he and some others went upon the Bridge to reconnoitre. On the other side of the Draw-Bridge he saw the Lord Admiral, the Lord Mayor, Sir Andrew Judd, and one or two more in consultation, for defence of the Bridge, as we may suppose, by fire or torch light; and after, for some time, carefully observing their deliberations, he returned tohis party, unseen and in safety. Having stated to his followers the active measures of the Citizens, they began to consult what course they had better adopt to secure their own success and safety. The advice of some was to return to Greenwich, and crossing the water into Essex, enter London at Aldgate; others, though they were suspected of treachery, were for going back into Kent to meet some friends and supplies; when, at length, it was concluded that they should march along the Thames towards Kingston, and, crossing the Bridge of that place, enter the City on the West.
“On the night previously to their departure, Monday, the 5th of February, as ‘Thomas Menschen, one of the Lieutenant’s men of the Tower,’—says Stow, in his ‘Annals,’ page 619,—‘rowed with a sculler over against the Bishop of Winchester’s Palace, there was a water-man of the Tower stayres, desired the sayd Lieutenant to take him in, who did so, which being espied of Wyatt’s men, seauen of them with harquebusses called to them to land againe, but they would not, whereupon each man discharged their piece, and killed the sayd Waterman, which foorthwith falling downe dead, the sculler with much paine rowed through the Bridge to the Tower wharfe, with the Lieutenant’s man and the dead man in his boat; which thing was no sooner knowne to the Lieutenant, but even the same night, and the next morning, hee bent seauen great pieces of ordnance, cvluerings and demi-canons, full against the foote of the Bridge, andagainst Southwarke, and the two steeples of Saint Olaues and Saint Mary Oueries, besides all the pieces on the White Tower, one culuering on the Diueling Tower, and three fauconets ouer the Water-gate: which so soone as the inhabitants of Southwarke vnderstood, certaine both men and women came to Wyat in most lamentable wise, saying, ‘Sir, wee are all like to bee vtterly vndone, and destroyed for your sake, our houses shall by and by bee throwne downe vpon our heads, to the vtter spoyle of this borrough, with the shot of the Tower, all ready bent and charged towards vs, for the loue of God therefore take pittie vpon vs:’ at which wordes hee being partly abashed, stayed a while, and then sayd: ‘I pray you my friends bee content a while, and I will soone ease you of this mischiefe, for God forbid that you, or the least here, should be killed, or hurt, in my behalfe.’ And so, in most speedie manner, hee marched away.’
“He next proceeded to Kingston, where he devised the means of crossing the river, though the bridge was destroyed; and on the 7th of February he entered London. His unhappy story is no farther connected with that of London Bridge; and it will therefore be sufficient to observe that he was executed on the 11th of April, on Tower-hill, his quarters being set up in several places, and his head on the gibbet at Hay-hill, near Hyde Park; whence, however, it was soon after stolen and carried away. In addition to Stow’s ‘Annals,’ let me observe that Ihave also quoted from Holinshed’s ‘Chronicle,’ volume iii., page 1097.