There are three objects so striking in this picture that attention is at
once claimed by them to the exclusion of all else--the Abbey of Bermondsey,
the Tower of London, and Greenwich Palace. In Bermondsey two Queens
died--Katherine, consort of Henry V., and Elizabeth, consort of Edward IV.
Only a year or two before this map was made had the grand old Abbey been
surrendered to the King (for a full account see _Mediæval London_, vol.
ii., p. 288).
The Tower, taken as a whole, is very much as we still know it; it is one of
the oldest remaining relics of the past. Note the gruesome place of
execution near by, and the guns and primitive cranes at work upon the
wharf. Just beyond it eastward rise the fretted pinnacles of St.
Katherine's by the Tower, on the spot now covered by St. Katherine's Docks.
Stepney Church stands far away on the horizon, cut off from the City by an
ocean of green fields.
Returning to the south side, we see Says Court, Deptford, between
Bermondsey and Greenwich. This was for long the home of John Evelyn, and
was ruinously treated by Peter the Great, who tenanted it during his
memorable stay in this country in 1698. (For Greenwich Palace or Placentia,
see _London in the Time of the Tudors_.)
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