LONDON
BY
WALTER BESANT
AUTHOR OF "ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN"
"FIFTY YEARS AGO" ETC.
_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS_
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE
Copyright, 1892, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
_All rights reserved._
PREFACE
In the following chapters it has been my endeavor to present pictures of
the City of London--instantaneous photographs, showing the streets, the
buildings, and the citizens at work and at play. Above all, the
citizens: with their daily life in the streets, in the shops, in the
churches, and in the houses; the merchant in the quays and on 'Change;
the shopkeeper of Cheapside; the priests and the monks and the friars;
the shouting of those who sell; the laughter and singing of those who
feast and drink; the ringing of the bells; the dragging of the criminal
to the pillory; the Riding of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen; the river
with its boats and barges; the cheerful sound of pipe and tabor; the
stage with its tumblers and its rope-dancers; the 'prentices with their
clubs; the evening dance in the streets. I want my pictures to show all
these things. The history of London has been undertaken by many writers;
the presentment of the city and the people from age to age has never
yet, I believe, been attempted.
The sources whence one derives the materials for such an attempt are, in
the earlier stages, perfectly well known and accessible to all. Chaucer,
Froissart, Lydgate, certain volumes of the "Early English Text Society,"
occur to everybody. But the richest mine, for him who digs after the
daily life of the London citizen during the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, is certainly Riley's great book of _Extracts from the City
Records_. If there is any life or any reality in the three chapters of
this book which treat of the Plantagenet period, it is certainly due to
Riley.
As regards the Tudor period, the wealth of illustration is astonishing.
One might as well be writing of the city life of this day, so copious
are the materials. But it is not to Shakespeare and the dramatists that
we must look for the details so much as to the minor writers, the
moralists and satirists, of whom the ordinary world knows nothing.
The reign of Charles II. directs one to the Plague and to the Fire. I
was fortunate in finding two tracts, one dealing with the plague of
1603, and the other with that of 1625. These, though they are earlier
than Charles II., were invaluable, as illustrating the effect of the
pestilence in causing an exodus of all who could get away, which took
place as much in these earlier years as in 1666. Contemporary tracts on
the state of London after the Fire, also happily discovered, proved
useful. And when the Plague and the Fire had been dismissed, another
extraordinary piece of good fortune put me in possession of certain
household accounts which enabled me to present a bourgeois family of the
period at home.
Where there is so much to speak about, one must exercise care in
selection. I have endeavored to avoid as much as possible those points
which have already been presented. For instance, the growth of the
municipality, the rise of the Guilds and the Companies, the laws of
London, the relations of the City to the Sovereign and the State--these
things belong to the continuous historian, not to him who draws a
picture of a given time. In the latter case it is the effect of law, not
its growth, which is important. Thus I have spoken of the pilgrimizing
in the time of Henry II.; of the Mysteries of that time; things that
belonged to the daily life; rather than to matters of policy, the
stubborn tenacity of the City, or the changes that were coming over the
conditions of existence and of trade. Again, in Plantagenet London one
might have dwelt at length upon the action taken by London in successive
civil wars. That, again, belongs to the historian. I have contented
myself with sketching the churches and the monasteries, the palaces and
the men-at-arms, the merchants and the workmen.
Again, in the time of George II., the increase of trade, which then
advanced by leaps and bounds, the widening of the world to London
enterprise, the part which London took in the conquest of India and the
ejection of France from North America belong to history. For my own part
I have preferred to show the position, the influence, and the work of
the Church at a time generally believed to be the deadest period in the
whole history of the Church of England. This done, I have gone on to
illustrate the day-by-day life of the citizens, with the prices of
things, the management, and the appearance of the City.
One thing remains to be said. Mr. Loftie, in his _History of London_
(Stadford), first gave the world a reconstruction of the ground--the
_terrain_--of London and its environs before ever a house was erected or
an acre cleared. The first chapter of this book--that on Roman London
and After--is chiefly due to a study of this map, and to realizing what
that map means when applied to the scanty records of Augusta. This map
enabled me to recover the years which followed the retreat of the
Romans. I cannot allow this chapter to be called a Theory. It is, I
venture to claim for it, nothing less than a Recovery.
WALTER BESANT.
UNITED UNIVERSITY CLUB:
_May 2, 1892_.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. AFTER THE ROMANS 1
II. SAXON AND NORMAN 43
III. PLANTAGENET 105
IV. PLANTAGENET--_CONTINUED_ 155
V. PLANTAGENET--_CONTINUED_ 215
VI. TUDOR 263
VII. TUDOR--_CONTINUED_ 320
VIII. CHARLES THE SECOND 371
IX. GEORGE THE SECOND 429
INDEX 501
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
_Stowe's Monument, in North Aisle of St. Andrew Undershaft_ 2
_Roman Marble Sarcophagus._ Guildhall 4
_Statues of Mercury, Apollo, and Jupiter or Neptune: found
in the Thames, 1837_ 6
_Bronze Articles for Domestic Use_ 8
_Bronze Fibulæ and other Ornaments: found in London_ 11
_Roman Pavement: Leadenhall Street_ 14
_Bronze Bust of the Emperor Hadrian: found in the Thames._
British Museum 17
_A Bit of Roman Wall._ From a Photograph by W. H. Grove,
174 Brompton Road 20
_Lamps and Lamp-stand_ 23
_Sepulchral Cists, etc.: found in Warwick Square, Newgate
Street, 1881._ British Museum 32
_Roman Keys._ Guildhall 34
_Toilet Articles--Hair-pins; Hair-pin (Sarina, Wife of Hadrian);
Bone Comb and Case (Cloakham); Bone Comb (Lower Thames Street)_ 36
_Statuettes: found in Thames Street, 1889._ Guildhall 39
_Roman Amphoræ_ 41
_London Stone, Cannon Street, as it appeared in 1800_ 45
_Battle between Two Armed Knights_ 49
_River Tilting in the Twelfth Century_ 52
_Crypt: Remains of the Collegiate Church of St. Martin-le-Grand,
N.E._ 54
_The Founder's Tomb, St. Bartholomew the Great, E.C., founded 1123_ 57
_South Ambulatory, Church of St. Bartholomew, founded 1123_ 61
_St. Katherine's by the Tower_ 64
_Interior of the Church of St. Katherine's by the Tower_ 65
_Dowgate Dock_ 68
_St. Saviour's Dock_ 70
_North-east View of St. Saviour's_ 73
_Plan of Saxon Church, Bradford-on-Avon_ 76
_Saxon Church, Seventh or Eighth Century, Bradford-on-Avon_ 77
_Sculptured Angel, Saxon Church_ 78
_View of Interior of Saxon Church, showing very remarkable
Chancel Arch and Entrance_ 79
_First Stone London Bridge, begun A.D. 1176_ 82
_Crypt, or Lower Chapel, of St. Thomas's Church, London Bridge_ 84
_West Front of Chapel on London Bridge_ 85
_Part of London Wall in the Church-yard of St. Giles, Cripplegate_ 88
_Entrance to Knights Hospitallers_ 90
_Buildings of Knights Hospitallers_ 91
_Crypt in Bow Church, from the North Side, near the East
End of the Nave_ 95
_Interior of Porch of the Parish Church of St. Alphege, London
Wall, formerly the Chapel of the Priory of St. Elsynge Spital_ 97
_The Arms and Seals of the Prior and Convent of St. Saviour
at Bermondsey_ 101
_A City Monument_ 107
_Ruins (1790) of the Nunnery of St. Helen, Bishopsgate Street_ 110
_St. Helen's, Bishopsgate_ 113
_South-west View of the Interior of the Church of St. Helen,
Bishopsgate Street_ 116
_Church of St. Augustin (St. Austin)_ 119
_Church of Austin Friars_ 122
_Christ's Hospital, from the Cloisters_ 126
_The Charter House_ 130
_Ruins of the Convent of Nuns Minories, 1810_ 133
_Bow Church, Mile End Road_ 137
_North-east View of Waltham Abbey Church, Essex_ 140
_Waltham Abbey Church, Essex, before Restoration_ 145
_Porch of St. Sepulchre's Church_ 148
_South View of the Palace of the Bishops of Winchester, near
St. Saviour's_ 151
_Charing Cross._ Erected by Edward I. in memory of Queen
Eleanor of Castile 156
_Church of St. Paul's before the Fire_ 158
_Monuments of St. Paul's which survived the Fire (east end
of North Crypt)_ 160
_Ancient North-east View of Bishopsgate Street_ 162
_The College of Arms, or Herald's Office_ 164
_Bridewell_ 165
_View of the Savoy from the Thames_ 165
_View of the South Front of Baynard's Castle, about 1640_ 167
_View of Cold Harbor, in Thames Street, about 1600_ 171
_Crosby House, Bishopsgate Street_ 173
_Interior of Crosby Hall_ 175
_Interior of part of Crosby Hall, called the Council Room,
looking East_ 178
_Gateway, etc., in Crosby Square (now destroyed)_ 180
_Crosby Hall_ 183
_North-east View of Crosby Hall, showing part of the Interior
of the Great Hall_ 187
_Gerrard's Hall_ 191
_Bridewell Palace, about 1660, with the Entrance to the Fleet
River, part of the Black Friars, etc._ 195
_The Thames Front, A.D. 1540_ 197
_Ancient Court of Bridewell Palace_ 201
_Old Charing Cross_ 216
_The Strand (1547), with the Strand Cross, Covent Garden, and the
Procession of Edward VI. to his Coronation at Westminster_ 241
_Arms of Sir Richard Whittington_ 244
_Arms granted to the Craft of the Ironmongers of London by
Lancaster King of Arms, A.D. 1466_ 246
_Guildhall, King Street, London_ 248
_Blackwell Hall, King Street_ 251
_Ancient Plate_ 254
_The Conduit, near Bayswater_ 257
_South-east View of Stepney Church_ 259
_Boar in Eastcheap_ 264
_The View of London Bridge from East to West_ 271
_The Pool_ 275
_Burghley House_ 283
_Ilford Almshouses_ 287
_Old Tavern_ 289
_Front of Sir Paul Pinder's House, on the West Side of
Bishopsgate Street Without_ 291
_The Royal Exchange, Cornhill_ 295
_The Steel Yard, etc., Thames Street, after the Great Fire of 1666_ 299
_Collegii Greshamensis a Latere Occidentali Prospectus A.D. 1739_ 302
_Curious Pump_ 305
_Newgate_ 315
_Sign of the Three Kings, Bucklersbury_ 321
_The Manner of Burning Anne Askew, John Lacels, John Adams,
and Nicolas Belenian, with certane of ye Counsell sitting in
Smithfield_ 326
_Old Fountain Inn in the Minories._ Taken down in 1793 329
_South-west View of an Ancient Structure in Ship Yard, Temple Bar_ 335
_Obsequies of Sir Philip Sidney_ 341
_Dr. Shaw preaching at St. Paul's Cross_ 347
_The Old Bull and Mouth Inn, St. Martin's-le-Grand._ Now
pulled down 353
_Globe Theatre_ 357
_Inside of the Red Bull Playhouse_ 359
_South View of Falcon Tavern, on the Bank Side, Southwark,
as it appeared in 1805_ 363
_Palace of Whitehall in the Reign of James II._ 373
_Hungerford Market_ 380
_Cheapside_ 382
_Fleet Street_ 385
_Below Bridge_ 389
_Old East India House_ 396
_Sion College_ 398
_John Bunyan's Meeting-house in Zoar Street_ 401
_Old Grocers' Hall, used for Bank of England_ 403
_London after the Fire_ 405
_Old St. Paul's, with the Porch of Inigo Jones_ 411
_Houses in St. Katherine's._ Pulled down in 1827 432
_Lud Gate_ 435
_Davenant's School_ 439
_Sign_ 444
_St. Dunstan's in the West_ 445
_Approach to London Bridge_ 447
_Above Bridge_ 452
_St. James's Palace--March of the Guards_ 456
_Ranelagh_ 459
_North View of the Marshalsea, Southwark_ 461
_Charing Cross_ 463
_A Dish of Tea_ 469
_Visiting Card_ 478
_Vauxhall_ 481
_Sir John Fielding's Court, Bow Street_ 487
_Interior of St. Stephen, Walbrook_ 491
_Concert Ticket_ 493
LONDON
I
AFTER THE ROMANS
The only real authorities for the events which took place in Britain
during the fifth and sixth centuries are Gildas and the _Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle_. There are other writers--Ethelwerd, for instance, who copied
the _Chronicle_, and adds nothing; and Nennius, whose work, edited by
one Mark the Hermit in the tenth century, was found in the Vatican. The
first edition was published in London in the year 1819, in the original
Latin, by the Rev. William Gunn. Nennius gives a brief account of King
Arthur and his exploits, but he affords little or no information that is
of use to us. The work of Richard of Cirencester is extremely valuable
on account of its topography; it is also interesting as the work of the
first English antiquary. But he belonged to the fourteenth century, and
has added nothing to the history, of which he knew no more--less,
indeed--than we ourselves can discover. The book named after Geoffrey of
Monmouth is not worth a moment's serious consideration. In Bede's
_Ecclesiastical History_ passages may be found which throw side lights
on this period, but they are few.
[Illustration: STOWE'S MONUMENT, IN NORTH AISLE OF ST. ANDREW
UNDERSHAFT]
Gildas, called Badonicus, is supposed to have been born in or about the
year 520, in Wales. A great mass of legend has collected about the name
of Gildas. He was the son of a British kinglet; his three-and-twenty
brothers fought under King Arthur. He himself preached, taught, and in
the matter of miracles was greatly blessed. He wrote--if he did
write--about the year 560, and is therefore contemporary with the events
of which he speaks. His book contains a vast quantity of rhetoric to a
very small amount of history. Unfortunately for him, he was called by
his admiring fellow-monks, in his lifetime, _Sapiens_--the Wise.
Perhaps, in order to live up to this designation, he was fain to assume
the garb and language of a prophet, and, with what he thought prophetic
force, which we now perceive to be ecclesiastical inflation, he
proceeded to admonish princes and people of their sins. Every age, to
the ecclesiastical prophet as to the secular satirist, is an age of
unbounded profligacy; of vice such as the world has never before
witnessed; of luxury advanced to heights hitherto untrodden; of license,
wantonness, riot unbridled and unparalleled, insomuch that the city of
Jerusalem, even when under the soft influences of Ahola and Aholibah,
were really righteous and pure in comparison. No doubt Gildas lived in a
most trying and most disappointing time. Things went wrong, and things
went steadily from bad to worse. His people were defeated and driven
continually westward; they could not even hold together and fight side
by side against the common enemy; religion was forgotten in the fierce
struggles for life, and in the fiercer civil dissensions. As for the
enemy, Saxon, Angle, or Jute, all were alike, in that none had the least
reverence for priest or for Church; everywhere fighting, defeat, and
massacre. Yet one cannot but think that a lower note might have been
struck with greater advantage; and now that it is impossible to learn
how far the prophet's admonitions brought repentance to his kings, one
regrets that a simple statement of the events in chronological order as
they occurred was not thought useful or desirable in a historical work.
Would you hear how the Sapient addresses kings? Listen. He is
admonishing for his good the King of North Wales--Cuneglass by name:
"Thou, too, Cuneglass, why art thou fallen into the filth of thy former
naughtiness? Yea, since the first spring of thy tender youth, thou Bear,
thou Rider and Ruler of many and Guider of the chariot which is the
receptacle of the Bear, thou Contemner of God and Vilifier of his order!
Thou tawny Butcher! Why, besides thine other innumerable backslidings,
having thrown out of doors thy wife, dost thou, against the apostle's
express prohibition, esteem her detestable sister, who has vowed unto
God everlasting continency, as the very flower of the celestial nymphs?"
In similar gentle strains he approaches, and delicately touches upon,
the sins of other kings.
[Illustration: ROMAN MARBLE SARCOPHAGUS (_Guildhall_)]
This kind of language is difficult to sustain, and sometimes leads to
contradictions. Thus, in one sentence, the Sapient speaks of his
countrymen as wholly ignorant of the art of war, and in another he tells
how the flower of the British youth went off to fight for Maximus.
As regards the alleged luxury of the time, this poor monk wrote from a
dismal cell, very likely of wattle and daub, certainly draughty and
cold; his food was poor and scanty; his bed was hard; life to him was a
long endurance. The roasted meats, the soft pillows and cushions, the
heated rooms of the better sort, seemed to him detestable and wicked
luxury, especially when he thought of the Saxons and Jutes overrunning
the ruined country. Of course, in every age the wealthy will surround
themselves with whatever comforts can be procured. We are in these days,
for instance, advanced to what our ancestors would have called an
inconceivable height of luxury. One would like to invite the luxurious
Cuneglass to spend a day or two with a young man of the present day.
Those who were neither rich nor free lived hardly, as they do to this
day, but more hardly; those who were young and strong, even though they
were not perhaps trained to the use of arms, easily learned how to use
them, and when it came to victory or death, they soon recovered the old
British spirit. This is not the place, otherwise it would be interesting
to show what a long and gallant stand was made by these people whom it
is customary to call cowardly and luxurious--these ancestors of the
gallant Welsh.[1] It is manifest that a period of two hundred years and
more of peace, almost profound, their frontiers and their coasts guarded
for them by the legions of Rome, must have lowered the British spirit.
But the people quickly recovered it. The Arthurian epic, it is certain,
has plenty of foundation in fact, and perhaps poor King Cuneglass
himself, the Bear and Butcher, wielded a valiant sword in spite of his
family troubles. The Britons were, it is quite certain, prone to
internal dissensions, which greatly assisted their defeat and conquest.
But they had one bond of union. Their enemies were pagan; they were
Christian. Gildas addresses a nation of Christians, not a church planted
among idolaters. Christian symbols and emblems have been found
everywhere on the site of Roman towns, not, it is true, in large
quantities, but they are found; while, though altars have also been
found, and pagan emblems and statuettes of gods, there are no ruins
anywhere in Britain, except at Bath, of Roman temples. Their faith, like
the Catholicism of the Irish, was their national symbol. It separated
them broadly from their enemies; it gave them contempt for barbarians.
The faith therefore flourished with great strength and vigor. But the
popular Christianity seems to have been in Britannia, as everywhere, a
very mixed kind of creed. As in Southern Italy among the peasants there
linger to this day traditions, customs, and superstitions of paganism
which the people call the Old Faith, so in Britain there lingered among
the people ceremonies and beliefs which the Church vainly tried to
suppress, or craftily changed into Christian observances. Such things
linger still in Wales, though the traveller regards them not. In the
same way the folk-lore of our own time in our own villages is still
largely composed of the beliefs and superstitions inherited from our old
English--not British--ancestors. What happens is always the same, and
must be the same. In times of religious revolution the common folk
change the name of their God, but not his nature or his attributes.
Apollo becomes the Christ, but in the minds of the Italian peasants he
remains the old Apollo. The great Sun-God, worshipped under so many
names and with so many attributes, remains in the hearts of rustics
long, long centuries after mass has been said and the Host has been
elevated. Nay, it has even been said that the mass itself is an
adaptation of pagan ritual to Christian worship. But the people,
whatever their old beliefs, called themselves Christian, and that one
fact enabled them to forget their jealousies and quarrels in times of
emergency, and sometimes to act together. They were Christian; their
enemies were pagan. It is significant that in one passage Gildas--who is
quoted by Bede--reproaches them for not converting their conquerors,
among whom they lived. This proves, if the fact wanted proof, (1) that
the Britons were not exterminated by their conquerors; (2) that they
were allowed to continue unmolested in their own religion; and (3) that
they kept it to themselves as a possession of their own, a consolation
in disaster, and a mark of superiority and dignity.
[Illustration: STATUES OF MERCURY, APOLLO, AND JUPITER OR NEPTUNE, FOUND
IN THE THAMES, 1837]
One thing is quite clear, that when the Roman legions finally withdrew,
the Britons were left thoroughly awakened to the fact that if they could
not fight they must perish. They understood once more the great law of
humanity in all ages, that those who would enjoy in peace must be
prepared to fight in war. They fought, therefore, valiantly; yet not so
valiantly as the stronger race which came to drive them out.
[Illustration: BRONZE ARTICLES FOR DOMESTIC USE]
In particular, however, we have to deal with the fate of London, which
was then Augusta. Let us first endeavor to lay down the facts. They are
to be drawn from two sources: the first from the meagre notes of the
historians, the second from certain topographical and geographical
considerations. The latter have never yet been fully presented, and I
believe that the conclusion to be drawn by comparing the double set of
facts will be accepted as irresistible.
The following are the facts related by the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_:
A.D. 443.--This year the Britons sent over the sea to Rome, and
begged for help against the Picts; but they had none, because they
were themselves warring against Attila, King of the Huns. And then
they sent to the Angles, and entreated the like of the Ethelings of
the Angles.
A.D. 449.--Hengist and Horsa, invited by Vortigern, King of the
Britons, landed in Britain on the shore called Wippidsfleet
(Ebbsfleet?), at first in aid of the Britons, but afterwards they
fought against them. King Vortigern gave them land in the south-east
of this county on condition that they should fight against the
Picts. They then fought against the Picts, and had the victory
wheresoever they came. Then they sent to the Angles, desired a
larger force to be sent, and caused them to be told the
worthlessness of the Britons and the excellence of the land. Then
they soon sent thither a larger force in aid of the others. At that
time came men from three tribes in Germany--from the Old Saxons,
from the Angles, and from the Jutes. From the Jutes came the Kentish
men and the Wightwarians--that is, the tribe which now dwells in
Wight, and that race among the West Saxons which is still called the
race of Jutes. From the Old Saxons came the men of Essex, Sussex,
and Wessex. From Anglia, which has ever since remained waste,
betwixt the Jutes and Saxons, came the men of East Anglia, Middle
Anglia, Mercia, and of Northumbria.
A.D. 455.--This year Hengist and Horsa fought against King Vortigern
at the place called Ægelsthrop (Aylesford), and his brother Horsa
was slain, and after that Hengist obtained the kingdom, and Æsc, his
son.
A.D. 456.--This year Hengist and Æsc slew four troops of Britons
with the edge of the sword in the place which is named Crecganford
(Crayford).
A.D. 457.--This year Hengist and Æsc, his son, fought against the
Britons at a place called Crecganford, and then slew 4000 men. And
the Britons then forsook Kent, and in great terror fled to London.
A.D. 465.--This year Hengist and Æsc fought against the Welsh near
Wippidsfleet (Ebbsfleet), and there slew twelve Welsh ealdormen,
and one of their own Thanes was slain there whose name was Wippid.
A.D. 473.--This year Hengist and Æsc fought against the Welsh, and
took spoils innumerable; and the Welsh fled from the Angles like
fire.
A.D. 477.--This year Ælla and his three sons came to the land of
Britain with their ships at a place called Cymensrova, and there
slew many Welsh, and some they drove in flight into the wood that is
named Andredes-lea. (Probably the landing was on the coast of
Sussex.)
A.D. 485.--This year Ælla fought against the Welsh near the Bank of
Mearcriediburn.
A.D. 491.--This year Ælla and Cissa besieged Andredacester
(Pevensey), and slew all that dwelt therein, so that not a single
Briton was left.
A.D. 495.--This year two ealdormen came to Britain, Cerdic, and
Cynric his son, with five ships, at the place which is called
Cerdicsore (probably Calshot Castle on Southampton water), and Stuf
and Whitgen fought against the Britons and put them to flight.
A.D. 519.--This year Cerdic and Cynric obtained the kingdom of the
West Saxons; and the same year they fought against the Britons where
it is now named Cerdisford (Charford on the Avon near
Fordingbridge).
A.D. 527.--This year Cerdic and Cynric fought against the Britons at
the place called Ardicslea.
A.D. 530.--This year Cerdic and Cynric conquered the Island of
Wight, and slew many men at Whit-garan-byrg (Carisbrooke, Isle of
Wight).
A.D. 547.--This year Ida began to reign, from whom came the royal
race of Northumberland.
The conquest of England was now virtually completed. There was fighting
at Old Sarum in 552; at Banbury in 556; at Bedford, at Aylesbury, and at
Benson, in the year 571. One would judge this to be a last sortie made
by the Welsh who had been driven into the fens. In the year 577 three
important places in the west are taken--Gloucester, Bath, and
Cirencester. In 584 there was fighting at Fethan-lea (Frethern), when
the victor took many towns and spoils innumerable; "and wrathful he
thence returned to his own." As late as 596 we hear that the king of the
West Saxons fought, and contended incessantly against either the Angles
(his own cousins), or the Welsh, or the Picts, or the Scots; and in 607
was fought the great battle of Chester, in which "numberless" Welsh were
slain, including two hundred priests who had come to pray for victory.
[Illustration: BRONZE FIBULÆ AND OTHER ORNAMENTS: FOUND IN LONDON]
It is therefore evident that the conquest of the country took a long
time to effect--not less, indeed, than two hundred years. First, Kent,
with Surrey, fell; next, Sussex; both before the end of the fifth
century. Early in the sixth century the West Saxons conquered the
country covered by Hampshire, a part of Surrey, and Dorsetshire; next,
Essex fell, and there was stubborn fighting for many years in the
country about and beyond the great Middlesex forest. The conquest of the
North concerns us little, save that it drew off some of those who were
fighting in what afterwards became the Kingdom of Mercia. I desire to
note here only the surroundings of London, and to mark how, by
successive steps of the invaders' march, it was gradually cut off, bit
by bit, from the surrounding country. Thus, when Kent was overrun, the
bridge gate was closed, the roads south, south-west, and south-east were
blocked, and the whole of that country cut off from London; at the fall
of Essex, Norfolk, and Suffolk, the eastern gate was closed, and that
great district was cut off. When Wessex was an established kingdom, the
river highway was closed; there then remained only the western gate, and
that, during the whole of the sixth century, led out into a country
perpetually desolated and destroyed by war, so that, by the middle of
the sixth century, no more communication whatever was possible between
London and the rest of the country, unless the people made a sortie and
cut their way through the enemy.
Observe, however, that no mention whatever is made of London in the
_Chronicle_. Other and less important towns are mentioned. Anderida or
Pevensey, Aquæ Solis or Bath, Gloucester, Chester, and many others; but
of London there is no mention. Consider: London, though not much greater
than other cities in the country--York, Verulam, Lincoln, Colchester,
for instance--was undoubtedly the chief port of the country. We must not
bring modern ideas to bear when we read of the vast trade, the immense
concourse of merchants, and so forth. We need not picture miles of docks
and countless masts. Roman London was not modern Liverpool. Its bulk of
trade was perfectly insignificant compared with that of the present.
When we begin to consider the mediæval trade of London this will become
apparent. Still, it was, up to the coming of the Saxons, a vigorous and
flourishing place, and the chief port of the country. Why, therefore,
does the _Chronicle_ absolutely pass over so great an event as the
taking of London?
Such is the evidence of history. Let us consider next the evidence of
topography. We shall understand what happened in London when we
understand the exceptional position of London and the dangers to which
the city in time of civil war was necessarily exposed.
We will go back to the beginning of all things--to the lie of the land
on which London was planted. The reader, if he will consult that very
admirable book, Loftie's _History of London_, will find in it a most
instructive map. It shows the _terrain_ before the city was built at
all. The river Thames, between Mortlake on the west and Blackwall on the
east, pursued a serpentine way, in the midst of marshes stretching north
and south. There were marshes all the way. At spring tides, and at all
tides a little above the common, these marshes were under water; they
were always swampy and covered with ponds; half a dozen tributary brooks
flowed into them and were lost in them. They varied greatly in breadth,
being generally much broader on the south side than on the north. On
this side the higher land rose up abruptly in a cliff or steep hill
from twenty to five-and-thirty feet in height. The cliff, as we follow
it from the east, approached the river, touched it at one point, and
then receded again as it went westward. This point, where the cliff
overhung the river, was the only possible place where the city could
have been founded.
I call it a point, but it consisted of two hillocks, both about
thirty-five feet high, standing on either side the little stream of
Walbrook, where it flows into the Thames. On one of these hills,
probably that on the west, was a small fortress of the Britons,
constructed after the well-known fashion of hill forts, numberless
examples of which remain scattered about the country. On the other
hillock the Roman city, later on, was first commenced.
[Illustration: ROMAN PAVEMENT: LEADENHALL STREET]
Here, at the beginning of the city, was instituted very early a ferry
over the river. On the eastern hill the Romans built their forum and
basilica, with the offices and official houses and quarters. When
foreign trade began to increase, the merchants were obliged to spread
themselves along the bank. They built quays and river-walls to keep out
the water, and the city extended laterally to east and west, just as far
as was convenient for the purposes of trade--that is, not farther than
Fleet River on the west, and the present site of the Tower on the east.
It then began to spread northward, but very slowly, because a mile of
river front can accommodate a great working population with a very
narrow backing of houses. When the city wall was built, somewhere about
the year 360, the town had already run out in villas and gardens as far
north as that wall. Outside the wall there was nothing at all, unless
one may count a few scattered villas on the south side of the river.
There was as yet no Westminster, but in its place a broad and marshy
heath spread over the whole area now covered by the City of Westminster,
Millbank, St. James's Park, Chelsea, and as far west as Fulham. Beyond
the wall on the north lay dreary, uncultivated plains, covered with fens
and swamps, stretching from the walls to the lower slopes of the
northern hills, and to the foot of an immense forest, as yet wholly
untouched, afterwards called the Middlesex Forest. Fragments of this
forest yet remain at Hampstead, Highgate, Epping, and Hainault. All
through this period, therefore, and for long after, the City of London
had a broad marsh lying on the south, another on the west, a third on
the east, while on the north there stretched a barren, swampy moorland,
followed by an immense impenetrable forest. Later on a portion of the
land lying on the north-west, where is now Holborn, was cleared and
cultivated. But this was later, when the Roman roads which led out of
London ran high and broad over the marshes and the moors and through the
forest primeval. The point to be remembered as connected with the
marshes is this: Around most great towns there is found a broad belt of
cultivated ground protected by the wall and the garrison. Here the
people grow for their own use their grain and their fruit, and pasture
their beasts and their swine. London, alone among great cities, never
had any such home farm until the marsh was reclaimed. The cattle, which
were driven daily along the roads into the city, grazed on pastures in
Essex farms, beyond the forest and the River Lea. The corn which filled
her markets came down the river in barges from the inland country. All
the supplies necessary for the daily food of the city were brought in
from the country round. Should these supplies be cut off, London would
be starved.
[Illustration: BRONZE BUST OF THE EMPEROR HADRIAN: FOUND IN THE THAMES
(_British Museum_)]
These supplies were very large indeed. As said above, we may set aside
as extravagant the talk of a vast and multitudinous throng of people, as
if the place was already a kind of Liverpool. Augusta never, certainly,
approached the importance of Massilia, of Bordeaux, of Antioch, of
Ephesus. Nor was Augusta greater than other English towns. The walls of
York enclose as large an area as those of Roman London. The wall of
Uriconium encloses an area nearly equal to that of Roman London. The
area of Calleva (Silchester), a country town of no great importance, is
nearly half as great as that of Roman London. But it was a large and
populous city. How populous we cannot even approximately guess.
Considering the extent of the wall, if that affords any help, we find,
counting the river front, that the wall was two miles and three-quarters
in length. This is a great length to defend. It is, however, certain
that the town when walled must have contained a population strong enough
to defend their wall. The Romans knew how to build in accordance with
their wants and their resources. If the wall was built three miles
long, there were certainly defenders in proportion. Now, could so great
a length be intrusted to a force less than 20,000? The defenders of the
walls of Jerusalem, which, after the taking of the third wall, were very
much less than two miles in extent, demanded at least 25,000 men, as
Titus very well knew. Now, if every able-bodied man in London under the
age of five-and-fifty were called out to fight, the population, on the
assumption of 20,000 suitable men, would be about 70,000. If, on the
other hand, the London citizens after the departure of the Romans could
man their walls with only 10,000 men, they would have a population of
about 35,000. Now, the daily needs of a population of only 35,000 are
very considerable. We have, it is true, to supply food for 5,000,000,
but the brain is incapable of comprehending figures and estimates of
such vastness. One can better understand those which have to do with a
population of 30,000 or 40,000. So much bread, so much meat, so much
wine, beer, and fruit. Where did all these things come from? Nothing, as
I have said, from the immediate neighborhood; chiefly from Surrey and
from Kent; a great deal from Essex; and the rest from the west country
by means of the river.
London, therefore, with a population of not less than 35,000, and
perhaps upwards of 70,000, stood in the midst of marshes--marshes
everywhere--marshes all around except in the north; and there
impenetrable forest. It depended wholly for its supplies, for its daily
bread, for its existence, upon the country around.
In order to buy these supplies it depended upon its trade of import and
export. It was the only port in the kingdom; it received the hides, the
iron, and the slaves from inland and embarked them in the foreign keels;
it received from abroad the silks, the spices, the wines, the
ecclesiastical vestments, and all the articles of foreign luxury, and
sent them about the country.
But this important place changed hands, somehow, without so much as a
mention from the contemporary records; and while places like Bath,
Gloucester, Cirencester, are recorded as being besieged and taken, no
word is said of London, a place of far greater importance.
It has been suggested that the siege of London was not followed by a
massacre as at Anderida, and that there was no great battle as at
Chester; but that the place was quietly surrendered and the lives of the
people spared. This is a thing absolutely impossible during these two
centuries. The English invader did not make war in such a manner. If he
attacked a town and took it by assault he killed everybody who did not
run away. That was his method: that was how he understood war. If he
pushed out his invading arms he killed the occupants of the land,
unless, which sometimes happened, they killed him, or, as more often
happened, they ran away. But of making terms, sparing lives, suffering
people to remain in peaceful occupation of their houses we hear nothing,
because such a thing never happened until the close of the war, when
victory was certain to one side and resistance was impossible to the
other. Mercy was not as yet in the nature of Angle, Jute, or Saxon.
Suppose, however, that it did happen. Suppose that after that great rout
of Craysford the victorious army had pushed forward and taken the city,
or had accepted surrender in this peaceful nineteenth-century fashion,
so entirely opposite to their received and customary method, what would
have happened next?
Well, there would have been continuity of occupation. Most certainly and
without doubt this continuity of occupation would have been proved by
many signs, tokens, and survivals. For instance, the streets. The old
streets would have remained in their former positions. Had they been
burned down they would have been rebuilt as before. Nothing is more
conservative and more slow to change than an old street. Where it is
first laid out there it remains. The old lanes which formerly ran
between gardens and at the back of houses, are still the narrow streets
of the City. In their names the history of their origin remains. In
Garlickhithe, Fyfoot Lane, Suffolk Lane, Tower Royal, Size Lane, Old
Jewry, the Minories, and in a hundred other names, we have the identical
mediæval streets, with the identical names given to them from their
position and their association. And this though fire after fire has
burned them down, and since one fire at least destroyed most of them at
a single effort. A Roman town was divided, like a modern American town,
into square blocks--_insulæ_ (islands) they were called. Where are the
_insulæ_ of London? There is not in the whole of London a single trace
of the Roman street, if we except that little bit still called after the
name given by the Saxons to a Roman road.
[Illustration: A BIT OF ROMAN WALL
(_From a photograph by W. H. Grove, 174 Brompton Road_)]
Again, continuity of occupation is illustrated by tradition. It is
impossible for the traditions of the past to die out if the people
continue. Nay, if the conqueror makes slaves of the former lords, and if
they remain in their servitude for many generations, yet the traditions
will not die. There are traditions of these ancient times among the
Welsh, but among the Londoners there are none. The Romans--the Roman
power--the ferocity of Boadicea, the victorious march of Theodosius, the
conversion of the country, the now forgotten saints and martyrs of
London--these would have been remembered had there been continuity of
occupation. But not a single trace remains.
Or, again, continuity of tenure is proved by the survival of customs.
What Roman customs were ever observed in London? There is not a trace of
any. Consider, however, the customs which still linger among the Tuscan,
the Calabrian, and the Sicilian peasants. They are of ancient origin;
they belong to the Roman time and earlier. But in London there has never
been a custom or an observance in the least degree traceable to the
Roman period.
Lastly, continuity of tenure is illustrated by the names of the people.
Now, a careful analysis of the names found in the records of the
fourteenth century has been made by Riley in his _Memorials of London_.
We need not consider the surnames, which are all derived from
occupation, or place of birth, or some physical peculiarity. The
Christian names are for the most part of Norman origin; some are Saxon;
none are Roman or British.
It has been advanced by some that the municipal government of the town
is of Roman origin. If that were so, it would be through the
interference of the Church. But it is not so. I believe that all who
have considered the subject have now acknowledged that the municipal
institutions of London have grown out of the customs of the English
conquerors.
To sum up, because this is very important. When in the seventh century
we find the Saxons in the possession of the city there is no mention
made of any siege, attack, capture, or surrender. When, a little later,
we are able to read contemporary history, we find not a single custom or
law due to the survival of British customs. We find the courses of the
old streets entirely changed, the very memory of the streets swept away;
not a single site left of any ancient building. Everything is clean
gone. Not a voice, not a legend, not a story, not a superstition remains
of the stately Augusta. It is entirely vanished, leaving nothing behind
but a wall.
Loftie's opinion is thus summed up (_London_, vol. i., p. 54):
Roman evidences, rather negative, it is true, than positive to show
that the East Saxons found London desolate, with broken walls, and a
scanty population if any; that they entered on possession with no
great feeling of exultation, after no great military feat deserving
mention in these Chronicles; and that they retained it only just so
long as the more powerful neighboring kings allowed them. This view
is the only one which occurs to me to account for the few facts we
have.
And that great antiquary Guest thinks that good reasons may be given for
the belief that London for a while lay desolate and uninhabited.
The evidence seems to me positive rather than negative, and, in fact,
conclusive. London, I am convinced, _must_--not _may_, but _must_--have
remained for a time desolate and empty.
[Illustration: LAMPS AND LAMP-STAND]
The evidence is before us, to me clear and unanswerable; it is furnished
by the Chronicle of Conquest, coupled with the question of supplies.
The city could receive supplies from six approaches. One of these,
called afterwards Watling Street, connected the city with the north and
the west. It entered the walls at what became, later, Newgate. The
second and third entered near the present Bishopsgate. One of these,
Ermyn Street, led to the north-east, to Norfolk and Suffolk, the great
peninsula, with fens on one side and the ocean on two other sides; the
other, the Vicinal way, brought provisions and merchandise from Essex,
then and long afterwards thought to be the garden of England. The bridge
connected the city with the south, while the river itself was the
highway between London and the fertile counties on either side the broad
valley of the Thames. By these six ways there were brought into the city
every day a continual supply of all the necessaries of life and all its
luxuries. Along the roads plodded the pack-horses and the heavy,
grinding carts; the oxen and the sheep and the pigs were driven to the
market; barges floated down the stream laden with flour, and with
butter, cheese, poultry, honey, bacon, beans, and lentils; and up the
river there sailed with every flood the ships coming to exchange their
butts of wine, their bales of silk, their boxes of spice, for iron,
skins, and slaves.
In this way London was fed and its people kept alive. In this way London
has always been fed. The moorland and swamps all around continued far
down in her history. Almost in the memory of man there were standing
pools at Bankside, Lambeth, and Rotherhithe. It is not two hundred years
since Moorfields were drained. Wild-fowl were shot on the low-lying
lands of Westminster within the present century. The supplies came from
without. They were continuous. It is impossible to keep in store more
provisions--and those only of the most elementary kind--than will last
for a short period. There may have been a city granary, but if the
supplies were cut off, how long would its contents continue to feed a
population, say, of thirty-five thousand?
Four points, in short, must be clearly understood:
(1) London was a port with a great trade, export and import. To carry on
this trade she employed a very large number of men--slaves or free men.
(2) If she lost her trade her merchants were ruined, and her people lost
their work and their livelihood.
(3) The lands immediately round London--beneath her walls--produced
nothing. She was therefore wholly dependent on supplies from without.
(4) If these supplies failed, she was starved.
Now you have seen the testimony of history. The port of London closed by
the ships of the Kentish and the Essex shores; communications with the
country gradually cut off; first, with the south; next, with the east;
then, by the river; lastly, by the one gate which still stood open, but
led only into a country ravaged by continual war, and overrun by an
enemy who still pushed the Britons farther west. There was no longer any
trade; that, indeed, began to languish in the middle of the fifth
century; there were no longer either exports or imports. When there were
no longer any supplies, what happened? What must have happened?
Let me consider the history from a contemporary Londoner's point of
view. The _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ is written from the conqueror's view;
the prophecies of Gildas take the ecclesiastical line, that misfortunes
fall upon a nation because of their wickedness, which is perfectly true
if their wickedness leads them to cowardly surrender or flight, but not
otherwise, or else the Saxons, whose wickedness, if you come to look at
it, was really amazing, would themselves have been routed with great
slaughter, and smitten hip and thigh. There are sins and sins. Those
which do not corrupt a nation's valor do not cause a nation's fall.
This is what the man of London saw. It is a hitherto unpublished chapter
from the Chronicle of a layman, a British citizen: