monster, were productive of a very sumptuous triumph upon London
Bridge, I shall take the freedom to remind you, that King Richard being
greatly attached to regal magnificence and banquets, naturally found
his revenues very insufficient to support the splendours of his Court;
for, as Walsingham and Knyghton, the best historians of the time,
assert, he valued himself upon surpassing all the other Sovereigns of
Europe in magnificence; they add that he daily entertained no less than
six thousand individuals; that three hundred servants were employed in
his kitchen alone; and that his Queen had an equal number of females
in her service. To supply the means for this extraordinary splendour,
he endeavoured to procure aid from the Citizens of London; and sent to
borrow from them the large sum of £1000; but it then was an unhappy
time in England, for a dreadful Plague and Famine had overspread the
land, and they not only refused his Majesty’s request, but, upon
a Merchant of Lombardy offering to comply with it, they violently
attacked, and almost slew him. This was early in the year 1392; and on
the 25th of May following, the King, incensed to a very great degree,
summoned a Parliament at Stamford, when the City Charter was seized;
the Law Courts were removed to York; and the Mayor, Sheriffs, and
principal Citizens, deposed and imprisoned; until, by the mediation
of Queen Anne, the Bishop of London, and the Duke of Gloucester, the
King’s anger was in some degree pacified, and he consented to indulge
the Londoners with an audience at Windsor. At this interview the
Citizens, after submitting themselves to the King’s pleasure, offered
him £10,000 for the redemption of their privileges; but were dismissed
in dejection and uncertainty; though when Richard was informed of their
sorrow, he determined to proceed immediately to London, to re-assure
them of his favour. It was upon this occasion, that the Bridge bore a
very important part in the triumph; though the ceremony of receiving
the King and Queen with great splendour and a considerable train,
began at Wandsworth; where four hundred of the Citizens well mounted,
and habited in one livery, entreated him to ride through his Chamber
of London. At St. George’s Church, in Southwark, the procession was
met by Robert Braybrooke, Bishop of London, and his Clergy of the
City, followed by five hundred boys in surplices, who attended them
through the streets towards Westminster. When the train arrived at the
Gate of London Bridge, nearly the whole of the inhabitants, orderly
arranged according to their age, rank, and sex, advanced to receive
it, and presented the King with a fair milk-white steed, harnessed and
caparisoned in cloth of gold, brocaded in red and white, and hung full
of silver bells; whilst to the Queen was presented a palfrey, also of
white, caparisoned likewise in white and red. The other streets of
London, too, put on all their bravery; the windows and walls being
hung with cloths of gold, silver, and silk; the Conduit in Cheapside
poured out floods of red and white wine; a child, habited like an
angel, crowned the King and Queen with golden crowns, from a sumptuous
stage covered with performers in rich dresses; a table of the Trinity
wrought in gold, and valued at £800, was given to the King, and another
of St. Anne to his consort; and truly I know of nothing which might
so well express the splendours of that day, as the passage with which
Walsingham concludes his notice of it. ‘There was so much glory,’ says
he, ‘so much pomp, so great variety of divers furniture provided, that
to have undertaken it might have been a triumph to any King. For horses
and trappings, plate of gold and silver, clothes of gold, silk, and
velvet, ewers and basons of yellow gold, gold in coin, precious stones,
and jewels so rich, excellent, and beautiful, were given to him, that
their value and price might not easily be estimated.’
“This gorgeous scene took place on the 29th of August, and you will
find my authorities for this account of it in Henry Knyghton’s
books ‘_De Eventibus Angliæ_,’ printed in Twysden’s ‘_Scriptores_,’
already cited, page 2740; in Robert Fabyan’s ‘_Chronicles of England
and Fraunce_,’ London, 1559, folio, volume ii., page 334; in Stow’s
‘_Annals_,’ page 307; and in Maitland’s ‘_History_,’ volume i., page
180. I will but observe, to finish this portion of history, that the
Citizens redeemed their Charter by the payment of £10,000; and the
King, by his Letters Patent, dated at Westminster, in February 1392-93,
restored them to his favour; and so, observes Stow in his ‘_Annals_,’
‘the troubles of the Citizens came to quietnesse; which troubles, the
Dolphin in the Thames at Christmas last past, did happily signifie afar
off.’ Though Maitland, at page 180 of his ‘_History_,’ volume i., most
unaccountably makes the Dolphin appear the Christmas _after_ this fine
was paid.
“I can scarcely imagine, worthy Mr. Barbican, what could induce the
accurate Stow,--and of course all other Authors of London history,--to
remark, when speaking of the year 1395, our next eminent epoch in the
Chronicles of London Bridge, that, because the Justing which we have
already spoken of was, as he says, then holden upon it, such ‘history
proveth that at that time, the Bridge being coaped on either side, was
not replenished with houses built thereupon, as since it hath been, and
now is.’ You will observe that this passage, which occurs in volume
i., page 61, of his ‘_Survey_,’ is no interpolation of later, or more
unskilful, Editors, because it is to be found in the first black-letter
edition of that most valuable work, 1598, small folio. Now, in most
of his preceding pages he has been giving proofs of the Bridge being
built upon at an early period to some extent; and I also, after him
and others, have adduced to you abundant evidence that such was the
case. I have shewn that the Gate and Towers were certainly as ancient
as 1264; that in the Patent granted to Isenbert of Xainctes, in 1201,
it is stated ‘that the rents and profits of the several houses, which
the said Master of the Schools shall cause to be erected on the Bridge,
shall be for ever appropriated to repair, maintain, and uphold the
same;’ that in the Patent of relief granted by Edward I., in 1280,
it is observed that the dilapidations of the Bridge may occasion not
only its sudden fall, ‘but also the destruction of innumerable people
dwelling on it;’ and that in the reign of the same Edward, the Assize
Rolls mention the very rents and situations of houses then standing
on London Bridge. All this, I imagine, might be received as fair and
conclusive evidence that this part of the City was built upon and
inhabited, long before 1395; to which let me add, that Richard Bloome,
one of the continuators of Stow, observes, on page 62, when speaking
of the dreadful conflagration of the Bridge in 1632-33, that some of
the houses remained unbuilt until the year 1666, when the Great Fire
of London destroyed all the new edifices. ‘But,’ rejoins he, ‘the old
ones at the South end, some of which were built in the reign of King
John,’--and he died, you will remember in 1215,--‘were not burnt.’
It is, however, extremely probable, that London Bridge did not even
in 1395 present that form of a continued street which was afterward
its most celebrated and peculiar character. There were, I doubt not,
several places open to the water, perhaps, as Stow says, ‘plainly
coped with stone;’ and in one of these, it is most probable, that the
Justing, which he erroneously mentions in that year, took place.
“Anne of Bohemia, the Queen of Richard II., dying in 1394, his sorrow
for her loss was both passionately expressed, and deservedly bestowed;
though, so early afterwards as in 1396, during an interview between him
and that insane Monarch, Charles VI. of France, a truce was concluded
betwixt the two Kingdoms for twenty-eight years, and Richard espoused
Isabel, the French King’s eldest daughter, although she was then under
eight years of age; whence she was called ‘The Little,’ and the English
Sovereign was about thirty. This marriage was solemnized by Thomas
Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, in the Church of St. Nicholas, at
Calais, on Wednesday, October the 31st, or rather the 1st of November,
when Richard is said to have expended on the occasion, the immense
sum of three hundred thousand marks, or in modern coinage £200,000.
On the 2nd of November they sailed for England, and on arriving at
Blackheath the Royal train was met by the usual procession of the
Mayor and Aldermen of London, habited in scarlet, who attended the
King to Newington, where he dismissed them, as he was to rest for
a short time at Kennington. On the 13th, however, Richard and his
Consort entered the City on their way to the Tower; when so vast a
multitude was collected on London Bridge to see the young Queen pass,
that nine persons were killed in the crowd, of whom the Prior of the
Austin Canons at Tiptree, in Essex, was one, and a worshipful matron
of Cornhill was another. John Stow is commonly cited as the authority
for this circumstance, and it may be seen related in his ‘_Annals_,’
page 315; though it is also to be found in ‘_The Chronicle of Fabian_,’
London, 1559, small folio, page 338. Robert Fabian, as you must well
remember, was, in 1493, an eminent Merchant and Sheriff of London,
and died in 1512, about thirteen years previously to the birth of
John Stow. You will also see the following notice of the event in the
Harleian Manuscripts, No. 565, article 5, page 61 a, which consists of
‘_A Chronicle of English Affairs, and especially of those relating to
the City of London, from the first year of King Richard I., 1189, to
the 21st of Henry VI., 1442, inclusive_’--‘In yis yere, a bouzte y^e
feste of Alhalwen, Isabell y^e Kynges doughter of Fraunce was spoused
to Kyng Richard at Caleys: whiche afterward on y^e viij day of Januer
was crowned Quene at Westm^r. At whos comynge to London, y^e Priour
of Typtre in Essex, with other viij persones vp on London bregge in
y^e gret prees weren crowsed to y^e deth.’ Now, as I shall hereafter
frequently, have to cite this Chronicle for some particulars of events
not to be found in any other Annals, I must observe that it is a small
quarto, fairly written on parchment, in a current Court-hand of the
time of Edward IV., and decorated with vermillion lines and ornaments.
“It was, you will recollect, in 1397, that Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of
Gloucester, and uncle to Richard II., being charged with disaffection
and conspiracy, was suddenly carried to Calais; in which confinement
and exile he died, on the 24th of September in the same year, of an
apoplectic fit, as some Historians relate, although the greater number
charge Richard with his murder, and assert that he was smothered,
or strangled: for he was rude and overbearing in his disposition,
and usually opposed the King in most of his measures; censured his
extravagant expenditure, and on several occasions is said to have
reproached and upbraided him with great severity of language. On these
accounts is the Duke’s death charged upon the King, and his favourites;
and you have a very curious and interesting examination of the
circumstance, in Richard Gough’s ‘_History and Antiquities of Pleshy,
in the County of Essex_,’ London, 1803, quarto, pages 85-123. The reign
of this unfortunate Monarch was, however, nearly at a close; for, on
the 29th of September, 1399, he resigned the ensigns of Royalty to the
Duke of Lancaster, afterwards Henry IV., and in the formal accusation,
consisting of 33 Articles, drawn up for his deposition, in the fourth
he is charged with having caused the murder of the Duke of Gloucester.
When these accusations were read over to Richard, and he had named his
principal advisers in each action, it was Henry of Lancaster’s care to
discover the four Knights who actually strangled the Duke of Gloucester
in the Castle of Calais; and having done so, he confined them in four
separate prisons in London, ‘and would not,’ says Sir John Froissart,
‘have taken twenty thousand nobles for their deliverance.’ Sir Thomas
Knolles, the Mayor, and the Citizens of London, were next acquainted
with the Articles of Deposition, and the King’s confession concerning
the four Knights; when the crowds, which had assembled in the
Guildhall, cried out with execrations against them, and loudly demanded
their immediate condemnation. This very speedily followed, and old
London Bridge, which has in its days witnessed so many scenes of blood,
was appointed the place for the exhibition of their heads; but in
giving you a short narrative of this execution, we can go to no better
authority than to the Herodotus of his time, Sir John Froissart, who,
as you will doubtless recollect, was born at Valenciennes in 1337, and
was Priest, Canon, and Treasurer of the Collegiate Church of Chimay; he
died about 1401, and his Chronicles of his own time were compiled from
the most authentic sources.
“The French of that part of Froissart’s Chronicles to which I have
alluded, commences ‘_A donc se tirerent ensemble le Maire de Londres_,’
&c., volume iv., chapter cxii.; but we shall take the excellent
English of Colonel Johnes’ translation, Hafod Press, 1803, quarto,
volume iv., pages 663-664. ‘The Mayor and Lawyers,’ says he, ‘retired
to the judgment-seat, and the four Knights were condemned to death.
They were sentenced to be brought before the apartment of the Tower
of London in which King Richard was confined, that he might see them
from the windows, and thence drawn on sledges by horses to Cheapside,
each person separately, and there beheaded, their heads affixed to
spikes on London Bridge, and their bodies hung upon a gibbet, and there
left. When this sentence was pronounced, they hastened to execute it.
Every thing being prepared, the Mayor of London, and the Lords who had
assisted him in this judgment, set out from Guildhall with a large body
of people, and came to the Tower of London, where they seized the four
Knights of the King, Sir Bernard Brocas, the Lord Marclais, Master John
Derby, Receiver of Lincoln, and the Lord Stelle, Steward of the King’s
Household. They were all brought into the court, and each tied to two
horses, in the sight of all in the Tower, who were eye-witnesses of it
as well as the King, who was much displeased, and in despair; for the
remainder of the King’s Knights that were with him looked for similar
treatment, so cruel and revengeful did they know the Londoners. Without
saying a word, these four were dragged from the streets to Cheapside,
and on a fishmonger’s stall had their heads struck off, which were
placed over the Gate on London Bridge, and their bodies hung on a
gibbet. After this execution, every man retired to his home.’
“The fatal tragedy of the reign of King Richard II. was at length
consummated by his murder at Pontefract Castle, February 14th,
1399-1400; for whether he died of grief, starvation, or by the weapon
of Sir Piers Exton, his death cannot be called by any other name;
though Henry of Lancaster was not yet so firmly seated on the throne
as to prevent numerous insurrections throughout the realm, on behalf
of the younger Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, the legitimate heir to
the crown. For about the year 1386, King Richard had appointed as his
successor Roger Mortimer, the son of Edmond, second Earl of March, and
Philippa his Countess, who was daughter and heiress to Lionel, Duke of
Clarence, _third_ son of King Edward III.: whereas Henry of Lancaster
was the son of John of Ghent, who was only _fourth_ son of that
Monarch. One of the most famous of these insurrections, was that raised
by Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, which was overthrown by Sir
Thomas Rokeby, Sheriff of York, at Horselwood, on February the 19th,
1407-1408. In which encounter, Lord Thomas Bardolf,--who is a character
in Shakspeare’s ‘_Second Part of King Henry the Fourth_,’--was mortally
wounded, and died soon afterwards; but being on the party of the
Earl, his body was quartered as a traitor’s, and set up at several
places, with the Earl’s, one of which was London Bridge. This you find
identified by Thomas of Walsingham, in his ‘_Historiæ Angliæ_,’ page
419; for there he says, with considerable pathos: ‘The root of Percy
dies in ruin wild! for surely this Nobleman was altogether the living
stock of the Percy name; and of most of the various others who were
lost in his defeat. For whose unhappy end the common people did not
grieve the least; recalling that famous, glorious, and magnificent man,
and applying to him the mournful song of Lucan, where he says,
‘But not his blood, his wounds did not so move
Our grieving souls, or wake our weeping love,--
As that we saw, in many a town, appear
His aged head transfixed on a spear.’
PHARSALIA, ix. 136.
For his venerable head adorned with its silver locks, set upon a pole,
was publicly carried through London, and regardlessly placed upon the
Bridge.’
“Sir William Dugdale, in his ‘_Baronage_,’ volume i., page 683, says
that Lord Bardolf’s head was erected over a gate at Lincoln; and this
is partly supported by the Chronicle in the Harleian Collection, No.
565, page 68 a, which states that in the ninth year of Henry IV., ‘the
Erle of Northumberland and y^e Lord Bardolf, which arysyn a yeynis
y^e Kyng, were taken in y^e north cuntre, and be heded, and y^e hed
of y^e forsaid Erle, and a quarter of y^e Lord Bardolf, were sent to
London, and sett vp on London Brigge.’ Dugdale adds, however, from the
authority of the Close Rolls, that Avicia, the widow of that Baron, was
permitted by the King to take down his body and bury it.
“The only historical notice which I find connected with London Bridge,
immediately succeeding the last unhappy story, is of a light and
even trivial nature, being nothing greater than a dispute in the
Bridge-Street, between Thomas of Lancaster, Duke of Clarence, and John
of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford, the second and third sons of Henry IV.,
their followers and the Citizens. Stow, in relating this circumstance,
in his ‘_Annals_,’ page 338, makes no farther mention of the place than
that they ‘being in East-Cheape, in London, at supper, after midnight,
a great debate hapned betweene their men and men of the Court, lasting
an houre, till the Maior and Sheriffs, with other Citizens, ceased the
same:’ and Maitland adds, in volume i., of his ‘_History_,’ page 185,
that these Officers were, in consequence, summoned before Sir William
Gascoigne, the Chief Justice, to submit themselves to the King’s mercy
on behalf of the Citizens. Richard Marlow, however, the then Lord
Mayor, and John Law and William Chicheley, the Sheriffs, with the
Aldermen, strenuously asserted their innocence, alleging that they had
only done their duty in preserving the peace of the City; and the King
being fully satisfied with this answer, the Corporation returned to
London. I have only farther to remark, that Prince Thomas of Clarence
was engaged in a similar fray in East-Cheap in the year previous to the
present, namely 1407-8; and that it is to him that Shakspeare makes the
dying King Henry deliver that noble speech in the ‘_Second Part of King
Henry IV._,’ Act 4, Scene 4. We derive, however, such a character of
John of Lancaster from Falstaff, that we wonder to find him either in
East-Cheap or Bridge-Street; for in that very same dramatic history,
and in the preceding scene, he says of him: ‘Good faith, this same
young sober-blooded boy doth not love me; nor a man cannot make him
laugh;--but that’s no marvel, he drinks no wine.’ Here, then, close all
the events of London Bridge which have come under my reading, in the
year 1409.
“The Festival of St. Mary Magdalen, July 22nd, in the first year of
Henry V., A. D. 1413, brings to us the recollection of a very ancient
and curious Saxon law, namely that of Sanctuary: by which privilege,
if a person accused of any crime,--excepting Treason and Sacrilege,
in which the Crown and the Church were too nearly concerned,--had
fled to any Church, or Church-Yard, and within forty days after went
before the Coroner, made a full confession of his crime, and took the
oath provided in that case, that he would quit the realm, and never
return again, without leave of the King, his life should be safe. At
the taking of this oath he was brought to the Church-door, where being
branded with an A, signifying Abjured, upon the brawn of the thumb of
his right hand, a port was then assigned him, from which he was to
leave the realm, and to which he was to make all speed, holding a cross
in his hand, and not turning out of the highway, either to the right
hand or the left. At this port he was diligently to seek for passage,
waiting there but one ebb and flood, if he could immediately procure
it; and if not, he was to go every day into the sea up to his knees,
essaying to pass over. If this could not be accomplished within forty
days, he was again to put himself into Sanctuary. These privileges of
Sanctuary and Abjuration were taken away in 1624, by the Statute of
the 21st of James I., chapter 28: but you will find the ancient law
on these points fully set forth in William Rastall’s ‘_Collection in
English of the Statutes now in force_,’ London, 1594, folio, under
their proper titles, folios 2 a, 399 b, and also in Andrew Horne’s
learned work of ‘_La Somme, appellé Mirroir des Justices_,’ London,
1624, 12mo., chapter 1, section xiii., page 102. Rastall, you will
recollect, was Chief Justice of the Common Pleas under Queen Mary; and
Horne was a Lawyer of great erudition and eminence, in the reigns of
the First and Second Edwards.
“Well, Sir, having brought to your remembrance these ancient
privileges, I am next to tell you that in 1413, a train of five
abjurants of the realm crossed London Bridge on their way to Calais;
having issued from a member of the famous Sanctuary of St. Martin’s
le Grand, which was founded by Ingelric, Earl of Essex, and his
brother Girardus, in 1056, and confirmed by Pope Alexander II., and
King William I., in 1068. For these facts I must refer you to Stow’s
‘_Survey_,’ volume i., pages 605-606; and to page 16, &c. of a modest
little volume of much curious information by Mr. Alfred John Kempe,
entitled ‘_Historical Notices of the Collegiate Church, or Royal Chapel
and Sanctuary, of St. Martin’s le Grand_,’ London, 1825, 8vo. As for
the circumstance which caused these worthies to fly their country, we
have it set down in the following terms, in that Chronicle contained in
the Harleian Manuscript, No. 565, folio 74 a. ‘And in the same yere, on
Seynt Marie Maudeleyn day,’--July 22nd.--‘John Nyaunser, Squyer, and
his men, sclowen Maist^r. Tybbay, Clerk,’--Archdeacon of Huntingdon,
and Chancellor to Joan, Queen of Henry IV.--‘as he passyd thorugh lad
lane. For the whiche deth the same John Nyaunser and iiij of his men
fledden in to Seynt Anne’s Chirche with inne Aldrich gate,’--that is
to say, St. Anne in the Willows, as we now call it, though without
exactly knowing why,--‘And with inne the said Church they were mured
vp. And men of diuers wardes wacched them nyzt and day. And y^e forsaid
John Nyaunser and his men for suoren the Kynges lond, and passyd
through the Citee of London,’--on August the 21st,--‘toward Caleys, in
there schertes and breches,’--a purse about their necks,--‘and ich of
them a cross in ther hand.’ Let me add, that you will also find this
circumstance recorded in Stow’s ‘_Annals_,’ page 345.”
“My worthy Mr. Postern!” exclaimed I, for I now began to grow
exceedingly impatient, “I really can bear this no longer: you promise
to give me a descriptive history of London Bridge, and here you tell me
of nothing but a riot which took place in the street _near_ to it, and
of a troop of knaves which _probably_ walked over it. Positively, my
good Sir, it’s too bad; and unless your story mend, why----”
“‘It shall be mended, Mr. Barbican,’” answered the imperturbable
Antiquary, in much the same tone of voice as that with which _Lope
Tocho_ calmed the enraged Muleteer, in the same words;--“‘It shall
be mended,’ and our Chronicles too, Mr. Geoffrey; but sweeten your
disposition, my good friend, I pray you. Remember, that an Antiquary
may _ruffle_ his shirt, but never his temper; for though I confess to
you that the collateral events which I am obliged to introduce, are
somewhat like--
‘Rich windows that exclude the light,
And passages which lead to nothing:’--
yet, when we consider how little the tooth of Time hath left to us of
continuous History, we should labour to supply that defect by joining
all the fragments with which we meet, wherever they may be united to
the principal, but still imperfect, chain. We are, however, now arrived
at a period, which our Bridge Historians do in general pass over, with
little information to their readers, and less labour to themselves; yet
even here, although we have no pictorial delineations to refer to, yet,
with a little research, we have enough of descriptive story to call up
the very scenes before our eyes, and to bring the actors again living
before us.
“The year 1415 is not only immortalized in History by the famous
Battle of Agincourt, fought on the 25th of October, but even in the
Chronicles of London Bridge it is a most memorable era, on account
of the splendid Pageants which welcomed the victorious Henry V., as
he returned over that edifice to his Palace at Westminster. About the
middle of November, or, as some tell us, the 16th, the King embarked
for England, bringing his principal prisoners with him; and you may
remember, by the way, that his fleet being encountered by a violent
storm, two of his ships were sunk, and all were in extreme danger. You
will find a few particulars of these facts in Stow’s ‘_Annals_,’ page
351, and also in that Chronicle which I have so often quoted, in the
Harleian Manuscript, No. 565; of which latter, the following are the
words, from page 76 b.