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 of
which 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 of LONDON BRIDGE IN THE YEAR 1500,
[Illustration]
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 the _same plate_ has 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
some general 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 13-3/4 inches broad; and,
carved in the same characters, and figures, as the former, are the
words ‘_Anno Domini_ 1509.’ 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 11-1/2 inches wide, by 9-1/2 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
two ANCIENT STONES FOUND AT LONDON BRIDGE IN 1758.
[Illustration]
“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 Alexander the 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
amoenissimus_,’ &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 easily be
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 a wizard, 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 of
his 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 charges as 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. 8_s._ 4_d._--£32. 16_s._
8_d._ 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. 8_s._
4_d._ Sum of the whole, £58. 16_s._ 8_d._ Rental this year, £840. 9_s._
3-1/4_d._’
“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 Duke of
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-three Lord 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, “let _me_ say 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, the 25th 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 the above 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 the rents paid to divers persons by St. Bartholomew’s Hospital
in West Smithfield, 9_s._ 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 33_s._ 4_d._ 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 9_s._ 4_d._ 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. 7_s._ 3-1/2_d._
“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.