CHAPTER IV.

SOUTHWARK IN THE MIDDLE AGES-Continued.

THE LAST DAYS OF EDWARD III. AND RICHARD II.'S REIGN.

N my last chapter I endeavoured to give such a sketch of Southwark in the Middle Ages as would serve for a background to the figures I wish to reproduce; and so many shadows of the past flit before me, that my only difficulty will be to group them on the canvas. How shall I arrange Wat Tyler and Gower, and William of Wykeham and Chaucer? for they are all strangely enough linked together, however slightly.

The gorgeous reign of Edward III., with its military. ardour, which made war appear but a series of tournaments, and veiled its horrors with the brilliancy, the romance, the generosity, and the courtliness of the period, was passing away. And yet, before we think of them as bygone, let me recall to you one magnificent procession which must have passed through the Old Kent Road and up the Boro', and, the gates being opened, over London Bridge, and wending its way through the City, passing city mansions and noblemen's houses, stopped at the Duke of Lancaster's Palace, at the Savoy. I allude, of course, to the magnificent procession which welcomed King John of France as an honored guest, rather than, as he was in reality, a landless king and a prisoner. Southwark saw that splendid caval

cade with which our earliest history books have made us all familiar, when the captive King rode on a magnificent white horse, whilst his victor, the Prince of Wales (whom we all know best by the name of the Black Prince), rode by his side, as Froissart says, on a little black hackney. And that this was no ostentatious pretence at humility is certain from the graceful consideration shewn throughout to the King's feelings, for on his voyage to England he and his retinue were in a ship by themselves that " he might be more at his ease."

But these days of England's pride and triumph had fled. The Black Prince, on his return to England, with ruined health from the south of France, made his home at Kennington. His palace is gone, but the spot on which it stood still forms part of the Duchy of Cornwall, and belongs to our present Prince of Wales. He endeavoured, so far as his failing health would allow, to remedy the abuses that had increased during his father's later years. He found his ambitious brother, John of Gaunt, playing for power, his father sunk in sensuality and a prey to a disgraceful mistress, Alice Perrers. It must have been a grievous thing to his great soul to see all his life's work undone, England a chaos, and his father and his son, at the mercy of evils, only too clearly foreseen. He died in 1376, and Edward roused himself to proclaim the young Richard Earl of Chester and Prince of Wales, and at a festival of the Knights of the Garter on St. George's day, at Windsor, to knight him, and set him at the feast that followed, above his own sons at table. But it was only a momentary flash; back fell the old King into his disgraceful obscurity, and "The swarm, that in his noontide beams were born, Gone to salute the rising morn."

left him in his ignoble slavery at Shene, and made their

way to the little Court, held at Kennington by the Dowager Princess of Wales and her son Prince Richard.

Foremost among the throng who paid their court to the young Prince were the citizens of London, and Stowe gives us an amusing account of the Mayor and Corporation going as Christmas Mummers, in quaint disguises, for the delectation of the young Richard. It was very early in the year 1377, on the Sunday before Candlemas (or the Feast of the Purification, which occurs on the 2nd of February), that "Hither came in the night one hundred and thirty citizens, disguised and well horsed, in a mummery, and with sounds of trumpet, sackbuts, cornets, shalms, and other minstrels, and innumerable torchlights of wax, rode from Newgate, through Cheape, over the bridge, through Southwarke, and so to Kennington, beside Lambeth, where the young Prince remained with his mother and the Duke of Lancastere, his uncle, the Earls of Cambridge, (afterwards Duke of York), Hertford, Warwicke, and Suffolke, with divers other lords. In the first rank did ride forty-eight in the likeness and habit of esquires, two and two together, clothed in red coats and gowns of serge or sandal (?) with comely visors on their faces; after them came riding fortyeight Knights in the same livery of colour and stuff; then followed one, highly arrayed like an Emperor, and after him some distance one stately attired like a pope, whom followed twenty-four Cardinals, and after them, eight or ten with black visors not amiable, as if they had been legatees from some foreign Princes."

These maskers after they had entered Kennington, alighted from their horses, and entered the hall on foot; which done, "the Prince, his mother, and the lords, came out of the chamber, into the hall, whom the said mummers did salute, showing by a pair of dice upon the table their

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desire to play with the Prince, which they so handled, that the prince did always win, when he cast them."

"Then the mummers set to the Prince three jewels, one after another, which were, a bowl of gold, a cup of gold, and a ring of gold, which the Prince won at three casts. Then they set to the Prince's mother, the Duke, the Earls, and other lords, to every one a ring of gold, which they did also win. After which they were feasted, and the music sounded, the Prince and the lords danced on the one part with the mummers, which did also dance; which jollity being ended, they were again made to drink, and then departed in order as they came."

It was in the same year, 1377, June 21st, early in the morning, that news came to the City that the old King was passing away. Alice Perrers having clutched the rings from the dying King's fingers had fled; bishops, abbots, nobles, attendants all were gone; one poor priest (let his memory be honoured, though his name is not given) stayed with the aged King and urged him to repentance; he prayed with and for him, and his reward was to catch the last word that Edward breathed out, as his soul departed; it was "Jesu."

All, all, even his sons were at Kennington, each waiting and watching, ready either to seize power, or to be the first to pay their homage to the new Sovereign.

An embassy was immediately despatched from the City in order to be present when the new King was proclaimed, and to be amongst the first to pay their respects.

The last embassy was late at night, and the contrast every way is striking yet the object was the same, to win the favour of the boy King, barely eleven years old, and the party assembled is nearly the same as that which were present just six months before.

John of Gaunt was there, as it was the safest place to escape the fury of the Londoners, who threatened to tear him to pieces for evil words spoken against their Bishop. The deputation arrived; one John Philpot made an oration to the Prince on behalf of the City; and above all they prayed for protection from the Duke of Lancaster into whose hands the Government had passed. Richard, ever a lover of peace, wisely made choice of the opportunity to patch up a peace between his uncle and the citizens, and though I fear the truce was a hollow one, yet in mediæval fashion the Duke kissed each of the citizens, and the embassy departed with assurances that their privileges should be respected, and also that the Court should return to London, for the citizens bemoaned the absence of both Edward and his heir.

The weakness of the Sovereign has often been the people's opportunity. The nobles and the Church forced the Magna Charta from King John. The nobles, assisted by the middle classes, moulded parliament into somewhat its present shape during Henry III.'s weak reign. And now the peasantry would have their turn.

During the great Edward's reign the people submitted, though reluctantly, to the heavy burdens laid upon them, the impositions of their lords, the forced labour, and all the cruel and grinding oppression that roused the French to struggle for their freedom more than 400 years later.

In 1381 the poll tax was the last straw that made the load unbearable, and, like wild fire, the revolt ran through the country; but, as usual the men of Kent were the first to rise. We may thankfully believe that they are now neither as hopelessly stupid as they are represented by Caxton, himself a Kentish man, nor as hopelessly bad as