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CHAPTER I.

MY SUBJECT PROPOSED.

THE ROMANS IN SOUTHWARK.

F there is one spot more than another in all London whose associations may claim for it the title of classic ground, Southwark is that spot. Such an assertion may be doubted or derided, but I not only maintain, but hope to prove, that neither the City of London (in spite of Sir William Walworth, and Dick Whittington) nor Tyburnia, nor Kensington, nor the Strand, nor even the Temple can compete with it in interest. But the Tower and Westminster Abbey ? Well, I yield the palm to Westminster Abbey, that embodiment in stone of the great moral truth that there is but one step from the throne to the grave, but, for the "Towers of Julius, London's lasting shame," as Gray has called them, on the whole, I think, the less said of them the better. Only to Westminster Abbey will I grant the first place in point of attractive interest, and I hope to prove my point when I assert that Southwark is a good

second.

And as I am writing, the whole place seems instinct with great names, and wondrous memories, and ancient lore.

There is Gower, who chose his resting place here. Old Chaucer himself, "the first finder of our faire language," as Daniel, an Elizabethan poet, calls him, and at his name who does not think of Chaucer's Tales, and mine host of the Tabard and the Canterbury Pilgrims?

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Then we have James I. of Scotland, Chaucer's admirer and most worthy follower, not James VI. and I., but the poet King so cruelly murdered by his rebellious nobles. Then comes Cardinal Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, next Jack Cade with his riotous followers, then Bishop Gardiner, and at his Palace appear Mary and Philip, and alas! soon after, as a consequence, Bradford and the Protestant Martyrs.

And now we pass on joyfully to the reigns of Elizabeth and James I., and what visions and memories throng around us! The mighty Shakspeare and his brother Edmund, who here found a grave. Fletcher and Massinger, and all the band of play writers and early actors, amongst whom we must not omit Alleyne who realized here the fortune out of which he founded his magnificent Charity. Then not far from Bankside is Bear Garden, where you may imagine our virgin Queen coming, not to hear Shakspeare and to visit the Globe Theatre, but to see the noble sport of bear-baiting. Scarcely a lady-like amusement, one should say, but it was the custom in those days, and one cannot much wonder at a lady's attending bear-baiting, who could swear a good round oath on an occasion, or box a gentleman's ears. For in spite of Queen Elizabeth's undeniable greatness as a sovereign, good Queen Bess is not my notion of-I will not say a queen, but of a lady and a woman. We have improved in Queens since then, and we know of one in whom—

"A thousand claims to reverence close, In her as mother, wife, and queen." -but then she has never aimed at being more or less than

a woman.

But to continue my list of Southwark worthies. Bishop Launcelot Andrews, of Winchester, whose tomb is in St.

Saviour's, was indeed an improvement on Beaufort and Gardiner. Bunyan also preached in the neighbourhood, and by the permission, too, of his friend a Bishop; and Sacheverell of notoriety in Queen Ann's time, was chaplain of St. Saviour's; and Dr. Johnson visited the Thrales, the founders of Barclay and Perkins' Brewery; and in our own time Wilberforce, who taught us what a Bishop was, and what he could do, and after we were torn, with so little consideration for our feelings in the matter, from the grand old diocese of Winchester, left his mantle to fall on worthy shoulders, so that we have been able to solace ourselves with thinking that if Winchester was the grander and of higher dignity, yet that Rochester was the elder, and save Canterbury, the oldest English (not British) See. It is, perhaps, in consequence of all these historic and literary associations that there are absolutely, as far as I know, no legends at all, (except an absurd one about the father of the foundress of St. Mary Overie, ¿.e., St. Saviour's) connected with the Borough of Southwark. Almost all I have to tell is pure and undoubted history.

The City of London and the Borough of Southwark seem always to have been looked upon as one city, even before they were united by a single bridge. So much so that the ancient geographer Ptolemy, who lived in the second century of our era, affirms that the City of London was originally built on the south side of the river, but this is almost .certainly a mistake.

That Cæsar in his march from Deal came through Southwark (whether by the Old or the New Kent Road, my information is not precise enough for me to state with certainty), and that he crossed the river somewhere about Stoney-street, near St. Saviour's Church is probable, and also that he landed at Dowgate, on the north side of the

river, and formed an encampment there. Southwark, which was then all forest and morass, would not have been an inviting resting place.

The first great improvement on this state of things that took place is said to have been owing to Boadicea's fierce. onslaught on the Romans, when those who escaped her vengeance took refuge in Southwark, and settled there, much increasing its size and importance. For whatever fault we may find with the Romans, civilisation and material prosperity almost invariably followed in their footsteps.

The principal buildings of those times seem to have surrounded the present site of St. Saviour's Church, where it is likely there was once a heathen temple, tesselated pavement, boars' teeth, coins, and brass rings having been dug up there, and it is known to have been the custom of Christians to consecrate to the service of the true God sites already dedicated to the worship of heathen divinities, as in the case of St. Paul's, which is said to have been built where once stood a temple to Diana.

CHAPTER II.

THE LEGEND OF ST. MARY OVERIES.

SAXONS, DANES, AND NORMANS-LONDON BRIDGE.

THE ancient name of our grand old Church was not St. Saviour, which is a comparatively modern title, but St. Mary Overie; and what was the exact meaning or

derivation of the name has always been a great puzzle to antiquaries. As the one only legend that I have discovered which is connected with this neighbourhood, I cannot pass over that, which associates a monument, viz., the figure of a sheeted skeleton in the North Transept, with the surname of the supposed foundress of the Church—surnames, let it be observed, not having been invented till many years after the founding of the Church and Monastery. The legend, absurd as it is, is as follows:

"An old miser named Overies, having half starved his family, and reduced himself nearly to a skeleton, was struck with the brilliant idea that he might save a day's provisions by feigning death. This accordingly he did, not doubting that his household would fast at least a day in his honour. But to his extreme mortification, the apprentices and servants at once began to feast right royally on everything they could find. Hearing the sounds of revelry, he stole down in his winding sheet, and aiming a blow at his nearest apprentice, he, to defend himself, returned it with interest; whether exhausted by starvation, or that the blow really was a mighty one, I know not, but the pretence became a reality, and old Overies was a corpse. He had one only daughter, and her lover hearing of her loss, was on his way to her assistance, when he was thrown from his horse and killed, and Mary, in her grief and desolation, devoted all her father's hoards to the founding of a convent for a Sisterhood, which bore the name of St. Mary Overies."

Some derive the name from the Ferry which formerly existed there, and St. Mary of the Ferry would be easily corrupted into St. Mary Overy. And this is the account given by Stowe (in his chronicles) which he says he received from Bartholomew Linstead, the last Prior of the