merely places of trade. eve of the Saint's day.

They were generally held on the
Some of them continued open

many weeks (as the fairs abroad do now), and were granted peculiar privileges to encourage the attendance of those who had goods upon sale.

On 16th June, 1670, ten years after his visit to the Fair, Mr. Evelyn "went with some friends to the bear garden, where was cock-fighting, dog-fighting, beare and bullbaiting, it being a famous day for all these butcherly sports, or barbarous cruelties. The bulls did exceedingly well, but the Irish wolfe-dog exceeded, which was a tall greyhound, a stately creature indeede, who beate a cruell mastiff. One of the bulls toss'd a dog full into a lady's lap, as she sate in one of the boxes at a considerable height from the arena. Two poore dogs were kill'd, and so all ended with the ape on horseback, and I, most heartily weary of the rude and dirty pastime, which I had not seene, I think, in twenty years before."

Evelyn also gives the following curious reason for the suppression of puppet shows at the fair. "The dreadful earthquake in Jamaica, this summer, (1692) was profanely and ludicrously represented in a puppet play, or some such lewd pastime, in the fair at Southwark, which caused the Queene to put downe that idle and vicious mock shew.”

In 1676 there occurred a great fire in Southwark, but I have not met with any detailed account of it.

It is a matter of difficulty at times to find the right opportunity for inserting any disconnected items of information, and this seems as good a place as any for alluding to the Southwark Tradesmen's tokens, of which many still remain.

From the time of Queen Elizabeth to Charles II., the tradesmen, victuallers in particular, and indeed all that

pleased, coined small money or tokens for the benefit or convenience of trade.

On the Old St. Olave's Grammar School which was situated in Church Passage, Tooley, being sold in 1830, and taken down to make the approaches to New London Bridge, many antiquities were found amidst the ruins, and among them several Southwark tradesmen's tokens.

Plates of some of these appear in the "Mirror" for April, 1839, in the possession of the editor of which the originals were: On the obverse of one is the image of a drum in the centre, with Will. Greenington around it, and on the reverse at Bridge Foote Street, with C.W.I. in the centre, and two stars. Another has three tobacco pipes in the centre, with At Tobacco Pipes as the legend on the one side, and in St. Olave's Street with M.C. in the centre on the reverse. Edith Eddinson exhibits a hand and a pair of scissors as her sign, while on the reverse is. "In St. Toole's Street, 1665," surrounding "Her Halfpenny" in the There are others which I need not enumerate.

centre.

CHAPTER XV.

THE ACQUITTAL OF THE SEVEN BISHOPS.

QUEEN ANN'S REIGN.-DR. SACHEVERELL.

And

UEM Dens vult perdere prius dementat." certainly that judicial blindness or judicial madness seems to have fallen upon James II., when he so insanely

persecuted those Fathers of the Church who refused to allow his illegal proclamation to be read in their Churches. We all know the story of the seven Bishops being sent to the Tower, and their triumphant acquittal in Westminster Hall, but one little anecdote connects this touchingly with our Story. On their return home, "Bishop Ken" of Bath and Wells, the most saintly of the seven, 66 came with the Archbishop in his coach to Lambeth over London Bridge and through Southwark, which took them up several hours as the concourse of people was innumerable the whole way, hanging upon the coach, and insisting upon being blessed by these two prelates who with much difficulty and patience at last got to Lambeth."*

With this exception the Revolution does not seem to have affected the Borough except that James in his hurried journeys to and from Rochester, when still uncertain whether to fly or not, must I suppose have passed several times through our streets.

But in Queen Ann's reign the great trial of Dr. Sacheverell must detain us a little, for this man, made so famous by circumstances, was one of the Chaplains of St. Saviour's.

66

Perhaps the driest and most intolerable passage in all political domestic history is that called the affair of Dr. Sacheverell," so says Miss Strickland, and I can only hope that it may prove the driest and least tolerable part of my story, and I shall then have some confidence that what I have hitherto written is neither dry nor intolerable, as the episode seems to me both amusing and exciting, and of course specially interesting to all connected with Southwark, for he is, as far as I know, the only chaplain of St. Saviour's that has ever become celebrated.

*From the statement drawn up by Mrs. Prowse, daughter of Bishop Hooper, Ken's most intimate friend.

Before I enter into the details of the trial of Dr. Sacheverell, it is first necessary to understand somewhat of the state of affairs at the time. Mary and Ann, the two daughters of James II. by Ann Hyde, were, strangely enough, by Charles II.'s orders brought up as members of the English Church, notwithstanding that he himself was a concealed Romanist, and their father an avowed one. The consequence was that the people bore the illegal attempts of James to restore popery, from the hope that when either of the sisters mounted the throne, things would right themselves. But when Mary of Modena, James's queen and second wife, had a son, all hope of the Protestant succession vanished; James was thrust from or abdicated his throne, whichever way one cares to put it, and amongst those who forced him from the throne was not only Mary, who might be supposed to act under her husband's influence, but Ann, who, though married to Prince George of Denmark, was entirely a free agent. Time passed on; neither Mary, on taking possession of her father's palace, nor Ann, in her more retired position, shewed the smallest feeling or consciousness of having broken the only "commandment with promise." Even when Ann lost successively in infancy, no less than twelve children, not even then did it strike her that her disobedience was receiving its just reward. But when her last and only child, the promising young Duke of Gloucester, looked upon by William, by the country, and by herself, as heir to the throne, taking cold after the celebration of his eleventh birthday, died five days afterwards, Ann recognised in this blow a divine judgment, and left her child's death-bed only to write a letter of deep penitence to her father, for her undutiful conduct to him, declaring her conviction that her bereavement was

sent as a visible punishment from heaven for her behaviour to him, and promising moreover "that she would use her utmost endeavours to effect the restoration of her brother if ever she came to the throne, and that she would only accept that dignity in trust for him. Thus it was that Ann ascended the throne, a childless Queen, with a deep weight on her heart and conscience.

But it is easier to do wrong than to undo it, and this Ann found. She would have restored her brother if she could; she could not, and was forced to bear the joyless weight herself, and for half the time unshared even by her beloved (though except in point of physical presence), very insignificant spouse, Prince George of Denmark. From this time, if not before, Ann was at heart a Tory; her feelings and her principles were slow and not easily roused, but very tenacious; she was attached to high principles of government, both in Church and State, and silently she worked and hoped on that she might be allowed to atone for her filial impiety by reinstating her brother. The people, disgusted by the cold unsympathizing selfishness of William, detested the idea of another foreigner for a King, and so it came to pass that gradually the tide of popular feeling turned, and those who had driven out James looked forward, if not to his son's restoration, at least to a change in the Whig oligarchy, which then ruled the nation.

The silencing of Convocation in the year 1709, brought to the front Dr. Henry Sacheverell, Chaplain of St. Saviour's, and one of the Proctors in Convocation. He sprang from an old Norman family, whose name occurs on the Battle Abbey Roll. He had inherited the courage and grandeur of person of his ancestors. His name may be found in the ranks of both Roundhead and Cavalier, but his father