was carried out further than the others. The chapel, which was very beautiful, consisted of a crypt and upper chapel. It continued to be used for Divine Worship down to the time of the Reformation. Between this Chapel and the south end of the bridge one of the arches or junctions of the piers was formed by a drawbridge; it rested on the ninth pier from the Southwark end. At the north end of this opening, opposite therefore to Becket's Chapel, was a tower, and on the top of it were displayed the heads of those executed for high treason. In 1205 Peter of Colechurch died and was buried in Becket's Chapel. In 1209 the bridge was finished, and in 1212, during the time of the deepest degradation that England ever underwent, in the reign of the wicked and worthless king John, occurred the most terrible disaster that we have to record with regard to London Bridge. "It was the tenth day of July, at night," says Stowe, in his black letter Chronicle, "that a marvellous and terrible chance happened for the citie of London. Upon the south side of the river Thames, the Church of our Lady of the Chanons in Southwarke (St. Mary Overies) being on fire, and an exceeding great multitude of people passing the bridge, either to extinguish, or else to gaze and behold, sodainely the north-part by blowing of the south winde was also set on fire, and the people which were now passing the bridge perceiving the same, would have returned, but were stopped by fire, and it came to pass that as they stayed, or protracted time, the other end of the bridge also, viz., the south end, was fired, so that people thronging themselves betwixt the two fires, did nothing else expect or look for than death. Then there came to aid them, many ships and vessels, into which the multitude so indiscreetly pressed that the ships being drowned, they all perished. It was said through the fire and the shipwracke that there were destroyed about three thousand persons. William Packington writeth that there were found in part or half burnt three thousand bodies, beside those that were quite burnt which could not be found." It is a striking proof of the goodness of Peter of Colechurch's work, that the bridge, though much injured, was not destroyed. This terrible story is told with little or no variation in all the old chronicles, and Speed turns it into a sort of parable, and draws a most quaint parallel between this fearful catastrophe, and the position of King John, who, like the poor creatures on the bridge, was in the midst of two "inevitable flames, on this side his faithless nobles, and on that his merciless foes," (John's foes were Philip Augustus, of France, always the enemy of the reigning sovereign of England, whoever he might be, with all the French Barons who were ready, the army at Rouen, the Navy at the mouth of the Seine to invade England), "when the Pope thus proffering him St. Peter's boat for a safeguard from bothe, drencht him into as great misery, certainly greater ignominy than both the others." But for this time England was saved from a foreign invasion, and it was not till 1216 that Louis, the eldest son of the King of France, landed at Sandwich, and marching over London Bridge with his army, took the city, or rather the Londoners welcomed him as a deliverer from the tyranny and caprice of John. Meanwhile the King died, and an old chronicler says with terrific energy, "Hell felt itself defiled by the presence of John." CHAPTER III. SOUTHWARK IN THE MIDDLE AGES. M AY 21st, 1216, is a day to be remembered, for it was the last time that a foreign army ever landed on English soil to endeavour the conquest of the country. Spanish ships have sailed round our island, and French armies and fleets have looked wistfully across the "narrow streak of silver sea," but never since then have they landed on our coasts with hostile intent. Britain has appeared to be under the special care of its guardian Saints; or shall we not rather say of God Himself? Binding our island round with its bright blue girdle, the sea has been its defence, its guard, and its great highway. And Shakespeare's description of England is as true now as when it was first penned : "This Royal throne of Kings, this sceptre'd isle, This earth of Majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress, built by nature for herself Against the envy of less happier lands, This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England; Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege of watery Neptune." More than 650 years have passed away since the French Prince Louis, afterwards Louis VIII., marching through Southwark and over the bridge entered London "with solemn procession and incredible applause of all, and took in Paul's Church (whither he went to pray) the oaths of the citizens, and after at Westminster of the Barons," for John's unutterable wickedness had so turned men's hearts against him that the greater part seemed in favour of the French Prince. But in happy time John died, and then the English began to see how suicidal their policy had been, in inviting over a French Prince to conquer them; and the great Earl of Pembroke, brother-in-law of the little King Henry III., took advantage of the turn of the tide, and Louis, after a vain struggle, was obliged to give up his idea of attaching England to the French Throne, and so allowed himself to be politely handed out of the kingdom by the great Earl himself. Years passed away, the child king had grown up as, alas! most child sovereigns do, to a dishonoured and foolish maturity. Though Henry did not inherit his father's vice and fiendish cruelty, he inherited his weakness, his vaccillation, and his want of truth; and so it came to pass that another brother-in-law of his became famous, Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, husband of Pembroke's widow, Henry's sister Eleanor. De Montfort's character is so variously represented that it is difficult to judge of it; but one thing is certain, that willingly or unwillingly he was forced into rebellion against his king and brother, and it is said that one of the conflicts between them took place in the streets of Southwark. And now let us pause a moment in the stream of history, and try to realise to ourselves a little what Southwark was in those Middle Ages, called the Dark Ages, because, as Dr. Maitland quaintly puts it, people chose to remain in the dark about them. Our present notion of Southwark is so dingy and toil worn, so full of busy strivings in grimy workshops, that it is difficult to realize how different it must have been in those medieval times, when "all work and no play," was by no means the order of the day. In those times Southwark had its stately abbeys of St. Mary of the Ferry, and St. Saviour's at Bermondsey. There were also the magnificent palaces of the Bishops of Winchester and Rochester, where now are the busy wharves of Bankside. Brilliant processions passed to and fro. Noblemen's retinues and military calvacades thronged the streets. The inns were filled with the followers of the ecclesiastical dignitaries and the bands of jovial pilgrims so wondrously described by Chaucer. Jesters and jongleurs, actors and minstrels attended for the amusement of those gathered there. And armies were passing on their way to continental wars, and the whole place must have been full of colour, and life, and brightness. But all was not so fair. I can but just allude to the dens of iniquity that were licensed by the Bishops of Winchester -it is to be hoped with the idea of keeping some sort of control over them-from which Sir William Walworth derived an income, and the destruction of which is supposed to account for his violent indignation against Wat Tyler, who destroyed them. The only memorial of them left is a sad one. At the corner of Redcross-street is a place called the Cross Bones, and there these poor wretched women were buried, for though they lived close to the ancient Priory and the Bishop's Palace, under the very shadow of the church, they must not be buried in consecrated ground, and so they were laid where "Every foot might fall with heavier tread, 66 'Trampling upon their vileness. Stranger, pass "Softly! To save the sinner, Jesus bled!" |