There are few spots in London where, within a very limited and strictly-defined space, so many historical events have happened, as on Old . It was a battle-field and a place of religious worship, a resort of traders and a show-place for traitors' heads. Its Nonsuch House was of the sights. of London in the reign of Elizabeth; and the passage between its arches was of the exploits of venturous youth, down to the very time. of its removal. Though never beautiful or stately, was of those sights that visitors to the metropolis never forgot.

There is no certain record of when the was built. It is true that Dion Cassius, writing nearly years after the invasion of by Claudius, speaks vaguely of a bridge across the Thames in the reign of that emperor; but it is more probable that no bridge really existed till the year , the year after the invasion of Olaf the Dane, in the reign of King Ethelred. It is at least certain that in the year , in the reign of Ethelred II., the Unready, there was a bridge, for, according to Snorro Sturlesonius, an Icelandic historian, Olaf the Norwegian, an ally of Ethelred, attacking the Danes who had fortified themselves in , fastened his vessels to the piles of , which the Danes held, and dragged down the whole structure. This Olaf, afterwards a martyr, is the patron saint from whom the church now standing at the south-east corner of , derived its Christian name. below, a word corrupted from Saint Olave, also preserves the memory of the Norwegian king, eventually slain near Drontheim by Knut, King of Denmark.

Still, whenever the churchwardens and vestry of St. Mary Overie's, , meet over their cups, the toast, says an antiquary who has written an exhaustive history of , is to their church's patron saint,

Old Moll.

a little earth, for charity.

Sepulchral Monuments,

[extra_illustrations.2.10.1]  was destroyed by a terrific flood and storm, mentioned in the which, in the year , blew down London houses, and lifted the roof off Bow Church. In the year of Stephen a fire, that swept away all the wooden houses of London from to , destroyed the wooden bridge.

[extra_illustrations.2.10.2]  was begun in , by Peter, a priest and chaplain of St. Mary Colechurch, a building which, till the Great Fire made short work of it, stood in Conyhoop Lane, on the north side of the Poultry. There long existed a senseless tradition that pious Peter of the Poultry reared the arches of his bridge upon woolpacks; the fact, perhaps, being that Henry II. generously gave towards the building a new tax levied upon his subjects' wool. Peter's bridge, which occupied years in its construction, boasted pointed stone arches, and was feet long, and feet wide. It included a wooden drawbridge, and the piers were raised upon platforms (called starlings) of strong elm piles, covered by thick planks bolted together, that impeded the passage of barges. On of the piers was erected [extra_illustrations.2.10.3] , feet high and feet long, to [extra_illustrations.2.10.4] . [extra_illustrations.2.10.5]  could be entered either from the chapel above or from the river, by a flight of stone stairs. The founder himself was buried under the chapel staircase. Peter's bridge was partly destroyed by a great fire in , years after it was finished, and while its stones were still sharp and white. There were even then houses upon it, and gate-towers; and many people crowding to help, or to see the sight, got wedged in between fires by a shifting of the wind, and being unable to escape, some were either burnt or drowned.

King John, after this, granted certain tolls, levied on foreign merchants, towards the bridge repairs. Henry III., according to a patent-roll dated from Portsmouth, , permitted certain monks, called the Brethren of , with his especial sanction, to travel over England and collect alms. In this same reign () the bridge became the scene of great scorn and insult, shown by the turbulent citizens to Henry's queen, Eleanor of Provence, who was opposed to the people's friends, the barons, who were still contending for the final settlement of Magna Charta. As the queen and her ladies, in their gilded barge, were on their way to Windsor, and preparing to shoot the dangerous bridge, the rabble above assailed her with shouts and reproaches, and casting heavy stones and mud into her boat, at her and her bright-clothed maidens, drove them back to the Tower, where the king was garrisoned. Towards the end of the same year, when Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, marched on London, the king and his forces occupied , and, to thwart the citizens, locked up the bridge-gates, and threw the ponderous keys into the Thames. But no locks can bar out Fate. The gates were broken open by a flood of citizens, the king was driven back, and Simon entered London. After the battle of Evesham, where the great earl fell, the king, perhaps remembering old grudges, took the halfruinous bridge into his own hands and delivered it over to the queen, who sadly neglected it. There were great complaints of this neglect in the reign of Edward I., and again the Holy Brothers went forth to collect alms throughout the land. The king gave lands also for the support of the bridgenamely, near the , , and . He also appointed tolls-every man on foot, with merchandise, to pay farthing; every horseman, penny; every pack carried on horseback, halfpenny. This same year () arches of were carried away by the same thaw-flood that destroyed Rochester Bridge.

The reign of Edward I. was disgraced by the cruel revenge taken by the warlike monarch on [extra_illustrations.2.10.6] . In on Edward's return from the invasion of Scotland,

this man of Belial,

Many was the wives-chil' that looked on him that day,

And said, Alas! that he was born, and so vilely forlorn,

So fierce man as he was.

Now stands the head above the town bridge,

Fast by Wallace, sooth for to say.

The heads of these Scotch patriots were, no doubt, placed side by side on the gate at the north or London end of the bridge.

The troublous reign of the young profligate, Richard II., brought more fighting to the bridge, for

In fighting of a gayer and less bloodthirsty kind took place on the bridge. No dandy Eglinton tournament this, but a genuine grapple with spear, sword, and dagger. Sir David Lindsay, of Glenesk, who had married a daughter of Robert II., King of Scotland, challenged to the joust Lord Wells, our ambassador in Scotland, a man described by Andrew of Wyntoun, a poetical Scotch chronicler, as being

Manful, stout, and of good pith,

And high of heart he was therewith.

Sir David arrived from Scotland with twentynine attendants and horses. The king presided at the. tournament. The arms Lindsay bore on his shield, banner, and trappings were gules, a fesse cheque argent and azure; those of Wells, or, a lion rampant, double queue, sable. At the shock the spears broke, and the crowd shouted that Lindsay was tied to his saddle. The earl at that leaped off his charger, vaulted back, and dashed on to the collision. At the crash Wells fell heavily, as if dead. In the final grapple Lindsay, fastening his dagger into the armour of the English knight, lifted him from the ground and dashed him, finally vanquished, to the earth. According to Andrew of Wyntoun, the king called out from his

summer castle,

Good cousin Lindsay, do forth that thou should do this day,

For he had fought,

without anger, and but for glory.

In , when Richard II. returned to London, reconciled to the citizens, who had resented his reckless extravagance, was the centre of splendid pageants. At the bridge-gate the citizens presented the handsome young scapegrace with a milk-white charger, caparisoned in cloth of gold and hung with silver bells, and gave the queen a white palfrey, caparisoned in white and red; while from every window hung cloths of gold and silver. The citizens ended by redeeming their forfeited charter by the outrageous payment of .

In , when Richard had lost his queen, Anne of Bohemia, and married the child-daughter of Charles VI. of France, the crowd was so great to welcome the young queen, that at persons were crushed to death in the crowd. The reign of Richard II. was indeed a memorable for .

The year Richard II. was deposed, Henry of Lancaster laid rough hands on knights who had years before smothered the old Duke of Gloucester, by the king his nephew's commands. The murderers were dragged to , and there had their hands lopped off at a fishmonger's stall. The heads were then spiked over the gate of , and the bodies strung together on a gibbet. Nor did these heads long remain unaccompanied, for in - Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, was beheaded, while Lord Bardolf, of his adherents who had joined in a northern insurrection, was quartered, and the earl's head and a flitch of unfortunate Bardolf were set up on .

There was a great rejoicing on when [extra_illustrations.2.12.1]  returned with his long train of French captives from the red field of Agincourt, in . The Mayor of London, with all the aldermen and crafts, in scarlet gowns and red and white hoods, welcomed him back to his capital; and on the gate-tower stood a male and a female giant, the former having the keys of the city hanging from a staff, while trumpeters with horns and clarions sounded welcome to the conqueror of the French. In front of the gate was written,

The King's city of Justice.

To God only be honour and glory,

The streams of the river make glad the city of God.

Lydgate, that Suffolk monk who succeeded Chaucer, in the bead-roll of English poets, wrote a poem on this day's celebrations.

Hail, London!

Christ you keep from every care.

And at the drawbridge that is fast by

Two towers there were up pight;

An antelope and a lion standing hym by,

Above them Saint George our lady's knight,

Beside him many an angel bright;

Benedictus, they gan sing,

Qui venit in nomine Domini, Godde's knight.

Gracia Dei with you doth spring.

Wot we right well that thus it was--

Gloria tibi Trinitas.

years after this rejoicing day, the corpse of the young hero (only ) was borne over the bridge on its way from Vincennes to . On a bier covered with red silk and beaten gold lay a painted effigy of the king, robed and crowned, and holding sceptre, ball, and cross. richly-harnessed horses drew the chariot, the hangings blazoned with the arms of St. George, Normandy, King Arthur, St. Edward the Confessor, France, and France and England quarterly. A costly canopy was held over the royal bier; and bishops, in their pontificals, with mitred abbots, priests, and innumerable citizens, met the corpse and received it with due honour, the priests singing a dirge. torch-bearers, habited in white, surrounded the bier. After them came mounted men-at-arms, in black armour, holding their spears reversed; and nobles followed, bearing pennons, banners, and bannerolls; while captains preceded, carrying the king's heraldic achievement. After the body came all the servants of the household, in black, James I. of Scotland as chief mourner, with the princes and lords of the

Readers of Shakespeare will remember, in the part of ., how he makes the servingmen of the Protector Gloucester wrangle with the retainers of Cardinal Beaufort, till tawny coat beats blue, and blue pommels tawny. Brawls like this took place twice on , and the proud and ambitious cardinal on occasion assembled his archers at his palace, and attempted to storm the bridge.

The dangers of

shooting

The barge of the Duke of Norfolk, starting from St. Mary Overie's, with many a gentleman, squire, and yeoman, about half-past

four

of the clock on a November afternoon, struck (through bad steering) on a starling of

London Bridge

, and sank.

Several Lollards' heads had already adorned the bridge; and in the skull of a rough reformer,

as plentiful as sheep's heads,

And at his coming, of excellent beauty,

Benign of part, most womanly of cheer,

There issued out empresses three,

Their hair displayed, as Phoebus in his sphere,

With crownets of gold and stones clear,

At whose outcoming they gave such a light

That the beholders were stonied in their sight.

If Old had a fault, it was, perhaps, its habit of occasionally partly falling down. This it did as early as , when the great stone gate

There was another gala day for the bridge in , when the proud and impetuous William de la Pole (afterwards Duke of Suffolk) brought over Margaret, daughter of Rene (that weak, poetical monarch, immortalised in ), as a bride for the young King of England, and the city welcomed her on their river threshold. The Duke of Gloucester, who had opposed the match, preceded her, with men clad in his ducal livery, and with gilt badges on their arms; and the mayor and aldermen rode on in scarlet, followed by the city companies in blue gowns and red hoods. Again Lydgate tuned his ready harp, and produced some certainly most unprophetic verses, in which he called the savage Margaret-

The dove that brought the branch of peace,

Resembling your simpleness, Columbyne.

In , and the very month after Margaret's favourite, De la Pole, had been seized in Dover Roads, and his head brutally chopped off on the side of a boat, the great insurrection under Jack Cade broke out in Kent. After routing a detachment of the royal troops at oaks, Cade marched towards London, and the commons of Essex mustering threateningly at Mile End, the city, after some debate, admitted Cade over . As the rebel passed over the echoing drawbridge, he slashed in the ropes that supported it. days after the citizens, irritated at his robberies, barred up the bridge at night, and penned him close in his head-quarters at . The rebels then flew to arms, and tried to force a passage, eventually winning the drawbridge, and burning many of the houses which stood in close rows near it. Now the battle raged by St. Magnus's corner, now at the bridge-foot, side, and all the while the Tower guns thundered at the swarming, maddened men of Kent. At the next morning both sides, faint and weary, retired to their respective quarters. Soon afterwards Cade's army melted away; Cade, himself a fugitive, was slain in a Kentish garden where he had hid himself; and his grim, defaced head was placed on the very bridge-gate on which he had himself but recently, in scorn and triumph, placed the ghastly head of Lord Say, the murdered Treasurer of England. Round Cade's head, when the king re-entered London, were placed the heads of of his captains.

At the entry of Edward IV. into London, in , before his coronation, he passed over , escorted by the mayor and his fellows, in scarlet, and commoners,

well horsed and clad in green.

In , when Henry was a prisoner in the Tower, the Bastard of Falconbridge, of the deposed king's piratical partisans, made a dash to plunder London. While of his men attacked and Bishopsgate, the rest set fire to , and burnt houses. But the citizens, led by Ralph Jocelyn, a brave Draper, made a gallant defence, drove off the filibusters, and chased them to .

In another house on the bridge fell down, drowning of its inhabitants.

The reign of Henry VII. brought more terrible trophies to ; for in Flamock, a lawyer, and Joseph, a farrier of Bodmin, leaders of a great Cornish insurrection, contributed their heads to this decorative object. But Henry VII. was not half such a mower off of heads as that enormous Turk his son. Henry VIII., what with the wives he grew tired of, and what with the disbelievers in his ecclesiastical supremacy, kept theheadsman's axe very fairly busy. came the prior and several unfortunate monks, and then the good old Bishop of Rochester, John Fisher. The parboiled head of the good old man who would not bow the knee to Rimmon was kept, that Queen Anne Boleyn might enjoy the grateful sight. The face for a fortnight remained so ruddy and life-like, and such crowds collected to see the so-called miracle, that the king, in a rage, at last ordered the head to be thrown down into the river. The next month came the head of a far greater and wiser man, [extra_illustrations.2.14.1] . This sacred relic More's daughter, Margaret Roper, bribed a man to remove, and drop into a boat in which she sat; and the head was long after buried with her, under a chapel adjoining St. Dunstan's, Canterbury.

In Queen Mary's reign there was again fighting on [extra_illustrations.2.15.1] . In the year , when rash Sir Thomas Wyatt led his Kentish men to London, to stop the impending Spanish marriage, the rebel found the drawbridge cut away, the gates of barred, and guns planted ready to receive him. Wyatt and his men dug a trench at the bridge-foot, and laid guns. The night before Wyatt retreated to Kingston, to cross the Thames there, of his arquebusiers fired at a boat from the Tower, and killed a waterman on board. The next morning, the Lieutenant of the Tower turning cannon on the steeples of and St. Mary Overie's, the people of begged Wyatt to withdraw, which he generously did.

In Elizabeth's reign the bridge was restored with great splendour. The city built a new gate and tower, storeys high, at the enda huge pile, full of square Tudor windows, with a covered way below. About the same time was also reared that wonder of London, Nonsuch House--a huge wooden pile, storeys high, with cupolas and turrets at each corner, brought from Holland, and erected with wooden pegs instead of nails. It stood over the and arches, on the north side of the drawbridge. There were carved wooden galleries outside the long lines of transom-casements, and the panels between were richly carved and gilt . In the same reign, Peter Moris, a Dutchman, established [extra_illustrations.2.15.8]  at the north end of ; and, long before this, corn-mills had been erected at the south end of the same overtaxed structure. The [extra_illustrations.2.15.9]  continued for many years after, both here and at the Tower. In the next reign, after the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, the head of Father Garnet (the account of whose execution in we gave in a previous chapter) was added to the horrible collection on the bridge.

In houses on the north side of the bridge were destroyed by a fire, occasioned by a careless servant setting a tub of hot ashes under a staircase; and the Great Fire of laid low several houses on the same side of the bridge.

There are several old proverbs about still extant. of these--

If

London Bridge

had fewer eyes it would see better,

London Bridge

was made for wise men to go over and fools to go under

The old bridge had by the beginning of the eighteenth century become perilously ruinous. Pennant speaks of remembering the street as dark, narrow, and dangerous; the houses overhung the road in such a terrific manner as almost to shut out the daylight, and arches of timber crossed the street to keep the shaky old tenements from falling on each other. Indeed, Providence alone kept together the long-toppling, dilapidated structure, that was perilous above and dangerous below.

Nothing but use,

could preserve the repose of the inmates, who soon grew deaf to the noise of the falling waters, the clamour of watermen, and the frequent shrieks of drowning wretches.

Although the roadway had been widened in the reigns of James II. and William, [extra_illustrations.2.15.10]  (George II.). During their removal pots of Elizabethan money were dug up among the ruins.

In , a [extra_illustrations.2.15.11]  built over the Thames while repairs of the old bridge were going on, was [extra_illustrations.2.15.12]  was supposed by some footman in passing dropping his link among the woodwork. Messrs. Taylor and Dance, the repairers, [extra_illustrations.2.15.13] ; but the join became so insecure that few persons would venture over it. The celebrated [extra_illustrations.2.15.14]  was called in, in , and he advised the Corporation to buy back the stone of the old city gates, pulled down and sold the year before, to at once strengthen the shaky starlings. This was done, but proved a mere makeshift, and in the starlings again became loose, and an incessant wail of fresh complaints arose. The repairs were calculated at yearly; and it was rather unfeelingly computed that watermen, barmen, or seamen, valued at , were annually drowned in passing the dangerous bridge. In , the city, in sheer desperation, resolved on a new bridge, feet westward of the old, and in Mr. Rennie began the work by removing houses. The earlier bridges had been eastward, and facing St. Botolph's. During the excavations coins were discovered of Augustus, Vespasian, and later Roman emperors, besides many Nuremberg and tradesmen's tokens. There were also dredged up brass rings, buckles, iron keys, silver spoons, a gilt dagger, an iron spear-head, some carved stones, a bronze lamp, with a head of Bacchus, and a silver effigy of Harpocrates, the god of silence. This figure having attached to it a large gold ring, and a chain of pure gold, is supposed to have beep a priest's amulet, to be worn at religious ceremonies. The bridge cost . The stone was laid in , by the Right Honourable John Garratt, Lord Mayor, the Duke of York being present.

Among the celebrated persons who have resided on there may be mentioned, among the most eminent, Hans Holbein, the great painter of Henry VIII.'s court; Peter Monamy, the marine painter, apprenticed to a sign-painter on the bridge --he died in ; Jack Laguerre, the humorist, singer, player, and scene-painter, son of the Laguerre satirised by Pope; and Crispin Tucker,

The edition of that curious anecdotic old book, the compilation of the celebrated penman and arithmetician, whose name has grown into a proverb, was

printed for T. Norris, at the Looking-Glass on

London Bridge

; C. Brown, at the Crown in

Newgate Street

; and A. Bettesworth, at the Red Lyon in Pater-noster-row.

1715

.

anecdote of the old bridge must not be forgotten. Mr. Baldwin, haber- dasher, living in the house over the chapel, was ordered, when an old man of , to go to Chislehurst for change of air. But the invalid found he could not sleep in the country for want of the accustomed sound of the roar and rush of the tide under the old ruinous arches. In the chapel was a paper warehouse. Within legal memory, says the of that date,

service has been performed there every Sabbath and saint's-day.

The English Jews still have a very curious tradition which associates with the story of the expulsion from England of their per- secuted forefathers in the reign of Edward I. Though few Jews have probably ever read Holin- shed, the legend is there to be found, and runs thus :--

A sort of the richest of them,

being shipped with their treasure in a mighty tall ship, which they had hired, when the same was under sail and got down the Thames, towards the mouth of the river, near Queenborough, the master-mariner bethought him of a wile, and caused his men to cast anchor, and so rode at the same, till the ship, by ebbing of the stream, Heads On Old London Bridge. remained on the dry sands. The master herewith enticed the Jews to walk out with him on land for recreation; and at length, when he understood the tide to be coming in, he got him back to the ship, whither he was drawn up by a cord.

The Jews made not so much haste as he did, because they were not aware of the danger; but perceived how the matter stood, they to him for help; howbeit he told them that they ought to cry rather unto Moses, by whose conduct their fathers passed through the Red Sea, and therefore, if they would call to him for help, he was able enough to help them out of those raging floods, which now came in upon them. They cried, indeed, but no succour appeared, and so they were swallowed up in the water. The master returned with the ship, and told the king how he had used the matter, and had both thanks and reward, as some have written; but others affirm (and more truly, as should seem) that divers of those mariners which dealt so wickedly against the Jews, were hanged for their wicked practice, and so received a just reward of their fraudulent and mischievous dealing.

That this story of Holinshed is true there seems little doubt, as the modern English Jews have preserved it by tradition, but with an altered locality. Mr. Margoliouth, an Anglo-Jewish writer, says:--

The spot in the river Thames, where many of the poor exiles were drowned by the perfidy of a master mariner, is under the influence of ceaseless rage; and however calm and serene the river is elsewhere, that place is furiously boisterous. It is, moreover, affirmed that this relentless agitation is situated under

London Bridge

. There are, even at the present day, some old-fashioned Hebrew families who implicitly credit the outrageous fury of the Thames. A small boat is now and then observed by a Hebrew observer, filled with young and old credulous Jews, steering towards the supposed spot, in order to see and hear the noisy sympathy of the waters. There are many traditions on the subject.

An average day of -and- hours will [extra_illustrations.2.16.1] 

Every day since then has increased the vast and tumultuous procession of human beings that momentarily pass in and out of London. In what congestion of all traffic this will end, or how soon that congestion will come to pass, it is quite impossible to say; while by what efforts of engineering genius London will eventually be rendered traversable, we are equally ignorant. [extra_illustrations.2.17.1] [extra_illustrations.2.17.2] 

[extra_illustrations.2.10.1] The old wooden bridge

[extra_illustrations.2.10.2] The first stone London Bridge

[extra_illustrations.2.10.3] a two-storeyed chapel

[extra_illustrations.2.10.4] St. Thomas a Becket

[extra_illustrations.2.10.5] The lower chapel

[extra_illustrations.2.10.6] William Wallace

[extra_illustrations.2.12.1] Henry V.

[extra_illustrations.2.14.1] Sir Thomas More

[extra_illustrations.2.15.1] London Bridge

[extra_illustrations.2.15.2] London Bridge with Houses

[extra_illustrations.2.15.3] London Bridge with Houses Taken Down

[extra_illustrations.2.15.4] Scenes on Bridge

[extra_illustrations.2.15.5] New Bridge

[extra_illustrations.2.15.6] New Bridge-Building

[extra_illustrations.2.15.7] New Bridge-Opening

[extra_illustrations.2.15.8] water-works

[extra_illustrations.2.15.9] ghastly custom of displaying the heads of the victims of the scaffold

[extra_illustrations.2.15.10] the double lines of rickety houses were not removed till 1757-60

[extra_illustrations.2.15.11] temporary wooden bridge

[extra_illustrations.2.15.12] destroyed by fire

[extra_illustrations.2.15.13] chopped the old bridge in two, and built a new centre arch

[extra_illustrations.2.15.14] Smeaton

[extra_illustrations.2.16.1] London Bridge 1863

[extra_illustrations.2.17.1] Bridge in 1863-Prince of Wales's Marriage

[extra_illustrations.2.17.2] Bridge in 1863-Prince of Wales's Marriage-Illuminated