Chronicles of London Bridge. Richard Thompson
was entirely swept away; whilst the lands on each side were overflowed for a considerable distance. I cannot help observing how slightly, and erroneously, the ‘Annals of Waverley’ notice this most dreadful devastation; for at page 137, of the best edition by Dr. Thomas Gale, volume ii. of his ‘Historiæ Anglicanæ Scriptores xv.’ Oxford, 1691, folio, they merely state that ‘a vehement wind struck down London the 6th of the kalends of November,’—that is to say, on the 27th of October—‘at the hour of six!’ I doubt not but the truth was, that the good Monks of Waverley Abbey in Surrey felt nothing of this ventus vehemens themselves, and therefore gave a much more trivial record of it, than if it had shaken but a single bell in the turrets of their own Cenobium. The ‘Annals of Waverley,’ you know, were, down to about 1120, almost a translation from the ‘Saxon Chronicle,’ executed in the twelfth century. The following year, 1092, the sixth of the reign of William Rufus, was marked by a season fatal to bridges in general; although there is no mention that our’s at London participated in the destruction. This fact is related by William of Malmesbury, page 125, and by Roger de Hoveden, page 464, in these words:—‘Also, in his sixth year, there was such an excessive rain, and such high floods, the rivers overflowing the low grounds that lay near them, as the like was remembered by none. And afterward, in the winter, ensued a sudden frost; whereby the great streams were congealed in such a manner that they could draw two hundred horsemen and carriages over them; whilst at their thawing, many bridges, both of wood and stone, were borne down, and divers water mills were broken up and carried away!’
“Frequent destructions by fire seem, also, to have been a very general fate of all our ancient buildings; for, in 1093, the wooden houses and straw roofs of the London Citizens were again in flames, and a great part of the City was thus destroyed.
“Too soon after this calamity, at a most inauspicious time for commencing, or executing, expensive public works, in 1097, King William Rufus imposed a heavy tax upon his subjects for the re-building of London Bridge—though that might very well be defended—the erecting of the palace of West-Minster Hall, and the construction of a wall round the Tower. The ‘Saxon Chronicle’ speaks of these ill-advised undertakings in the blended tones of sorrow and of anger. ‘This was, in all things,’ says that faithful old history, at pages 316, 317, ‘a very heavy-timed year, and beyond measure laborious from the badness of the weather, both when men attempted to till the land, and, afterwards, to gather the fruits of their tilth; and from unjust contributions they never rested. Many counties also, that were confined to London by work, were grievously oppressed, on account of the wall that was building about the Tower, and the Bridge that was nearly all afloat, and the King’s Hall that they were building at West-Minster; and many men perished thereby.’
“Our brave old River of Thames itself, however, is of the same changeful nature as Luna, the mistress of his tides; for, if at one time, he overflows his banks, blows up his Bridge, or drowns an invading army, by the fury of his waves; at another season he contracts his waters into their narrowest channel, or draws them back into his urn, without leaving enough to float a wherry over his bed. Of this I shall give you several instances, as we get lower down the stream of time; and now only remark, in chronological order, that on the 6th of the Ides of October, videlicet the 10th, in the 15th Year of the reign of Henry I. 1114, the River was so dried up, and there was such want of water, that between the Tower of London and the Bridge, and even under it, ‘a great number of men, women, and children,’—says Stow, in his ‘Survey,’ volume i. page 58—‘did wade over both on horse and foot,’ the water coming up to their knees.
“The original account of this is to be found in the ‘Annales’ of Roger de Hoveden, page 473; from whom we derive the additional information, that this defect of water commenced in the middle of the night preceding, and lasted until the darkest part of the next. The same historian, also, records, on the same page, that in the year 1115, the winter was so severe, that all throughout England the Bridges were broken by the ice.
“But although London Bridge was an edifice to which there was a continual and heavy cost attached, yet its possessions were, even anciently, very extensive; for you find that so early as in the 23d year of Henry I., AD 1122, Thomas de Ardern, and Thomas his son, gave to the Monks of Bermondsey, and the Church of St. George in Southwark, the tenth of his Lord’s corn lands in Horndon, and the immense sum of Five Shillings per annum rent, out of the Lands pertaining to London Bridge. Calculate this, my good Sir, at twenty times its present value; for we know that in the Great Charter of King John, Chapter II. a knight paid but five pounds to the King as a Relief when he came to his estate; and that, Lord Coke tells you in his Second Institute, even several years later, was the fourth part of his annual income. Remember too, that sixpence by the week was then a living stipend to an ordinary labourer; that the Black Book of the Exchequer—which was written about the reign of Henry I.—ordains that a tenant shall pay one shilling to the King, instead of providing bread for one hundred soldiers for one meal; that the provender of twenty horses for one night, also to be paid by a tenant, was commuted for four pence; that in 1185, the tenants of Shireburn paid by custom two pence, or four hens, which they would; and, lastly, recollect, that in 1125—called by Robert de Monte, the dearest year ever known—a horseload of wheat was sold but for six shillings: in ordinary times, as in 1043, it was sixpence the quarter. Of all this you may see most abundant and curious proof, in Bishop Fleetwood’s ‘Chronicon Preciosum,’ London, 1745, 8vo. pages 55, 56; and therefore the gift of Thomas de Ardern was munificent.
“I should observe that Stow obtained the knowledge of this donation from the manuscript ‘Annals of Bermondsey Priory,’ which are now preserved in the Harleian Library in the British Museum, No. 231, very fairly written in a good legible black text upon vellum; having vermillion rubrics of the King’s Reign, and the date of the year. It is a rather small quarto volume, of 71 written leaves, delicately paged by some later hand; and the passage occurs on the reverse of folio 11. The Harleian Catalogue calls it, in Latin, ‘the Annals of the Abbey of St. Saviour’s of Bermondesie, from the year of our Lord 1042, down to the year of our Lord 1433; in which, beside the public affairs of each reign,’—told in the words of other Chronicles—‘many things are narrated which belong to the history of the same Abbey.’
“You have already seen that London Bridge was a public work, to which all England furnished some labourers; but, as I mentioned some time back, Maitland, in his ‘History of London,’ volume i. page 44, notices a deed cited by Stow, exempting the lands of Battle Abbey, in Sussex. This was granted by King Henry I. but is perhaps now lost, for it remains wholly unnoticed by the learned Editors of the new edition of Dugdale’s ‘Monasticon;’ and I must therefore give it you in the very words of the old Antiquary himself, who says, page 58, that in his time it remained with the seal very fair, in the custody of Joseph Holland, Esq.;—it is as follows:—
“ ‘Henry, King of England, to Ralph, Bishop of Chichester, and all the Officers of Sussex, sendeth greeting. Know ye, &c. I command by my kingly authority, that the manor called Alceston, which my father gave with other lands to the Abbey of Battle, be free and quiet from shires and hundreds, and all other customs of earthly servitude, as my father held the same, most freely and quietly; and namely, from the work of London Bridge, and the work of the Castle at Pevensey: and this I command upon my forfeiture. Witness, William Pont de l’Arche, at Berry.’
“The second year of the succeeding King, however, namely Stephen, saw London Bridge in a state to require the exertions of all England to raise it: for, in 1136, a fire broke out in the dwelling of one Aileward, near London Stone, that consumed Eastward as far as Aldgate; and to the Shrine of St. Erkenwald, in St. Paul’s Cathedral, to the West. On the Southern side of London the Wooden Bridge over the Thames was destroyed, but was soon after repaired, since Stephanides, whose description of London was written between 1170 and 1182, speaks of it as affording a convenient standing place to the spectators of the Citizens’ Water Tournaments. I shall give you the whole passage, because it describes a very curious sport of the twelfth century, which was celebrated in the immediate vicinity of this very spot; and the account is at page 76, beginning ‘In feriis Paschalibus;’ we’ll content ourselves, however, with Dr. Pegge’s translation of it, which runs thus.
“ ‘At Easter, the diversion is prosecuted on