THE river has made London, and London has acknowledged its obligations to the Thames. It was the Silent Highway along which the chief traffic of the city passed during the Middle Ages, and, probably, the roads of London would have been better if the water carriage had not been so good. The river continued to be the Silent Highway until the nineteenth century, when it lost its high position. With the construction of the Thames Embankment the river again took its proper place as the centre of London, but it did not again become its main artery.

We have seen in the previous chapter how the poet Gower met King Richard II. near Westminster and was summoned to the royal barge.

Fitz-Stephen gives a vivid description of the sports on the Thames: ‘In the Easter holidays they play at a game resembling a naval engagement. A target is firmly fastened to the trunk of a tree which is fixed in the middle of the river, and in the prow of a boat, driven along by oars and the current, a young man, who is to strike the target with his lance; if in hitting it he break his lance, and keep his position unmoved, he gains his point, and attains his desire; but if his lance be not shivered by the blow he is tumbled into the river, and his boat passes by, driven along by its own motion. Two boats, however, are placed there, one on each side of the target, and in them a number of young men to take up the striker when he first emerges from the

VISSCHER’S VIEW OF LONDON, A.D. 1616. Section (reduced) from the Re-production by the Topographical Society of London.
VISSCHER’S VIEW OF LONDON, A.D. 1616.
Section (reduced) from the Re-production by the Topographical Society of London.

stream.... On the bridge, and in balconies on the banks of the river, stand the spectators.’ Four centuries after this Stow describes a somewhat similar scene: ‘I have also in the summer season seen some upon the river of Thames rowed in wherries, with staves in their bands, flat at the fore end, running one against another, and for the most part, one or both overthrown, and well ducked.’

One of the most remarkable incidents in the life of the Middle Ages is connected with the history of that highly-placed lady, the unfortunate Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester, whose enemies succeeded in condemning her to do penance in London in three open spaces on three several days. She was brought by water from Westminster, and on the 13th of November 1441 was put on shore at the Temple Bridge; on the 15th at the Old Swan; and again, on the 17th, at Queenhithe, and from these landing-places she walked to the place of penance. The Old Swan, which stood near London Bridge, just where its successor now stands, can be traced further back than the reign of Henry VI., for a tavern with the sign of the Swan is mentioned in a deed of Edward II.’s time.

The old Chronicles are full of references to what took place on the river. Thus Edward Halle has a vivid picture of how the Archbishop of York, after leaving the widow of Edward IV. in the Sanctuary at Westminster, returned home to York Place at dawn of day, ‘and when he opened his windows and looked on the Thames he might see the river full of boats of the Duke of Gloucester [Richard III.], his servants, watching that no person should go to sanctuary, nor none should pass unsearched.’

Cavendish, in his Life of Wolsey, shows us two prelates talking confidentially in the cardinal’s barge: ‘Thus this court passed from session to session, and day to day, in so much that a certain day the King sent for my lord the breaking up one day of the court to come to him into Bridewall. And to accomplish his commandment he went unto him, and being there with him in communication in his grace’s privy chamber from eleven until twelve of the clock and past at noon, my lord came out and departed from the King, and took his barge at the Black Friars, and so went to his house at Westminster. The Bishop of Carlisle, being with him in his barge, said unto him (wiping the sweat from his face), “Sir,” quoth he, “it is a very hot day.” “Yea,” quoth my lord cardinal, “if ye had been as well chafed as I have been within this hour, ye would say it were very hot.”’

The river swarmed with watermen, and these men had their songs and choruses. A favourite song was in honour of Sir John Norman (Mayor in 1454), who first broke the rule of riding to Westminster on Mayor’s day, and ‘rowed thither by water,’ a practice which continued for many years, and might now be revived with advantage.

We can see from this how much, both of the business and pleasure of London, took place on the Thames. It reminds us vividly of the busy life on the canals of Venice.

The river was the highway of business as well of pleasure, and the intimate relations between England and Normandy after the Conquest naturally encouraged commerce between the Continent and England, and London rapidly became the centre of this trade. Ships came here from Flanders, Germany, Gascony, Italy, and also from Norway. Wharves lined the sides of the Thames, and each class of goods was landed at a wharf set apart for a special nationality.

In Henry II.’s reign London and Bristol became the chief commercial ports of the kingdom, the former trading with Germany and the central ports of the Continent, and the latter with the Scandinavian countries and with Ireland.

The Normans had special privileges, and Mr. Horace Round points out that the charter of Henry Duke of the Normans (afterwards Henry II. of England) to the citizens of Rouen, 1150-1151, confers to them their port at Dowgate, as they had held it from the days of Edward the Confessor. Mr. Round adds that this is a fact unknown to English historians.[69]

The early history of Queenhithe, for many years the chief rival to Billingsgate, is somewhat difficult to follow. In the Saxon period it appears to have belonged to one Edred, who gave the wharf his name, by which it continued to be called for some years after the Conquest. It was granted to Holy Trinity within Aldgate by William de Ypre, who received it from King Stephen. After some time it again came into the possession of the King, and John is said to have given it to his mother Eleanor, Queen of Henry II., after whom it received its name of Queenhithe. By some means not recorded the Ripa Regina came into the possession of Richard Earl of Cornwall, who in 1246 granted it to John Gisors, then Mayor, and the Commons of London to farm at an annual rent of £50. Henry III. confirmed this grant, and the custody of the hithe was thereupon committed to the Sheriffs, and half a year’s rent had been allowed, as the place appears to have fallen into decay, owing probably to the death of John de Storteford during his shrievalty. According to Stow, ‘Edward II. in the first year of his reign gave to Margaret, wife to Piers de Gavestone, forty-three pounds twelve shillings and ninepence halfpenny farthing out of the rent of London to be received of the Queen’s hithe.’

Queenhithe was the usual landing-place for wine, wool, hides, corn, firewood, fish, and all kinds of commodities. It was probably to Queenhithe that the wine fleet which brought to London the produce of the vineyards of the banks of the Moselle was bound. In the Liber Custumarum there is a full account of the yearly visit of this fleet, and the regulations as to its arrival at the New Wear, in the vicinity of Yanlade (the present Yantlet Creek), at the mouth of the Medway, which was the limit of the civic jurisdiction of the Thames. Here it was the duty of the fleet of adventurous hulks and keels ‘to arrange themselves in due order and raise their ensign; the crews being at liberty, if so inclined, to sing their kiriele or song of praise and thanksgiving, ‘according to the old law,’ until London Bridge was reached. Arrived here, and the drawbridge duly raised, they were for a certain time to lie moored off the wharf.... Here they were to remain at their moorings two ebbs and a flood; during which period the merchants were to sell no part of their cargo, it being the duty of one of the Sheriffs and the King’s Chamberlain to board each vessel in the meantime.... The two ebbs and a flood expired, and the officials having duly made their purchases or declined to do so, the wine-ship was allowed to lie alongside the wharf, the tuns of wine being disposed of under certain regulations, apparently meant as a precaution against picking and choosing, to such merchants as might present themselves as customers, those of London having the priority, and those of Winchester coming next.’[70] The boats were bound to leave London by the end of forty days.

Mr. Riley refers to the fondness of the merchants in the Middle Ages for music on board ship, and quotes from M. Michel (Recherches sur les Etoffes, etc., tome ii. p. 63) the following:—

Another passage from the Roman de Tristan, tome ii. p. 64, 1375-1378, quoted by Riley, is also very much to the point:—

Mr Riley gives an interesting account of the localities adjoining the northern banks of the Thames in the fourteenth century:—

‘The banks of the Thames from the Postern of Petit Wales [near the Tower], so far probably as the Friars Preachers, or Black Friars, near the entrance of the Fleet River, seem to have been intersected in these times by numberless small lanes, which, themselves public property, ran from Thames Street, by the side of a private residence or other edifice, and led to the owner’s wharf in front of his dwelling-house; these wharfs again, in some instances, being separated by water-gates, through which apparently the public had a right to claim, as an easement, right of passage. From many of the wharfs there also projected bridges or jetties into the river, for the same purposes as the stairs of modern times.’[71]

Many of the wharves on the Thames were known as gates besides Billingsgate, as Ebbgate, identical with the present Old Swan Lane and Wharf, Upper Thames Street, and Oystergate, on the site of the north end of the present London Bridge. The latter was the principal place for the sale of shell-fish, which was only to be sold ‘from the way of London Bridge towards the west, unto the corner of the wall of the Church of St. Mary Magdalene.’[72] Oystergate was also a place of great resort for the sellers of rushes, who paid a small rent for their standing.

We learn from Fitz-Stephen that ‘London formerly had walls and towers in like manner in the south, but that most excellent river the Thames, which abounds with fish, and in which the tide ebbs and flows, runs on that side, and has in a long space of time washed down, undermined and subverted the walls in that part.’ Whether there were gates or not along the river front of London, there can be little doubt that there were not structures at all the places named gates, many of these were doubtless merely ways. This use of the word gate is common enough in the South, as in Ramsgate, Margate, Sandgate, etc.

There appear to have been constant attempts made by the landowners on the Thames to close the lanes leading to the river, thus preventing the free access of the public. Special complaint was made before the Mayor and Sheriffs in 1360 against the Prior of St. John of Jerusalem for closing the right-of-way through the Temple. This place having come into the possession of the Knights Hospitallers of St. John after the suppression of the Order of Knights Templars. The evidence of John de Hydyngham and eleven others was taken—‘Who say upon their oath, that time out of mind the commonalty of the city aforesaid have been wont to have free ingress and egress with horses and carts from sunrise to sunset, for carrying and carting all manner of victuals and wares therefrom to the water of Thames, and from the said water of Thames to the city aforesaid through the great gate of the Templars, situate within Temple Bar, in the ward aforesaid, in the suburb of London; that the possessors of the Temple were wont, and by right ought to maintain a bridge at the water aforesaid’ [a pier or jetty for landing called Tempelbrigge]. ‘They say also, that the Prior of St. John of Jerusalem in England, who is the possessor of the Temple aforesaid, molests the citizens of the said city, so that they cannot have their free ingress and egress through the gate aforesaid, as of old they were wont to have.’[73]

The prior did not like this interference with his doings on the part of the city, and in 1374 he obtained from Edward III. a royal order to stay proceedings. The order, addressed to the Mayor, Recorder and Aldermen of London, after recapitulating the terms of complaint, proceeds: ‘We, deeming it not to be consonant with reason that this matter, seeing that it concerns you and the commonalty aforesaid, should be discussed before you, inasmuch as a party ought not to be judge in his own cause, and taking into consideration that if the bridge aforesaid, which has been intended for the advantage and easement of the nobles and others coming to our Parliaments and Councils, and wishing to reach their barges and boats, these should be broken by the laying of stone and timber thereon, it would be greatly to the prejudice of such persons; and desiring for the reasons aforesaid, that this matter shall be discussed and determined before our Council, where justice therein unto you as well as to the prior aforesaid may speedily be done; do command you, that you appear before our said Council at Westminster, on that day month after Easter Day next to come.’[74] This question of the exclusion of the common people from certain wharves and stairs continued for many years to be a burning one. In 1417 an Ordinance of the Mayor and Aldermen was issued forbidding this exclusion, which commences as follows: ‘Whereas heretofore, and now also from day to day, many persons dwelling in the city and the suburbs of London, more consulting and attending to their private profit and advantage than to the common good and convenience, do hold certain wharves and stairs on the bank of the Thames, which are held by encroachment upon, and are situate on, the common soil and the course of the water, without having any licence or paying anything to the community for the same; and then, the same being by favour obtained and colourably appropriated, have mixed up their own and separate soil and land therewith; and what is even worse, from day to day these persons do make new customs and imposts upon the poor common people, who time out of mind have there fetched and taken up their water, and washed their clothes, and done other things for their own needs, maliciously interfering with them in their said franchise, and demanding and taking from such as resort thereto, from some one halfpenny, and from others one penny, two or more, by the quarter, to the great injury of all the commonalty, and expressly against the good usages and ancient customs of all the city.’ After this preamble, the Mayor and Aldermen, with the assent of the Commons, ‘ordained and established, for all time to come, that no person who dwells on the bank of the Thames, or other person whatsoever, having or holding any wharf or stair, situate or encroaching upon the common soil, to which there has been, or been accustomed to be, common resort of the people heretofore for such needs as aforesaid, shall from henceforth disturb, hinder, or molest, any one in fetching, drawing and taking water, or in beating and washing their clothes, or in doing or executing other reasonable things and needs there; or shall demand or take privily or openly, from any person any manner of sum or piece of money, or other thing whatsoever for custom.’[75]

Many of these alleys and lanes were left in a very objectionable condition, but the consideration of their state must be postponed for chapter 7 on the Health and Sanitation of London. In spite of all the recorded impurities of the streets the water of the river was pure, as may be proved from the fact that fishing was general. In 1343 an Inquisition was held before the Mayor and Aldermen as to the use of unlawful nets, or those whose meshes were less than 2 inches wide, when it was found that four nets were good and were to be given back to the owners, and four were false and to be burnt. The custom of the city was that the meshes of the nets should be two inches wide at least, so that small fish could pass through.[76]

In the next year certain fishmongers were appointed inspectors ‘to make scrutiny as to false nets placed in the water of Thames, from the place called “Yenlete” [Yantlet] on the east, as far as the bridge of Stanes on the west, for taking the small fish, to the destruction of the fish of such water; and to bring such nets to the Guildhall when found.’[77]

In another document, also of the year 1344, three nets are mentioned by name, all of which were found to be false, and were burnt near the Stone Cross by the north door of St. Paul’s, in the high street of Chepe—these were a draynet belonging to the Abbot of Stratford, a second net called a codnet, belonging to Robert Pesok of Plumstede, and third net called a kidel, claimed by no one.[78] A codnet was a net with a cod or pouch containing a stone for sinking the net (also called a pursnet), and a kidel was a net used in kidels or weirs. There were several different classes of fishermen, as ‘trinkermen,’ who used trinks or nets attached to posts or anchors for taking fish, and petermen, who used a broom in fishing, ‘beating the bush.’[79] There are many other references to the burning of false nets in the City Archives. From certain regulations of the year 1388, we learn that ‘no man shall fish in the Thames with any nets but those of the Assize ordained at the Guildhall; and that only at the proper seasons. And that no one shall fish near to the wharves in London, between the Temple Bridge and the Tower, within a distance of twenty fathoms.’[80]

The Bridge.—It is supposed that during the early years of the Roman occupation there was a ferry across from London to Southwark, but that a bridge was built when Roman London had become a place of importance. We have already seen that a wooden bridge existed during the Saxon period. This must have been constantly rebuilt, and the last wooden bridge continued for many years after the Norman Conquest. The first stone bridge was commenced in the year 1176, under the superintendence of Peter de Colechurch, chaplain of St. Mary Colechurch, a building which stood in the Old Jewry until the time of the Great Fire, when it was destroyed. Peter died in 1205, and was buried in the crypt of the chapel built over the centre pier of the bridge and dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury. Here the chaplain’s bones were found in 1832, when the old bridge was cleared away after the opening of the new bridge. So little public interest was taken in relics of the past at this time that the bones were sacrilegiously, flung into a barge along with the accumulated rubbish and destroyed by careless workmen.

The building of the stone bridge was a long operation, and in 1201 King John entrusted its completion to a Frenchman named Isembert. The King seems to have made a careful choice, for the Frenchman had already shown his skill by the erection of fine bridges in the French cities of Saintes and La Rochelle. M. Jusserand, in his English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages, quotes from the Original Patent, published by Hearne in his edition of the Liber Niger Scaccarii (1771, vol. i. p. 470). Jusserand also quotes from Hearne as to a series of Letters Patent relating to the maintenance of the bridge. John ordered certain taxes to be devoted to this purpose, and a patent of Henry III. was addressed ‘to the brothers and chaplains of the Chapel of St. Thomas on London Bridge, and to other persons living on the same bridge,’ to inform them that the officers of St. Katharine’s Hospital by the Tower would receive the revenues and take charge of the repairs of the bridge for five years.

After the Battle of Evesham in 1265, when the city was at the King’s mercy, Henry III. granted his Queen the custody of the bridge: ‘Alianore, by the grace of God, Queen of England, Lady of Ireland, Duchess of Aquitaine, and by our lord the King Henry, Warden of the Bridge House.’ The Queen continued to enjoy the rents and lands belonging to the bridge for nearly six years, during which time the repair of the bridge was neglected. Realising at length how matters stood, she restored it to the citizens, who, on 1st September 1271, elected again their own wardens.[81]

Early in the reign of Edward I. (1281) a patent was issued ordering a general collection throughout the kingdom on account of the bad condition of the bridge. A tariff of tolls was also issued, and pontage was exacted from all vessels for the passage of which the drawbridge was raised. One William Cross, a fishmonger, was ‘sworn to well and faithfully receive all issues of rents of London Bridge, and also all other money accruing to the said bridge from whatever cause ... and to expend the same well and faithfully for the use and benefit of the aforesaid bridge.’[82]

In the 26 of Edward I. the rents of a house called ‘Le Hales’ were appropriated for the support of London Bridge, and this is recorded in the Liber Custumarum.[83] It is not known where this house was situated. Riley conjectures that it was a great house in Stocks Market, but Dr. Sharpe suggests that it is just as likely to have been one of a large number of houses which Henry le Galeys (or Waleys) erected by licence of the King (Anno 10 Edw. I.) near Old Change and St. Paul’s, the profits of which were also devoted to the support of the bridge.[84] A stone was fixed before each of these tenements in token of the duty of the tenants to repair the bridge, but these appear to have been removed in the same reign by Walter Hervy, appruator of the city, a title which Riley translated as improver.[85]

The bridge was built on piles, and must have been solidly constructed, for although it needed from the first a great deal of cobbling, and underwent much alteration, it survived almost to our own day. It consisted of twenty arches, nineteen of stone, and one of wood—the drawbridge. By this drawbridge was the tower or storehouse, upon which the heads of traitors were set up. This became decayed, and was taken down in April 1577. The heads were removed and set on the gate at the Bridge-foot towards Southwark. On the 28th August Sir John Langley, Lord Mayor, laid the first stone of a foundation for a new tower, in the same

Old London Bridge from St Olave’s Church.

place, which tower was finished in September 1579.[86] The great wonder of the bridge was the beautiful wooden structure, called Nonesuch House, which stood on the seventh and eighth arches from the Southwark side, and gave its name to the Nonesuch lock.

The great weight of the buildings caused occasional sinkings and a general insecurity. In 1481 it is recorded that a block of buildings toppled over into the river. In 1633 a fire swept from one end of the bridge to the other, and many of the houses were destroyed, which were not rebuilt. In 1757-1758 all the remaining houses were cleared away in order to make the structure more secure.

The bridge was one of the chief sights of London, and a great deal of history has grown up about it, but it would require a volume to do justice to these circumstances. One of the most curious of these was the duel between Sir David Lindsay, Earl of Crawfurd, and John Lord Welles (fifth Baron), Ambassador at the Scottish Court in 1390. Lord Crawfurd chose the place, and, furnished with a safe conduct from Richard II., came from Scotland to London for this special purpose. The duel took place in this apparently inappropriate locality in the presence of a great concourse of sightseers.

Most of the travellers in England who have written on the subject speak of the bridge with high praise. Frederick Duke of Wirtemberg, who visited this country in 1592, was pleased with what he saw, and his secretary wrote: ‘Over the river at London there is a beautiful long bridge, with quite splendid, handsome and well-built houses, which are occupied by merchants of consequence. Upon one of the towers, nearly in the middle of the bridge, are stuck up about thirty-four heads of persons of distinction, who had in former times been condemned and beheaded for creating riots and from other causes.’ It will be seen from this passage that when the new tower was built the heads which had been removed during the rebuilding to the Bridge-foot were taken back to the new tower. Six years later Hentzner wrote of London Bridge as ‘a bridge of stone, 800 feet in length, of wonderful work; it is supported upon 20 piers of square stone, 60 feet high and 30 broad, joined by arches of about 20 feet diameter. The whole is covered on each side with houses, so disposed as to have the appearance of a continued street, not at all of a bridge.’ Correr, the Venetian Ambassador in 1610, states that the bridge was so narrow that it was very difficult for two coaches meeting to pass each other without danger.[87]

Englishmen were not behindhand in singing the praises of the bridge; thus Lyly wrote in Euphues and his England: ‘Among all the straunge and beautiful showes, mee thinketh there is none so notable as the bridge which crosseth the Theames, which is in manner of a continuall streete, well replenyshed with large and stately houses on both sides, and situate upon twentie arches, whereof each one is made of excellent free stone squared, everie one of them being three score foote in height, and full twentie in distaunce one from another.’

The chapel on the bridge had an endowment for two priests or chaplains, four clerks and other brethren, with certain chantries annexed. A dwelling-house was afterwards attached to the chapel, which, at the close of the thirteenth century, was known as the Bridge House. In the year 1298 John de Leuesham [Lewisham], brother of the London ‘Bridge House,’ was made bailiff of the manor of Lewisham, ‘the proceeds of which were then, as they still are, devoted to the maintenance and repair of the bridge.’[88]

In the folklore of bridges the frequent practice in the Middle Ages of building a chapel forms a special feature of the subject. There are several instances still remaining, one of which is the chapel of the old bridge at Bradford-on-Avon.

The waterway of the Thames was obstructed by the bridge, which formed a sort of lock to keep the waters in the upper portion of the river. The widest of the arches was 36 feet, and some were too narrow for the passage of boats of any kind. The resistance caused to so large a body of water on the rise and fall of the tide by the contraction of its channel produced a fall or rapid under the bridge. ‘With the flood-tide it was impossible, and with the ebb-tide dangerous to pass through or shoot the arches of the bridge.’ In the latter case prudent passengers landed above bridge, generally at the Old Swan Stairs, and walked to some wharf, generally Billingsgate.

In 1428, according to Stow, the Duke of Norfolk was like to be drowned passing from Saint Mary Overy Stairs through London Bridge. His barge was overset and thirty persons drowned. In A Chronicle of London (edited by Nicolas) we read ‘as God wolde, the duke hymself and too or iij othere gentylmen seeynge that myschief, leped upon the pyles and so were saved through helpe of them that weren above the brigge, with castyng down of ropes.’ Many such accidents were constantly occurring, so that there was probably truth in one of Ray’s Proverbs: ‘London Bridge was made for wise men to go over and fools to go under.’ That boats were frequently overturned is proved by Norden’s View of London Bridge, in which boats, bottom upwards, fill the foreground.

THE TOWER OF LONDON.
THE TOWER OF LONDON.