chapter cxii

.; but we shall take the excellent English of Colonel Johnes’ translation, Hafod Press, 1803, quarto, volume iv., pages 663-664. ‘The Mayor and Lawyers,’ says he, ‘retired to the judgment-seat, and the four Knights were condemned to death. They were sentenced to be brought before the apartment of the Tower of London in which King Richard was confined, that he might see them from the windows, and thence drawn on sledges by horses to Cheapside, each person separately, and there beheaded, their heads affixed to spikes on London Bridge, and their bodies hung upon a gibbet, and there left. When this sentence was pronounced, they hastened to execute it. Every thing being prepared, the Mayor of London, and the Lords who had assisted him in this judgment, set out from Guildhall with a large body of people, and came to the Tower of London, where they seized the four Knights of the King, Sir Bernard Brocas, the Lord Marclais, Master John Derby, Receiver of Lincoln, and the Lord Stelle, Steward of the King’s Household. They were all brought into the court, and each tied to two horses, in the sight of all in the Tower, who were eye-witnesses of it as well as the King, who was much displeased, and in despair; for the remainder of the King’s Knights that were with him looked for similar treatment, so cruel and revengeful did they know the Londoners. Without saying a word, these four were dragged from the streets to Cheapside, and on a fishmonger’s stall had their heads struck off, which were placed over the Gate on London Bridge, and their bodies hung on a gibbet. After this execution, every man retired to his home.’

“The fatal tragedy of the reign of King Richard II. was at length consummated by his murder at Pontefract Castle, February 14th, 1399-1400; for whether he died of grief, starvation, or by the weapon of Sir Piers Exton, his death cannot be called by any other name; though Henry of Lancaster was not yet so firmly seated on the throne as to prevent numerous insurrections throughout the realm, on behalf of the younger Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, the legitimate heir to the crown. For about the year 1386, King Richard had appointed as his successor Roger Mortimer, the son of Edmond, second Earl of March, and Philippa his Countess, who was daughter and heiress to Lionel, Duke of Clarence, _third_ son of King Edward III.: whereas Henry of Lancaster was the son of John of Ghent, who was only _fourth_ son of that Monarch. One of the most famous of these insurrections, was that raised by Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, which was overthrown by Sir Thomas Rokeby, Sheriff of York, at Horselwood, on February the 19th, 1407-1408. In which encounter, Lord Thomas Bardolf,--who is a character in Shakspeare’s ‘_Second Part of King Henry the Fourth_,’--was mortally wounded, and died soon afterwards; but being on the party of the Earl, his body was quartered as a traitor’s, and set up at several places, with the Earl’s, one of which was London Bridge. This you find identified by Thomas of Walsingham, in his ‘_Historiæ Angliæ_,’ page 419; for there he says, with considerable pathos: ‘The root of Percy dies in ruin wild! for surely this Nobleman was altogether the living stock of the Percy name; and of most of the various others who were lost in his defeat. For whose unhappy end the common people did not grieve the least; recalling that famous, glorious, and magnificent man, and applying to him the mournful song of Lucan, where he says,

‘But not his blood, his wounds did not so move Our grieving souls, or wake our weeping love,-- As that we saw, in many a town, appear His aged head transfixed on a spear.’ PHARSALIA, ix. 136.

For his venerable head adorned with its silver locks, set upon a pole, was publicly carried through London, and regardlessly placed upon the Bridge.’

“Sir William Dugdale, in his ‘_Baronage_,’ volume i., page 683, says that Lord Bardolf’s head was erected over a gate at Lincoln; and this is partly supported by the Chronicle in the Harleian Collection, No. 565, page 68 a, which states that in the ninth year of Henry IV., ‘the Erle of Northumberland and y^e Lord Bardolf, which arysyn a yeynis y^e Kyng, were taken in y^e north cuntre, and be heded, and y^e hed of y^e forsaid Erle, and a quarter of y^e Lord Bardolf, were sent to London, and sett vp on London Brigge.’ Dugdale adds, however, from the authority of the Close Rolls, that Avicia, the widow of that Baron, was permitted by the King to take down his body and bury it.

“The only historical notice which I find connected with London Bridge, immediately succeeding the last unhappy story, is of a light and even trivial nature, being nothing greater than a dispute in the Bridge-Street, between Thomas of Lancaster, Duke of Clarence, and John of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford, the second and third sons of Henry IV., their followers and the Citizens. Stow, in relating this circumstance, in his ‘_Annals_,’ page 338, makes no farther mention of the place than that they ‘being in East-Cheape, in London, at supper, after midnight, a great debate hapned betweene their men and men of the Court, lasting an houre, till the Maior and Sheriffs, with other Citizens, ceased the same:’ and Maitland adds, in volume i., of his ‘_History_,’ page 185, that these Officers were, in consequence, summoned before Sir William Gascoigne, the Chief Justice, to submit themselves to the King’s mercy on behalf of the Citizens. Richard Marlow, however, the then Lord Mayor, and John Law and William Chicheley, the Sheriffs, with the Aldermen, strenuously asserted their innocence, alleging that they had only done their duty in preserving the peace of the City; and the King being fully satisfied with this answer, the Corporation returned to London. I have only farther to remark, that Prince Thomas of Clarence was engaged in a similar fray in East-Cheap in the year previous to the present, namely 1407-8; and that it is to him that Shakspeare makes the dying King Henry deliver that noble speech in the ‘_Second Part of King Henry IV._,’ Act 4, Scene 4. We derive, however, such a character of John of Lancaster from Falstaff, that we wonder to find him either in East-Cheap or Bridge-Street; for in that very same dramatic history, and in the preceding scene, he says of him: ‘Good faith, this same young sober-blooded boy doth not love me; nor a man cannot make him laugh;--but that’s no marvel, he drinks no wine.’ Here, then, close all the events of London Bridge which have come under my reading, in the year 1409.

“The Festival of St. Mary Magdalen, July 22nd, in the first year of Henry V., A. D. 1413, brings to us the recollection of a very ancient and curious Saxon law, namely that of Sanctuary: by which privilege, if a person accused of any crime,--excepting Treason and Sacrilege, in which the Crown and the Church were too nearly concerned,--had fled to any Church, or Church-Yard, and within forty days after went before the Coroner, made a full confession of his crime, and took the oath provided in that case, that he would quit the realm, and never return again, without leave of the King, his life should be safe. At the taking of this oath he was brought to the Church-door, where being branded with an A, signifying Abjured, upon the brawn of the thumb of his right hand, a port was then assigned him, from which he was to leave the realm, and to which he was to make all speed, holding a cross in his hand, and not turning out of the highway, either to the right hand or the left. At this port he was diligently to seek for passage, waiting there but one ebb and flood, if he could immediately procure it; and if not, he was to go every day into the sea up to his knees, essaying to pass over. If this could not be accomplished within forty days, he was again to put himself into Sanctuary. These privileges of Sanctuary and Abjuration were taken away in 1624, by the Statute of the 21st of James I.,