The Survey of London - Stow John

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Holy Trinity within Aeldgate, gave unto the same church, to Norman the first prior, and the canons that devoutly serve God therein,[42] the port of Aeldgate, and the soke or franchises thereunto belonging, with all customs as free as she held the same; in the which charter she nameth the house Christ’s church, and reporteth Aeldgate to be of his domain.

      More, I read[43] in the year 1215, that in the civil wars between King John and his barons, the Londoners assisting the barons’ faction, who then besieged Northampton, and after came to Bedford castle, where they were well received by William Beauchampe, and captain of the same; having then also secret intelligence that they might enter the city of London if they would, they removed their camp to Ware, from thence in the night coming to London, they entered Aeldgate, and placing guardians or keepers of the gates, they disposed of all things in the city at their pleasure. They spoiled the friars’ houses, and searched their coffers;[44] which being done, Robert Fitzwalter, Geffry Magnavile Earl of Essex, and the Earl of Glocester, chief leaders of the army, applied all diligence to repair the gates and walls of this city with the stones taken from the Jews’ broken houses, namely, Aeldgate being then most ruinous (which had given them an easy entry), they repaired, or rather newly built, after the manner of the Normans, strongly arched with bulwarks of stone from Caen in Normandy, and small brick, called Flanders tile, was brought from thence, such as hath been here used since the Conquest, and not before.

      In the year 1471,[45] the 11th of Edward IV., Thomas, the bastard Fawconbridge, having assembled a riotous company of shipmen and other in Essex and Kent, came to London with a great navy of ships, near to the Tower; whereupon the mayor and aldermen, by consent of a common council, fortified all along the Thames side, from Baynard’s castle to the Tower, with armed men, guns, and other instruments of war, to resist the invasion of the mariners, whereby the Thames side was safely preserved and kept by the aldermen and other citizens that assembled thither in great numbers. Whereupon the rebels, being denied passage through the city that way, set upon Aeldgate, Bishopsgate, Cripplegate, Aeldersgate, London bridge, and along the river of Thames, shooting arrows and guns into the city, fired the suburbs, and burnt more than threescore houses. And further, on Sunday the eleventh of May, five thousand of them assaulting Aeldgate, won the bulwarks, and entered the city; but the portclose being let down, such as had entered were slain, and Robert Basset, alderman of Aeldgate ward, with the recorder, commanded in the name of God to draw up the portclose; which being done, they issued out, and with sharp shot, and fierce fight, put their enemies back so far as St. Bottolph’s church, by which time the Earl Rivers, and lieutenant of the Tower, was come with a fresh company, which joining together, discomfited the rebels, and put them to flight, whom the said Robert Basset, with the other citizens, chased to the Mile’s End, and from thence, some to Popular, some to Stratford, slew many, and took many of them prisoners. In which space the Bastard having assayed other places upon the water side, and little prevailed, fled toward his ships. Thus much for Aeldgate.

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      The third, and next toward the north, is called Bishopsgate, for that, as it may be supposed, the same was first built by some Bishop of London, though now unknown when, or by whom; but true it is, that the first gate was first built for ease of passengers toward the east, and by north, as into Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, etc.; the travellers into which parts, before the building of this gate, were forced, passing out at Aeldgate, to go east till they came to the Mile’s end, and then turning on the left hand to Blethenhall green[46] to Cambridge heath, and so north, or east, and by north, as their journey lay. If they took not this way, by the east out at Aeldgate, they must take their way by the north out at Aeldersgate, through Aeldersgate street and Goswel street towards Iseldon, and by a cross of stone on their right hand, set up for a mark by the north end of Golding lane, to turn eastward through a long street, until this day called Alder street, to another cross standing, where now a smith’s forge is placed by Sewer’s-ditch church, and then to turn again north towards Totenham, Endfield, Waltham, Ware, etc. The eldest note that I read of this Bishopsgate, is that William Blund, one of the sheriffs of London,[47] in the year 1210, sold to Serle Mercer, and William Almaine, procurators or wardens of London bridge, all his land, with the garden, in the parish of St. Buttolph without Bishopsgate, between the land of Richard Casiarin, towards the north, and the land of Robert Crispie towards the south, and the highway called Berewards lane on the east, etc.

      Next I read in a charter, dated the year 1235, that Walter Brune, citizen of London, and Rosia his wife, having founded the priory or new hospital of our blessed Lady, since called St. Mary Spittle without Bishopsgate, confirmed the same to the honour of God and our blessed Lady, for canons regular.

      Also in the year 1247, Simon Fitzmarie, one of the sheriffs of London, the 29th of Henry III., founded the hospital of St. Mary, called Bethlem without Bishopsgate. Thus much for the antiquity of this gate.[48]

      And now for repairing the same, I find that Henry III. confirmed to the merchants of the Haunce, that had a house in the city called Guildhalla Theutonicorum, certain liberties and privileges. Edward I. also confirmed the same; in the tenth year of whose reign it was found that the said merchants ought of right to repair the said gate called Bishopsgate; whereupon Gerard Marbod, alderman of the Haunce and other, then remaining in the city of London, for themselves, and all other merchants of the said Haunce, granted two hundred and ten marks sterling to the mayor and citizens; and covenanted that they and their successors should from time to time repair the same gate. This gate was again beautifully built in the year 1479, in the reign of Edward IV., by the said Haunce merchants.

      Moreover, about the year 1551, these Haunce merchants, having prepared stone for that purpose, caused a new gate to be framed, there to have been set up, but then their liberties, through suit of our English merchants, were seized into the king’s hand; and so that work was stayed, and the old gate yet remaineth.

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      Touching the next postern, called Moregate, I find that Thomas Falconer, mayor, about the year 1415, the third of Henry V., caused the wall of the city to be broken near unto Coleman street, and there built a postern, now called Moregate, upon the moor side where was never gate before. This gate he made for ease of the citizens, that way to pass upon causeys into the field for their recreation: for the same field was at that time a parish. This postern was re-edified by William Hampton, fishmonger, mayor, in the year 1472. In the year also, 1511, the third of Henry VIII., Roger Acheley, mayor, caused dikes and bridges to be made, and the ground to be levelled, and made more commodious for passage, since which time the same hath been heightened. So much that the ditches and bridges are covered, and seemeth to me that if it be made level with the battlements of the city wall, yet will it be little the drier, such is the moorish nature of that ground.

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      The next is the postern of Cripplegate, so called long before the Conquest. For I read in the history of Edmond,[49] king of the East Angles, written by Abbo Floriacensis, and by Burchard, sometime secretary to Offa, king of Marcia, but since by John Lidgate, monk of Bury, that in the year 1010, the Danes spoiling the kingdom of the East Angles, Alwyne, bishop of Helmeham, caused the body of King Edmond the Martyr to be brought from Bedrisworth (now called Bury St. Edmondes), through the kingdom of the East Saxons, and so to London in at Cripplegate; a place, saith mine author, so called of cripples begging there: at which gate, it was said, the body entering, miracles were wrought, as some of the lame to go upright, praising God. The body of King Edmond rested for the space of three years in the parish church of St. Gregorie, near unto the cathedral church of St. Paul. Moreover, the charter of William the Conqueror, confirming the foundation of the college in London, called St. Martin the Great, hath these words:[50] “I do give and

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