The Survey of London - Stow John

Скачать книгу

sons, whereby many were maimed and slain; but, in the end, the Lord Egremond being taken, was by the king’s counsel found in great default, and therefore condemned in great sums of money, to be paid to the Earl of Salisbury, and in the meantime committed to Newgate. Not long after, Sir Thomas Percie, Lord Egremond, and Sir Richard Percie his brother, being in Newgate, broke out of prison by night, and went to the king; the other prisoners took the leads of the gate, and defended it a long while against the sheriffs and all their officers, insomuch that they were forced to call more aid of the citizens, whereby they lastly subdued them, and laid them in irons: and this may suffice for Newgate.

       Table of Contents

      In the west is the next, and sixth principal gate, and is called Ludgate, as first built (saith Geoffrey Monmouth) by King Lud, a Briton, about the year before Christ’s nativity, 66. Of which building, and also of the name, as Ludsgate, or Fludsgate, hath been of late some question among the learned; wherefore I overpass it, as not to my purpose, only referring the reader to that I have before written out of Cæsar’s Commentaries, and other Roman writers, concerning a town or city amongst the Britons. This gate I suppose to be one of the most ancient; and as Aldgate was built for the east, so was this Ludsgate for the west. I read,[54] as I told you, that in the year 1215, the 17th of King John, the barons of the realm, being in arms against the king, entered this city, and spoiled the Jews’ houses; which being done, Robert Fitzwater and Geffrey de Magnavilla, Earl of Essex, and the Earl of Gloucester, chief leaders of the army, applied all diligence to repair the gates and walls of this city, with the stones of the Jews’ broken houses, especially (as it seemeth) they then repaired, or rather new built Ludgate. For in the year 1586, when the same gate was taken down to be newly built, there was found couched within the wall thereof a stone taken from one of the Jews’ houses, wherein was graven in Hebrew characters these words following: Hæc est statio Rabbi Mosis, filii insignis Rabbi Isaac: which is to say, this is the station or ward of Rabbi Moyses, the son of the honourable Rabbi Isaac, and had been fixed upon the front of one of the Jews’ houses, as a note or sign that such a one dwelt there. In the year 1260, this Ludgate was repaired, and beautified with images of Lud, and other kings, as appeareth by letters patent of license given to the citizens of London, to take up stone for that purpose, dated the 25th of Henry III. These images of kings in the reign of Edward VI. had their heads smitten off, and were otherwise defaced by[55] such as judged every image to be an idol; and in the reign of Queen Mary were repaired, as by setting new heads on their old bodies, etc. All which so remained until the year 1586, the 28th of Queen Elizabeth, when the same gate being sore decayed, was clean taken down; the prisoners in the meantime remaining in the large south-east quadrant to the same gate adjoining; and the same year the whole gate was newly and beautifully built, with the images of Lud and others, as afore, on the east side, and the picture of her majesty Queen Elizabeth on the west side: all which was done at the common charges of the citizens, amounting to fifteen hundred pounds or more.

      This gate was made a free prison in the year 1378, the 1st of Richard II., Nicholas Brembar being mayor.[56] The same was confirmed in the year 1382, John Northampton being mayor, by a common council in the Guildhall; by which it was ordained that all freemen of this city should, for debt, trespasses, accounts, and contempts, be imprisoned in Ludgate, and for treasons, felonies, and other criminal offences, committed to Newgate, etc. In the year 1431, the 10th of King Henry VI., John Wells being mayor, a court of common council established ordinances (as William Standon and Robert Chicheley, late mayors, before had done), touching the guard and government of Ludgate and other prisons.

      Also in the year 1463, the third of Edward IV., Mathew Philip, being mayor, in a common council, at the request of the well-disposed, blessed, and devout woman, Dame Agnes Forster, widow, late wife to Stephen Forster, fishmonger, sometime mayor, for the comfort and relief of all the poor prisoners, certain articles were established. Imprimis, that the new works then late edified by the same Dame Agnes, for the enlarging of the prison of Ludgate, from thenceforth should be had and taken as a part and parcel of the said prison of Ludgate; so that both the old and new work of Ludgate aforesaid be one prison, gaol keeping, and charge for evermore.

      The said quadrant, strongly built of stone by the beforenamed Stephen Forster, and Agnes his wife, containeth a large walking-place by ground of thirty-eight feet and a half in length, besides the thickness of the walls, which are at the least six foot, makes altogether forty-four feet and a half; the breadth within the walls is twenty-nine feet and a half, so that the thickness of the walls maketh it thirty five feet and a half in breadth. The like room it hath over it for lodgings, and over it again fair leads to walk upon, well embattled, all for fresh air and ease of prisoners, to the end they should have lodging and water free without charge, as by certain verses graven in copper, and fixed on the said quadrant, I have read in form following:—

      “Devout souls that pass this way,

       For Stephen Forster, late mayor, heartily pray;

       And Dame Agnes his spouse to God consecrate,

       That of pity this house made for Londoners in Ludgate.

       So that for lodging and water prisoners here nought pay,

       As their keepers shall all answer at dreadful doomsday.”

      This place and one other of his arms, three broad arrow-heads, taken down with the old gate, I caused to be fixed over the entry of the said quadrant; but the verses being unhappily turned inward to the wall, procured the like in effect to be graven outward in prose, declaring him to be a fishmonger, because some upon a light occasion (as a maiden’s head in a glass window) had fabled him to be a mercer, and to have begged there at Ludgate, etc. Thus much for Ludgate.

      Next this is there a breach in the wall of the city, and a bridge of timber over the Fleet dike, betwixt Fleetebridge and Thames, directly over against the house of Bridewel. Thus much for gates in the wall.

      Water-gates on the banks of the river Thames have been many, which being purchased by private men, are also put to private use, and the old names of them forgotten; but of such as remain, from the west towards the east, may be said as followeth:—

      The Blacke-friers stairs, a free landing-place.

      Then a water-gate at Puddle wharf, of one Puddle that kept a wharf on the west side thereof, and now of Puddle water, by means of many horses watered there.

      Then Powle’s wharf, also a free landing-place with stairs, etc.

      Then Broken wharf, and other such like.

      But, Ripa Regina, the Queene’s bank, or Queene hithe may well be accounted the very chief and principal water-gate of this city, being a common strand or landing-place, yet equal with, and of old time far exceeding, Belins gate, as shall be shown in the ward of Queene hithe.

      The next is Downe gate, so called of the sudden descending or down-going of that way from St. John’s church upon Walbrooke unto the river of Thames, whereby the water in the channel there hath such a swift course, that in the year 1574, on the fourth of September, after a strong shower of rain, a lad, of the age of eighteen years, minding to have leapt over the channel, was taken by the feet, and borne down with the violence of that narrow stream, and carried toward the Thames with such a violent swiftness, as no man could rescue or stay him, till he came against a cart-wheel that stood in the water-gate, before which time he was drowned and stark dead.

      This was sometimes a large water-gate, frequented of ships and other vessels, like as the Queene hithe, and was a part thereof, as doth appear by an inquisition made in the 28th year of Henry III., wherein was found, that as well corn as fish, and all other things coming to the port of Downegate, were to be ordered after the customs of the Queene’s hithe, for the king’s use; as also that the corn arriving between the gate of the Guild hall of the merchants of Cullen (the Styleyard), which is east from Downegate, and the house then pertaining to the Archbishop of Canterbury, west from Baynarde’s Castle, was to be measured by the measure, and measurer of the Queene’s soke, or Queene hithe. I read also, in the

Скачать книгу