The Survey of London - Stow John

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writers have observed.

      True it is, I confess, that afterwards many cities and towns in Britain, under the government of the Romans, were walled with stone and baked bricks or tiles, as Richborrow or Ryptacester,[5] in the Isle of Thanet, until the channel altered his course, beside Sandwich in Kent; Verulamium,[6] beside St. Albans, in Hertfordshire; Cilcester[7] in Hampshire; Wroxcester[8] in Shropshire; Kencester[9] in Herefordshire, three miles from Hereford town; Ribcester,[10] seven miles above Preston, on the water of Rible; Aldburgh,[11] a mile from Boroughbridge, or Watling Street, on Ure river, and others; and no doubt but this city of London was also walled with stone, in the time of the Roman government here, but yet very lately, for it seemeth not to have been walled in the year of our Lord 296, because in that year, when Alectus the tyrant was slain in the field, the Franks easily entered London and had sacked the same, had not God, of his great favour, at the very instant, brought along the river of Thames, certain bands of Roman soldiers, who slew those Franks in every street of the city.

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      In a few years after, as Simeon of Durham, an ancient writer, reporteth, Helen, the mother of Constantine the Great, was the first that inwalled this city, about the year of Christ 306; but however those walls of stone might have been built by Helen, yet the Britons, I know, had no skill of building with stone, as it may appear by that which followeth, about the year of Christ 399, when Arcadius and Honorius, the sons of Theodosius Magnus, governed the empire, the one in the east, the other in the west; for Honorius having received Britain, the city of Rome was invaded and destroyed by the Goths, after which time the Romans left to rule in Britain, as being employed in defence of their territories nearer home, whereupon the Britons not able to defend themselves against the invasions of their enemies, were many years together under the oppression of two most cruel nations, the Scots and Picts, and at the length were forced to send their ambassadors with letters and lamentable supplications to Rome, requiring aid and succour from thence, upon promise of their continual fealty, so that the Romans would rescue them out of the hands of their enemies. Hereupon the Romans sent unto them a legion of armed soldiers, which coming into this island, and encountering with the enemies, overthrew a great number of them, and drove the rest out of the frontiers of the country; and so setting the Britons at liberty, counselled them to make a wall, extending all along between the two seas, which might be of force to keep out their evil neighbours, and then returned home with great triumph. The Britons wanting masons built that wall, not of stone as they were advised, but made it of turf, and that so slender, that it served little or nothing at all for their defence, and the enemy perceiving that the Roman legion was returned home, forthwith arrived out of their boats, invaded the borders, overcame the country, and, as it were, bore down all that was before them.

      Whereupon ambassadors were eftsoon dispatched to Rome, lamentably beseeching that they would not suffer their miserable country to be utterly destroyed: then again another legion was sent, which coming upon a sudden, made a great slaughter of the enemy, and chased him home, even to his own country. These Romans at their departure, told the Britons plainly, that it was not for their ease or leisure to take upon them any more such long and laborious journeys for their defence, and therefore bade them practice the use of armour and weapons, and learn to withstand their enemies, whom nothing else did make so strong as their faint heart and cowardice; and for so much as they thought that it would be no small help and encouragement unto their tributary friends whom they were now forced to forsake,[12] they built for them a wall of hard stone from the west sea to the east sea, right between those two cities, which were there made to keep out the enemy, in the selfsame place where Severus before had cast his trench. The Britons also putting to their helping hands as labourers.

      This wall they built eight feet thick in breadth, and twelve feet in height, right, as it were by a line, from east to west, as the ruins thereof remaining in many places until this day do make to appear. Which work, thus perfected, they give the people strait charge to look well to themselves, they teach them to handle their weapons, and they instruct them in warlike feats. And lest by the sea-side southwards, where their ships lay at harbour, the enemy should come on land, they made up sundry bulwarks, each somewhat distant from the other, and so bid them farewell, as minding no more to return. This happened in the days of the Emperor Theodosius the younger, almost 500 years after the first arrival of the Romans here, about the year after Christ’s incarnation 434.

      The Britons after this, continuing a lingering and doubtful war with the Scots and Picts, made choice of Vortigern to be their king and leader, which man (as saith Malmesbury[13]) was neither valorous of courage, nor wise of counsel, but wholly given over to the unlawful lusts of his flesh; the people likewise, in short time, being grown to some quietness, gave themselves to gluttony and drunkenness, pride, contention, envy, and such other vices, casting from them the yoke of Christ. In the mean season, a bitter plague fell among them, consuming in short time such a multitude that the quick were not sufficient to bury the dead; and yet the remnant remained so hardened in sin, that neither death of their friends, nor fear of their own danger, could cure the mortality of their souls, whereupon a greater stroke of vengeance ensued upon the whole sinful nation. For being now again infested with their old neighbours the Scots and Picts, they consult with their king Vortigern,[14] and send for the Saxons, who shortly after arrived here in Britain, where, saith Bede, they were received as friends; but as it proved, they minded to destroy the country as enemies; for after that they had driven out the Scots and Picts, they also drove the Britons, some over the seas, some into the waste mountains of Wales and Cornwall, and divided the country into divers kingdoms amongst themselves.

      These Saxons were likewise ignorant of building with stone until the year 680; for then it is affirmed that Benet, abbot of Wirrall,[15] master to the reverend Bede, first brought artificers of stone houses and glass windows into this island amongst the Saxons, arts before that time unto them unknown, and therefore used they but wooden buildings. And to this accordeth Policronicon, who says, “that then had ye wooden churches, nay wooden chalices and golden priests, but since golden chalices and wooden priests.” And to knit up this argument, King Edgar in his charter to the abbey of Malmesbury, dated the year of Christ 974, hath words to this effect: “All the monasteries in my realm, to the outward sight, are nothing but worm-eaten and rotten timber and boards, and that worse is, within they are almost empty, and void of Divine service.”

      Thus much be said for walling, not only in respect of this city, but generally also of the first within the realm. Now to return to our Trinobant (as Cæsar hath it), the same is since by Tacitus, Ptolemæus, and Antoninus, called Londinium, Longidinum; of Ammiamus, Lundinum, and Augusta, who calleth it an ancient city; of our Britons, Lundayne; of the old Saxons, Lundenceaster, Lundenbrig, Londennir; of strangers Londra and Londres; of the inhabitants, London; whereof you may read a more large and learned discourse, and how it took the name, in that work of my loving friend, Master Camden, now Clarencieux, which is called Britannia.

      This city of London having been destroyed and burnt by the Danes and other Pagan enemies, about the year of Christ 839, was by Alfred, king of the West Saxons, in the year 886, repaired, honourably restored, and made again habitable. Who also committed the custody thereof unto his son-in-law, Ethelred, Earl of Mercia, unto whom before he had given his daughter Ethelfled.

      And that this city was then strongly walled may appear by divers accidents, whereof William of Malmsbury hath, that about the year of Christ 994, the Londoners shut up their gates, and defended their king Ethelred within their walls against the Danes.

      In the year 1016,[16] Edmund Ironsides reigning over the West Saxons, Canute the Dane bringing his navy into the west part of the bridge, cast a trench about the city of London, and then attempted to have won it by assault, but the citizens repulsed him, and drove them from their walls.

      Also, in the year 1052, Earl Goodwin, with his navy, sailed up by the south end of the bridge, and so assailed the walls of this city.

      William Fitzstephen, in the reign of King Henry II., writing of the walls of this city, hath these words: “The wall is high and great, well towered on the north

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