Southwark and its Story

Front matter

The "Tabard Inn," in the Seventeenth Century. SOUTHWARK AND ITS STORY: BY CHARLOTTE G. BOGER. '■ Simpkin, Marshall & Co., Stationers' Hall Court ; H. H. G. Grattan, The Tabard Book Store, London Bridge. 1881. DEDICATED BY KIND PERMISSION TO THE Right Rev. ANTHONY WILSON, Lord Bishop of Rochester. P J8. J6. r A C JG . " Æ OUTHWARK and its'Story" owes its existence to a "^ chance view of some old books on Southwark, in the Guildhall Library. On making acquaintance with them, it struck me that what was so new and interesting to myself, might be equally so to others in our Borough, especially to those who might not have time or courage to face more solid reading on the subject. In consequence, a series of articles appeared in one of the local papers ; thev excited some interest, and after excisions, additions, alterations, and I trust emendations, have taken their present shape.

I have called my book a story instead of using the more ambitious title of history, as I have only aimed at reproducing the more picturesque incidents in the life of our Borough, avoiding statistics of its industries, and omitting much of interest with regard to its Inns and Prisons, etc., which would have unduly enlarged its size. Should I be accused of having made unlimited use of scissors and paste, I freely avow that I have always preferred to let the old Chroniclers speak for themselves VI when possible. They are the "own correspondents" of the ages gone by, and their quaint stiff language seems better to suit the battles and the pageants they describe, than any modern adaptation of it. In matters of controversy, such as the original nature of the so called Lady Chapel, in St. Saviour's Church, I have followed the popular view, and retained the familiar name.

Some errors will doubtless be detected among such a number of facts. I can only plead that no care has been spared to avoid them. I have to thank many friends for kind advice and encouragement, particularly the Rev. W. Thompson, Curate of St. Saviour's ; E. Walford, Esq. ; F. Scriven, Esq., for setting me right as to the site of Mr. Thrale's House ; Dr. Freeman, for a most courteous letter which directed me to information with regard to William of Normandy's passage through Southwark ; and last, but not least, one, who by his careful revision, has relieved me of half my fears in facing the public, by being himself " the severest of critics." ST. SAVIOUR'S GRAMMAR SCHOOL, June, 1 88 1. CONTENTS, Chapter. Page. I. — My Subject Proposed. — The Romans in Southwark . .

Chapter I. My Subject Proposed

The Romans in Southwark. «P F there is one spot more than another in all London cm. Qgi whose associations may claim for it the title of classic ground, Southwark is that spot. Such an assertion may be doubted or derided, but I not only maintain, but hope to prove, that neither the City of London (in spite of Sir William Walworth, and Dick Whittington) nor Tyburnia, nor Kensington, nor the Strand, nor even the Temple can compete with it in interest. But the Tower and Westminster Abbey ? Well, I yield the palm to Westminster Abbey, that embodiment in stone of the great moral truth that there is but one step from the throne to the grave, but, for the " Towers of Julius, London's lasting shame," as Gray has called them, on the whole, I think, the less said of them the better. Only to Westminster Abbey will I grant the first place in point of attractive interest, and I hope to prove my point when I assert that Southwark is a good second.

And as I am writing, the whole place seems instinct with great names, and wondrous memories, and ancient lore. There is Gower, who chose his resting place here. Old Chaucer himself, "the first finder of our faire language," as Daniel, an Elizabethan poet, calls him, and at his name who does not think of Chaucer's Tales, and mine host of the Tabard and the Canterbury Pilgrims ? A Then we have James I. of Scotland, Chaucer's admirer and most worthy follower, not James VI. and I., but the poet King so cruelly murdered by his rebellious nobles. Then comes Cardinal Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, next Jack Cade with his riotous followers, then Bishop Gardiner, and at his Palace appear Mary and Philip, and alas ! soon after, as a consequence, Bradford and the Protestant Martyrs. And now we pass on joyfully to the reigns of Elizabeth and James I., and what visions and memories throng around us !

The mighty Shakspeare and his brother Edmund, who here found a grave. Fletcher and Massinger, and all the band of play writers and early actors, amongst whom we must not omit Alleyne who realized here the fortune out of which he founded his magnificent Charity. Then not far from Bankside is Bear Garden, where you may imagine our virgin Queen coming, not to hear Shakspeare and to visit the Globe Theatre, but to see the noble sport ofbear-baiting. Scarcely a lady-like amusement, one should say, but it was the custom in those days, and one cannot much wonder at a lady's attending bear-baiting, who could swear a good round oath on an occasion, or box a gentle man's ears. For in spite of Queen Elizabeth's undeniable greatness as a sovereign, good Queen Bess is not my notion of — I will not say a queen, but of a lady and a woman.

We have improved in Queens since then, and we know of one in whom — " A thousand claims to reverence close, In her as mother, wife, and queen." — but then she has never aimed at being more or less than a woman. But to continue my list of Southwark worthies. Bishop Launcelot Andrews, of Winchester, whose tomb is in St. Saviour's, was indeed an improvement on Beaufort and Gardiner. Bunyan also preached in the neighbourhood, and by the permission, too, of his friend a Bishop ; and Sacheverell of notoriety in Queen Ann's time, was chaplain of St. Saviour's ; and Dr. Johnson visited the Thrales, the founders of Barclay and Perkins' Brewery ; and in our own time Wilberforce, who taught us what a Bishop was, and what he could do, and after we were torn, with so little consideration for our feelings in the matter, from the grand old diocese of Winchester, left his mantle to fall on worthy shoulders, so that we have been able to solace our selves with thinking that if Winchester was the grander and of higher dignity, yet that Rochester was the elder, and save Canterbury, the oldest English (not British) See.

It is, perhaps, in consequence of all these historic and literary associations that there are absolutely, as far as I know, no legends at all, (except an absurd one about the father of the foundress of St. Mary Overie, i.e., St. Saviour's) connected with the Borough of Southwark. Al most all I have to tell is pure and undoubted history. The City of London and the Borough of Southwark seem always to have been looked upon as one city, even before they were united by a single bridge. So much so that the ancient geographer Ptolemy, who lived in the second century of our era, affirms that the City of London was originally built on the south side of the river, but this is almost certainly a mistake. That Cæsar in his march from Deal came through Southwark (whether by the Old or the New Kent Road, my information is not precise enough for me to state with certainty), and that he crossed the river somewhere about Stoney-street, near St. Saviour's Church is probable, and also that he landed at Dowgate, on the north side of the A river, and formed an encampment there.

Southwark, which was then all forest and morass, would not have been an inviting resting place. The first great improvement on this state of things that took place is said to have been owing to Boadicea's fierce onslaught on the Romans, when those who escaped her vengeance took refuge in Southwark, and settled there, much increasing its size and importance. For whatever fault we may find with the Romans, civilisation and material prosperity almost invariably followed in their footsteps. The principal buildings of those times seem to have surrounded the present site of St. Saviour's Church, where it is likely there was once a heathen temple, tesselated pavement, boars' teeth, coins, and brass rings having been dug up there, and it is known to have been the custom of Christians to consecrate to the service of the true God sites already dedicated to the worship of heathen divinities, as in the case of St. Paul's, which is said to have been built where once stood a temple to Diana.

Chapter II. The Legend Of St

MARY OVERIES. Saxons, Danes, and Normans — London Bridge. ancient name of our grand old Church was not OS St. Saviour, which is a comparatively modern title, but St. Mary Overie ; and what was the exact meaning or derivation of the name has always been a great puzzle to antiquaries. As the one only legend that I have discovered which is connected with this neighbourhood, I cannot pass over that, which associates a monument, viz., the figure of a sheeted skeleton in the North Transept, with the surname of the supposed foundress of the Church — surnames, let it be observed, not having been invented till many years after the sounding of the Church and Monastery. The legend, absurd as it is, is as follows: — "An old miser named Overies, having half starved his family, and reduced himself nearly to a skeleton, was struck with the brilliant idea that he might save a day's provisions by feigning death.

This accordingly he did, not doubting that his household would fast at least a day in his honour. But to his extreme mortification, the apprentices and servants at once began to feast right royally on everything they could find. Hearing the sounds of revelry, he stole down in his winding sheet, and aiming a blow at his nearest apprentice, he, to defend himself, returned it with interest ; whether exhausted by starvation, or that the blow really was a mighty one, I know not, but the pretence became a reality, and old Overies was a corpse. He had one only daughter, and her lover hearing of her loss, was on his way to her assistance, when he was thrown from his horse and killed, and Mary, in her grief and desolation, devoted all her father's hoards to the founding of a convent for a Sisterhood, which bore the name of St. Mary Overies."

Some derive the name from the Ferry which formerly existed there, and St. Mary of the Ferry would be easily corrupted into St. Mary Overy. And this is the account given by Stowe (in his chronicles) which he says he received from Bartholomew Linstead, the last Prior of the Monastery before its dissolution, by Henry VIII. Stowe's words are: " First, that being no bridge, but a ferry to carry and re-carry, whereby the ferryer got great wealth ; lastly, the ferryman and his wife died, left the same to their daughter named Mary Awdry, who, with the goods left her by her parents, and also the profits which came by the said ferry, builded an house of Sisters, which is the uppermost end of St. Mary Overies Church, above the choir, where she was buried, unto which house she gave the oversight and profit of the said ferry, but afterwards the house of Sisters was converted into a college of Priests, who builded the bridge of timber, and from time to time kept the same in good reparations ; but considering the great charges of repairing the same, in the year 1209, by the aid of the citizens of London and others, they began to build the bridge of stone."

Camden, in his " Britannia," omits the story of the Ferry altogether, and makes Surrey to be Suth-rey, or south of the water, and Overy to be Over-rey, or beyond or over the water. At any rate, whenever and by whom, London Bridge was first built, one thing seems certain, and that is, that the citizens of London were first indebted to some South wark Priests or Monks for it, and also that the ferry be longed of right to the south side of the river. A certain St. Swithin, either, as some say, a noble lady, or as seems more likely, St. Swithin, the famous Bishop, whose festival is still observed with less piety, I fear, but certainly with as much superstition as in the middle ages, changed the Sisterhood of St. Mary into a college for Priests. The 15th of July, sacred to his memory, was the day when St. Swithin's body, after reposing by his own desire for many years in the Cathedral-yard, where the drippings from the Church might fall upon his grave, was translated with great pomp into a magnificent tomb in Winchester Cathedral.

St. Swithin himself was the friend and adviser of King Ethelwulf, son of the great Egbert and father of the greater Alfred, and by Ethelwulf he was made Bishop of Winchester. From this time we know nothing with regard to South wark till the reign of Ethelred II., in whose time the first bridge was built; for amongst his laws there is one that regulates the tolls of vessels coming up to Billingsgate or ad pontem (to the bridge). Ethelred, surnamed the Unready, was the most wicked, foolish, and unfortunate monarch that ever sat on the English Throne. The curse which Dunstan, invoked upon him, then only eleven years of age, at his coronation, on account of his mother Elfrida's crime in murdering her step-son Edward the Martyr, seems to have clung to him through life, and may have assisted its own accomplishment.

Certainly no man could have less befitted his name of Ethelred or noble Counsel, and it so ludicrously belied his character that his subjects called him Unr6de, or wanting in counsel, which moderns have corrupted into Unready. The Danes and Norwegians who had hardly been kept out of England by the prowess of Alfred and his worthy successors, his son Edward the Elder, and his grandson Athelstan, made head again in Ethelred's unhappy reign ; and to add to his own want of counsel, Ethelred was beset by treacherous councillors, so that, whereas his people attributed their misfortunes to his folly, he attributed them to their treachery. However this may be, Sweyn, King of Denmark, and Olave, King of Norway, entered England from the South, and advanced on London, ravaging the lands of Wessex, the old name for the greater part of England South os the Thames, on their way.

This kingdom of Wessex, originally only one of the many kingdoms into which England was divided, had gradually swallowed up all the others, and the Kings of Wessex became Kings of England; so much so, that at the time of which I am speaking, and till many years after the Conquest, Winchester, not London, was the capital of the kingdom. London was the greatest port of the kingdom, and was gradually rising into importance, and this was one reason that made Southwark of such consequence as the southern bulwark of the Thames, and the spot that connected the old Kingdom of Wessex with the rest of England. As a suburb of London, and the town residence of the Bishops of Winchester, and possessing the guardianship of the bridge or ferry, one can scarcely exaggerate its importance as a defence to the whole kingdom.

It was in 993 that Unlaf, the Dane, sailed up the river as high as Staines without interruption, such an insult as has only once been repeated, when the Dutch sailed up the Medway in the reign of Charles II. In 994 occurred the invasion of Sweyn and Olave. Ethelred, with his usual folly, paid the Danes 6,000 to leave the country, which was simply an invitation to them to return. But it was part of this treaty that Olave should be baptized, and he swore that he would never again act in hostility against the English, a covenant which he faithfully kept. And here I come to one good deed of Ethelred's unhappy reign. Olave, or Olans, St. Olave as .he is generally called, asked help from Ethelred to Christianize his kingdom, and he took back with him from England several pious and learned Priests and Monks, one of whom named Grimkelc was made Bishop of Drontheim, his capital city.

The King, it is said, did nothing without the advice of the Prelate, and by his counsel published many wholesome laws, and abolished such ancient laws and customs as were contrary to the Gospel, and this he did, not only in Norway, but in the Orkneys and Iceland. In 1 014, we find King Olave again in England, and this time assisting Ethelred, who was probably his godfather, against Canute, for such a tie was in those days considered a very sacred one. Ethelre'd was at Lindsey, and was joined there by King Olaf with a large fleet of Scandinavian ships, and it was determined to re-take London from the Danes. For this purpose it was necessary to pass the wooden bridge, which had been built in the interval of Olave's last visit to England. The bridge was wide enough for two carriages to pass each other ; it was fortified with towers, and had a parapet breast high, and joined together at its south side by a strong work made of wood and stone, and protected by a deep ditch.

The first attack upon the bridge failed, the Danes having defended it bravely, but King Olaf, by some contrivance of beams and chains, succeeded in breaking the bridge, and many of the Danes were precipitated from it into the Thames, whilst others took refuge, some in the City and some in Southwark. Southwark was then itself carried, and the Danes being no longer able to prevail, the Londoners received their King back for once in his life victorious. The remainder of St. Olave's history is a noble one ; he took all means in his power in his own kingdom of Norway to root out idolatry, and to teach his subjects the true faith ; he went from city to city himself exhorting the people. But the heathen rose against him, assisted by Canute, possibly in revenge for Olave's assistance to Ethelred. Olave fled into Russia, but returning, was slain by his rebel and heathen subjects in a battle fought near Dron theim, 1030.

His son Magnus, who carried on his good work, and himself acquired the title of Saint, rebuilt the Cathedral of Drontheim to his father's memory. Such is the story of St. Olave, and the Church which bears his name, flanks one side as St. Saviour's does the other, of the Southwark, or Southern defence of London Bridge. Who founded St. Olave's Church, and St. Magnus, another Norse Saint, and probably St. Olave's son, I cannot tell you. It may have been Canute, as a sign of penitence when he, in his turn, embraced the Christian Faith, or the Londoners may well have built it as a mark of gratitude for his timely help ; or the Danish Colony in and about London may have erected it to the memory of a Saint of their lineage. Which of these is the truth I can not say, but one thing we know is, that St. Olave's Church and St. Olave's School, and Tooley Street, which is only a corruption of the same word, all alike take their name from one who knew how to keep his plighted word when given even to so feeble a Prince as Ethelred the Unrtid, and who, still more, knew how to die for the faith which he had learnt in a foreign land, and was endeavouring to teach his countrymen at home.

Ethelred died, and his valiant son Edmund Ironsides succeeded to the throne just as Canute again approached London. He came from the South, and apparently some great obstacle prevented his fleet, which came up the river to meet him, from passing the bridge, for he actually dug a deep ditch or canal and dragged his ships round the south end, and then placed them in the river again on the west side of the bridge. It is possible, if not probable, that the obstruction was the massive timber beams which Olave had dragged down with his cables when he and Ethelred pulled down and utterly destroyed the bridge. However that may be, Canute managed to get through, and besieged the City, so that none could go in or out, but for all that, London was not taken, and Edmund forced Canute to raise the siege.

It was on St. George's Day, April 23rd, 1016, that Canute marched on London, but in November of the same year, Edmund died, and Canute remained master of the whole of England. I shall often, in the course of my story, have to tell of gorgeous processions, some peaceful, some warlike, some triumphant, passing backwards and forwards through Lon don and Southwark, but one which occurred in the year 1023 is, as far as I know, unique in its character; it is the translation of the Body of the Holy Martyr, St. Elfeah, Elphege or Alphege, from St. Paul's to Canterbury. The great King Canute and his Norman Queen, Princes, Archbishop and Bishops, paying a magnificent tribute of respect to one who had fallen by the hands of their heathen kindred, the Danes. St. Elphege whose name still holds its place in the calendar of our Church Prayer book, on the 19th of April, the day of his martyrdom, was a native of Somerset, and at one time occupied a cell in Bath Abbey, from hence he was drawn by the great Dunstan, and consecrated Bishop of Winchester, so that for twenty-two years he was con nected with our Story as Diocesan, and he was eventually raised to the See of Canterbury.

It was in the year 1 o 1 1 , says the Saxon Chronicle, that the Danes ravaged the whole land from East Anglia to Wiltshire ; in Canterbury they seized the Archbishop and kept him in long captivity; after securing a tribute of /"4o,ooo, they asked for a ransom for him, this he refused, and forbade a collection to be made for that purpose from the impoverished country. At a feast they held at Green wich, where the army was stationed, they sent for the Archbishop and again demanded money to set him free ; this he constantly refused, and in their rage, inflamed with wine, they pelted him with the bones and horns of oxen, then battered and bruised as he was, he sank down under their blows, and a soldier he had lately baptized, with a sort of savage mercy, ended his sufferings by a blow with a battle-axe.

His mangled body was yielded to his friends, and on the following day he was buried at St. Paul's by the Bishop's of Dorchester and London. This was just after Easter in the year 1012. But Canterbury demanded the remains of their martyred Archbishop, and so twenty-one years afterwards, Canute having given his permission, his body was taken from its tomb, and " the illustrious King, and the Archbishop, (his successor,) with his Suffragan Bishops, carried in a ship his holy body over the Thames to Southwark, Canute himself taking the helm * and delivered the body to the Arch bishop and his companions. They then with a worshipful band, and sprightly joy, bore him to Rochester " in mag nificent procession through our Borough. " Then on the third day came Emma the lady, with her royal child, Harda- Canute, and they all with much state and bliss and songs of praise, bore the Holy Archbishop into Canterbury, and then worshipfully bore him into Christ's Church (the Cathedral) on the third before the Ides of June."

It was probably during Canute's strong and able govern * It is evident from this, that London Budge had not yet been rebuilt. ment that the wooden bridge was re-built, for the next time we find London Bridge mentioned in connection with Southwark, was in the time of Edward the Confessor, (half brother to Edward Ironsides and also to the young Danish King Hardicanute,) whose reign formed a peaceful interlude between the Danish and the Norman Conquests. Taking advantage of the one great blot in Edward's character, as a sovereign, viz., his love of foreigners, his father-in-law, Godwin, the great and unscrupulous Earl of Kent and Wessex, played with great success the role of a patriot. He managed to gain unbounded power in the kingdom ; he provided earldoms for all his sons, and after the death of Siward, the great Earl of Northumberland, had it not been for Leofric, Earl of Mercia, Godwin would have parcelled out the whole kingdom for himself and his sons.

The King, however, at last successfully resisted his tyranny, and banished him with the whole of his family. Godwin was in charge of the coast, with possibly some title answering to the Comes Littoris Saxonici, or Count of the Saxon shore, of the times of the Romans, or the Warden of the Cinque Ports of later days. At any rate, he took a large ship, and with a great quantity of treasure sailed for Flanders, one of his sons having married the daughter of Earl Baldwin of that country. But the restless Earl did not long remain in banishment : he raised a fleet and came back and ravaged the west country. And now Edward roused himself and prepared to resist him. He raised a fleet at Sandwich, and an army in London, but Godwin, with his fleet of ships and galleys, sailed up the Thames as far as Southwark ; and till the tide turned, held conference with the Londoners, whom, by fair speeches he bent to his will, for Godwin was held a good speaker in those days ; in fact he seems to have had all the characteristics of a modern Demagogue, with far more wealth than they generally possess.

By this time his land army had marched to his aid, and stood in array on the south bank. Then turning towards the north bank where lay the King's galleys in readiness, and his land forces not far off, the invaders offered battle. Let us try to picture to ourselves this sight, one of the strangest that Southwark or London ever saw. Two hostile fleets at once in the Thames. Godwin's army drawn up on Bankside, and King Edward's, under the shadow of the St. Paul's of that day, or probably further west, and nearer Westminster. We must remember that the river was greatly wider than it is now, and that these galleys drew very few feet of water. Dr. Freeman, in his Norman Conquest, tells us that Godwin was one of the celebrated men who had a home in Southwark ; so that when he laid his vessels along Bank side, he must have been amongst his own neighbours and friends.

Whether the two chiefs, Edward and Godwin, really meant fighting, one cannot tell, but the soldiers on either side, declared they would not fight English against English. And so coming to treaty, the King and the Earl became reconciled, both armies were dissolved, Godwin and his sons forgiven and restored to their dignities, excepting only Sweyn, the eldest son, who had sinned past even Edward's power of forgiveness. He, touched in conscience for his many and grievous sins, went barefoot, so the chronicles say, to Jerusalem, and died on his return home, by sickness or Saracens, in Lycia. Editha, Edward's queen, who had shared in her family's disgrace, was restored to her state, and the kingdom had peace. But Edward died ! The last direst heir of Cerdic that ever sat on the English throne, and the year 1066 saw three Kings and witnessed two fierce battles on English soil.

It was on the 5th of January, the eve of the Epiphany, that Edward passed away, and on the 14th of October Hastings was fought and Harold slain. But during his short reign, backwards and forwards must he have passed through Southwark and over London Bridge hurrying his eager host, and pouring northward in hot haste to meet the invasion of Tostig (the King's brother) and Harold Hardrada of Norway his ally, then flushed with victory, but weary and way-worn, within a few days they were pour ing southward again on their way to defeat and death on the fatal field of Senlac. And now came the news at which men's hearts stood still and cheeks grew pale, that the last Saxon King had fallen, and that the stern conqueror was marching on Lon don, the importance of securing which, though not then the capital, he fully recognised.

On he came ravaging as he marched. It is said that he sent on a body of five hundred knights either to reconnoitre, or to try and gain London by a coup de main ; but the citizens sallied out, a skirmish took place, and the Londoners were beaten back within their walls, and the Southwark with its defences saved London for the time though itself given to the flames. William marched on and did not cross the river then. It is probable that St. Mary Overies was destroyed at the same time, but whether burned in the fire which desolated Southwark, or swept away by the great hurricane which demolished London Bridge I cannot tell you. It was in the year 1091 that a furious east wind threw down six hundred houses in the City and several churches : apparently Southwark did not suffer, but the tide in the river came rushing up with a violence which probably a much stronger fabric, than the bridge was then, would have been unable to resist, and it was entirely swept away.