Outside Newgate, Chaucer went up Cow Lane (now King Street) to Smithfield, the open space appropriated to tournaments, markets and shows, to prepare for the jousts to be held before the King and his Queen in 1390.
Passing from London to Westminster we come to the Mews (the site of the present National Gallery), which Chaucer had for a time under his charge. He settled in the precincts of Westminster Abbey, and there passed away. It has been erroneously stated, on the authority of Stow, that Chaucer was first buried in the cloisters. This is refuted by Caxton’s distinct statement that the body was first buried in front of the Chapel of St. Benedict. In 1555 or 1556 it was removed to its present position in the tomb prepared for it by Nicholas Brigham, where it has become the central object of the world-renowned Poets’ Corner.[67] The last place to be mentioned, and the one which he has chiefly immortalised, is the High Street, Southwark, called also Long Southwark. Here was the Tabard,[68] where gathered the Canterbury Pilgrims, who set out on their pilgrimage under the leadership of Harry Bailly. Bailly was a real personage, and at one time Member of Parliament for Southwark.
Of all the pictures drawn by Chaucer, the portraits of the pilgrims in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales are the most valuable for our present purpose, as showing us the men and women who were to be seen daily in the streets of London.
It is a difficult matter to appraise the relative positions of our great authors, but probably the true test of immortality is the creation of living characters. It is largely the dramatic power displayed in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales which places Chaucer by the side of Shakespeare.
CHAPTER IV
The River and the Bridge
THE river has made London, and London has acknowledged its obligations to the Thames. It was the Silent Highway along which the chief traffic of the city passed during the Middle Ages, and, probably, the roads of London would have been better if the water carriage had not been so good. The river continued to be the Silent Highway until the nineteenth century, when it lost its high position. With the construction of the Thames Embankment the river again took its proper place as the centre of London, but it did not again become its main artery.
We have seen in the previous chapter how the poet Gower met King Richard II. near Westminster and was summoned to the royal barge.
Fitz-Stephen gives a vivid description of the sports on the Thames: ‘In the Easter holidays they play at a game resembling a naval engagement. A target is firmly fastened to the trunk of a tree which is fixed in the middle of the river, and in the prow of a boat, driven along by oars and the current, a young man, who is to strike the target with his lance; if in hitting it he break his lance, and keep his position unmoved, he gains his point, and attains his desire; but if his lance be not shivered by the blow he is tumbled into the river, and his boat passes by, driven along by its own motion. Two boats, however, are placed there, one on each side of the target, and in them a number of young men to take up the striker when he first emerges from the
