The said Edward III., therefore, granted the same to the said knights, who possessed it, and in the eighteenth year of the said king’s reign, were forced to repair the bridge of the said Temple. These knights had their head house for England by West Smithfield, and they in the reign of the same Edward III. granted (for a certain rent of ten pounds by the year) the said Temple, with the appurtenances thereunto adjoining, to the students of the common laws of England, in whose possession the same hath ever since remained; and is now divided into two houses of several students, by the same of inns of court, to wit, the Inner Temple, and the Middle Temple, who kept two several halls, but they resort all to the said Temple church, in the round walk whereof (which is the west part without the choir) there remaineth monuments of noblemen buried, to the number of eleven, eight of them are images of armed knights, five lying cross-legged as men vowed to the Holy Land, against the infidels and unbelieving Jews; the other three straight-legged; the rest are coped stones all of grey marble; the first of the cross-legged was W. Marshall, the elder Earl of Pembroke, who died 1219; Will. Marshall his son, Earl of Pembroke, was the second, he died, 1231; and Gilbert Marshall his brother, Earl of Pembroke, slain in a tournament at Hertford, beside Ware, in the year 1241.
After this Robert Rose, otherwise called Fursan, being made a Templar in the year 1245, died and was buried there, and these are all that I can remember to have read of. Sir Nicholas Hare, Master of the Rolls, was buried there in the year 1557.
In the year 1381, the rebels of Essex and of Kent destroyed and plucked down the houses and lodgings of this Temple, took out of the church the books and records that were in hutches of the apprentices of the law, carried them into the streets, and burnt them; the house they spoiled and burnt for wrath that they bare Sir Robert Halles, Lord-prior of St. John’s in Smithfield; but it was since again at divers times repaired, namely, the gate-house of the Middle Temple, in the reign of Henry VIII., by Sir Amias Paulet, knight, upon occasion, as in my Annales I have shown. The great hall of the Middle Temple was newly built in the year 1572, in the reign of our Queen Elizabeth.
This Temple church hath a master and four stipendiary priests, with a clerk: these for the ministration of Divine service there have stipends allowed unto them out of the possessions and revenues of the late hospital and house of St. John’s of Jerusalem in England, as it had been in the reign of Edward VI.; and thus much for the said new Temple, the farthest west part of this ward, and also of this city for the liberties thereof; which ward hath an alderman, and his deputies three. In Sepulchre’s parish, common council six, constables four, scavengers four, wardmote inquest twelve; St. Bridgetes parish, common councillors eight, constables eight, scavengers eight, wardmote inquest twenty; in St. Andrewes, common council two, constables two, scavengers three, wardmote inquest twelve. It is taxed to the fifteen at thirty-five pounds one shilling.[271]
BRIDGE WARDE WITHOUT, THE TWENTY-SIXTH IN NUMBER; CONSISTING OF THE BOROUGH OF SOUTHWARKE, IN THE COUNTY OF SURREY.
Having treated of wards in London, on the north side of the Thames (in number twenty-five), I am now to cross over the said river into the borough of Southwark, which is also a ward of London without the walls, on the south side thereof, as is Portsoken on the east, and Farringdon extra on the west.
This borough being in the county of Surrey, consisteth of divers streets, ways, and winding lanes, all full of buildings, inhabited; and, first, to begin at the west part thereof, over against the west suburb of the city.
On the bank of the river Thames there is now a continual building of tenements, about half a mile in length to the bridge. Then from the bridge, straight towards the south, a continual street, called Long Southwark, built on both sides with divers lanes and alleys up to St. George’s church, and beyond it through Blackman street towards New town (or Newington); the liberties of which borough extend almost to the parish church of New town aforesaid, distant one mile from London Bridge, and also south-west a continual building almost to Lambeth, more than one mile from the said bridge.
Then from the bridge along by the Thames eastward is St. Olave’s street, having continual building on both the sides, with lanes and alleys, up to Battle bridge, to Horsedowne, and towards Rother hithe; also some good half mile in length from London Bridge.