“He bore for Arms, Or, a Lion rampant double queuée, Sable. Of Sir David Lindsay, of Glenesk, commonly called Earl of Crawfurd, you may see some notices with proofs, in ‘The Peerage of Scotland,’ by Sir Robert Douglas, Edited by John Philip Wood, Esq., Edinburgh, 1813, folio, volume i., page 375. He married Catherine, fifth daughter of Robert II., King of Scotland, and his brother-in-law, Robert III., created him Earl of Crawfurd, April 21st, 1398; though Hector Boethius, on page 336 b of his ‘History,’ denies this, saying:—‘There are who write, that the before-named David was created the first Earl of Craufurd by King Robert the Third; but because we discover by the witness of ancient volumes, that James his father,’—rather his uncle, who was created Baron of Crawfurd, January 1st, 1382,—‘was made Earl by Robert the Second, we have followed a different manner in the history of this family.’ Earl David was, however, twice a Commissioner and Ambassador to England, in 1404 and 1406; and it is probable that he died before 1412. The arms borne by the Lindsays were Gules, a fesse Chequé Argent and Azure; but his victorious banner has long since fallen a prey to a mightier conqueror: the lance and the falchion which struck down all before them, have been in their turn overcome by slow-consuming decay: the champion himself lives but in these scattered fragments; remembered only by descendants, or antiquaries; his tomb, and that of his rival, are alike unknown, and even if they could be traced,—
‘The Knights are dust,
And their good swords are rust,
Their souls are with the Saints we trust!’”
I must own that I thought it a little uncivil in Mr. Barnaby Postern, as I finished these reflections with an air of great philosophical wisdom, to give a short dry cough, push the tankard towards me, and then to say, “Sorrow is dry, Mr. Geoffrey, and morality is musty; so do you take another draught of the sack, and I’ll give you another chapter from the Chronicles of London Bridge.”
“And now, Sir,” recommenced my visitor, “that our history may not be without the mention of at least one strange fish, connected with London Bridge, let me tell you, that on Christmas day in the year 1391, as Stow tells us in his ‘Annals,’ page 30 b, ‘a Dolphin came forth of the Sea, and played himself in the Thames at London to the Bridge; foreshewing, happily, the tempests that were to follow within a weeke after; the which Dolphin being seene of Citizens, and followed, was, with much difficulty, intercepted and brought againe to London, shewing a spectacle to many of the height of his body, for he was tenne foote in length. These Dolphins are fishes of the sea, that follow the voices of men, and reioyce in playing of instruments, and are wont to gather themselves at musick. These, when they play in rivers, with hasty springings or leapings, doe signifie tempests to follow. The seas containe nothing more swift nor nimble, for oftentimes with their skips, they mount ouer the sailes of ships.’ The original of this story is to be found, with many more particulars concerning Dolphins, in the ‘Historia Brevis,’ of Thomas Walsingham, London, 1574, folio, the admirable edition by Archbishop Parker, page 380.
“As the political troubles which succeeded the appearance of this monster, were productive of a very sumptuous triumph upon London Bridge, I shall take the freedom to remind you, that King Richard being greatly attached to regal magnificence and banquets, naturally found his revenues very insufficient to support the splendours of his Court; for, as Walsingham and Knyghton, the best historians of the time, assert, he valued himself upon surpassing all the other Sovereigns of Europe in magnificence; they add that he daily entertained no less than six thousand individuals; that three hundred servants were employed in his kitchen alone; and that his Queen had an equal number of females in her service. To supply the means for this extraordinary splendour, he endeavoured to procure aid from the Citizens of London; and sent to borrow from them the large sum of £1000; but it then was an unhappy time in England, for a dreadful Plague and Famine had overspread the land, and they not only refused his Majesty’s request, but, upon a Merchant of Lombardy offering to comply with it, they violently attacked, and almost slew him. This was early in the year 1392; and on the 25th of May following, the King, incensed to a very great degree, summoned a Parliament at Stamford, when the City Charter was seized; the Law Courts were removed to York; and the Mayor, Sheriffs, and principal Citizens, deposed and imprisoned; until, by the mediation of Queen Anne, the Bishop of London, and the Duke of Gloucester, the King’s anger was in some degree pacified, and he consented to indulge the Londoners with an audience at Windsor. At this interview the Citizens, after submitting themselves to the King’s pleasure, offered him £10,000 for the redemption of their privileges; but were dismissed in dejection and uncertainty; though when Richard was informed of their sorrow, he determined to proceed immediately to London, to re-assure them of his favour. It was upon this occasion, that the Bridge bore a very important part in the triumph; though the ceremony of receiving the King and Queen with great splendour and a considerable train, began at Wandsworth; where four hundred of the Citizens well mounted, and habited in one livery, entreated him to ride through his Chamber of London. At St. George’s Church, in Southwark, the procession was met by Robert Braybrooke, Bishop of London, and his Clergy of the City, followed by five hundred boys in surplices, who attended them through the streets towards Westminster. When the train arrived at the Gate of London Bridge, nearly the whole of the inhabitants, orderly arranged according to their age, rank, and sex, advanced to receive it, and presented the King with a fair milk-white steed, harnessed and caparisoned in cloth of gold, brocaded in red and white, and hung full of silver bells; whilst to the Queen was presented a palfrey, also of white, caparisoned likewise in white and red. The other streets of London, too, put on all their bravery; the windows and walls being hung with cloths of gold, silver, and silk; the Conduit in Cheapside poured out floods of red and white wine; a child, habited like an angel, crowned the King and Queen with golden crowns, from a sumptuous stage covered with performers in rich dresses; a table of the Trinity wrought in gold, and valued at £800, was given to the King, and another of St. Anne to his consort; and truly I know of nothing which might so well express the splendours of that day, as the passage with which Walsingham concludes his notice of it. ‘There was so much glory,’ says he, ‘so much pomp, so great variety of divers furniture provided, that to have undertaken it might have been a triumph to any King. For horses and trappings, plate of gold and silver, clothes of gold, silk, and velvet, ewers and basons of yellow gold, gold in coin, precious stones, and jewels so rich, excellent, and beautiful, were given to him, that their value and price might not easily be estimated.’
“This gorgeous scene took place on the 29th of August, and you will find my authorities for this account of it in Henry Knyghton’s books ‘De Eventibus Angliæ,’ printed in Twysden’s ‘Scriptores,’ already cited, page 2740; in Robert Fabyan’s ‘Chronicles of England and Fraunce,’ London, 1559, folio, volume ii., page 334; in Stow’s ‘Annals,’ page 307; and in Maitland’s ‘History,’ volume i., page 180. I will but observe, to finish this portion of history, that the Citizens redeemed their Charter by the payment of £10,000; and the King, by his Letters Patent, dated at Westminster, in February 1392-93, restored them to his favour; and so, observes Stow in his ‘Annals,’ ‘the troubles of the Citizens came to quietnesse; which troubles, the Dolphin in the Thames at Christmas last past, did happily signifie afar off.’ Though Maitland, at page 180 of his ‘History,’ volume i., most unaccountably makes the Dolphin appear the Christmas after this fine was paid.
“I can scarcely imagine, worthy Mr. Barbican, what could induce the accurate Stow,—and of course all other Authors of London history,—to remark, when speaking of the year 1395, our next eminent epoch in the Chronicles of London Bridge, that, because the Justing which we have already spoken of was, as he says, then holden upon it, such ‘history proveth that at that time, the Bridge being coaped on either side, was not replenished with houses built thereupon, as since it hath been, and now is.’ You will observe that this passage, which occurs in volume i., page 61, of his ‘Survey,’ is no interpolation of later, or more unskilful, Editors, because it is to be found in the first black-letter edition of that most valuable work, 1598, small folio. Now, in most of his preceding pages he has been giving proofs of the Bridge being built upon at an early period to some extent; and I also, after him and others, have adduced to you abundant evidence that such was the case. I have shewn that the Gate and Towers were certainly as ancient as 1264; that in the Patent granted to Isenbert of Xainctes, in 1201, it is stated ‘that the rents and profits of the several houses, which the said Master of the Schools shall cause to be erected on the Bridge, shall be for ever appropriated to repair, maintain, and uphold the same;’ that in the Patent of relief granted by Edward I., in 1280, it is observed that the dilapidations of the Bridge may occasion not only its sudden fall, ‘but also the destruction of innumerable people dwelling on it;’ and that in the reign of the same Edward, the Assize Rolls mention the very rents and situations of houses then standing on London Bridge. All this, I imagine, might be received as fair and conclusive evidence that this part of the City was built upon and inhabited, long before 1395; to which let me add, that Richard Bloome, one of the continuators of Stow, observes, on page 62, when speaking of the dreadful conflagration of the Bridge in 1632-33, that some of the houses remained unbuilt until the year 1666, when the Great Fire of London destroyed all the new edifices. ‘But,’ rejoins he, ‘the old ones at the South end, some of which were built in the reign of King John,’—and he died, you will remember in 1215,—‘were not burnt.’ It is, however, extremely probable, that London Bridge did not even in 1395 present that form of a continued street which was afterward its most celebrated and peculiar character. There were, I doubt not, several places open to the water, perhaps, as Stow says, ‘plainly coped with stone;’ and in one of these, it is most probable, that the Justing, which he erroneously mentions in that year, took place.
“Anne of Bohemia, the Queen of Richard II., dying in 1394, his sorrow for her loss was both passionately expressed, and deservedly bestowed; though, so early afterwards as in 1396, during an interview between him and that insane Monarch, Charles VI. of France, a truce was concluded betwixt the two Kingdoms for twenty-eight years, and Richard espoused Isabel, the French King’s eldest daughter, although she was then under eight years of age; whence she was called ‘The Little,’ and the English Sovereign was about thirty. This marriage was solemnized by Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, in the Church of St. Nicholas, at Calais, on Wednesday, October the 31st, or rather the 1st of November, when Richard is said to have expended on the occasion, the immense sum of three hundred thousand marks, or in modern coinage £200,000. On the 2nd of November they sailed for England, and on arriving at Blackheath the Royal train was met by the usual procession of the Mayor and Aldermen of London, habited in scarlet, who attended the King to Newington, where he dismissed them, as he was to rest for a short time at Kennington. On the 13th, however, Richard and his Consort entered the City on their way to the Tower; when so vast a multitude was collected on London Bridge to see the young Queen pass, that nine persons were killed in the crowd, of whom the Prior of the Austin Canons at Tiptree, in Essex, was one, and a worshipful matron of Cornhill was another. John Stow is commonly cited as the authority for this circumstance, and it may be seen related in his ‘Annals,’ page 315; though it is also to be found in ‘The Chronicle of Fabian,’ London, 1559, small folio, page 338. Robert Fabian, as you must well remember, was, in 1493, an eminent Merchant and Sheriff of London, and died in 1512, about thirteen years previously to the birth of John Stow. You will also see the following notice of the event in the Harleian Manuscripts, No. 565, article 5, page 61 a, which consists of ‘A Chronicle of English Affairs, and especially of those relating to the City of London, from the first year of King Richard I., 1189, to the 21st of Henry VI., 1442, inclusive’—‘In yis yere, a bouzte ye feste of Alhalwen, Isabell ye Kynges doughter of Fraunce was spoused to Kyng Richard at Caleys: whiche afterward on ye viij day of Januer was crowned Quene at Westmr. At whos comynge to London, ye Priour of Typtre in Essex, with other viij persones vp on London bregge in ye gret prees weren crowsed to ye deth.’ Now, as I shall hereafter frequently, have to cite this Chronicle for some particulars of events not to be found in any other Annals, I must observe that it is a small quarto, fairly written on parchment, in a current Court-hand of the time of Edward IV., and decorated with vermillion lines and ornaments.
“It was, you will recollect, in 1397, that Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, and uncle to Richard II., being charged with disaffection and conspiracy, was suddenly carried to Calais; in which confinement and exile he died, on the 24th of September in the same year, of an apoplectic fit, as some Historians relate, although the greater number charge Richard with his murder, and assert that he was smothered, or strangled: for he was rude and overbearing in his disposition, and usually opposed the King in most of his measures; censured his extravagant expenditure, and on several occasions is said to have reproached and upbraided him with great severity of language. On these accounts is the Duke’s death charged upon the King, and his favourites; and you have a very curious and interesting examination of the circumstance, in Richard Gough’s ‘History and Antiquities of Pleshy, in the County of Essex,’ London, 1803, quarto, pages 85-123. The reign of this unfortunate Monarch was, however, nearly at a close; for, on the 29th of September, 1399, he resigned the ensigns of Royalty to the Duke of Lancaster, afterwards Henry IV., and in the formal accusation, consisting of 33 Articles, drawn up for his deposition, in the fourth he is charged with having caused the murder of the Duke of Gloucester. When these accusations were read over to Richard, and he had named his principal advisers in each action, it was Henry of Lancaster’s care to discover the four Knights who actually strangled the Duke of Gloucester in the Castle of Calais; and having done so, he confined them in four separate prisons in London, ‘and would not,’ says Sir John Froissart, ‘have taken twenty thousand nobles for their deliverance.’ Sir Thomas Knolles, the Mayor, and the Citizens of London, were next acquainted with the Articles of Deposition, and the King’s confession concerning the four Knights; when the crowds, which had assembled in the Guildhall, cried out with execrations against them, and loudly demanded their immediate condemnation. This very speedily followed, and old London Bridge, which has in its days witnessed so many scenes of blood, was appointed the place for the exhibition of their heads; but in giving you a short narrative of this execution, we can go to no better authority than to the Herodotus of his time, Sir John Froissart, who, as you will doubtless recollect, was born at Valenciennes in 1337, and was Priest, Canon, and Treasurer of the Collegiate Church of Chimay; he died about 1401, and his Chronicles of his own time were compiled from the most authentic sources.