Vnto the Dove that browght the braunche of peas,—
Resemblinge yowr symplenesse columbyne,—
Token and signé that the flood shuld cesse,
Conducte by grace and power devyne;
Sonne of comfort ’gynneth faire to shine
By yowr presence whereto we synge and seyne
Welcome of ioye right extendet lyne
Moste Christian Princesse, owr Lady Sovereyne.’
“We shall here take our leave of the poet Lydgate, by whose descriptive verses we have illustrated three splendid scenes in the history of London Bridge; and I pray you, if it be but in gratitude for this single circumstance, reject, as malignant and untrue, the character given of him by Ritson, when he calls him a ‘voluminous, prosaick, and drivelling Monk.’ Warton is not only more liberal, but more just, in his estimate, when he says that ‘no poet had greater versatility of talents, and that he moves with equal ease in every mode of composition.’ He admits that he was naturally verbose and diffuse, tedious and languid: but he asserts, also, that he had great excellence in flowery description; that he increased the power of the English language; and that he was the first of our writers whose style is clothed with modern perspicuity. ‘His Muse was of universal access,’ he continues, ‘and he was not only the poet of his monastery, but of the world.’ Alike happy in composing a Masque, a Disguising, a May-game, a Pageant, a Mummery, or a Carol, for Ritson’s list of his poems, amounting to 251, embraces all these, and numerous other subjects.
“The year 1450 was made memorable by the daring insurrection of Jack Cade and the commons of Kent, which arose, partly, out of the popular belief that the Duke of Suffolk had caused the loss of a great portion of France to the English Crown; and, partly, from the pretensions of Richard, Duke of York, to the throne; in consequence of the haughtiness, despotism, and usurpation of Queen Margaret, and William De la Pole, her favourite. After some vain attempts to satisfy the commons concerning the Duke of Suffolk, King Henry banished him from the realm for five years; when after his embarkation his vessel was chased by an English ship called the Nicholas, belonging to the Constable of the Tower, by which it was captured, the Duke seized, and his head struck off on the side of a boat in Dover-roads; after which, it was carelessly cast with the body upon the sands. This murder, however, did not restore quietness to England, for the Duke of York being thus relieved from a powerful enemy, immediately proceeded in his own designs upon the Crown. By his instigation, therefore, one John Cade assumed the name of Sir John Mortimer, of the house of March, who, in reality, had been beheaded in 1425, on a charge of treason. Cade was a native of Ireland, and formerly a servant to Sir Thomas Dacre, Knight, of Sussex; but having cruelly murdered a pregnant woman, he took sanctuary, and forsware the kingdom. With such a character, he began his work of reformation in Kent, in May, 1450; assuming also, as some tell us, the title of John Amendall, and easily drew so many malcontents together, that, in a few days, he was enabled to approach London, and to encamp with his rebel forces upon Blackheath. When Henry marched against him, he retired into a wood near Sevenoaks; where he remained, until the King, supposing his followers dispersed, returned to London, and contented himself with despatching after them a detachment of his army commanded by Sir Humphrey Stafford; which division falling into the ambush, was cut in pieces, and its leader slain. Elated by this success, Cade again marched towards London, whilst Henry and his Court retreated to Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire; leaving a garrison in the Tower, under command of the Lord Scales. The rebels, however, now became increased by multitudes, which joined them from all parts; and on Wednesday, the 1st of July, Cade arrived in Southwark, where he lodged at the Hart, for, says Alderman Fabyan, in his ‘Chronicle,’ from whom Stow almost verbally copies this story, ‘he might not be suffered to enter the Citie.’ Jack Cade, however, had but too many friends within the gates of London. The Commons of Essex were already in arms, and were mustered in a field at Mile-end; and upon a discussion in the Court of Common-Council on the propriety of admitting the rebels over the Bridge, the loyal-hearted Alderman Robert Horne so incensed the populace, by speaking warmly against the motion, that they were not reduced to order until he was committed to Newgate. About five o’clock then, on the afternoon of Thursday, July 2nd, London stained her Annals by opening the Bridge-gates to Cade, and his rabble rout. As he crossed the Draw-bridge, he cut with his sword the ropes which supported it; and on entering into the City, so beguiled the inhabitants, and even Nicholas Wilford, or Wyfold, the Lord Mayor, that he procured a free communication between his followers and London, though he himself again withdrew to his lodging in Southwark.
“In Shakspeare’s vivid scenes of this rebellion, in his ‘Second Part of King Henry the Sixth,’ Act iv., Scene 4th, a messenger tells King Henry,—
‘Jack Cade hath gotten London Bridge; the Citizens
Fly and forsake their houses:’—
and in the next scene a Citizen says, ‘they have won the Bridge, killing all that withstand them.’ In Scene 6th, Cade cries, ‘Go and set London-Bridge on fire;’ and Edmund Malone, in his note upon this passage, tells us, what we certainly cannot find by any other history, that ‘at that time London Bridge was built of wood;’ adding, from Hall, that ‘the houses on London Bridge were, in this rebellion, burnt, and many of the inhabitants perished.’ This note you may see in the Variorum edition of ‘Shakspeare’s Plays,’ by Isaac Reed, London, 1803, 8vo., volume xiii., page 341. London Bridge, however, was not even yet entirely captured, and two robberies which Cade had committed in the City, speedily roused the wealthier inhabitants to a sense of his outrage, and their own danger. Whereupon, ‘what do they,’ as honest John Bunyan says of the Captains in Mansoul, ‘but like so many Samsons shake themselves?’ and send unto the Lord Scales, and the valiant Matthew Gough, at the Tower, for assistance. The latter of these commanders was appointed to aid the City, whilst the former supported him with a frequent discharge of ordnance; and on the night of Sunday, July 5th, Cade being then in Southwark, the City Captains, the Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty of London mounted guard upon the Bridge. ‘The rebelles,’ says Hall in his ‘Chronicle,’ folio lxxviii. a, which contains the best version of the story,—‘the rebelles, which neuer soundly slepte, for feare of sodayne chaunces, hearing the Bridge to be kept and manned, ran with greate haste to open the passage, where betwene bothe partes was a ferce and cruell encounter. Matthew Gough, more experte in marciall feates than the other Cheuetaynes of the Citie, perceiuing the Kentishmen better to stand to their tacklyng than his ymagination expected, aduised his company no farther to procede toward Southwarke, till the day appered; to the entent, that the Citizens hearing where the place of the ieopardye rested, might occurre their enemies and releue their frendes and companions. But this counsail came to smal effect: for the multitude of the rebelles drave the Citizens from the stoulpes,’—wooden piles,—‘at the Bridge foote, to the Drawe-bridge, and began to set fyre in diuers houses. Alas! what sorow it was to beholde that miserable chaunce: for some desyringe to eschew the fyre lept on hys enemies weapon, and so died: fearfull women, with chyldren in their armes, amased and appalled lept into the riuer; other, doubtinge how to saue them self betwene fyre, water, and swourd, were in their houses suffocate and smoldered, yet the Captayns nothyng regarding these chaunces, fought on this Draw-Bridg all the nyghte valeauntly, but in conclusion the rebelles gat the Draw-Bridge and drowned many, and slew John Sutton, Alderman, and Robert Heysande, a hardy Citizen, with many other, besyde Matthew Gough, a man of greate wit, much experience in feates of chiualrie, the which in continuall warres had valeauntly serued the King, and his father, in the partes beyond the sea. But it is often sene, that he which many tymes hath vanquyshed his enemies in straunge countreys, and returned agayn as a conqueror, hath of his owne nation afterward been shamfully murdered and brought to confusion. This hard and sore conflict endured on the Bridge till ix. of the clocke in the mornynge in doubtfull chaunce and Fortune’s balaunce: for some tyme the Londoners were bet back to the stulpes at Sainct Magnes Corner; and sodaynly agayne the rebelles were repulsed and dryuen back to the stulpes in Southwarke, so that both partes beynge faynte, wery, and fatygate, agreed to desist from fight, and to leue battayll till the next day, vpon condition that neyther Londoners shoulde passe into Southwarke, nor the Kentish men into London.’ William Rastall, who produced his curious Chronicle, called ‘The Pastimes of People,’ in the year 1529, adds to this account, that ‘the Kentysshemen brent the Brydge;’ see page 265 of the excellent edition of that work, by the Rev. T. F. Dibdin, D. D. &c. London, 1811, quarto.
“During the truce that followed this most valiant defence of London Bridge, and which nearly effaced the deep stain of the Citizens opening their gates to a rebel, a general pardon was procured for Cade and his followers, by John Stafford, Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord High Chancellor. Upon which, some accepted of the King’s grace, and all began, by degrees, to withdraw from Southwark with their spoil, whilst Cade himself was soon after slain by Alexander Iden, Esquire, of Kent, in consequence of a reward being offered for his apprehension. His dead body was brought to London, and his head erected on the Bridge-gate, where he had so recently placed that of one of his greatest victims, Sir James Fynes, Lord Say, Treasurer of England. Concerning these events see also Shakspeare’s ‘Second Part of King Henry the Sixth,’ Act iv., Scenes 7th and 10th; Fabyan’s ‘Chronicle,’ pages 451-453; and Stow’s ‘Annals,’ pages 391, 392.
“I have but little more to subjoin to close the history of this rebellion; but I may add, that in January 1451, twenty-six of the Kentish rebels were tried before the King and his Justices Itinerant, and executed at Dover, and other places in the County; and that on Tuesday, February 23rd, as Henry returned to London, great numbers more met him on Blackheath, dressed in their shirts only, and imploring his clemency on their knees, were all pardoned. Against his entering the City, nine heads of those who had been executed were erected on London Bridge, that of their leader standing in the centre. ‘This,’ says Hall, in closing his account of Cade’s insurrection, ‘is the successe of all rebelles, and this fortune chaunceth ever to traytors: for where men striue against the streame, their bote neuer cometh to his pretensed porte.’
“In June 1461, previously to his Coronation, King Edward IV. crossed London Bridge with some ceremony, on the way from his Palace of Sheen to the Tower; whence it was anciently customary for the English Sovereigns to ride to Westminster in solemn procession the day before they were crowned. We have this information in an article printed by Hearne, and attached to his ‘Thomæ Sprotti Chronica.’ Oxford, 1719, 8vo. It is entitled ‘A remarkable Fragment of an old English Chronicle, or History of the Affairs of King Edward the Fourth, Transcrib’d from an old MS.;’ and on page 288, we find the following particulars. ‘The same xxvith of Juny, the King Edward movid from Sheene towardis London, then being Thursday;’—in reality though it was Friday, as this very extract subsequently shews—‘and upon the way receyvid him the Maire and his brethirn all in scarle, with iiii c commoners well horsid and cladde in grene, and so avauncing theime self passid the Bridge, and thurgh the Cite they rode streigte unto the Toure of London, and restid there all nigt.’ The day following, King Edward made 32 Companions of the Bath. He then proceeded to Westminster, attended by the new Knights habited in the white silk dress of the Order; and on the morrow,—which was St. Peter’s day, and Sunday,—he was crowned at Westminster by Thomas Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury.